Abstract
If in the Balkans communists came to power at the head of their own revolutions and, as it were ‘sovietised’ themselves, elsewhere in Eastern Europe the role played by the Soviet Union in shaping the nature of post-war politics was far more important. However, prior to 1947 Stalin had no overall blueprint for expansion, nor a single uniform policy to be applied throughout the area. He operated, as before, via messages from Moscow and, having endorsed revolution in the Balkans, retained two policy options for the rest of Eastern Europe.
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Notes
S. Fischer-Galati, The New Romania (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), p. 18ff.;
R. R. King, History of the Romanian Communist Party (Stanford, Cal., 1980), p. 37ff.
S. Fischer-Galati, Twentieth-Century Romania (Columbia, 1970), p. 82ff.;
J. Tomaszewski, The Socialist Regimes of East Central Europe (London, 1989), p. 73.
G. Ionescu, Communism in Romania, 1944–62 (Oxford, 1964), p. 81ff.; Fischer-Galati, New Romania p. 27.
Fischer-Galati, Twentieth Century p. 83ff.; Ionescu, Communism in Romania, 194462 p. 81ff.; N.J. Lebedev, Istoriya Rumynii, 1918–70(Moscow, 1971), p. 445ff.
Tomaszewski, The Socialist Regimes p. 91. Fischer-Galati, Twentieth Century Romania p. 104, argues that the election result was not as fraudulent as once supposed: a contemporary observer, S. Lowery, also argued that, despite abuses before and after the poll, the opposition would not have won; see his ‘Romania’ in A. Toynbee and V. Toynbee (eds), Survey of International Affairs, 1939–46: The Realignment of Europe (Oxford, 1955), p. 300.
J. Coutouvidis and J. Reynolds, Poland, 1939–47 (Leicester, 1986), p. 113ff.
Coutouvidis and Reynolds, Poland p. 120; S. Lowery, ‘Poland’, in Toynbee and Toynbee (eds), Survey p. 135; A. Polonsky and B. Drukier (eds), The Beginnings of Communist Rule in Poland (London, 1980), p. 7.
Coutouvidis and Reynolds, Poland p. 124ff. An idea of the importance Stalin attached to this body can be seen by the fact that both the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the former Head of the Comintern, Georgi Dimitrov, served on it; see T. Toranska, ONI: Stalin’s Polish Puppets (London, 1987), pp. 232–9.
P. Zinner, Communist Strategy and Tactics in Czechoslovakia, 1918–48 (London, 1963), p. 74ff.
G. R. Swain, ‘The Cominform: Tito’s International?’, HistoricalJournal, vol. 35 (1992), p. 645.
H. Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution (London, 1961), p. 181; Zinner, Communist Strategy p. 99ff.
M. Myant, Socialism and Democracy in Czechoslovakia, 1945–8 (Cambridge, 1981), p. 57;
J. Rupnik, Histoire du Parti Communiste Tchéchoslovaque (Paris, 1981), p. 159.
J. Bloomfield, Passive Revolution: Politics and the Czechoslovak Working Class, 1945–8 (London, 1979), p. 76ff.; Zinner, Communist Strategy p. 118ff.
J. Tomaszewski, Socialist Regimes, p. 52; Seton–Watson, Revolution, p. 192; D. Nemesh, Osvobozhdenie Vengrii (Moscow, 1957 ), p. 148.
For the February speech of Râkosi, see A. Ross Johnson, The Transformation of Communist Ideology (Cambridge, Mass., 1972) citing the doctoral thesis of
W. McCagg. See also History of the Revolutionary Workers’ Movement in Hungary, 1944–62 (Budapest,1972), pp. 39–40, 52, 88, and Nemesh, Osvobozhdenie pp. 185–7.
S. M. Max, The United States, Great Britain and the Sovietisation ofHungary, 1945–48 (New York, 1985 ), p. 33.
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© 1998 Geoffrey Swain and Nigel Swain
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Swain, G., Swain, N. (1998). Different Roads to Socialism. In: Eastern Europe Since 1945. The Making of the Modern World. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27069-9_3
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