THE COLD WAR (2 WEEKS)
GRAB BELL-WORK
Big Q’s: 1. Did the Cold War ever ‘heat up’?
2. Is a future Cold War inevitable?
TUESDAY ARIL 1ST
• BR: Silently read P. 435 in History Alive! and then
answer both questions on P. 434: 1. Who might this
person be? 2. What does this symbol represent?
• OBJECTIVE: Gain an introduction into the main causes
and ideologies of the Cold War Era.
• AGENDA:
• -Cornell Notes (4 Key Terms)
• -Intro. to the COLD WAR video clip (10 min)
CHOOSING SIDES: CAPITALISM VS. COMMUNISM
• After WWII, only two nations came out of the war strong enough
to dominate world affairs: Two superpowers THE UNITED
STATES and THE SOVIET UNION (15 republics in Eastern
Europe)
• Each superpower adopted very different economic systems
called CAPITALISM and COMMUNISM
• US adopted CAPITALISM: an economic system based on
private ownership of farms and businesses
• SOVIET’S adopted COMMUNISM: an economic system based
on the idea that farms and businesses should be owned in
common by the workers who do the labor
COMMUNISM’S CONSEQUENCES
• When Josef Stalin took over the Soviet gov’t in the 1920’s, he
was determined to transform the Soviet Union from a rural
nation into a modern industrial giant
• Under Stalin’s control: -All individual ownership of farms and
businesses was eliminated
• -The gov’t took over ALL economic planning
• -Soviet people were forced to work for gov’t-run farms and
factories (power lies in gov’t, not citizens…)
• -Creation of a vast “police state” spies, secret police invading
all privacy, those suspected of opposing Stalin were imprisoned
in harsh labor camps or executed (as many as 8 million
executed)
CONTAINING COMMUNISM
• Most Americans were appalled by what was happening in the
Soviet Union
• They saw communism as a cruel system that took away
people’s property and denied them such basic rights as freedom
of speech and religion
• Even worse, the Soviet gov’t was doing all it could to SPREAD
COMMUNISM TO OTHER COUNTRIES…
• President Truman responded to this threat with a foreign policy
known as CONTAINMENT: the US policy of fighting the
expansion of communism after WWII by limiting it to countries
where it already existed
THE THIRD WORLD
• The Cold War created a new set of divisions in the world
• The United States and its democratic, industrialized allies
became known as the “FIRST WORLD” nations
• The Soviet Union and its communist allies were seen as
“SECOND WORLD” nations
• There was also a “THIRD WORLD” of poorer, less-developed
nations in Latin America, Africa and Asia
• Many THIRD WORLD countries remained non-aligned—
countries that refused to join either side
COLD WAR INTRODUCTION (10 MIN VIDEO CLIP)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpYCplyBknI
EXIT QUESTION
• In 1-2 sentences, describe the main
PURPOSE of the US foreign policy,
CONTAINMENT.
WEDNESDAY APRIL 2ND
• BR: How are CAPITALISM and COMMUNISM alike?
How are they different?
• OBJECITVE: Compare and contrast the major alliance
systems that formed during the Cold War.
• AGENDA:
• -Popcorn P. 438-439 in History Alive! as a whole-group
• -Cornell Notes (3 Key Terms)
• -CNN Student News?
FORMING TEAMS: THE BERLIN BLOCKADE
• The Cold War saw powerful new alliances led by THE UNITED
STATES and THE SOVIET UNION
• These alliances came about as a result of the first great
confrontation of the Cold War the Berlin blockade
• When Germany surrendered in 1945, it was divided in two:
Soviet troops controlled East Germany, US troops controlled
West Germany The capital city of BERLIN was also split into
western and eastern parts
• Stalin ordered a blockade of Berlin in 1948 (hoping to starve the
Allies out of the city, Stalin closed all roads and RR’s leading to
West Berlin, also cut all electrical power)
FORMING TEAMS: THE BERLIN BLOCKADE
CONT’D
• The Allies faced a tough choice They did not want to give
in to Stalin and abandon West Berlin…but they feared that
efforts to break through the blockade on land might lead to
war…
• SOLUTION American and British planes began to
AIRLIFT food, clothing, medicine, and fuel to West Berlin
(supplying a population of 2 million)
• For 10 long months, the airlift continued
• Finally, the SOVIETS gave up and removed the blockade
• Berlin continued to be a city on the brink of outright war
1961, Soviet’s tried to stop the tide of East Germans fleeing
to West Berlin by putting up a wall between the two sides
• For the next 30 yrs, the Berlin Wall served as a grim symbol
of a divided Europe
NATO: THE WESTERN ALLIANCE
• Berlin blockade convinced the US
and its allies to form a more
permanent alliance for their mutual
protection
• APRIL 1949 10 Western EU
countries, the United States, and
Canada formed the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO)
• An attack upon any NATO country,
they agreed, would be treated as
an attack against them all
THE WARSAW PACT: THE EASTERN
ALLIANCE
• The Soviet’s answer to NATO
created 6 yrs later in 1955
• Named after the capital of Poland, it
called for military cooperation among
the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland
and East Germany
• EU now officially divided into two
opposing teams…
EXIT QUESTION
• NATO WAS FORMED TO PROTECT AND
DEFEND_______________________.
