Cont’d from part V (a)

I

As I stated at the conclusion of the preceding article, the Cold War–essentially an ideological conflict at bottom and an abstract idea at that!—came to be expressed in concrete geopolitical terms. A somewhat less-abstract, because it’s articulated, is the derivative notion of “spheres of influence.” And it is at this level that the abstract manifests itself in the concrete.
 

To wit, from the US perspective, preserving or enlarging upon its sphere of influence meant returning to the pre-war policy of containment, which, according to its principal framer, George Kennan, aimed at a “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” in the hope that the regime would mellow or collapse.” In all fairness, the threat of Russian expansionism in the post-war era wasn’t exactly misguided, especially in light of communism-leaning regimes in the post-war Greece, Italy, and France. Eventually, each would become a member of the Western bloc, but this didn’t put an end to the ever-present Soviet threat, nor did it make it any less real. ^[1]

The Soviets responded in kind by constructing a buffer zone all its own, a zone consisting of Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Yugoslavia, and East Germany—the so-called satellite states ^{[2] [3]}–all of which led to what came to be known as “The Iron Curtain,” a permanent feature of the Cold War. ^[4]

It’s thus that the whole of Europe became subdivided into Western- and Soviet sphere of influence.

II

Although both strategies, of containment on the one hand and the buffer zone idea on the other, were essentially defensive to at first, it all had changed in 1949 with the formation of NATO, but more on that later. More immediate and infinitely more telling were the means by which each competing power exerted its sphere of influence. For the West, it was the Marshall Plan ^[5] –officially the Euro6ean Recovery Program, ERP–and the idea was “to provide foreign aid to Western Europe.” ^[6]

Initially, the Soviets tried to match the Marshall Plan with an aid package of their own—the so- called “Molotov Plan of 1949” (see endnote 7) administered by Comecon (Council of Mutual Economic Assistance)—but they couldn’t sustain it in the long run. Consequently, they had to rely instead on the art of “gentle persuasion” and, if worst came to worst, on its military prowess. And so, within years of assuming virtual control of its satellite states, the Soviets stationed troops in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary to ensure that the regimes in place are either communist or at least sympathetic to the communist cause.

It worked for a while because of gratitude that many Eastern Europeans [felt] for their liberation from Nazism. This, and the often appalling conditions at the end of the war, played into the hands of East European communist parties, which were, of course, backed by Stalin and the Soviet Union. Leaders of these parties were often trained in Moscow and certainly received much friendly assistance from the Russians. ^{[7] [8]}

But this relationship didn’t last long. Within years of Stalin’s death in 1953, there had erupted a number of uprisings against communist regimes, first in Hungary in 1956 and then in Czechoslovakia in 1968. For the time being, these uprisings were quashed and the Soviet-mandated order was restored, but these events marked the beginning of Russia’s loosening stronghold on Eastern Europe, leading to the USSR’s dissolution in 1991.

III

In the forthcoming article, I’ll conclude the Cold War era series.

