Self determination: The principle that a group of people are able to form their own independent state and choose their own government. During the Cold War, self-determination was supported mainly by democratic states.

Iron Curtain: Term originated from Winston Churchill's famous speech in 1946 Missouri (“From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”) and was used throughout the Cold War as a symbol of the division of Europe between the communist east and capitalist west.

Truman Doctrine: Harry Truman, now known as the president who dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, took over as president of the United States after FDR‘s passing in the beginning of 1945 (during WWII). The Truman Doctrine was the containment of communism to its existing boundaries (against Lenin & the Comintern‘s original goal of spreading it worldwide). It became the U.S. foreign policy towards all communist countries to try to stop the spread through military and economic aid.

Policy of Containment: A plan to keep an idea/movement (in this case, communism) within its existing geographic boundaries and prevent further aggressive moves.

Marshall Plan: In April 1948, Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe. The Marshall Plan, originally implemented in Greece and Turkey, was economic aid to strengthen countries‘ economies, since communists took over weakened governments. The plan was even offered to help the Soviet Union, but they refused saying the U.S. was bribing countries into democracy.

Comecon: In response to the Marshall Plan in the west, the Soviet Union created Comecon, or the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). It was intended to promote the economic development and recovery of Eastern European countries under the Soviets‘ influence.

Berlin Airlift: The Berlin Blockade was a ground blockage of supplies from West Germany reaching West Berlin. The western countries responded with a massive airlift to come to West Berlin’s aid, lasting for over a year (1948–1949). They flew massive amounts of supplies to the city, rendering Stalin‘s ground-level boundaries useless.

Berlin Blockade: Soviet premier Joseph Stalin imposed the Berlin Blockade from June 1948 to May 1949, cutting off all land and river transit between West Berlin and West Germany. He tried to cut off all western influence from West Berlin because it was located in the Soviet zone of Germany. One of the first major international crises of the Cold War period, the Berlin Blockade exposed the deep ideological differences separating East and West. It increased tensions between the US and Soviet Union.

NATO: “Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization”; created by the United States in 1949 as the first peacetime military alliance. Its original members were the US, Canada, Great Britain, and a few other Western European countries. Currently, 32 countries are a part of NATO. It exists to protect the people and territory of its members, with Article 5 stating that an attack against one member was an attack against all (if one country in NATO is under attack, all other member states will step in to help them).

Warsaw Pact: Warsaw Pact was a collective defense treaty established by the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania (Albania withdrew in 1968). This Pact served as the first step in a more systematic plan to strengthen the Soviet hold over its satellites. It was prompted by West Germany’s entrance into NATO in 1955 and had a similar goal as NATO in the west (WP created as the Eastern European counterpart).

Satellite States: A satellite state or dependent state is a country that is formally independent but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. Examples of these would be Albania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and East Germany (German Democratic Republic).

Arms Race: After WWII, the United States was the most powerful military force because they were the only country in possession of nuclear technology. However, this changed in 1949 when the Soviet Union exploded their own atomic bomb, thus starting the arms race between the superpowers. Both sides constantly produced, stockpiled, and improved their weapons technology. By 1952, nuclear bombs went from nuclear fission (splitting the atom to generate energy) to the more destructive nuclear fusion (forcing atoms together), also called hydrogen bombs. In October of 1961, the USSR exploded a bomb nicknamed Tsar Bomba, which is the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated because a few years later both states agreed to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (to limit atmospheric fallout and other hazards). Several peace treaties were made in attempts to de-escalate tensions, but development and testing of non-nuclear weapons (ex. ICBMs) still persisted.

Space Race: Cold War competition between the United States and USSR for advancement in space exploration. A lot of it was used for propaganda, Sputnik 1 (from the USSR) was the first manmade satellite in space, launched in October 1957. The first American satellite in space was Explorer 1, launched in January 1958 (after Sputnik 1 & 2). The Soviet Union also put the first man (Yuri Gagarin in April 1961) and woman (Valentina Tereshkova in June 1963) in space. After the two countries raced to get further and further with their technology, sending more things deeper into space (even sending things to the moon and beyond), a final action was made by the United States that many agree officially ended the Space Race in favor of the Americans: in July of 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon. The Soviets were unable to match this despite having a lunar program of their own.

Nikita Khrushchev: Became leader of the Soviet Union in 1955 after Stalin died. Recognized for things like authorizing the construction of the Berlin Wall and for putting missiles in Cuba (then later taking them back, after the Cuban Missile Crisis).

