Cold War Vocabulary

Question 1

laissez faire

Answer 1

a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.

Question 2

communist

Answer 2

a person who supports or believes in the principles of communism.

Question 3

democracy

Answer 3

a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

Question 4

truman doctrine

Answer 4

the truman doctrine was an american foreign policy with the primary goal of containing soviet geopolitical expansion during the cold war.

Question 5

reparations

Answer 5

stalin wanted huge reparations from Germany, and a‘buffer’ of friendly states to protect the USSR from being invaded again.

Question 6

marshall plan

Answer 6

the united states also adopted the marshall plan in 1947. this plan gave food and other aid to european countries to help them recover from the war.

Question 7

berlin wall

Answer 7

the berlin wall was built by the communist government of east berlin in 1961. the wall separated east berlin and west berlin. when it was knocked down this symbolized the end of the cold war.

Question 8

containment

Answer 8

truman began a policy of containment blocking the Soviets from spreading communism.

Question 9

warsaw pact

Answer 9

The Warsaw Pact was a collective defence treaty established by the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe

Question 10

NATO

Answer 10

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 European and North American countries.

Question 11

Brinkmanship

Answer 11

the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, especially in politics.

Question 12

Sputnik

Answer 12

Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Sovie tUnion launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957.

Question 13

Arms Race

Answer 13

a competition between nations for superiority in the development and accumulation of weapons, especially between the US and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War

Question 14

Domino Theory’

Answer 14

the theory that a political event in one country will cause similar events in neighboring countries, like a falling domino causing an entire row of upended dominoes to fall.

Question 15

Iron Curtain

Answer 15

a notional barrier separating the former Soviet bloc and the West prior to the decline of communism that followed the political events in eastern Europe in 1989.

Question 16

Totalitarianism

Answer 16

a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.

Question 17

Capitalism

Answer 17

an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

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.

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

Question 20

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

Answer 20

stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union throughout World War II and until his death in March 1953.

Question 21

Which event signaled the end of the Cold War?

Answer 21

during 1989 and 1990, the Berlin Wall came down, borders opened, and free elections ousted Communist regimes everywhere in eastern Europe

Question 22

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

Answer 22

communism is a political and economic system that seeks to create a classless society in which the major means of production, such as mines and factories, are owned and controlled by the public.

Question 23

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

Answer 23

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.