SP: SOCIAL SCIENCE

GRADE 9: TERM 2
HISTORY: LEARNER BOOKLET

Learner Name: _______________________________________ Grade: 9_________

The Nuclear Age and The Cold War (1945 – 1990)

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1. Increasing Tension Between the Allies After The End Of World War II in Europe

1.1 Tension between Russia, and the USA and Britain

Russia was one of the great powers involved in the First World War (1914 – 1918), fighting
alongside Britain, France and their allies. In Russia the war caused great hardship due to the high
number of deaths and food shortages.

The Royal family and political leaders were disconnected from the ordinary people of the country
and as a result radical Russian leaders brought about the Russian Revolution in 1917 which over
time established Russia as the first communist state. Part of the Revolution involved executing
the royal family and the destruction of the upper class. In 1922, after years of fighting (between
the red Russians (communists) and the white Russians (upper class supported by Britain, France
and the USA) the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR was established.

During the period of WW I and WWII the communist rule resulted in a system of suppression of all
opposition and by the time WWII broke out in 1939 the USSR was a dictatorship.

Even so the Soviet Union fought alongside Britain, France and the USA in WWII, because they all
understood how important it was to defeat Nazi Germany. But once the war was over, the old
capitalist-communist tensions once again came to the fore.
USSR (communism) vs. USA and the West (capitalism)

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1.2 The Potsdam Conference 17 July – 2 August 1945

The Potsdam Conference was held at the end of the war. Participants were the Soviet Union,
Britain, and the United States. They gathered to decide how to punish the defeated Nazi Germany.

At the end of WWII, the world was divided along ideological lines

• The Soviet Union and other communist states of Eastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia.

• The countries of Western Europe and the United States of America, and democracies
driven by capitalist ideas.

Activity 1: Date:

Analysing a cartoon

Look carefully at the cartoon and answer the question.

Draw the following table in your notebook.

Under each heading list four things that the cartoonist used to identify East and West. (Look at
clothing, accessories, colours etc.)
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 East West

It is important to understand what separated the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc countries from
the countries in the West.

The East and West were fearful and suspicious of each other, mainly because they had very
different ideas of how the world should work.
Two words are commonly used to explain these differences

1. CAPITALISM
2. COMMUNISM

CAPITALISM COMMUNISM

Beliefs of capitalism: Beliefs of communism:

1. People are free to choose how 1. All people are equal.

they want to live as long as they
don’t harm others. 2. No one is richer or poorer
than anyone else.
2. There will always be inequality.

3. Private property is the root of

3. Private ownership of property is conflict between people
a fundamental human right

4. The state should not interfere in 4. The state should own

the economy everything and share it out
equally among the people.

5. Individual freedom is more 5. Equality is more important

important than equality. than individual freedom.

Critics of capitalism say that in this

system the rich get richer and the poor Critics of communism say that
get poorer. everyone is dragged down to the
same level, except the Party
leadership, and that individuals are
not encouraged to prosper.

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You need to be aware that the ideal of a system often falls far short from how that system
works. For example, the ideals of communism, as good as they sounded, were never
reached.

th
In the 20 C most communist states developed into dictatorships where the majority of
people had few rights and lived in a state of repression.

In capitalist countries on the other hand, where ideally everyone should have the
opportunity to improve their lives, many people live in terrible poverty.

Activity 2: Date:

Understand and arrange beliefs

1. Rewrite the following table into your notebook.

The Belief of Capitalism The Belief of Communism

2. Arrange the following information by writing each statement under the correct column in the
table.

• Governments should not interfere with the rights of individuals to make their own living.
• People need freedom.
• When people work together as equals, they achieve greater things.
• Governments should make sure that everyone’s needs are met.
• People need one another.
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 • When people compete against one another, they achieve greater things.
• Some people have more than others because they make better use of their abilities.
• Everybody’s needs are equally important.

2. End of World War II In The Pacific: Atomic Bombs And The Beginning Of The Nuclear Age

On 7 December 1941, the Japanese bombed the US naval base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii and in
so doing brought the war into areas of the Pacific Ocean and the Far East. The Americans lost
more ships than in the entire World War I, and 2 400 US soldiers died in the attack.

Soon after Pearl Harbour, the United States joined the Allied forces in WWII. On 7 May 1945, the
Germans surrendered to the Allied forces. Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) was celebrated on 8
May, marking the end of the war in Europe. But in Asia and in the Pacific, fighting continued.

