Preparing for War: 1917-41

The isolation of Russia, 1917-21

After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 the Allied countries of the West cut off their links with Russia (as it was then called). They were angry with the Communists for withdrawing from the First World War, and several of them sent armies to help fight the Communists in the Civil War of 1918-21. They did not invite Russia to sign the Paris Peace Treaties of 1919-20, nor did they invite it to join the League of Nations. Russia thus became an outcast in the world. At first the Communists did not mind being isolated in this way. Lenin thought that Communist revolutions would soon sweep away the hostile capitalist governments in Europe and the USA. Then the world would be united in Communism and Russia's isolation would end. To help bring about this world revolution the Russians set up an organisation called Comintern. Led by Grigori Zinoviev, the aim of Comintern was to help Communists abroad organise strikes, rebellions and protests by sending them advisers and by providing them with money. 1. Give 3 examples of Russian isolation between 1917-1921. 2. Why was Lenin initially unconcerned about this isolation? 3. What was Comintern and how did it operate?

Comintern did not succeed in starting a world revolution. Strikes and risings took place in many countries in the early 1920s, but all failed. Gradually Lenin gave up the idea; Russia in the early 1920s desperately needed foreign help to rebuild her damaged economy. So Russia slowly began to re-establish links with the rest of the world. Trade agreements with neighbouring countries helped Russian trade to recover, and in 1922 the Treaty of Rapallo with Germany gave Russia her first post-war ally. The treaty created trade links between the two countries and also secretly arranged for the German armed forces to do military training and to manufacture armaments in Russia. By 1929 the USSR had links with every major power in the world except the USA. This did not mean, however, that the USSR was now friendly with these countries. As you know, Stalin was very suspicious of the capitalist countries. He feared that they would attack the USSR and believed that the USSR must be rapidly industrialised to be able to protect itself. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Why did Lenin turn his back on Comintern? Who became Russias first post-war ally? Name the treaty signed between the two countries and outline its terms. To what degree had Russian islolation ended by 1929? Why was Stalin so suspicious of capitalist countries?

The end of isolation

In 1933 the threat to the USSR increased when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. Hitler was anti-Communist as well as anti-Russian, believing that the Russians belonged to an 'inferior race' of Slavs, and that Germany must take land from the USSR to provide 'living space' for the Germans. To gain protection against the threat from Germany, Stalin began to play a more active part in world affairs. In 1934 the USSR joined the League of Nations. In 1935 the USSR agreed with France that they would jointly help Czechoslovakia resist any attack by Germany. At the same time, Comintern instructed Communist parties in Europe to work with socialist parties.

The Nazi threat to the USSR.

Stalin's main aim in doing these things was to persuade Britain and France that they could trust the USSR to stand up with them against German aggression. But the British and French governments remained suspicious of Communism. Instead of taking joint action with the USSR against Germany, the British and French often gave way to Hitler. When, in 1936, Hitler began giving help to the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, the USSR gave help to the Republicans who opposed the Fascists, while France and Britain did nothing. When Germany united with Austria in 1938 Britain and France did nothing. And again in 1938, when Hitler demanded the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia, Britain and France supported Hitler's demand at the Munich Conference and allowed him to take it. Neither the Soviets nor the Czechs were invited to the Conference, or even consulted about the matter. It was obvious by 1939 that Hitler would attack Poland next. To Stalin it also seemed obvious that Britain and France would do nothing to stop this. Stalin believed that a German attack on Poland would be followed by an invasion of the USSR itself. 9. Why did the rise of the Nazis in Germany concern the USSR? 10.What steps did Stalin take in 1934 and 1935 to improve the USSRs position? 11.How did Britain and France respond to German aggression up to 1938? What effect could this have on Soviet foreign policy? The British cartoon above was published in 1938 and refers to the Munich Conference of that year. Low shows the meeting between Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini. The caption to the cartoon is What, no chair for me?

