The Red Empire In Eastern Europe (1948-1949).

THE RED EMPIRE IN EASTERN EUROPE (1948-1949)

How seccure was Stalin’s control of eastern Europe?

After WW2 the communists quickly gained control of eastern Europe. The chaotic situation in many fo the countries helped them.

There was a political vacoom. The soviet leader Stalin helped the communist parties of its country to win power. Through Cominform he made sure eastern European countries followed the same policies as the Soviet Union. They became one-party states. The communists were the only legal party. Secret police arrested the communists opponents.
There was also a need to retaure law & order. This provided a good excuse to station Soviet troops in each country.
The economies of easter Europe were shattered. To rebuild them the governments followed the economic policies of the Soviet Union. They took over all industry. The government told workers and farmers what to produce. Through Comecon, Stalin made sure that the countries of eastern Europe traded with the USSR. He promised aid to countries which cooperated with the S.U.
When Soviet control was threatened, the S.U was prepared to use its tanks to crash opposition

Cominform

Cominform stands for the Communist Information Bureau.
Stalin set it up in 1947 as an organisation to coordinate the various communist governments in eastern Europe.
The office moved to Bucharest in Rumania in 1948 after Yugoslavia was expelled by Stalin because it would not do what the S.U told them to do.
Cominfor ran meetings and sent out instructions to communist government about what the S.U wanted them to do.

Comecon

It stands fr the council fr mutual economic assistance.
It was set up in 1949 to coordinate the industries and trade out the eastern European countries.
The idea was that members of Comecon traded mostry with one another rather than trading with the west.
Comecon favoured the USSR more than any other of its members. It provided the USSR with a market to sell its goods and guaranteed it a cheap supply of raw materials.
It set up a bank for socialist countries in 1964.

What did ordinary people in eastern Europe think of ...

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Comecon

It stands fr the council fr mutual economic assistance.
It was set up in 1949 to coordinate the industries and trade out the eastern European countries.
The idea was that members of Comecon traded mostry with one another rather than trading with the west.
Comecon favoured the USSR more than any other of its members. It provided the USSR with a market to sell its goods and guaranteed it a cheap supply of raw materials.
It set up a bank for socialist countries in 1964.

What did ordinary people in eastern Europe think of Soviet control?

The S.U had achieved amazing industrial growth before WW2. Soviet style communism also offered people stable government and seccurity because they were backed by one of the world’s superpowers. Faced by shortages and poberty after the war, many eople hoped for great things from communism. But the reality of Soviet control of eastern Europe was very different from what people hoped for. Countries which had a long tradition of free speach and democratic government suddenly lost the right to criticise the gonvernment. Newspapers were censored. Non-communists were put in prison for criticising the government. People were forbidden to travel to countries to countries in western Europe.

Between 1945 and 1955 eastern European economies did recover. Factories did not produce what ordinary people wanted, just what the S.U wanted. Wages in eastern Europe fell behind other countries and even behind the wagesin the S.U. Eastern Europe was forbidden by Stalin to apply for Marshall Aid from America. Long after economy recovery had ended the wartime shortages in werstern Europe, people couldn’t get their basic needs for surviving. They couldn’t get electrodomestics which were becoming comon in the west.

Despite this, when Stalin died in 1953 the communists still retained their iron grip on eastern Europe.

How was Krushchev different from Stalin?

In 1955 Kruschev emerged as leader of the USSR.

He talked of peacefull co-existence with the west.
He made plans to reduce expenditure on arms.
He wanted to improve the living standard of USSR and eastern Europe.
He relaxed the iron control of the S.U.
He closed down Cominform.
He signalled the countries of eastern Europe that they would be allowed much greater independence to control their own allies.
Krushchev attacked Stalin’s purges and abuse of power.

As eastern Europe wanted greater freedom, it saw hopeful times ahead. He continued the S.U’s policy by creating the Warsaw pact, a military alliance of the communist countries.

How did the Soviet Union deal with opposition in eastern Europe?

Krushchev’s criticism of Stalin sent a signal to opposition groups in eastern Europe that they could now press for changes. Soviet troops were sent and people were killed. The first opposition Krushchev had to deal with as a leader as in Poland. In 1956 the demonstrators attacked the polish police because the government increased prices but not wages. Workers were killed. The polish government was unable to control the demonstrators so Krushchev sent Red Army tanks into Warsaw to restore order. He flew to Poland to resolve the situation. He agreed that Vladislav Gomulka should become the Polish leader and also that the communists would stop persecuting members of the Catholic church. The Red Army withdrew to the Polish border and left the Polish army and government to sort things out.

Hungary, 1956

Krushchev was soon put to the test again in Hungary in October 1956

Why was there opposition in Hungary?

Hungary was led by a heart-line communist called Mátyás Rákosi who was hated by Hungarians because of his restrictions. They didn’t want to lose their freedom of speach. They lived in fear of the secret police.

How did the S.U respond?

A group within the communist party opposed Rákosi. He asked Moscow for help, but Moscow would not back him, and the Kremlinordered Rákosi to be retired “for health reasons”.

The new leader was no more acceptable to the Hungarian people and he sparked off an anti-soviet rebelion. The Soviet tanks moved in to crash the demonstration, but the tanks stopped and withdrew. The USSR allowed a new government to be formed under Imre Nagy.

Nagy’s government began to make plans:

They would hold free elections, create impartial courts, restore farmland to private ownership.
They wanted the total withdrawal of the Soviet army from Hungary.
They planned to leave the Warsaw pact and declare themselves neutral in the cold war struggle between east and west.
They thought that the new American president Eisenhower would support the new independent Hungary.

Krushchev acceted some of the reforms, however, he could not accept the threat to leave the Warsaw pact. In October 1956 Soviet troops and tanks entered Budapest. Hungarians did not give in. They fought during two weeks and around 30.000 Hungarians were killed, another 2000.000 fled across the border int Austria to escape the communist forces. Imre Nagy and his leaders were imprisioned and then executed. The Hungarian resistance was crushed in two weeks, the western powers protested to the USSR but sent no help because they were too preocuppied with the Suez crisis in the middle east.

Krushchev put János Kádár in place as leader. He introduced some of the reforms being demanded by the Hungarian people. But he didn’t waver in the central issue, the membership of the Warsaw pact.