Chpt. 31, 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 2 and 1990; it was based on the 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 included Poland, Hungary, and East Germany.
Harry Truman
The American president from 1945 to 1952; he was less eager for smooth relations with the Soviet Union than Franlkin Roosevelt had been, and he authorized the use of the atomic bomb during World War 2. He was the architect of American diplomacy that initiated the cold war.
iron curtain
A phrase coined by Winston Churchill to describe the division between free and communist societies taking shape in Europe in 1946.
Marshall Plan
A program of substantial loans initiated by the United States in 1947; they were designed to aid Western nations in rebuilding from the war’s devastation, and were the vehicle for American economic dominance.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
This was an organizaiton created in 1949 under US leadership to group most of the western European powers plus Canada in a defensive alliance against possible Soviet aggression.
Warsaw Pact
An alliance organized by the Soviet Union with its eastern European satellites to balance the formation of NATO by Western powers in 1949
welfare state
A new activism of the western European state in economic policy and welfare issues after WW2; it introduced programs to reduce the impact of economic inequality, and typically included medical programs and economic planning.
technocrat
A new type of bureaucrat who was intensely trained in engineering or economics and devoted to national planning; they came to the fore in the offices of governments following WWl2.
Green movement
Political parties, especially in Europe, focusing on environmental issues and control over economic growth.
European Union
This group began as the European Economic Community (or Common Market), an alliance of Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, to create a single economic entity across national boundaries in 1958. It was later joined by Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, Finland, and other nations for further European economic integration.
new feminism
A new wave of women’s rights agitation dating from 1949 that emphasized more “literal” equality that would play down domestic roles and qualities for women; it promoted specific reforms and redefinition of what it meant to be female.
Berlin Wall
This was built in 1961 to halt the flow of immigration from East Berlin to West Berlin. The immigration was in response to a lack of consumer goods and close Soviet control of the economy and politics. It was torn down at the end of the cold war in 1991.
Solidarity
This was a Polish labor movement formed in the 1970s under Lech Walesa; it challenged U.S.S.R.- dominated government of Poland.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A Russian author critical of the Soviet regime but also of Western materialism. He published a trilogy on the Siberian prison camps, “The Gulag Archipelago.”
