Cold War Vocab

Potsdam Conference

July 1945 final meeting of the wartime Big 3. Roosevelt was dead and Truman represented the US; Churchill was voted out of office during the meeting and Attlee took his place; only Stalin stayed the same. Truman and Attlee did not trust Stalin’s postwar ambitions.

President Harry Truman

He became President when FDR died suddenly in April 1945. Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan and to join the war in Korea.

Prime Minister Clement Attlee

He became Prime Minister by beating Churchill in July 1945 elections for Parliament. His Labor Party was pledged to build a welfare state in Britain and to end the wartime rationing and shortages.

Cold War

Term for the hostile, confrontational relationship between the non- communist world, led by the US, and the communist world, led by the Soviet Union. It lasted from 1948 – 1989.

satellite states

Term for nations that are in the orbit of one of the superpowers.

Truman Doctrine

In 1947 President Truman pledged American military, economic, and political assistance to any democratic government threatened by communist insurrection.

Berlin Blockade

June 1948 – May 1949 showdown between the Soviets and the Western Allies. The Soviets cut off all land routes to the Western zones of Berlin. The US, UK, and France refused to abandon their sectors.

Berlin Airlift

Term for the heroic effort by the Western powers to resupply their zones of Berlin during the Soviet blockade.

West Germany

A nation formed from the American, British, and French occupation zones of defeated Germany in 1949. It has a democratic government and capitalist economic system.

East Germany

A nation formed one month after West Germany, it was created from the Soviet zone of occupied Germany. It had a communist, repressive government and economic system. It reunited with West Germany in 1991.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

A mutual defensive alliance formed in 1949 by the United States and most of the nations of Western Europe to deal with the threat of a Soviet attack.

Warsaw Pact

A mutual defensive alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and most of the nations of Eastern Europe to deal with the threat of a NATO attack. It was dissolved when the Soviet Bloc collapsed in 1989.

United Nations (UN)

A new international organization created after World War II to replace the failed League of Nations. Theoretically, every nation is entitled to membership.

San Francisco Conference

June 1945 meeting where the new United Nations was established.

General Assembly

This is the primary policy making body of the UN. There are currently 193 member nations represented in the General Assembly.

Security Council

This 15-member body makes the most critical decisions of the UN. There are 5 permanent members (US, UK, France, China, and Russia) who each hold the power of veto. The other 10 members serve 2-year terms.

Red Scare

The term refers to an organized promotion of a widespread fear of a communist threat to a nation. It most commonly refers to 2 periods in US history (the early 1920’s and early 1950’s).

espionage

The act of spying on a nation of company.

Israel

Middle Eastern nation established in 1948 as a homeland for the world’s Jewish population. It fulfilled Herzl’s Zionist vision. Many nations, shamed by the devastation of the Holocaust, recognized the need for such a refuge for the Jewish people.

Marshall Plan

Massive US aid program that began in 1948 that invested up to $15,000,000,000 to help reconstruct devastated Western Europe after World War II. It not only helped Western Europe recover, it helped prevent the spread of communism in Europe.

COMECON

This organization (Council for Mutual Economic Development) was the Soviet response to the Marshall Plan. It was formed in 1949. Stalin feared that the Marshall Plan might pull some Eastern European nations away from the Soviet orbit. They had little money to invest and Eastern Europe took decades longer to recover from wartime damage.

social welfare states

Term for a type of government that provides an extensive system of social programs for the population. These services can include free daycare, food and housing assistance for the poor, public health care systems, free university attendance, and generous unemployment benefits. Taxes were extremely high to pay for such programs.

“cradle to grave”

Nickname for the social welfare programs provided by many Western European states beginning in the 1950’s. Many such programs began to be trimmed in the 1980’s.

decolonization

Term for the movement of European imperial powers to withdraw from their colonial rule and grant independence. The movement began in the late-1940’s and continued into the 1970’s. Some efforts were peaceful, some violent.

Indian National Congress

The oldest political party in India. The Congress Party was formed in 1885 and became the leading organization agitating for Indian rights and eventually independence.

Mau Mau Revolt

This was a large guerilla war by African tribes against British rule in Kenya. It began in 1952 and lasted until 1960. The revolt was eventually crushed, thousands were killed, but the British also recognized that they would not be able to maintain rule if the local population opposed it.

Jomo Kenyatta

The political leader of the Kenyan independence movement, he became the first President of a free Kenya.