The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939

Stalin thought the USSR would be beaten in a war against Germany. To protect the USSR he would therefore have to find an ally. In April 1939 he asked Britain and France to join the USSR in a treaty of mutual assistance. Both countries disliked the idea. They were suspicious of Stalin and, anyway, they did not think the Red Army was capable of putting up a strong fight. Stalin therefore turned to the most unlikely partner for an alliance - Hitler himself. On 23 August 1939 the two

countries signed a Nazi- Soviet Pact agreeing not to fight each other. Secretly, they also agreed to divide Poland between them. The Germans also secretly agreed that the USSR could take back the provinces which it had lost in 1918 - Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and part of Finland. The cartoon shows the British reaction to the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Hitler is saying, The scum of the Earth, I believe? and Stalin says, The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?. 12.Who did Stalin try to make an alliance with in April 1939? Why was he unsuccessful? 13.What agreement was made on 23 April 1939? What were the terms of this agreement?

Soviet expansion, 1939-41

The German army invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. The Soviet Red Army attacked on 17 September, after the Polish army had been smashed by the Germans. The USSR and Germany then divided Poland between them. To defend Leningrad against any possible attack from the west, Stalin now forced the Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - to permit Soviet bases on their land. Then, in July 1940, the Red Army occupied the three countries and made them into provinces of the USSR. Another Baltic state, Finland, was also a threat to Leningrad, for its frontier was within shelling distance of the city. So in November 1939 Stalin offered the Finns a large area of Soviet land to the north in exchange for Finnish territory close to Leningrad. When the Finns rejected this offer the Red Army invaded Finland.

In the first month of the 'Winter War' between the USSR and Finland, the Red Army was defeated many times by the smaller but more experienced Finnish army. By March 1940, however, the Finns had run out of reserves and had to make peace. The Treaty of Moscow between the two countries gave the USSR all the land that Stalin had asked for. The Winter War was a costly victory for Stalin: 200,000 Soviet soldiers were killed; the USSR was expelled from the League of Nations; and the defeats suffered by the Red Army made Hitler doubt whether it could stand up to him. During the spring of 1940 Hitler and the German army invaded and occupied many of the countries of Western Europe. While Hitler was busy with the conquest of France in June 1940, Stalin attacked and took Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. This had not been agreed in the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and Stalin's action annoyed Hitler. Relations between the two leaders began to cool. In December 1940 Hitler called off his plans for invading Britain. Now that most of Western Europe was under his control, he could turn his attention to Russia. He ordered his generals to make plans for invading the USSR the following year, 1941. 14.When did the German and Soviet armies attack Poland? 15.What measures did Stalin take to protect the USSR from the West?

16.Who did the USSR fight in the Winter War? What were the consequences of this conflict? 17.What caused relations between Hitler and Stalin to cool? 18.When did Hitler plan to attack Russia and what gave him the confidence to do so?

Meanwhile, in the east, Stalin had reason to fear another aggressive neighbour - Japan. Ten years earlier, in 1931, Japan had invaded Manchuria, a province of China on the border with the USSR. This brought Soviet troops face to face with Japanese troops. When Japan and Germany signed the Anti- Comintem Pact against the USSR in 1936, Stalin feared that the Red Army might have to fight a war on two fronts. To prevent this happening, Stalin signed a Neutrality Pact with Japan in April 1941. The Neutrality Pact with Japan came just in time, for on 22 June 1941 the German armed forces invaded the USSR in a massive military assault code-named Operation Barbarossa. 19.Why did Stalin have reason to fear Japan? 20.What steps did Stalin take to prevent a war with Japan? 21.What was Operation Barbarossa and when did it occur?

The USSR and the Far East

Reactions to the Munich Conference

SOURCE 1 What, no chair for me?, a Low cartoon published in 1938. At the Munich Conference attended by (left to right) Hitler, the British Prime Minister Chamberlain, Daladier (Prime Minitser of France) and Mussolini, Hitlers demands were acceded to and the Sudetenland and one-third of the population of Czechoslovakia were transferred to Germany. Neither the USSR or Czechoslovakia was invited to attend the conference.

Source 2 The Russian view of the Munich Conference. The cartoon shows Chamberlain and Daladier directing German expansion east.

1. What is the opinion of David Low about the exclusion of the USSR from the Munich Conference? Refer to details in the cartoon and your own knowledge. 2. Is the cartoonist in Source 2 of the same opinion as David Low? Explain your answer with reference to both sources and your own knowledge.

