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Stalin and the Fate of Eu rope STALIN and the FATE of EUR OPE THE POSTWAR STRUG GLE FOR SOVEREIGNTY Norman M. Naimark The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts London, England 2019 In memory of Selma Naimark Carra, 1921–2017 Copyright © 2019 by Norman M. Naimark All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer i ca First printing Jacket design: Graciela Galup Jacket photo: Statue of Stalin, from L’Illustrazione Italiana, August 10, 1941 / De Agostini / Biblioteca Ambrosiana / Getty Images 9780674242920 (EPUB) 9780674242937 (MOBI) 9780674242913 (PDF) The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Name: Naimark, Norman M., author. Title: Stalin and the fate of Eu rope : the postwar strug gle for sovereignty / Norman M. Naimark. Description: Cambridge, Mas sac hu setts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019012559 | ISBN 9780674238770 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953. | Cold War. | Communist countries— Bound aries. | Europe— History—1945- | Europe— Politics and government—1945- | Soviet Union— Foreign relations—1945-1991. | North Atlantic Treaty Organ ization. Classification: LCC D843 .N266 2019 | DDC 940.55/4— dc23 LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc. gov / 2019012559 Book design by Dean Bornstein Contents Introduction 1 1 The Bornholm Interlude 25 2 The Albanian Backflip 54 3 The Finnish Fight for In de pen dence 88 4 The Italian Elections 122 5 The Berlin Blockade 157 6 Gomułka versus Stalin 196 7 Austrian Tangles 231 Conclusion 267 List of Abbreviations 279 Notes 281 Acknowl edgments 345 Index 351 INTRODUCTION We forget, perhaps, how much of the world is not controlled by the Great Powers and how many people have a will of their own. — a. j. p. taylor The Eu ro pean continent was utterly devastated by World War II. Everywhere were destroyed cities and sad throngs of hungry f aces. Whate ver differences there might have been between eastern and western Eur ope in the interwar period— mostly deriving from economic underdevelopment over significant stretches of eastern Europe—w ere leveled by the horrendous costs of the war in human lives and materiel. The continent as a w hole was beset by hunger, apathy, unemployment, and, especially during the winter of 1946–1947, fierce cold— the worst in three centuries. Food and coal were in desperately short supply. Food production sank to two-t hirds of the prewar level in part because of the shortage of fertilizer, livestock, and labor. Kerosene was found in some localities for light and cooking. Wood, charcoal, and peat— when available—s erved as the main sources of heat. Eur o pe ans w ere desti- tute, malnourished, and weakened by the low caloric intake. This in turn prompted the frequent appearance of pneumonia, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and typhus. Given the widespread shortages of drugs—in par tic u lar penicillin, sulpha drugs, and antibiotics— disease, epidemics, and high rates of death from illness w ere inevitable. Not surprisingly, the eld erly and very young were the most susceptible. Tens of millions of p eople were on the move in 1944–1945: demobi- lized soldiers, returning POWs and forced laborers, expellees, settlers, deserters, and drifters in search of booty, work, and something to eat. Up to forty million people w ere displaced during the war.1 After having survived the war time years of highly restrictive and punitive labor laws (including the threat of mobilization), factory workers in Łódź, Milan, Paris, and elsewhere went on strike for higher wages, better working 1 2 . stalin and the fate of europe conditions, and, frequently, increased workers’ control. Frightful anti- Semitism was rampant in many Eu ro pean socie ties, despite— indeed one could argue because of— what the Nazis had done to the Jews. In- stead of stamping out anti-S emitism, knowledge of what happened to the Jews seemed only to exacerbate it. Few locals wanted the Jews back in their communities, east or west, and those Jews who returned to their homes and workplaces tended to face the hostility bred, in many cases, by guilt and indifference.2 Avaricious and sometimes simply needy neighbors had seized Jewish homes and shops during the war. Few w ere ready to return them afterward.3 Eu ro pe ans in all parts of the continent resented ethnic minorities. During the war and after, the ruling nationalities carried out generally popu lar policies of ethnic cleansing. The Nazi leaders were the primary perpetrators of the violent deportations of peoples, but they also forc- ibly resettled Germans from the east to return to the Reich (Heim ins Reich) to take over the farms and properties of deported minorities. Once the war was lost, Germans themselves were driven from their former homes in eastern and central Eu rope in the millions, as the com- bination of changing borders and attacks by nationalist vigilante and militia groups exposed German communities to extreme danger.4 Hun- garians, Ukrainians, Italians, Poles, and others faced the same fate in territories where they once held sway and w ere now no longer wel- come. The victorious Soviets joined the act, both by approving the deportation of minority peoples and by cleansing their own territory of Poles and Germans. Many targeted p eoples tried to adopt new national identities to avoid expulsions, whether Italians in Dalmatia, Ukrainians in Poland, or Hun- garians in Slovakia. German Silesians and Mazurians claimed that they were Poles. In the newly constituted Czechos lo vak ia, Yugo slavia, and Poland, judicial proc esses de cided who was a “native” and who was not.5 The nationalist princip le reigned supreme. Keeping in mind the elimi- nation of the vast majority of Eu ro pean Jews, Poland was never so Polish as a fter the war, Ukraine never so Ukrainian, Germany never so German, Denmark never so Danish, and Italy never so Italian.6 Yet everywhere, too, p eople sought solace in the latest dances and music, jazz and swing, and did what they could to come up with fash- Introduction . 3 ion able outfits to wear among the ruins, using the black markets that sprang up all over Eur ope to obtain occasional luxuries to distract themselves from poverty and want.7 Sexual mores were upended as w omen were sometimes forced to seek sustenance through semi- prostitution with occupation soldiers. Roving groups of weary trekkers, men and women, found some comfort in sex and coupling. In the displaced per- sons (DP) camps set up by the Allies for Jews in Germany after libera- tion, many of whom had fled postwar hostility and persecution in Po- land, there were a striking number of marriages and births, as refugee Jews, just like other Eu ro pe ans, sought to put the past behind them and embark on a new life.8 The psychological state of Eu ro pe ans was complex and difficult. One Polish historian describes what he calls “the g reat fear” (wielka trwoga) experienced by the vast majority of Poles, a deep unease about what would become of them given the horrors they had endured, the extreme want that surrounded them, the pol itic al uncertainty of incip- ient communist rule, and the incessant rumors of a new world war.9 In German- language memoirs, one encounters repeatedly the words for anxiety (Verzweiflung and Angst), which characterized the mood of the Germans. There was also hope, but it tended to be overwhelmed by fear and anxiety.10 At the end of the war and beginning of the peace, suicide rates jumped to rec ord numbers. Especially Germans and Aus- trians were terrified of the onslaught of Soviet troops and the impending occupation. But even a fter the war was over the challenges of staying alive and safe were too much for many Eu ro pea ns. Women were in a particularly psychologically challenging posi- tion at the end of the war. Their husbands, brothers, sons, and fathers were often absent, killed in the war, languishing in POW camps, or simply missing. Not only were they the primary “workh orses” of re- construction, but for every surviving male there w ere 1.6 women of marriageable age.11 The insecurity of not knowing whether their loved ones were alive or dead, or where they were interned— and not being able to communicate with them if they w ere in POW camps or on labor details in the USSR—w as extremely trying. This became a major po liti cal issue in Soviet- occupied Germany and Austria, as well as in Italy and Hungary. Men who returned from camps w ere often physically