(i) The Cold War was a diplomatic war and not an armed conflict among the superpowers and was based on ideological hatred and political distrust.

(ii) The Cold War was a bi-polar confrontation between the USA and the USSR but it also involved allies or satellites of the two superpowers.

(iii) The Cold War was also a clash between two ideologies and two differently organised systems of economy and society-communism and liberal democracy, and socialist command economy and capitalism.

(iv) From the beginning of the 20th century both the USSR and the USA were on their way to becoming superpowers. After the Second World War it was the two countries-America and Soviet Union emerged as superpowers.

(v) Soviet Union, despite phenomenal losses in war, made rapid strides because of its socialist command economy.

(vi) The phenomenal rise of these two countries led to a competition between the two which ultimately resulted in the Cold War.

(vii) The Soviet Union set-up the Communist Information Bureau (the Cominform), Radio Moscow and supported some communist parties in other countries.

(viii) The USA set-up a radio news programme called 'Voice of America' and supported the anti-communist political parties and movements in other countries.

(ix) The conflict between the two countries turned out to be the conflict between different ideologies that both the countries adopted. One of these ideologies was political and economic liberalism which was adopted by America and the other was Marxism-Leninism adopted by Russia.