unit 5
Cold War: Superpowers Face Off
The opposing economic and political philosophies of the United States and the Soviet Union led to global competition.
The conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union played a major role in reshaping the modern world.
Terms & Names: United Nations, iron curtain, containment, Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Cold War, NATO, Warsaw Pact, brinkmanship
During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union joined forces to fight against the Germans.
When Allied soldiers met at the Elbe River in Germany in 1945, they embraced each other warmly, signifying their victory over the Nazis.
However, the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union regarded each other with animosity due to competing political philosophies, leading to a conflict known as the Cold War.
Allies Become Enemies
Even before World War II ended, the alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union began to unravel.
The United States was upset that Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader, had signed a nonaggression pact with Germany in 1939.
Stalin blamed the Allies for not invading German-occupied Europe earlier than 1944.
Driven by disagreements, the two allies began to pursue opposing goals.
Yalta Conference: A Postwar Plan
In February 1945, leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union met at Yalta to discuss postwar plans.
They agreed to divide Germany into zones of occupation controlled by the Allied military forces.
Germany would also pay the Soviet Union to compensate for its loss of life and property.
Stalin agreed to join the war against Japan and promised free elections in Eastern Europe.
Winston Churchill was skeptical, predicting Stalin would only keep his pledge if Eastern Europeans followed “a policy friendly to Russia.”
Creation of the United Nations
In June 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union temporarily set aside their differences to form the United Nations (UN) with 48 other countries.
The UN was intended to protect members against aggression and was based in New York.
The charter established the General Assembly, where each member nation could cast its vote on a broad range of issues.
An 11-member body called the Security Council had the real power to investigate and settle disputes.
Its five permanent members—Britain, China, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union—each had veto power.
This provision was intended to prevent any members of the Council from voting as a bloc to override the others.
Differing U.S. and Soviet Goals
Despite agreement at Yalta and their presence on the Security Council, the United States and the Soviet Union split sharply after the war.
The war had affected them very differently.
The United States, the world’s richest and most powerful country, suffered 400,000 deaths, but its cities and factories remained intact.
The Soviet Union had at least 50 times as many fatalities; one in four Soviets was wounded or killed, and many Soviet cities were demolished.
These contrasting situations, as well as political and economic differences, affected the two countries’ postwar goals.
United States: Encourage democracy in other countries to prevent the rise of Communist governments, gain access to raw materials and markets, rebuild European governments, and reunite Germany.
Soviet Union: Encourage communism in other countries, rebuild its war-ravaged economy using Eastern Europe’s industrial equipment and raw materials, control Eastern Europe to protect Soviet borders, and keep Germany divided.
Eastern Europe’s Iron Curtain
A major goal of the Soviet Union was to shield itself from another invasion from the west.
Centuries of history had taught the Soviets to fear invasion.
Because it lacked natural western borders, Russia fell victim to each of its neighbors in turn.
Soviets Build a Buffer
As World War II drew to a close, Soviet troops pushed the Nazis back across Eastern Europe.
At war’s end, these troops occupied a strip of countries along the Soviet Union’s own western border.
Stalin regarded these countries as a necessary buffer, or wall of protection.
He ignored the Yalta agreement and installed or secured Communist governments in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, and Yugoslavia.
Harry S. Truman, Stalin, and Churchill met at Potsdam, Germany, in July 1945, where Truman pressed Stalin to permit free elections in Eastern Europe, but the Soviet leader refused.
In a speech in early 1946, Stalin declared that communism and capitalism could not exist in the same world.
An Iron Curtain Divides East and West
Europe now lay divided between East and West.
Germany had been split into two sections: the Soviets controlled the eastern part, including half of Berlin.
East Germany was named the German Democratic Republic under a Communist government.
The western zones became the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.
Winston Churchill described the division of Europe using the phrase “iron curtain,” representing the division into mostly democratic Western Europe and Communist Eastern Europe.
