From the Kremlin’s point of view towards the end
of 1947, things were not going well. The West
was disputing Soviet dominance in Eastern and
central Europe with the Truman Doctrine and the
Marshall Plan. Was not the Soviet Union entitled
for its own security to an extension of influence
over its neighbours? Twenty-eight million had
died to achieve it. After the early and genuine
welcome for the liberating Red Army among
quite large numbers of Poles, Bulgarians and
Czechs, communist support was eroding and
nationalism was reasserting itself.
The Soviet response to US intervention in
Europe was one of uncertainty. In September
1947 the Cominform was established to try to
bring all the communist parties into ideological
conformity as prescribed by Moscow. The Soviet
Union’s principal ideologue, Andrei Zhdanov,
laid down the doctrine that the world was now
divided into imperialist, anti-democratic forces on
one side, and the democratic, anti-imperialist
camp on the other and that the US was building
up foreign bases and was expansionist in its aims.
It was a clear message to all comrades that
Moscow’s interpretation should be accepted as
correct. In Poland, Wladyslaw Gomulka stoutly
insisted on following Poland’s road to socialism;
this did not include, for example, collectivisation
of Poland’s farmers. Gomulka was allowed to
remain in power for less than a year. In
Czechoslovakia the parliamentary constitutional
framework, political parties and a coalitionNational Front government had not moved
forward yet to complete communist domination.
Preparations for tighter communist control in
Eastern Europe were no doubt initiated after the
Cominform conference, but it was in Stalin’s
interests to postpone an open crisis as there still
appeared to be some possibility of blocking
Anglo-American plans for the consolidation of
the West German zones of occupation into an
eventual separate Western-orientated state.
After the failure in December 1947 of the
London Foreign Ministers’ Conference to reach
any settlement over Germany, the Russians
proved surprisingly accommodating over Austria
and on a number of other East–West questions.
The signal from Moscow was that progress could
still be made, that the West should be patient.
However, Anglo-American patience had run out
and on 23 February 1948, another London con-
ference was convened to discuss the future of
Germany. This time it was attended only by the
ambassadors of Germany’s Western neighbours,
the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and
France, plus Britain and the US. Agreement was
reached on ending the stalemate over Germany,
with all its harmful consequences for West
German and West European recovery. It was
accepted that the new arrangements planned for
the Western zones of Germany would lead to a
breach with the Soviet Union. Tension was
expected but not the crisis of 1948. That this
occurred was the fortuitous coming together of(^1) Chapter 32
1948
CRISIS IN EUROPE – PRAGUE AND BERLIN