A History Teacher Reacts | Oversimplified - Cold War (Part 1)

hey YouTube misters hairy back once again to watch another history video got some good feedback from the last couple episodes of oversimplified World War 2 episode and the biggest I guess request I God was to continue on with that and specifically with their cold war episode so we're gonna check this out today and see how it is I've really liked what the oversimplified crews been doing with these videos they're entertaining they're they're fun and yeah they're really enjoyable I think it's a great a little just over glass and to you know introduce you to these topics or just review them and hopefully go into more research of your own on some of those things so I encourage you to do that now just like I said before I really really would like if you would go to the original video make sure to give them a like and subscribe support the content people here for me I'm just watching and giving my feedback hope you enjoy that though but let's go ahead and start the cold war here is 1917 fighting rages on the eastern front of the First World War both Germany and Russia are on the brink of collapse and the soldier I need you to bring me to in World War one got it found him Sir what no not let none Lenin the Russian Communist bubble why would I need a Beatle Lenin the Russian Communist he was exiled to Switzerland you know what I'll do it myself capitalism by Karl Marx very nice who wants to start a revolution [Music] you know the Germans rolled the dice on a bunch of World War one bets that they were hope again hoping would pan out so they could have success in the war and for example a couple of those things one would be that you know the Schlieffen Plan the plan that they had in World War one to try to avoid a two-front war by attacking the side the front that would be ready first between France and Russia and they'd believe that would be France because they thought Russia would take a long time to mobilize so they attacked France very quickly and of course did that through Belgium which gave them a very bad reputation as Belgium was a neutral country at that time but the the dice roll didn't work because Russia mobilized way quicker than anybody expected a World War one okay now another one - they were kind of betting on was the fact that if they had invaded Belgium in World War one that's the British who are an ally of Belgium wouldn't enough care enough is the right word but it wouldn't be enough to influence them to join the war but it had the opposite effect - they were hoping again that maybe they wouldn't care as much or maybe again maybe that's not the right word to say but I'm gonna have to actually join the war of course that fails - and there's a bunch of dice rolls again there's other ones you can look into if you want to talk about it by - I'll just mean something kind of risky high-risk kind of decision that could help them in the war and one of them that did work out was with Lenin so Lenin had been kicked out of Russia and they'll talk about maybe they'll talk about it but here of interesting that they're bringing back clear back to World War one for the Cold War but the idea that getting him funding for revolution and tried to send him secretly back to Russia to kind of take down Russia from the inside did actually work so kind of a roll the dice there and it worked though and Russia pulled out of the war which made things much much better for the Germans in a way even though they lose World War one that was a beneficial thing to not have to fight Russia at the end of the war the Germans put Lenin on a train and sent them all the way back to Russia hoping he and his mates would create an internal crisis and create an internal crisis they did the government was overthrown and Lenin was in charge he immediately pulled out of the first world war made the country communists started a three-year long civil war got shock broke the economy caused a famine and then he died on his deathbed he said major gee max tell whoever's in charge of giving people jobs not to let that jerk Stalin become the next leader by the way who did I put in charge of giving people jobs that would be Stalin Stalin was a rising force in the Communist Party he still had some opponents but conveniently all of them were arrested or disappeared so that was lucky and so Stalin took over he implemented his five-year plans which transformed the country from an agriculture-based economy to an industrial one and like Lenin before she was married to wheelchairs anyone who dared criticize or oppose him would either be killed or left to rot in the horrendous Soviet war camps then a short man with a silly mustache tried to take over the world punch the Russians all the way to Moscow and then the Russians with some help from their faithful ally the winter punched them all the way back to Berlin at this point being allies America the UK and the Soviet Union were good chums they held a couple of conferences near the end of the war to decide what would happen next hey Stalin after all your trials and tribulation you must be pretty happy to be standing here in Berlin Tsar Alexander made it all the way to Paris hey just give me a second hey men I think something's up at Stalin I know right what should we do shall I tell him about the bomb yeah tell him about the bomb that will scare him so we got this crazy