101 Facts – The Cold War

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101 Facts the cold war for Kids

101 Facts… The Cold War by IP Factly

101 Facts the cold war

Contents

Introduction
Who were the two sides?
Aspects of the Cold War?
Beginning of the Cold War
The Cold War ─ Proxy Wars and Revolutions
Detente ─ Nixon & Brezhnev
Cold War Two
The End of the Cold War
Photo Credits

Introduction

The Cold War was a military and political conflict that occurred between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as their respective allies. The tension started from 1947 and lasted until 1991. The war was called “cold” because no major military fighting happened between the two superpowers.

Who were the two sides?

The United States headed the Western Bloc, or Capitalist Bloc, and the Soviet Union led the Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc.

After World War II, the increasing military power of the Soviet Union prompted the United States and its allies to form a military alliance called NATO. NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Others also called it the (North) Atlantic Alliance. It was established on April 4, 1949.

The founding members of NATO were: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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Cold War map of Eastern and Western Blocs in Europe by Goldsztajn

In response to NATO, the Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact, which was initially known as WarPac. The alliance was formerly known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.

The Warsaw Pact’s aim was to create a military alliance between the Soviet Union and eight other communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It was established on May 14, 1955.

The members of the Warsaw Pact were the People’s Republic of Albania, the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, the People’s Republic of Hungary, the People’s Republic of Poland, the People’s Republic of Romania, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Czechoslovak Republic.

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Logo of Warsaw Pact by Fenn-O-maniC CC3.0

The Cold War was also a conflict between two opposing ideologies, communism and capitalism. Communism’s objective was to establish a population with equal rights and privileges. Under this philosophy, the government owns and controls almost everything including properties, means of production, education, transportation and agriculture.

Karl Marx was the founder of communism. He was a German philosopher and economist. His ideas were written in a book called The Communist Manifesto in 1848 and his theories are known as Marxism.

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A portrait of Karl Marx by Inconnu

The important aspects of a communist government according to Karl Marx were: no private property, a single central bank, high income tax that would increase gradually if you made more money, no inheritance rights, and the confiscation of all property rights. Also, the government would own and control communication, transportation, education, factories, agriculture, farming, regional planning and labor.

Communism in Russia began when Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Party, overthrew the government in 1917. Lenin was a supporter of Marxist philosophies. His political views became known as Marxism-Leninism.

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Soviet Revolutionary Vladimir Lenin by L. Léonidov

With the goal of making profits in a market economy, capitalism is an economic system in which trade, industry, and the means of production are controlled by private owners. Capital accumulation, competitive markets and wage labor are its central characteristics.

Capitalism comes in different forms, including laissez-faire capitalism, welfare capitalism and state capitalism. Each form highlights varying degrees of dependency on markets, public ownership, and inclusion of social policies.

In its modern sense, the term capitalism is often attributed to Karl Marx. Marxism is a method of understanding the ideas utilized by Marx in analysing the “capitalist mode of production”.

Aspects of the Cold War?

The United States and the Soviet Union competed against each other in a nuclear arms race. Both of them spent billions of dollars in the development of nuclear weapons.

On August 29, 1949 the Soviet Union effectively tested its first atomic bomb and shocked the entire world with its nuclear developments. This event indicated the beginning of the arms race.

One major part of the Cold War was MAD or the Mutual Assured Destruction. This theory said that both countries would destroy each other in the case of a nuclear weapon attack, no matter who attacked first. This was the reason why both sides didn’t use nuclear weapons.

The arms race was put to an end in 1991 due to the breakdown of the Soviet Union. They were using around 27% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on military spending and it was ruining the country’s economy as a result.

The Cold War was often fought between these two superpowers in proxy wars. These were wars fought against or between other countries, but with each side getting support from a different superpower. Examples of proxy wars include the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Yom Kippur War, and the Soviet Afghanistan War.

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Afghan Mujahideen in Kunar, a view from Soviet Afghan War by Erwin Lux CC3.0

The United States and the Soviet Union also engaged in a rivalry to see who devised the best technologies in space. This included events like the first man to walk in the moon and the first manned spacecraft. This Space Race was important for it showed which country and system of government was creating the best technology, science and economic system.

The Space Race began in the year 1955 when both nations publicly declared their launching of satellites into orbit. The Soviets took the US announcement as a contest and organized a committee whose aim was to be the first to put a satellite into orbit.

