The Cold War (1945-1990)
US vs Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union)
Definition: A political, strategic and ideological struggle between the US and the Soviet Union
Spread throughout the world - Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America
Discussion:
Communism vs Democracy - Socialism vs Capitalism
Democracy - government system in which people have a say in the government
Capitalism - individual people or groups of people own the businesses
Socialism - government controls businesses and based on equality
Communism - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - communism is a theory - class struggle between poor and rich - the poor will rise up and overthrow the rich and create a classless society where everyone is equal
- Lenin - Bolshevik Revolution
- Stalin - Nationalism & Collectivization - taking over businesses and farms
- Red Scare - United States feared we would become Communist - stopped immigration
Cold War Topics:
1. Causes of the Cold War & Goals
- Americans feared Communist
- Truman disliked Stalin
- Russia's fear of the atomic bomb
- Russia's dislike of capitalism
- Russia's fear of an american attack
- The United States and the Soviet Union represented two opposing systems of government
- The United States government is elected by free elections
- People can form political parties to state their political opinion
- They possess the right of assembly
- The US wanted to encourage free trade all around the world
- Russia feared that free trade with the west would involve the risk of Russia being opened to western influences
- After the Second World War with the decline of Europe power was largely shared between the Soviet Union and US
- They both wanted to dominate each other and conflicts started
- Two rivalries of the cold war were US and the Soviet Union
- The rivalry lasted from the late 1940s until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990
- The superpowers threatened each other
- Wanted to promote open markets for US goods to prevent another depression
- Promote democracy throughout the world, especially in Asia and Africa
- Stop the spread of communism
- Wanted to create greater security for itself
- Lost tens of millions of people in WWII and Stalin's purges
- Feared a strong Germany
- Establish defensible borders
- Encourage friendly governments on its borders
- Spread communism around the world
2. Policy of Containment: domino effect, Iron Curtain Speech, Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine
- The Policy of Containment is a foreign policy created and executed by the US after WWII
- This policy was a response to movies made by the Soviet Union to grow the communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam
- Used to try to contain communism - keep it from spreading and keep it where it's at
- The Domino Effect was the reason for the Cold War during the 1950s through the 1980s
- This brought about the Containment Policy
- They called it the domino effect because when one country fell to communism all the countries around them became communist too
- Used by the US all throughout the Cold War to show that we needed to have an intervention to stop it
- Referring to communism in Indochina, US President Dwight Eisenhower put the theory into words during a speech on April 7
- Winston Churchill gave the speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946
- Churchill introduced the phrase "Iron Curtain" to describe the division between Western powers and the area controlled by the Soviet Union
- Europe was split in two
- George Marshall
- Also known as the European Recovery Program, ERP
- It was a large-scale American program to help Europe our by us giving them monetary support to help rebuild European economies after WWII
- $17 billion to help rebuild Europe after WWII
- We thought the Great Depression would return so we did this to prevent that
- Had no choice and had to help them so they wouldn't have fallen into communism
- Soviet Union refused to take the money
- Policy made by the president at the Harry Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947
- He said that the US would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent them from being controlled by the Soviet Union and Communism
- In his speech he was basically saying that he would help out any country that needed help not falling to the Soviet Union and there Communist Government
3. House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
- Organized to go after people who were feared to be Communists
- Went after Hollywood in particular
- Blacklisting actors and actresses
- Accused Hollywood movies of being Communist propaganda
4. Senator Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism
- My Project!
5. Berlin Blockade and Airlift-Brian
6. China becoming communist-Mao
- Chiang Kai Shek vs. Mao Zedong
- Mao Zedong was a Communist
- Mao Zedong killed more people than Stalin and Hitler did
- Japan invades China in 1937, so they come together reluctantly to fight the Japanese
- Civil war breaks out and in 1950 Mao Zedong wins
- Chiang Kai Shek and his forces go to Taiwan
- The Great Leap Forward was China pushing people to be more industrial, rather than agricultural. Food was forgotten about, so people starved and died. Thousands of people were killed as well.
- The Cultural Revolution was Mao Zedong trying to regain control and bring back control to him. Millions of people were killed so he could regain his powers.
7. NATO(beginning to present), de-Stalinization and peaceful co-existence-massive retaliation, mutual detterence
8. Nuclear Arms race(1945-1970)
9. Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs
10. The Cuban Missile Crisis
11. The Berlin Wall--Going Up and Coming Down
12. Nixon's visit to China
13. 1970's Peace Attempts-Detente, Salt I, Salt II
14. Effects of the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan
15. Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative(Missile Defense System today)
16. Gorbachev's/Reagan's changing ways-perestroika and glasnost, INF Treaty
17. The fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War-explain how it all went down
18. The new map of Europe (up to present)
19. Why the US won the Cold War
20. Korean Conflict
21. Vietnam Conflict
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