The soviets also wanted to punish Germany heavily where as the Allies wanted to treat them not so badly as they had done this before and the Germans had retaliated, this caused tension between the two sides.
By the time of the Potsdam conference in July 1945 the war had been won, but the Soviets had liberated many countries in Eastern Europe but instead of then leaving these countries they left troops occupying these countries. Stalin had also set up a communist government in Poland, which was meant to remain neutral. He was making it very hard for countries in Eastern Europe to do things that were against communism and when they did he did something to stop them.
After the Potsdam conference had ended Stalin was now starting to gain control over Eastern Europe, which is exactly what he wanted. It was said that there was an iron curtain coming across Europe. This is what Churchill said and he was referring to the West not knowing what Stalin was doing in the east and it was like having an iron curtain in place. This also increased cold war tension.
The next step of Stalin’s grip on Eastern Europe came in October 1947 when he set up the Communist Information Bureau. This was set up to make sure that communist rule was being followed in all of these countries and anyone who went against this was imprisoned. He now had almost complete control over Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania.
When the communist first took over in Eastern Europe it gave the people of those countries a lot of hope as the ideology of the party was good and they thought that they would be in for good lives. However the reality was very different, these countries had for along time had freedom and free speech but this was now gone, they would find that they now had no say over how their country was run. Although people in these countries were given jobs it was only in factories and producing goods for the Soviet Union and not their countries. The people in these countries were starting to see what Stalin was doing and when they did protest the Soviets just brought in tanks and the army to stop this happening. This showed that if anyone protested about what the Soviets where doing they would be treated with severely, there were many examples of this happening.
In 1948 the Soviets tried to take their control one step further when they blockaded Berlin. They were worried that people in East Berlin saw the lives of people in the West and would try to flee. If this spread then they would lose all the power they had built. To stop this happening the blockaded Berlin that they could easily do as it was in their zone. Their aim was to make the Western Powers leave Berlin so they could take sole control of it. Stalin felt that if he could gain control of the capital Berlin then he would be able to take control of Germany and turn it communist as well, hence developing his communist power even further into Europe. This would give him more control.
In 1949 Comecon was set up by the Soviets. This was another organisation designed to show their power. What it did was made sure that no countries in Eastern Europe traded with countries in the West but only with each other, this added more tension between the USSR and USA. However this only really benefited the Soviets and just demonstrated their control over Eastern Europe even more, showing that they dealt with these countries by just taking control.
In response to NATO being set up which was a party of all the Western Powers joined together the Soviets felt that they should start their own organisation. So they set up the Warsaw Pact, they then made all the countries in their control join this and what it really meant was that they now had to legally do what the Soviets said. If they didn’t do this then tanks would be sent in and many would be killed. This once again proved the power of the Soviets in the East.
However in 1953 Stalin died and Khrushchev took over, many countries under communist rule like Poland saw this an opportunity to strike so they did but all that happened was the same as what happened under Stalin and tanks and troops were sent in to restore order.
However Khrushchev then went and talked out about Stalin criticising his policies and him as a person. Stalin was a hero in the USSR and had the respect of people in Eastern Europe so what Khrushchev said shocked everyone. Many countries saw this as there chance to get out of communist control and one example of this was the Hungarian Uprising. This was the most successful of the rebellions with many Hungarians fleeing and at first Khrushchev didn’t do much about it but when Hungary asked to leave the Warsaw Pact he realised he had to act. So like Stalin he sent in the troops and thousand of Hungarians were killed including Imre Nagy who had led the strike.
In conclusion, the Soviets needed protection against future attacks so they set about controlling Eastern Europe they felt that if they could build a big enough empire they would be able to defend themselves against any attacks. They did this by using bullying methods and often made sure that elections were rigged to make sure they were in control. There were many times that countries went on strike against them but whenever that happened the Soviets just sent the army in. There was one thing The Soviets did with Eastern Europe and that was control them.