2.1 When, Where, Why And How Did World War II Come To An End?

How?

On 6 August 1945, the aircraft Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima. The Americans chose Hiroshima because it was an industrial city with military

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operations. The bomb was nicknamed ‘Little Boy’ and destroyed about 90% of the city. Three
days later the Americans dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki. This was Japans oldest city port
and the bomb was aimed at the shipping yard. It missed its target and the bomb destroyed half of
the city.

Why?

The USA and Britain issued an ultimatum demanding that Japan surrender, but Japan decided to
continue the war. The belief of the US government at that time was that Japan would never
surrender unless the country was utterly devastated.

When?

The Japanese formally surrendered on 2 September 1945

Where?

The formal surrender took place on board the battleship USS Missouri, anchored with other United
States and British ships in Tokyo Bay.

Albert Einstein’s ideas

Albert Einstein is one of the best-known scientists who ever lived. He grew up in Germany and
developed scientific ideas that changed our understanding of the universe.

Einstein was not directly involved in the making of the nuclear or atomic bomb, but his scientific
theories were used to develop the first nuclear bomb. When Hitler began to gain power in
Germany, Einstein was horrified. As he was Jewish, he left Europe to escape the Nazis and went
to live in America. He encouraged the American government to invent an atomic bomb to stop
Nazi ideas from spreading. The atomic bombs that American scientists invented were not used on
Nazi Germany, but on another Axis power, namely Japan.

The Manhattan Project

In 1939, the US government started the Manhattan Project: a top secret research project to
research and produce an atomic bomb. The bomb they were trying to create had the code name
‘The Gadget’. On 16 July 1945, ‘The Gadget’ was successfully exploded in the desert near Los
Alamos in the state of New Mexico. The heat of the blast was so hot that it turned the sand under
the explosion to glass.

After years of hard work, the leader of the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer, was relieved
about the success of the explosion, but at the same time he realised it had deadly destructive
power.

Activity 3: Date:

1. Whose scientific idea was the invention of the atomic bomb based on?

2. Look at the definition of the word ‘gadget. How is the code name for the atomic bomb very
different from the usual definition of the word?

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3. Why do you think the inventors of the atomic bomb called the bomb ‘The Gadget’?

4. What was the name of the American project that researched and invented the atomic bomb?

5. Who was the leader of this project?

6. Why would the world never be the same after the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki?

7. Read Source C on page 6.

Why does Einstein regret his development of his scientific theories?

2.2 Why Did the USA Drop the Bombs?

In 1939, Albert Einstein and other scientists had warned the US government that the Germans
were working on an atomic bomb. The Americans were sure that Hitler would use nuclear bombs
against them, and therefore started their own nuclear programme. It was called the Manhattan
Project and some of America’s top scientists were commissioned to work on it. It was a top secret
operation, led by scientist Robert Oppenheimer.

After VE day, as the war continued in Asia, the Japanese occupation of China and of Southeast
Asia was costing the lives of thousands of people. By the end of July 1945, almost half of Tokyo
was destroyed and many Japanese cities levelled. The USA planned to invade Japan, but they
thought that that half a million Allied forces might die if this were to happen. The US President,
Harry Truman, therefore decided to drop the newly built atomic bomb on Japan.

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2.3 Was Dropping the Bomb Justified?

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the first (and to date) last time atomic weapons
were used in warfare – is still one of the most controversial decisions in military history. The
two bombs killed almost 110 000 Japanese citizens and injured another 130 000. By 1950
another 230 000 Japanese died from injuries or radiation. The vast majority of the
casualties were civilians.

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Definition Of the Superpowers and the Meaning Of ‘Cold War’

After WWII, the USA and the Soviet Union emerged as world leaders. They became known as the
‘superpowers’ because they were the most powerful countries in the west and the east.

Both of them wanted more power and influence in the world. But they had very different views
about how countries should be governed, and about how economies should be run. The result
was that the tensions between the superpowers led to a situation where they were not actively
fighting one another but they both felt very threatened by one another and the possibility of
war was never far off. The name given to this state of threat and tension was the ‘Cold War’
which lasted from 1945 – 1989

A cold war is a state of political tension and military competition between countries. It
threatens to, but never does become a full-blown war or ‘hot’ war

The Soviet leader, Josef Stalin, was determined that the Red (Soviet) Army would control Poland,
dominate eastern Europe, and prevent Germany from starting another war.

