END OF COLD WAR VOCABULARY STUDY GUIDE

Mao Zedong

The first communist leader of China

Jiang Jieshi

The leader of Chinese Nationalists who received support from the United States

Cultural Revolution

A major "uprising" aimed at purifying communist China of people who engaged in or encouraged "useless or dangerous" behavior

Kuomintang

Chinese nationalist party that succeeded in overthrowing the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty

Sun Yixian

Briefly became president of a new Republic of China, who hoped to establish a government based on the “3 principles of the people.”

May 4th Movement

A national protest in China in 1919, in which people demonstrated against the Treaty of Versailles and foreign influence

Long March

A 6,000 mile journey made by Chinese communists fleeing Jiang Jieshi’s nationalist forces

Great Leap Forward

A series of 5 year plans to boost the industrial & agricultural output of China

Mikhail Gorbachev

He was a moderate Soviet leader who made many popular social and economic reforms

Glasnost

A soviet policy of openness to the free flow of ideas and information

Perestroika

A restructuring of the Soviet economy to permit more local decision making and limited private ownership

Boris Yeltsin

He was the Russian Federation’s first directly elected president

CIS

A loose association of former Soviet republics that was formed after the breakup of the Soviet Union

“Shock Therapy”

An economic program implemented in Russia involving a shift from a command economy to a free market economy

Solidarity

Under the leadership of Lech Walesa, this labor union forced the Polish government to reform its economic policies

Reunification

A term which is used to describe events in Germany in 1990 that led to the merging of the communist east with the democratic west

Deng Xiaoping

Although a lifelong communist, this Chinese leader supported moderate economic policies, including using some elements of capitalism

Four Modernizations

A set of goals adopted by the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping that involved progress in agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology

Tiananmen Square

A huge public space in Beijing, China; in 1989, it was the site of a student protest for democratic reforms

Hong Kong

A thriving business center and British colony that was returned to China in 1997