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Igor Diakonoff and Sergei Starostin have suggested that Nakh is distantly related to Hurro-Urartian, which they included as a branch of the Northeastern Caucasian language family (which were dubbed Alarodian languages by Diakonoff). Several studies argue that the connection is probable. Other scholars, however, doubt that the language families are related, or believe that, while a connection is possible, the evidence is far from conclusive. Various interpretations of the Nakh-Urartian relationship exist: another, held by Kassian (2011), is that Urartian and Nakh's common vocabulary instead reflects a history of intense borrowing from Urartian into Nakh.
Some of these place names are also held make reference to the ethnonym of the "Ers", a hypoethical Nakh people invented by Jaimoukha who he says inhabited a small region roughly in the northern part of what is now the Republic of Armenia where many of these placenames of interest are located.
The following is a list of historical or prehistoric peoples who have been proposed as speakers of Nakh languages.
According to Georgian scholars I.A. Djavashvili and Giorgi Melikishvili the Urartuan state of Supani was occupied by the ancient Nakh tribe Tzov, the state of which is called Tsobena in ancient Georgian historiography. Sophene was part of the kingdom of Urartu from the 8th to 7th centuries BCE. After uniting the region with his kingdom in the early 8th century BCE, king Argishtis I of Urartu resettled many of its inhabitants to his newly built city of Erebuni. However, Djavashvili's and Melikishvili's theory is not widely accepted.
Despite Jaimoukha's claims, Strabo suggests that the Gargareans were Aeolian Greeks and locates their homeland Gargara in Troad, in the far west of modern Turkey.
The Tsanars were a people of East-Central Northern Georgia, living in an area around modern Khevi. Tsanaria was their state, and it distinguished itself by the decisive role it and its people played in fending off the Arab invasion of Georgia. Their language is thought by many historians (including Vladimir Minorsky and Amjad Jaimoukha) to be Nakh, based on placenames, geographic location, and other such evidence. However, there is opposition to the theory that theirs was a Nakh language. Others claim they spoke a Sarmatian language like Ossetic. The Tsanars, too, eventually were assimilated within Georgiandom.
Ghlighvi has been a historical name for the Ingush, possibly deriving from their ethnonym "Ghalghaj". It was first mentioned by Vakhushti of Kartli in 1745, a Georgian noble, who noted that they split off from the Durdzuks.
The Malkhs were a Nakh people who were deemed to be the westernmost Nakh people, and made an alliance with the Greek Bosporus Kingdom.
The Isadiks were an ancient Nakh people of the North Caucasus who were farmers. They were probably undone by Scythian invaders. A remnant of them may have been absorbed by the Vainakh, as their name can now be seen in the Chechen teip "Sadoy".
The Khamekits were another ancient Nakh people of the North Caucasus who were farmers. They were also probably undone by Scythian invaders. A remnant of them may have been absorbed by the Vainakh, as their name may now be reflected in the Ingush teip "Khamki."
Before the 19th century, the Arshtins were a Vainakh tukkhum living in between the Ingush and Chechens, with vague affinities to both groups, along the Sunzha River's middle reaches and its tributaries. The Arshtins were mostly known as Karabulaks, which they are called in Russian, from their Kumyk name. They also called themselves "Baloi". They were variously considered to be an independent people, a subgroup of Chechens, or a subgroup of Ingush (further complicated by the fact that many in the 19th century, including many Ingush themselves, considered the Ingush to be a subgroup of the Chechens). Their language is thought to have been similar to Chechen and Ingush (not unlike today's Galanchozh dialect spoken by the Myalkhi tukhum).
The Arshtins eventually were wiped out by Russian imperialism. The late 1850s saw the end of the Eastern and Central Caucasian resistance to Tsarist rule; and in 1865, the Deportation of Circassians occurred. Although the Russians mainly targeted Circassians for expulsion or murder, the Arshtins also were victims. In May–July 1865, according to official documents, 1366 Arshtin families disappeared and only 75 remained. These 75 families joined (or rejoined) the Chechen nation as the Erstkhoi tukhum.
The Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria is a federal subject of Russia (a republic), located in the Caucasus region.
As with other parts of the Caucasus, the area that is now known as Kabardino-Balkaria has been inhabited for thousands of years. The origins of its inhabitants are somewhat obscure.
