Cold War Vocabulary

an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

• communism

• capitalism

• Space Race

• McCarthyism

a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

• communism

• Iron Curtain

• Truman Doctrine

• United Nations

the political, military, and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union after World War II to seal off itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies from open contact with the West and other non-communist areas

• Cuban Missile Crisis

• NATO

• Iron Curtain

• Berlin Wall

a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany

• Iron Curtain

• Berlin Wall

• Warsaw Pact

• NATO

the principle that the US should give support to countries or peoples threatened by Soviet forces or Communism

• Cuban Missile Crisis

• Marshall Plan

• Truman Doctrine

• Vietnam War

Economic recovery act that proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe

• Marshall Plan

• McCarthyism

• Domino Theory

• Sputnik

Soviet forces blockaded rail, road, and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin

• Berlin Wall

• Iron Curtain

• Berlin Airlift

• NATO

an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two North American

• NATO

• Warsaw Pact

• Truman Doctrine

• McCarthyism

an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes is to maintain international peace

• Space Race

• Cuban Missile Crisis

• United Nations

• Domino theory

defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe

• NATO

• Warsaw Pact

• Vietnam War

• Berlin Wall