Berlin Wall: Within 20 years of the end of World War II, East and West Germany were very different. In Soviet-controlled East Germany, the communist economy was struggling and jobs were poor. Meanwhile, US-controlled West Germany had a booming capitalist economy. This large difference led many Germans to move from the East to the West, angering the Soviets. The Soviet premier at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall (came up first as a barrier overnight, then became heavily fortified as time went on) to keep East Germans from leaving. This physical barrier became very symbolic of the east-west division in the Cold War, and at the end of the Cold War it was the first to fall (in 1989).

Cuban Missile Crisis: In 1959, U.S.-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by socialist Fidel Castro. Castro established a communist regime supported by the Soviet Union. The U.S. feared a Soviet-supported country so close the mainland, so President Kennedy attempted to destabilize Castro‘s government in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. This failed, and in 1962 Khrushchev placed nuclear missiles in the Caribbean island to counteract American nuclear weapons based in Turkey (in very close proximity to the USSR). After tensions rose and the world came the closest it had ever been to a nuclear war, the two leaders decided to diffuse the situation and each withdrew their missiles.

Sun Yat-sen: Sun Yat-sen, better known in China as Sun Zhongshan, was a Chinese revolutionary statesman, physician, and political philosopher who served as the first provisional president of the Republic of China and the first leader of the Kuomintang. He is called the "Father of the Nation" in the present-day Republic of China (Taiwan) and the "Forerunner of the Revolution" in the People's Republic of China for his instrumental role in the overthrowing of the Qing dynasty during the 1911 Revolution. He abdicated his throne on February 12th, 1912.

Chiang Kai-shek: After Sun Yat-Sen died in 1925, Chiang Kai-Shek from the nationalist group in China took over. When the nationalists were defeated by Mao Zedong‘s communist party, Chiang Kai-Shek and his party fled to Taiwan and established the Republic of China (currently, China claims Taiwan is part of it but Taiwan claims it is independent).

Nationalist: Identifying with a group or nation based on area, ethnicity, religion, etc. During the 1800s, it inspired unification movements in Europe. Later on during the time of imperialism, it inspired independence movements in colonized countries or ethnic minorities.

Mao Zedong: Led the Long March (escape of the communists to northern China after being surrounded by the more powerful nationalists), gaining popularity within the regrouping communist party. He began recruiting the poor peasant class, which made 80–90% of the population, gaining many supporters and eventually defeated Chiang Kai-Shek and the nationalists.

Long March: The escape of the communists, who were surrounded by nationalists in southern China, led by Mao Zedong. They made a trek of around 6,000 miles on foot, pushing past the nationalists and reaching communist groups in northern China. Inspired by the movement, people admired Zedong and the communists and some joined the Chinese Communist Party.

Great Leap Forward: In 1958, Mao Zedong‘s Great Leap Forward was a 5-Year Plan involving industrialization and collectivization modeled after the Soviet Union. Farms were grouped into even larger, government-owned farms to (supposedly) produce more food so everyone had the same job and there was the illusion of a classless society. However, in 1960, it was failing (economy wasn‘t growing and people were starving).

Collectivization: Initially used in the Soviet Union under Stalin during his industrialization period; combining small farms into large, government-owned farms to produce more food and have everyone work the same job with equal pay (communist idea of equality). Also used in China under Mao Zedong.

Communes: In China, collectivized farms were combined into larger communes in 1958. By 1960, this failed to help the economy or produce more food for the people, the government broke them up into collective farms and some private plots.

Cultural Revolution: Zedong removed people who believed in the old ideas to reinvigorate the ideas of revolution and communism to the people. However, even Communist Party members and military officers didn‘t agree with Mao Zedong‘s desire for continuous revolutionary enthusiasm and began turning against it.

Red Guards: Young people, who were impressionable and weren‘t yet influenced by old Chinese ideas, were recruited to aid in the Cultural Revolution. They destroyed temples, books written by foreigners, and foreign music to get rid of the „Four Olds“ (old ideas, culture, customs, and habits).

Little Red Book: A book of Mao Zedong‘s sayings that was hailed as a very important source of all kinds of knowledge. Found in hotels, schools, factories, communes, and universities.

Deng Xiaoping: Pragmatist focused on China‘s urgent economic problems after the failure of the Great Leap Forward. After Mao Zedong‘s death in 1976, he led practical-minded reformers to power and ended the Cultural Revolution and improvised relations with west and US.

Charles de Gaulle: Was the leader of the free French movement when France was under Nazi occupation. After the war, he became president of the 4th French Republic. His policies revolved around rebuilding (because France was very damaged after WWII) and economic growth. First president of 5th republic, invested in nuclear programs. Helped grow french economy and became major industrial producer and exporter.

