Origins of the Cold War
The ideology emphasizing a disciplined revolutionary party, overthrow of capitalism, and a centralized socialist state.
Marxism-Leninism
Soviet attempt to cut off Allied access to West Berlin in order to force the Western powers out of the city; the United States and its allies responded with the Berlin Airlift.
Berlin Blockade
The 1962 confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union after the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, bringing the world dangerously close to nuclear war.
Cuban Missile Crisis
The communist revolutionary leader who founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and ruled the country until his death in 1976.
Mao
The independent Polish labor union movement led by Lech Wałęsa that challenged communist rule in Poland during the 1980s and helped weaken Soviet control in Eastern Europe.
Solidarity
The conflict fought from roughly 1918–1921 between the Bolshevik “Red” forces and various anti-communist “White” forces after the Russian Revolution; the Bolsheviks ultimately won and established the Soviet Union.
Russian Civil War
A massive American economic aid program launched in 1948 to rebuild Western European economies after World War II and reduce the appeal of communism.
Marshall Plan
The failed 1961 attempt by Cuban exiles, backed by the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency, to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Bay of Pigs
A series of negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1970s aimed at limiting nuclear weapons and reducing tensions during the Cold War.
SALT
The largely peaceful 1989 movement in Czechoslovakia that overthrew communist rule and established a democratic government.
Velvet Revolution
System in which the government controls major industries, production, prices, and distribution of goods rather than allowing them to be determined by the free market.
Command Economy
A 1947 U.S. foreign policy pledging American support to countries resisting communism, especially Greece and Turkey, and establishing containment as a central Cold War strategy.
Truman Doctrine
Leader of the Soviet Union from 1953–1964 who promoted de-Stalinization, competed with the United States during major Cold War crises, and advocated “peaceful coexistence” between communist and capitalist nations.
Nikita Khrushchev
Leader of the Soviet Union from 1964–1982 who oversaw the height of Soviet power, pursued détente with the United States, and later adopted a more hardline foreign policy.
Brezhnev
The 1986 nuclear reactor explosion in Soviet Ukraine that exposed major weaknesses in the Soviet system and increased public criticism of the government.
Chernobyl
The revolutionary faction of the Russian socialist movement led by Vladimir Lenin that seized power during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and later became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Bolsheviks
A 1946 speech delivered by Winston Churchill warning that a barrier had descended across Europe, dividing the communist East from the democratic West.
Iron Curtain Speech
A Cold War military doctrine promising that the United States would respond to a Soviet attack with overwhelming nuclear force, even if the initial attack was conventional rather than nuclear.
Massive Retaliation
National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford who played a major role in détente, U.S.-China relations, and Cold War diplomacy during the 1970s.
Henry Kissinger
The authoritarian communist dictator of Romania whose regime collapsed during a violent revolution in 1989; he was later executed.
Ceaușescu
Concept describing a transitional stage after a communist revolution in which the working class holds political power in order to eliminate capitalism and class enemies before achieving a classless society.
Dictatorship of the Proletariat
A 1946 message written by American diplomat George F. Kennan arguing that the Soviet Union was inherently expansionist and that the United States should pursue a policy of containment to stop the spread of communism.
Long Telegram
The foreign policy strategy of Dwight D. Eisenhower that emphasized nuclear weapons and air power over large conventional armies in order to contain communism while reducing military spending.
New Look
The foreign policy strategy used by the United States during the Nixon administration that sought to improve relations with both China and the Soviet Union in order to gain leverage over each rival superpower.
Triangular Diplomacy
The failed 1991 attempt by hardline Soviet officials to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev and stop reforms, which accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union.
August Coup