Question

What was the iron curtain, and why was the term chosen?

Answer 1

Hint: Since World War II, the Cold War was a time of diplomatic turmoil between the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as their respective allies, the Eastern and Western Blocs.
The word "cold war" is used because the two superpowers did not engage in large-scale combat actively, but they both backed massive international conflicts known as proxy wars.

Complete answer:
Following World War II, the Soviet Union built the Iron Curtain, a political, military, and cultural barrier to keep itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies from communicating freely with the West and other non-communist countries. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has fallen across the Continent,” said former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a speech in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946, as he said of communist powers, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

The Iron Curtain's limits and rigidity were greatly weakened in the years following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, but they were reinstated with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The Iron Curtain was applied to the airwaves after the Cold War. Radio Free Europe (RFE), which is financed by the CIA, attempted to provide uncensored news to listeners behind the Iron Curtain, but communist regimes attempted to jam RFE's signal. The Iron Curtain effectively disappeared when the communists left one-party rule in eastern Europe in 1989–90.

Note:
- Winston Churchill, the former British Prime Minister, delivered a solemn speech in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946, denouncing the challenge of communism that arose from the separation of Western Europe and Eastern Europe.
- This schism signaled the start of the Cold War, which was fuelled by the rivalry between capitalism and communism, or the United States and the Soviet Union.