What did the Soviet Union do in Eastern Europe after WWII?

Soviet Union Takes Over Eastern Europe After World War II After World War II, the Soviet Union extended its control into Eastern Europe. It took over the governments in Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia. Only Greece and occupied Austria remained free.

What did the USSR do to the countries around them after World War II?

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union occupied Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland and eastern Germany. While the war was still taking place, Soviet occupation troops assisted local communists in putting Communist dictatorships in Romania and Bulgaria in power.

Why did the Soviet Union annexed eastern Europe?

After the war, Stalin was determined that the USSR would control Eastern Europe. That way, Germany or any other state would not be able to use countries like Hungary or Poland as a staging post to invade. His policy was simple. Each Eastern European state had a Communist government loyal to the USSR.

Why did the Eastern Bloc collapse?

Mikhail Gorbachev’s reformist policies in the Soviet Union fuelled opposition movements to the Communist regimes in the Soviet bloc countries. The structures of the Eastern bloc disintegrated with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. The Soviet Union broke up into independent republics.

Why did the Soviet Union expand after ww2?

Therefore when World War 2 ended and the Soviets occupied Eastern Europe and their German zone of occupation, Stalin saw this as an opportunity to set up a buffer zone of communist states, protecting the Soviet Union from future attack from the West.

How did the Soviet Union gain control of Eastern Europe?

In 1944 and 1945 the Red Army drove across Eastern Europe in its fight against the Nazis. After the war, Stalin was determined that the USSR would control Eastern Europe. Each Eastern European state had a Communist government loyal to the USSR. Each state’s economy was tied to the economy of the USSR.

How did the USSR gain control of Eastern Europe?

How did the Soviet Union lose control of Eastern Europe?

Gorbachev’s decision to loosen the Soviet yoke on the countries of Eastern Europe created an independent, democratic momentum that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and then the overthrow of Communist rule throughout Eastern Europe. …

What countries were in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War?

Eastern Bloc. The Eastern Bloc (also the Socialist Bloc, the Communist Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc) was the group of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Southeast Asia under the hegemony of the Soviet Union (USSR) during the Cold War (1947–1991) in opposition to the capitalist Western Bloc.

What was the end result of the Eastern Bloc?

Collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Soviet leader Gorbachev implemented democratization and economic restructuring which ultimately saw the death of the Eastern Bloc. In October 1990 the Berlin wall was shut down and east and West Germany were unified, finally in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed into independent countries.

Why did Yugoslavia not join the Eastern Bloc?

Yugoslavia, while being a communist country, did not immediately join the Eastern Bloc and was open to relations with NATO. The country’s leader Mr. Josip Broz Tito had disagreed with the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin on several critical issues and in 1948 a split between the two ensued.

What are the Eastern Bloc countries that adopted the Euro?

Three of the former Eastern bloc countries — Slovakia, Estonia and Latvia — have adopted the standard European currency of the Euro. The Cold War was a political standoff between the Western allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, and the countries of the Warsaw Pact, often referred to as the “Eastern Bloc.”.