The Cold War (1945-1989)

After WWII
 World War II devastated world powers Britain, France, Germany, and Japan
o The United States and the Soviet Union remained as the world’s greatest powers
 Called “Superpowers” which are the strongest nations.

A Political Standoff: Communism vs Democracy

 The Cold War was a period which the democracy of the United States “battled” against the communism of the
Soviet Union in a “war” for supremacy.
 Soviet Union
o The government controlled most aspects of public life.
o Valued obedience, discipline, and economic security
o Command Economy is controlled by the government
 Businesses were owned by the government. Private ownership was not allowed.
o Wanted to spread communism ideology and economic control to other countries
 United States
o Free Market economy - producers and consumers controlled production and prices through supply and
demand.
o Businesses are privately owned, but regulated through the government.
o Democratic Republic - citizens had a role in the selection of their representatives.

Containment
 This was the basic policy that the United States held toward the Soviet Union’s communism.
o This was strategy of containing communism, by not letting it spread to new countries.
 This meant that the United States would support any country facing invasion or internal
rebellion by communists.

Splitting the Hemispheres

 Both the United States and
the Soviet Union formed
military and political
alliances with countries that
matched their own ideology.
In these alliances, they
included the European
nations that they occupied
(Soviets) or protected
(Americans).
o The United States led
the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization
(NATO for short) in
Western Europe.
o The Soviet Union led
the Warsaw Pact in
Eastern Europe.
 These alliances faced each
other along a tense line called the Iron Curtain that separated the two spheres of influence.
o Germany was split into East and West Germany since the US and the USSR could not agree on how the
defeated Germans should be dealt with.
 Splitting Berlin
 Berlin, the capital city of Germany, was a source of
tension between the US and the USSR.
o Although squarely in East Germany, the US did not
want to give up control of the capital city to the
Soviets.
 Berlin was split into two separate districts. West
Berlin would be controlled by the United States,
while East Berlin would be controlled by the Soviets.
 When West Berlin began to succeed and flourish
through free market capitalism and many people fled
from East Berlin to West Berlin, the Soviets built a
large concrete wall topped with barbed wire and
patrolled by guards to separate the two sides.
 Those who disliked communism and wanted to
leave East Berlin were forced to stay.

The Space Race

 In 1957, the Soviets launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, into space along with the first cosmonaut
in 1961.
o To keep up with the Soviets, the United States launched their own satellite, Explorer 1, in 1957. The US
also established NASA to further research space exploration, along with millions of dollars towards
educating students in science and math.
o In 1969, the US became the first country to put a man on the moon.

The Korean War

 Korea, a small peninsula on the
Chinese border, was split by the
United States and the Soviet Union
after World War II.
o It was decided that they
would split the country
along the 38th Parallel.
 The Soviet Union
controlled North
Korea and it became
a Communist state
 The United States
controlled South
Korea, even though a
dictator remained in
power.

 Both countries wanted to control ALL of Korea. In 1950, North Korea sent troops into South Korea to reunite
the country.
o They were able to take most of the land until the US (along with other United Nation members) landed
troops on the southern coast.
o The US/UN forces will move their way through the Korean Peninsula, eventually taking all of the land
back and gaining most of the peninsula for themselves.
 The Chinese, alarmed by the United States’ moves, sent hundreds of thousands of troops to
help the North Koreans and return the South Korean past the 38th Parallel turning the war into
a stalemate
  In 1953, North and South Korea signed an armistice to end the fighting.
o An area between the borders was cleared of all military forces and called the Demilitarized Zone or
DMZ.
 Millions of soldiers from both sides dug in just outside of the DMZ, ready to fight.
o The armistice will hold for the rest of the Cold War, but no peace treaty was ever signed.
 Two Koreas After the War
o North Korea becomes a communist state with a command economy while the economy stagnated and
declined after an initial surge. Kim Il Sung kept the North Koreans isolated and poor through
traditional, hard-line communism.
o South Korea had a capitalist economy with dictators and military leaders leading but experienced an
economic boom. In the 1980’s South Korea held its first democratic elections and slowly transitioned
into a democracy.
o North and South Korea remain divided today.

