Truman Doctrine

Aid to Greece and Turkey in order to defend them from
Communism

Nikita Khrushchev

Succeeded Stalin as leader of the Soviet Union and denounced Stalin’s abuse of power

Containment

The U.S. strategy of keeping communism within its existing boundaries and preventing its further expansion

Marshall Plan

Massive aid package offered by the U.S. to Europe to help countries rebuild after
WWII

Detente

The relaxation of Cold War tensions during the 1970s

Leonid Brezhnev

Brezhnev succeeded
Khrushchev in the mid 1960s and ruled until his death in
1982. Under his leadership, critics faced arrest and imprisonment

Mikhail Gorbachev

Assumed leadership in the
Soviet Union in 1985 and sought to avoid Cold War confrontations. Gorbachev instituted Glasnost and
Perestroika

Glasnost

Gorbachev’s policy of openness. He ended censorship and encouraged people to discuss the country’s problems openly

Perestroika

Gorbachev’s policy of restructuring of the government and the economy

Mao Zedong

Leader of the Chinese
Communist Party who led them to victory over the nationalists in 1949

Jiang Jieshi

Leader of the Chinese
Nationalists who were defeated by the Communists in 1949. The Nationalist fled to Formosa (Taiwan)

Collectivization

Mao Zedong’s policy of forcing farmers onto large state owned farms

Great Leap Forward

A Chinese Communist program from 1958 to 1960 to boost farm and industrial output that failed miserably

Cultural Revolution

A Chinese Communist program in the late 1960s to purge China of nonrevolutionary tendencies that caused economic and social damage

Kim Il Sung

First communist leader of
North Korea and an ally of the Soviet Union

Syngman Rhee

The first leader of South
Korea who was a dictator, but noncommunist, who was backed by the United States

Korean War

The war broke out when
North Korean dictator Kim Il
Sung attempted to reunite the Korean Peninsula in
1950. American troops aided the South while Chinese troops aided the North

Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist and communist who was determined to unite Vietnam under
Communist rule

Dienbienphu

Small town and former
French army base in northern Vietnam and site of the battle that ended French control over Vietnam

Viet Cong

Communist rebels in South
Vietnam who sought to overthrow South Vietnam’s government

Domino Theory

The belief that a Communist victory in South Vietnam would cause non-Communist governments across
Southeast Asia to fall to
Communism, like a row of dominoes

Tet Offensive

A massive and bloody offensive by Communist guerrillas against South Vietnamese and
American forces on Tet, the
Vietnamese New Year, 1968.
Helped to turn American public opinion against military involvement in Vietnam

Pol Pot

Brutal Communist dictator of
Cambodia and leader of the
Khmer Rouge

Khmer Rouge

Cambodia’s Communist Party that was led by Pol Pot and overthrew the Cambodian government in 1975

Konrad Adenauer

West Germany’s chancellor from 1949 to 1963 who guided the rebuilding of cities, factories, and trade