THURSDAY APRIL 3RD
• BR: The Soviet Union’s answer to NATO was called the
___________________.
• OBJECTIVE: Explain and trace the escalation of Cold War
tensions resulting from the US/Soviet nuclear arms race.
• AGENDA:
• -McCarthyism Video Clip 5 min
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-s6xqd9T8w
• -Cornell Notes (4 Key Terms)
MCCARTHYISM
• Senator Joseph McCarthy took
advantage of US fears towards the
Soviet’s nuclear capabilities by launching
a well-publicized campaign to uncover
suspected communists
• He accused many people of being
communists and working for the Soviet
gov’t
• The senators practice of publicly accusing
people of being disloyal with little or no
evidence became known as
“McCarthyism”
THE ARMS RACE BEGINS
• While McCarthy was busy
hunting for communists,
President Truman announced
plans to develop a hydrogen
bomb
• This was a nuclear weapon
hundreds of times more
powerful than the bomb that
destroyed Hiroshima in 1945
• Soviets set to work to match
this goal!
• Result= ARMS RACE: a
competition to develop and
manufacture more and more
powerful weapons
MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION (MAD)
• When JFK became president in 1961, it was clear that
neither side could win the arms race
• By then, each superpower had enough nuclear
weapons to destroy the other many times over…
• MAD, a military policy adopted by the US, was based
on the belief that Soviet leaders would not order a
nuclear attack on the US if doing so meant the certain
destruction of their own country
• SOLUTION= to build so many missiles that they could
not all be wiped out by a surprise Soviet attack
PROXY WARS
• PROXY WARS: wars in which the superpowers backed
different sides that acted as substitutes (proxies) for the
superpowers themselves
• IMPORTANT EXAMPLES of ‘HOT” SHOOTING
WARS:
• -The Korean War (1950-1953)
• -The Vietnam War (1956-1975)
EXIT QUESTION
• Which 2 wars are critical examples of the Cold
war turning hot?
FRIDAY APRIL 4TH
• BR: According to yesterday’s lecture, what
occurred during McCarthyism? What were some
impacts?
• OBJECTIVE: Analyze the impacts of the communism in Cuba
and understand how the Cold War came to an end.
• AGENDA:
• -Cornell Notes (2 Key Terms)
• -CNN Student News 10 min
• -COLLECT BELL-WORK 8pts
COMMUNISM COMES TO CUBA
• The United States and the Soviet Union nearly came
into direct conflict over Cuba
• Cuban president FIDEL CASTRO was a close ally with
Soviet leader NIKITA KRUSCHEV
• In October 1962, US spy planes photographed secret
missile bases built by the Soviets in Cuba missiles
launched from these bases could reach US cities in a
matter of minutes
• OUTCOME: A peaceful agreement was made in which
Soviets agreed to remove missiles from Cuba
THE END OF THE COLD WAR
• The eventual end of the 40 yr Cold War was made a reality by
two significant leaders: US: Ronald Reagan and USSR: Mikhail
Gorbachev
• Gorbachev came into power hoping to reform the communist
system and make it work better met twice with President
Reagan to discuss ways to end the arms race For the first
time ever, both sides agreed to reduce the number of their
nuclear weapons
• 1989=Berlin Wall torn down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK1MwhEDjHg 2:40
THE END OF THE COLD WAR CONT’D
• 1991=Uprisings against
communism spread to the Soviet
Union itself COMMUNISM
COLLAPES IN THE USSR
• With the end of communist rule, 9
of the 15 republics that had made
up the USSR declared their
independence
• Cold War stopped just short of a
superpower shooting war…
EXIT QUESTION
• The Cold War ended with the collapse of
___________ in Eastern Europe and in the
Soviet Union.