USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course World History #39

In which John Green teaches you about the Cold War, which was occasionally hot, but on average, it was cool. In the sense of its temperature. It was by no means cool, man. After World War II, there were basically two big geopolitical powers left to divide up the world. And divide they did. The United States and the Soviet Union divvied up Europe in the aftermath of the war, and then proceeded to spend the next 45 years fighting over the rest of the world. It was the great ideological struggle, with the US on the side of capitalism and profit, and the USSR pushing Communism, so-called. While both sides presented themselves as the good guy in this situation, the reality is that there are no good guys. Both parties to the Cold War engaged in forcible regime changes, built up vast nuclear arsenals, and basically got up to dirty tricks. If you had to pick a bad guy though, I would point out that the USSR had no intention of brining Laika the Cosmonaut Dog home alive. That poor dog never had a shot.

Sorry to disappoint, but the economist t-shirts are not a real product.

Thanks to Raoul Meyer for the YUGOGAL photo.

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Hi, I’m John Green,

this is Crash Course World History

and today we’re gonna talk
about the Cold War,

which actually lasted into my lifetime,

which means that I can bore you
with stories from my past

like your grandpa does.

When I was a kid,

they made us practice hiding under our
desks in the event of a nuclear attack,

because, you know,

school desks are super good at repelling
radiation. [formica is magical stuff]

Mr. Green, Mr. Green!

Right, remember in elementary school

there was this special guest who’d defected
from the Soviet Union, and he had--

--Like this crazy Russian accent
and he kept going on and on about how--

Reagan should spit in Gorbachev’s face
instead of signing treaties with him.

And I was like, whoa dude calm down.
You’re in a room full of third graders.

And then for like months afterward
on the playground,

we’d play Reagan:Gorbachev
and spit in each other’s faces.

Those were the days.

Sometimes I forget that you’re me,
Me from the Past. [ahhh… so sweet!]

Yeah, it’s just really nice to
talk to you and feel like you’re lis—

You’re boring. Cue the intro.
[ah ha! there it is.]

[BEST]

[intro music]

[intro music]

[intro music]

[intro music]

[intro music]

[EVER!]

So the Cold War was a rivalry between the
USSR and the USA that played out globally.

We’ve tried to shy away from calling

conflicts ideological or
civilizational here on Crash Course,

but in this case,

the “clash of civilizations”
model really does apply.

Socialism,

at least as Marx constructed it,
wanted to take over the world,

and many Soviets saw themselves in a
conflict with bourgeois capitalism itself.

And the Soviets saw American

rebuilding efforts in Europe and Japan
as the U.S. trying to expand its markets,

which, by the way,

is exactly what we were doing.

So the U.S. feared that the USSR
wanted to destroy democratic

and capitalist institutions.

And the Soviets feared that the US
wanted to use its money and power

to dominate Europe and eventually
destroy the Soviet system.

And both parties were right to be worried.

It’s not paranoia if they really are out
to

get you. [tinfoil hats, always in season]

Now of course we’ve seen a lot of

geopolitical struggles between major
world powers here on Crash Course,

but this time there was
the special added bonus

that war could lead to the
destruction of the human species.

That was new for world history,

and it’s worth remembering: It’s still
new.

Here’s the period of time
we’ve discussed on Crash Course.

And this is how long we’ve had

the technological capability
to exterminate ourselves.

So that’s worrisome.

Immediately after World War II,

the Soviets created a sphere
of influence in eastern Europe,

dominating the countries where
the Red Army had pushed back the Nazis,

which is why Winston Churchill
famously said in 1946

that an “Iron Curtain” had
descended across Europe.

While the dates of the Cold War are
usually given between 1945 and 1990,

a number of historians will tell you that
it actually started during World War II.

Stalin’s distrust of the U.S.
and Britain kept growing

as they refused to invade Europe and
open up a second front against the Nazis.

And some even say that the decision to
drop the first Atomic Bombs on Japan

was motivated in part by a desire
to intimidate the Soviets.

That sort of worked, but only insofar

as it motivated the Soviets to
develop atomic bombs of their own—

they successfully tested
their first one in 1949.

From the beginning,

the U.S had the advantage because

it had more money and power and
could provide Europe protection

what with its army and
one of a kind nuclear arsenal

while Europe rebuilt.

The USSR had to rebuild itself,

and also they had the significant
disadvantage of being controlled

by noted asshat Joseph Stalin.

I will remind you, it’s not cursing

if he’s wearing an ass for a hat.
[way to hang your asshat on a technicality]

Oh, I guess it’s time for the open letter.

[professionally propels toward prop like
a perfectly poised & practiced projectile]

An Open Letter to Joseph Stalin.

But first,

let’s see what’s in
the secret compartment today.

Oh, it’s silly putty.

Silly putty:
the thing that won the Cold War.

[gotta be a Reagan joke in there somewhere]

This is exactly the kind
of useless consumer good

that would never have been
produced in the Soviet Union.

And it is because we had
so much more consumer spending,

on stuff like silly putty,
that we won the Cold War.

Go team!

Dear Joseph Stalin,

You really sucked.

