CAUSES OF THE COLD WAR

STAGE 2 - USSR IN EUROPE:

• one way the Soviet Union gained political control was through means known as 'salami tactics'
• this term came from Hungarian Communist leader Rakosi saying how the USSR secured Communist control was like 'slicing off salami, piece by piece';
  - STAGE 1 - Soviets supervised the organisation of governments in East Europe, establishing an alliance of anti-fascists
  - STAGE 2 - Each party was 'slice off' one after another
  - STAGE 3 - only the Communist 'core' was left then ultimately the local communists replaced by Moscow-trained peple
• by the end of 1946, the baggage train leaders returned from Moscow to their respective countries, Bierut (POLAND) Kolarov (BULGARIA) Pauker (ROMANIA) Rakosi (HUNGARY)
• these leaders would ensure post-war governments be dominated by Stalinist communists

POLANT CASE STUDY;

• were promised free elections finally held in 19th January 1947 after weeks of being posponed
• prior to elections, campaigns were held of murder, censorship and intimidation;
  - estimated 50,000 people were deported to Siberia
  - during elections, Mikolajozyk's Polish Peasant Party had 246 candidates disqualified, 149 arrested, 18 murdered
• this pattern of Soviet-communist-style governments emerged in other East Europe countries that the Red Army at the end of WWII occupied - Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary
• only Czechoslovakia and Finland was there a democracy

IRAN;

• following Tehran conference, Britain withdrew troops but Stalin left 30,000 saying they were there to help but the troops ended up encouraging a communist uprising, Iranian government pleaded to Russia's old allies
• Britain and Americans demanded Stalin remove troops but on the 1st January 1946 he refused
• Truman wrote to the secretary of state that unless Russia was 'faced with an ironed fist and strong language, war is in the making

STAGE 3 - IRON CURTAIN:

• the speech was given 5th March 1946 in Fulton, Missouri
• "nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its communist international organisation intends to do in the immediate future/an iron curtain has descended across the continent/behind lie all the capitals of the ancient states - Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, [they] all lie in the Soviet Sphere"
• within one week of…