Questions

Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa - which means Red Beard - began at 4.15 am on 22 June 1941. Three German armies totalling 3.2 million men tore through the Soviet frontier and quickly advanced deep into the western USSR. Within a week they had destroyed the Red Army's defences, captured vast quantities of its supplies, smashed the Red Air Force while most" of its planes were still on the ground, and taken more than 600,000 Soviet people prisoner.

The 'scorched earth' policy

The USSR was staring defeat in the face when Stalin made a radio speech on 3 July, telling the Soviet people that they must use a 'scorched earth' policy against the Germans:

A: 'In case of a forced retreat of Red Army units, all rolling stock must be evacuated, the enemy must not be left a single engine, a single railway truck . . . Collective farmers must drive off all their cattle and turn over their grain to the safe-keeping of the State authorities, for transportation to the rear. All valuable property that cannot be withdrawn must be destroyed without fail. In areas occupied by the enemy . . . sabotage groups must be organised to combat enemy units . . . blow up bridges and roads, damage telephone and telegraph lines, set fire to forests, stores and transports. In occupied regions conditions must be made unbearable for the enemy.'
In the week after Stalin's speech the Soviet people rallied round to fight the German invaders and to carry out Stalin's orders. Why did they do this when millions had every reason to hate Stalin and the Communist Party? Partly it was due to patriotism - the desire to defend their fatherland from attack. Partly it was because the Germans treated the Soviet people with appalling cruelty in areas which they occupied. Millions were rounded up and taken to Germany as slave labour. Millions more, especially Jews and members of the Party, were executed by 'Special Action Groups' of the Nazi SS which followed the German armies into the USSR. In a single massacre at Babi Yar, near Kiev, 100,000 Jews were slaughtered. Fear and hatred of the Germans encouraged Soviet people to give their utmost in the war. Despite the best efforts of the Soviet people, by November 1941 it seemed certain that the USSR would be beaten. The Director of Gosplan later explained the hopelessness of the situation: 'On the territory that had been occupied by the Germans in November 1941 lived about 40 per cent of the whole Soviet population. About 65 per cent of the whole pre-war output of coal had come from there, 68 per cent of all pig-iron, 58 per cent of all steel, 60 per cent of aluminium . . ., 38 per cent of the grain . . ., 41 per cent of all railway lines of the USSR.'

B:

Three things stopped the German armies from defeating the USSR at the end of 1941. First, as the Germans advanced, the Soviets moved 1,360 of their most important factories to new locations east of the Ural mountains, well beyond the reach of the Germans. By taking the factories and machines to pieces and sending them eastwards on railway trains, the Russians made sure they could go on producing ball-bearings, engines, bullets, wheels and all the other things needed for war.

How the USSR was saved

A second reason why Germany failed to defeat the USSR in 1941 was bad weather. The German armies were not equipped for fighting in the winter weather. Hundreds of soldiers suffered frostbite every day. Tanks and lorries refused to start as petrol froze solid in the fuel-pipes. Machine-guns refused to fire. So when, on 6 December, General Zhukov launched a Soviet counter-attack against German forces advancing on Moscow, the exhausted and frozen Germans were forced to abandon their advance. A third reason for the Soviet Union's survival in 1941 was help from the USA. In November 1941 the American government began giving Lend-Lease aid to the USSR. Over the next year more than a billion dollars worth of food, medical supplies, weapons, fuel and transport equipment was taken in convoys of ships from the USA to the Soviet port of Archangel. By 1945 the Americans had sent 16.5 million tonnes of material to the USSR. Without this aid it is unlikely that the USSR could have continued fighting.