Francois Mitterand: By the time of Mitterand, France was doing well. However, workers were upset because of such hard work for a long time. Mitterand‘s policies revolved around workers‘ rights, hours, and wages.

Welfare State: Modern welfare state in Great Britain is the government providing basic services like healthcare for the sick, elderly, and unemployed. Today, in countries like the UK, Canada, and Japan, healthcare is covered and paid for by the government (although it is cheaper for citizens, the quality is not as good because doctors get paid by how many patients they see, and thus can sometimes rush appointments). In contrast, the United States has citizens pay (people and their employers pay the insurance company, which will then cover medical costs) for healthcare (but has better quality care and more specialized professionals).

Margaret Thatcher: First female prime minister of Britain, came into power with the Conservatives in 1979. Focused on privatization and limiting social welfare, restricting union power, and ending inflation. Thatcher wasn‘t able to completely eliminate the social welfare system (the basics remained in place), she did take power from labor unions and control inflation. „Thatcherism“ improved Britain‘s economic situation because it reduced inflation and deficit spending while increasing business investment & small business. However, cuts to social spending hurt citizens and other industrial areas had high unemployment, poverty, and violence. In 1990, she resigned after her popularity fell.

Konrad Adenauer: After WWII, Germany was in shambles. Adenauer served as chancelloraccepted aid from all the Western European countries and the United States, beginning to modernize and rebuild West Germany. By the 1960s, only 20 years after the war, West Germany was thriving with a strong economy and good jobs (considered an economic miracle).

European Economic Community: In 1957, France, West Germany, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), and Italy signed the Rome Treaty to create the EEC, or Common Market. The member states were a free-trade area where tariffs on each other‘s goods weren‘t imposed and instead were protected by a tariff on non-EEC countries. It encouraged cooperation between economies (rather than politically), and was an important western trading bloc by the 1960s as more nations joined. By 1992, the EEC was the world‘s largest single trading bloc, largest exporter and purchaser of raw materials.

John F. Kennedy: Kennedy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1946 and the U.S. Senate in 1952. Ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, a plan to land an invasion force of Cuban exiles on their homeland, was a failure. He also sent military advisers and other assistance to South Vietnam to combat the spread of communism in Asia. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, he imposed a naval blockade on Cuba and demanded the removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from the island. In 1963, he successfully concluded the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union.

Lyndon Johnson: After JFK‘s assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson became the U.S. president. He sent troops to South Vietnam in 1965, trying to keep North Vietnamese communists from taking over the south (policy makers worried about the „domino effect“ of communism spreading). President Johnson‘s Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided means to end discrimination and the Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory voting against African Americans. However, when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in 1968, the U.S. was divided again. Meanwhile, more and more Americans were being sent to fight and die in Vietnam, sparking anti-war protests across the country as the war dragged on.

Richard Nixon: Elected president in 1968 after Johnson who pledged to bring the divided nation back together. In 1973, he withdrew U.S. troops from Vietnam with the Paris Peace Accords (shortly after, communists from the north forcibly reunited Vietnam). China and Soviet Union‘s relations declined slightly as Nixon negotiated more with China and improved relations (basically pissing off the USSR). However, for the next election, Nixon used illegal methods of getting information on his opponent and was exposed (the Watergate Scandal), leading him to resign in 1974 instead of face impeachment.

Consumer Society: a society in which the buying and selling of goods and services is the most important social and economic activity. A perfect example to highlight consumer culture is the rise of the car in the 1950s. World War II was over and people were moving in droves to the suburbs. They needed cars to commute to their jobs.

Women's Liberation Movement: women’s rights movement, diverse social movement, largely based in the United States, that in the 1960s and ’70s sought equal rights and opportunities and greater personal freedom for women. It coincided with and is recognized as part of the “second wave” of feminism. While the first-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women’s legal rights, especially the right to vote (see women’s suffrage), the second-wave feminism of the women’s rights movement touched on every area of women’s experience—including politics, work, the family, and sexuality. Organized activism by and on behalf of women continued through the third and fourth waves of feminism from the mid-1990s and the early 2010s, respectively. For more discussion of historical and contemporary feminists and the women’s movements they inspired, see feminism.

de-Stalinization: De-Stalinization meant an end to the role of large-scale forced labor in the economy under premier Khrushchev. The process of freeing Gulag prisoners was started by Lavrentiy Beria after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. He was soon removed from power, arrested on 26 June 1953, and executed on 24 December 1953.

Détente: an improvement in the relationship between two countries that in the past were not friendly and did not trust each other. An example of this would be during the Cold War (1970s) when the United States and Soviet Union improved relations. Both signed several treaties which reduced the amount of nuclear weapons each country had.

