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Strengths
- The Soviet Union was large and powerful, and had much influence over most other communist countries.
- Many communist countries feared the Soviet Union and its leaders and did not dare to go against it.
- Russia was one of the first countries to provide equal rights to women during the 1917 Russian Revolution. So, here women had more freedom and equality.
- It had helped many countries gain independence from colonialism such as India.
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Weaknesses
- Many communists stopped looking towards Moscow for guidance, thus weakening the power of the communist parties throughout Eastern Europe.
- Corruption became largely prevalent in communism.
- Standard of living under Soviet rule was very low, and so many people did not want to become communist, and those which were already communist wanted to be rid of it.
- Communism had been rejected entirely by Eastern Europe after 1989.
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Opportunities
- America would not help if an already communist country wanted to leave communism, so the Soviet Union could impose communism and Soviet rule forcefully.
- The Soviet Union had successfully muted anti-Soviet reforms in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
- Vietnam became an entirely communist country after the Vietnam War.
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Threats
- Headstrong Western leaders, such as Truman and Kennedy, were ready to risk even war to go against Soviet communism.
- The West was coming up with the new industries of computers and telecommunications and the Soviet Union was finding it difficult to compete with them on these grounds.
- The price of weapons had become very high; Western powers were able to purchase them due to their thriving economies. The Soviet Union on the other hand, was struggling economically and so had to spend more on increasing defence, rather than the standard of living for people.
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