Many scholars argue that by seeing the Cold War as the triumph of democracy over communism, historians are blinded to post–Cold War social and environmental problems and the need for further development of democratic principles to include some elements of socialism. Cold War historian Paul Dukes maintains, “Because of the sense of triumph in the USA following the collapse of its longterm rival, these problems have not so far commanded the serious consideration they deserve.”

The principles that guided the sociopolitical development of the United States and the Soviet Union evolved from European thought. The individualism advanced by the United States was a refinement of the concept of individual rights found in the Magna Carta of 1215, a document that articulated laws protecting the rights of English subjects that the king was compelled to observe. Eighteenth-century Russian...