United States Tries to Contain Soviets
U.S.-Soviet relations continued to worsen in 1946 and 1947.
The United States tried to offset the growing Soviet threat to Eastern Europe.
President Truman adopted a foreign policy called containment, which aimed to block Soviet influence and stop the expansion of communism.
Containment policies included forming alliances and helping weak countries resist Soviet advances.
The Truman Doctrine
Truman’s support for countries that rejected communism was called the Truman Doctrine.
It caused great controversy; some opposed American interference, while others argued the U.S. could not afford a global crusade against communism.
Congress authorized over million in aid to Turkey and Greece.
The Marshall Plan
In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall proposed that the United States give aid to needy European countries.
This assistance program, called the Marshall Plan, would provide food, machinery, and other materials to rebuild Western Europe.
As Congress debated the billion program in 1948, Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia, and Congress immediately voted approval.
The plan was a success, and even Communist Yugoslavia received aid after it broke away from Soviet domination.
The Berlin Airlift
In 1948, France, Britain, and the United States decided to withdraw their forces from Germany and allow their occupation zones to form one nation.
The Soviet Union responded by holding West Berlin hostage, cutting off highway, water, and rail traffic into Berlin’s western zones.
American and British officials flew food and supplies into West Berlin for nearly 11 months.
In May 1949, the Soviet Union admitted defeat and lifted the blockade.
The Cold War Divides the World
These conflicts marked the start of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
A cold war is a struggle over political differences carried on by means short of military action or war.
Beginning in 1949, the superpowers used spying, propaganda, diplomacy, and secret operations in their dealings with each other.
Much of the world allied with one side or the other.
Until the Soviet Union finally broke up in 1991, the Cold War dictated U.S. and Soviet foreign policy and influenced world alliances.
Superpowers Form Rival Alliances
The Berlin blockade heightened Western Europe’s fears of Soviet aggression.
In 1949, ten western European nations joined with the United States and Canada to form a defensive military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
An attack on any NATO member would be met with armed force by all member nations.
The Soviet Union saw NATO as a threat and formed its own alliance in 1955, called the Warsaw Pact, including the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania.
In 1961, the East Germans built a wall to separate East and West Berlin, symbolizing a world divided into rival camps.
However, not every country joined the new alliances; some, like India, chose not to align with either side, and China, the largest Communist country, came to distrust the Soviet Union and remained nonaligned.
The Threat of Nuclear War
The United States already had atomic bombs, and in 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its own atomic weapon.
President Truman authorized work on a thermonuclear weapon in 1950.
The hydrogen or H-bomb would be thousands of times more powerful than the A-bomb, deriving power from the fusion of atoms.
In 1952, the United States tested the first H-bomb, and the Soviets exploded their own in 1953.
Dwight D. Eisenhower became the U.S. president in 1953 and appointed the anti-Communist John Foster Dulles as his secretary of state.
Dulles threatened that if the Soviet Union or its supporters attacked U.S. interests, the United States would “retaliate instantly, by means and at places of our own choosing,” a willingness to go to the brink of war known as brinkmanship.
Brinkmanship required nuclear weapons and airplanes to deliver them, so the United States strengthened its air force and stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
The Soviet Union responded with its own military buildup, beginning an arms race that would go on for four decades.
The Cold War in the Skies
In August 1957, the Soviets announced the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM.
On October 4, the Soviets used an ICBM to push Sputnik, the first unmanned satellite, above the earth’s atmosphere.
Americans felt they had fallen behind in science and technology, and the government poured money into science education.
In 1958, the United States launched its own satellite.
In May 1960, the Soviets shot down a U-2 plane, and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was captured, heightening Cold War tensions.
The Space Race
Beginning in the late 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for influence in the skies as well.
Both began to develop technology that could be used to explore—and ultimately control—space.
However, after nearly two decades of costly competition, the two superpowers began to cooperate in space exploration.
