Editing Eastern Bloc (section)

==Early events prompting stricter control==
{{see also|Formation of the Eastern Bloc}}

===Marshall Plan rejection===
{{further|Marshall Plan}}
[[File:Europe-blocs-49-89x4.svg|thumb|left|250px|Political situation in Europe during the [[Cold War]]]]
In June 1947, after the Soviets had refused to negotiate a potential lightening of restrictions on German development, the United States announced the [[Marshall Plan]], a comprehensive program of American assistance to all European countries wanting to participate, including the Soviet Union and those of Eastern Europe.<ref name="miller16">{{Harvnb|Miller|2000|p=16}}</ref> The Soviets rejected the Plan and took a hard-line position against the United States and non-communist European nations.<ref name="wettig139">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=139}}</ref> However, Czechoslovakia was eager to accept the US aid; the Polish government had a similar attitude, and this was of great concern to the Soviets.<ref>{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=138}}</ref>

{{Three worlds}}
In one of the clearest signs of Soviet control over the region up to that point, the Czechoslovakian foreign minister, [[Jan Masaryk]], was summoned to Moscow and berated by Stalin for considering joining the Marshall Plan. Polish Prime minister [[Józef Cyrankiewicz]] was rewarded for the Polish rejection of the Plan with a huge 5-year trade agreement, including $450&nbsp;million in credit, 200,000 tons of grain, heavy machinery and factories.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855998,00.html |title=Carnations |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=9 February 1948 |access-date=1 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114182613/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855998,00.html |archive-date=14 January 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In July 1947, Stalin ordered these countries to pull out of the Paris Conference on the European Recovery Programme, which has been described as "the moment of truth" in the post-[[World War II]] division of Europe.<ref name="bideleaux"/> Thereafter, Stalin sought stronger control over other Eastern Bloc countries, abandoning the prior appearance of democratic institutions.<ref name="wettig148">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=148}}</ref> When it appeared that, in spite of heavy pressure, non-communist parties might receive in excess of 40% of the vote in the [[1947 Hungarian parliamentary election|August 1947 Hungarian elections]], repressions were instituted to liquidate any independent political forces.<ref name="wettig148"/>

In that same month, annihilation of the opposition in Bulgaria began on the basis of continuing instructions by Soviet cadres.<ref name="wettig148"/><ref name="wettig149">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=149}}</ref> At a late September 1947 meeting of all communist parties in [[Szklarska Poręba]],<ref name="wettig140">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=140}}</ref> Eastern Bloc communist parties were blamed for permitting even minor influence by non-communists in their respective countries during the run up to the Marshall Plan.<ref name="wettig148"/>

===Berlin blockade and airlift===
{{main|Berlin Blockade}}
[[File:Germans-airlift-1948.jpg|thumb|left|German civilians watching Western supply planes at [[Berlin Tempelhof Airport]] during the [[Berlin Blockade|Berlin Airlift]]]]
In the former German capital Berlin, surrounded by Soviet-occupied Germany, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade on 24 June 1948, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in [[West Berlin]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Gaddis|2005|p=33}}</ref> The blockade was caused, in part, by early local elections of October 1946 in which the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]] (SED) was rejected in favor of the Social Democratic Party, which had gained two and a half times more votes than the SED.<ref name="turner19">{{Harvnb|Turner|1987|p=19}}</ref> The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began a massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other supplies.<ref>{{Harvnb|Miller|2000|pp=65–70}}</ref>

The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against the western policy change and communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948 preceding large losses therein,<ref name="turner29">{{Harvnb|Turner|1987|p=29}}</ref> while 300,000 Berliners demonstrated and urged the international airlift to continue.<ref>Fritsch-Bournazel, Renata, ''Confronting the German Question: Germans on the East-West Divide'', Berg Publishers, 1990, {{ISBN|0-85496-684-6}}, p. 143</ref> In May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin.<ref name="Gaddis 2005, p. 34">{{Harvnb|Gaddis|2005|p=34}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Miller|2000|pp=180–81}}</ref>

===Tito–Stalin split===
{{further|Tito–Stalin split}}
After disagreements between Yugoslav leader [[Josip Broz Tito]] and the Soviet Union regarding Greece and [[Socialist People's Republic of Albania|Albania]], a [[Tito–Stalin split]] occurred, followed by Yugoslavia being expelled from the [[Cominform]] in June 1948 and a brief failed Soviet putsch in Belgrade.<ref name="wettig156">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=156}}</ref> The split created two separate communist forces in Europe.<ref name="wettig156"/> A vehement campaign against [[Titoism]] was immediately started in the Eastern Bloc, describing agents of both the West and Tito in all places as engaging in subversive activity.<ref name="wettig156"/>

Stalin ordered the conversion of the [[Cominform]] into an instrument to monitor and control the internal affairs of other Eastern Bloc parties.<ref name="wettig156"/> He also briefly considered converting the Cominform into an instrument for sentencing high-ranking deviators, but dropped the idea as impractical.<ref name="wettig156"/> Instead, a move to weaken communist party leaders through conflict was started.<ref name="wettig156"/> Soviet cadres in communist party and state positions in the Bloc were instructed to foster intra-leadership conflict and to transmit information against each other.<ref name="wettig156"/> This accompanied a continuous stream of accusations of "nationalistic deviations", "insufficient appreciation of the USSR's role", links with Tito and "espionage for Yugoslavia".<ref name="wettig157"/> This resulted in the persecution of many major party cadres, including those in East Germany.<ref name="wettig157">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=157}}</ref>

The first country to experience this approach was [[Socialist People's Republic of Albania|Albania]], where leader [[Enver Hoxha]] immediately changed course from favoring Yugoslavia to opposing it.<ref name="wettig157"/> In [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]], leader [[Władysław Gomułka]], who had previously made pro-Yugoslav statements, was deposed as party secretary-general in early September 1948 and subsequently jailed.<ref name="wettig157"/> In [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]], when it appeared that Traicho Kostov, who was not a Moscow cadre, was next in line for leadership, in June 1949, Stalin ordered Kostov's arrest, followed soon thereafter by a death sentence and execution.<ref name="wettig157"/> A number of other high ranking Bulgarian officials were also jailed.<ref name="wettig157"/> Stalin and Hungarian leader [[Mátyás Rákosi]] met in Moscow to orchestrate a show trial of Rákosi opponent [[László Rajk]], who was thereafter executed.<ref name="wettig158">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=158}}</ref> The preservation of the Soviet bloc relied on maintaining a sense of ideological unity that would entrench Moscow's influence in Eastern Europe as well as the power of the local Communist elites.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Lewkowicz|first=Nicolas|title=The Role of Ideology in the Origins of the Cold War|publisher=Scholar's Press|year=2020|isbn=978-620-2317269|location=Saarbrucken|page=55}}</ref>

The port city of [[Trieste]] was a particular focus after the Second World War. Until the break between Tito and Stalin, the Western powers and the Eastern bloc faced each other uncompromisingly. The neutral buffer state [[Free Territory of Trieste]], founded in 1947 with the United Nations, was split up and dissolved in 1954 and 1975, also because of the détente between the West and Tito.<ref>Christian Jennings "Flashpoint Trieste: The First Battle of the Cold War", (2017), pp 244.</ref><ref>Karlo Ruzicic-Kessler "Togliatti, Tito and the Shadow of Moscow 1944/45–1948: Post-War Territorial Disputes and the Communist World", In: Journal of European Integration History, (2/2014).</ref>