The Cold War? HElp!!!!

Question

i have to write a short newspaper article about the cold war and i was wondering if anyone has any good facts or quotes or anything really about the war

Answer 1

Quotes?  Here's one you can dazzle your teacher with.  It's from Nikita Khruschev, leader of the Soviet Union in the 1950's.  He is reported to have said at the United Nations "We will bury you!" as he slammed his shoe on the podium.  But a more literal translation is "We will be present at your funeral!"  Saying "we will bury you" implied some kind of Soviet action, but in actuality Khruschev believed the United States would be conquered from within:

"I am convinced that tommorrow the Red flag will fly over the United States.  But we will not fly the flag.  It will be the American people themselves."  

That being said, here's the scoop on the Cold War.  Russia had a revolution in 1917.  This overthrew a guy named Kerensky, who had taken over when Tsar Nicholas II was thrown out of power some months earlier.  A guy named Lenin came to power with the communists.  The communists claimed to be acting out of the interests of the working poor who were suffering, but they soon started to act with total power and became worse than the leaders who were before.  Lenin declared the new country the Soviet Union.  

Later in the 1940's Adolf Hitler and the Germans invaded the Soviet Union.  That was a part of World War II.  They failed and the Soviets pushed them back all the way to Germany.  In doing this the Soviets took over all the countries that were between the Soviet Union and Germany--Poland, Hungay, Czechoslovakia, etc.  These were your "satellite countries"--countries that were "in orbit" around the Soviet Union, following the Soviets economically, politically, and militarily.  Germany itself was divided between East Germany, which was with the Soviets, and West Germany, which was with us.  Even the German capital, Berlin, was similarly divided.  

We developed nuclear weapons.  The Soviets developed nuclear weapons.  The Cold War included such conflicts outside of Europe like the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as conflict in Central American countries like Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s.  There was also some conflict that was Cold War related in Africa and the Middle East and Afghanistan.  

Answer 2

It wasn't a "real war" since the United States and Russia didn't actually fight.

Answer 3

It started after WW2, when the Russians and the Allies divided up Europe. The Russians began to force communism on their satellite countries taking their resources and building the soviet union. The allies reacted by building up armies and expanding nuclear programs. The build up continued to a near breaking point with the Cuban missle crises. We nearly went to full nuclear war with the soviets in 62 or 63 because they were trying to build a secret nuclear launching facility in Cuba. JFK and the western allies put a stop to it and Kruschev withdrew and Castro ranted and raved. Then detente arrived and we kept the balance of power pretty much equal, we tested our weapons thru our allies like Israel while the soviets tested their stuff with their allies the arabs. When the soviets decided to invade Afghanistan,they pretty much lost arab support, they spent so much on their war that their communist economy never recovered. Along cam the polish soliderity movement, wolenska Reagan and JP2 and their empire fell apart, we won the cold war by out spending the enemy. This is pretty bare bones,there is lots of info out there tho.