There was a great moment in your life,
at your first wife’s funeral,

when you said,
“I don’t think I shall ever love again.”

And then later,

you had that wife’s whole family killed.
[solid case for NOT putting a ring on it]

Putting aside the fact that you’re
responsible for tens of millions of deaths,

I don’t like you because of the
way that you treated your son, Yakov.

I mean, you were really mean to him

and then he shot himself and he didn’t die

and you said,
“He can’t even shoot straight.”

And then later,
when he was captured during World War II,

you had a chance to exchange
prisoners for him, but you declined.

And then he died in a prison camp.

You were a terrible leader, a terrible
person, and a terrible father.

Best wishes,
John Green

Alright, let’s go to the Thought Bubble.

Europe was the first battleground
of the Cold War, especially Germany,

which was divided into 2 parts

with the former capital, Berlin,
also divided into 2 parts.

and yes, I know the western part was
divided into smaller occupation zones,

but I’m simplifying.

In 1948,
the Soviets tried to cut off West Berlin,

by closing the main road that led into the
city, but the Berlin airlift stopped them.

And then in 1961, the Soviets
tried again and this time they were

much more successful building
a wall around West Berlin,

although it’s worth noting that
the thing was up for less than 30 years.

I mean,

Meatloaf’s career has lasted longer than
the Berlin Wall did.[Oh y-- NOOO!!]

The U.S. response to the Soviets
was a policy called containment;

it basically involved
stopping the spread of communism

by standing up to the Soviets
wherever they seemed to want to expand.

In Europe
this meant spending a lot of money.

First the Marshall Plan spent
$13 billion on re-building western Europe

with grants and credits that Europeans
would spend on American consumer goods

and on construction.

Capitalism’s cheap food and
plentiful stuff, it was hoped,

would stop the spread of communism.

The US also tried to slow the
spread of communism by founding NATO

and with CIA interventions in elections
[looked better on paper]

where communists had a chance, as in Italy.

But despite all the great spy novels
and shaken not stirred martinis,

the Cold War never did heat up in Europe.

Probably the most important
part of the Cold War

that people just don’t remember these days
is the nuclear arms race.

Both sides developed nuclear arsenals,

the Soviets initially with the help
of spies who stole American secrets.

Eventually the nuclear arsenals were so big

that the U.S. and USSR agreed on
a strategy appropriately called MAD,

which stood for
“mutually assured destruction.”

Thanks Thought Bubble.

And yes, nuclear weapons were, and are,

capable of destroying
humanity many times over.

[regardless of Iran's access to Photoshop]

But only once or twice
did we get close to nuclear war:

during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
and then again in 1983,

when we forgot to give the Russians the
heads up that we were doing some war games,

which made it look like we had launched
a first strike.

OUR BAD!
[closer to ultimate fail than epic fail]

But even though mutually assured
destruction prevented direct conflict,

there was plenty of hot war
in the Cold War.

The Korean War saw lots of fighting
between communists and capitalists,

as did the Vietnam War.

I mean, these days we remember
“the domino effect” as silly paranoia,

but after Korea and especially
China became communist,

Vietnam’s movement toward communism
seemed very much a threat to Japan,

which the U.S. had helped re-make
into a vibrant capitalist ally.

So the US got bogged down
in one of its longest wars

while the Soviets assisted the
North Vietnamese army in the Viet Cong.

But then we paid them back by supporting
the anti-communist mujaheddin

after the Soviets invaded
Afghanistan in 1979.

Of course, as we now know,
nobody conquers Afghanistan

…unless you are the mongols.

[The tune of truly tendering terror
to tons of tearfully troubled tribes]

So after 10 disastrous years,
the Soviets finally abandoned Afghanistan.

Some of those mujahedeen later became
members of the Taliban,

though, so it’s difficult
to say that anyone won that war.

But it wasn’t just Asia:

In Nicaragua, the US supported rebels
to overthrow the leftist government;

in El Salvador,

the US bolstered authoritarian regimes that
were threatened by left-wing guerrillas.

The United States ended up supporting
a lot of awful governments,

like the one in Guatemala, which held onto
power through the use of death squads.

[like i said, looked better on paper]

Frankly, all our attempts to
stabilize governments in Latin America

led to some very unstable Latin American
governments, and quite a lot of violence.

And then there were the
luke-warm conflicts,

like The Suez Crisis where British
and French paratroopers were sent in

to try to stop Egypt from
nationalizing the Suez canal.

Or all the American covert operations
to keep various countries from

“falling” to communism.

These included the famous
CIA-engineered coup to overthrow

Iran’s democratically elected
prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq

after his government attempted
to nationalize Iran’s oil industry.

And the CIA helping Chile’s
General Augusto Pinochet overthrow

democratically elected Marxist
president Salvador Allende in 1973.

And lest we think the Americans
were the only bad guys in this,

the Soviets used force to crush
popular uprisings in Hungary in 1956

and in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

So, you may have noticed
that our discussion of the Cold War

has branched out from Europe to
include Asia, and the Middle East,

and Latin America.

And in fact,

almost every part of the globe
was involved in some way with the

planet being divided into three “worlds.”

