Sparks Commentary: Behind the Iron Curtain: Occupation by the Soviet Union

"While the Wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system - for all the world to see - we take no satisfaction in it; for it is, as your mayor [of West Berlin] has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together."

- American president John F. Kennedy, in his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech (June 26, 1963)

World War II had just ended; but for parts of Eastern Europe, the nightmare was just beginning ...

During the Second World War, Eastern Europe was unfortunately caught in the crossfire between Hitler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Russia. Conquest by either one meant certain tyranny and subjugation, but to be caught on the losing side of this struggle for the Eastern Front would mark one's country for revenge, terrible and swift. It was not known yet who would be the winner, and the two sides were so ruthless to begin with that any additional punishment from the eventual victor was a terrifying prospect for them. Perhaps partially for this, the nations of Eastern Europe decided to choose sides in this struggle, hoping to promote their interest; and some paid a heavy price for making the wrong choices in these matters. But all were doomed to suffer in one way or another, and even the ones whose alliances had actually served their interest in these years were condemned to suffer in a communist occupation later on, regardless of which side they had served at this earlier time. The eventual winner on the "Eastern Front" was, of course, Soviet Russia; and it imposed its will without any mercy on the nations that it had conquered.

Red Army raises Soviet flag in Berlin after taking the city, May 1945

Some parts of Eastern Europe were already occupied before World War II

To be clear, some of these nations were already conquered before the war started, and some had been part of the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (or "USSR") since the moment of its creation in 1922. (This is the political entity that is better known today - and was known then - as the "Soviet Union.") They were thus already puppet states that had been annexed by the USSR. Others became puppet states that were made part of the Soviet Union in 1940 - after World War II had begun in Europe, but before the Soviet entry into the war in 1941. These states were annexed at this time instead. Others became puppet states much later on in the war - or even after, in some cases. Although some of these states were never actually annexed into the Soviet Union - possibly to create the illusion that the Russians were actually keeping their World War II treaty promises of non-interference - they were nonetheless controlled from Moscow as much as any of the others. These included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania - and, for a brief time, Yugoslavia and Albania. (More on the special status of these two nations later in this post.) Together with the Soviet states, these nations were all then part of what was called the "Eastern Bloc." For these nations, the ordeal of Soviet occupation began during - and in some cases, after - World War II, and the long nightmare of "no peace" would be followed by the even longer nightmare of no freedom. It is these nations that I will focus on here, since their distance from the center of Soviet power encouraged them to attempt more revolts against the communist occupation - revolts that (unfortunately), before 1989, did not succeed.

Border changes in the Eastern Bloc, from 1938 to 1948

The Iron Curtain divides the continent, and prevents many from escaping to the West (1945)

The attempts to escape from the Soviet occupation began very early on (in some cases, as far back as the end of World War II), and the Russians were trying hard to prevent people from escaping to the West. The boundary between the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc was the center of many of these escape attempts (perhaps even most of them), and the ability to get to this border line could sometimes mean the difference between freedom and continued subjugation. It was Winston Churchill who gave this new border its popular nickname, which was the Iron Curtain - a name that he may not have actually originated, but which he did popularize in a speech given in Fulton, Missouri in the United States. (Namely, the "Sinews of Peace" address in 1946, which I link to here.) After this speech, English speakers came to refer to everything that was east of that boundary as being "behind the Iron Curtain," and thus associated this phrase with the hated Russian domination of Eastern Europe. The only thing east of that boundary that was not communist, I should note here, was West Berlin; which was an island of liberty in a stormy sea of communist hegemony and oppression. The Russians tried to take West Berlin by siege in 1948, but the Allies worked tirelessly to resupply the city by air during the Berlin Airlift. When this was combined with an effective counter-blockade on Eastern Germany, their efforts to save the city worked. Since I did an entire post about this subject elsewhere (which I link to here), I will not attempt to tell the story of the Berlin Blockade in more detail here. Suffice it to say, though, that West Berlin was prevented from going communist at this time; and that many behind the Iron Curtain were thus attempting to get there wherever possible. Since West Berlin was likewise behind the Iron Curtain, it was easier for most of the Eastern Bloc subjects to get to; and many who were unable to get as far west as the Iron Curtain could feasibly escape to West Berlin if they traveled far enough. (Although there was always risk for these people, even when the "distance problem" could be overcome; as the Russians were killing many who were trying to escape there, even at this time.)

Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union during its earliest period

Joseph Stalin oppresses at home and threatens abroad, and Allies respond with NATO (1949)

The most brutal period of the occupation may have been during the reign of Joseph Stalin, who was one of the most evil men of the twentieth century. When he was dictator of the Soviet Union, the infamous "Gulag" camps reached the peak of their operation, and the Soviet Union's own records put the death toll here in excess of one million people. (Some estimates put the death toll even higher than that, at 10 million people or more.) Though the Gulags are the most notorious example of political repression in the Soviet Union, they are not the only one; and the Gulags continued long after the death of Joseph Stalin. Although the Western world was undoubtedly repulsed by these internal Soviet actions, they were even more concerned about the external Soviet actions, since they were still expanding even after World War II had ended. (For example, the Soviets engineered a coup d'état in Czechoslovakia in 1948, three years after the war had ended - although they would lose influence in communist Yugoslavia that year following Tito's break with Joseph Stalin in 1948. Yugoslavia remained communist, but it was no longer aligned with the Soviet Union, and it actually received American aid as though it were a part of the Marshall Plan.) It was partly because of this expansion that some Western nations - including the United Kingdom and the United States - formed a major military alliance known as the "North Atlantic Treaty Organization." Better known by its acronym of "NATO," it had 12 member states when it was formed in 1949, and two others (Greece and Turkey) were to be joining it soon after in 1952. This would have a major effect upon the communist internal affairs, as I will explain later.

Gulag camp (Perm-36), in the former Soviet Union

Allies also respond with "Radio Free Europe" (1949) and "Radio Liberty" (1953)

Two other Allied responses might also be worthy of note here, which are the creation of "Radio Free Europe" in 1949, and "Radio Liberty" in 1953. Both were funded exclusively by the United States, and both had the purpose of winning the propaganda war with the Eastern Bloc countries. The difference between them was that "Radio Free Europe" targeted the Eastern Bloc states that were not part of the USSR, while "Radio Liberty" targeted the ones that were part of it. Also, the "Voice of America" broadcast (started back during World War II) began to be broadcasted to the Soviet Union in 1947; and the British Broadcasting Corporation put out some content of its own there. They often provided their target audience with popular Western music such as jazz (or in later years, the new "rock and roll"), which was important in gaining an audience. But they also had some political content, which their governments tried hard to prevent them from accessing. In communist states without a freedom of the press, the only "news" that was then available to them was the news available from the government itself; and their take on the "news" was somewhat unreliable, to say the least. These governments spent a significant amount of money on jamming the foreign news broadcasts, but this jamming could be circumvented at times by their people, and it was somewhat expensive for the government to implement on top of this. Thus, they sometimes didn't bother to jam those foreign broadcasts that only had Western music, although they did consistently place a high priority on jamming Western political content. They also decreed that their factories should remove any components from the Eastern-Bloc-made radio receivers that allowed short-wave radio reception, but the black markets were sometimes able to supply the spare parts needed for this reception. Despite severe penalties on anyone caught doing this, the black market continued to supply some of these people with the components needed to do this, and so the Western political content often got through anyway. This seems to have contributed to an already-growing dissatisfaction with the communist system.

Border between the two Germanies - Iron Curtain, 1949

After the death of Stalin, uprising in communist East Germany is crushed (1953)

When World War II had ended, Germany had been divided into two parts separated by the Iron Curtain. The eastern half was a communist puppet state known as the "German Democratic Republic," but it is usually referred to more informally simply as "East Germany." A few months after Stalin's death in 1953, there was an uprising here in East Germany. It all started out with a strike by East Berlin construction workers, but it became a widespread uprising on the very next day. It seems to have involved more than one million people at the peak of its extent. By the time it was over, the communist government had killed 46 demonstrators or more, with the help of Soviet troops that were brought in from the outside. The uprising was a complete failure, and had a significant effect on communist internal affairs. But it may have been the actions of West Germany that would have the greatest impact on these affairs, as I will show below.