new big a bomb that can destroy an entire city in one go yes my spies told me already oh wait I'm attacked surprised wow that's amazing yeah they infiltrated me Roger how um am I sure I want to send nuclear secrets via on secure public coffee-shop Wi-Fi am I ever dude use a VPN and speaking of them if purr like me you take Internet safety seriously then you need a bad run because you can't Reuters preventing anyone from stealing your personal data and stopping your service providers selling your data to advertisers with over 5,000 servers in 62 countries setting them securely and it's simple to use yeah the Russian cleared of a button you can connect the server halfway across the world infiltrate the mistreating services from United States suppose a top secret for example project which is there's no I simplified video them for some reason has been Russian and orders bien you can if we're as Americans got the first test online tablet go to North Versailles 35 over to Russia to get there using 75% off that's their first time per month with an additional month free for a limited time so again that's Nord VPN comm slash oversimplified also in the description box down below now where were we oh yeah does the a stand for atomic or ass venom air could drop their big a bomb on Japan and World War two officially came to an end hooray we won okay so now it's time to establish the New World Order Stalin you're in charge of Eastern Europe now we want you to let them all hold elections oh yes of course elections then these elections will be free and fair right oh yes certainly free and fair definitely free and fair communist communist communist domination communist communist if that's not free and fair I don't know it is throughout Eastern Europe Soviet puppet governments were established as a buffer zone between the USSR and the West with Churchill proclaiming an Iron Curtain had descended across the continent the relationship between the old allies was deteriorating fast now the Iron Curtain okay let's let's let the little western border it send it across the continent okay so Churchill right says that Stalin the Soviet Union's create an Iron Curtain now the defense okay that Stalin is going to say is basically this to the question of why are you doing this why are you creating this sort of buffer zone you know what I mean these are areas that under the earlier agreements said that they were gonna have free elections and independence and all that that didn't happen and pretty brilliant I guess political move in a way was Stalin's response to that which was well let's look at recent history us the Russians right have been invaded twice now by Western Europe okay by the Germans of course in World War one and World War two right the aggressive ones that should be feared is not the Russians it's here Western Europe we want to keep the West from invading us again and I guess in a way to do that is yeah we should be able to have this control I guess sort of this buffer zone if you want to look at it that way so there's a solid point there this that that Stalin is making but it again made it look very aggressive in the eyes of the West what which was what these takeovers are with them staying in in in occupying basically these countries here the relationship between the old allies was deteriorating fast over the next few years the British intervened in the Greek Civil War to prevent a communist takeover in Turkey the Russians began demanding more control of turkeys sea access routes which prompted the u.s. to send their largest battleship to Turkey for a friendly visit after World War two Iran was now occupied by both the Soviets and the British with an agreement to both pull out once the war was over the British pulled out Stalin was like you know what I think I might stick around all in favor of kicking rush out of Iran you want to know something you guys suck pressure from the UN forced the Soviets to leave and with the establishment of NATO the Soviets had no doubt that the West was out to encircle and destroy them and America announced the Truman Doctrine in which they basically said those guys are not cool cannot be trusted and we will do everything we can to prevent the spread of communism around the world many do this moment as the American Declaration of the Cold War if that means everyone was living in a post-apocalyptic void brought on by the Second World War cities reduced to rubble not enough food it was terrible this is great the more they suffered the more likely it is they'll turn to communism dude you're really messed up what's wrong with you my father used to punish me severely America realized what was going on and quickly made a move under the Marshall Plan they sent 12 billion dollars to Western Europe for its economic recovery the countries of Stalin's Eastern Bloc looked on with envy hey Czechoslovakia you want to come get some economic aid yeah but I have to check with my mom first yeah sorry America I can't come fool on economic battle reaching between capitalism and communism in Europe both sides here okay NATO and the Warsaw Pact is going to call these two military alliances but specifically the United States and Soviet Union are basically using Europe here as their guinea pig to show whose system is the better one right because they're very contrasting views capitalism communism etc and put a lot of effort into that