a period of hostility between Western powers and Communist powers
Answers
Answer:
Cold War: The period of hostility short of open war between the Soviet Bloc and the Western powers, especially the United States, 1945–91.
Explanation:
The Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union originated from postwar disagreements, conflicting ideologies, and fears of expansionism.
At both the Yalta Conference and Potsdam Conference, U.S. and Soviet leaders sharply disagreed over the future of the post-war world.
After the war, the U.S.’ s primary goal was prosperity through open markets and a strengthened Europe. The Soviet Union sought prosperity through security; a rebuilt Europe would be a threat. Similarly, the U.S. advocated capitalism while the Soviets advocated communism.
Both the U.S.’ s ” Long Telegram ” and the Soviets’ “Novikov Telegram” displayed a sense of mutual distrust.
Churchill’s “iron curtain” speech and the creation of Cominform further divided the world into two blocs.
Key Terms
“iron curtain”: This term named the imaginary boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991.
Eastern Bloc: The group of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, generally including the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact.
Cold War: The period of hostility short of open war between the Soviet Bloc and the Western powers, especially the United States, 1945–91.
satellite states: A political term for a country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country. The term is used mainly to refer to Central and Eastern European countries during the Cold War that were under the hegemony of the Soviet Union.
Cominform: Founded in 1947, this was was the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties. It was the first official forum of the international communist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern, and confirmed new realities after World War II, including the creation of an Eastern bloc.
The Cold War most directly originates from the relations between the Soviet Union and the allies (the United States, Great Britain, and France) in the years 1945–1947. After this period, the Cold War persisted for more than half a century.
Events preceding the Second World War and the Russian Revolution of 1917 fostered pre- World War II tensions between the Soviet Union, western European countries, and the United States. A series of events during and after World War II exacerbated these tensions, including the Soviet- German pact during the first two years of the war leading to subsequent invasions, the perceived delay of an amphibious invasion of German-occupied Europe, the western allies’ support of the Atlantic Charter, disagreement in wartime conferences over the fate of Eastern Europe, the Soviets’ creation of an Eastern Bloc of Soviet satellite states, western allies scrapping the Morgenthau Plan to support the rebuilding of German industry, and the Marshall Plan.
Pre-World War II Tensions
As a result of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and its subsequent withdrawal from World War I, Soviet Russia found itself isolated in international diplomacy. Leader Vladimir Lenin stated that the Soviet Union was surrounded by a “hostile capitalist encirclement,” and he viewed diplomacy as a weapon to keep Soviet enemies divided, beginning with the establishment of the Soviet Comintern calling for revolutionary upheavals abroad. Tensions between Russia (including its allies) and the West turned intensely ideological.
After winning the civil war, the Bolsheviks proclaimed a worldwide challenge to capitalism. Subsequent Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who viewed the Soviet Union as a “socialist island,” stated that the Soviet Union must see that “the present capitalist encirclement is replaced by a socialist encirclement.” As early as 1925, Stalin stated that he viewed international politics as a bipolar world in which the Soviet Union would attract countries gravitating to socialism and capitalist countries would attract states gravitating toward capitalism, while the world was in a period of “temporary stabilization of capitalism” preceding its eventual collapse.
Differences in the political and economic systems of Western democracies and the Soviet Union—socialism versus capitalism, economic independence versus free trade, state planning versus private enterprise—became simplified and refined in national ideologies to represent two ways of life. The atheistic nature of Soviet communism concerned many Americans. The American ideals of free determination and President Woodrow Wilson ‘s Fourteen Points conflicted with many of the USSR’s policies.
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