Grade 9 Social Sciences Worksheet

Cold War

At the end of World War Two, two new superpowers emerged that would dominate the world
scene for the next 40 years.

1.1 Name the two superpowers. [4]

1.2 What system of government did each of the superpowers have? [2]
1.3 What economic system did each superpower have? [2]

2. Explain why individual freedom was allowed in the western democracies,

but not in the eastern-block countries. [3]

The Cold War was a war fought between ideological and economic ideas, without actual combat (a
hot war). All-out war between the two superpowers was too dangerous, although many smaller
wars were fought between the allies of the superpowers, supported by the respective
superpowers.

3.1 Why was all-out war between the two superpowers too dangerous? [4]
3.2 Name three other nations on each side that supported the superpowers, stating which
superpower they supported, and mark them on the map of the world provided. [6]

4. Name one other conflict involving allies of the superpowers that took place between
1950 and 1980. Write a paragraph explaining the importance of this war. [2]

5. The superpowers engaged in an ‘arms race’ and the ‘space race’. Describe what
is meant by each of these two races and their significance in the ‘Cold War’. [4]
6 Place the following Cold War events in the correct order.

A: Superpower (SP) X puts the first man in space.

B: SP Y ends the Second World War by dropping the atomic bomb.
C: East and West Germany are reunited.
D: SP Y lands a man on the moon.
E: SP Y is defeated by a peasant army (supported by SP X) in a South East Asian
country.
F: SP X crushes a democratic uprising in Hungary with a massive show of military
strength in Budapest. [5]

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Grade 9 Social Sciences Worksheet
7. In 1961 John Kennedy challenged NASA to put a man on the moon by 1970.

7.1 Name the first two Americans to stand on the moon. [2]
7.2 What was the name of the American moon programme? [1]
7.3 The space race in particular, despite its enormous cost, has benefited humanity
in many ways. Refer to specific examples to show how space technology has
benefited humans. [4]

8.1 Which important country has in the 1980s and 90s become the ‘third’
superpower? [1]
8.2 Some countries did not want to have anything to do with the Cold War and formed
a group of countries called the ‘non-aligned’ countries. Which country led the
non-aligned group? [1]
8.3 Which ‘cold war’ conflict remains unresolved to this day? [1]

9.1 Which country ‘won’ the Cold War? [1]

9.2 Write a brief description of the events that ended the cold war in the late 1980s. [5]
9.3 Briefly explain how the end of the Cold War benefited the South African struggle
in the late 1980s. [4]

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Grade 9 Social Sciences Worksheet
Suggested Solutions

1.1 USA and the Soviet Union (USSR) – only 1 mark for ‘Russia’. [4]
1.2 USA – democratic, USSR – dictatorship.
1.3 USA – capitalist, USSR – communist.

2. Capitalism depends on people being free to choose how to make the most of their
opportunities. Without freedom it is not really possible to have capitalism. Communism
depends on people doing what they are told by a central government.

3.1 Atomic weapons used in an all-out war would destroy the planet.
3.2 USA – Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, Canada, Australia, etc.
USSR – East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, etc.

4. Vietnam. Fought between the South, supported by the USA, and the North, supported by
the USSR and China. This war was to divide the USA very deeply. In a democracy, people are
allowed to express their opinions, and slowly the public support for the war disappeared.
Eventually the US had to leave, handing over South Vietnam to the communists.

5. The Arms Race was a continual race to find more powerful and effective weapons, especially
nuclear weapons. If one side was confident they could win a ‘hot war’, then war could have
been chosen as a solution, but so long as the other side was able to threaten at least equal
destruction, no one dared start a war and the arms race continued.
The Space Race was more about showing off to the rest of the world which side had the
superior technology. The USSR could not compete with the technological innovation needed
to put a man on the moon and eventually gave up.

6. SP X = USSR, SP Y = USA

B: SP Y ends the Second World War by dropping the atomic bomb.

F: SP X crushes a democratic uprising in Hungary with a massive show of military
strength in Budapest.
A: SP X puts the first man in space.
D: SP Y lands a man on the moon.
E: SP Y is defeated by a peasant army (supported by SP X) in a South East Asian
country.
C: East and West Germany are reunited.

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Grade 9 Social Sciences Worksheet
7.1 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
7.2 Apollo
7.3 Many technologies were invented during the space race. Non-stick cookware, computer
technologies, telecommunications technologies.

8.1 China
8.2 India
8.3 Korea

9.1 USA
9.2 The Russian economy under communist central planning was failing. The Russian President,
Nikolai Gorbachev, proposed two policies: Glasnost, ‘openness’, and Perestroika,
‘restructuring’, to try to fix what was wrong with communism. This openness led to
freedoms and democratic uprisings in the Warsaw block countries that Russia could do
nothing about and the Soviet Union collapsed as a political and economic unit by 1989.

9.3 The South African Government has always claimed that the struggle was between a (white)
Western Democracy and communist-supported ‘terrorist’ organisations. With the collapse
of Russian-led communism, this argument ceased to exist. Also, as communism failed, so
the world turned its attention to South Africa, throwing its weight behind the ‘Struggle’.

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