Cold War Vocabulary

Question 1

Democracy

Answer 1

America is a democracy that has a capitalist economic system, free elections, & competing political parties

Question 2

Communism

Answer 2

“An economic system in which all means of production are owned by the people
land, factories, railroads, and businesses private property does not exist
all goods and services are to be shared equally
In theory there are no social classes- but they still existed in the USSR

Question 3

Totalitarianism

Answer 3

Under Stalin the Soviet Union took control of all aspects of both public and private life
Motives:
Encourage communism in other countries as part of a world wide worker’s revolution
Control Eastern Europe to protect Soviet borders & limit U.S. influence
Keep Germany divided to prevent them from waging war again

Question 4

Iron Curtain

Answer 4

The Iron Curtain was a political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and its allied states.

Question 5

Laissez-Faire

Answer 5

Laissez-Faire is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from or almost free from any form of economic interventionism such as regulation and subsidies.

Question 6

Truman Doctrine

Answer 6

The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War.

Question 7

Reparations

Answer 7

Reparations are broadly understood as compensation given for an abuse or injury. The colloquial meaning of reparations has changed substantively over the last century

Question 8

Marshall Plan

Answer 8

The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent.

Question 9

Berlin Wall

Answer 9

The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin.

Question 10

Containment

Answer 10

Containment was a United States policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge its communist sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam.

Question 11

Berlin Airlift

Answer 11

The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies’ railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control.

Question 12

Warsaw Pact

Answer 12

The Warsaw Pact was a collective defence treaty established by the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania

Question 13

NATO

Answer 13

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 European and North American countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949.

Question 14

Brinkmanship

Answer 14

Brinkmanship, or brinksmanship, is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict.

Question 15

Sputnik

Answer 15

Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It orbited for three weeks before its batteries died and then orbited silently for two months before it fell back into the atmosphere on the 25th December 1957.

Question 16

Arms Race

Answer 16

An arms race occurs when two or more nations compete in increases in military personnel and materiel. Simply defined as a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and the aim of superior military technology

Question 17

Domino Theory’

Answer 17

The domino theory was a theory prominent in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s that posited that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect.

Question 18

Space Race

Answer 18

The Space Race was an informal 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union and the United States, to achieve firsts in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II.

Question 19

In 1949 the United States and European countries worked together to form an alliance for protection against Communist aggression called N.A.T.O. What does N.A.T.O stand for?

Answer 19

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union.

Question 20

Who was the dictator that controlled the Soviet Union?- Joseph Stalin

Answer 20

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet politician who ruled the Soviet Union from 1927 until 1953. He served as both General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.

Question 21

Which event signaled the end of the Cold War?-Berlin wall coming down

Answer 21

Fall of Berlin Wall End of Cold War
By October 1990, Germany was reunified, triggering the swift collapse of the other East European regimes. People celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. Thirteen months later, on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved.

Question 22

A system where the government owns the factories and other natural resources AND controls the production of goods is known as _____________________. Communimsm

Answer 22

Communism, also known as a command system, is an economic system where the government owns most of the factors of production and decides the allocation of resources and what products and services will be provided. The most important originators of communist doctrine were Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

Question 23

The Allied victory in World War II led to the emergence of TWO global superpowers. What were those TWO superpowers? USA AND Soviet Union

Answer 23

United States & Soviet Union.

Question 24

Type of government where the government owns everything and makes all the decisions.

Answer 24

Communism, also known as a command system, is an economic system where the government owns most of the factors of production and decides the allocation of resources and what products and services will be provided. The most important originators of communist doctrine were Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.