The Russians placed the first satellite into orbit on October 4, 1957. The satellite was called Sputnik I. Nearly four months later, the Americans successfully launched their satellite, the Explorer 1, into orbit.

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A replica of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite in the world by NSSDC, NASA

The Russian Yuri Gagarin was the first man to orbit the earth aboard the spacecraft Vostok I, putting the Soviets as the winner in putting the first man into space. The Americans launched Freedom 7 three weeks later, making astronaut Alan Shepard the first American in space.

In 1961, President Kennedy wanted to be the first to put a man on the Moon. He felt embarrassed for falling behind in the race with the Soviets. This was the beginning of the United States’ Apollo program.

The Apollo 11 spacecraft was launched on July 16, 1969 with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. and Michael Collins. It took them three days to get into the moon’s orbit. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins transferred to the Lunar Module called Eagle upon arriving at the moon’s orbit. They began their descent to the moon soon after. Neil Armstrong stepped and walked on the moon on July 20, 1969.

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Neil Armstrong on Moon by NASA

In July 1975, the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union softened. As a result, the first US-Soviet joint mission commenced and the Apollo-Soyuz project was born. This was considered the end of the Space Race.

Russian space pilots were called cosmonauts while American space pilots were called astronauts. Cosmonauts mean “sailors of the universe” while the astronauts mean “star sailors”.

Beginning of the Cold War

Initially ceded to it by Nazi Germany in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union laid the foundation for the Eastern Bloc by directly annexing several countries as Soviet Socialist Republics during the opening stages of World War II.

With the purpose of tightening political control over Soviet satellites, the Soviets created Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) in September 1947.

The following June, Cominform faced an embarrassing setback when the two leaders of Yugoslavia and USSR ─ Tito and Stalin ─ had a major disagreement. This led to Cominform expelling Yugoslavia, which remained communist but adopted a non-aligned position.

In 1947, US president Harry S. Truman was advised to take immediate steps to counter the Soviet Union’s influence, citing Stalin’s efforts (amid post-war confusion and collapse) to undermine the US by encouraging rivalries among capitalists that could begin another war.

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L to R, British PM Winston Churchill, President Harry S. Truman, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin, Germany
by US National Archives bot

When the British government announced that it could no longer afford to finance the Greek monarchical military regime in its civil war against communist-led insurgents, the American government responded with the adoption of an ideology of containment, with the goal of stopping the spread of communism. The same goes for Turkey, which was previously dependent on British aid.

A speech was delivered by Truman calling for the allocation of $400 million to intervene in the war for Greece and Turkey. He also unveiled the Truman Doctrine, which framed the conflict as a contest between free peoples and totalitarian regimes.

The Truman Doctrine marked the beginning of a US bipartisan defense and foreign policy consensus between Republicans and Democrats focused on containment and deterrence that weakened during and immediately after the Vietnam War, but ultimately persisted thereafter.

One of the first major crises of the Cold War happened in an event known as the Berlin Blockade. During this period, all western countries had to deliver foods and supplies to Berlin by air through the Berlin Airlift because all the land routes had been barred by the Soviets.

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Aircrafts unloading during Berlin Blockade by U.S. Air Force

Berlin, the capital of Germany, was located at the center of a Soviet-controlled zone. The Soviets blockaded all land routes to Berlin in an attempt to gain total control over it.

By June 24, 1948, all roads and rails leading to Berlin had been blocked. The Soviets also cut off the city’s electricity and stopped all traffic going in and out of the city. The west had no other means left to reach Berlin except to fly.

The Soviets believed than an airborne operation would be impossible and would not work. This made them feel that the city of Berlin would give up and eventually fall within their control.

The United States and Great Britain flew around 277,000 flights into Berlin to deliver 2.3 million tons of supplies. The Soviets thought this feat was impossible. They were wrong and were forced to lift the siege.

The Berlin Wall was built by the communist government of East Berlin in August of 1961 to separate the East from the democratic West. It was also built to prevent people from escaping the government.

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The Berlin Wall by jchapiewsky CC2.0

Germany was divided into two after World War II. East Germany became a communist country controlled by the Soviet Union while West Germany became democratic like its allies ─ Britain, France and the United States.

Berlin, though located in the eastern half of Germany, was controlled by all four major powers: the Soviet Union in East Berlin, and the United States, Great Britain and France controlling West Berlin.

