Developing tensions up to 1948

Question 1

Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

Answer 1

• Influence was the main goal originally
• Establish a buffer zone to the West of USSR consisting of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and Czechoslovakia
• Compliance to communism in Czechoslovakia not as single largest party winning 38% vote May 1946 as had left these states with mass unemployment and economic chaos
• Rural peasants looked towards pro-agrarian parties to deliver redistribution

Question 2

Poland

Answer 2

• Pro-Stalin Lublin government in exile and became Stalin’s instrument of political control
• Provisional Government of National Unity formed June 1945 contained parties from all of the spectrum and became part of Stalin’s approach
• Peasant Party led by Stanislaw Mikolajczyk but Communists weakened them by merging with the Polish Socialists and Jan 1947 became the dominant group
• Deputy Prime Minister Wladyslaw Gomulka was not fully pro-Moscow he declared Poles should determine their future
• Gomulka in 1948 accussed of ‘nationalist deviation’ and replaced by Boleslaw Bierut

Question 3

Romania

Answer 3

• Communists were popualr as offered different perspective to the pre-war regime
• Red Army occupied Romania
• Made it easy for Stalin and little opposition

Question 4

Bulgaria

Answer 4

• Gradualism, manipulated elections and forced the removal of opponents
• Strongest opponent was Agrarian party led by Nikola Petkov despite winning 20% of the vote in October elections in 1946
• Faced with charges and was executed
• April 1947 all other parties had been banned

Question 5

Hungary

Answer 5

• Communists used tactic of allying with other political opponents in order to challenge greatest opponent, Smallholders Party
• Political opponents arrested and elections manipulated and rigged
• Many Communists did not show loyalty that Stalin desired and formed close links with Yugoslavia where non-soviet regime in place
• Laszlo Rajk 1949 was executed for anti soviet activities
• By 1949 all competition had disappeared

Question 6

Czechoslovakia

Answer 6

• Industrialised and had large unionised working class
• Czech communist leader Klement Gottwald became Prime minister
• Error of Gottwald willing to accept Western aid in 1947 and member of these opposition groups resigned in 1948
• Edward Benes agreed to support communist dominated government
• Benes resigned in June 1948 and communists left in complete control

Question 7

Yugoslavia

Answer 7

• Leader Josip Bronz Tito was a committed Stalinist and communist movement in place post war and leader seen as a nationalist
• By 1948 Soviet influence was limited
• Yugoslavs refused to be Stalin’s puppets
• June 1948 Yugoslavia was expelled from Cominform
• Leaders accused of being Marxist-Leninists
• Yugoslavia was able to survive better with US financial aid

Question 8

Long Telegram

Answer 8

• 22nd February 1946
• George Kennan was a second ranking officer in US embassy in Moscow and sent lengthy dispatch to Washington
• Favoured US adopting hard line approach to USSR
• For Kennan communism was uncompromising in its threat to the world
  -Kennan believed that there was an inevitability about the collapse of East-West relations
• Also produced the ‘X’ Article and he called for systematic and focused containment
• Molotov concluded US plan was on economic imperialism

Question 9

Iron Curtain Speech

Answer 9

• 6th March 1946
• Direct attack on Soviet policies and convinced Stalin that US was in plot with Britain to carry out anti-soviet assault
• Ten days after the speech Stalin responded by seeking Eastern European allies to reinforce security
• Molotov accused USA of being imperialistic power and abandoning the Declaration of Liberated Europe at Yalta

Question 10

Paris Peace Conference 1946

Answer 10

• Leaders from France, Soviet Union, UK and USA met for treaties on defeated European countries:
• Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Romania
• Settlements not reached for Austria or Germany, treaties drafted and signed for other countries in 1947
• All the treaties included causes regarding territorial adjustments, reparations and anti-fascist requirements

Question 11

Greek Civil war

Answer 11

• Where USA first contained Communism
• US sent over 300 million in aid and military advisors
• US intervention came because UK stopping aid to anti-communists
• Truman Doctrine formed and became the basis of US foreign Policy

Question 12

Reasons behind Truman Doctrine

Answer 12

• Designed to stop Soviet Union from aiding Greek Communist movement
• Designed primarily to protect freedom and democracy and a response to Soviet ideological expansion
• Truman needed to demonise Soviet Union and communism in minds of American Public
• Truman had to provoke the Soviet Union as he wanted to justify the USA’s role as protector of freedom
• Doctrine formed an important element of the USA’s aims of becoming a global economic power
• Doctrine first step in creation of containment and basis of US post-war foreign policy

Question 13

Cominform September 1947

Answer 13

• Response to US economic imperialism reconstruction of Germany through Marshall plan
• Stalin initially believed Capitalist states would destroy themselves but now certain the USA was engineering an Anti Soviet led global alliance
• Communist representatives met from all over Europe and Created Communist Information Bureau (Cominform)
• Andrei Zhdanov key speaker and co-author of Zhdanov Doctrine

Question 14

Zhdanov Doctrine

Answer 14

• Viewed world as being divided into two camps: imperialists led by USA and democrats led by USSR