The Cold War: The 45-Year Struggle Against Communism

By 50minutes

Keen to learn but short on time? Get to grips with the history of the Cold War in next to no time with this concise guide.

50Minutes.com provides a clear and engaging analysis of the Cold War. Following the violence and upheaval of the Second World War, the face of Europe had greatly changed, and an Iron Curtain divided the communist East and the democratic West. Tensions soon mounted between the Soviet Union and anti-communist America, in a conflict that would continue for almost half a century and at times lead the world to the brink of full-blown nuclear warfare.

In just 50 minutes you will:
   • Understand the historical, social and political context of the world after the Second World War and how this led to the start of the Cold War
   • Identify key events and figures in the conflict and how they contributed to the war’s development
   • Analyse key moments such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis

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• Language: English
• Publisher: 50Minutes.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9782806276032

Book preview

The Cold War

Key information

When: 1947-1991

Where: In America, Europe, Asia and Africa

Context: Ideological conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States following World War II (1939-1945)

Main actors:

Joseph Stalin, Soviet statesman (1878/1879-1953)

Andrei Zhadanov, Soviet politician (1896-1948)

Harry S. Truman, American statesman (1884-1972)

George F. Kennan, American diplomat (1904-2005)

Repercussions:

The end of the bipolar conflict

Globalization

North-South inequalities

Ethnic wars

Radical Islamism

International terrorism

Introduction

World War II ended with the surrender of the Japanese on 14 August 1945, in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged stronger from the conflict, whereas Europe had been bled dry. The two great powers then tried to agree on how to organize world peace, but tensions arose very quickly between these two political and economic regimes that were opposed on every level.

From 1947 to 1953, a first phase of confrontation between the two superpowers divided Europe and Asia into two political and military blocs. The control of nuclear weapons, however, discouraged them from allowing it to become a widespread global conflict. Therefore, it was on the borders of the East-West territory that the armed conflicts broke out, causing millions of deaths. The Russians and Americans rivaled one another in terms of their destructive potential and they engaged in an impressive arms race, creating the conditions for the existence of a stable bipolar world. However, when the Cuban missile crisis arose in 1962, a nuclear war between the two superpowers was narrowly avoided. It soon became apparent that a more strict control of military arsenals was necessary, and perhaps even urgent.

In the mid-sixties, the hegemony of the two superpowers faced some obstacles. Decolonization, the rise of new players, economic hardship and the harsh criticism from global public opinion indeed affected the very foundations of the US-Soviet condominium (the right of sovereignty exercised by a number of states over a territory), imposing a phase of Détente between the two blocs.

In the late seventies, new tensions revived fears of a world war. After the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops in December 1979, the federation plunged into a serious social, economic and political crisis. When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, it was believed that the end of the war with America was near. However, recent attempts to reform the Soviet Union apparatus led to divisions within the Communist Party, while Socialist economies worldwide began to crumble. The Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991, ending the Cold War, which had several heavy consequences and laid the foundations for the future of the globe.

Context

The union of powers

In June 1941, when the world was at full war, a great alliance developed between countries that had completely opposite ideologies. In order to pool the resources necessary to crush Nazi Germany, the Great Britain of Winston Churchill (1874-1965) and the United States of Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) decided to wage war alongside the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Together they prompted the surrender of Nazi Germany on 8 May 1945. The three major powers therefore had to negotiate the division of power over the world, the price to be paid by Germany for the damage caused during the war and, in particular, the restoration of peaceful world order.

The emergence of a new power