Many people, called defectors, started to leave for the western part because they realized that they didn’t want to live under communist control. At least 2 million people fled to the west from 1949 to 1959.

At first, it was very easy for the people to change sides because Berlin itself was controlled by all four major powers. Then, however, communist Germany grew uneasy and devised a plan to prevent people from running away. The plan was to build a wall that would divide the city into two.

The Berlin Wall was built on August 13, 1961 around Berlin. It was built using barbed wire fences. Later, the fourth version of the wall was rebuilt using concrete blocks that were 12 feet high and 4 feet wide. On November 9, 1989, the wall was opened so that people could freely move between Eastern and Western Germany. Prior to this historic event, the Soviet Union had collapsed and they had lost Eastern Germany as a result.

Not too long after the borders were opened again, the Berlin wall was destroyed by the people. Germany officially reunited as a single country on October 3, 1990.

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People gathered just before the fall of Berlin wall by Daniel Antal CC2.0

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established when Britain, France, the United States, Canada and eight other western European countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty of April 1949.

President Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States. He played a great role during the Cold War. Truman helped to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with Canada and Western Europe to protect each other from the Soviet Union. Truman also sent troops to fight in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

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President Truman Signing North Atlantic Treaty in his office, 1949 by Abbie Rowe

The US worked for the rearmament of West Germany in the early 1950s, while in 1955 it secured its full membership of NATO. In May 1953, Lavrentiy Beria, by then in a government post, had made an unsuccessful proposal to allow the reunification of a neutral Germany in order to prevent West Germany’s incorporation into NATO.

The Korean War was the battle between South Korea and North Korea. It is considered the first major conflict in the Cold War. The Soviet Union supported North Korea while the United States supported South Korea.

The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 and ended on July 27, 1953. During the conflict, Kim II-sung was North Korea’s leader and Prime Minister while Syngman Rhee was South Korea’s president.

Many countries were also involved during the war. North Korea was supported by the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China while the United States, Great Britain and the United Nations supported South Korea.

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Soviet Troops in Korea in 1945 by Serdechny

The Korean Peninsula had been invaded and added as part of Japan in 1910. After World War II, the peninsula was divided into two ─ the North went to the Soviets while the South was given to the Americans. North and South Korea were divided at the 38th parallel.

The two sides did not work well with each other and there were constant clashes along the border. Negotiation attempts to make Korea a unified nation were also unsuccessful.

North Korea attacked South Korea on June 25, 1950 along the 38th parallel, causing the South Korean Army to flee south. This was also the main reason why South Korea’s government occupied a small part of the southern tip.

The United States’ initial aim was to defend South Korea from the North. But after the first summer of fighting, President Truman, the US president at the time, decided to launch an offensive in an attempt to liberate North Korea from communism. General Douglas MacArthur was chosen to lead the US forces.

The war ended with a treaty signed on July 27, 1953. It stated that both countries would remain independent and the border would remain at the 38th parallel. It also stated that there must be a 2.5 mile demilitarized zone between the two countries to act as a buffer for future wars.

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Delegates signing the Korean War armistice agreement, Korea, July 27, 1953 by US Department of Defence

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of United States, was well-known for his part in negotiating the end of the Korean War in 1953. He was also very famous for his Eisenhower Doctrine. It stated that a Middle Eastern country could request aid or help from the US if they were threatened by another.

The situation in Europe remained an uneasy armed truce with the tensions slightly relaxing during the death of Stalin in 1953. The Soviets, who had already created a network of mutual assistance treaties in the Eastern Bloc by 1949, established in 1955 the Warsaw Pact, a formal alliance.

Shortly after Nikita Khrushchev arranged the removal of Hungary’s Stalinist leader Mátyás Rákosi, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 occurred. In response to a popular uprising, the new regime formally disbanded the secret police, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections.

During the Hungarian Revolution, thousands of Hungarians were arrested, imprisoned and deported to the Soviet Union, and approximately 200,000 Hungarians fled Hungary in the chaos. Then, Hungarian leader Imre Nagy and others were executed following secret trials.

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A Portrait of Nikita Khrushchev by Junge, Heinz CC3.0

Khrushchev’s goal of “peaceful coexistence” modified the Stalin-era Soviet stance where international class struggle meant the two opposing camps were on an inevitable collision course where communism would triumph through global war. Eventually, peace would allow capitalism to collapse on its own. It would also give the Soviets time to boost their military capabilities, which remained for decades until Mikhail Gorbachev’s “new thinking” envisioned peaceful coexistence as an end in itself rather than a form of class struggle.

