Download The Cold War WHAP/Napp “The wartime alliance between the

The Cold War
WHAP/Napp
“The wartime alliance between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet
Union had been uneasy. Fear of working-class revolution, which the Nazis had
played on in their rise to power, was not confined to Germany. For more than a
century political and economic leaders committed to free markets and untrammeled
capital investment had loathed socialism in its several forms. After World War II
the iron curtain in Europe and communist insurgencies in China and elsewhere
seemed to confirm the threat of worldwide revolution.
Western leaders quickly came to perceive the Soviet Union as the nerve center of
world revolution and as a military power capable of launching a war as destructive
and terrible as the one that had recently ended. But particularly after the United
States and the countries of Western Europe established the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) military alliance in 1949, Soviet leaders felt surrounded by
hostile forces just when they were trying to recover from the terrible losses
sustained in the war against the Axis. The distrust and suspicion between the two
sides played out on a worldwide stage. The United Nations provided the venue for
face-to-face debate…
The Cold War and the massive investments made in postwar economic recovery
had focused public and governmental attention on technological innovations and
enormous projects such as hydroelectric dams and nuclear power stations. Only a
few people warned that untested technologies and all-out drives for industrial
productivity were rapidly degrading the environment. The superpowers were
particularly negligent of the environmental impact of pesticide and herbicide use,
automobile exhaust, industrial waste disposal, and radiation.” ~The Earth and Its
Peoples
1- Why was the wartime alliance between the U.S., Great Britain and the
U.S.S.R. uneasy? __________________________________________________
2- What had leaders committed to free markets loathed?
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3- Describe the world after World War II.
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4- How did Western leaders perceive the Soviet Union?
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5- How did Soviet leaders view the West, particularly after NATO?
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6- What had the Cold War focused governmental attention on?
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7- What did a few people warn leaders about?
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8- Why were the superpowers negligent?
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9- Of course, the Cold War does not exist today. Yet what problems from the
Cold War era remain?
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10- How did the Cold War change world history? __________________________
Notes:
I. The Cold War
A. Initial arenaEurope, where Soviet insistence on security in Eastern
Europe clashed with American and British desires for open democracies
B. What resulted were rival military alliances (NATO and the Warsaw Pact)
C. Europe was bitterly divided (“Iron Curtain”)
D. Yet extension of communism into Asia – China, Korea, and Vietnam –
globalized the cold war and led to “hot wars
E. But also Afghanistan a Marxist party had taken power in 1978
F. But radical land reforms and efforts to liberate Afghan women alienated
much of this conservative Muslim country
G. Soviets intervened but were soon bogged down in a war they could not win
H. (1979-1989)Afghan guerrillas (received U.S.A. aid) led to a Soviet
withdrawal in 1989 and the rise of an Islamic Fundamentalist regime
I. Also conflict in CubaBay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis
J. Superpowers courted third world countries just emerging from colonial rule
K. Some countries, such as India, took a posture of nonalignment (not allied)
L. When the Americans refused to assist Egypt in building Aswan Dam in mid1950s, developed close relationship with Soviets but in 1972, Soviets expelled
M. United States spearheaded Western effort to contain communism
N. According to U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961), “militaryindustrial complex,” a coalition of armed services, military research
laboratories, and private defense industries benefited from cold war
O. As World War II ended, U.S. was world’s largest creditor, controlled twothirds of the world’s gold, and accounted for half of its manufacturing
P. U.S. dollar replaced British pound as most trusted international currency
II. Cold War Surprises – Divisions in the Communist World
A. Joseph Stalin died in 1953 and successor, Nikita Khrushchev, stunned
country when delivered a speech in 1956 presenting Stalin’s crimes
B. Soviet citizens, even more than Americans, were subject to incessant
government propaganda that glorified the Soviet system and vilified U.S.