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty: The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were a series of bilateral conferences and international treaties signed between the United States and the Soviet Union. These treaties had the goal of reducing the number of long-range ballistic missiles (strategic arms) that each side could possess and manufacture.

Asian Tigers: 4 Asian Tiger countries/regions were South Korea, Taiwan (aka Republic of China), Singapore, and Hong Kong (former British colony in China). All were very poor after the war, but within 20-30 years were wealthy with booming economies. They showed strong and fast economic growth through adopting capitalist/free market economies (instead of communism), choosing to industrialize/modernize the economy, concentrating on international trade, and specializing in new technologies.

Proxy Wars: After the arms race, nuclear weapons were incredibly powerful and dangerous, so the two opposing superpowers of the Cold War wanted to avoid a direct conflict. Instead, they found countries with conflicts and supported the opposite side, each trying to convince their side to adopt their ideology. Examples are the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Korean War: Korean War, conflict between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in which at least 2.5 million persons lost their lives. The war reached international proportions in June 1950 when North Korea, supplied and advised by the Soviet Union, invaded the South. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal participant, joined the war on the side of the South Koreans, and the People’s Republic of China came to North Korea’s aid. After more than a million combat casualties had been suffered on both sides, the fighting ended in July 1953 with Korea still divided into two hostile states. Negotiations in 1954 produced no further agreement, and the front line has been accepted ever since as the de facto boundary between North and South Korea.

38th Parallel: Original division line between the communist North Koreans and the democratic South Koreans on the Korean Peninsula. After the Korean War, the armistice was declared with very little movement of the border, so it was reestablished on the 38th parallel.

Imre Nagy: was a Hungarianstatesman, independent Communist, and premier of the 1956 revolutionary government whose attempt to establish Hungary’s independence from the Soviet Union cost him his life. During the October 1956 revolution, the anti-Soviet elements turned to Nagy for leadership, and he became once more premier of Hungary. On the last day of the unsuccessful uprising, he appealed to the West for help against the invading Soviet troops.

Alexander Dubcek: Alexander Dubcek was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Jan. 5, 1968, to April 17, 1969) whose liberal reforms led to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.

Vietnam War: Vietnam was a colony of France (French Indochina). After WWII, Vietnam was promised independence, but the Cold War started and the United States didn‘t want it to be communist, so they gave Vietnam back to France. Ho Chi Minh & the North Vietnamese communists fought and eventually ousted the French. For the same reasons as in the Korean War, the United States began supporting the south and starting another proxy war stretching from the 1950s to the early 70s. The Soviet Union & China gave aid to North Vietnam. Initially, the US only helped financially and with military aid, but U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson sent ground troops directly. Public sentiment declined within the States, anti-war protests started, and the Americans had to pull out of Vietnam. By 1973, Saigon fell. This showed that the USA wasn‘t unbeatable. Another impact was the removal of French rule, which had been there since the 1800s. Vietnam remains a reunified country, but under communism.

Ho Chi Minh: leader of the communists in North Vietnam. He was the founder of the Indochina Communist Party (1930) and its successor, the Viet-Minh (1941), and president from 1945 to 1969 of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). As the leader of the Vietnamese nationalist movement for nearly three decades, Ho was one of the prime movers of the post-World War II anti-colonial movement in Asia and one of the most influential communist leaders of the 20th century. He founded the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI) in 1929. The creation of the PCI coincided with a violent insurrectionary movement in Vietnam. Repression by the French was brutal; Ho himself was condemned in absentia to death as a revolutionary. He sought refuge in Hong Kong, where the French police obtained permission from the British for his extradition, but friends helped him escape, and he reached Moscow via Shanghai. In 1938 Ho returned to China and stayed for a few months with Mao Zedong at Yen-an. When France was defeated by Germany in 1940, Ho and his lieutenants, Vo Nguyen Giap and Pham Van Dong, plotted to use this turn of events to advance their own cause. About this time he began to use the name Ho Chi Minh (“He Who Enlightens”). Crossing over the border into Vietnam in January 1941, the trio and five comrades organized in May the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (League for the Independence of Vietnam), or Viet Minh; this gave renewed emphasis to a peculiarly Vietnamese nationalism.

Ngo Dinh Diem: Ngo Dinh Diem was a Vietnamese political leader who served as president, with dictatorial powers, of what was then South Vietnam, from 1955 until his assassination. Diem, assisted by U.S. military and economic aid, was able to resettle hundreds of thousands of refugees from North Vietnam in the south, but his own Catholicism and the preference he showed for fellow Roman Catholics made him unacceptable to Buddhists, who were an overwhelming majority in South Vietnam. Diem never fulfilled his promise of land reforms, and during his rule communist influence and appeal grew among southerners as the communist-inspired National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong, launched an increasingly intense guerrilla war against his government. The military tactics Diem used against the insurgency were heavy-handed and ineffective and served only to deepen his government’s unpopularity and isolation.