Soviet tank in East Berlin - Uprising in East Germany, 1953 (crushed by the Soviet Union)

Soviet Union draws puppet states into a military "alliance" called the Warsaw Pact (1955)

When the "Federal Republic of Germany" (a. k. a. "West Germany") later joined NATO in 1955, the Russians felt threatened by the increased strength of the Western military alliance (which had been formed largely to counteract them). Thus, they formed their own "alliance" called the Warsaw Pact eight days later, which was basically just the Eastern Bloc by another name. (Although this name was more formal than the name the "Eastern Bloc.") The most important part of that alliance was the "USSR" (which was more commonly known as the "Soviet Union"), but the other states that it had never actually annexed were also part of the "Warsaw Pact." These included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania - and, for a brief time, Albania. (Again, more on the special status of Albania later in this post.) Though these states were never actually annexed by the USSR, their being forced at this time to become part of the "Warsaw Pact" was revealing of their de facto status as puppet states controlled from Moscow, and was thus evidence of their true situation. (None of them really wanted to participate in this "alliance," as they would reveal later when their eventual liberation allowed them to speak freely. Everyone knew for whose benefit the "alliance" between them had really been formed.)

Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union at the time of the Warsaw Pact's formation

Protests in Poland are squashed, and massive revolution in Hungary is crushed (1956)

In the Polish People's Republic, there were protests at the city of Poznań in June 1956. They started out as small demonstrations by workers at the Cegielski Factories; but eventually, a crowd of approximately 100,000 people got involved. These people demanding better working conditions actually gathered outside the building of the Ministry of Public Security in town, and were thus taking their protests to the top of the government. The communist government of Poland responded by firing on the crowd a few days later, and killed at least 57 protesters - wounding about 600 of them, according to the records. Among the dead was a 13-year-old boy named Romek Strzalkowski, who has since become a symbol of Polish resistance. The protests may not have been a complete failure, though, because they led to the installation of a less Soviet-controlled government in October. But the most significant revolt of that year was probably in the Hungarian People's Republic, where there was a massive revolution against the communist government in 1956. The revolt started out as a student demonstration in Budapest, but soon grew into a nationwide revolution that was larger than any previous one. The communist government soon collapsed, and the new government actually declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and establish free elections - something the Soviet Union was not likely to tolerate. The Politburo initially acted like it might negotiate a withdrawal of Soviet forces, but it quickly changed its tune, and moved to crush the revolution soon after. By the time it was over, more than 2,500 Hungarians were killed, and an estimated 13,000 were wounded. Nothing was actually changed by this revolution, I should make clear; and for some 30 years afterwards, all public discussion of this revolution was suppressed in Hungary. (Although it has since become an object of considerable interest there, and is still debated today.) I might also note that the American "Radio Free Europe" broadcasts had encouraged this revolution by suggesting that American military support was imminent. This caused something of a scandal in America, since these broadcasts violated the policy of then-President Eisenhower to not get involved - one of the sadder elements of this whole episode, which caused the Hungarians to feel somewhat betrayed by the Americans.

