Soviet Union retained Bessarabia (Moldavia) and
northern Bukovina, which they had first occupied
in 1940. Finland had to confirm the cession of
territory made to the USSR in 1940, and the
Soviet Union in addition secured a fifty-year lease
of the Porkkala naval base. Unlike the Balkan
states, Finland never became a satellite and was
allowed complete independence while following a
policy friendly to the USSR. Relations proved so
satisfactory that the Soviets returned the naval
base in 1955.
From the start Italy was not treated as
Germany was. Even under American occupation
from 1945 to 1947, the military supervisory gov-
ernment dropped the word ‘Control’ from its title
of Allied Commission. Fascism was suppressed,
but political life never came to a standstill. After
the peace treaty, Italy participated on the same
terms as France and Britain in the Marshall Plan
(though receiving much less) and could take its
place in the United Nations. Italy had been
treated generously, and harboured no grudges
against the nations that had defeated it. Italians
escaped too the heavy burden of guilt that would
continue to haunt the German people for more
than a generation.
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ITALY 349