and so you see America just pumping incredible amounts of money into the West to start to start this and of course America is benefiting from making trade partners here and that sort of thing so both sides took it very very seriously and spent incredible amounts of money in this sort of rebuilding process and you know maybe not as much about actual sympathy towards these people but more about showing who's way of life whose system is better to show the world because so you're seeing the Cold War it kind of becomes this thing where if you and I say it's a Soviet Union you want the world to decide you pick a side right our system or I guess their system and so it's like a big recruitment across the planet Eastern Europe was the big battleground as the two sides were also physically as close as any place could be on these two sides if the Western nations developed faster and better than the East that would be a defeat for Stalin so he set up his own rival economic recovery plan which he called comic-con and he also set up common form which gave him more political control over the Eastern Bloc but nowhere did this economic battle rage harder than in the city of Berlin it caught over a hundred miles behind Soviet lines the city had been divided up between the Allies and the Western segments were still under Western control East Berliners could travel freely to West Berlin see the economic prosperity I'm thinking early maybe this communism moving ain't so great after all I'm gonna have fun tonight you're home late it's Stalin I was just out with my friends friends you stink of capitalism you're out engaging an imperialist debauchery again I swear Ivan I can't keep doing this Stalin wanted the West out so he said hey guess what I'm block getting all of your supply routes to us Berlin what are you gonna do about it I suppose we'll just fly the supplies in [Music] for one airline yeah looking up alright Truman you in this room the Berlin Airlift was an incredible undertaking and a major success for the Western Allies and Stalin ended his blockade of West Berlin his aggressive actions worried the West but not as much as this did the Soviet Union had developed their very own atomic bomb the USA no longer had a nuclear monopoly the world now knew that if a major war broke out between the two superpowers it would be more destructive than anyone could imagine so it was comforting when Stalin came out and said that war between the Soviet Union and the West was unlikely oh wait inevitable he said it was inevitable hey you know who I haven't checked in on in a while my good friend China whoa what happened to you what happened to them was a full-blown Civil War that had been going on since 1927 the People's Liberation Army under the leadership of Mao Zedong successfully defeated the Republic of China who fled to Taiwan that now communist China and the Soviet now the Civil War had been going on forever ever since World War one ended China their Communist Party started to grow right under Mao Zedong and in the pre-world War two years of the Civil War the Guam and Dong or the Nationalist government had been successful they were successful look into the long march as a very important part of the history of communism in China but things were not going well for the Communists and to be honest the best thing that happened almost to the Communists in China was world war two the two sides had to put aside their differences to unify against Japan when they invaded China in World War two and during those years to and during the hardships I think of world war two a lot of more and more people started turning to communism by the time the or to the Communist Party and then when the war was over and the civil war resumed which was exactly what happened the sides had kind of flipped and eventually leading to a communist victory by the Communist Party and driving out the Chinese government to the island of Taiwan down here and yeah China has now entered you know a phase of communism as the as the new order here in here in China now as you can imagine that was very very scary to the West because you have the largest populated country in the world has now turned to communism at a potential alliance between China and Russia could be a devastating one in the eyes of the West so this was kind of scary times and it looks like you know communism is kind of winning here in especially in Asia so here in the 50s it was a great concern to the West of what had now happened here in China and the potential of what the future could look like it Union signed a mutual defense treaty this was terrible news for the West but wait there's more after the Second World War Korea was divided along the 38th parallel in the North just more of a communist trade in the South America set up an anti communist regime both were led by very sweet looking old men but don't let that deceive you they were both ruthless dictators and both dreamed of reuniting Korea under their own regime now that he had the bomb Stalin was feeling a little more cocky and he finally gave Kim permission to attack the North launched a surprise invasion of the south on June 25th 1950 with Soviet aid the North Koreans steamrolled through taking Seoul in just three days and replacing one ruthless dictator with another the UN were freaking out and quickly created an emergency force made up of troops through 16 countries to