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COLD WAR?
CAUSES
Near the end of WWII, Roosevelt from the
US, Churchill from Great Britain, and
Stalin from the USSR met at the Yalta
Conference to decide what to do with
Germany after WWII. They made many
important decisions.
Yalta Conference Feb 1945
At Yalta they decided to form the United
Nations to help keep future peace.
At Yalta, they also decided to divide up
Germany into 4 zones. The USA, Great
Britain , France, and USSR would each
control one zone.
The Berlin Crisis(June 1948-May 1949)

The
goal was to fix up the country
and then unite the 4 zones into one
new country.
After WWII, the USA and the
USSR were the 2 most powerful
countries by far. In fact they were
nicknamed SUPER POWERS.
USSR vs. USA
United
States was a capitalist,
democratic country, while Russia was
Communist, and the government
controlled the economy (command
economy).
USA vs. USSR
The US and USSR became
enemies. Roughly half of the
world was on the side of the
US, and half of was on the side
of the USSR.
Blue=NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) countries
Red=Warsaw Pact countries
Yellow=Non-alliance countries
NATO vs. WARSAW
The
countries on the US’s side
formed an alliance called NATO and
the countries on the USSR’s side
formed an alliance called the Warsaw
Pact. The countries on the USSR’s
side were referred to as Soviet
Union.
o
o
o
After the war, the Soviet Union under
Joseph Stalin established Communist
governments in Eastern Europe and forced
the new governments of Eastern Europe to
stay loyal to the USSR
Stalin controlled these countries through
the use of puppet governments.
Stalin also controlled his people using
terror tactics. Citizens could be jailed or
killed if they spoke out against the
government.
The Iron Curtain
o
o
The Iron Curtain was an invisible wall
that rose between Eastern and
Western European countries after
WWII.
People of the East were restricted
from leaving their countries, and
people of the West who wanted to
visit the East were restricted as well.
The Marshall Plan
In
order to help make sure countries
joined the US’s side, the US gave
billions of dollars to Western Europe
in what was called the Marshall Plan
and was named after John Marshall
Although
the US and USSR were
enemies, they never fought each
other. Instead they had what is
called a COLD WAR. This lasted from
1945-1989. The 2 countries did
everything possible to stop each
other but never had a “real” war.
They
were both afraid of each other
because both had nuclear weapons. Neither
wanted to fight because they could have
both destroyed the other. So instead of
having a hot war, the problems between
the US and USSR from1945-1989 were
known as the COLD WAR.
So What is the Cold War?
The tension and rivalry
between the USA and
the USSR (Union of
Soviet Socialist
Republic) was
described as the Cold
War (1945-1990).
USSR’s First Atomic Test
USSR Launches Sputnik
There was never a real war between
the two sides, but they were often
very close to war (Hotspots). Both
sides got involved in other conflicts in
the world to either stop the spread
of communism (USA) or help the
spread (USSR).
Germany Divided
Germany,
which had been ruled by the
Hitler and the Nazis until their defeat in
1945 was split in two.
The western side became West
Germany and the eastern side became
East Germany.
East Germany became another
communist country.
The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was
built in 1962, to
prevent people
from escaping to
West Germany.
EasternBlo
c
Western
Bloc
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