Communists Take Power in China
After World War II, Chinese Communists defeated Nationalist forces, and two separate Chinas emerged.
China remains a Communist country and a major power in the world.
Terms & Names: Mao Zedong, Jiang Jieshi, commune, Red Guards, Cultural Revolution
During World War II, Japan’s armies had occupied and devastated most of China’s cities.
China’s civilian death toll alone was estimated between 10 to 22 million persons.
Communists vs. Nationalists
When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, a bitter civil war was raging between the Nationalists and the Communists.
During World War II, the political opponents temporarily united to fight the Japanese but continued to maneuver for position within China.
Under Mao Zedong, the Communists had a stronghold in northwestern China and mobilized peasants for guerrilla war against the Japanese.
The Communists won the peasants’ loyalty by promoting literacy and improving food production and controlled much of northern China by 1945.
The Nationalist forces under Jiang Jieshi dominated southwestern China and gathered an army of million men.
From 1942 to 1945, the United States sent the Nationalists at least billion in aid, but these supplies often ended up in the hands of corrupt officers.
The Nationalist army saved its strength for the coming battle against Mao’s Red Army.
After Japan surrendered, the Nationalists and Communists resumed fighting.
Civil War Resumes
The renewed civil war lasted from 1946 to 1949.
At first, the Nationalists had the advantage in numbers and continued U.S. support, but they did little to win popular support.
With China’s economy collapsing, thousands of Nationalist soldiers deserted to the Communists.
Mao’s troops were enthusiastic about his promise to return land to the peasants.
In October 1949, Mao Zedong gained control of the country and proclaimed it the People’s Republic of China.
Jiang and other Nationalist leaders retreated to the island of Taiwan, which Westerners called Formosa.
Mao Zedong’s victory fueled U.S. anti-Communist feelings, which only grew after the Chinese and Soviets signed a treaty of friendship in 1950.
The Two Chinas Affect the Cold War
China had split into two nations: Taiwan (Nationalist China) and the mainland (People’s Republic of China).
The existence of two Chinas intensified the Cold War.
The Superpowers React
After Jiang Jieshi fled to Taiwan, the United States helped him set up a Nationalist government called the Republic of China.
The Soviets gave financial, military, and technical aid to Communist China and pledged to come to each other’s defense if either was attacked.
The United States tried to halt Soviet expansion in Asia and supported a separate state in South Korea when Soviet forces occupied the northern half of Korea after World War II.
China Expands under the Communists
In the early years of Mao’s reign, Chinese troops expanded into Tibet, India, and southern, or Inner, Mongolia.
Northern, or Outer, Mongolia, remained in the Soviet sphere.
China took control of Tibet in a brutal assault in 1950 and 1951 but promised autonomy to Tibetans.
When China’s control over Tibet tightened in the late 1950s, the Dalai Lama fled to India.
As a result, resentment between India and China grew, and in 1962, they clashed briefly over the countries’ unclear border.
The Communists Transform China
The Communists moved rapidly to strengthen their rule and restore China as a powerful nation.
Communists Claim a New "Mandate of Heaven"
After taking control, the Communists began to tighten their hold.
The party’s million members made up just 1% of the population but were a disciplined group.
Like the Soviets, the Chinese Communists set up two parallel organizations: the Communist party and the national government.
Mao’s Brand of Marxist Socialism
Mao was determined to reshape China’s economy based on Marxist socialism.
Under the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950, Mao seized the holdings of landlords and divided the land among the peasants, killing more than a million landlords who resisted.
Later, the government forced peasants to join collective farms and nationalized private companies.
In 1953, Mao launched a five-year plan that set high production goals for industry, increasing China’s output of coal, cement, steel, and electricity dramatically by 1957.
“The Great Leap Forward”
Mao began the “Great Leap Forward” in 1958, calling for larger collective farms, or communes.