Colonel Gamal Nasser

An Egyptian military officer who led a coup in 1954 and seized power. He became the leader of the Pan-Arab movement. Nasser freed Egypt of all colonial influences and emerged as the leader of the Arab world.

Suez Crisis

An international crisis that began in 1956 when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. British, French, and Israeli forces seized the canal. The Soviets threatened to help Nasser fight the invaders. The US refused to support the seizure that led to a humiliation for Britain and France.

Korean War

The first “hot” war between the communist and anti-communist world. It began when communist North Korea invaded non-communist South Korea in June 1950. The UN voted to send the South Koreans assistance. The war ended in a draw.

Indochina

French term for their colonial possession in Southeast Asia. The region included the modern nations of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

Ho Chi Minh

Vietnamese nationalist and communist leader. He became the President of North Vietnam. With Soviet assistance, he invaded the US backed South Vietnam in 1961 leading to the Vietnam War.

Viet Minh

The communist Vietnamese independence fighters, led by Ho Chi Minh, who led the fight against both the French and later the US.

Domino Theory

An American Cold War policy that argued that if a single nation in any region was lost to communism, others in that area would also fall. It led to US support to any government battling a communist insurrection.

French Fifth Republic

Current government of France, it was formed in 1958 as that nation reeled toward civil war over internal instability and the war in Algeria.

General Charles de Gaulle

French hero of World War II, he led the Free French forces during the war. In 1958 he agreed to become the President of the Fifth Republic.

“economic miracle”

Term for the rapid economic recovery of West Germany in the 1950’s. By 1956 West Germany was the strongest economy in Europe.

guest workers

Term for the hundreds of thousands of workers who came from Southern Europe and Turkey to work in the booming factories of West Germany in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Dr. Konrad Adenauer

The respected Chancellor of West Germany. He presided over the recovery of West Germany’s economy in the 1950’s and helped restore the reputation of the nation stained by the Nazi years.

Nikita Khrushchev

He was the first important Soviet leader after the death of Stalin. He led the USSR from 1956 – 1964. He relaxed the oppression of the Stalin era and led several challenges to the US including the Space Race, the Berlin Wall Crisis, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

de-Stalinization

Khrushchev’s campaign to end the oppression and terror of the Stalin years. He eased censorship restrictions and freed many political prisoners.

Hungarian Uprising (1956)

Inspired by the opportunity to liberalize, Hungarians rose up against the Soviet occupation of their country. After several days of confusion, Khrushchev ordered the Red Army to crush the Hungarians killing thousands.

Premier Imre Nagy

The leader of communist Hungary in 1956. He believed that the reforms proposed by Khrushchev would allow Hungary to open its border with the West and allow for free elections. His efforts triggered an uprising that left Hugary crushed and Nagy dead.

Berlin Wall

Notorious barrier constructed by the communist government of East Germany in order to stop their citizens from fleeing to West Berlin. Hundreds died trying to escape over the wall between 1961 – 1989.

Sputnik

The first artificial manmade satellite to orbit earth. It was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. It triggered panic in the US.

Yuri Gagarin

A Soviet cosmonaut, in 1961 he became the first man to fly into space and to orbit the earth. Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

Fidel Castro

He was the leader of a communist guerilla army in Cubba that seized power in 1959. He became an outspoken and hostile enemy of the US and led Cuba until his death in 2016.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

April 1961 invasion of communist Cuba by US backed anti-Castro Cubans trained and armed by the CIA. The mission ended in failure and pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union.

Leonid Brezhnev

The Soviet leader who assumed power after the fall of Khrushchev in

1964. He ruled the USSR until his death in 1982. His reign was marked by stagnation and corruption.

“peaceful coexistence”

Term for the informal policy adopted by the US and the USSR after the near war of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There was an effort to tolerate one another in the interest of mutual survival.

Second Vatican Council

An epic meeting of Catholic leadership from 1962

ecumenicalism

The spirit of communication and cooperation between different Christian and non-Christian faiths.

feminism

The advocacy of rights for women based on the equality of the sexes.

Prague Spring (1968)

Term for the 1968 effort by the Czech communist leader, Alexander Dubcek, to liberalize and modernize the oppressive, Soviet controlled government. It ultimately provoked a military crackdown by the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact.

Premier Alexander Dubcek

The Czechoslovak communist leader who tried to reduce the harsh repression of Soviet rule. He promised to end censorship, allow travel to the West, and free and fair elections. He was overthrown when the Soviets crushed the Prague Spring.