The Cold War was a decades-long rivalry between the Western powers
(led by the United States) and the Soviet Union. It began in 1945 and
ended in 1991. It grew out of the ideological differences between communism (a system of government in which the state controls the economy, and all property and wealth are shared equally by the people) and
capitalist democracy (a government system in which businesses may be
privately owned and compete against one another, and leaders are elected
by the people).
Long before the onset of the Cold War, the United States and Russia
shared a distrust of one another as a result of their competition over the
economic development of Manchuria in the 1890s. That competition
turned into an ideological rivalry after Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution
(1917). Russia was a communist country whereas the United States was
(and is still) a capitalist democracy. The two countries did join forces to
fight World War II (1939–45) against Germany, Italy, and Japan, but
even then, they disagreed over military strategies and postwar plans for Germany. As leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) was determined to use his military forces to control Poland and keep Germany
from regaining its strength after World War II. Germany had invaded
Russia twice, costing the communist nation almost twenty-five million
casualties; Stalin would not forget that. President Harry S. Truman
(1884–1972; served 1945–53), however, was intent on rebuilding
Europe’s economic infrastructure on a capitalist foundation, and his
plans included rebuilding Germany. After the war, the United States and
other Western nations considered the expansion of the Soviet Union a
threat. At the same time, the Soviets worried that the Western powers
would overthrow their communist regime. This is how the Cold War
began.
The Berlin airlift
Europe’s economy was in crisis after World War II. By 1947, the Soviets
had taken over much of Eastern Europe using the strength of the Red
(Soviet) Army. As communism spread throughout Eastern Europe, the
United States began a postwar recovery program known as the Marshall
Plan. The plan helped restore Western Europe’s economy. The Soviet
Union and nations of Eastern Europe opposed the plan, fearing the revival of Germany.
After World War II, the victorious Allies—the United States, Great
Britain, France, and the Soviet Union—had agreed to divide defeated
Germany into four zones, each of which was occupied by one of the
Allies. Germany’s capital, Berlin, was similarly divided into four sectors.
Because of the city’s location in the Soviet-occupied part of Germany
(what later became communist East Germany), the U.S., British, and
French sectors of Berlin were completely surrounded by the Soviet occupation zone. In 1948, the Soviet Union restricted access into West Berlin
in 1948 by setting up blockades into the city. As of June 24, the city was
not accessible by road, train, or canal. It had enough coal to last fortyfive days and enough food to last thirty-six days. President Truman had
to maintain a Western presence in the city if the Marshall Plan was to be
successful. On June 26, he officially approved what became known as the
Berlin airlift. During the airlift, which lasted 321 days, planes delivered
daily supplies of coal, food, and other necessities to the more than two
million people living in Berlin behind the blockade. By May 12, 1949—
the end of the airlift—1,592,787 tons of supplies had been delivered to Berlin. It was a magnificent achievement that cost very few lives. When
the Soviet Union realized that the airlift could continue indefinitely,
Stalin was forced to back down and remove the blockades.
A divided Germany
When the United States refused to give the Soviet Union some western
German factories as war reparations (compensation paid for damages
caused by war), the Soviets reacted by securing their occupation zone,
eastern Germany, as a communist state. On September 21, 1949, the former Allied countries declared their zones in western Germany the Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany), and set about paving the
way for civilian control. A furious Soviet Union soon did the same, announcing on October 7 the formal German Democratic Republic (GDR,
or East Germany). Germany was now divided by what Great Britain’s
leader, Winston Churchill (1874–1965), called the Iron Curtain.
The year 1949 also saw the establishment of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), the purpose of which was to defend
Western Europe against the spread of communism. The United States
joined eleven other countries in the effort. In response, the Communist
bloc formed the Warsaw Treaty Pact in 1955.
The spread of the Cold War
The Cold War spread to Asia in 1950, the year the Soviet Union negotiated an alliance with China. Communist North Korea attacked South
Korea and started the Korean War (1950–53). The United States assisted
South Korea by helping to establish the Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization and providing neutral Asian countries with military support.
Stalin’s death in 1953 eased Cold War tensions. Both the Soviets and
the Americans had developed an atomic bomb in 1949, but the possibility of a ban on nuclear weapons now seemed likely. Relations became
strained again in 1957, however, with the launch of the Soviet satellite
Sputnik. The two countries now competed in missile production and
space exploration. Officials from both countries threatened retaliation
for any aggression on the other’s part. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia, Africa,
the Middle East, and Latin America continued to struggle with the Cold
War. Both the United States and the Soviet Union provided military and
financial support to often corrupt and brutal regimes in these areas in
hopes of securing their allegiance.
In 1961, East Germany built the Berlin Wall along the boundary
separating East Berlin from West Berlin. In addition, the entire length of
the boundary between East and West Germany was closed off by walls,
chain-link fences, barbed wire, or minefields. The purpose of the walls
and fences was to keep East Germans from moving to West Germany.
When the United States discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba in
1962, President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63) sent
U.S. ships to intercept Soviet vessels carrying rockets to Cuba. This event
became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and it led to the eventual
agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States for a ban on
nuclear testing.
Both superpowers began to weaken as alliances deteriorated. The
United States became involved in the Vietnam War (1954–75) and made
great efforts to help the South Vietnamese government fight communist
North Vietnam. Early in the 1970s, U.S. president Richard Nixon (1913–94; served 1969–74) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
(SALT I) with the Soviet Union to reduce the need for spending money
on weapons. The two countries also agreed to strengthen economic
bonds; this period of relief was known as détente. Tensions resumed when
political clashes erupted in the Middle East, Angola, and Chile as the two
superpowers competed for influence in those war-torn areas.
The end is near
President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004; served 1981–89) antagonized
the Soviet Union in the early 1980s by calling the country the “evil empire.” He increased military spending and intensified the nuclear arms
race as well. After Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (1906–82) exercised his
authority against Poland, Reagan imposed economic sanctions against
the Soviet Union. Relations between the two superpowers were the worst
they had been since the late 1940s.
When Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–) took office in Moscow in 1985,
tensions began to ease. He made major economic reforms that encouraged restructuring and openness within the European communist countries. Although his intention was to implement these reforms gradually,
they had a major impact almost immediately. In 1989, the Berlin Wall
came down. The same year, the United States accepted military arms and
economic agreements, and Gorbachev announced that the postwar period was over.
By 1990, many communist governments in Europe had been overthrown. The dissolution of the Soviet Union into fifteen independent
states in December 1991 put an end to the Cold War.