THE COLD

WARBEGINS
Essential Questions:
What led to the Cold War between
the United States and Soviet
Union?
What were the major events
between the USA and the USSR during
the early years of the Cold War?
The end of World War II led to
important changes in the world:
The United Nations was created, which
replaced the League of Nations

United Nations
Headquarters is in
Executive
New York City
Council

General Assembly

Member Nations
The UN created a Jewish nation called Israel; this set
off a series of wars between Jews and Arabs in the Middle
East
The United States occupied and helped rebuild
Japan
 The end of World War II inspired
independence movements
throughout Africa and Asia; these movements
were called decolonization
One of the most important After WWII, the
changes after World War II United States and
was the beginning of the the Soviet Union
Cold War entered an era of
distrust and hostility

From 1945 to 1991, the Cold War was a

struggle for global influence and power
between the Soviet Union and the United
States
 After World War II, no other countries could
match the United States or the Soviet Union in
terms of political influence or military
might

The U.S. and the USSR were superpowers

and rivals who dominated world politics
 WHAT IS “IDEOLOGY”?
An IDEOLOGY is a
philosophy, or a
way of
thinking
Ideologies of nations
can be based on
politics, economics,
or religion
What were the major
ideologies of the USA and
 This was an era
of competing
ideologies: the
USA promoted
democracy
and capitalism
while the USSR
tried to spread
communism
 The different
ideologies
between the USA
and USSR and
their desires to
spread these
ideas led to
distrust, hostility,
proxy battles, and
nearly
nuclear war
between them
Capitalism Socialism
Private ownership of Gov’t owns industries and
industry, freedom of farms; the goal of the
competition, gov’t keeps gov’t is to bring equality to
hands off (laissez-faire) people
Leads to different The goal is to have a
economic classes (rich and classless society with no
Democracy
poor) Totalitariani
rich or poor

sm
Government of the people Government led by a
People elect their leaders dictator
Total control over many
aspects of peoples’ lives
Freedom Equality

Valuing freedoms of Valuing basic needs (food,

speech, press, and homes, education, jobs)
business for all people

Individualism Collectivism
Emphasizes the need for Emphasizes the need for
people to do things on people to work together to
their own benefit everyone
Competition is a good Everyone works the same
thing; The best individuals amount and every gains
have more power, status, the same benefits
WHAT IS A “COLD” WAR?
A “hot” war is
a war fought
the usual way:
with
weapons
and
soldiers.
This struggle
wasn’t fought
in the usual
way. Why?
Both the Americans
and the Soviets were
aware that if they
fought for real,
nuclear weapons
would be used
 Mutually Assured Destruction: If nuclear war
happened, it would be likely that both sides
would be destroyed, along with the rest of the
Instead, the USA and USSR engaged in a
“cold” war, doing everything to hurt the
other side just short of fighting
So instead
of a “hot”
war, like
two
heavyweig
hts fighting
it out and
doing
terrible
damage to
each
other…
…this was a “cold” war, which is like
two master chess players who
manipulate their pieces and use
their wits to defeat the enemy
THE WEAPONS OF A COLD WAR
Threatening to use force
Use of propaganda (this is
spreading information and stories,
which aren’t always true, to make
your enemy look bad and yourself
look good; mixing fact and
emotion)
Economic and military aid
to other nations that are opposed
to your enemy and their allies
 WHAT CAUSED
THE COLD WAR?

In 1917,
Vladimir Lenin
led the
Bolsheviks in
the Russian
Revolution
and created the
world’s first
communist
government
 WHAT CAUSED
THE COLD WAR?

Distrust began
when the USA
sent Americans
troops to fight
against Lenin’s
Communist
“Red
Army” during
the Russian
Civil War
 WHAT CAUSED
THE COLD WAR?

After Lenin’s
death in 1924,
Joseph
Stalin
became
dictator of the
Soviet Union;
Stalin was even
more ruthless
and iron-
fisted than
Lenin
 WHAT CAUSED
THE COLD WAR?