But the USA was equally determined to influence what the post-war world would look like. The
USA wanted Europe rebuilt according to their capitalist ideas. The west also wanted to make sure
the countries of Western Europe, such as France, Italy, Germany and Greece were safe against
future attacks. They were very afraid that communism would spread into Western Europe and
even America.

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Activity 4: Date:

Look at the cartoon below and answer the following questions in your notebook.

1. Name the two countries that are facing each other.

2. What weapons did each side have that they are not using?

3. Explain why they are not using these weapons.

4. Why was this period in world history referred to as the Cold War?

4. The Areas of Conflict And Competition Between The Superpowers In The Cold War

Unlike an active ‘hot’ war, the USA and the Soviet Union never directly fought one another in the
years after WW II. But the Cold War was a time of intense rivalry between the superpowers,
playing out in many different ways and in many different places

4.1 The Arms Race and Threat Of Nuclear War

The most serious threat to world peace and safety during the Cold War period was the
competition between the USA and the Soviet Union to develop more powerful and destructive
weapons, nuclear weapons, like the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but many
times more dangerous.
By the 1950’s both the USA and the Soviets had developed the power and weapons to obliterate
one another, and the rest of the world!

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The Arms Race became a central feature of the Cold War. But the threat posed by nuclear arms
was so great that each side knew that to launch these weapons would in fact result in their own
destruction when the other side fought back. The term that was used for this was Mutually
Assured Destruction, or MAD. The Arms Race was therefore a race to stay ahead, not a race to
win. There could, and would, never be a winner.

Did you know: Nuclear weapons are the most powerful explosive devices yet made by humans. The radiation from nuclear
energy can have devastating effects on people, with various forms of cancer being just some of the known long-term
consequences

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Activity 5: Date:

Understanding songs and figures of speech

Explain what Sting and Carl Sagan are saying:

1. In your own words, write an explanation of what Carl Sagan meant in Source H.
2. What do you think Sagan thought of the Arms Race? What tells you this?
3. How does the song RUSSIANS tell you what people in the west were feeling about the
Cold War?
4. What was Oppenheimer’s deadly toy?
5. What does Sting mean when he says ‘I hope the Russians love their children too’?

THE SPACE RACE

The space race lasted from 1957 to 1975 and was all about parallel efforts between the two
countries to:

•Explore outer space with satellite technology

•Send humans into space
•Land people on the moon

The Space Race began with the Russian launch of Sputnik 1, the first satellite to successfully
enter space, on 4 October 1957. The Russians were very proud of Sputnik – and the Americans
were very worried about it. In 1958, the USA established the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) which is still sending spacecraft into space today.

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On 21 July 1969 American Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon. The
Americans felt that the moon landing put them ahead in the Space Race, but the Russians
claimed that they had no interest in putting a man on the moon and chose to focus on different
space programmes, such as sending space probes to other planets.

Both the USA and the Russians knew that technology developed for space could equally be used
in war. A rocket designed to put a man on the moon could also launch a nuclear warhead.

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Activity 6: Date:

The Space Race

Look at Source J on page 14.

1. Why did the American government want to get to the moon first?

2. Do you think it was worth it to spend so much money to get humans to land on the moon? Give
reasons for your answer.

Look at the photographs in Source L on page 15.

3. How does the fact that humans have landed on the moon make you feel?

4. Write down the statement that Neil Armstrong made when he stepped onto to the moon.

5. Refer back to Source J and explain why the American astronauts put an American flag on the
moon.

4.3 Division of Germany, 1946

No place was a better example of Cold War divisions than Germany, and Berlin in particular. In
February 1945, months before the end of WWII, the Allied leaders of Britain, the Soviet Union and
the US met to discuss a number of issues, including what was to happen to Germany after the
war. They wanted to divide up Germany to make sure that it would never again be as
powerful as it was under Hitler. They agreed to divide Germany into four zones, governed by
Britain, the Soviets, the US and France respectively. Berlin fell into the Soviet-controlled East
German Zone, but was also divided into four sectors, with each of the Allies controlling a
section.

