Cold War

The alliances of the Cold War, with the Western bloc in blue and Eastern bloc in red.

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension and conflict between the Western imperialist bloc of the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. It began immediately after the Second World War, when the Western imperialist countries adopted an antagonistic attitude towards the socialist states of Eastern Europe. After 1956, the Cold War took on the character of an inter-imperialist struggle when the Soviet Union became a social-imperialist power. The Cold War would conclude in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

See also

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization
• United States imperialism
• Soviet social-imperialism