defend the South the West still helped his son and made landings at Incheon near Seoul they pushed the North Koreans out of Seoul replacing the ruthless dictator that I replaced the first realistic hitter with the same ruthless dictator that are previously been replaced by the new ruthless dictator and the West then continued all the way up the Korean patrol at this point China was getting worried that the UN may just keep going the US had sent this guy to lead the operation after winning the Pacific Theater of World War two General Douglas MacArthur's head was big and his balls were bigger he reassured President Truman that there was absolutely no way at all that the Chinese would ever get involved meanwhile half a million Chinese troops were crossing into Korea newcomb no nukem no aw come on you're fired the u.s. considered this was a very interesting moment here when because MacArthur had kind of become this war hero after the success of World War two and with this spread of communism and and all that and how you know communism courts had been marketed in the West as this you know evil sort of thing and you had of having had used you know atomic weapons before MacArthur was one that said no let's why are we stopping you know I didn't mean and ya proposed using it again using atomic weapons again and Truman was having none of that so he got fired and it kind of interesting what happened with the American public is a lot of people still supported MacArthur and there was people that were against Hongkong is this like violent war monger and all this stuff so it was an interesting time of how it kind of split a lot of American opinion at this time but it is a very interesting to think about what if during like the Korean War atomic weapons were used either on North Korea or China would that have brought in the Russians are you looking at World War 3 here which again has not been very long since World War two ended but a very interesting alternate reality that could have happened in a very devastating one at that it's also had the bomb they didn't want to risk all-out global destruction the communists pushed the West right back almost to the exact same spot they it all started from and they ended up in a stalemate where they remained until both sides finally agreed to work towards the peace settlement in 2018 back in America Americans decided they wanted a new president who would be tough on communism so they elect a famed World War two General Eisenhower who is really hard to draw it's 1953 paste down how you don't know he's dead he had a cerebral hemorrhage and his reign of terror kinda came back to bite him in the ass because he had imprisoned all of his best doctors and those that were left were too terrified to treat him the new leader Nikita Khrushchev called a meeting and said hey guys you know how Stalin was imprisoning and murdering herself for doing basically nothing yeah he was kind of a jerk I'm really not sure how this is news to you shoe shop went on a campaign of desalinization statues of stone were taken down Stalingrad was renamed and Khrushchev announced that he wanted the Soviet people to be happy and would allow greater freedom in the Soviet youth now don't don't think that Nikita Khrushchev is like anti-communist he's a hardcore communist for sure but definitely believed that the the brutality of Stalin and just the over oversight of everything and they're such strict control and all those sort of things that that needs to be lightened up a bit so I call you a deist on ization but don't don't you know misunderstand that he is looking to end communism or anything like that there but I mean really if you're if you are replacing Stalin I mean almost anybody that replaces Stalin is gonna look a lot more of a lighter touch ruler I mean it's hard to top Stalin in that way so let's remember that with Khrushchev and it's you're gonna see the Khrushchev years or some of the actually the years of the most heightened heightened tensions of the Cold War because I'm sure they're gonna start talking about here Union so how did that work out well an uprising in East Germany was brutally suppressed a revolution in Hungary was brutally suppressed and demonstrations in Poland consumers must measure and it finally allows some mild some forms back in the Soviet Union he permitted more cultural expression but then began banning stuff based on his own personal tastes modern art looks like a child urinated on canvas band jazz music sounds like the feeling of needing to fart and your poetry is really depressing how could anyone in the Soviet Union be depressed you're banned Khrushchev wanted the Soviet people to be happy but not like that or that or that young people began enjoying a boring Western pop culture son remove that disgusting imperialist apparel at once shut up dad you can't tell me what to do what would you look at that turns out he can tell me what to do the West had initially liked the cut of Khrushchev's jib but world events soon soured relations even more the two sides were spying on each other a whole lot throughout the Cold War the KGB had spies and informants in nearly every aspect of Western life in government so much so that whenever the US tried to send spies into the Soviet Union the KGB were usually ready to arrest them on this spot members of the Manhattan Project aided the Soviet Union in acquiring the bomb