During World
War II, the
Americans and
Soviet Russians
worked
together to
defeat Nazi
Germany,
but…
American and Russian soldiers
meet for the first time in Germany
 …events of World War II increased
tensions between the USA and USSR

The ultra-paranoid Stalin never trusted

Britain nor the USA during the war; he often
disagreed with FDR and Churchill over
The Manhattan Project gave
the USA a monopoly on
nuclear weapon
technology, which made
Stalin even more paranoid
of the Americans
At the Yalta Conference, Stalin had agreed to allow
self-determination in Eastern European
countries formerly occupied by the Nazis (and
now occupied by Soviet forces)
In reality, Stalin wanted a “buffer zone”
between his Soviet Union and the democratic
nations in Western Europe
 Breaking his
promise to allow
voting in Soviet-
occupied
countries, Stalin
used his military
to install
communist
government
s in Eastern
European
nations
 As a result, Eastern European nations turned
communist and became Soviet satellites:
nations that were influenced and controlled by
the USSR like puppets
In the years after World War II, the USA began
to view Stalin as a new Hitler: a
dangerous dictator who wanted to
take over the world
 THE “IRON CURTAIN”
In 1946, Winston Churchill
warned against Soviet
expansion into Europe
He called the area of Soviet
influence in Eastern Europe
the Iron Curtain
The “Iron Curtain”
divided Soviet-run
Eastern Europe from
the democratic
governments of
Western Europe
By 1946, Europe was divided by the figurative
“iron curtain” that separated
democratic/capitalist Western Europe
from communist/totalitarian Eastern
Europe
Communism and
Totalitarianism

Capitalism and
Democracy
 President
Truman created
a foreign policy
called
containmen
t to stop Soviet
influence and
stop the spread
of communism
 When the USSR began to pressure Greece and
Turkey to turn communist, the U.S. created the
Truman Doctrine, promising economic and
military help to any nation threatened by
communism

T=
 The Truman
Doctrine
worked: neither
Greece nor
Turkey fell to
communism
 Devastated European nations had difficulty
recovering after WWII, which led to fears of
communism taking hold in all of Europe
 Army Chief of
Staff George
Marshall
thought that
offering
monetary
aid to Europe
would stop
communism
from spreading
there
 The Marshall Plan offered 13 billion
dollars to help rebuild the economies of post-
M=
 By 1952,
Western
Europe
recovered
and
Communism
never took
root
 In 1948, the USSR used military force to turn
Czechoslovakia to communism; this led to fears that
Stalin would use similar tactics in Western Europe
 In 1948, the USSR used military force to turn
Czechoslovakia to communism; this led to fears that
Stalin would use similar tactics in Western Europe
 In 1949, the
United States
formed the
North Atlantic
Treaty
Organization
(NATO): a
bloc (military
alliance) among
democratic
countries in
Western Europe
and North
America
In response to NATO, the USSR and its Eastern
European Communist satellites formed a bloc
(military alliance) called the Warsaw Pact
 At the end of
WWII, Germany
was divided into
four zones
occupied by the
USA, Britain,
France, and the
USSR

Berlin, the German

capital city, was
also divided into
four parts, but was
located inside the
Soviet zone

In 1948, Stalin wanted to turn all of the city of Berlin

communist and ordered a blockade, shutting
down all ground transportation into and out of
BERLIN: A DIVIDED CITY IN HOSTILE TERRITORY

Communist
East Berlin

Democratic
West Berlin

West Berlin was an island of democracy in a sea of

communism; Stalin hoped the blockade would starve
the West Berliners into giving in to communism
In response, the U.S. began the Berlin Airlift, guessing
that Stalin would not shoot down NATO planes
and risk starting a nuclear war; NATO guessed
correctly For 11 months,
U.S. and British
planes landed in
West Berlin to
bring food,
fuel, and
supplies

The NATO planes flew

over the blockade and
were never shot at by Soviet
Stalin’s blockade cost a lot of money to keep up,
and it was not working; Stalin finally admitted
defeat and lifted the blockade in 1949
The United States
successfully kept
West Berlin from
turning
communist
 THE ARMS RACE
improving armies and nuclear weapons
LEGACY OF THE COLD
WAR
From 1945 to 1949, NATO But over the next 40 years, the
successfully contained Cold War intensified as
communism to Eastern communism spread to
Europe only Asia, Africa, and Latin America
 The Cold War intensified as newer and more
powerful nuclear weapons were introduced
(arms race), espionage (spying)
increased, and several wars broke out in Korea,
Vietnam, and Afghanistan between American-
backed forces and Soviet-backed forces
(proxy wars)
 ☺
Revamped and redone
by
Christopher
Jaskowiak
Thanks to Brooks