Soviet Involvement In Regime Change

Soviet involvement in regime change entailed both overt and covert actions aimed at altering, replacing, or preserving foreign governments.

In the 1920s the nascent Soviet Union intervened in multiple governments primarily in Asia, acquiring the territory of Tuva and making Mongolia into a satellite state.

During World War II, the Soviet Union helped overthrow many Nazi German or Imperial Japanese puppet regimes, including in East Asia and much of Europe. Soviet forces were also instrumental in ending the rule of Adolf Hitler over Germany.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Soviet government struggled with the United States for global leadership and influence within the context of the Cold War. It expanded the geographic scope of its actions beyond its traditional area of operations. In addition, the Soviet Union and Russia have interfered in the national elections of many countries. One study indicated that the Soviet Union and Russia engaged in 36 interventions in foreign elections from 1946 to 2000.Levin, Dov H. (7 September 2016)
"Sure, the U.S. and Russia often meddle in foreign elections. Does it matter?"
''The Washington Post''. Retrieved 21 May 2019.

The Soviet Union ratified the UN Charter in 1945, the preeminent international law document, which legally bound the Soviet government to the Charter's provisions, including Article 2(4), which prohibits the threat or use of force in international relations, except in very limited circumstances. Therefore, any legal claim advanced to justify regime change by a foreign power carries a particularly heavy burden.

1921–1940: Interwar period

1920s

1921–1924: Mongolia

The Mongolian Revolution of 1911 saw Mongolia declare independence from the Qing dynasty in China, ruled by Bogd Khan. In 1912, the Qing dynasty collapsed into the Republic of China. In 1915, Russia and China signed the Kyatha agreement, making it autonomous. However, when the Russian Civil War broke out, China, working with Mongolian aristocrats, retook Mongolia in 1919. At the same time the Russian Civil War raged on and the White Army were, by 1921, beginning to lose to the Red Army. One of the commanders, Roman Ungern Von Sternberg, saw this and decided to abandon the White Army with his forces. He led his army into Mongolia in 1920, and conquered it completely by February 1921, putting Bogd Khan back into power.

The Bolsheviks had been worried about Sternberg and, at the request of the Mongolian People's Party, invaded Mongolia in August 1921 helping with the Mongolian Revolution of 1921. The Soviets moved from many directions and captured many locations in the country. Sternberg fought back and marched into the USSR but he was captured and killed by the Soviets on 15 September 1921. The Soviets kept Bogd Khan in power, as a constitutional monarch, hoping to keep good relations with China, while continuing to occupy the country. However, when Bogd Khan died in 1924, the Mongolian Revolutionary government declared that no reincarnations shall be accepted and set up the People's Republic of Mongolia which would exist in power until 1992.

1929: Tannu Tuva

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in the 1911 Revolution, the province of Tannu Uriankhai became independent, and was then made a protectorate of the Russian empire. During the Russian Civil War, the Red Army created the Tuvan People's Republic. It was located in between Mongolia and the USSR and was only recognized by the two countries. Their Prime Minister was Donduk Kuular, a former Lama with many ties to the Lamas present in the country. He tried to put his country on a Theocratic and Nationalistic path, tried to sow closer ties with Mongolia, and made Buddhism the state religion. He was also resistant to the collectivization policies of the Soviet Union. This was alarming and irritating to Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union's leader.

The Soviet Union would set the ground for a coup. They encouraged the "Revolutionary Union of Youth" movement, and educated many of them at Communist University of the Toilers of the East. In January 1929, five youths educated at the school would launch a coup with Soviet support and depose Kuular, imprisoning and later executing him. Salchak Toka would become the new head of the country. Under the new government, collectivization policies were implemented. A purge was launched in the country against aristocrats, Buddhists, intellectuals, and other political dissidents, which would also see the destruction of many monasteries.

