Cold War Vocabulary

An imaginary barrier separating the Soviet Union and its communist satellite states from Western Europe during the Cold War.

• Berlin Wall

• Arms Race

• Iron Railroad

• Iron Curtain

A competition between nations for power through the creation and buildup of weapons, especially nuclear weapons, between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

• Arms Curtain

• Space Race

• Arms Race

• Cold War

The open yet limited competition that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies.

• Cold War

• Arms Race

• Containment

• Diplomatic Tension

American, French, and British zones of Germany created after it was divided by the allied powers after World War II

• East Germany

• West Germany

• West of the Iron Curtain

• Diplomatic Division

A system in which a country's economy is controlled by private ownership of trade and production for profit, in a free market, rather than by the government.

• Communism

• Independent Market

• Capitalism

• Private Sector

The group of socialist states under the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics including Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

• Europe

• USSR/Soviets

• Marxist

• Capitalists

An economic system in which prices are determined by open competition between privately owned businesses.

• Communism

• Arms Race

• Socialism

• Free Market

“Rule by the people”; a system of government in which the citizens have a say in how the government runs by voting and electing government officials.

• Democracy

• Free Market

• Communism

• Cold War

A guarded concrete wall, 28 miles long, erected across the city of Berlin by East Germany in 1961 and torn down in 1989.

• Iron Curtain

• Berlin Wall

• West Berlin

• The Maginot Line

The Soviet zone of Germany created after it was divided by the allied powers following World War II.

• West Germany

• Berlin Wall

• Iron Curtain

• East Germany