AP®︎ World History: Unit 8 Flashcards

Global ideological and geopolitical struggle between the U.S.-led capitalist bloc and Soviet-led communist bloc from 1945 to 1991, without sustained direct war between the superpowers

Process by which colonies and subordinated territories ended formal imperial rule and gained autonomy or political independence

A global system in which power is concentrated chiefly in two rival centers, represented after World War II by the United States and Soviet Union

Winston Churchill's term for the political, ideological, and military division between Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe and the U.S.-aligned West

Cold War ideological conflict between U.S.-aligned capitalism based on private ownership and markets and Soviet communism based on state ownership, central planning, and one-party rule

U.S. policy of preventing communism from expanding beyond areas where it was already established rather than directly overthrowing existing communist governments

Harry Truman's 1947 commitment to aid governments threatened by armed minorities or outside pressure, first applied to Greece and Turkey

U.S. aid program begun in 1948 to rebuild Western Europe, restore trade, reduce communism's appeal, and strengthen ties to the United States

The Soviet Union blocked land access to West Berlin in 1948–1949, and the United States and its allies supplied the city by air until the blockade ended

Barrier erected by East Germany in 1961 to stop emigration through West Berlin, becoming the chief physical symbol of Europe’s Cold War division

U.S.-led military alliance formed in 1949 whose collective-defense principle treated an attack on one member as an attack on all

Soviet-led military alliance formed in 1955 that coordinated the Eastern bloc’s forces and helped preserve Soviet control in Eastern Europe

Soviet-led organization that linked the economies of Eastern bloc states to the Soviet Union

U.S.-Soviet competition to build increasingly large and destructive nuclear arsenals, producing enormous costs, recurring crises, and fear of annihilation

Condition in which each side retained enough second-strike capacity to destroy the other after absorbing a nuclear first strike

Cold War competition in space technology and exploration highlighted by Soviet early achievements and the United States’ 1969 Moon landing

A conflict in which superpowers support opposing governments or armed groups instead of fighting each other directly

1950–1953 proxy war in which a U.S.-led UN force defended South Korea while the Soviet Union and China supported North Korea; the armistice left Korea divided near the 38th parallel

Cold War conflict in which communist North Vietnam and the Viet Cong defeated U.S.-backed South Vietnam, leading to communist reunification in 1975

Fidel Castro’s 1959 overthrow of Batista that led to land redistribution, nationalization, Marxism-Leninism, and a one-party state allied with the Soviet Union

Failed 1961 invasion of Cuba by CIA-backed Cuban exiles intended to overthrow Fidel Castro, strengthening Cuba’s alliance with the Soviet Union

1962 confrontation over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba that ended with their withdrawal, a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba, and secret removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey

Post-independence proxy war in which the Soviet Union and Cuba supported the Marxist MPLA while the United States and apartheid South Africa supported UNITA; foreign intervention helped prolong the conflict until 2002

The socialist Sandinistas governed Nicaragua after overthrowing Somoza in 1979, while U.S.-funded, armed, and trained Contras fought to overthrow their government

Period of reduced Cold War tensions during the 1970s marked by diplomacy, arms-control agreements, and greater U.S.-Soviet cooperation

Movement of states that defended sovereignty, anticolonialism, and independent action rather than formal alignment with either Cold War superpower bloc

A 1955 meeting of 29 Asian and African countries that promoted anticolonialism, racial equality, development, peaceful coexistence, and Afro-Asian cooperation

Cold War classification distinguishing the U.S.-led capitalist First World, Soviet-led communist Second World, and developing or nonaligned Third World

Conflict between the CCP and Nationalists that resumed after Japan’s 1945 defeat and ended with communist victory on the mainland in 1949

CCP victory in 1949 caused by rural inequality, communist organization, Japanese invasion, and Nationalist corruption, inflation, and military failure

Leader of the CCP who built a peasant-centered revolution, founded the People’s Republic of China, and launched the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution

Nationalist leader whose government lost support through corruption, inflation, military failures, and abuses before retreating to Taiwan in 1949

Mao’s 1958–1962 campaign of communes, mass mobilization, and rapid industrialization that produced economic disorder and a famine killing tens of millions

Large collective unit that organizes land, labor, and sometimes food, childcare, and other daily activities communally

Mao’s 1966–1976 campaign against alleged capitalist and traditional influences that caused purges, violence, educational disruption, and renewed authoritarian control

Young Maoist activists who attacked alleged capitalist roaders, intellectuals, officials, and the Four Olds during the Cultural Revolution

Ideological and geopolitical rupture between China and the Soviet Union beginning in the late 1950s that divided the communist world

Changing agricultural landownership by limiting estates, transferring land to cultivators, or protecting tenants

Democratic reforms in southern India that limited large estates, strengthened tenants, and transferred security or ownership to cultivators

The shah’s noncommunist modernization program begun in 1963 that redistributed some land and promoted literacy, health, infrastructure, and women’s suffrage

Leading Indian nationalist organization that developed into a mass movement seeking self-government and negotiated independence from Britain

Indian National Congress leader who used satyagraha, boycotts, marches, noncooperation, and civil disobedience against British rule

Gandhi’s disciplined method of nonviolent moral resistance, often translated as “truth force.”

