SALAMI TACTICS (1945–48)

‘Slice-by-slice’, Stalin ensured all E European countries had Communist governments

• Albania (1945) – the Communists took power after the war without opposition

• Bulgaria (1945) – the Communists executed the leaders of all the other parties.

• Poland (1947) – the Communists forced the non-Communist leaders into exile.

• Hungary (1947) – Russian troops stayed but Stalin allowed elections (non-communists won a big majority). Communists were led by the pro-Russian Rakosi. Rakosi demanded that groups which opposed him should be banned. He got control of the police, arrested his opponents and set up a secret police unit, the AVH.

• Romania (1945–1947) – the Communists gradually took over control.

• Czechoslovakia (1948) – the Communists banned all other parties and killed their leaders.

• East Germany (1949) – Russians turned their zone into German Democratic Republic.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLD WAR IN EUROPE.

THE IRON CURTAIN.

(THE FULTON SPEECH MARCH 1946 – CHURCHILL).

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech was never published by the Soviet press -- only in May 1998 did it appear in Russian in a historical archival journal. Stalin himself informed his people about it in Pravda. He compared Churchill to Hitler and described him as "a warmonger" who aimed at "Anglo-Saxon ... racial“ world domination. At the same time, he claimed that the Soviet Union, despite recent war losses, was capable of waging and winning another war.

Stalin's harsh reaction was calculated, not emotional. After the fall of 1945, the Soviet dictator had begun preparations for a possible confrontation with the West. In addition to atomic and other military projects, he launched a campaign to disabuse his lieutenants of any "illusions" about the West's -- and Churchill's -- good will. The "Iron Curtain" speech gave him a pretext for mobilizing the Soviet people against their former allies.

SOVIET REACTION TO CHURCHILL’S SPEECH.

WESTERN VIEWS OF COLD WAR IN EUROPE

REALITIES OF THE ‘IRON CURTAIN.

THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE AND THE MARSHALL PLAN

Background EventsThe Truman Doctrine was a response to a crisis.   Behind it lay the Communist/Soviet takeover of many of the countries of eastern Europe by ‘salami tactics’ – which, Truman alleged, was in breach of Stalin’s promises at the Yalta Conference.         Then, in February 1947, the British government – which had been helping the Greek government resist Communist rebels – announced that it could no longer afford to keep its soldiers there.   It seemed to Truman and his advisers that, of they did nothing, it was only a matter of time before the communists took over YET ANOTHER country.

The Truman Doctrine:

And so – he told the Congress – the nations of the world were faced with a choice.   This section of the speech is very famous, in which Truman defined the Cold War as a conflict between good and bad, and as a choice between capitalism and communism, dictatorship and democracy, and freedom and oppression:    At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one. One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.     In such a world, he told Congress, America was OBLIGED to get involved:

Marshall Announces His Plan

The speech George C. Marshall delivered was drafted by Charles E. Bohlen, a State Department official and future ambassador to the Kremlin. As its basis, he used a memo prepared by a State Department Policy Planning staff directed by Soviet-expert George Kennan as well as reports by other State Department officials. Marshall then prepared the final version. In the speech Marshall outlined the problem:

"Europe's requirements are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character." He then suggested a solution: that the European nations themselves set up a program for the reconstruction of Europe, with United States assistance. The significance of Marshall's plan was immediately recognized. On June 13, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin (1891-1951) predicted that his address "will rank as one of the greatest speeches in world history."

The Soviet Union hated Marshall aid (see Source D).   Stalin forbade Communist countries to ask for money.  

  Instead, in October 1947, he set up Cominform.   Every Communist party in Europe joined. 

   It allowed Stalin control of the Communists in Europe.

           

Source E 'Can he block it?'   This cartoon of 1947 about Cominform shows Stalin trying to stop the basketball of 'Marshall aid' scoring the basket labelled 'European recovery'.

                                        

                        

SOVIET REACTION - COMINFORM

THE CZECHOSLOVAKIA CRISIS 1948

At first, the American Congress did not want to give the money for Marshall Aid. But then, in February 1948, the Communists took power in Czechoslovakia, followed on 10 March by the suspicious suicide of the popular minister Jan Masaryk. Congress was scared, and voted for Marshall Aid on 31 March 1948.              Source F A British cartoon of June 1947 shows Truman and Stalin as two  taxi-drivers trying to get customers.  The 'customers' are labelled 'Turkey', 'Hungary', 'Bulgaria', 'Austria'.              

THE BERLIN BLOCKADE

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