As we saw, tensions between the Soviets and the western Allies started to rise after the war. The
Soviets wanted to rebuild Germany as a communist state, which is what they did in East
Germany. West Germany, with support from the USA and Britain, became a separate
country – a capitalist democracy. Berlin was divided into East Berlin and West Berlin

Although West Berlin was isolated inside East Germany, the western powers, in particular the US,
spent a huge amount of money to rebuild it after the war. They encouraged West German and
other western companies to do business there. West Berlin became a showcase for democracy
and capitalism.
East Berlin developed very differently. As a communist state, it gave its citizens jobs, cheap
housing and free medical aid. But there was not the same kind of investment in East Berlin and
East Germany as there was in West Berlin and West Germany, and East Germans did not enjoy
the same quality of life as their West German counterparts. The East Germans also had fewer
political freedoms than the West Germans.

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The Building of The Berlin Wall, 1961

In August 1961 the East Germans started building a wall between East and West Berlin. They did
this mainly to stop thousands of East Germans, many of them skilled workers and professionals,
leaving the country.
The Berlin Wall ran around the entire city of West Berlin and separated East and West Germans,
many of them family members, for 28 years.
Between 1949 and 1961, around 2,5 million East Germans went to live in West Germany. After
the wall was built it was a criminal offence for an East German to go into West Germany without
permission.

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Other Areas of Conflict: Proxy Wars

Both the Arms Race and the Space Race were areas of competition between the superpowers in
the Cold War. But the greatest conflicts of the Cold War period played out in proxy wars far away
from the US and the Soviet Union, in places where the two superpowers tried to establish their
influence and win support.

A proxy war is a war where two powerful countries use third parties (mostly smaller, weaker
countries) as a substitute for fighting one another directly. Proxy wars were a common feature of
the Cold War and often took place in the developing countries of Asia and Africa. As the Cold War
continued, both the Soviet Union and the United States supported and maintained, for their own
goals, regimes that were often brutal and repressive. They did this by pledging military, financial
and other forms of aid in return for the loyalty of these governments.

1950: KOREA

The USA and Japan signed a peace treaty, which led the Soviets and China to support the
invasion of USA supported South Korea by communist North Korea. American President Truman
sent in forces to drive back the North Koreans from South Korea. The Korean War ended in 1953,
but to the present day the two countries have not signed a formal peace treaty.

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1962: CUBA

The closest the world came to nuclear war was when US spy satellite discovered that the
Russians had installed medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, aimed at American targets. US
President Kennedy threatened to invade Cuba if the missiles were not withdrawn. This became
known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Russians removed the missiles after Soviet leader
Khrushchev and US President Kennedy made a private deal.

1957 – 1975: VIETNAM

The Vietnam War was fought between South Vietnam and communist North Vietnam. The US
entered the war in support of the South Vietnamese, but despite a massive injection of US troops,
money and military assistance, the North Vietnamese supported by the Soviets and China, won
the war after 18 years of terrible fighting. Vietnam was unified under the rule of the Communist
Party of Vietnam.

In the Middle East, South America, Africa, Asia, the USA and the Soviet Union continued to
compete with each other for influence.

Close to South Africa the Cold War played out in Angola where there was a civil war from 1975 –
1992. More than 1, 5 million people died in this war. Here the USA supported, through the
apartheid government in South Africa. The Soviet Union and communist Cuba supported the
communist MPLA (Angola’s ruling party) the civil war ended up involving Namibia, Zambia, Zaire
(today the DRC) and the Congo.

American helicopters in Vietnam

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Activity 7: Date:

1. Read Source N
a. Name the man who made the statement in Source O.
b. What was his position?
c. What does he mean by ‘the wolf’?
d. Do you think the source is one-sided?
e. Which side does it support?
f. Could there be another point of view?
g. What is the other point of view?

2. Read Source O
a. From which country was President Kennedy?
b. What did he mean when he said ‘a wall is a lot better than a war’.

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5. The End of The Cold War 1989

In September 1989, Hungary was the first country to open its western border to the West. This
punched a hole in the so-called Iron Curtain that had divided the East and the West and increased
the pressure to reform in the entire eastern bloc. The result was that peaceful protests began
against the unwillingness of the East German Government to reform. By October 1989, over 300
000 people marched in the East German city, Leipzig. By November, a million people gathered in
East Berlin and demanded freedom of opinion, freedom to travel and free elections. The East
German government had to give in.