Leningrad and Stalingrad

In 1942 Hitler launched two offensives: one in the north to capture Leningrad, the other in the south to capture the oilfields of the Caucasus. The Germans had already attacked Leningrad in September 1941. Since then they had held the city under siege. As a result, very little food reached Leningrad during the winter of 1941-2, and thousands of citizens died of famine and cold. Although the Germans failed to capture Leningrad in the 1942 offensive, they maintained the siege until January 1944. During the 900-day Siege of Leningrad, from 1941 to 1944, 900,000 people died of starvation, exposure and bombing. Conditions in the city were later described by D. V. Pavlov, a city official:

C: 'To fill their empty stomachs, to reduce the intense sufferings caused by hunger, people would look for incredible substitutes: they would try to catch crows or rooks, or any cat or dog that had somehow survived, they would go through medicine chests in search of castor oil, hair oil, vaseline or glycerine; they would make soup or jelly out of carpenter's glue (scraped off wallpaper or broken-up furniture) . . .'
In the south, Hitler decided to begin his advance on the Caucasus by taking Stalingrad, a major city on the River Volga. Two German armies totalling 300,000 men advanced on the city in September 1942. However, they advanced into a trap. While a small, lightly equipped Soviet force inside the city defended it street by street and house by house, massive Soviet reserves were assembled outside Stalingrad. In November they attacked and surrounded the Germans. After months of desperate fighting the German armies surrendered in February 1943.

A photograph showing Leningrad under siege.

Operation Barbarossa
1. 2. 3. 4. When did Operation Barbarossa begin? How many men did the Germans send in the first attack? How successful was the German campaign in the first week of conflict? Study Extract A, then answer the following questions: (a) Explain in your own words what Stalin was telling the Soviet people to do. (b) What did he think would be achieved by doing this? (c) Describe how the lives of Soviet citizens would be affected in areas where Stalins orders were obeyed. 5. Why did the Soviet people follow Stalins orders? 6. Using Extract B, give at least two reasons why German victory seemed certain by November 1941. 7. Summarise the three main reasons for the German defeat. 8. When did the siege of Leningrad begin and how long did it last? 9. Read Extract C. In your own words describe the impact of the siege on the citizens of Leningrad. 10. How did the Soviet army eventually defeat the Germans? 11. When did the Germans surrender?

Operation Barbarossa
1. 2. 3. 4. When did Operation Barbarossa begin? How many men did the Germans send in the first attack? How successful was the German campaign in the first week of conflict? Study Extract A, then answer the following questions: (a) Explain in your own words what Stalin was telling the Soviet people to do. (b) What did he think would be achieved by doing this? (c) Describe how the lives of Soviet citizens would be affected in areas where Stalins orders were obeyed. 5. Why did the Soviet people follow Stalins orders? 6. Using Extract B, give at least two reasons why German victory seemed certain by November 1941. 7. Summarise the three main reasons for the German defeat. 8. When did the siege of Leningrad begin and how long did it last? 9. Read Extract C. In your own words describe the impact of the siege on the citizens of Leningrad. 10. How did the Soviet army eventually defeat the Germans? 11. When did the Germans surrender?

Soviet Victory
After its victory at Stalingrad the Red Army took the offensive against the Germans. In 1943 Soviet forces defeated the German army in a massive tank battle at Kursk. In 1944, the 'Year of the Ten Victories', the Red Army brought an end to the Siege of Leningrad, drove the Germans entirely out of Soviet territory, and entered Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in Eastern Europe. In January 1945 they began their final offensive of the war, an advance into Germany itself. Berlin, the capital, surrendered on 2 May 1945, bringing the war in Europe to an end. ABOVE: The Soviet flag over the Reichstag building in Berlin The victory of the Red Army was a very costly one. As the Germans retreated from Soviet territory, they used the same 'scorched earth' policy that the Soviet people themselves had used in 1942. This meant that roads, railways, canals and bridges, dams, power stations, factories and farms that had not already been wrecked were now deliberately destroyed by the Germans to prevent the advancing Soviets from using them. The western part of the USSR that the Red Army recaptured was therefore a devastated wasteland by 1945.