C. In Eastern Europe, Yugoslav leaders early on rejected Soviet domination of
internal affairs and charted their own independent road to socialism
D. Fearing spread of reform movements, Soviet forces invaded supposed allies
in Hungary (1956-1957) and Czechoslovakia (1968) to crush such groups
E. In the early 1980s, Poland was seriously threatened with a similar action
F. Soviet Union and China found themselves opposed territorial disputes,
ideological differences, rivalry for communist leadership
G. Chinese criticized Khrushchev for backing down in Cuban missile crisis, and
to Soviets Mao was insanely indifferent to consequences of nuclear war
H. Enmity benefited U.S. 1970s “triangular diplomacy,” signing arms
control agreements with USSR and opening relationship with China
I. Communist China also went to war against a communist Vietnam in 1979,
while Vietnam invaded a communist Cambodia in the late 1970s
J. Nationalism proved more powerful than communist solidarity
III. “Miracle Year” – 1989 – And Profound Changes
A. Popular movements in Eastern Europe toppled despised governments
B. But climatic act occurred in 1991 in the Soviet Union
C. Mikhail Gorbachev had come to power in 1985 intending to revive and save
Soviet socialism from its accumulated dysfunction
D. Glasnost or “openness” – perestroika or “economic restructuring”
E. But exacerbated country’s many difficulties and led to its political
disintegration on Christmas Day of 1991
IV. Failures of Communism
A. Economic forced to stand in long lines for consumer goods and complained
about poor quality and declining availability of those goods
B. Moralhorrors of Stalin’s Terror and the gulag, of Mao’s Cultural
Revolution, and of genocide in communist Cambodia
V. Reforms
A. In China, after Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping emerged as leader
B. Deng’seconomic reformsdismantled collective farms and a return to
small-scale private agriculture occurredstunning economic growth
C. But when a democracy movement surfaced in late 1980s, Deng ordered
brutal crushing of its demonstration in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square
D. Gorbachev’s perestroika (“restructuring), paralleled aspects of the Chinese
approach by freeing state enterprises from the heavy hand of government
E. Gorbachev’s Glasnost (“openness”) was a policy of permitting a much wider
range of cultural and intellectual freedoms in Soviet life
F. But when elections occurred in 1989, dozens of leading communists were
rejected at the polls
G. Gorbachev also abandoned Brezhnev Doctrine
Complete the Review Quilt Below (Place Key Points in Each Box):
Marxism and
1989 and
Nonalignment:
Nikita
Afghanistan:
Afghanistan:
Khrushchev:
Hungary (19561957):
Czechoslovakia
(1968):
“Triangular
Diplomacy”:
Mikhail
Gorbachev:
Glasnost:
Perestroika:
Deng Xiaoping:
Gorbachev and
Brezhnev
Doctrine:
Failure of
Communism:
Stalin’s Terror:
Cultural Revolution:
Soviets and
Chinese:
Questions:
 In what different ways was the cold war expressed?
 In what ways did the United States play a global role after World War II?
 Describe the strengths and weaknesses of the communist world by the 1970s.
 What explains the rapid end of the communist era?
 How did the end of communism in the Soviet Union differ from communism's
demise in China?
1. Which of the following is associated
3. Which communist states in Eastern
with Khrushchev’s leadership of the
Europe broke away from the Soviet
Soviet Union?
bloc before the 1980s?
I. The brutal suppression of the Hungarian
(A) Yugoslavia and Bulgaria
uprising
(B) Yugoslavia and Albania
II. Official denunciation of Stalin’s
(C) Yugoslavia and Romania
dictatorial excesses
(D) Yugoslavia and Hungary
III. A declared willingness to establish
(E) Yugoslavia and East Germany
friendlier relations with the nations of the
West
4. Which best characterizes weaknesses
IV. A sudden increase in the power of the
of the Soviet economy after World
KGB
War II?
(A) I only
I. Inflexible central planning
(B) I or II only
II. Low worker morale and productivity
(C) I and IV only
III. Raw-material shortages
(D) I, II, and III
(A) I and II
(E) I, III, and IV
(B) II and III
(C) I and III
2. What made the launching of Sputnik
(D) I only
and the flight of Yuri Gagarin
(E) II only
MOST troubling to the United
States?
5. Which Soviet leader was a leading
(A) The blows to national prestige
force in imposing economic,
they represented.
diplomatic, and political reforms
(B) Triumphs in the “space race”
after 1985 that contributed directly
were technologically linked to
to the demise of Soviet socialism?
progress in the nuclear arms
(A) Nikolay Bukharin
race.
(B) Leonid Brezhnev
(C) Gagarin’s landing on the moon
(C) Mikhail Gorbachev
gave rise to fears that the USSR
(D) Nikita Khrushchev
would make territorial claims
(E) Lavrenty Beria
there.
(D) Both Sputnik and Gagarin’s
6. How did Deng Xiaoping’s reforms
spaceship were armed with
differ from Mikhail Gorbachev’s?
advanced laser weaponry.
(A) Gorbachev allowed political and
(E) Both Sputnik and Gagarin’s
cultural liberalization, whereas
spaceship were used to take
Deng did not
reconnaissance photographs of
U.S. missile silos.
Thesis Statement: Comparative: Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev
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