WHAP Period 4 Terms List B

Eastern Bloc

Soviet allies in eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary.

Iron Curtain

Term coined by British P.M. Churchill to describe the political division of Europe between free (western Europe) and repressed (eastern Europe) during the cold war.

Marshall Plan

U.S. aid to western Europe after World War II helped it recover and concurrently staved off Communist inroads made in the interim.

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization. U.S.-led alliance including western Europe, Canada, and Turkey against Soviet aggression there.

Warsaw Pact

Soviet response to NATO.

European Union

Final name of the Common Market; an economic and, later, political movement in Europe that supported free markets to compete with the U.S. and eventually, the goal of forming a common government in much of Europe.

New Feminism

A wave of women’s rights agitation reappeared in the 1960s promoting job opportunities and other civil rights issues for women. Two early leaders were Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan.

Solidarity Trade

union movement in Poland that developed into a political pressure group that supported reforms from the Communist leadership.

Nikita Khrushchev

Leader of U.S.S.R. after Stalin’s death. Criticized his predecessor’s abuses, signaling a bit of a thaw in the Cold War. After backing down in the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was removed from power and exiled within the U.S.S.R.

Sputnik

First manned spacecraft in 1957; initiated a space race with the United States.

Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)

The political party in Mexico that dominated in the 20th century.

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Non-tariff policy between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico that began in the 1990s.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Militant Argentine revolutionary who assisted Castro in Cuba and was killed attempting a similar revolt in Bolivia.

Fidel Castro

Communist dictator of Cuba since 1959; overthrew Batista. Backed up by Soviet regime. The Cuban Revolution he led inspired others to attempt similar models in Latin America.

Good Neighbor Policy

U.S. policy toward Latin America, begun in the 1930s, that promised less intervention.

Neocolonialism

Continued dominance of new nations by their former rulers.

Muslim Brotherhood

Egyptian religious and nationalist movement founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928; became an example for later fundamentalist movements in the Islamic world.

Gamal Abdul Nasser

Member of the Free Officers Movement that seized power in Egypt in a 1952 military coup; became leader of Egypt; formed a state-directed reforming regime; ousted Britain from the Suez Canal in 1956; most reforms were unsuccessful.

Jawaharlal Nehru

First leader of independent India; committed to programs of social reform, economic development, and preservation of civil liberties.

Green Revolution

Agricultural revolution that increased production through improved seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation; helped to support rising Asian populations.

Ayatollah Khomeini

Religious leader of Iran following the 1979 revolution; worked for fundamentalist Islamic religious reform and elimination of Western influences.

Apartheid Afrikaner

policy of racial segregation in South Africa designed to create full economic, social, and political exploitation of African majority.

African National Congress (ANC)

South African political organization founded in 1912 to defend African interests; became the ruling political party after the 1994 elections.

Nelson Mandela

ANC leader imprisoned by Afrikaner regime; released in 1990 and elected as president of South Africa in 1994.

F.W. de Klerk

White South African prime minister in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Working with Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, de Klerk helped to dismantle the apartheid system and opened the way for a democratically elected government that represented all South Africans for the first time

Great Leap Forward

Economic policy of Mao Zedong introduced in 1958; proposed small-scale industrialization projects integrated into peasant communities; led to economic disaster and ended in 1960.

Cultural Revolution

Initiated by Mao Zedong in 1965 to restore his dominance over the pragmatists; disgraced and even killed bureaucrats and intellectuals; called off in 1968.

Ho Chi Minh

(Nguyen Ai Quoc) North Vietnamese leader who overthrew French colonial rule in 1954 and fought against the US in the 1960’s, became the communist leader of Vietnam in 1975.

Ngo Dinh Diem

Became president of South Vietnam with United States’ support in the 1950s; overthrown by the military, with U.S. approval.

Viet Cong

The Communist guerrilla movement in southern Vietnam during the Vietnamese war.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Leader of the U.S.S.R. (1985-1991); inaugurated major reforms that led to the disintegration of the Communist regime.

Glasnost

Term meaning openness; Gorbachev’s policy opening the opportunity to criticize the government.

Perestroika

Term meaning economic restructuring; Gorbachev’s policy for the economic rebuilding of the U.S.S.R. by allowing more private ownership and decentralized economic control.

Boris Yeltsin

Successor to Gorbachev; failed to reform the economy; succeeded by Vladimir Putin in 1999.

Globalization

The increasing interconnectedness of all parts of the world; opposed by many environmental and social justice groups.