Terms : Hide Images
| 13400883997 | Berlin Wall | Wall constructed by East German authorities in 1961 to seal off East Berlin from the West; it was breached on November 9, 1989. | 0 | |
| 13400883998 | Bolsheviks (pron. BOWL-sheh-vik) | Russian revolutionary party led by Vladimir Lenin and later renamed the Communist Party; the name "Bolshevik" means "the majority." | 1 | |
| 13400883999 | building socialism | Euphemistic expression for the often-forcible transformation of society when a communist regime came to power in a state. | 2 | |
| 13400884000 | Castro, Fidel | Revolutionary leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008 who gradually turned to Soviet communism and engendered some of the worst crises of the cold war. | 3 | |
| 13400884001 | Chinese Revolution | Long revolutionary process in the period 1912-1949 that began with the overthrow of the Chinese imperial system and ended with the triumph of the Communist Party under the leadership of Mao Zedong. | 4 | |
| 13400884002 | cold war | Political and ideological state of near-war between the Western world and the communist world that lasted from 1946 to 1991. | 5 | |
| 13400884003 | collectivization | Process of rural reform undertaken by the communist leadership of both the USSR and China in which private property rights were abolished and peasants were forced onto larger and more industrialized farms to work and share the proceeds as a community rather than as individuals. | 6 | |
| 13400884004 | Comintern | In full, "Communist International"; Soviet organization intended to control the policies and actions of other communist states. | 7 | |
| 13400884005 | Cuban missile crisis | Major standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba; the confrontation ended in compromise, with the USSR removing its missiles in exchange for the United States agreeing not to invade Cuba. | 8 | |
| 13400884006 | Cultural Revolution | China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a massive campaign launched by Mao Zedong in the mid-1960s to combat the capitalist tendencies that he believed reached into even the highest ranks of the Communist Party; the campaign threw China into chaos. | 9 | |
| 13400884007 | Deng Xiaoping (pron. deng shyao-ping) | Leader of China from 1976 to 1997 whose reforms essentially dismantled the communist elements of the Chinese economy. | 10 | |
| 13400884008 | glasnost (pron. glaz-nost) | Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of "openness," which allowed greater cultural and intellectual freedom and ended most censorship of the media; the result was a burst of awareness of the problems and corruption of the Soviet system. | 11 | |
| 13400884009 | Gorbachev, Mikhail (pron. MEE-ka-eel GORE-bah-CHOF) | Leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991 whose efforts to reform the USSR led to its collapse. | 12 | |
| 13400884010 | Great Leap Forward | Major Chinese initiative (1958-1960) led by Mao Zedong that was intended to promote small-scale industrialization and increase knowledge of technology; in reality, it caused a major crisis and exacerbated the impact of a devastating famine. | 13 | |
| 13400884011 | Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution | Mao Zedong's great effort in the mid-1960s to weed out capitalist tendencies that he believed had developed in China. | 14 | |
| 13400884012 | Great Purges | Also called the Terror, the Great Purges of the late 1930s were a massive attempt to cleanse the Soviet Union of supposed "enemies of the people"; nearly a million people were executed between 1936 and 1941, and 4 million or 5 million more were sentenced to forced labor in the gulag. | 15 | |
| 13400884013 | gulag (pron. GOO-log) | Acronym for the Soviet government agency that administered forced labor camps. | 16 | |
| 13400884014 | Guomindang (pron. gwoah-min-dahng) | The Chinese Nationalist Party led by Chiang Kai-shek from 1928 until its overthrow by the communists in 1949. | 17 | |
| 13400884015 | Khrushchev, Nikita (pron. ni-KEE-tah KROOSH-chef) | Leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964. | 18 | |
| 13400884016 | Lenin | Adopted name of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870-1924), the main leader of Russia's communist revolution and head of the Soviet state from 1917 until his death. | 19 | |
| 13400884017 | Mao Zedong (pron. maow dzuh-dong) | Chairman of China's Communist Party and de facto ruler of China from 1949 until his death in 1976. | 20 | |
| 13400884018 | McCarthyism | Wave of anticommunist fear and persecution that took place in the United States in the 1950s. | 21 | |
| 13400884019 | national security state | Form of government that arose in the United States in response to the cold war and in which defense and intelligence agencies gained great power and power in general came to be focused in the executive branch. | 22 | |
| 13400884020 | perestroika (pron. pe-rih-STROY-kuh) | Bold economic program launched in 1987 by Mikhail Gorbachev with the intention of freeing up Soviet industry and businesses. | 23 | |
| 13400884021 | Russian Revolution | Massive revolutionary upheaval in 1917 that overthrew the Romanov dynasty in Russia and ended with the seizure of power by communists under the leadership of Lenin. | 24 | |
| 13400884022 | Stalin | Name assumed by Joseph Vissarionovich Jugashvili (1878-1953), leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death; "Stalin" means "made of steel." | 25 | |
| 13400884023 | Warsaw Pact | Military alliance of the USSR and the communist states of Eastern Europe during the cold war. | 26 | |
| 13400884024 | Zhenotdel (pron. zen-OHT-del) | Women's Department of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1930; Zhenotdel worked strongly to promote equality for women. | 27 |