1929: Afghanistan

After the Third Anglo-Afghan War, the Kingdom of Afghanistan had full independence from the British Empire, and could make their own foreign relations. Amanullah Khan, the king of Afghanistan, made relations with the USSR, among many other countries, such as signing an agreement of neutrality. There had also been another treaty signed that gave territory to Afghanistan on the condition that they stop Basmachi raids into the USSR. As his reign continued, Amanullah Khan became less popular, and in November 1928 rebels rose up in the east of the country. The Saqqawists allowed Basmachi rebels from the Soviet Union to operate inside the country after coming to power. The Soviet Union sent 1,000 troops into Afghanistan to support Amanullah Khan. When Amanullah fled the country, the Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan. Despite the Soviet withdrawal, the Saqqawists would be defeated later, in 1929.

1930s

1933–1934: Xinjiang

In 1934, Ma Zhongying's troops, supported by the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China, were on the verge of defeating the Soviet client Sheng Shicai during the Battle of Ürümqi in the Kumul Rebellion. As a Hui (Chinese Muslim), he had earlier attended the Whampoa Military Academy in Nanjing in 1929, when it was run by Chiang Kai-shek, who was also the head of the Kuomintang and leader of China. <sup>/sup> He was then sent back to Gansu after graduating from the academy and fought in the Kumul Rebellion where, with the tacit support of the Kuomintang government of China, he tried to overthrow the pro-Soviet provincial government first led by Governor Jin Shuren, and then Sheng Shicai. Ma invaded Xinjiang in support of Kumul Khanate loyalists and received official approval and designation from the Kuomintang as the 36th Division.

In late 1933, the Han Chinese provincial commander General Zhang Peiyuan and his army defected from the provincial government side to Zhongying's side and joined him in waging war against Jin Shuren's provincial government.</sup>

In 1934, two brigades of about 7,000 Soviet GPU troops, backed by tanks, airplanes and artillery with mustard gas, crossed the border to assist Sheng Shicai in gaining control of Xinjiang. The brigades were named "Altayiiskii" and "Tarbakhataiskii". ^{/sup> Sheng's Manchurian army was being severely beaten by an alliance of the Han Chinese army led by general Zhang Peiyuan, and the 36th Division led by Zhongying, /sup> who fought under the banner of the Kuomintang Republic of China government. The joint Soviet-White Russian force was called "The Altai Volunteers". Soviet soldiers disguised themselves in uniforms lacking markings, and were dispersed among the White Russians. /sup>}

Despite his early successes, Zhang's forces were overrun at Kulja and Chuguchak, and he committed suicide after the battle at Muzart Pass to avoid capture.

Even though the Soviets were superior to the 36th Division in both manpower and technology, they were held off for weeks and took severe casualties. The 36th Division managed to halt the Soviet forces from supplying Sheng with military equipment. Chinese Muslim troops led by Ma Shih-ming held off the superior Red Army forces armed with machine guns, tanks, and planes for about 30 days. ^/sup>

When reports that the National Revolutionary Army had defeated and killed the Soviets reached Chinese prisoners in Ürümqi, they were reportedly so jubilant that they jumped around in their cells. ^0/sup>

Ma Hushan, Deputy Divisional Commander of the 36th Division, became well known for victories over Russian forces during the invasion. ^1/sup>

Chiang Kai-shek was ready to send Huang Shaohong and his expeditionary force which he assembled to assist Zhongying against Sheng, but when Chiang heard about the Soviet invasion, he decided to withdraw to avoid an international incident if his troops directly engaged the Soviets. ^2/sup>

1936–1939: Spain

The newly created Second Spanish Republic became tense with political divisions between right- and left-wing politics. The 1936 Spanish general election would see the left wing coalition, called the Popular Front, win a narrow majority. As a result, the right wing, known as Falange, launched a coup against the Republic, and while they would take much territory, they would fail at taking over Spain completely, beginning the Spanish Civil War. There were two factions in the war: the right wing Nationalists, which included the Fascist Falange, Monarchists, Traditionalists, Carlists, wealthy landowners, and Conservatives, who would eventually come to be led by Francisco Franco, and the left wing Republicans, which included Anarchists, Socialists, Basque separatists, Catalan separatists, Liberals, and Communists.