It is known that proto-Kabardians called Kassogs were inhabiting that area already in the 9th century, as the Arab traveler Al Masudi speaks of them.
Balkars were part of Alania and one of the Vainakh tribes, who were influenced by Turkic culture after the Mongol invasion's split of the lowlands of Nakh tribes and adopted the language. Also genetically they are closely related to Chechens and Ingush.
The region came under the control of the Mongols between 1242 and 1295. It passed into the hands of the Georgians from 1295 to 1505 before falling, briefly, into the orbit of the Persian Empire between 1502 and 1516. It was then ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1557. From 1557, it became a protectorate of the expanding Russian state – first Muscovy, then the Russian Empire. See Kabardia.
Kabardia gained independence briefly between 1739 and 1774, before being annexed by Russia under the terms of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. Balkaria was annexed in 1827. The Russians established a number of forts in the region, notably at Nalchik (the republic's present-day capital), to secure their control over it. A significant number of Russians – many of Cossack descent – also settled there.
During the Russian Civil War, the region became part of the anti-communist South-Eastern League (1917–1918), then joined the Mountain Peoples’ Autonomous Republic in 1921. On September 1, 1921, with the emergence of the Soviet Union, the territories were organized into the Kabardin Autonomous Oblast. The region's name was changed to the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Oblast the following year, and on December 5, 1936 it was elevated in status and named Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1944, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin falsely accused the Balkars of collaborating with Nazi Germany and deported the entire population. Their name was deleted from the territory, which was renamed the Kabardin ASSR. The Balkar population was only allowed to return in 1957 at which point its pre-war name was restored.
Kabardino-Balkaria became a full republic in 1991 and in March 1992 became one of the constituent republics of the Russian Federation.
The republic's economy was very hard hit by the fall of the Soviet Union and the outbreak of war in neighboring Georgia and nearby Chechnya. The instability produced by the conflicts led to a collapse in tourism in the region and produced an unemployment level estimated to be as high as 90%. The republic's mainly Muslim population has become increasingly radicalised by the region's instability. In October 2005, Kabardino-Balkaria's capital Nalchik was the site of fighting after an attack on the city by Chechen militants. On 1 July 1994 Kabardino-Balkaria became the second republic after Tatarstan to sign a power-sharing agreement with the federal government, granting it autonomy. This agreement would be abolished on 8 August 2002.
The Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic or Mountain ASSR () was a short-lived autonomous republic within the Russian SFSR in the Northern Caucasus that existed from 20 January 1921, to 7 July 1924.
The ASSR did not exist in its original state very long. Already on 1 September 1921, Kabardin Okrug was split from the ASSR as separate Kabardin Autonomous Okrug, subordinated directly to the RSFSR. Next came Karachay Okrug, which was transformed into Karachay Autonomous Okrug on 12 January 1922; Balkar Okrug, which was transformed into Balkar Autonomous Okrug on 16 January 1922; and Chechen Okrug, which was transformed into the Chechen Autonomous Oblast on 30 November 1922.
By the Decree of the VTsIK of 7 July 1924, the remaining territory of the ASSR was partitioned into the North Ossetian Autonomous Oblast and the Ingush Autonomous Oblast. The Sunzha Cossack Okrug and the city of Vladikavkaz were directly subordinated to the VTsIK until 17 October 1924, when North Caucasus Krai was formed and integrated all of the former ASSR in addition to those two units.
The Agri were an ancient people dwelling along the Palus Maeotis in antiquity. Strabo describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others.
Agri is one of the Maeotae tribes, who lived in the 1st millennium BC on the east and the southeast coast of the Azov sea. Russian scientists, archeologists, historians and ethnographers in the Soviet period concluded that the Maeotae is one of the tribes of the Adyghe people (Circassians).
In the "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" in the article about the Adyghe people) it says"Living in the basin of the river Kuban part of the tribes ([[Adyghe people]]), as a rule, be indicated (names) of ancient historians under the collective name 'Maeotae'." In the article about the Maeotae it is written."Maeotae were engaged in farming and fishing. Part of the Maeotae by the language was akin to the Adygs (Circassians), the part of the Iranians. In the 4th–3rd centuries BC many of Maeotae included in the composition of the [[Bosporan kingdom]]."