The Cold War and Cuba

 In the 1950’s Fidel Castro, organized an armed rebellion against Cuba’s corrupt
dictator.
o By 1959, Castro had control of Cuba and began turning the country to
communism:
 Nationalized businesses
 Put most land under government control
 Restricted political freedom
 Jailed or killed political opponents to silence them
 He looked to the Soviet Union for support
 The United States Steps In
o Wanting to keep Communism away from their borders, the US leads an invasion in Cuba with those
that had been exiled during Castro’s takeover.
 This is known as the Bay of Pigs invasion (named by the communist Cubans for the bay where
the Americans invaded).
 This invasion failed when the invaders were captured by Castro’s forces.
o Trade Embargo
 In the 1960’s the United States imposed a trade ban on Cuba. This meant that the United States
would not export or import any goods with Cuba.
 They would also prohibit trade with any country that supported Cuba (USSR).
 Cuban Missile Crisis
o In 1962, the Soviet Union sent
nuclear missiles to Cuba.
 President Kennedy imposed a
naval blockade of Cuba to
prevent further shipments
from entering Cuba and
demanded that the Soviets
remove their nuclear missiles
from Cuba.
o Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
refused to move the missiles
 The US Navy sat off of the
coast of Cuba for a week until the Soviets removed their missiles, barely avoiding a nuclear war.
 This is the closest that the US and Soviets actually got to fighting.
The Vietnam War
 Southeast Asia was controlled under the
French and known as French Indochina
since the late 1800’s.
o After World War II, many countries
will wage war against France and
finally drive them out in 1954.
 These countries used
guerillas, or small groups of
loosely organized soldiers
making surprise raids and
using their vast knowledge
of the land and terrain to
hold the upper hand.
 They were also
heavily influenced
by communism and
wanted to rid their
region of the
European colonial
powers.
 In 1954, after the French were driven out,
the United States and the Soviet Union
decided to split control of Vietnam.
o The Soviet Union would control
North Vietnam under communist
rule while the United States would
control South Vietnam under
democratic rule
 Elections were planned to reunite the two
halves, but were never held
o The Americans were fearful that the Communist leader of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, would win the
election.
 In the early 1960’s, North Vietnam began sending guerillas across the border to liberate Vietnam from foreign
controllers (the US).
 The Domino Theory
o This was the idea that if
communists were successful in
turning South Vietnam
communist, then many other
Southeast Asian countries
would also fall to communism,
like dominoes falling.
 US Enters the War
o Ho Chi Minh was sending
support to the Viet Cong, the
communist rebels trying to
overthrow the South
Vietnamese government.
 At first, the US only sent
supplies and military advisors. Later, however, thousands of US troops will arrive in Vietnam.
  In 1964, South Vietnamese commandos will lead attacks against the North on islands in
the Gulf of Tonkin
o After attacks on a US Navy destroyer by the North, President Johnson urged
Congress to act.
 Those who voted for the war w ere known as “War Hawks” while those
who were against the war were known as “Doves.”
 The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution will allow the United States to take
any measure to stop the Viet Cong. Almost 500,000 US troops will
be sent to Vietnam.
o The Soviet Union and China did not send any troops to
Vietnam, but supported the North with supplies.
o During the war, many Southern Vietnamese villagers would help the Viet Cong hide from the American
soldiers.
 Supplies from the North would reach South Vietnam through Cambodia and Laos along a route
known as the Ho Chi Minh trail.
 When the Americans crossed these borders, those nations entered the war against the
US.
o The Tet Offensive
 The Viet Cong will launch
surprise attacks against US
and South Vietnamese
soldiers during Tet, the
Vietnamese New Year,
shocking Southern
Vietnamese and US military
leaders.
 The counterattacks
from the US and
Southern Vietnamese were harsh and bloody.
 The End of the War
o Public support for the war in
the United States began to
decline rapidly.
o American military
commanders made the
decision to get out of
Vietnam.
 President Johnson
began peace talks
with Northern
Vietnamese leaders
in Paris.
 President Nixon will
negotiate the Paris
Peace Accord in
1973.
 This established a cease-fire, pulled all US troops out of Vietnam, all Northern troops out
of the south, and left the decisions of reunification to South Vietnam.
o By 1976, Northern guerillas will reenter the South and conquer its capital,
