APUSH Unit 8

• The learning objective for this video is to explain the continuities and changes in cold war policies from 1945 to 1980
• The United States emerged from World War II as the most powerful nation on earth, but the Soviet Union was not happy about this ascendancy
• Cold War


  A conflict between two belligerents in which neither engages in open warfare with the other, but is more of a battle of ideologies
• There had been tensions between the US and the Soviet Union stretching back to the Russian Revolution in 1917
• Ideologies of the US and Soviet Union

  • The US wanted to make the world into a democratic capitalist utopia, while the Soviet Union wanted to remake the world in the image of communist authoritarianism
• The Allies agreed that after WWII, central and eastern European countries would hold free elections, but Stalin kept Soviet troops stationed in those countries, turning them into communist satellite states
• Berlin was divided into four occupation zones, with the eastern section quickly becoming another communist state under Soviet control
• Containment


  The US policy of containing the spread of communism by lending support to any country threatened by Soviet communism
• Truman Doctrine


  1. Advocated containment of communism by lending support to countries threatened by Soviet pressure

  2. Congress agreed to spend $400 million in economic and military aid to Turkey and Greece
• Marshall Plan


  Allocated $13 billion in financial aid for European countries to rebuild, with the goal of making them more likely to choose democracy over communism
• The US organized the Berlin Airlift to prevent the Soviets from taking over West Berlin
• NATO


  • A military alliance of Western nations to resist Soviet aggression
  • The Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact as a counter-alliance of communist nations
• There was a fierce arms race between the US and Soviet Union, with both sides developing increasingly powerful nuclear weapons
• Both sides understood that using these weapons would result in mutual assured destruction, preventing their use
• Korean War


  1. North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, using Soviet munitions and supplies

  2. The UN, led by the US, sent troops to support the South, but were pushed back by Chinese forces

  3. The war ended with Korea still divided at the 38th parallel
• The Korean War illustrates that the Cold War involved proxy wars between the US and Soviet Union, as well as being a direct result of the US policy of containment
• The U.S. tried to ferret out communism at home after World War II
• Red Scare


  Fear of Soviet communism in the U.S. after World War II
• Efforts to root out communism at home

  1. Requiring people to pledge loyalty to the U.S. and swear they were not communists

  2. Federal employee loyalty and security program

  3. Un-American Activities Committee searching for communist influence
• Taft-Hartley Act (1947)


  • Made it more difficult for workers to strike
  • Required union leaders to pledge they were not communist party members
• Federal Employee Loyalty and Security Program

  • Federal employees had to swear they were not communist or fascist
  • Provisions for federal investigations into political affiliations of federal workers
• Un-American Activities Committee


  • Searched for communist influence in American society, especially in Hollywood
• Hollywood 10


  10 prominent Hollywood directors summoned to testify in Congress about communism, jailed and blacklisted
• Joseph McCarthy


  Senator who claimed there were 205 communists in the State Department, later reduced to 57
• McCarthy was unable to prove his claims and was censured by the Senate
• Rosenberg case


  Couple executed for allegedly stealing atomic bomb secrets for the Soviet Union
• Subsequent research concluded at least Julius Rosenberg was a Soviet spy
• Effects of the Red Scare were pervasive - suppressed labor unions, blacklisted Hollywood directors, increased Cold War tensions
• Productivity


  Increased productivity was a holdover from the massive spike in productivity during the war
• Federal spending


  Massive federal spending on infrastructure, most notably the interstate highway system
• Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (GI Bill)


  Gave World War II veterans the opportunity to go to college on government funding and take out low-interest loans to buy houses and start businesses
• Between 1945 and 1960, over 50 million people were added to the U.S. population in a phenomenon known as the baby boom
• Baby boom


  Led to an increased demand for housing construction, mostly in the form of suburbs
• Suburbanization


  • Widespread possibility created by the advent of the automobile a couple of decades into the 20th century
  • As cities constructed more roadways, the middle class decided to live outside the city and commute in for work
  • Mainly a white middle class phenomenon
• Levittown


  • A suburban community conceived and built by William J. Levin, with mass-produced low-cost homes organized in sprawling identical lots
• Interstate Highway Act of 1956


  Created fast-moving highways that gave people the occasion to travel quickly from suburbs to urban areas
• Migration to the Sun Belt states

  • Partly due to northern people being tired of cold winters in the north
  • More significantly, the newly minted highway system made interstate migration far easier
  • Many were GIs and their families seeking opportunities in the defense industry
• Migration to the Sun Belt states


  Shifted tax dollars devoted to defense spending to the Sun Belt states, creating a shift of political power from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West
• Mass culture refers to a kind of widespread homogeneous set of ideas and patterns of behavior to which many Americans subscribe
• Reasons for the spread of mass culture

  • Fear of communism and McCarthyism
  • Widespread use of television
  • Rise of advertising industry and credit cards
  • Popularity of rock and roll music