31: Western Society and Eastern Europe in the Decades of the Cold War Flashcards
Cold War
The state of relations between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies between the end of World War II and 1990; based on creation of political spheres of influence and a nuclear arms race rather than actual warfare.
Eastern Bloc
Nations favorable to the Soviet Union in eastern Europe during the Cold War - particularly Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and East Germany.
Harry Truman
American president from 1945 to 1952; less eager for smooth relations with the Soviet Union than Franklin Roosevelt; authorized use of atomic bomb during the World War II; architect of American diplomacy that initiated the cold war.
Iron Curtain
Phrase coined by Winston Churchill to describe the division between free and communist societies taking shape in Europe after 1964.
Marshall Plan
Program of substantial loans initiated by the United States in 1947; designed to aid Western nations in rebuilding from the war’s devastation; vehicle for American economic dominance.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Created in 1949 under United States leadership to group most of the western European powers plus Canada in a defensive alliance possible Soviet aggression.
Warsaw Pact
Alliance organized by Soviet Union with its eastern European satellites to balance formation of NATO by Western powers in 1949.
Welfare State
New activism of the western European state in economic policy and welfare issues after World War II; introduced programs to reduce the impact of economic inequality; typically included medical programs and economic planning.
technocrat
New type of bureaucrat; intensely trained in engineering of economics and devoted to the power of national planing; came to fore in offices of governments following World War II.
Green movement
Political parties; especially in Europe, focusing on environmental issues and control over economic growth.
European Union
Began as European Economic Community (or Common Market), an alliance of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, to create a single economic entity across national boundaries in 1958; alter joined by Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, Finland, and other nations for further European economic integration.
New Feminism
New wave of women’s rights agitation dating from 1949; emphasized more literal equality that would play down domestic roles and qualities for women; promoted specific reforms and redefinition of what it meant to be female.
Berlin Wall
Built in 1961 to halt the flow of immigration from East Berlin to West Berlin; immigration was in response to lack of consumer goods and close Soviet control of economy and politics; torn down at end of cold war in 1991.
Solidarity
Polish labor movements formed in 1970’s under Lech Walesa; challenged U.S.S.R.- dominated governments of Poland.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(b. 1918) Russian author critical of the Soviet regime but also of Western materialism; published trilogy on the Siberian prison camps, The Gulag Archipelago (1978).