The Civil War would gain much international attention and both sides would gain foreign support through both volunteers and direct involvement. Both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy gave overt support to the Nationalists. At the time, the USSR had an official policy of non-intervention, but wanted to counter Germany and Italy. Stalin worked around the League of Nations's embargo and provided arms to the Republicans and, unlike Germany and Italy, did this covertly. Arms shipment was usually slow and ineffective and many weapons were lost, but the Soviets would end up evading detection of the Nationalists by using false flags. Despite Stalin's interest in aiding the Republicans, the quality of arms was inconsistent. Many rifles and field guns provided were old, obsolete or otherwise of limited use, (some dated back to the 1860s) but the T-26 and BT-5 tanks were modern and effective in combat.Payne (2004). pp. 156–157. The Soviet Union supplied aircraft that were in current service with their own forces but the aircraft provided by Germany to the Spanish Nationalist Air Force proved superior by the end of the war.Beevor (2006). pp. 152–153. The USSR sent 2,000–3,000 military advisers to Spain, and while the Soviet commitment of troops was fewer than 500 men at a time, Soviet volunteers often operated Soviet-made tanks and aircraft, particularly at the beginning of the war.Thomas (1961). p. 637. The Republic paid for Soviet arms with official Bank of Spain gold reserves, 176 tonnes of which was transferred through France and 510 directly to Russia which was called Moscow gold. At the same time, the Soviet Union directed Communist parties around the world to organize and recruit the International Brigades.

At the same time, Stalin tried to take power within the Republicans. There were many anti-Stalin and anti-Soviet factions in the Republicans, such as Anarchists and Trotyskyists. Stalin encouraged NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) activity inside of the Republicans and Spain.

Catalan Trotskyist Andreu Nin, socialist journalist Mark Rein, left-wing academic José Robles, and others were assassinated in operations in Spain led by many spies and Stalinists such as Vittorio Vidali ("Comandante Contreras"), Iosif Grigulevich, Mikhail Koltsov and, most prominently, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov. The NKVD also targeted Nationalists and others they saw as politically problematic to their goals.

The Republicans eventually broke out into infighting between the communists and anarchists, as both groups attempted to form their own governments. The Nationalists, on the other hand, were much more unified than the Republicans, and Franco had been able to take most of Spain's territory, including Catalonia, an important area of left wing support and, with the collapse of Madrid, the war was over with a Nationalist victory.

1939–1940: Finland

On 30 November 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from the organisation.The conflict began after the Soviets sought to obtain Finnish territory, demanding, among other concessions, that Finland cede substantial border territories in exchange for land elsewhere, claiming security reasons—primarily the protection of Leningrad, 32 km (20 mi) from the Finnish border. Finland refused, so the USSR invaded the country. Many sources conclude that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland, and use the establishment of the puppet Communist Finnish Democratic Republic and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocols as evidence of this. ^{8/sup> Finland repelled Soviet attacks for more than two months and inflicted substantial losses on the invaders while temperatures ranged as low as −43 °C (−45 °F). After the Soviet military reorganised and adopted different tactics, they renewed their offensive in February and overcame Finnish defences.}

Hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. Finland ceded 11 percent of its territory, representing 30 percent of its economy to the Soviet Union. Soviet losses were heavy, and the country's international reputation suffered. Soviet gains exceeded their pre-war demands and the USSR received substantial territory along Lake Ladoga and in northern Finland. Finland retained its sovereignty and enhanced its international reputation. The poor performance of the Red Army encouraged Adolf Hitler to think that an attack on the Soviet Union would be successful and confirmed negative Western opinions of the Soviet military. After 15 months of Interim Peace, in June 1941, Nazi Germany commenced Operation Barbarossa and the Soviet-Finnish theater of World War II, also known as the Continuation War, flared up again.

