The USA's involvement in Europe - Cominform, September 1947

Question 1

when was Cominform formed?

Answer 1

22 September 1947

Question 2

what was Cominform?

Answer 2

• The Communist Information Bureau
• The Cominform controlled and coordinated the political and economic systems of the Soviet satellite states.
• The control of these states would be in line with orders directly issued from Moscow.

Question 3

what did Cominform signify?

Answer 3

It signalled a shift from moderate Popular Front policies to ‘two camps’ politics

Question 3

what did Cominform signify?

Answer 3

It signalled a shift from moderate Popular Front policies to ‘two camps’ politics

Question 4

what motivated Stalin to create the Cominform?

Answer 4

• by late 1947, Stalin was increasingly convinced that the USA was not interested in any model of international relations that was based on multiple spheres of influence
• he was convinced that the USA was engineering an anti-Soviet, anti-communist, US-led global alliance
• he believed two camps had emerged and Soviet control in Eastern Europe had to be consolidated

Question 5

who were the founding members of Cominform?

Answer 5

the USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland and Yugoslavia but Yugoslavia was expelled on 28 June 1948

Question 6

What did Tito criticise about the French Communist Party?

Answer 6

There was much criticism - initially led by Tito - of the legalism and electoralism which had characterised the political behaviour of the Italian and French Communist parties since 1944-45

Question 7

what did the PCF launch in Nov-Dec 1947

Answer 7

The PCF launched massive - but ultimately unsuccessful - anti-Marshall Plan strikes in France during Nov-Dec 1947 which involved 2 million strikers

Question 8

why was Yugoslavia expelled from Cominform on 28 Jun 1948?

Answer 8

• The nation’s leader, Josef Broz Tito was reluctant in following the Soviet line by harshly criticising Stalin’s lack of assistance to communists fighting for power in Greece throughout 1947-48
• could not due to the percentages agreement in November 1944 between Churchill and Stalin as Stalin wanted good relations with the West
• was expelled when Tito refused to tone down his complaints

Question 9

who was Andrei Zhadov and what did he believe?

Answer 9

• a Soviet leader and key speaker at the conference in Poland in September 1947
• he articulated that the world was divided into two camps: imperialists led by the USA and democrats led by the USSR
• he was committed to the view that the USA wanted to establish an anti-Soviet empire based on economic dependancy on the USA for those states who entered this sphere of influence
• this became known as the Zhadov Doctrine and transferred to Soviet cultural policy

Question 10

outline the events of the Defenestration of Prague in March 1948:

Answer 10

• On 10 March 1948, Jan Masaryk was found dead in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry below his bathroom window
• The Ministry of the Interior claimed that he had committed suicide by jumping out of the window but it is widely believed that he was killed on behest of the Communist government.

Question 11

what was Comecon?

Answer 11

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

Question 12

when was Comecon founded?

Answer 12

in January 1949 as a riposte for the Marshall Plan

Question 13

what were the primary factors in Comecon’s formation?

Answer 13

Joseph Stalin’s desire to strengthen the USSR’s relationship at an economic level with the lesser states of Eastern Central Europe
- this is because war and the breakdown of relations with the USA and the USSR had cut these states off from their traditional markets and suppliers in the rest of Europe

Question 14

who were the original members of Comecon?

Answer 14

the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania

Question 15

what did Comecon aim to create?

Answer 15

Comecon aimed for Eastern Europe to be collectivised, industrialised and and centralised
- states were expected to trade primarily with Cominform members and all contacts with non-Communist countries were to be discouraged
- Comecon was intended to create an alternative path which might foster development whilst maintaining Soviet hegemony

Question 16

what did Stalin impose across the Eastern bloc?

Answer 16

• many opposition parties were suppressed, whilst the social democratic parties were forcibly amalgamated into communist or communist-controlled organisations
• the last vestiges of democracy were removed, civil liberties were decisively eroded and Soviet style censorship and policing were imposed
• Stalin succeeded in seeing off the threat posed by the Marshall Plan by imposing control over the satellite states