Joseph Stalin 16 -- Postwar Reorganization of Eastern Europe

Joseph Stalin -- Postwar Reorganization of Eastern Europe

Towards the end of the war and immediately following, talks began in earnest regarding Europe's postwar reorganization. Stalin proved to be a competent and formidable negotiator despite these conferences being his first appearance on the world stage. The British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, noted: "Marshal Stalin as a negotiator was the toughest proposition of all. Indeed, after something like thirty years' experience of international conferences of one kind and another, if I had to pick a team for going into a conference room, Stalin would be my first choice. Of course the man was ruthless and of course he knew his purpose. He never wasted a word. He never stormed, he was seldom even irritated."

At the conference at Yalta in February of 1945, Stalin demanded a Soviet political sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. After resistance by Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin promised that the government's primary task regarding Poland would be to prepare elections. The parties at Yalta further agreed that countries of liberated Europe and former Axis satellites would be allowed to "create democratic institutions of their own choice." Stalin would renege on both agreements. Fraudulent Polish elections held in January of 1947 resulted in Poland's official transformation into a communist state by 1949. Furthermore, at the Potsdam Conference in the summer of 1945, Stalin refused to remove his military from occupied countries in Eastern Europe, despite the fact that Germany had surrendered months earlier. By this time it had become clear to Clement Attlee, the newly appointed British Prime Minister, and Harry S. Truman, who replaced Franklin Roosevelt as US President, that Stalin was adamant about controlling all the territory he gained throughout the war. By July of 1945, Stalin's forces effectively controlled the Baltic States, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. Refugees fled these countries out of fear of a Communist take-over.

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