conflict between east and west 194-1972

• By 1946, the Soviet Union had successfully spread communism through Eastern Europe, with Poland, Albania, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria all having communist governments loyal to Stalin.
• Churchill referred to the divide between the east and the west of Europe as the Iron Curtain.
• The Soviet Union used the secret police force to control the countries in Eastern Europe.
• Truman decided to respond with a policy known as the Truman Doctrine, which was a policy of containment designed to stop the further spread of communism.
• Truman persuaded the US Congress to grant him four hundred million dollars of aid to help the situation in Greece and Turkey, making Turkey a strong ally of the United States and helping the monarchists in Greece.
• General Marshall assessed the situation in Europe after World War Two, finding that the country's economies had been ruined and there was an extreme shortage of all supplies.
• General Marshall proposed a plan known as the Marshall Plan, which provided seventeen billion dollars of aid to help rebuild Europe.
• Stalin was suspicious of Marshall Aid, as a result, he banned communist states from applying to it.
• Stalin set up his own version of Marshall Aid, known as Comecon, at a high level.
• Stalin responded with the Berlin Blockade, fearing that Germany was being built up.
• The Berlin Airlift was used to fly supplies into Berlin, which was under Soviet control.
• Germany was formally divided into two countries, the West, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the East, the German Democratic Republic, under Soviet control.