Contents

List of Abbreviations viii Preface xii Notes on the Contributors xiii Introduction xviii

PART I THE AND THE POST-WAR EUROPEAN ORDER 1 Problems of Post-War Construction in Soviet Foreign Policy Conceptions during World War II 3 Aleksei M. Filitov 2 Stalin's Plans for Post-War Germany 23 WilfriedLoth 3 The Soviets and the Christian Democrats: the Challenge of a 'Bourgeois' Party in Eastern Germany, 1945-9 37 Norman M. Naimark 4 The Soviet Union and the Berlin Crisis, 1948-9 57 Michail M. Narinskii 5 The Soviet Liberation of Poland and the Polish Left, 1943-5 76 Anita J. Prazmowska 6 The Soviet Union and Finland after the War, 1944-53 89 Jukka Nevakivi 7 The Limits to Soviet Influence: Soviet Diplomats and the Pursuit of Strategic Interests in Norway and Denmark, 1944-7 106 Sven G. Holtsmark 8 A Balkan Union? Southeastern Europe in Soviet Security Policy, 1944-8 125 R. Craig Nation 9 The Soviet Union and 'the Greek Question', 1946-53: Problems and Appraisals 144 ArtiomA. Ulunian 10 The Soviet Union and the , 1944-8 161 Elena Aga-Rossi and Victor Zaslavsky vi Contents

11 Stalin and the Prospects for Post-War Europe: a Comment on Chapters 1, 2 and 7 185 Alexander Dallin 12 How much of the Cold War was Inevitable? A Comment on Chapters 4, 6, 8 and 9 191 William Taubman

PART II THE COMINFORM AND THE SOVIET BLOC 13 Stalin's Foreign Policy and the Cominform, 1947-53 197 Nataliia I. Egorova 14 The Marshall Plan and the Founding of the Cominform, June-September 1947 208 Anna Di Biagio 15 The Soviet-Yugoslav Conflict and the Soviet Bloc 222 Leonid la. Gibianskii 16 A Challenge Let Drop: Soviet Foreign Policy, the Cominform and the Italian Communist Party, 1947-8 246 Silvio Pons 17 Vittorio Vidali and the Cominform, 1947-53 264 Joze Pirjevec 18 Revolution Released: Stalin, the Bulgarian Communist Party and the Establishment of the Cominform 272 Vesselin Dimitrov

PART III THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SOVIET UNION AND WESTERN EUROPE 19 From 'Ally' to Enemy: Britain's Relations with the Soviet Union, 1941-8 293 Geoffrey Warner 20 General de Gaulle and the Soviet Union, 1943-5: Ideology or European Equilibrium 310 Georges-Henri Soutou 21 Britain and the Death of Stalin 334 Antonio Varsori 22 The Soviet Union and Germany in the Late Stalin Period, 1950-3 356 Gerhard Wettig 23 Soviet-Italian Relations, 1945-8 375 Nina D. Smirnova Contents vii

24 Negotiating a Settlement for and the Minor Axis Powers: Peace Diplomacy and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945-7 383 Ilaria Poggiolini 25 The Search for Symmetry: a Tentative View of , the Soviet Union and the Cold War 395 Giampaolo Valdevit 26 Security and Perceptions of Threat in Italy in the Early Cold War Years, 1945-53 412 Leopoldo Nuti

Index 431