2.Developing tensions up to 1948

The USSR, and Eastern and Southern Europe

Stalin was focused on growing influence and ideological expansion. He was confident in establishing his sphere of influence after Yalta, and he managed to create a buffer zone by 1948, instilling Communist regimes across Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and Czechoslovakia). This buffer zone would reinforce the USSR’s defensive capability against threats from the West, but while security was a clear aim for Stalin, it was also apparent that he wanted to use this to spread Communism.

Communist expansion also came in the form of alliances with other left-wing parties (often taking control of them) and manipulating election results.

However, in some areas, such as post-war Czechoslovakia, Communism was welcomed as it offered a much better prospect than Capitalism - promising employment and social mobility.

Poland

The pro-Stalin Lublin Government was established and became an instrument of political control in Poland, Yalta had partly facilitated this – by agreeing to free elections Stalin was able to preserve the role of the Lublin Government.

June 1945 the Provisional Government of National Unity was formed containing parties from both ends of the political spectrum, Stalin’s plan being to appear as if he’s allowing free multi-party elections but in reality, the result he wanted would emerge.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Wladyslaw Gomulka declared that Poles should have the right to fight for their own future, and not have it taken over by Stalin’s pro-Soviet Communism. He therefore opposed the Soviet policies (believing they were irrelevant in Poland)

In 1948 Gomulka was accused of ‘nationalist deviation’ and was replaced by pro-Soviet Boleslaw Bierut – meaning Poland was safely under Soviet influence.

Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary

Communists were popular in Romania as they offered a promising regime, and the Red Army occupied Romania, therefore Romania was an easy state for Stalin to expand into.

In Bulgaria gradualism, manipulated elections and forced removal of any opponents characterised the takeover. (E.g., Nikola Petkov was executed, being the leader of the Agrarian Party, and by April 1947 all other political parties had been banned).

In Hungary Communists would ally other political groups to challenge their opponent, the Smallholders Party, but opponents were also arrested, and elections were manipulated too. However, in Hungary the Communists weren’t 100% loyal, forming links with Yugoslavia (a country with an anti-Soviet regime).

Czechoslovakia

Czech Communists were popular among rural peasants as they’d given them land after the war, and the Czech Communist Party leader was made prime minister.

However, in 1947 he showed willingness to accept Western economic aid, and shortly after opposition began to grow from non-Communist groups.

But in 1948 all non-Communists in Government resigned and therefore removed the threat of a alternative right-wing group, as a result Edvard Benes supported a Communist dominated Government.

Yugoslavia

Initially Yugoslavia was firmly communist, with a committed Stalinist leader, Tito. But by 1948 it became clear that Soviet influence was limited, this was because of Stalin’s determination to impose Soviet control so widely within Europe and have states conform to Soviet policies and interests – Yugoslavs refused to become Soviet puppets.

Yugoslavia was able to survive as the USA offered economic aid.

When was the Long Telegram

George Kennan - February 1946

The Long Telegram

Kennan (a second ranking officer in the US embassy in Moscow) sent a despatch to the US State Department.
A telegram seen by many as fundamental in shaping US policy toward USSR.
Kennan had supported the US adopting a hard line against the USSR, for him, Communism was uncompromising in its ideological threat to the free world.
He emphasised the way that the USSR viewed the USA, as hostile and menacing, demonising the USA.
He also argued that the USA must be prepared to be forceful and adopt a proactive role (particularly in Europe).
USSR’s aggressive and ideologically driven policies made Kennan resonate with Truman and his worry for US security.
Essentially, he outlines urgency for the US to make moves, and the impact of his Long Telegram was to feed the seeds of change

When was the Iron Curtain

Winston Churchill - 6 March 1946

The Iron Curtain

Churchill, despite no longer being prime minister, delivered an attack on Soviet policies in his Iron Curtain speech less than a month after Kennan’s Long Telegram.
The speech convinced Stalin that US-GB relations were strong, and they were in a plot together to carry out an anti-Soviet ideological assault.
Stalin did deliver a response 10 days later, presenting a gentle USSR peacefully seeking Eastern European allies to help their security, this was the traditional Soviet explanation for its policies toward Eastern Europe.
Soviet foreign minister Molotov accused the USA of being an imperialistic power and abandoned the Declaration on Liberated Europe.

Greek Civil War

The catalyst that triggered the USA’s fundamental reorientation of foreign policy came in Europe, Stalin agreed that Greece should remain in the Western sphere of influence after the war, and when Greece was liberated from Nazi occupation a war broke out between Greek Communists and monarchists. Britain had been providing aid to the anti-Communists in Greece but announced they were stopping in February 1947 – it appealed to the USA to assume the financial burden.

When and what was the Truman Doctrine

12th March 1947 - due to Britain no longer providing aid to the Greek anti-Communists one of the USA’s first containment moved began - the Truman Doctrine on Containment.

It granted hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to Greece and Turkey.

In general, the main aim was to provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations threatened by internal/external forces (aka the USSR).

Truman Doctrine

The Truman Doctrine on Containment was of fundamental importance in terms of the dynamics of international relations from 1947, now being founded upon division.

Truman may have introduced this doctrine for a number of reasons; for example a way of keeping the USSR from aiding Greek Communists (it had no relevance to US policy after the Greek Civil War), to protect democracy and freedom with no aggressive intent toward any other state and simply a response to Soviet ideological, political and strategic expansionism, to demonise the USSR/Communism for Americans to justify Truman’s aim of turning the USA into a global power, to provoke the USSR and make them feel threatened by the USA’s power, an aid in developing the USA’s global economic power by ensuring many states were economically and militarily dependent on the USA (form close trade relations etc) and finally to create containment.

When was Cominform

September 1947

Cominform

Initially, Stalin believed that the Capitalist states would collapse due to an economic rivalry that would emerge between them, but he soon realised that the USA was engineering an anti-Soviet, US-led global alliance, and by late 1947 he was sure that the USA was not remotely interested in any form of international relations where multiple spheres of influence coexist. Therefore, in order to undermine this US strategy, Communist representatives from across Europe met in Poland for the creation of the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform). Stalin and Andrei Zhdanov (a Soviet leader) viewed the world as being divided into 2 camps: the US imperialists and the Soviet democrats. As said in the Zhdanov doctrine. The purpose of Cominform was to unite and coordinate the role and actions of Communist groups throughout Europe and that Communists therefore acted as a whole against the USA and Capitalism.