Perestroika: “Restructuring”; one of Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev‘s reforms involving rebuilding the struggling Soviet economy to be modeled more closely like a capitalist system. The USSR had a command economy (government makes all economic decisions), as opposed to a command economy like in the United States (buyers and sellers make decisions). Market-type changes like private property and other things like in capitalist system made the economy more efficient.

Glasnost: “Openness”; another of Gorbachev‘s reforms, this one involving increased freedom of speech for transparency and honesty (compared to the oppressive policies of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and other leaders). Citizens could speak freely about the government without being threatened.

Mikhail Gorbachev: The last premier of the Soviet Union who came into power in 1985, when the country was going through economic hardship. He was an educated and experienced reformer. It was under Gorbachev that the USSR collapsed in 1991.

Ronald Reagan: Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States (1981–89), noted for his conservative Republicanism, his fervent anti communism, and his appealing personal style, characterized by a jaunty affability and folksy charm. The only movie actor ever to become president, he had a remarkable skill as an orator that earned him the title “the Great Communicator.” His policies have been credited with contributing to the demise of Soviet communism.

Intermediate INF Treaty: Signed by Soviet premier Gorbachev and U.S. president Reagan in 1987 to reduce nuclear arms. They wanted to solve domestic problems like economic problems (the more one country builds nuclear weapons, the other will also build more to match it) because both were spending so much on weapons and hurting their own economies. Another reason was the high nuclear tensions between the two superpowers.

Strategic Defense Initiative: Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), proposed U.S. strategic defensive system against potential nuclear attacks—as originally conceived, from the Soviet Union. The SDI was first proposed by President Ronald Reagan in a nationwide television address on March 23, 1983. Because parts of the defensive system that Reagan advocated would be based in space, the proposed system was dubbed “Star Wars,” after the space weaponry of a popular motion picture of the same name. The SDI was intended to defend the United States from attack from Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by intercepting the missiles at various phases of their flight.

Lech Walesa: Organized the Polish national trade union. Eventually, he became leader of the Solidarity movement (all workers threatening to strike if no changes were made). When Poland later broke away from the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, Walesa would be elected president.

Vaclav Havel: Václav Havel was a Czech playwright, poet, and political dissident who, after the fall of communism, was president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). When massive anti-government demonstrations erupted in Prague in November 1989, Havel became the leading figure in the Civic Forum, a new coalition of noncommunist opposition groups pressing for democratic reforms. In early December the Communist Party capitulated and formed a coalition government with the Civic Forum. As a result of an agreement between the partners in this bloodless “Velvet Revolution,” Havel was elected to the post of interim president of Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989, and he was reelected to the presidency in July 1990, becoming the country’s first noncommunist leader since 1948.

Nicolae Ceasescu: Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Communist official who was the leader of Romania from 1965 until he was overthrown and killed in a revolution in 1989. While following an independent policy in foreign relations, Ceaușescu adhered ever more closely to the communist orthodoxy of centralized administration at home. His secret police maintained rigid controls over free speech and the media and tolerated no internal dissent or opposition. Hoping to boost Romania’s population, in 1966 Ceaușescu issued Decree 770, a measure that effectively outlawed contraception and abortion. Ceaușescu’s regime collapsed after he ordered his security forces to fire on anti government demonstrators in the city of Timișoara on December 17, 1989.

Fall of the USSR: In 1991, the Soviet economy was an inefficient and poor command economy. The USSR was involved in proxy wars all around the world (Cuba, Korea, Vietnam) which were also costly for them. They also had to defend their vast territories (it was the largest country in the world, which also had control over the the satellite Eastern Bloc/Warsaw Pact states). By 1991, all of those countries wanted independence from the Soviets. Communists tried to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev because they wanted to keep the Soviet Union together, so Boris Yeltsin (leader of the Russian Republic) stepped in to stop their coup and keep Gorbachev in power (leading to the fall of the USSR). By the end of 1991, all states under the Soviet Union became independent countries again (the 15 countries in the union which were directly part of the USSR + the heavily communist-influenced Eastern Bloc).

Paris Peace Accord: The Paris Peace Accords End Direct Combat Role of the United States in the Vietnam War. In January of 1973 the Paris Peace Accords were signed after four years of negotiations, with the intent to establish peace in Vietnam and end the war. The Accords were signed by the United States, and North and South Vietnam.