Protests in Poznań, Poland in 1956 (squashed by the Soviet Union)

Armored car burns in Budapest - Hungarian Revolution, 1956 (crushed by the Soviet Union)

East Germany builds the Berlin Wall to keep people from escaping to the West (1961)

A number of people behind the Iron Curtain tried to escape from this ongoing nightmare, and among them were a significant number of East Germans. Before the Berlin Wall was built, some 3.5 million East Germans escaped from communism to West Germany - and most especially, to West Berlin, which was easier for most of the East Germans to get to. (This was, of course, because it was the only city behind the Iron Curtain that was free and clear from communism.) The Soviet Union provoked a major crisis in Berlin in 1958, by demanding the withdrawal of Western forces from the city within six months. The West politely, but firmly, refused to do so; and so the Soviets built the Berlin Wall in 1961. While the Americans (under Kennedy) never attempted to interfere with the construction of the wall, there was a military standoff at Checkpoint Charlie (a portion of the Berlin Wall) between the Soviet and American tanks that were stationed there. No shots were actually fired between the two sides, but they stood facing each other for some hours with live rounds ready to be fired. Though the crisis was soon averted, the Berlin Wall stood as evidence of the failures of the communist system.

Construction of the Berlin Wall, 1961

Soviet and American tanks at Checkpoint Charlie, 1961

Some are killed while trying to escape to the West anyway, while others succeed (1961-1962)

Before the construction on the Berlin Wall was finished, a number of desperate people saw their last chance to escape from communism, and took considerable risks in trying to get to the West (since many of them were actually killed by their government while trying to get there). Some escaped - such as the East German border guard shown leaping over the barbed wire below - and these lucky few were "henceforth and forever free" (to paraphrase Mr. Lincoln, an American statesman from an earlier era). Others, however, didn't survive the journey; and it is a sad commentary on Eastern Bloc politics that so many of them never made it. Among those who died was Peter Fechter (shown below), a young man who was shot at the Berlin Wall in 1962. The Berlin Wall was, of course, a part of the larger Iron Curtain that divided the continent of Europe (although separated from the rest of it by 100 miles, or 161 kilometers). But the fact that the tiny city of West Berlin could not use force to threaten anyone in the region showed the absence of any "defensive" purposes to the Berlin Wall. Indeed, there was not enough force in the city to be "defended" against, as its size on the map would indicate to anyone who examines it. Rather, the purpose of the Wall was just to keep the East Germans from escaping to the West, and it accomplished this barbaric purpose for over twenty years. (Out of an estimated 5,000 people who attempted to escape to the West after the Wall was built, some 239 people died at the Berlin Wall itself.)

Body of Peter Fechter, an East German who tried to escape to the West,

only to be shot by the Soviets at the Berlin Wall (1962)

A soldier who successfully escaped to the West by leaping over barbed wire - Berlin Wall, 1961

Prague Spring reforms in Czechoslovakia are stopped by a Warsaw Pact invasion (1968)

In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, there was a rebellion by the communist government itself. It started when a man named Alexander Dubček was elected the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He remained a communist (somewhat ironically) even during this rebellion; but he believed that communism needed to be reformed somewhat. Among other things, he instituted partial decentralization of the economy, and even granted some new freedoms to the people - such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the freedom to travel. The Russians tried to convince him to halt these reforms immediately, but when they negotiated with him, Dubček defended his reforms by saying that they were never intended to be a "rebellion" against the rule of the Russians. Perhaps partially because of the failed prior revolution in Hungary, he tried to reassure them that he would still remain loyal to them, and that his native country of Czechoslovakia was not going to attempt to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact as Hungary had thus attempted. None of these things satisfied the Russians, as it turned out; and after seven months of these reforms (today known as the Prague Spring reforms), the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. By the time it was over, 137 civilians were killed, and approximately 500 were wounded. Like the others before it, this rebellion had been crushed.

Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968 (a response to the reforms of Prague Spring)

Albania becomes the first nation to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact (1968)

