The Cold War Developed By 1949 Bc Of Stalin’s Intentions To Dominate Post-war Europe

Question 1

Stalin’s personality and his expansionist/ imperialist actions made the aggressive occupation of satellite states inevitable

Answer 1

E.g cult of personality and infallible interpreter of communism triggered his creation of a buffer zone based on satellite states to consolidate his authority over Eastern Europe.e.g over 11 million red army members installed Europe, Lublin govt in Poland, percentages agreement and violated yalta and Potsdam.

Cp=it was the USA who shaped this security obsessive personality of Stalin and created the environment for him to act this way. Dropping of a bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima - USA actively ahead in its nuclear warfare/ Stalin =angry viewed is as ‘atomic diplomacy’- intimidated Stalin and his imperialistic interests-and USA failed to recognise the size of soviet defeat after ww2 with operation Barbarossa and did not fully grasp why Stalin was so obsessed with Poland, he honoured the percentages agreement - 10 percent of Greece and did not intervene in the Greek civil war.

Question 2

Stalin broke agreements made at the war conferences

Answer 2

E.g violated yalta- rigged elections in Poland, and never had the intention to hold free elections in europe, accused gomulka of ‘national deviation’ and replaced with the pro-Stalinist Bierut and easy Sovietisation of Poland with the installation of Lublin govt . At Potsdam, he refused to limit the size of red army 11 million members.

Ca= he did hold free and fair elections in Czechoslovakia until 1948and in Hungary until he stopped when America was trying to spread capitalism through the mp that backed the Deutschmark in Germany.

Question 3

Stalin the Berlin blockade

Answer 3

E.g blocked all railways and transportation into west Germany, was a further illustration of the ossification of the flashpoint with the creation of east and west Germany and militarised it nato and Warsaw pact 1955 as a consequence of Stalin’s Berlin blockade. Reiterated his imperialistic anxiety of losing a firm grip over Germany, and led to him attempting to force the western allies out of Berlin.
Ca= the political merging of capitalist zones manifested in bizonia and western constitution and the Deutschmark all catalysed the actualisation of the Berlin blockade and all isolated Stalin from decisions made as a grand alliance. However, it was offered to Berlin so they were not isolating stalin