Maghas or Maas — more properly, Mags or Maks — was the capital city of Alania, a medieval kingdom in the Greater Caucasus. It is known from Islamic and Chinese sources, but its location is uncertain, with some authors favouring North Ossetia and others pointing to Arkhyz in modern-day Karachay–Cherkessia, where three 10th-century churches still stand.
The destruction of Maghas is ascribed to Batu Khan, a Mongol leader and a grandson of Genghis Khan, in the beginning of 1239. Some Russian geographers, like D. V. Zayats, point to a location in Ingushetia.
The capital of the Russian Republic of Ingushetia, Magas, is named after Maghas.
The Toreatae (Greek: , Strabo xi. 2. 11) or Toretae (Greek: , Steph. B. "s. v."; Dionys. Per. 682; Plin. vi. 5; Mela, i. 2; Avien. "Orb. Terr." 867) were a tribe of the Maeotae in Asiatic Sarmatia. Strabo describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others. (xi. 2. 11)
Ptolemy (v. 9. § 9) mentions a in Asiatic Sarmatia; and in another passage (iii. 5. § 25) he speaks of the (Toreccadae) as a people in European Sarmatia, who are perhaps the same as the Toretae or Toreatae.
The Toreatae were one of the Maeotae tribes, who lived in the 1st millennium BC on the eastern and south-eastern coast of the Azov sea. Russian archeologists, historians and ethnographers in the Soviet period concluded that Maeotae was one of the names of the tribes of the Adyghe people (or Circassians): in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (in the article "Adyghe people") was written:Living in the basin of the river Kuban were some of the tribes of the (Adyghe people), who generally were given the collective name "Maeotae" by ancient historians.
The Maeotae, engaged in farming and fishing, were thought by other Soviet writers to be a mixture of speakers of Adyghe language and an Iranian language. In the 4th–3rd centuries BC many of them were incorporated into the Bosporan kingdom.
A caftan or coat of linen with silk borders in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art represents the typical clothing worn by horsemen along the Silk Road in the North Caucasus during the 8th–10th centuries. The caftan is reconstructed from garment fragments excavated from a burial ground near Moshchevaja Balka (located by the Bolshaya Laba River in Karachay-Cherkessia, on the Pontic–Caspian steppe). Moshchevaja Balka is considered part of the Saltovo-Mayaki archaeological culture.
The caftan is associated with a pair of silk leggings with linen feet, also in the Met. Along with fragmentary garments from Moshchevaja Balka in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the caftan and leggings represent rare survivals of garments from the Caucasus, where the climate—unlike that of more arid regions—is not generally conducive to the preservation of organic materials.
The Silk Road was the great overland trade route of the Ancient World, carrying goods including silks from China to the Mediterranean. By the 6th century C.E., tensions between Byzantium and the Sasanian Empire disrupted trade along the traditional route. Central Asian merchants developed a new route to Byzantium, going north from the Caspian Sea and crossing the Caucasus Mountains via steep passes (most prominently in the North Caucasus, the Darial Gorge). The first caravan carrying Chinese silks traveled via this North Caucasus route in 568. The Caucasus silk routes remained in use through the Middle Ages, losing their importance only in the 14th century.
In the 20th century, many textile finds of this period were discovered near the mountain passes and on the piedmont below. The main site is a burial ground at Moshchevaja Balka ("Ravine of the Mummies or Relics"), in a densely wooded area about above sea level. Anna A. Ierusalimskaja, curator of the North Caucasian antiquities in the Hermitage, has written extensively on the finds (in Russian and in German), but Elfriede R. Knauer concludes that "neither the age and places of manufacture of the majority of Chinese silks nor of those from the eastern Mediterranean recovered at the North Caucasian sites can as yet be defined with absolute certainty. In the absence of further criteria, Ierusalimskaja's dates can only be accepted with caution."
These finds provide the context for the Met's caftan. It is consistent with documented finds from Moshchevaja Balka, where several tribes of the North Caucasus "seem to have shared a fairly uniform and—were it not for the textile finds—unspectacular material culture, known as the Saltovo-Majaki culture". The wearer could have been a man from Alania, in a region then under Khazar domination. These tribal horsemen would have served as local guides and carriers, collecting short lengths of silk as "tolls and rewards" in kind from among the textiles shipped via the northern route of the ancient Silk Road.
