The Cold War

What is the Cold War? The Cold War was a clash of ideologies between the United States and the Soviet Union. The difference rested in the governments of the two countries. Democracy and capitalism in the United States, and communism in the U.S.S.R.

Communism Communism is a social system characterized by a lack of private property. In Communism work is divided up among all citizens according to ability and interest and resources divided by need. There would also be no rulers. This means no president, king, or dicatator. These are the basic principles laid out by Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto written in 1848.

History of the Cold War Hostility between the United States and the U.S.S.R. had its roots in the end of World War I. After the Bolshevik Revolution, leader, Vladimir Lenin, sought to withdraw Russia from the war.

History of the Cold War In 1918, the United States, Great Britain, and Japan sent military troops into Russia. They backed the White Army, the group resisting Lenin’s Red Army. They invaded to restore the eastern front in the war effort. To Lenin, this was an assault on their new revolutionary regime.

History of the Cold War During World War II, the United States and Russia agreed to stop Nazi Germany. The whole war was marked by mistrust between the two countries. The U.S.S.R. was not aware the United States had nuclear weapons.

History of the Cold War As a result, the U.S.S.R. developed their own nuclear weapons. By 1949, the Soviet Union had successfully tested their first atomic bomb. This was much sooner than the United States thought they would develop nuclear arms.

The Cold War As a result of the Soviet Union developing nuclear weapons, both sides engaged in an arms race, building huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Many of the nations of the world allied themselves with either the United States or Soviet Union. Those who were not aligned with either country became known as the Third World.

The Cold War The primary goal of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union was to protect its territory from Western threats. At the end of World War II, the Soviet troops took control of a number of East European countries: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and the eastern half of Germany.

The Cold War To prevent the spread of communism, Harry Truman began a foreign policy of containment, a policy aimed at containing the spread of soviet influence and expansion.

Division of Germany After World War II, Germany was divided into four zones. Each zone was to be controlled by one of the four Allied Powers: France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States.

Division of Germany The Soviet Union declared East Germany to be an independent country-- The German Democratic Republic. Great Britain, France, and the United States joined their zones togeter to form the Federal Republic of Germany.

NATO and the Warsaw Pact After World War II, the United States, along with 11 other countries formed a military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) They formed this alliance to protect one another from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union responded by forming its own defensive alliance called the Warsaw Pact. They were to protect each other from the United States and NATO, which were seen as threats to their own security.