1940s

1940: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

The Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states under the auspices of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in June 1940. They were then incorporated into the Soviet Union as constituent republics in August 1940, though most Western powers never recognized their incorporation. On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and, within weeks, occupied the Baltic territories. In July 1941, the Third Reich incorporated the Baltic territory into its ''Reichskommissariat Ostland''. As a result of the Red Army's Baltic Offensive of 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured most of the Baltic states and trapped the remaining German forces in the Courland pocket until their formal surrender in May 1945. The Soviet "annexation occupation" (german: link=no, Annexionsbesetzung) or occupation ''sui generis'' Mälksoo (2003), p. 193. of the Baltic states lasted until August 1991, when the three countries regained their independence.

The Baltic states themselves,The Occupation of Latvia
at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia the United States and its courts of law, the European Parliament,Motion for a resolution on the Situation in Estonia
by the European Parliament, B6-0215/2007, 21 May 2007
passed 24.5.2007
Retrieved 1 January 2010. the European Court of Human Rights European Court of Human Rights cases on Occupation of Baltic States and the United Nations Human Rights Council have all stated that these three countries were invaded, occupied and illegally incorporated into the Soviet Union under provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. There followed occupation by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944 and then again occupation by the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1991.The World Book Encyclopedia This policy of non-recognition has given rise to the principle of legal continuity of the Baltic states, which holds that ''de jure'', or as a matter of law, the Baltic states had remained independent states under illegal occupation throughout the period from 1940 to 1991.David James Smith, ''Estonia: independence and European integration'', Routledge, 2001, , pXIX

In its reassessment of Soviet history that began during perestroika in 1989, the Soviet Union condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Germany and itself.The Forty-Third Session of the UN Sub-Commission
at Google Scholar However, the Soviet Union never formally acknowledged its presence in the Baltics as an occupation or that it annexed these states Marek (1968). p. 396. "Insofar as the Soviet Union claims that they are not directly annexed territories but autonomous bodies with a legal will of their own, they (The Baltic SSRs) must be considered puppet creations, exactly in the same way in which the Protectorate or Italian-dominated Albania have been classified as such. These puppet creations have been established on the territory of the independent Baltic states; they cover the same territory and include the same population." and considered the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics as three of its constituent republics. On the other hand, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic recognized in 1991 that the events of 1940 were "annexation . Nationalist-patrioticcf. e.g. Boris Sokolov's article offering an overvie
Эстония и Прибалтика в составе СССР (1940–1991) в российской историографии
(Estonia and the Baltic countries in the USSR (1940–1991) in Russian historiography). Accessed 30 January 2011. Russian historiography and school textbooks continue to maintain that the Baltic states voluntarily joined the Soviet Union after their peoples all carried out socialist revolutions independent of Soviet influence. The post-Soviet government of the Russian Federation and its state officials insist that incorporation of the Baltic states was in accordance with international law and gained de jure recognition by the agreements made in the February 1945 Yalta and the July–August 1945 Potsdam conferences and by the 1975 Helsinki Accords,''МИД РФ: Запад признавал Прибалтику частью СССР''
grani.ru, May 2005
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russia), 7 May 2005 which declared the inviolability of existing frontiers. Khudoley (2008), '' Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War, The Baltic factor'', p. 90. However, Russia agreed to Europe's demand to "assist persons deported from the occupied Baltic states" upon joining the Council of Europe in 1996.as described in Resolution 1455 (2005), Honouring of obligations and commitments by the Russian Federation
, at the CoE Parliamentary site, retrieved 6 December 2009 Additionally, when the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic signed a separate treaty with Lithuania in 1991, it acknowledged that the 1940 annexation as a violation of Lithuanian sovereignty and recognized the ''de jure'' continuity of the Lithuanian state.Treaty between the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic and the Republic of Lithuania on the Basis for Relations between States