While the Red Army was driving out the Germans, Stalin was involved in negotiations with the British and American governments. In 1942 the USSR, Britain and the USA became allies in the war against Germany, Italy and Japan. Stalin's main concern was that his new allies should open a 'second front' in Western Europe so that Hitler would have to split the German armies and fight a war on two fronts. This would take some of the pressure off the USSR. The 'Big Three' Allied leaders - Stalin, Roosevelt of the USA and Churchill of Britain - met for a conference in the Iranian capital, Teheran, in 1943 to discuss the opening of the 'second front' in France the following year. In return for the definite promise of a second front, Stalin agreed to join the Allies in their war against Japan as soon as Germany had been beaten. At Teheran, Churchill also agreed that the USSR should keep the areas of Western Poland it had seized in 1939 at the start of the war. Poland would be compensated with German land in the west. The 'Big Three' met again in February 1945 at Yalta in the USSR. At the Yalta Conference they confirmed the decisions made at Teheran about Poland. Stalin confirmed that the USSR would join the war against Japan. The leaders agreed to work together to set up a United Nations Organisation, and they agreed to divide Germany into four zones of military occupation at the end of the war. Stalin made it clear at Yalta that the future security of the Soviet Union depended on the

The wartime conferences

USSR controlling the 4 countries of Eastern Europe so that they would act as a 'buffer zone' against any invasion by the west. The third and last of the major wartime conferences was held at Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin, in July 1945, after the defeat of Germany. Two major changes had taken place since the last meeting at Yalta: President Roosevelt had died and in his place at Potsdam was the new American President, Harry Truman; and, in Britain, a general election was taking place in which Churchill was defeated. A new British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, took his place half way through the conference. At the Potsdam Conference Stalin was therefore the only original member of the 'Big Three' who had attended the earlier conferences. He was able to use the greater experience that this gave him to the advantage of the USSR. At Potsdam the three leaders confirmed the arrangements made at Yalta. Germany and Austria were to be divided into four military zones, and the USSR would take compensation for war damage from the eastern zones which would be under Soviet control. The leaders agreed that the western frontier of Poland would be along the line of the Oder and Neisse rivers; or, to put it another way, the Poles would be given a chunk of eastern Germany to compensate them for the loss of eastern Poland to the USSR. The Potsdam Conference was not a harmonious meeting. The spirit of co-operation broke down between the Allies and all sorts of suspicions took its place. Stalin began to fear Truman's intentions when Truman told him that the USA now possessed atomic bombs of great destructive power. Truman believed that Stalin was more interested in getting control of Eastern Europe than in making peace.

The Red Army in Eastern Europe

By the end of the war in 1945 the Red Army controlled virtually all the nations of Eastern Europe. Now that they had been 'liberated' from Nazi rule, the people of these countries went to the polls to elect new, democratic governments. However, as you have read, Stalin was determined that Eastern Europe should be a buffer zone of states friendly to the USSR. The elections were therefore not truly democratic, for the Red Army made sure that any party which was not friendly to the USSR stood no chance of winning the elections. In elections in Yugoslavia in November 1945 the voters had no real choice. Parties which opposed the Communist Peoples' Front government that had seized power in March 1945 were banned. Only members of the Peoples' Front could stand, and they were named together on a single voting list which voters could either approve or reject. As a result the Peoples' Front won the election. A similar process ensured a Communist government in Albania. On 2 December 1945 the Communist Democratic Front led by Enver Hoxha won the election using the 'single list' method that had been so successful in Yugoslavia. In the other Eastern European countries Soviet political experts helped Communists to organise 'single-list' elections and to gain the upper hand in governments. These tactics ensured that by

1949 all the countries of Eastern Europe were governed by Communists, most of them friendly with the USSR.

The war against Japan

In accordance with Stalin's promises at Yalta and Potsdam, Soviet forces entered the war against Japan on 8 August 1945. This declaration of war came two days after the Americans had dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, bringing Japan close to defeat. On 8 August large Red Army forces invaded and began to occupy Manchuria and Korea. On the same day the USA used its second atomic bomb to destroy the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Two days after that the Japanese government surrendered, bringing the war in the Far East to an end.

Questions
1. What successes did the Soviet army enjoy in 1944 and 1945? 2. How did the Germans respond to the advancing Soviet army? 3. Make notes on each of the following wartime conferences: (a) Teheran (b) Yalta (c) Potsdam 4. How did the USSR extend its influence over eastern Europe? 5. How significant was the Red Army to the eventual defeat of Japan?