By the end of 1958, about 26,000 communes had been created, sprawling over 15,000 acres and supporting over 25,000 people.
The peasants had no incentive to work hard since only the state benefited from their labor.
Poor planning and inefficient “backyard” industries hampered growth, and the program was ended in 1961 after crop failures caused a famine that killed about 20 million people.
New Policies and Mao’s Response
After the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the split with the Soviet Union, Mao reduced his role in government.
China was facing external problems as well as internal problems in the late 1950s.
Other leaders moved away from Mao’s strict socialist ideas.
Mao thought China’s new economic policies weakened the Communist goal of social equality.
In 1966, he urged China’s young people to “learn revolution by making revolution.”
The Cultural Revolution
The Red Guards led a major uprising known as the Cultural Revolution to establish a society of peasants and workers in which all were equal.
The Red Guards shut down colleges and schools and targeted anyone who resisted the regime, executing or imprisoning thousands.
Chaos threatened farm production and closed down factories.
By 1968, even Mao admitted that the Cultural Revolution had to stop, and the army was ordered to put down the Red Guards.
Zhou Enlai, Chinese Communist party founder and premier since 1949, began to restore order.
Wars in Korea and Vietnam
In Asia, the Cold War flared into actual wars supported mainly by the superpowers.
Today, Vietnam is a Communist country, and Korea is split into Communist and non-Communist nations.
Terms & Names: 38th parallel, Douglas MacArthur, Ho Chi Minh, domino theory, Ngo Dinh Diem, Vietcong, Vietnamization, Khmer Rouge
After World War II, Korea became a divided nation, with Japanese troops surrendering to Soviet forces north of the 38th parallel and to American troops south of it.
As in Germany, two nations developed: a Communist industrial north supported by the Soviets and a non-Communist rural south supported by the Western powers.
War in Korea
By 1949, both the United States and the Soviet Union had withdrawn most of their troops from Korea.
The Soviets supplied North Korea with tanks, airplanes, and money in an attempt to take over the peninsula.
Standoff at the 38th Parallel
On June 25, 1950, North Koreans swept across the 38th parallel in a surprise attack on South Korea.
President Truman was convinced that the North Korean aggressors were repeating what Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had done in the 1930s.
Truman's policy of containment was being put to the test, resolving to help South Korea resist communism.
South Korea asked the United Nations to intervene, and the Security Council voted to send an international force to Korea under the command of General Douglas MacArthur.
Meanwhile, the North Koreans controlled the entire Korean peninsula except for a tiny area around Pusan in the far southeast.
In September 1950, MacArthur launched a surprise attack, and about half of the North Koreans surrendered, while the rest retreated.
The Fighting Continues
The UN troops pursued the retreating North Koreans across the 38th parallel into North Korea.
In October 1950, China sent 300,000 troops into North Korea to counter the UN forces.
By January 1951, they had pushed UN and South Korean troops out of North Korea and captured Seoul.
MacArthur called for a nuclear attack against China, but Truman viewed this as reckless and removed him.
Over the next two years, UN forces fought to drive the Chinese and North Koreans back.
In July 1953, the UN forces and North Korea signed a cease-fire agreement, setting the border between the two Koreas near the 38th parallel.
Aftermath of the War
After the war, Korea remained divided, separated by a demilitarized zone.
In North Korea, the Communist dictator Kim Il Sung established collective farms, developed heavy industry, and built up the military.
Under his rule, Communist North Korea developed nuclear weapons but had serious economic problems.
South Korea prospered, established free elections, and had one of the highest economic growth rates in the world during the 1980s and 1990s.
War Breaks Out in Vietnam
The involvement of the United States in Vietnam stemmed from its Cold War containment policy.
After World War II, stopping the spread of communism was the principal goal of U.S. foreign policy.
The Road to War
In the early 1900s, France controlled most of resource-rich Southeast Asia.
Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh turned to the Communists for help.
