Cold War History

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What Was The Cold War? After World War II America and Russia became superpowers. Even thought they fought together against the Nazis they soon became hostile rivals. Between 1945 and 1989 the two countries and their allies were involved in a conflict known as the Cold War. The United States and the USSR never used weapons directly against each other. So how was the Cold War fought? The Cold War was fought through Proxy Wars, the Nuclear Arms Race, spying, strong words and threats, prestige, and the Space Race. Both sides deeply mistrusted each other because they believed in two completely different types of government. The Eastern countries were run by a communist government, whereas the Western countries had democratic capitalist governments. The Western countries hated communism and believed that the USSR wanted to spread it throughout the world. They therefore did everything they could do to stop it from spreading. The mistrust made the East and West extremely suspicious of each other. Even though no shots were actually fired people were still scared that a nuclear war could start at any moment. How Did The Cold War Start? In 1917 the Bolshevik Party took control of Russia and turned it into a communist country. In 1923 Russia joined with three neighboring areas under Bolshevik control and formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). In 1941 during World War II, Germany invaded the USSR. The United States, Britain and the USSR formed the Grand Alliance. Even though they were fighting together there was still a lot of mistrust between them. By the beginning of 1945 Germany was on the verge of defeat. In February Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, the British prime minister met at Yalta on the Black Sea to discuss what wo... ... middle of paper ... ...ed in the USSR. The republics that were part of the USSR demanded their independence. On August 19, 1991 a group of hard core communists tried to overthrow Gorbachev. At the time he and his wife were on vacation in the Crimea and the KGB put them under house arrest. Meanwhile in Moscow the leaders of the rebellion sent in tanks onto the streets. The president of Russia, Yeltsin demanded that Gorbachev be released. On August 21, only two days later the communists in the rebellion gave themselves up and were imprisoned. Yeltsin wanted to end communism, so he forced Gorbachev to end the communist party. By December 1991 the USSR had broken up. On December 25 Gorbachev resigned and Yeltsin was now in control of the nuclear weapons. Despite the ending of the Cold War there are still many nuclear weapons in the world. There is still the slight possibility of a nuclear war.

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