The Cold War ─ Proxy Wars and Revolutions

Nationalist movements in some countries and regions, notably Guatemala, Indonesia and Indochina were often allied with communist groups, or perceived in the West to be allied with communists. With this, the United States and the Soviet Union increasingly competed for influence by proxy in the Third World as decolonization gained momentum in the 1950s and early 1960s (this was a time when the old European colonial powers were giving independence to their former colonies).

The CIA-cultivated President Joseph Kasa-Vubu, the first president of the Republic of the Congo, a newly independent country from Belgium since June 1960, ordered the dismissal of the democratically elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the Lumumba cabinet in September; Lumumba called for Kasa-Vubu’s dismissal instead. In the ensuing Congo Crisis, the CIA-backed Colonel Mobutu quickly mobilized his forces to seize power through a military coup d’état.

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President Joseph Kasa-Vubu at Leopoldville Airport, 1962 by Elden David

In British Guiana, the leftist People’s Progressive Party (PPP) candidate Cheddi Jagan won the position of chief minister in a colonially administered election in 1953, but was quickly forced to resign from power after Britain’s suspension of the still-dependent nation’s constitution.

Many emerging nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America rejected the pressure to choose sides in the East-West competition. In 1955, at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia, dozens of Third World governments resolved to stay out of the Cold War.

The Cuban Missile Crisis began in 1962 when the Soviet Union started installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. The United States did not like the idea of nuclear missiles so close to its territory, nor did they like the fact that the missiles might be controlled by the anti-American Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

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CIA reference photograph of Soviet medium-range ballistic missile in MOscow by CIA

America made a failed attempt to overthrow Castro in an episode known as The Bay of Pigs Invasion. In response to the Soviets, the United States also installed nuclear missile sites in Italy and Turkey to strike Moscow, the capital of Soviet Union.

The Cuban Missile Crisis intensified when an American U-2 spy plane flew into Cuba and took pictures of Soviet missiles that could reach any point of the US. This alarmed the United States and caused President Kennedy to meet with his main security advisors.

During the meeting, the Joint Chiefs of Staff voted to invade Cuba. Concerned that this would create a World War III between the US and the Soviet Union, President Kennedy opted to set up a naval blockade instead.

The naval blockade plan was announced on October 22, 1962. The United States told the world that Cuba was under “quarantine”. This meant that no offensive weapons were to enter Cuba and any Cuban attack or aggression towards the US would mean an act of war from the Soviet Union.

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A US Submarine near CUBA in 1962 by Rsocol

The crisis became more intense when the Soviet Union declared that they would not yield and withdraw. This caused President Kennedy to announce that the US would have no choice but to invade Cuba.

The Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba if the US would not invade it. On the other hand, the US also agreed to remove their nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey. This mutual agreement brought the Cuban Missile Crisis to an end.

The Vietnam War was the battle between Northern Vietnam and Southern Vietnam. The North was supported by communist countries like People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, while the South was supported by anti-communist countries like the United States.

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A US Army Convoy in Vietnam war by Starry, Donn A.

The war lasted for almost 20 years, starting on November 1, 1955 as a war for independence against the French colonial powers, and it lasted up to April 30, 1975. The United States’ defeat in this war led to the loss of their worldwide prestige.

Before World War II, Vietnam was a colony of France. Japan took control of the area during the war. When the war ended, the Vietnamese communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh wanted an independent country for Vietnam. However the Allies did not honor this request and instead returned Vietnam to the French.

Ho Chi Minh and his rebels began fighting with the French to gain the independence they wanted. Fearing Ho Chi Minh’s success over the French forces, the United States decided to support France in the war, lest communism spread throughout Southeast Asia.

France withdrew its forces from Vietnam after losing a major battle in 1954. North and South Vietnam were supposed to be reunited under a single election in 1956 but the US interfered and elected Ngo Dinh Diem as the first president of South Vietnam.

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U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower greeting President Ngo Dình Diem of South Vietnam in Washington (08-05-1957) by US Department of Defense

The United States’ involvement in the war ended during President Richard Nixon’s term. On July 1969, the first batch of US troops was removed from Vietnam. By March 1973, all US forces were withdrawn from the country and the United States conceded defeat.