The first world was the U.S.,
Western Europe and any place that

embraced capitalism and a more or
less democratic form of government.

The Second World was the
Soviet Union and its satellites,

mostly the Warsaw Pact nations,
China and Cuba.

The Third World was everyone else and
we don’t use this term anymore

because it lumps together a
hugely diverse range of countries.

We’ll talk more about the specific
economic and development challenges

faced by the so-called
“Third World countries,”

but the big one in terms of the Cold War,
was that neither the U.S. nor the Soviets

wanted any of these
countries to remain neutral.

Every nation was supposed to pick sides,
either capitalist or communist,

and while it seems like an easy choice now,

in the 50s and 60s,
it wasn’t nearly so clear.

I mean, for a little while, it seemed
like the Soviets might come out ahead,

at least in the Third World.

For a while, capitalism,
and especially the United States,

seemed to lose some of its luster.

The US propped up dictatorships,
had a poor civil rights record,

we sucked at women’s gymnastics.

Plus, the Soviets were the first to put
a satellite, a man, and a dog into space.

Plus, Marxists just seemed cooler,

which is why you never see
Milton Friedman t-shirts...

until now available at DFTBA.com.

I like that, Stan,

but I’m more of a centrist.

Can I get a Keynes shirt?

Yes. That, now that’s hot.

But Soviet socialism did not finally prove

to be a viable alternative
to industrial capitalism.

Over time,

state-run economies just generally
don’t fare as well as private enterprise,

and people like living in
a world where they can have more stuff.

More importantly,
Soviet policies were just bad:

collectivized agriculture stymied
production and led to famine;

suppression of dissent and
traditional cultures made people angry;

and no one likes suffering
the humiliation of driving a Yugo.

But why the Cold War ended when it did

is one of the most interesting
questions of the 20th century.

It probably wasn’t Ronald Reagan
bankrupting the Soviets,

despite what some politicians believe.

The USSR had more satellite states
that it needed to spend more to prop up

than the U.S. had to invest in its Allies.

And the Soviet system could never
keep up with economic growth in the West.

But,

probably the individual most responsible

for the end of the Cold War was

Mikhail Baryshnikov.
[Um...]

No? Mikhail Gorbachev?

Well, that’s boring.
[and far less lycra-clad]

I always thought the Soviets
danced their way to freedom.

No? It was Glasnost and Perestroika?
[not the cultural resonance of White Nights?]

Alright.

but Gorbachev’s Perestroika and Glosnost

opened up the Soviet political and economic
systems with contested local elections,

less restricted civil society groups,
less censorship,

more autonomy for the Soviet Republics,

more non-state-run businesses
and more autonomy for state-run farms.

Glasnost or “openness”
led to more information from the west

and less censorship led to a flood of

criticism as people realized how much
poorer the second world was than the first.

And one by one, often quite suddenly,
former communist states collapsed.

In Germany,
the Berlin Wall came down in 1989

[pulled down with the Gipper's own hands]

and East and West Germany
were reunited in 1990.

In Poland,

the Gdansk dockworker’s union Solidarity
turned into a mass political movement

and won 99 of the 100 seats it was
allowed to contest in the 1989 election.

Hungary held multiparty elections in 1990.

The same year, mass demonstrations
led to elections in Czechoslovakia.

In 1993, that country split up
into Slovakia and the Czech Republic,

the happiest and most mutually
beneficial divorce since Cher left Sonny.

Of course sometimes the transition away
from communism was violent and painful.

In Romania, for instance,

the communist dictator Ceaucescu

held onto power until he was tried and put
before a firing squad at the end of 1989.

And it took until 1996 for a non-communist
government to take power there.

And in Yugoslavia, well, not so great.

And in Russia,
it’s a little bit Putin-ey.

Ah! Putin.

But just twenty years later,

it’s hard to believe that the world
was once dominated by two super powers held

in check mutually assured destruction.
[sure didn't work for Harry & Voldemort]

What’s really amazing to me,
though, is that until the late 1980s,

it felt like the Cold War
was gonna go on forever.

Time seems to slow as it approaches us,

& living in the post-Cold War nuclear age,

we should remember that the past
feels distant even when it’s near,

and that the future seems assured—

even though it isn’t.

Thanks for watching.
I’ll see you next week.

[don't ask. you try & corral the talent
when they're a NYT best-selling author]

Crash Course is produced and directed
by Stan Muller.

Our script supervisor
is Meredith Danko.

Our associate producer
is Danica Johnson.

The show is written by my
high school history teacher

Raoul Meyer and myself.

And our graphics team is Thought Bubble.
[where time may be cold, but not too war-y]

Last week’s phrase of the week was

"Justin Bieber"
[Johnny Bookwriter is a full-on Belieber]

Thanks for that suggestion.
[he said, sincerely]

If you’d like to suggest
future phrases of the week,

you can do so in comments
where you can also ask questions

about today’s video that will
be answered by our team of historians.

[or fought out amongst yourselves with
varying degrees of merit and clarity]

Thanks for watching Crash Course

and as we say in my hometown,

don’t forget Folly and Desperation
Are Ofttimes Hard to Tell Apart.”

[Did you know John is a triple threat?]

Ow.