Cold War

The soviet Union remained a superpower after World War II because of its defeat of Germany and its occupation of European countries. Soviet communism emerged from the communist group called the Bolsheviks, they inspired their communism after Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto”. Stalin’s communism is different than Marx’s Communism because Marx wanted to give all workers ownership over farms and businesses, meanwhile Stalin wanted the government to own all farms and businesses.

President Truman enforced a policy called containment because he was trying to contain communism from the US. The goal of the Marshall Plan was to help parts of Europe recover from World War II in an effort to make capitalism more appealing than communism.

1st World Countries: US and its allies

2nd World Countries: Soviet Union and its allies

3rd World Countries: Poorer less, developed countries countries

Germany was divided into two sections the East for Soviets and the west for the allies (US,UK,France). Berlin was also divided into sections (Berlin is in the East). The East of Berlin was for the Soviet Union and the West was for the allies (US, UK ,France). The Berlin Blockade occured from the refusal of West Berlin joining East Berlin. In response Soviets cut off all power and transportation to the West. The Berlin airlift started through the allies transporting food and supplies until Stalin gave up.

The formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization included The US,Canada and 10 European countries.The Warsaw Pact contained allied communists with the soviets because of the prospect of west germany building a new army and because of NATO.

The atomic age started when the US dropped the first nuclear bomb on Japan.

Some people had fears of spying in the US and some of these cases included the Rosenbergs case where a couple had been put to death because of espionage and delivering secrets of the atomic bomb project to the Soviets.

McCarthyism had started from Senator Joseph McCarthy. He accused many people of being communist spies and sympathizers without any evidence this led to many american being blacklisted.

The atomic age cause plenty of anxiety in Americans. Americans prepared for an atomic bomb attack by studying pamplets, purchasing underground safety shelters and educating children in schools and with drills.

The nuclear arms race started when President Truman announced that the US was going to create the hydrogen bomb and the Soviets were racing to try to make their own. Mutual assured destruction is if a nuclear attack on the US would ensure retaliation for the same kind of attack. The negative consequences of the arms race was that it would cost large sums of money, there would be radioactive fallout from nuclear testing, an ability to destroy all life on earth, military-industrial complex meaning that weapons manufacturers and the government could create a profitable business relationship.

The limited test ban treaty was then created forcing all nuclear bomb testing to be underground.

At the end of the cold war the problems that still existed were heavy militrary spending and lack of food for citizens. when mikhail gorbachev took power he enforced glastnost (openness) which gave freedom of speech, press and religion and perestroika(restructuring) by reducing military spending to help the ecomnomy