The caftan is made of dense, bleached plain weave linen, now discolored from the grave. It is trimmed with a border of two distinct woven silk textiles, and had a sheepskin lining of which only traces remain. The cut or shape of the caftan is distinctive to men's coats of the Adygo-Alanic tribes of the central Caucasus, although the style shows influences from Persia, Central Asia, and the nomads of the steppe.
The caftan is fitted to the upper body and has a flared skirt attached at the waist. The front is double-breasted, with the "proper left front closing toward the right and the right front overlapping it". Two long slits at the back, below the hipline, also trimmed with silk borders, accommodate a seated rider. The garment is secured with three sets of frogs, fabric-covered buttons and twisted loops of cording made of bias-cut strips of linen. The caftan is made from linen cloth woven as a bolt of fabric and cut using a "semistraight" structure, with triangles and trapezoids—some of them pieced from smaller fragments of cloth—assembled to shape the garment. This type of construction is common to traditional garments of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
The lower sleeves and upper neckline of the caftan have not survived, and it is unknown whether a collar or cuffs were part of the garment. The pieces are sewn with linen thread in neat flat-felled seams, and the upper body and skirts were assembled and trimmed separately before being joined at the waist. "Overall, the high quality of the linen cloth, garment design, cutting, assembling, and sewing demonstrated remarkable professional coordination in comparison with ontemporaneous examples from other cultures, attesting to this region's elevated standards in artistic and technical achievements regarding textile culture and perhaps even social decorum.'
The Durdzuks (), also known as Dzurdzuks, was a Georgian name from "The Georgian Chronicles" used to describe a people in the North Caucasus, unanimously identified as the Vainakh peoples.
"Durdzuk" was mentioned by the "Chronicles" as "the most distinguished among the descendants of Kavkas", who led his people, the Durdzuks, into the mountains, where they would become the ancestors of today's Vainakh peoples. Before his death, Targamos [Togarmah] divided the country amongst his sons, with Kavkasos [Caucas], the eldest and most noble, receiving the Central Caucasus. Kavkasos engendered the Chechen tribes, and his descendant, Durdzuk, who took residence in a mountainous region, later called "Dzurdzuketia" after him, established a strong state in the fourth and third centuries BC.
The name Durdzuk traces back to the ancient city north of Lake Urmia, not far from Nakhichevan / Nakhchivan. Durdzuks and were remnants of the Urartians. Durdzuks were also known as the Hurrian tribe.
In the "Armenian Chronicles", the Durdzuks defeated Scythians and became a significant power in the area in the region in the first millennium BC.
Durdzuks allied themselves with Georgia, and helped the first Georgian king Pharnavaz I of Iberia consolidate his reign against his unruly vassals. The alliance with Georgia was cemented when King Pharnavaz married a Durdzuk girl.
Later on, the Durdzuks are mentioned fighting the Mongols alongside their Georgian allies as well as the Osses. Durdzuk soldiers are mentioned fighting alongside Georgians against the troops of Jalal-ad-Din of Khwarezm. Queen Tamar of Georgia was highly esteemed, and the Durdzuks named daughters as well as bridges and other buildings after her.
The "Gate of Durdzuks" mentioned in Georgian sources is thought to have been in the Assa gorge of Ingushetia, which is a path connecting the North and South Caucasus regions.
Among the Chechen teips, the teip , consonant with the ethnonym Dzurdzuk, living in the Itum-Kale region of Chechnya. In 1926, on the Vashndar river in the Argun gorge of Chechnya, there was a Chechen aul (rural settlement) Zurzuk, now a tract southeast of the village of Ulus-Kert.
The Durdzuks were known as the "Dourts" in the "Geography of Armenia".
