Post-war Soviet claims of being an ideological role model for a communist and third world countries were challenged in both Europe and elsewhere.

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Shehtaaz Zaman

September 28, 2003

IB SL History per. 5

Post-war Soviet claims of being an ideological role model for a communist and third world countries were challenged in both Europe and elsewhere. Citing examples from two regions, analyze: a.) The nature of the challenge b.) The Soviet response and c.) The reaction of the western powers.

        Arguably the most impressive demonstrations of US military and foreign policy is the containment of Soviet hegemony in the Post-War era. Upon the conclusion of the Second World War, both superpowers emerged due to the amount of influence each country had over certain areas of Europe. Thus, surfaced the Cold War, the struggle for ideological, economic and military supremacy and global influence between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, constantly battling for the expansion of their own spheres of influence. However, challenges to Soviet hegemony did not just come from the United States of America; it also came from the Eastern European satellite states and from the People’s Republic of China.  

        During the post-war era, Eastern Europe could be elucidated as two distinct definitions. Eastern Europe could be referred to as any part of the European continent lying on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, including European countries which had been integrated into the USSR and those which had not. However, Eastern Europe is usually used as the synonym for the satellite states of the Soviet Union. All were designed as facades for the exercise of the dogmatic sanctions of the Soviet-led communist movement. Though all states were under the influence of the Moscow prototype of communism, none of the states organized on Leninist lines. Stalin was determined to create identical replicas of Russia out of his liberated satellites. However, one of the satellites refused to be subjugated by the Russians. Yugoslavia was the only East European nation which had liberated itself during the end of the Second World War, due to a successful resistance campaign. The resistance allowed the election of Marshal Jozef Broz ‘Tito’, one of the resistance leaders, who became the president of the new republic in Yugoslavia. The establishment of Yugoslav communism had nothing to do the Soviets, as Tito owed much of his reputation to the success of the resistance in 1945. Tito strongly objected to the Stalinist Moscow model of communism. By 1948, his relationship with Stalin had completely deteriorated. Tito wanted to follow his own road to communism, not that of Stalin or Lenin. Tito disagreed with Stalin’s concepts of centralization and he objected to Stalin’s plan for the Yugoslavian economy. Tito did not want constant Russian interference and wanted to have free trade with the west. In the economic front, he encouraged the development of an autonomous, enterprise-responsibilities system. Under this system, each enterprise was responsible for taking all output decisions and the workers were permitted to own shares in that particular enterprise. Furthermore, after making a pre-determined contribution to state exchequer, the enterprise was allowed to keep the remaining surplus and distribute it to its workers, adding the capitalistic concept of incentive into the production process. Tito theorized that this enterprise-responsibilities system would ensure continuous productivity growth whilst maintaining workers’ incentive to contribute their best. This was in sharp contrast to the Moscow model of managing state enterprise business. In the external front, Tito attempted to curve out an image of independence from Soviet influence. One example is the acceptance of aid from the International Monetary Fund. This was another shocking development to the Russians, as Stalin had clearly told all the satellites to conform to the Moscow model, avoiding any contact with the west. Annoyed with Tito’s foreign policies, especially his aim for the Yugoslav-Bulgaria federation, Stalin unsurprisingly excluded Yugoslavia from the Cominform in 1948 and executed all economic aid. The establishment of the Cominform in 1947 was a method of controlling the Eastern European states, and it is argued that its founding was due to Tito’s activities in Yugoslavia. Expecting total economic downfall and Tito’s forced resignation, Stalin had seemed to underestimate Tito’s power. The popularity gained through the success of his resistance campaign during World War II was too great to be influenced by external forces, even of Stalin, and Tito resumed application of his own breed of communism, including full contact and trade with the west. Tito had realized that communism derived from the Moscow model was a system of control that was too inflexible and inefficient. This form of communism deprived the workers of their rights and constitutions, producing corrupt party officials and an unproductive labor force. Addressing the weakness of the Moscow model, Tito began to call his form of communism a Yugoslav model of socialism, producing another shock to the USSR. By denationalizing industries, assembling communes and ruling Yugoslavia through collective presidency, Tito had pushed the boundaries of Stalin’s patience to the absolute brim. In 1951, Stalin had planned an invasion of Yugoslavia through Hungary and Bulgaria, but later abandoned it when the USA began supplying aid to Yugoslavia. However, upon giving the loan through the IMF, the west was particularly hesitant, as they did not want Yugoslavia to succeed Russia as an alternate model of a communist threat to global supremacy. Though the loans were given, the western nations limited trade with Yugoslavia as well as economic and political contacts. The interaction between the IMF, a Bretton-Woods institution, and Yugoslavia had probably discouraged Stalin from pursuing his plan to attack Yugoslavia. Tito’s form of socialism also contained the disintegration of Yugoslavia, as witnessed during the events in the Balkans in the late 1990’s. Yugoslavia was an artificial creation composed of many fiercely nationalistic ethnic groups, lacking the concept of a single identity. With the departure of Tito and the weakening of the center, the ethnic groups asserted their national identities leading to the tragic events of the late 90’s and the emergence of several independent states such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia an a vastly reduced Yugoslavia.

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        The other challenge to the Moscow model came from the People’s Republic of China. Led by Mao Tze-Tung, China’s approach to a worker’s paradise was shaped by its own history of peasant revolts and a communist party primarily led by peasant leaders. On the other hand, the Moscow model was derived through its own experience with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, led by the industrial workers. Immediately, a conflict between ideologies is evident, as Mao believed in a rural-based revolution, while Lenin and the Soviets believed in an urban-based revolution. At the time when Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto, Europe ...

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