Endnotes

1. As regards Greece, see (i) Communist Party of Greece, a Wiki entry:  (ii) a February 4, 2019 speech by  Eleni Bellou, published in Initiative of communist and workers’ parties; and (iii) “The massacre of the internationalist communists in Greece, December 1944,” a February 13, 2017 article in libcom.org. Concerning Italy, see (i) Italian Communist Party from Wiki, and another article by the same title in The Gladiator; and (ii) a comprehensive Britannica entry, Italy since 1945  Coming now to France, see (i) Wiki’s History of the French Communist Party; (ii)  Britannica’s French Communist Party; (iii) “A Brief History of Italian Communism” in Communist Crimes. Also, see “After the Resistance: Post-War Communism in France and Italy,” Éilis Ryan’s  December 7,2020 article in ThinkLeft, and Stanley Meisler’s October 25, 1985 article, “French Controversy Flares Over Role of Communist Party in Resistance,” in LA Times. (Also, see section III of the preceding article, the nominal subject of Harry Truman’s March 12, 1947 speech.)
2. See “Soviet Satellite States” in Schoolshistory.org.uk.
3. The concept of a “satellite state” wasn’t restricted to Eastern Europe alone. As per “Satellite state,” a Wiki entry, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan [could] be considered a Soviet satellite; from 1978 until 1991, [since] the central government in Kabul was aligned with the Eastern Bloc, and was directly supported by Soviet military between 1979 and 1989. {And so it was with] the short-lived East Turkestan Republic (1944–1949) [which] was a Soviet satellite until it was absorbed into the People’s Republic of China along with the rest of Xinjiang. And it was no different with the Mongolian People’s Republic, [which] was so tightly controlled by the Soviets that it ceased to exist in February 1992, less than two months after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Or with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, for that matter, (later the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) from its independence day of September 2, 1945 until the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. The Soviets supplied the North Vietnam with … weapons, food, as well as sent experts to consult during the Vietnam War. Even after the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union maintained billions of dollars in economic aid to Vietnam, which lasted until its dissolution.
4. As per this Wiki entry, the term “iron curtain” dates back to the 19th century and it refers to fireproof curtains in theaters to slow the spread of fire. Its first metaphorical application goes back to Alexander Campbell’s 1945 book, It’s Your Empire, describing “an iron curtain of silence and censorship [which] has descended since the Japanese conquests of 1942.” On the eve of the Cold War era, Winston Churchill was the first to use of the term in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. In his “Sinews of Peace” March 5, 1946 address (aka “the Iron Curtain speech”) at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Churchill stated:  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 some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. Also, see the ‘Iron Curtain” entry in New World Encyclopedia, another entry in Britannica, and this article in WorldAtlas.
5. See this Wiki entry and the “Marshall Plan” article in WallStreetMojo.
6. Reconstruction of Japan–as per “Occupation and Reconstruction of Japan, 1945–52”  entry in Office of the Historian–was the first application. From then, it was just a matter of applying the same principle to the beleaguered nations of the post-war Europe—Greece, Italy, and France most notably.Concerning France, see (i) Wiki’s History of the French Communist Party; (ii) Britannica’s French Communist Party; (iii) “A Brief History of Italian Communism” in Communist Crimes. Also, see “After the Resistance: Post-War Communism in France and Italy,” Éilis Ryan’s  December 7,2020 article in ThinkLeft, and Stanley Meisler’s October 25, 1985 article, “French Controversy Flares Over Role of Communist Party in Resistance,” in LA Times. As regards Greece , see (i) Communist Party of Greece, a Wiki entry: (ii) a February 4, 2019 speech by  Eleni Bellou, published in Initiative of Communist and Workers’ parties; and (iii) “The massacre of the internationalist communists in Greece, December 1944,” a February 13, 2017 article in libcom.org. Concerning Italy, see (i) Italian Communist Party from Wiki and another article by the same title in The Gladiator; and (ii) a comprehensive Britannica entry, Italy since 1945.
7. Russia’s initial success in keeping the Eastern bloc intact and impervious to Western influences or enticements had to do with the Soviets’ military might. “Unaffected by the pressures of domestic opinion, Stalin was able to keep huge numbers of troops in a state of readiness, whereas the western powers were under intense pressure to ‘bring the boys back home’ as soon as possible. Neither Britain nor the United States was prepared to fight over Eastern Europe, and Stalin knew this.” (See the “Soviet Satellite States” article in endnote 2.)
8. To continue, at first Stalin moved slowly. There was no sudden imposition of Soviet Communism. Opposition parties were allowed and in the first elections the voters were given a relatively free choice, provided the governments they chose were at least sympathetic to Communist aims and ideals. But gradually the East European Communists took over the running of their countries. Cominform and Comecon aided this transition toward them becoming Satellite states. By 1946 the West was becoming increasingly aware of what was happening in Eastern Europe. 
9. See Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a Wiki entry, and Hungarian Revolution in Britannica. As regards Czechoslovakia, see “The Czechoslovak Revolutions” in PressBooks , “Soviets invade Czechoslovakia,” an August 19, 2019 article in History, and “Rebellion in Eastern Europe: Hungary and Czechoslovakia” in Perspectives of the Cold War. One might also point to the state of unrest in Poland, starting with the “1956 Poznań protests,” which did lead to Poland’s “temporary liberalization” and the end of Stalinism under Gomulka, as per the so-called Polish October.”  But for the most part, this, as well as Lech Wałęsa-inspired “Poland’s Solidarity Movement (1980-1989),” was essentially about workers’ rights, not about opposition to Poland’s communist regime.
10. According to “Satellite State” (a Wiki entry in endnote 3), the three Communist countries of Eastern Europe which managed to shake off Soviet control were Albania, Romania and Yugoslavia  The Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia is sometimes referred to as a Soviet satellite, though it broke from Soviet orbit in the 1948 Tito–Stalin split, with the Cominform offices being moved from Belgrade to Bucharest, and Yugoslavia subsequently formed the Non-Aligned Movement. The People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, under the leadership of Stalinist Enver Hoxha, broke ties with the Soviet Union in the 1960 Soviet–Albanian split following the Soviet de-Stalinization process  In 1961, with Chinese support, Albania managed to wrestle itself from Soviet influence. The last country was Romania, with the de-satellization of Romania starting in 1956 and ending by 1965. Romania was fully aligned with the Soviet Union until the early 1960s, throughout its first 15 years as a Communist state. However, serious economic disagreements with Moscow resulted in a 1964 formal rejection of all Soviet designs and interference in the affairs of other Communist states.