5.1 The Fall of The Berlin Wall, 1989

On 9 November 1989 East Germany announced that it would open routes into West Berlin. Within
hours, thousands of East Berliners began lining up at checkpoints near the Wall. At first the border
guards tried to check passports, but they quickly gave up. Masses of people streamed into West
Berlin. Crowds of West Berliners waited on the other side, cheering and hugging strangers.
People started breaking down the Wall with hammers.

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5.2 The Collapse of The Soviet Union, 1991

Michael Gorbachev became the Soviet leader in 1985. He realised that the Soviet economy,
under the strain of the Arms Race, was collapsing, and implemented a series of economic
changes. He also relaxed censorship and political repression, and bought in greater democracy
within the communist bloc. In Eastern Europe, Gorbachev’s policies and the severe economic
failure of the communist states resulted in the sudden overthrow of communist regimes in Poland,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and East Germany. This all happened in the space of a few
months in 1989.

In December 1989, Gorbachev and the US President George HW Bush declared the Cold War
officially over.

For his rejection of any form of violence, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
But in the Soviet Union there was pressure from the people who wanted more reform from the
communist government and conflicts broke out. In 1990, the first Russian demonstrations against
communist rule took place. In 1991, Gorbachev’s rival, the Moscow mayor, Boris Yeltsin,
disbanded the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The USSR officially came to an end when
eleven former Soviet republics started to demand their independence.

These are the post- Soviet states that emerged after the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics) was dissolved

1. Armenia
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2. Azerbaijan
3. Belarus
4. Estonia
5. Georgia
6. Kazakhstan
7. Kyrgyzstan
8. Latvia
9. Lithuania
10. Moldova
11. Russia
12. Tajikistan
13. Turkmenistan
14. Ukraine
15. Uzbekistan

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 Post-Soviet State

REVISION

INCREASING TENSION BETWEEN THE ALLIES AFTER THE END OF WWII IN EUROPE

• The Soviet Union, Britain, France and the USA (Allied forces) fought together in WWII to
defeat Nazi Germany
• The Soviet Union was a communist state, while the Allies were pro-capitalist democracies
• Once the war was over, old capitalist-communist tensions came about between the
countries of Western Europe and the USA, and the Soviet Union and other communist
states of Eastern Europe.
• The capitalists believed that individual freedom was more important than equality, while the
communists believed that it was more important for all people to be equal than have
individual freedom.

END OF WWII IN THE PACIFIC: ATOMIC BOMBS AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NUCLEAR
AGE

• The Japanese joined WWII on the side of Germany and Italy.

• After the Japanese bombed the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, the war moved into the
Pacific Ocean and the Far East, the US joined the allied forces.
• When the Germans surrendered and the war in Europe ended, it continued in Asia and in
the Pacific.
• To bring the war to an end, the USA dropped two atomic bombs on Japan

DEFINITION OF THE SUPERPOWERS AND THE MEANING OF THE COLD WAR

• After WWII, the United States and the Soviet Union became known as the superpowers.
• The superpowers both felt very threatened by one another and the possibility of another
war was never far off.
• The name given to this state of threat and tension was the Cold War.
• The superpowers were both determined to extend their influence to the rest of the world
and to shape the post-war world.
• The west saw the spread of communism as a very real threat.

AREAS OF CONFLICT AND COMPETITION BETWEEN THE SUPERPOWERS IN THE COLD

WAR
• The Arms Race was a competition between the US and the Soviet union to develop more
powerful and destructive weapons.
• The US-Soviet Space Race was another feature of the Cold War, and was about parallel
efforts between the two countries to develop better space technology.
• No place was a better example of the cold war divisions than Germany.
• After the war, Germany was divided into four zones, controlled by the Soviets, Britain,
France and the USA respectively.
• In East Germany, the Soviets established a communist state.
• West Germany, with support from the USA and Britain, became a capitalist democracy.
• In 1961, the East Germans built a wall between East and West Berlin to stop people from
going to live in the West.
• Other Cold War conflicts played out in proxy wars, far away from the US and the Soviet
Union, in places where the two superpowers tried to establish their influence and win
support.
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 •
THE END OF THE COLD WAR 1989

• In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and East Germans could cross into West Berlin.
• In 1989, the severe economic failure of the communist states resulted in the sudden
overthrow of communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
• In December 1989, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George HW Bush
declared the Cold War officially over.

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