ABSTRACT

The post-World War II era was one of animus between the United States and the Soviet Union. This conflict was not direct but played itself out through a variety of indirect means. Much of the conflict revolved around the organization of the respective economic systems. The United States represented a capitalist form of organization, while the Soviet Union represented the socialist or centralized-planning system. Actually, neither system was purely capitalist or purely socialist. They were both mixtures of capitalism and socialism, but they did represent two very different systems of organization.