SOVIET COMMUNISM AND THE WEST

Topics: the European Recovery Act, Stalin’s thoughts on World War II, Mao Zedong and the Chinese Revolution, Churchill’s "Iron Curtain," the economic slowdown in Soviet Russia, Cold War nuclear activity, Soviet dissidents, and Mikhail Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War. Assessment questions involve asking students to identify the factors that brought the end of Soviet communism, and what factors initiated and eventually resolved the tensions surrounding the Cold War.