Developing Tensions Up To 1948

• No agreed peace settlement with Germany to conclude the Second World War


  1945
• Division of Europe into rival Soviet and Western spheres of influence became evident

  1946 Feb - 1948 Feb
• Stalin's USSR further consolidated its control over the 'satellite states' of Eastern and Central Europe
• The USA became increasingly concerned about how to prevent communist influence from spreading further
• American policy was based on 'containment'


  1947 March
• Kennan's 'Long Telegram'


  Informed US policy
• Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech

  1947 March
• The Truman Doctrine is established

  1947 March
• The Marshall Plan is announced

  1947 June
• Cominform is formed to coordinate policy in the Soviet Bloc

  1947 Oct
• Communist coup in Czechoslovakia

  1948 Feb
• Yugoslavia is expelled from Cominform

  1948 June
• Stalin's methods of establishing control

  • Salami tactics
  • Encouraging local communist parties to form alliances with left-leaning parties
  • Intimidation and manipulation of elections
• Czechoslovakia was not controlled by a communist government at the start of 1948
• In February-March 1948, the communists purged the non-communist members of the government and the pro-American Foreign Minister, Jan Masaryk, was found dead beneath an open window
• This had huge consequences. The US Congress showed greater acceptance of the Marshall Plan, and hostilities between the USA and the USSR became more intense
• By 1948, the USSR controlled a buffer zone of satellite states
• Communist regimes in 1948

  • Albania
  • Bulgaria
  • Czechoslovakia
  • Hungary
  • Poland
  • Romania
  • Yugoslavia (though Yugoslavia broke away from the Soviet sphere of influence in June 1948)
• Josip Broz Tito, a communist wartime resistance leader, was elected President of Yugoslavia in 1945
• The political and economic systems of the satellite states were coordinated by Cominform (the Communist Information Bureau) after its founding in 1947
• Kennan's Long Telegram


  Advice from George Kennan, a US diplomatic expert with long experience of Soviet affairs, that had a decisive influence on American policy
• Kennan's main points


  • The USSR views the West as hostile and menacing
  • Peaceful relations between the USA and USSR are unlikely
  • Prosperity in the West will undermine communism in the East
  • USSR foreign policy is aggressive and ideologically driven
  • The USA should be prepared to threaten the use of force to contain Soviet expansion, but war itself is unnecessary
  • The USA should adopt a more proactive role in Europe
• Truman's policy of containment


  • Suggested that any attempt at a negotiated settlement with the USSR had been abandoned
  • Showed US determination to limit further Soviet expansion
  • Aimed to strengthen anti-communist governments and movements in Europe by providing economic assistance
• Truman's policy of containment provoked a hostile reaction from Stalin, who perceived 'containment' as a direct threat to use American economic power against the Soviet Bloc
• Churchill's Iron Curtain speech


  Helped to push US policy towards containment and was interpreted by Stalin as a direct attack on the Soviet Union
• The Truman Doctrine marked a new stage in US attitudes to intervention in world affairs, by which the USA was prepared to provide advice (and send money and equipment) to any peoples threatened by 'subjugation' to another power (in effect, to a communist take-over)
• Cominform is formed to coordinate the actions and roles of communist groups across Europe


  1947 Sept
• Yugoslavia was expelled from Cominform in June 1948 because it challenged the Soviet control over Southern and Eastern Europe
• Both Yugoslavia and the USA capitalised on this expulsion and entered into an agreement that provided economic assistance to Yugoslavia through the Marshall Plan