During the 1930s, Ho’s Indochinese Communist party led revolts and strikes against the French.
Ho Chi Minh believed that independence would follow, but France intended to regain its colony.
The Fighting Begins
Vietnamese Nationalists and Communists joined to fight the French armies.
In 1954, the French suffered a major military defeat at Dien Bien Phu and surrendered to Ho.
President Eisenhower described this threat in terms of the domino theory, which became a major justification for U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War era.
Vietnam—A Divided Country
After France’s defeat, Vietnam was divided at 17° north latitude.
North of that line, Ho Chi Minh’s Communist forces governed, while the United States and France set up an anti-Communist government under Ngo Dinh Diem to the south.
The United States Gets Involved
Faced with the possibility of a Communist victory, the United States decided to escalate its involvement.
U.S. Troops Enter the Fight
In August 1964, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson told Congress that North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Congress authorized the president to send U.S. troops to fight in Vietnam.
By 1968, more than half a million U.S. soldiers were in combat there.
The United States bombed millions of acres of farmland and forest in an attempt to destroy enemy hideouts, strengthening peasants’ opposition to the South Vietnamese government.
The United States Withdraws
During the late 1960s, the war grew increasingly unpopular in the United States.
President Richard Nixon began withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam in 1969, a plan called Vietnamization.
The last U.S. troops left in 1973, and two years later, the North Vietnamese overran South Vietnam.
Postwar Southeast Asia
War’s end did not bring an immediate halt to bloodshed and chaos in Southeast Asia.
Communist rebels under Pol Pot slaughtered 2 million people in Cambodia.
Vietnamese imposed tight controls over the South, sending thousands of people to “reeducation camps” and nationalizing industries.
Communist oppression caused million people to flee Vietnam.
Although Communists still govern Vietnam, the country now welcomes foreign investment, and the United States normalized relations with Vietnam in 1995.
The Cold War Divides the World
The superpowers supported opposing sides in Latin American and Middle Eastern conflicts.
Many of these areas today are troubled by political, economic, and military conflict and crisis.
Terms & Names: Third World, nonaligned nations, Fidel Castro, Anastasio Somoza, Daniel Ortega, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini
Following World War II, the world’s nations were grouped politically into three “worlds”.
The first group were the industrialized capitalist nations.
The second were the Communist nations led by The Soviet Union.
The third world consists of developing nations, often newly independent, who were not aligned with either superpower.
Fighting for the Third World
The Third World nations were in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and they were economically poor and politically unstable.
They each needed a political and economic system to build its society around.
Cold War Strategies
The United States, the Soviet Union, and China used a variety of strategies to gain influence in the Third World.
They backed wars of revolution, liberation, or counterrevolution.
The U.S. and Soviet intelligence agencies engaged in secret activities.
The United States also gave military aid, built schools, set up programs to combat poverty, and sent volunteer workers to many developing nations.
The Soviets offered military and technical assistance, mainly to India and Egypt.
Association of Nonaligned Nations
Other developing nations needed assistance, but not all Third World countries wished to play a role in the Cold War.
In 1955, many leaders from Asia and Africa met at the Bandung Conference to form what they called a “third force” of independent countries, or nonaligned nations.
Some nations were able to maintain their neutrality, while others took sides with the superpowers or played competing sides against each other.
The two superpowers tried to win allies by giving financial aid to other nations.
Fearing the enemy might be gaining the advantage, each side spied on the other.
To gain the support of other nations, both the Soviet Union and the United States entered into alliances.
Both superpowers used propaganda to try to win support overseas. For example, Radio Free Europe broadcast radio programs about the rest of the world into Eastern Europe.
Surrogate Wars
The word surrogate means substitute.
The United States and the Soviet Union did not fight each other directly but fought indirectly by backing opposing sides in many smaller conflicts.
Confrontations in Latin America
After World War II, Latin American nations sought aid from both superpowers due to rapid industrialization, population growth, and a gap between the rich and the poor.
