Quick questions on The Cold War in Europe 1948 to 1962: QCE Modern History Unit 4

By 1948, the USSR had communist-governed satellite states from East Germany to Bulgaria. The structural framework of Soviet control was built through:

At the 20th Party Congress, Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin's "cult of personality" and the worst excesses of his rule. The speech was meant for internal consumption but rapidly leaked. It generated:

In June 1956, workers in Poznan, Poland protested against poor working conditions and Soviet domination. The protest was suppressed by force, but the unrest forced political concessions. Wladyslaw Gomulka, a reformist communist, was reinstated as leader. The USSR ultimately accepted the change after Khrushchev visited Warsaw in October.

Inspired by the Polish concessions, Hungarian students and workers began demonstrations in Budapest on October 23, 1956. The protests escalated rapidly:

Brief periods of detente during the late 1950s:

An American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR on May 1, 1960. The Eisenhower administration initially claimed it was a weather research plane; Khrushchev revealed the captured pilot and wreckage. The Paris Summit (May 1960) collapsed. The U-2 incident hardened Soviet positions on Berlin and contributed to the deteriorating climate that produced the Berlin Wall a year later.

The flow of East Germans to the West via Berlin had accelerated through the late 1950s. By 1961, around 2.5 million East Germans (out of about 17 million) had emigrated, many skilled workers. The GDR economy was haemorrhaging.

By 1962, the European Cold War had reached a steady state:

The Communist Information Bureau, the successor to the dissolved Comintern. Coordinated communist parties across Europe (and Yugoslavia until 1948).

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Economic counterpart to the Marshall Plan, integrating Eastern European economies with the USSR.

Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito broke from Stalin in June 1948, asserting an independent path to socialism. Tito's success showed the limits of Soviet control; Yugoslavia remained outside the Warsaw Pact and pursued a non-aligned foreign policy.

Brought a brief "thaw" under Malenkov, then Khrushchev. The post-Stalin USSR was less personally autocratic but no less committed to the Eastern bloc.

Formed in response to West Germany joining NATO (1955). Members: USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, GDR. The Pact was both a military alliance and a mechanism for Soviet control over satellite militaries.

Khrushchev decided that Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact was intolerable. Soviet tanks entered Budapest on November 4, 1956. The uprising was crushed within a week.

- Approximately 2,500 Hungarians killed; over 200,000 fled westward. - Nagy was arrested, tried in secret, and executed in 1958. - Janos Kadar installed as Soviet-loyal leader.