Ap World 8.1-8.3

• At the February 1945 Yalta Conference, Stalin was allowed to keep the eastern part of Poland in exchange for respecting the independence of Eastern European countries
• Stalin reneged on his promise and the Soviet Red Army created the Communist Bloc in Eastern European countries
• The U.S. and U.S.S.R. competed in an arms and space race and supported their respective allies in civil/proxy wars in other countries
• After WWII, Germany was divided into Soviet-occupied East and American, British, and French-occupied West
• During the 1948 Berlin Blockade, the Soviets cut off supplies to West Berlin, leading to the subsequent Berlin Airlift by the Americans to keep the city free
• The "Iron Curtain" symbolized the ideological division between communist East and democratic capitalist West Europeans
• The Berlin Wall physically divided East and West Berliners from 1961 until 1989
• The Marshall Plan aimed to rehabilitate Western Europe, while the Truman Doctrine aimed to prevent Greece and Turkey from falling to communism
• U.S. Presidents sought the "containment" of communism and intervened in civil wars to thwart the "domino effect"
• The two Cold War alliances were NATO for democratic nations and the Warsaw Pact for communist nations
• Communism is both a political and economic system that differs from democracy and capitalism
• There are still a few communist governments in existence today, including China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Cuba
• The U.S.S.R. existed as a communist country until 1991, when it broke up into 15 developing democratic and capitalist countries
• Stalin's death in 1953 led to Nikita Khrushchev denouncing Stalin's actions, which gave hope to Poland and Hungary for freedom
• Poland and Hungary's revolutions in 1956 were violently suppressed
• The U.S. engaged in coups during the Cold War to overthrow left-leaning or anti-western leaders in various countries
• In the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Fidel Castro replaced Fulgencio Batista, leading to a communist neighbor for the U.S.
• During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the world was on the verge of WWIII, but a peaceful conclusion was negotiated by Kennedy and Khrushchev