Communism and nationalistic feelings inspired revolutionary movements, which found enthusiastic Soviet support.
In response, the United States provided military and economic assistance to anti-Communist dictators.
Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution
In the 1950s, Cuba was ruled by the unpopular dictator Fulgencio Batista, who had U.S. support.
Cuban resentment led to a revolution that overthrew Batista in January 1959, led by Fidel Castro.
Castro was a harsh dictator who suspended elections, jailed or executed his opponents, and tightly controlled the press.
Castro nationalized the Cuban economy, leading to an embargo on all trade with Cuba.
Castro then turned to the Soviets for economic and military aid.
Nuclear Face-off: the Cuban Missile Crisis
In July 1962, Khrushchev secretly began to build 42 missile sites in Cuba.
In October, an American spy plane discovered the sites, leading President John F. Kennedy to demand their removal and announce a naval blockade of Cuba.
Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in return for a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba.
Civil War in Nicaragua
In 1979, Communist Sandinista rebels toppled Somoza’s son.
The United States supported Nicaraguan anti-Communist forces called the Contras or contrarevolucionarios.
In 1990, President Ortega agreed to hold free elections, and Violeta Chamorro, a reform candidate, defeated him.
Confrontations in the Middle East
The oil-rich Middle East attracted both superpowers.
Religious and Secular Values Clash in Iran
Oil industry wealth fueled a clash between traditional Islamic values and modern Western materialism.
After World War II, Iran’s leader, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, embraced Western governments and wealthy Western oil companies.
Iranian nationalists resented these foreign alliances and united under Prime Minister Muhammed Mossadeq, nationalizing a British-owned oil company and forcing the shah to flee.
The United States helped restore the shah to power.
Khomeini's Anti-U.S. Policies
Hatred of the United States was at the heart of Khomeini’s foreign policy.
In 1979, young Islamic revolutionaries seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took more than 60 Americans hostage, who remained prisoners for 444 days, before being released in 1981.
A million Iranians and Iraqis died in the war before the UN negotiated a ceasefire in 1988.
The Superpowers Face Off in Afghanistan
In the 1950s, Soviet influence in Afghanistan began to increase.
In the late 1970s, a Muslim revolt threatened to topple Afghanistan’s Communist regime, leading to a Soviet invasion in 1979.
Supplied with American weapons, the Afgan rebels, called mujahideen, or holy warriors, fought back.
President Jimmy Carter stopped U.S. grain shipments to the Soviet Union and ordered a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
The Cold War Thaws
The Cold War began to thaw as the superpowers entered an era of uneasy diplomacy.
The United States and the countries of the former Soviet Union continue to cooperate and maintain a cautious peace.
Terms & Names: Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, détente, Richard M. Nixon, SALT, Ronald Reagan
The Soviet Union kept a firm grip on its satellite countries in Eastern Europe: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and East Germany.
The Soviet Union did not allow them to direct and develop their own economies.
Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe and China
More moderate Soviet leaders came to power after Stalin’s death, allowing satellite countries somewhat more independence.
Increasing tensions with China also diverted Soviet attention and forces.
Destalinization and Rumblings of Protest
After Stalin died in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became the dominant Soviet leader.
In 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin for jailing and killing loyal Soviet citizens, signaling the start of destalinization.
In October 1956, the Hungarian army joined protesters to overthrow Hungary’s Soviet-controlled government.
Imre Nagy formed a new government and promised free elections, but Soviet tanks and infantry entered Budapest in November.
The Revolt in Czechoslovakia
In 1964, party leaders voted to remove Khrushchev from power and replaced him with Leonid Brezhnev, who quickly adopted repressive domestic policies.
Brezhnev made clear that he would not tolerate dissent in Eastern Europe, justifying invasions by claiming the Soviet Union had the right to prevent its satellites from rejecting communism, a policy known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.