Most Western governments maintained that Baltic sovereignty had not been legitimately overridden and thus continued to recognise the Baltic states as sovereign political entities represented by the legations—appointed by the pre-1940 Baltic states—which functioned in Washington and elsewhere. The Baltic states recovered de facto independence in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Russian Armed Forces started to withdraw its troops from the Baltics (starting from Lithuania) in August 1993. The full withdrawal of troops deployed by Moscow ended in August 1994. Russia officially ended its military presence in the Baltics in August 1998 by decommissioning the Skrunda-1 radar station in Latvia. The dismantled installations were repatriated to Russia and the site returned to Latvian control, with the last Russian soldier leaving Baltic soil in October 1999.

1941–1949: World War II, formation of East Bloc, creation of Soviet satellite states, last years of Stalin's rule

The Soviet Union policy during World War II was neutral until August 1939, followed by friendly relations with Germany to carve up Eastern Europe. The USSR helped supply oil and munitions to Germany as its armies rolled across Western Europe in May–June 1940. Despite repeated warnings, Stalin refused to believe that Hitler was planning an all-out war on the USSR; he was stunned and temporarily helpless when Hitler invaded in June 1941. Stalin quickly came to terms with Britain and the United States, cemented through a series of summit meetings. The two countries supplied war materials in large quantity through Lend Lease. There was some coordination of military action, especially in summer 1944.

As agreed with the Allies at the Tehran Conference in November 1943 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union entered World War II's Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. The invasion began on 9 August 1945, exactly three months after the German surrender on May 8 (9 May, 0:43 Moscow Time). Although the commencement of the invasion fell between the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima, on 6 August, and only hours before the Nagasaki bombing on 9 August, the timing of the invasion had been planned well in advance and was determined by the timing of the agreements at Tehran and Yalta, the long-term buildup of Soviet forces in the Far East since Tehran, and the date of the German surrender some three months earlier; on 3 August, Marshal Vasilevsky reported to Premier Joseph Stalin that, if necessary, he could attack on the morning of 5 August. At 11 pm Trans-Baikal (UTC+10) time on 8 August 1945, Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov informed Japanese ambassador Naotake Satō that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan, and that from 9 August the Soviet government would consider itself to be at war with Japan."Soviet Declaration of War on Japan"
8 August 1945. (Avalon Project at Yale University)

1940s

1941: Iran

The British Commonwealth and the Soviet Union invaded Pahlavi Iran jointly in 1941 during the Second World War. The invasion lasted from 25 August to 17 September 1941 and was codenamed Operation Countenance. Its purpose was to secure Iranian oil fields and ensure Allied supply lines (see the Persian Corridor) for the USSR, fighting against Axis forces on the Eastern Front. Though Iran was neutral, the Allies considered Reza Shah to be friendly to Germany, deposed him during the subsequent occupation and replaced him with his young son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

1944-1947: Romania

As World War II turned against the Axis and the Soviet Union won on the Eastern Front, several Romanian politicians, including Mihai Antonescu and Iuliu Maniu, entered secret negotiations with the Allies. At the time Romania was ruled over by dictator Ion Antonescu, with King Michael I as a figurehead. The Romanians had contributed a large number of troops to the front, and had hoped to regain territory and survive. After the Soviets launched a successful offensive into Romania King Michael I met with the National Democratic Bloc to try and take over the government. He tried to get the dictator Ion Antonescu, to switch sides but he refused. So the king immediately ordered his arrest and took over the government in King Michael's Coup. Romania switched sides and began fighting against the Axis.