Now I turn to the special status of Albania here (as promised earlier in this post), which requires me to backtrack in my chronology a bit. Although it might seem irrelevant to talk about nearby Yugoslavia first, I must first talk about the situation in Yugoslavia before I can really explain the situation in Albania. As mentioned earlier, Yugoslavia had withdrawn from the Eastern Bloc in 1948 due to disagreements with Joseph Stalin, and thus escaped the tight control of Moscow at that time. Although Yugoslavia retained its communist system, it did actually receive some American aid at that time, as though it were a part of the Marshall Plan. After Khrushchev took office in Russia, relations improved somewhat between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia; and this improvement was increased after Khrushchev denounced the now-dead Stalin in 1956. (Although I should mention that Yugoslavia never actually joined the Warsaw Pact as communist Albania later did, since it was formed long after their exit from the Eastern Bloc.) Albania actually disapproved of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policies, and did not like how Yugoslavia had resolved its differences with the Soviet Union. Like the distant nation of communist China, the People's Republic of Albania actually approved of Stalinism; and formed an unlikely alliance with Mao Zedong's communist China at around this time. Perhaps partially because of this, they were able to break off relations with the Russians in 1961, and withdraw from the Warsaw Pact in 1968.

Map of the Eastern Bloc

Why did Albania manage to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact? (A few reasons for this)

There may have been another reason for this as well, I should note here; which is that when Yugoslavia left the "Eastern Bloc" in 1948, Albania no longer shared a border with the other "Eastern Bloc" nations (as shown above). This made it harder for the Soviets to send their troops there to maintain their control of Albania, and thus reduced their control of their former puppet state considerably. Thus, Albania broke free of the Russian grip in the sixties, and the support of China was probably most helpful for this. Although Albania was doomed to stay communist for even longer than the Russians were (by about one year), it nonetheless became the first nation to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact in 1968; and no others were able to do so until after the Revolutions of 1989 (the real undoing of the "Eastern Bloc").

Iron Curtain remains – Czech Republic, 2007

Many risked their lives to either revolt against communism, or to escape from communism

In this post, I have been trying to focus my attention on three important things: the formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact (the two rival alliances in Europe), the construction of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall (with the related attempts to escape from communism), and the major early rebellions against the Soviet occupations which ultimately didn't succeed at this time (the vast majority of which took place in the fifties and sixties). As it also turned out, there weren't any major rebellions against the Soviet occupation in the seventies, because their harsh response to these prior insurrections had a strong tendency to discourage further attempts at revolution. But the eighties and nineties were somewhat different, because the resistance elements in these countries finally succeeded in overthrowing communism at this time. The success was a long-awaited one for those involved, and the "Eastern Bloc" states that had never been part of the USSR had (by then) suffered for over forty years under communism. (The ones that had been puppet states within the USSR itself had suffered even longer, I should add here.)

Long line for cooking oil - Bucharest, Romania 1986

This is a testimony more powerful than words that communism was ultimately a failure

It might well have seemed like the liberation might never come, and that few would ever be likely to heed the voices of the victims. But some risked their lives to revolt against communism, while others risked their lives to escape from communism onto free soil. This is a testimony more powerful than words that communism was ultimately a failure, and the echo of this warning rings today from both the living and the dead.

Footnote to this blog post:

One additional state would enter NATO during the Cold War, which was Spain (added 1982). The Warsaw Pact was dissolved in 1991 (a few months before the USSR itself was dissolved), and the forty years of the Cold War would end soon after in 1991. Communism also died in Yugoslavia, which was broken up into five new states by 1992; at which time it also discarded communism.

After the Cold War, several former members of the Warsaw Pact - including some former members of the USSR itself - joined NATO between 1999 and 2004. Although East Germany had officially ceased to exist as a state in 1990, its becoming part of the Federal Republic of Germany at that time - which was formerly known as West Germany - meant that the region was the second (after Albania) to leave the Warsaw Pact, and the first former member of the Warsaw Pact to instead switch its affiliations to NATO and the West (which many others would do in the coming years).

At the time that I write this today, the only other nations that have since joined NATO - after the Cold War, that is - were the three NATO members that had previously been part of communist Yugoslavia (which were Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro).

If you liked this post, you might also like:

The Berlin Blockade: The first crisis after World War II

The Marshall Plan: Helping the poor, keeping the peace, and stopping the communists

Does communism cause poverty? (An experiment from dividing Germany)

Actually, communism HAS been tried (and it doesn't work)

The revolutions that kicked communism out of Europe

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Communism