The Soviet-Chinese Split
China was committed to communism, but as they grew more confident, they resented being in Moscow’s shadow.
They began to spread their own brand of communism in Africa and other parts of Asia.
The Soviet-Chinese split grew so wide that fighting broke out along their common border.
From Brinkmanship to Détente
In the 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union backed away from brinkmanship.
Brinkmanship Breaks Down
The brinkmanship policy led to one terrifying crisis after another.
Nuclear war seemed possible.
Tensions remained high.
The United States Turns to Détente
Détente, a policy of lessening Cold War tensions, replaced brinkmanship under Richard M. Nixon.
In practice, realpolitik meant dealing with other nations in a practical and flexible manner.
Nixon Visits Communist Powers
Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit Communist China.
Three months after visiting Beijing in February 1972, Nixon visited the Soviet Union.
After meetings called the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), Nixon and Brezhnev signed the SALT I Treaty, limiting the number of intercontinental ballistic and submarine-launched missiles each country could have.
In 1975, 33 nations joined the United States and the Soviet Union in signing a commitment to détente and cooperation, the Helsinki Accords.
The Collapse of Détente
In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter was concerned over harsh treatment of protesters in the Soviet Union.
When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan later that year, however, the U.S. Congress refused to ratify SALT II.
Reagan Takes an Anti-Communist Stance
A fiercely anti-Communist U.S. president, Ronald Reagan, took office in 1981 and moved away from détente.
He increased defense spending, putting both economic and military pressure on the Soviets.
In 1983, Reagan also announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a program to protect against enemy missiles.
The Collapse of the Soviet Union
Democratic reforms brought important changes to the Soviet Union.
Russia continues to struggle to establish democracy.
Terms & Names: Politburo, Mikhail Gorbachev, glasnost, perestroika, Boris Yeltsin, CIS, “shock therapy”
The Soviet Union and the United States engaged in a Cold War, each trying to increase its worldwide influence.
Gorbachev Moves Toward Democracy
After Brezhnev’s death in 1982, the aging leadership of the Soviet Union tried to hold on to power.
The politburo debated between two men: Mikhail Gorbachev, and another man who was not named. With their backing, Gorbachev became the party’s new general secretary.
Glasnost Promotes Openness
Past Soviet leaders had created a totalitarian state that rewarded silence and discouraged individuals from acting on their own.
Gorbachev realized that economic and social reforms could not occur without a free flow of ideas and information; in 1985, he announced a policy known as glasnost, or openness.
Glasnost brought remarkable changes, allowing churches to open, releasing dissidents from prison, allowing publication of the books of previously ban authors, and Reporters investigating problems and criticizing officials.
Reforming the Economy and Politics
Gorbachev blamed this problems on the Soviet Union’s inefficient system of central planning.
Democratization Opens the Political System
In 1987, he unveiled a third new policy, called democratization; this would be a gradual opening of the political system.
The plan called for the election of a new legislative body.
Foreign Policy
Gorbachev realized that the Soviet economy could not afford the costly arms race.
In December 1987, he and Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, banning nuclear missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles.
The Soviet Union Faces Turmoil
Gorbachev’s new thinking led him to support movements for change in both the economic and political systems within the Soviet Union.
Various nationalities in the Soviet Union began to call for their freedom.
Lithuania Defies Gorbachev
The first challenge came from Baltic nations of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.
In march 1990, Lithuania declared its independence.
Gorbachev ordered an economic blockade of the republic
In January 1991, Soviet troops attacked unarmed civilians in Lithuania’s capital.
Yeltsin Denounces Gorbachev
People looked for leadership to Boris Yeltsin.
In June 1991, voters chose Yeltsin to become the Russian Federation’s first directly elected president.
The August Coup
On August 18, 1991, the hardliners detained Gorbachev
I can provide content from the note in a podcast format by compiling key points and summarizing different sections