However the Soviet Union still ended up occupying the country. The Soviet representatives pressured the king into appointing Petru Groza, the candidate put forwards by the communist alliance, as the Prime Minister of Romania in March 1945. The following year the communist-dominated alliance won 1946 Romanian general election, though the opposition accused the government of widespread fraud. The king only ruled as a figurehead, and the Romanian Communist Party took control of the country. In the 1947 the Paris Peace Treaties allowed the Red Army to continue to maintain troops in the country. In 1947 the government forced the King to abdicate and leave the country, and afterwards abolished the Romanian monarchy. The Parliament declared the Romanian People's Republic in Bucharest, which was friendly and aligned with Moscow. The Soviet Army presence continued until 1958.

1944–1949: Xinjiang

1944–1946: Bulgaria

The Kingdom of Bulgaria originally joined the Axis to gain territory and be protected from the USSR. Additionally, Bulgaria wanted to fend off the communists in the country, who had influence in the army. Despite this, Bulgaria did not participate in the war very much, not joining in Operation Barbarosa and refusing to send its Jewish Population to concentration camps. However, in 1943 Tsar Boris III died, and the Axis were starting to lose on the Eastern Front. The Bulgarian government negotiated with the allies and withdrew from the war in August 1944. Despite this they refused to expel the German troops still stationed in the country. The Soviet Union responded by invading the country in September 1944, which coincided with the 1944 coup by communists. The coup saw the communist Fatherland Front take power. The new government abolished the monarchy and executed former officials of the government including 1,000 to 3,000 dissidents, war criminals, and monarchists in the People's Court, as well as exilling Tsar Simeon II. Following the 1946 Bulgarian republic referendum the People's Republic of Bulgaria was set up under the leadership of Georgi Dimitrov.

1944–1946: Poland

On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, sixteen days after Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subsequent military operations lasted for the following 20 days and ended on 6 October 1939 with the two-way division and annexation of the entire territory of the Second Polish Republic by Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviet invasion of Poland was secretly approved by Germany following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939.

The Red Army, which vastly outnumbered the Polish defenders, achieved its targets encountering only limited resistance. Roughly 320,000 Polish prisoners of war had been captured. The campaign of mass persecution in the newly acquired areas began immediately. In November 1939 the Soviet government annexed the entire Polish territory under its control. Around 13.5 million Polish citizens who fell under the military occupation were made into new Soviet subjects following show elections conducted by the NKVD secret police in the atmosphere of terror, the results of which were used to legitimize the use of force. A Soviet campaign of political murders and other forms of repression, targeting Polish figures of authority such as military officers, police and priests, began with a wave of arrests and summary executions. The Soviet NKVD sent hundreds of thousands of people from eastern Poland to Siberia and other remote parts of the Soviet Union in four major waves of deportation between 1939 and 1941.

Soviet forces occupied eastern Poland until the summer of 1941, when they were driven out by the Wehrmacht in the course of Operation Barbarossa. The area was under German occupation until the Red Army reconquered it in the summer of 1944. An agreement at the Yalta Conference permitted the Soviet Union to annex almost all of their Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact portion of the Second Polish Republic, compensating the Polish People's Republic with the southern half of East Prussia and territories east of the Oder–Neisse line. The Soviet Union enclosed most of the conquered annexed territories into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

After the end of World War II in Europe, the USSR signed a new border agreement with the Soviet-backed and installed Polish communist puppet state on 16 August 1945. This agreement recognized the status quo as the new official border between the two countries with the exception of the region around Białystok and a minor part of Galicia east of the San river around Przemyśl, which were later returned to Poland.Sylwester Fertacz
"Krojenie mapy Polski: Bolesna granica" (Carving of Poland's map).
''Alfa''. Retrieved from the Internet Archive on 28 October 2015.