Post-war Reconstruction
The Great Fatherland War of 1941-5 left much of the western USSR in ruins. Apart from the usual destruction of war, the 'scorched earth' policy used first by the Soviet people in 1942, and then by the retreating Germans in 1943-4, caused more death and destruction than ever before suffered by a single country. The war killed some 20 million Soviet citizens - around a tenth of the pre-war population. 70,000 villages and 98,000 farms were wholly or partly destroyed. 4.7 million homes were demolished, leaving 25 million people homeless. 65,000 kilometres of railway track were torn up. Dams, bridges, locomotives, ships, factories, mines, had been wrecked. And now that the fighting was over, American Lend-Lease aid, on which the USSR had come to depend for survival, was suddenly stopped. The task of rebuilding the USSR was clearly going to be a difficult and painful one.

War damage

To direct the task of reconstruction, Stalin announced a fourth Five-Year Plan in 1946. Like the Plans of the 1930s the fourth Plan put great emphasis on building up heavy industry and the transport system, and not much emphasis on consumer goods. This meant that the building of factories came before the building of houses; railway locomotives and river barges came before cars and cycles; turbines, tugs and tractors came before telephones or tea-cups. To help achieve the Plan's targets, Manchuria in China and the countries of Eastern Europe occupied by the Red Army were stripped of machinery, railway equipment, raw materials and skilled workers. As the table below shows, the Plan was a great success. By 1950 many parts of the USSR were producing as much as in 1940. In several cases the Plan's industrial targets were exceeded.

Reconstruction

The fourth Five-Year Plan, 1946-50

(figures in million tonnes) 1945 1950 ( planned) 250.0 35.0 19.5 25.4 1950 (actual) 261.1 37.9 19.2 27.3

Coal Oil Pig-iron Steel

147.3 19.4 8.8 12.3

To make sure that every Soviet citizen played a full part in the work of reconstruction, all sorts of restrictions were placed on their lives. To prevent them making unfavourable comparisons with life in Western Europe, Stalin isolated them from the rest of the world: Soviet citizens were not allowed to marry foreigners or travel abroad; newspapers carried stories about appalling conditions in the West so that the USSR would not seem bad in comparison; and soldiers returning from duty in the Soviet zones of Germany and Austria were forbidden to talk about what they had seen. At the same time, Stalin launched a campaign to glorify the USSR and everything Russian. Most major discoveries and inventions of the past - the radio and printing press, for example - were said to be the work of Russian people. Even the wheel was claimed to be the invention of prehistoric people living on the Moskva river.

The 'iron curtain'

As you have read, Communist governments friendly to the USSR were set up in several Eastern European countries in 1945. Over the next few years Communist governments came to power in nearly every country in Eastern Europe. In Czechoslovakia the Communists, led by Klement Gottwald, took control in 1948. The only nonCommunist member of the new government, Jan Masaryk, was later found dead on a pavement beneath an open high window. In Poland the Communists took power in 1947 and banned the Peasant Party, the largest party opposing them. In Bulgaria the Communists formed a government in 1946 and banned the opposing Peasant Party a year later. In Hungary the Communist leader Matyas Rakosi used what he called 'salami tactics' to form a government. This meant 'slicing off other parties in parliament, one by one, until only the Communist Party was left. In 1946 Winston Churchill summed up the situation in Eastern Europe in these words: '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. . . All are subject not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and increasing measure of control from Moscow.' Moscow's control of Eastern Europe was tightened in the following year, 1947, when Stalin set up an organisation to co-oordinate the policies of the Communist countries - the Cominform, or Communist Information Bureau. A similar body set up in 1949 Comecon, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance - aimed to co-ordinate the economic policies of the Eastern European states. There was very little contact between the Eastern and Western European countries after 1947. Two thousand kilometres of fortified border fences with barbed wire, sentry posts and minefields made sure that the 'iron curtain' really did keep them apart.

Questions
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What damage had the war caused to the USSR? (Provide figures in your answer) When was the fourth Five-Year Plan announced and what were its priorities? How successful was the fourth Plan? (Again, be specific) How and why did Stalin isolate the Soviet people from the rest of the world? Explain what Churchill meant when he said, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. 6. What was Cominform? 7. What was Comecon?