renaming it Ho Chi Minh City. Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, becomes the
capital for the reunified Vietnam.
China and the Cold War
 During the 1930’s and 1940’s China was locked in a civil war between Communist
and Nationalist forces for control of the government.
o By 1949, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) defeated the Nationalists and
established the People’s Republic of China.
 The defeated Nationalists fled to Taiwan, a small island off of the
Chinese coast.
 Mao’s Rule
o Mao Zedong built a totalitarian rule in China by:
 seizing private property from land and business owners
 pooled peasant land together and forced peasants to work
on the land for little pay
 discouraging the practice of Buddhism, Confucianism, or other traditional religions
 jailing or killing political opponents
 called them counterrevolutionaries
o The Great Leap Forward
 From 1958-1960, Mao lead a program known as The Great Leap Forward.
 During this time he urged people to increase farming and industrial output to
“superhuman” levels.
 To achieve this, communes were established
o Communes consisted of several villages, thousands of acres of land, and tens of
thousands of peasants.
 These communes would set up “backyard factories” to produce steel or
other products
 Proved to be a failure since these factories produced low-quality, useless goods.
o The Cultural Revolution
 Another program launched by
Mao in 1966. This program
intended to rid China of
bourgeois tendencies.
 He urged Chinese youth to
experience revolution firsthand.
 Teenagers formed bands
of Red Guards and
carried copies of the
“little red book” called
“Quotations from
Chairman Mao”
o They would attack anyone they considered bourgeois by publicly humiliating
them, beating or even killing them.
o Factory workers and managers were sent to farms to work
o Schools were closed
o Civil War was on the brink
 Communist Split
o The Soviet Union had always supported Communist China by sending aid and supplies to them.
 By 1960, border clashes and ideology disputes forced the Soviets to withdraw all support from
China.
The End of the Cold War
 Soviet Decline
o From the 1950’s through the 1970’s, the Soviet economy was in constant change between stagnation
and decline.
o In the late 1970’s, the Soviet Union tried to stop a rebellion in Afghanistan
 Much like the Americans in the Vietnam War, the Soviets couldn’t fight against the rebels on
their own turf and had to withdraw.
 Reform leads to Downfall
o In 1985, new leader Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to bring about
reforms. He would sign arm control deals with the United States
and pulled the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
 In the Soviet Union, he called for glasnost, or openness.
 With this, he ended the censorship that began
with Lenin and Stalin. Soviet citizens were now
free to openly discuss the country’s problems.
 He also urged perestroika, or a restructuring of the Soviet
Union’s government and economy.
 With this, he reduced the size of the government
and allowed some private businesses to sell on
the free market.
o Gorbachev’s reforms caused the Soviet economy to spiral
downward out of control.
 Shortages occurred and prices skyrocketed
 Factories closed and jobs were lost
o Many Soviet controlled countries began to revolutionize
 In 1989, eastern European countries Poland, Bulgaria,
Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, all left the Soviet
Union
 Gorbachev refused to intervene in reforms of
those nations.
 In 1991, the Soviet Union broke into 12 independent
nations; the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
– all gained their independence. Russia was restored as
the largest country, followed by Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
o The Russian Federation
 In 1991, Boris Yeltsin is elected as the first President of
the post-Soviet era Russian Federation. He will remain in
office until 1999 when he is replaced by current President
Vladmir Putin.
 The Fall of the Berlin Wall
o In 1987, President Ronald Reagan
visited Germany with calls of
unification. In his speech he urges
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this
wall!”
o Protests through 1989 eventually
caused the openings of the
checkpoints that separated East
and West Berlin
 Deconstruction of the wall
began in November of
1989.
 By the end of 1990, East and West Germany had unified into a single German state once again.

 Decline of Communism
o With the Soviet Union dissolved, China, Vietnam, South Korea, and Cuba all begin to lose communist
power and influence around the world.
 North Korea has been adamant in keeping their Communist economy alive.
 China is still communist, but has introduced many capitalistic ideas and programs since the
1990’s.