Russia’s vast territory and climate favored communal, collective responsibility

Marxist Leninism vs. other Marxists

  • other Marxists about nation but multiethnic Russia about international revolution

Lenin

  • constitutionally equal republics
    • mistake b/c Russia as equal

Stalin

future priest in the Georgian Orthodox church: those with faith and those do not (world view)

Marxism ~ old and new Testament

  • proletariat as the chosen people
  • final result as a world without class distinctions and the oppressors punished

psychopath?

  • those wihtout emotions and can function as if others are objects

paranoia?

  • thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion.
  • ~ belief of conspiracy against oneself

inherent distrust of communism against the bourgeoise capitaist west

WW2

human cost
agricultural and industrial production disruptions

  • reduced labor; towns and villages destroyed for battle; reduced investment in economy but in weapons

war loosened Stalininism on the Soviet population

soldiers

  • peasants
  • expected higher rewards
  • returned and shocked at the compared living standards
    • not afraid of political police
  • Stalin repressed them

predictions of the war’s impact

  • US overproduction
  • Europe unemployment and underproducton
    • US export to these regions -> US domination
  • capitalism causing its own death when striving for markets

SU foreign policy

  1. halt US expansion as long as SU secure
  2. defend SU security interests in SU spheres of influence and expand influence if possible
  3. not to intimiate the US

foreign policy dealings

  1. eastern Europe + north Korea
    1. secure Communist strong hold in gov.
  2. western, southern Europe and China
    1. where US capitalist expansionism
    2. secure economic and political order
  3. Germany & Austra
    1. had to collaborate
    2. to gain trust of inhabitants so after SU leave no anti-SU policies
    3. Germany: industrial potentials don’t benefit US & UK

eastern Europe

  • threatened SU int he interwar period
  • Poland
    • resist SU!
  • Czechoslovakia
    • bourgeoise democratic gov. taken over by fascists
  • Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria
    • sided with Nazism
  • after in control
    • forced solving of national minority problem
      • evicting them out
    • land reforms
      • land owners losing power
    • nationalization

Curzone line

  • border between SU and Poland

Percentage agreement before war ended

  • but dominated by US decisions (FDR against making agreements before war ended)

Poland consolidation

  • most opposing
  • (before war ended)
  • London Poles refuse to discuss border problem
  • Stalin -> controllable and amenable gov. -> Lublin committee 22 July 1944 -> officially recognized January 1945

Czechoslovakia consolidation

  • no occupation history by the SU
  • (befor war ended)
  • anti-Western due to Munich Agreement 1938
    • handed it to Nazi
  • Eduard Benes - head of gov. in exile
    • amenable to SU

Hungary consolidation

  • before war ended
  • Admiral Horthy too indecisive to cooperate w/ SU
    • taken over the Arrow Cross the local fascists

Romania consolidation

  • prior to war end - pro German
  • pro-German gov. overthrown -> % agreement -> SU larger share -> demanded commuinist PM

Bulgaria

  • SU marched into Bulgaria to fight fascists -> communists seized power of hte Fatherland Front

Yugoslavia and Albania

  • Yugoslavia by Tito
  • Albania by individual communist coup inspired by Tito

Finland

  • SU increased grasp of it

    SU & security

    Stalin adhered to the old maxim: the more territory the more secure

Germany - long Marxist tradition

SU extensive spies in US but US less so

France & Italy communists

  • more neutral to collaborating with the socialists, liberals, and Christian democrats

1936 Montreux Convention

  • prohibited passage of SU warships through the Straits without perimisiosn from Turkey
  • Yalta:
    • Stalin discussed with Churchill and FDR and they agreed to reconsider
    • but Stalin later issued ultimatum to Turkey -> worried the West

Stalin: hope Neisse to be recognized as the western frontier of Poland

Stalin’s policies

  • whole Germany to go socialist -> no division of Germany!
  • some hopes for controlling Germany but not whole
    • more conciliatory
  • Atomic bomb
    • destroyed Stalin’s euphoria of SU victory in Germany
    • Stalin: we need strong grasp to what we have
  • talented people and investments to the military industry
    • no investment to consumer goods