South Vietnam surrendered to the North on April 1975 and the country officially unified under communist rule ─ the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Historians consider the Vietnam War as a “proxy” war in the Cold War. Though the Soviet Union and the United States didn’t go directly to war, it was clear that both of them assisted the two opposing sides.

Detente ─ Nixon & Brezhnev

With the growing influence of Third World alignments such as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Non-Aligned Movement after the oil crisis in 1973, Soviet leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin embraced the notion of détente.

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A Portrait of Leonid Brezhnev by Kohls, Ulrich CC3.0

During a speech at the Fifth Congress of the Polish United Workers’ Party in September 1968, one month after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Brezhnev outlined the Brezhnev Doctrine, in which he claimed the right to violate the sovereignty of any country attempting to replace Marxism-Leninism with capitalism.

The Brezhnev Doctrine found its origins in the failures of Marxism-Leninism in states like Poland, Hungary and East Germany, which were facing a declining standard of living in contrast to the prosperity of West Germany and the rest of Western Europe.

As a result of the Chinese Soviet split, tensions along the Chinese−Soviet border reached their peak in 1969, and United States President Richard Nixon decided to use the conflict to shift the balance of power towards the West in the Cold War.

Following his China visit, Nixon met with Soviet leaders, including Brezhnev in Moscow. These Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) resulted in two landmark arms control treaties: SALT I, the first comprehensive limitation pact signed by the two superpowers, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which banned the development of systems designed to intercept incoming missiles. These aimed to limit the development of costly anti-ballistic missiles and nuclear missiles.

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Richard Nixon meets Leonid Brezhnev June 19, 1973 during the Soviet Leader’s visit to the U.S.by Knudsen, Robert L.

Nixon and Brezhnev proclaimed a new era of “peaceful coexistence” and established the ground-breaking new policy of détente (or cooperation) between the two superpowers. Meanwhile, Brezhnev attempted to revive the Soviet economy, which was declining in part because of heavy military expenditures. Between 1972 and 1974, the two sides also agreed to strengthen their economic ties, including agreements for increased trade. As a result of their meetings, détente would replace the hostility of the Cold War.

Cold War Two

The term “Second Cold War” refers to the period of intensive reawakening of Cold War tensions and conflicts in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the tensions greatly increased between the major powers and with both sides becoming more militaristic.

The Soviet Afghanistan War was fought between the Afghanistan rebels called Mujahideen, supported by the United States, and the Soviet-supported Afghanistan government. The war started on December 24, 1979 and lasted until February 15, 1989.

The war started when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, putting the Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin to death. Following Amin’s death, the Soviets then proclaimed a new leader, President Babrak Karmal.

The Soviet Afghanistan War ended when Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, signed a peace treaty. The war was very costly for the Soviets and was a huge burden on their weak economy.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election, vowing to increase military spending in order to confront the Soviets everywhere. Both Reagan and the new British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, denounced the Soviet Union and its ideology. Reagan labeled the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and predicted that communism would be left on the “ash heap of history”.

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Ronald Reagan meeting with Afghan Mujahideen in White House by Tim Clary

By early 1985, Reagan’s anti-communist position had developed into a stance known as the new Reagan Doctrine which, in addition to containment, formulated an additional right to subvert existing communist governments.

Pope John Paul II provided a moral focus for anti-communism; a visit to his native Poland in 1979 stimulated a religious and nationalist resurgence centered on the Solidarity movement that galvanized opposition and may have led to his attempted assassination two years later.

In December of 1981, Poland’s Wojciech Jaruzelski reacted to the crisis by imposing a period of martial law. Reagan imposed economic sanctions on Poland in response. Mikhail Suslov, the Kremlin’s top ideologist, advised Soviet leaders not to intervene if Poland fell under the control of Solidarity, for fear it might lead to heavy economic sanctions, which would represent a catastrophe for the Soviet economy.

The End of the Cold War

By the time the comparatively youthful Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985, the Soviet economy was stagnant and faced a sharp fall in foreign currency earnings as a result of the downward slide in oil prices in the 1980s. These issues prompted Gorbachev to investigate measures to revive the ailing state through perestroika.