some American officials believed they were on the wrong side I'll sell you three secrets for five million dollars okay go ahead the Allies are digging a tunnel under East Berlin to tap your communications there's an American agent living at this address in Moscow and sometimes when I'm home alone I like to put on my wife's dresses sit in the corner and cry for hours very interesting in America fear took hold during the Red Scare and the McCarthy trials American values imploded as fear of communism collided with freedom of thought and expression and communist kind of became a buzzword thrown around to describe anything people didn't like Hollywood common your next-door neighbor's dog communists when the grocery store cashier asks if you need a bag when you clearly can't carry 10 tons of bacon aids in your hands communists but one area in particular where the US had an edge over the Soviet Union was in its espionage technology so Joseph McCarthy centered in the United States was famous for approaching Congress the public basically saying that there is a deep communist infiltration and the major institutions in America and he had claimed that he had this list you know of people that were there and you know people ask him like can we see the list on all this and it never it never really happened but the fear like still took place even without maybe two writs a lot of the direct evidence and so during these years is the Red Scare as it's also called was a rough time if you or anybody that showed any kind of sympathy in any way towards communist I mean if you didn't because I mean just getting labeled that communist was it could ruin you you know what I mean and yeah you could go and you know report somebody like I don't know you don't like your neighbor down the street and you're sick of them I got to do is you know go down to the authorities and say hey I think this guy is a communist or a spy you better believe someone's going to show up to their doorstep some people in suits and interrogate things but yeah this a lot of people definitely bought into it that there was this deep communist infiltration into major American institutions which kind of fueled even more of the anxiety here in these early Cold War years in particular you to spy planes flew across Russia carrying out surveillance from the skies there was a nasty incident in 1961 when one was shut down and Khrushchev was furious who the hell is this he's up high-altitude weather enthusiasts who flew of course right that sounds plausible wait a minute what does he have a gun in a poison needle because he's up very naughty high-altitude weather enthusiasts but much to America's concern to the Soviet Union appeared to be ahead in the space race everyone freaked out when Russia launched the world's first satellite and then they actually sent a man into space even worse there also appeared to be a missile gap in the Soviets favor and Khrushchev was so confident that he and allowed the u.s. to set up a technology exhibit in Moscow attended by a certain Vice President Richard Nixon check this out we have color TV yes but we've been to space and can obliterate you with her massive nuclear arsenal check out this vegetable peeler tensions increased further when both sides upgraded their atomic bombs to hydrogen bombs and after West Germany was allowed to join NATO in 1955 Khrushchev set up the defense of Warsaw Pact strengthening the military ties between the Soviet Union and it's satellites States in 1960 Americans decided they wanted a new president who would be tough on communism so they elected John F Kennedy the Soviet Union was advancing its technology but it was also bleeding its coffers dry and all of the money was going towards the military not the people life under communism was yeah the the Cold War is it costs an absurd amount of money because not only are you doing this military buildup and the crazy price of trying to devour of developing atomic weapons is staggering to the economies of these two countries and it although you know you might think here at the end of the 50s early 60s that if there's someone winning the Cold War it would be the Russians right they now have a bigger arsenal of weapons they have basically achieved all the made or all the major milestones of the of the space race to first to put you know the Sputnik was the first satellite put into space they were the first to put a person into space a dog into space I mean every it just every major checkpoint here or what's the word you know I mean come back to me but is is being won by the the Soviet Union here so but at a great cost as you can see what they just ended with before I paused here the Soviet economy is struggling to keep up with all this spending but at the same time trying to run an economically successful nation and it's kind of bankrupting their nation in a way and the people of course are the ones that are going to be feeling it so you know how long can this actually we'll see by the way I'm sorry if you're hearing some weird background noise that would be my dog here who apparently doesn't think I'm giving him enough attention so don't mind that it's not part of the video but don't worry he's he's he's fine still is hard as ever and Berlin remained a thorn in the Soviet side the contrast between the economically prosperous West and the struggling East was clear and day by day and East