The Formation of a Soviet Bloc

Question 1

what did the outcome of the second world war lead to

Answer 1

Soviet military domination of eastern and central Europe led to a formation of a Soviet Bloc

Question 2

what did the USSR use it’s military presence do

Answer 2

to encourage the formation of governments that were ‘friendly’ to the Soviet Union.

Question 3

what happened to the countries that the Soviet Union influenced

Answer 3

they became satellite states closely linked to the USSR. This created a zone of buffer states, which Stalin hoped would protect the USSR against future incision of the west

Question 4

which countries were added directly to the USSR

Answer 4

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine

Question 5

which countries were in the Soviet sphere of influence

Answer 5

Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania

Question 6

what happened in 1939

Answer 6

under the terms of the Nazi-Soviet pact, the USSR invaded and occupied eastern Poland.

Question 7

what happened in 1940 due to the Nazi-Soviet pact

Answer 7

by the secret protocols of the pact, Soviet forces occupied the Baltic States.

Question 8

what were the annexations of the baltic states part of

Answer 8

a long term plan, ruthlessly implemented.

Question 9

what did the USSR do from April to May 1940

Answer 9

22,000 captured polish army officers were killed by the NKVD in the Katyn Forest Massacre, to eliminate polish nationalist elements who might oppose communism

Question 10

what did the USSR allow the nazis to do

Answer 10

crush the warsaw uprising

Question 11

what was the Katyn Forest Massacre

Answer 11

from September 1939, Beria was responsible for about 40,000 polish prisoners: those deemed pro soviet were allowed to live, and the rest were killed.

Question 12

what was the warsaw uprising

Answer 12

on 1 August 1944, as the advancing Red Army approached Warsaw, fighters in the AK (home army) launched an uprising to liberate the city from German occupation and to support the nationalist Polish underground state.

Question 13

what was established in several states

Answer 13

‘friendly’ communist regimes were quickly established

Question 14

what happeend from the 1930s

Answer 14

exiled communist party groups from European countries had been trained in Moscow, ready to infiltrate post-war governments after liberation

Question 15

what happened as soon as the Red Army entered Poland

Answer 15

a provisional government was set up in Lublin, dominated by pro-Moscow communists

Question 16

what happened in Yugoslavia

Answer 16

Communist partisans led by Josip Tito gained control of the post-war government and Tito’s regime was expected to be an important part of the Soviet Bloc.

Question 17

where did communist regimes also emerge

Answer 17

they controlled Bulgaria and Romania

Question 18

what happened to the eastern region of Germany

Answer 18

it became the Soviet zone of occupation and a group of Moscow-trained communists gained political control by 1946.

Question 19

why did it take longer to extend the soviet bloc into east-central Europe

Answer 19

in countries where democratic national governments were elected, communist parties were instructed by Moscow to join with non-communists, especially socialists and ‘bourgeois liberals’, in order to gain a political foothold that could be slowly built upon.

Question 20

what were the tactics of getting communists to join non-communist governments called

Answer 20

salmi tactics

Question 21

what did salami tactics enable

Answer 21

pro-soviet governments to gain power in Hungary in 1947, and Czechoslovakia in 1948, where it was suggested that the communists had even stooped to the murder of the pro-Western minister, Jan Masaryk

Question 22

what did the creeping expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence cause

Answer 22

growing diplomatic tensions and fears of open conflicts between the USSR and the capitalist west.