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Gorbachev One-on-One with Reagan by Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

In June 1987 Gorbachev announced an agenda of economic reform called perestroika, or restructuring, which relaxed the production quota system, allowed private ownership of businesses and paved the way for foreign investment. These measures were intended to redirect the country’s resources from costly Cold War military commitments to more productive areas in the civilian sector.

The third summit in 1987 led to a breakthrough with the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) eliminating all nuclear-armed, ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (300 to 3,400 miles) and their infrastructure.

On December 3, 1989, Gorbachev and Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush, declared the Cold War over at the Malta Summit. A year later, the two former rivals were partners in the Gulf War against Iraq.

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Gorbachev and G. W. Bush declaring cold war over in 1990 by George Bush Presidential Library

By 1989, the Soviet alliance system was on the brink of collapse, and, deprived of Soviet military support, the communist leaders of the Warsaw Pact states were losing power.

The 1989 revolutionary wave swept across Central and Eastern Europe, peacefully overthrowing all the Soviet-style communist states: East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. Romania was the only Eastern-bloc country to topple its communist regime violently and execute its head of state.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), created on December 21, 1991, was viewed as a successor entity to the Soviet Union but, according to Russia’s leaders, its purpose was to “allow a civilized divorce” between the Soviet Republics and was comparable to a loose confederation. The USSR was declared officially dissolved on December 25, 1991.

The Cold War defined the political role of the United States in the post–World War II world: by 1989 the US held military alliances with 50 countries, and had 526,000 troops stationed abroad in dozens of countries, with 326,000 in Europe (two-thirds of which in West Germany) and about 130,000 in Asia (mainly Japan and South Korea). The Cold War also marked the height of peacetime military-industrial complexes, especially in the US, and large-scale military funding of science.

 

A detailed playlist of the videos is listed below.

The Playlist:

  1. ‎The Cold War: Crash Course US History #37 by CrashCourse
  2. USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course World History #39 by CrashCourse
  3. The Cold War in Asia: Crash Course US History #38 by CrashCourse
  4. George HW Bush and the End of the Cold War: Crash Course US History #44 by CrashCourse
  5. Cold War Explained: World History Review by Keith Hughes
  6. Cold War : “Duck and Cover” Film to Prepare US Children for Atomic War (1951) by Korean Confidential
  7. Fallout 1955 (Full 15 min Cold War Documentary) by ThoughtTraveler
  8. History Of The Cold War ( Full History Documentary ) by History Doc

Photo Credits

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Cold War map of Eastern and Western Blocs in Europe by Goldsztajn

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Logo of Warsaw Pact by Fenn-O-maniC CC3.0

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A portrait of Karl Marx by Inconnu

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Soviet Revolutionary Vladimir Lenin by L. Léonidov

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Afghan Mujahideen in Kunar, a view from Soviet Afghan War by Erwin Lux CC3.0

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A replica of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite in the world by NSSDC, NASA

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Neil Armstrong on Moon by NASA

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L to R, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Harry S. Truman, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin, Germany by US National Archives bot

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Aircrafts unloading during Berlin Blockade by U.S. Air Force

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The Berlin Wall by jchapiewsky CC2.0

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People gathered just before the fall of Berlin wall by Daniel Antal CC2.0

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President Truman Signing North Atlantic Treaty in his office, 1949 by Abbie Rowe

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Soviet Troops in Korea in 1945 by Serdechny

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Delegates signing the Korean War armistice agreement, Korea, July 27, 1953 by US Department of Defence

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A Portrait of Nikita Khrushchev by Junge, Heinz CC3.0

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President Joseph Kasa-Vubu at Leopoldville Airport, 1962 by Elden David

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CIA reference photograph of Soviet medium-range ballistic missile in MOscow by CIA

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A US Submarine near CUBA in 1962 by Rsocol

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A US Army Convoy in Vietnam war by Starry, Donn A.

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U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower greeting President Ngo Dình Diem of South Vietnam in Washington (08-05-1957) by US Department of Defense

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A Portrait of Leonid Brezhnev by Kohls, Ulrich CC3.0

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Richard Nixon meets Leonid Brezhnev June 19, 1973 during the Soviet Leader’s visit to the U.S.by Knudsen, Robert L.

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Ronald Reagan meeting with Afghan Mujahideen in White House by Tim Clary

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Gorbachev One-on-One with Reagan by Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

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Gorbachev and G. W. Bush declaring cold war over in 1990 by George Bush Presidential Library

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