Berliners were still able to freely travel to the West now many of them were deciding to stay there millions defected to West Germany by a West Berlin causing Eastern factories to lose workers and taking a heavy toll on the economy first sous-chef tried this leave West Berlin or else or else what or else I'll be really mad at you yeah no we're gonna stay listen man West Berlin is ours East Berlin is yours that's just how it is Kennedy felt pretty good about a show of American result but wait a second did you catch that let's reply it Kennedy just told cruise shop that the USA wouldn't interfere in what the Soviets did with their section of Berlin so Khrushchev came up with a new idea we're gonna build a wall and it's gonna be a big beautiful wall and it's gonna keep out all the Mexicans oh sorry it's gonna keep in all the Mexicans on August 13th 1961 Berliners woke up to find their city divided into two with barbed wire and guards blocking the border between East and West over time a wall was constructed throughout the city families were torn apart thousands would risk their lives escaping over the wall and hundreds would die trying to the despair of Berliners the West were unable to do anything about it but the wall did put on full display the failure of the communist system as Kennedy said democracy is not perfect but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in as part of the agreement you know similar to the Iron Curtain criticism the Soviets are gonna use a similar defense for why is this happening defense right they're afraid of you know whether it's being invaded or something like this because they're not gonna come out and publicly state that this wall is actually to keep people in which is the bigger effect of this wall because yeah is true that for years and years and years many people from East Berlin had been moving to the western side where growth was happening much much faster under kind of the American guidance over here and they're losing people not just losing just you know everyday people they're losing from east to west very important people we're talking very educated learned people and losing those people I'm sure was very very harmful to to East Berlin so this wall although again you can state that it's for a defense thing like they're they're saying here was probably most effective for keeping people in from being able to move into the West part of Berlin between the two sides US diplomats were still allowed to travel to East Berlin but suddenly East Berlin crossing guards started givin them the business and Kennedy was like nah in October the US world tanks up to the crossing point at Checkpoint Charlie as a show of strength the Soviets did the same and the to Turin s standoff they stayed like that for sixteen hours and the world braced for nuclear Armageddon thankfully them Kennedy called Khrushchev directly and was like hey man this is getting way too hot how about you back your tanks up by an inch and we'll do the same sounds good okay how about you back your tanks up by another inch and we'll follow suit alright hey you want to do another inch and they both very silly inched away from the apocalypse Neos let's hope that's the biggest Christ handful moments they were we got about as close as possible to it New York okay so things are definitely yeah they're getting heated here again you're seeing a couple of the incidences where we are getting very very close potentially that could could potentially make it to a war and it's so much pressure has now been put of these two individuals Nikita Khrushchev and John F Kennedy of having to deal with this and it's a very serious moment here so anyway great great first part here so far I'll definitely do a reaction to the the part two but yeah I'm really enjoying it so far good stuff in here so many things of course I could comment about and I don't want it to turn into two that completely but a lot of things too if you're again into this to look more into Cold War such a fascinating part of history because you know just the world has completely changed since World War two and at the base of all this the ability to destroy utterly destroy places right and potentially the world is something the world had never had to deal with before so the Cold War thankfully was a Cold War right meaning it didn't heat up directly between the two but I'm also you know as you saw here there was plenty of fighting right proxy wars the the the two couple of the big ones who of course was first big one with the Korean War which again could have turned out even worse than it was and already is such a devastating war but in the future gonna get the Vietnam War and these sort of things so anyway we'll check that out when we get to that with part two so stay tuned for there for that when it comes out now once again make sure you support the original creators by going to their site or their page and liking and subscribing definitely do that here if you want to see more of these videos as always if you have video suggestions leave them in the comments I love hearing anything that you have to say so hopefully again we see more of you please come back again and we'll see you next time

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 1,117,560

Keywords: react, history, cold war

Id: LQ2Xf15-6DA

Length: 31min 53sec (1913 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2019