Party led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah that sought protections for Indian Muslims and ultimately demanded a separate Pakistan

Leader of the Muslim League who argued that South Asian Muslims required a separate Muslim-majority state

Congress campaign begun in 1942 demanding immediate British withdrawal; Britain responded by imprisoning its leaders

Ghanaian nationalist who founded the Convention People’s Party, led “Positive Action,” and became independent Ghana’s first prime minister

British Gold Coast gained negotiated independence as Ghana on March 6, 1957, after elections, protest, and constitutional reform

Vietnamese communist and nationalist who founded the Viet Minh and declared an independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945

Nationalist and communist organization founded by Ho Chi Minh that fought Japan and then defeated French colonial forces

Violent 1954–1962 conflict in which the FLN’s insurgency and French repression ended with Algeria’s independence

Algerian nationalist organization that began a rebellion in 1954 and used guerrilla warfare, bombings, and political organizing against France

Anticolonial insurgency by primarily Kikuyu fighters against British rule and settler landholding in Kenya from 1952 to 1960

Armed struggle beginning in 1961 in which the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA fought Portuguese rule, helping produce Angola’s independence in 1975

Egyptian nationalist leader who helped overthrow King Farouk, secured British withdrawal from the Suez Canal zone, and nationalized the Suez Canal Company

1956 conflict triggered by Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal; international pressure forced Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw

Idea that African peoples and states shared interests created by colonialism and should cooperate politically

Southeastern Nigeria’s unsuccessful 1967 attempt to form an independent Biafra, defeated by federal forces in 1970 after a devastating war

French-speaking Quebec movement seeking greater provincial autonomy or full sovereignty from Canada through constitutional and electoral politics

The 1947 division of British India into India and Pakistan, accompanied by communal violence and the migration of roughly 10–15 million people

Muslim-majority state created by the 1947 partition of British India, originally divided into western and eastern sections until East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971

Majority-Muslim princely state whose contested accession to India caused the 1947–1948 Indo-Pakistani War and an enduring territorial dispute

Nationalist movement advocating a Jewish national home or state in Palestine

The 1947 proposal for separate Jewish and Arab states with internationally administered Jerusalem; Jewish leaders accepted it, while Arab leaders rejected it

Israel declared independence in 1948 as Britain ended its Palestine mandate, followed by war, territorial change, and mass Palestinian displacement

The Palestinian 'catastrophe' of 1948, when approximately 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled and most were not allowed to return

War following Israel's declaration of independence in which Israel survived and gained territory beyond that allotted by the UN plan; the proposed Palestinian Arab state was not established

Claim that formal empire was replaced by indirect foreign control through trade, corporations, finance, debt, aid, or political pressure

Policy of strengthening national sovereignty through state control, protection, or ownership of industries, resources, trade, and finance

Nasser’s 1956 transfer of the foreign-controlled Suez Canal Company to Egyptian ownership, provoking the Suez Crisis

Indian prime minister who strengthened the mixed economy by nationalizing major banks and expanding public control over key industries

Tanzanian president who promoted ujamaa, nationalization, rural development, villagization, and national unity

Nyerere's African socialist program emphasizing familyhood, communal cooperation, self-reliance, nationalization, and collective rural villages

Postcolonial movement to former colonizing countries that maintained ties through remittances, family networks, trade, language, and culture

Organized political action that avoids physical violence while using boycotts, strikes, marches, noncooperation, or similar pressure against authority

Open, intentional violation of an unjust law or command, usually with willingness to accept punishment to expose the system’s coercion

U.S. civil rights leader who combined Gandhian nonviolence, Christian ethics, and constitutional claims to oppose racial segregation

ANC leader who moved from nonviolent protest to support for sabotage, endured imprisonment, and later negotiated apartheid’s end and promoted reconciliation

South African organization that led mass resistance to apartheid and later negotiated the transition to multiracial democracy

South Africa’s system of legally enforced racial classification, segregation, and white minority rule

Czechoslovakia’s 1968 reform movement seeking “socialism with a human face,” ended by a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion

1989 Chinese student-led demonstrations demanding political reform and an end to corruption that the government crushed with military force

Chilean general who overthrew Salvador Allende in 1973 and ruled through anticommunist military dictatorship, censorship, torture, killings, and disappearances until 1990

Ugandan military dictator who ruled from 1971 to 1979 through ethnic favoritism, torture, killings, disappearances, and the expulsion of most noncitizen Asians

Irish republican paramilitary organization that used guerrilla warfare and terrorism to end British rule in Northern Ireland and unite Ireland

Abimael Guzmán’s Maoist Peruvian insurgency, begun in 1980, that sought rural revolution through assassinations, bombings, coercion, and massacres of civilians

Transnational Sunni Islamist extremist network that used spectacular attacks on civilians to oppose the United States and its allies and provoke wider conflict

The USSR’s unsuccessful 1979–1989 intervention in Afghanistan, which drained resources, caused casualties, and damaged Soviet legitimacy

Poland’s independent trade union and opposition movement, founded in 1980, whose 1989 electoral victory produced an Eastern Bloc noncommunist government

Soviet leader from 1985 whose reforms and refusal to preserve communist rule by force unintentionally accelerated the Soviet collapse

Gorbachev’s policy of “openness” that reduced censorship and enabled criticism, political organizing, and nationalist demands

Gorbachev’s economic and administrative “restructuring,” which loosened central planning but failed to end shortages or stagnation

U.S. president who increased defense spending, pursued technological superiority, and announced the Strategic Defense Initiative

The fall of communist governments across Eastern Europe in 1989 after the Soviet Union declined to intervene militarily

The November 9, 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall, symbolizing the collapse of Europe’s Cold War division

The December 1991 breakup of the USSR into independent states after Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus declared it had ceased to exist