The Cold War - OverSimplified (Part 1)

I've decided that in order to sell more merch I should do a face

reveal wearing some of it so are you ready here we go boom

new minimalist and Cold War merch available

now and get the new limited edition Churchill

character pin before it sells out with more characters coming in the future link

in the description down below

the year is 1917

fighting rages on the eastern front of the First World War both Germany

and Russia are on the brink of collapse soldier

I need you to bring me this man

got it found him Sir what

no not lend Lenin

the Russian comm unit what why

would I need a Beatle Lenin

the Russian communists he was exiled to Switzerland

you know what I'll do it myself

who wants to start a revolution

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 hey man 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 sir

but 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 him he reigned with terror 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

uh hey uh just

give me a second hey

men I think something's

up with 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

intact surprised wow that's

he already knew how um

am I sure I want to send nuclear secrets via unsecure

public coffee-shop Wi-Fi am

I ever dude use

a VPN and speaking

of VPNs if like

me you take Internet safety seriously

then you need Nord VPN Nord VPN hides your online activities

from outside intruders preventing

anyone from stealing your personal data and stopping your service provider selling your data

to advertisers with over 5,000

servers in 62 countries it allows you to surf the net anonymously

and securely and it's simple to use with

just a click of a button you can connect to a server halfway

across the world even

allowing you to access streaming

services from that specific

territory say for example you wanted to watch a certain oversimplified

video that for some reason has been blocked in your country with

Nord VPN you can it works seamlessly across PC

mobile and tablet go to north VPN comm slash oversimplified

to get an amazing 75

percent off that's just $2.99

per month with an additional month free for 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 2 officially

came to an end hooray we won okay

so now it's time to establish

the New World Stalin

you're in charge of Eastern Europe now we want you to let them all

hold elections oh yes of course elections

and these elections will be free and fair right oh yes certainly

free and fair definitely

free and fair communist

communist communist communist 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

over the next few years the British intervened

in the to prevent a communist takeover in Turkey

the Russians began demanding more control of turkeys c-axis rats 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

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

an 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 view this moment

as the official declaration of

the Cold War back

in Europe 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

they sent 12 billion dollars to Western Europe for its economic recovery

the countries have 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

sorry America I can't

come this was a full-on economic

battle raging between capitalism and communism

in Europe 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

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 and think hmm

maybe this communism thing ain't so great after all I'm

gonna have fun tonight

you're home late Oh

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 hitting all of your supply routes to

West Berlin what are you gonna do about it I suppose

we'll just fly the supplies in

all right Truman you in this round 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

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 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 the Soviets set up a communist regime 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 from 16 countries to

defend the south the West still held to 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 Peninsula at this point China was

getting worried that the UN may just keep going the u.s.

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 Neukom

no Newcomb no oh come on you're fired the u.s.

considered the nuclear option but now that the Soviets also had the bomb they

didn't want to risk all-out global

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

elected famed World War two General Eisenhower who

is really hard to draw it's

1953 hey stone how you doing oh 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 Khrushchev 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 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 were brutally suppressed although

he did finally allow some mild reforms

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 your band 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 Sun

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 and government so much so that whenever the u.s.

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 believe they 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 communists your next-door neighbor's dog communist

when the grocery store cashier asks if you need a bag when you clearly

can't carry ten 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 in particular you

to spy planes flew across Russia carrying

out surveillance from the skies there was a nasty incident in 1961

when while we shut down and Khrushchev

was furious who the hell is this he's up high-altitude

weather enthusiasts who flew of course okay

that sounds plausible wait

a minute why 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 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 even 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 our 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 still as hard as ever and Berlin

remained a thorn in the Soviet side the contrast between the economically

prosperous West and the struggling East was clearer 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 via West Berlin causing Eastern factories to lose workers and

taking a heavy toll on the economy Soviet

leaders decided this couldn't continue any longer first Khrushchev

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 resolve but wait a second

did you catch that let's

reply it uh 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 between the two sides US diplomats were still allowed

to travel to East Berlin but suddenly East

Berlin crossing guard started givin them the business and Kennedy was like nah

in October the US rolled tanks up to the crossing point at Checkpoint Charlie

as a show of strength the Soviets did the same and the two were

in a 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 all right hey you want to do

another inch and they both very silly inched away from the Apocalypse

whew let's hope that's the biggest crisis of my presidency it wasn't