Cold War Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Postwar prelude and emergence of the two blocs (1945–1947)=== {{Main|Eastern Bloc}} {{Further|Post–World War II economic expansion}} [[File:EasternBloc BorderChange38-48.svg|thumb|Post-war territorial changes in Europe and the formation of the Eastern Bloc, the so-called "[[Iron Curtain]]"]] The US had invited Britain into its atomic bomb project but kept it secret from the Soviet Union. Stalin was aware that the Americans were working on the atomic bomb via his [[atomic spies]] in the West, and he reacted to the news calmly.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|pp=24–26}} One week after the end of the Potsdam Conference, the US [[atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki]]. Shortly after the attacks, Stalin protested to US officials when Truman offered the Soviets little real influence in [[occupation of Japan|occupied Japan]].{{sfn|LaFeber|2002|p=28}} Stalin was reportedly also "outraged" by the dropping of the bombs, calling them a "superbarbarity" and claiming that "the balance has been destroyed...That cannot be." The Truman administration intended to use its ongoing nuclear weapons program to pressure the Soviet Union in international relations.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|pp=24–26}} Following the war, the United States and the United Kingdom used military forces in Greece and Korea to remove combat governing regimes and forces seen as communist. Under the leadership of [[Lyuh Woon-hyung]], working secretly during the Japanese occupation, a network of [[People's Committee (postwar Korea)|people's committees]] throughout [[Korea under Japanese rule|Japanese Korea]] were formed to coordinate the transition to Korean independence. Following the [[Surrender of Japan|Japanese surrender]], on 28 August 1945, these committees formed the [[Provisional government|provisional national government]] of Korea, naming it the [[People's Republic of Korea]] (PRK) a couple of weeks later.<ref>Hart-Landsberg, Martin, Korea: Division, Reunification, & U.S. Foreign Policy, Monthly Review Press (1998), p. 65</ref><ref>Cumings, Bruce, The Origins of the Korean War, Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945–1947, Princeton University Press (1981), p. 88</ref> It was proclaimed on 6 September 1945, as Korea was being [[Division of Korea|divided]] into two occupation zones, with the Soviet Union occupying the north and the United States occupying the south. In the south, the US military government outlawed the PRK on 12 December 1945. In the north, the Soviet authorities took over the PRK by installing pro-Soviet Korean communists such as [[Kim Il Sung]] into positions of power and incorporated it into the political structure of the emerging [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]] (North Korea).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cumings |first=Bruce |title=The Origins of the Korean War, Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945–1947 |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1981 |pages=196–197, 392–393, 408 |author-link=Bruce Cumings}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Armstrong |first1=Charles |title=The North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950 |date=2004 |publisher=Cornell University Press |page=54 |edition=1st}}</ref> During the opening stages of World War II, the Soviet Union laid the foundation for the [[Eastern Bloc|Eastern or Soviet Bloc]] by [[Military occupations by the Soviet Union|invading and then annexing]] several countries into the USSR as [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet Socialist Republics]], following the agreement with Germany in the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]]. These included eastern [[Poland]] ([[Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union|incorporated]] into the [[Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic|Byelorussian SSR]] and the [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]]),{{sfn|Roberts|2006|p=43}} [[Latvia]] (which became the [[Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic|Latvian SSR]]),{{sfn|Wettig|2008|p=21}}{{sfn|Senn|2007}} [[Estonia]] (which became the [[Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic|Estonian SSR]]),{{sfn|Wettig|2008|p=21}}{{sfn|Senn|2007}} [[Lithuania]] (which became the [[Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic|Lithuanian SSR]]),{{sfn|Wettig|2008|p=21}}{{sfn|Senn|2007}} part of eastern [[Finland]] (which became the [[Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic|Karelo-Finnish SSR]], later incorporated in the Russian SFSR) and eastern [[Romania]] (which became the [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic|Moldavian SSR]]).{{sfn|Roberts|2006|p=55}} Central and Eastern European territories that the Soviet army occupied were added to the Eastern Bloc, pursuant to the percentages agreement between Churchill and Stalin, which, however, contain provisions regarding neither Poland nor Czechoslovakia or Germany. The Soviet Union converted the territories it occupied into [[satellite state]]s,{{sfn|Schmitz|1999}} such as: * [[People's Republic of Bulgaria]] (15 September 1946) * [[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romanian People's Republic]] (13 April 1948) * [[Hungarian People's Republic]] (20 August 1949){{sfn|van Dijk|2008|p=200}} Moreover, two further socialist republics with a higher degree of independence from the Soviet Union were also established: * [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania|People's Republic of Albania]] (11 January 1946){{sfn|Cook|2001|p=17}} * [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]] The Soviet-style regimes that arose in the Bloc not only reproduced Soviet [[Planned economy|command economy]], but also adopted the brutal methods employed by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet secret police in order to suppress both real and perceived opposition.{{sfn|Roht-Arriaza|1995|p=83}} In Asia, the Red Army had overrun [[Manchuria]] in the last month of the war, and it went on to occupy the large swathe of Korean territory located north of the 38th parallel.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=40}} As part of consolidating Stalin's control over the Eastern Bloc, the [[NKVD|People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs]] (NKVD), led by [[Lavrentiy Beria]], supervised the establishment of Soviet-style secret police systems in the Bloc that were supposed to crush anti-communist resistance.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=34}} When the slightest stirrings of independence emerged in the Bloc, Stalin's strategy matched that of dealing with domestic pre-war rivals: they were removed from power, put on trial, imprisoned, and in some instances, executed.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=100}} Economically, the USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and transferring most of Germany's industrial plants, and it exacted [[World War II reparations|war reparations]] from [[East Germany]], [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]], [[People's Republic of Romania|Romania]], and [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favour the country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes: "The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $15 billion to $20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under the [[Marshall Plan]]."<ref>Mark Kramer, "The Soviet Bloc and the Cold War in Europe", in {{Cite book |editor-first=Klaus | editor-last=Larresm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EyNcCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT174 |title=A Companion to Europe Since 1945 |publisher=Wiley |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-118-89024-0 |page=79}}</ref> British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was concerned that, given the enormous size of Soviet forces deployed in Europe at the end of the war, and the perception that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was unreliable, there existed a Soviet threat to Western Europe.{{sfn|Fenton|1998}} After World War II, US officials guided Western European leaders in establishing their own secret security force to prevent subversion in the Western bloc, which evolved into [[Operation Gladio]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ganser |first1=Daniele |title=NATO's secret armies : operation Gladio and terrorism in Western Europe |date=2005 |publisher=Frank Cass |location=London |isbn=9780714656076}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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