1945–1949: Hungary

As the allies were on their way to victory in World War II, Hungary was governed by the Hungarist Arrow Cross Party under the Government of National Unity. They were facing mostly advancing Soviet and Romanian forces. On 13 February 1945 the forces captured Budapest, by April 1945 German forces were driven out of the country.J. Lee Ready (1995), ''World War Two. Nation by Nation'', London, Cassell, page 130. They occupied the country and set it up as a Satellite State called the Second Hungarian Republic. In the 1945 Hungarian parliamentary election the Independent Smallholders Party won 57% of the vote while the Hungarian Communist Party won only 17%. In response the Soviet forces refused to allow the party to take power, and the communists took control of the government in a coup. Their rule saw the Stalinization of the country, and with the help of the USSR sent dissidents to Gulags in the Soviet Union, as well as setting up the Security Police known as the State Protection Authority (AVO). In February 1947 the police began targeting member of the Independent Smallholders Party and the National Peasants Party. As well in 1947 the Hungarian government forced the leaders of non-communist parties to cooperate with the government. The Social Democratic Party of Hungary was taken over while the Secretary of Independent Smallholders Party was sent to Siberia. In June 1948 the Social Democrats were forced to fuse with the communists to form the Hungarian Working People's Party. In the 1949 Hungarian parliamentary elections the voters were only presented with a list of communist candidates and the Hungarian government drafted a new constitution from the 1936 Soviet Constitution, and made themselves into the People's Republic of Hungary with Matyas Rakosi as the de facto leader.

1945: Germany

The Soviet Union entered Warsaw on 17 January 1945, after the city was destroyed and abandoned by the Germans after the Warsaw Uprising. Over three days, on a broad front incorporating four army fronts, the Red Army launched the Vistula–Oder Offensive across the Narew River and from Warsaw. The Soviets outnumbered the Germans on average by 5–6:1 in troops, 6:1 in artillery, 6:1 in tanks and 4:1 in self-propelled artillery. After four days, the Red Army broke out and started moving thirty to forty kilometres a day, taking the Baltic states: Danzig, East Prussia and Poznań, and drawing up on a line sixty kilometres east of Berlin along the River Oder. During the full course of the Vistula–Oder operation (23 days), the Red Army forces sustained 194,191 total casualties (killed, wounded and missing) and lost 1,267 tanks and assault guns.

A limited counter-attack (codenamed Operation Solstice) by the newly created Army Group Vistula, under the command of ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler, had failed by 24 February, and the Red Army drove on to Pomerania and cleared the right bank of the Oder River. In the south, the German attempts in to relieve the encircled garrison at Budapest (codenamed Operation Konrad) failed and the city fell on 13 February. On 6 March, the Germans launched what would be their final major offensive of the war, Operation Spring Awakening, which failed by 16 March. On 30 March, the Red Army entered Austria and captured Vienna on 13 April.

OKW claimed German losses of 77,000 killed, 334,000 wounded and 292,000 missing, for a total of 703,000 men, on the Eastern Front during January and February 1945.

On 9 April 1945, Königsberg in East Prussia finally fell to the Red Army, although the shattered remnants of Army Group Centre continued to resist on the Vistula Spit and Hel Peninsula until the end of the war in Europe. The East Prussian operation, though often overshadowed by the Vistula–Oder operation and the later battle for Berlin, was in fact one of the largest and costliest operations fought by the Red Army throughout the war. During the period it lasted (13 January – 25 April), it cost the Red Army 584,788 casualties, and 3,525 tanks and assault guns.

The fall of Königsberg allowed Stavka to free up General Konstantin Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front (2BF) to move west to the east bank of the Oder. During the first two weeks of April, the Red Army performed their fastest front redeployment of the war. General Georgy Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belorussian Front (1BF), which had been deployed along the Oder river from Frankfurt in the south to the Baltic, into an area in front of the Seelow Heights. The 2BF moved into the positions being vacated by the 1BF north of the Seelow Heights. While this redeployment was in progress gaps were left in the lines and the remnants of the German 2nd Army, which had been bottled up in a pocket near Danzig, managed to escape across the Oder. To the south, General Ivan Konev shifted the main weight of the 1st Ukrainian Front (1UF) out of Upper Silesia north-west to the Neisse

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