Transcript 1. - Scholastic

In our March 14 issue,
you’ll read about Russia
and its halting efforts to
achieve democracy.
From 1922 until 1991,
Russia was part of the
Soviet Union, the world’s
first Communist country.
• For decades, the Soviet Union
was locked in a conflict with the
U.S. and its allies, who feared the
spread of Communism around
the world—sometimes to the
point of hysteria, as this poster
shows.
• Because Soviet and American
forces never clashed directly,
the conflict was called the
Cold War.
• During World
War II (19391945), the U.S.,
Great Britain, and
the Soviet Union
fought together
against Nazi
Germany. When
the war ended in
May 1945, the
Soviet army
occupied most of
Eastern Europe.
Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin
unexpectedly
installed
Communist
governments
there.
• The Soviets took control of a
section of the German capital,
Berlin, which was given the name
East Berlin. (U.S., British, and
French forces occupied West
Berlin, which became part of
West Germany.)
• “An iron curtain has
descended across the
continent,” British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill
asserted in 1946 about
Soviet domination of
Eastern Europe.
• For decades, East Germany,
Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Romania, and
Bulgaria were trapped behind
the Soviet barrier of
repression.
• In June 1948, the Soviets
tried to force the U.S. and its
allies out of West Berlin by
blockading (blocking off) all
routes to the city. Residents
were left to starve.
• The allies began a daily airlift
of food and other necessities.
By the time the Soviets lifted
the blockade in May 1949,
more than 2 billion tons of
supplies had been delivered.
• After World War II,
North Korea also
adopted a Communist
government. In June
1950, backed by
Communist China and
the Soviet Union,
North Korea attacked
its southern neighbor.
• United Nations
forces, led by U.S.
troops (pictured
here), defended
South Korea. The
Korean War, in
which about 37,000
Americans died,
lasted three years
and ended in a
stalemate.
• The Cold War was waged in
many ways. For instance, the
U.S. and the Soviet Union, the
world’s two superpowers,
competed fiercely in
developing new technologies,
including nuclear weapons.
• In October 1957, the Soviets
sent the first satellite, called
Sputnik (shown here), into orbit
around Earth. Sputnik shocked
Americans and started the
race to “conquer” space.
• The space race reached its
climax in July 1969, when the
U.S. became the first country
to put astronauts on the moon.
• Cuba declared itself a
Communist country in 1961.
The Soviet Union had already
pledged to defend the tiny
Caribbean island nation.
• In October 1962, U.S. spy
planes discovered nuclearmissile sites being built by the
Soviets in Cuba. President
John F. Kennedy (left)
announced a blockade of
Cuba and demanded that the
Soviets remove the missiles.
• For a tense week, the U.S. and
the Soviet Union were on the
verge of nuclear war. Finally,
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
agreed to withdraw the missiles.
• During the 1950s and
1960s, the Vietnam War
pitted Communist North
Vietnam, aided by the
Soviets and Chinese,
against South Vietnam.
• In 1965, President Lyndon B.
Johnson sent 125,000 U.S.
troops to fight on South
Vietnam’s side. That number
grew steadily, stirring
passionate opposition among
many Americans.
• Intense pressure at home
caused the U.S. to
withdraw from Vietnam in
1974. Some 58,000
Americans died during the
conflict, which ended in
North Vietnam’s victory.
• By the 1980s, decades of
Communist policies had
resulted in a collapsing Soviet
economy and deep unrest
among its people.
• In 1985, the new Soviet leader,
Mikhail Gorbachev (left), sought
to revitalize his country with
free-market reforms. He also
improved relations with the U.S.
• Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost,
or “openness,” encouraged a
limited freedom of expression.
For the first time, the Soviet
people were able to criticize
their government openly.
• In the summer and fall of
1989, a wave of protests swept
across Eastern Europe, forcing
one Communist leader after
another from power.
• That November, people were
finally allowed to travel through
openings in the Berlin Wall,
which had been built in 1961
to prevent East Germans from
escaping to the West. Soon,
Germans tore down the wall,
piece by piece. Their dramatic
act symbolized the end of Soviet
control of Eastern Europe.
• A month later, Gorbachev and
U.S. President George H.W.
Bush met in Malta and declared
an end to the Cold War. In
December 1991, the Soviet
Union itself collapsed.
1. What did Winston Churchill
mean by the phrase “iron curtain”?
2. Why do you think Americans
were shocked by the launch of
Sputnik?
3. While at Malta, Mikhail Gorbachev
said: “The world is leaving one
epoch and entering another.” After
reading our article about Russia,
how do you think the legacy of the
Cold War is still felt there?
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