international communism

• Stalinization of Eastern Europe


  Red Army liberation of Prague, 1945
• Stalin's Concerns in 1945

  • Soviets had suffered 20 million+ casualties
  • Stalin was obsessed with security and the possible resurgence of a hostile Germany
  • Wanted a 'buffer zone' of satellite states to the west of the Soviet Union
• Time magazine, 5 Feb. 1945: '"This war is not as in the past, whoever occupies a territory imposes upon it his own social system, it cannot be otherwise"'
• Conversations with Stalin


  Conversations with Stalin
• The Communists


  • Demoralized by battles of interwar period (illegality, police action, etc)
  • Tied to foreign policy of Soviet Union (through Comintern)
  • Not tainted with collaboration
  • Fortunes ascending at the Soviet Union emerges victorious
• 'Popular Front'


  Permissible to join forces with socialists, social democrats, in a 'Popular Front' against fascism
• Georgi Dimitrov


  General Secretary of the Comintern, 1934-1943
• Poland had a large communist movement (about 38% in May '45 elections)
• Yugoslavia had a 'People's Court' in Sofia, Bulgaria in December 1944 that sentenced to death virtually the entire wartime government - smaller scale tribunals existed throughout the country (and throughout the region)
• In Hungary, 300,000 people were caught up in post-war 'retribution' (about 3% of population)
• In Yugoslavia, there was a Trial of Draža Mihailović
• Germans in Prague awaiting expulsion to Germany
• Era of Stalinism: 1945-1953


  • Emphasis on building an industrial base
  • Collectivizing agriculture
• Sztálinváros, 'Stalin City', Hungary

  • Nowa Huta (The New Steel Mill), Poland
• 'New Belgrade', Yugoslavia


  • Savica, Zagreb