The Great Horde ("Uluğ Orda") was a rump state of the Golden Horde that existed from the mid 15th century to 1502.<ref name="https://books.google.se/books?id=Ai1_5IHQ9vsC&pg=PA243&dq=great+horde+tatar&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjO4Mv57pfQAhVCDCwKHf3_DFg4FBDoAQgaMAA#v=onepage&q=great%20horde%20tatar&f=false"></ref><ref name="https://books.google.se/books?id=QjzYdCxumFcC&pg=PA159&dq=great+horde+tatar-mongol&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwio8YiR9ZfQAhVDiiwKHUsGD00Q6AEIYjAJ#v=onepage&q=great%20horde%20tatar-mongol&f=false"></ref> It was centered at the core of the Golden Horde at Sarai. Both the Khanate of Astrakhan and the Khanate of Crimea broke away from the Great Horde throughout its existence, states that were hostile to the Great Horde. The defeat of the forces of the Great Horde at the Great Stand on the Ugra River by Ivan III of Russia marked the end of the Tatar yoke over Russia.
Joint rule of Küchük Muhammad and Sayid Ahmad I.
The Crimean Khanate, which had become a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire in 1475, subjugated what remained of the Great Horde, sacking Sarai in 1502. After seeking refuge in Lithuania, Sheikh Ahmed, last Khan of the Horde, died in prison in Kaunas some time after 1504. According to other sources, he was released from the Lithuanian prison in 1527.
The Crimean Khanate considered its state as the heir and legal successor of the Golden Horde and Desht-i Kipchak, called themselves khans of "the Great Horde, the Great State and the Throne of the Crimea".
The Khuni, Huni or Chuni were a people of the North Caucasus during late antiquity. They have sometimes been referred to as the North Caucasian Huns and are often assumed to be related to the Huns who later entered Eastern Europe. However, the ethnolinguistic and geographical origins of the Khuni are unclear.
The first contemporaneous reference to the Khuni may be by Dionysius Periegetes and Claudius Ptolemy's Geography, in the 2nd century CE, when they are said to be living near the Caspian Sea.
Agathangelos claims that there were Huns living among the peoples of the Caucasus in 227 and that they were related to the Iranian Huns.
In 535 or 537, an Armenian missionary team headed by the bishop Kardost baptized many of the North Caucasian Huns. The Syriac source reporting this event also indicates that a writing system for Hunnic was developed.
Huns are said to have established a polity in Daghestan in the 6th century CE. This may have incorporated numerous indigenous Caucasian peoples.
In 682 Bishop Israel of Caucasian Albania led an unsuccessful delegation to convert Alp Iluetuer, the ruler of the Caucasian Huns, to Christianity. It has been suggested that Iluetuer is a corruption of the Khazar title "elteber" ("client-ruler) and that this people was subordinate to Khazar rulers from the mid to late 7th century. They are frequently described as being allied with the Khazars in their various wars of the period, particularly against the Caliphate.
Little is known about their fate after the early 8th century. It is likely that they became incorporated into the Khazar Khaganate. However, it is likely that they survived in some form or another for several centuries, possibly even until the 11th century.
Hunnic state Djidan was an early feudal Kumyk state
The Obidiaceni were an ancient people dwelling along the Palus Maeotis in antiquity. Strabo describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others.
The Obidiaceni is one of the Maeotae tribes, who lived in the 1st millennium BC on the east and the southeast coast of the Azov sea.
Russian scientists, archeologists, historians and ethnographers in the Soviet period concluded that the Maeotae is one of the tribes of the Adyghe people (Circassians).
In the "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" in the article about the Adyghe people) it says"Living in the basin of the river Kuban part of the tribes ([[Adyghe people]]), as a rule, be indicated (names) of ancient historians under the collective name 'Maeotae'." In the article the [[Maeotae]] it is written."[[Maeotae]] were engaged in farming and fishing. Part of the Maeotae by the language was akin to the Adygs (Circassians), the part of the Iranians. In the 4th–3rd centuries BC many of [[Maeotae]] included in the composition of the [[Bosporan kingdom]]."
The Caucasus Campaign of 1734–1735 was the last great campaign of the Ottoman–Persian War (1730–35) which ended in a Persian victory allowing Nader to recast Persian hegemony over almost the entire Caucasus, region, reconconquering it for the Safavid state.
The Caucasus had fallen under Ottoman control since 1722 with the collapse of the Safavid state. The first target of the campaign was the reconquering of the Shirvan Khanate, with its capital Shamakhi falling in August 1734 freeing up the Persian forces to march west and lay siege to Ganja. The battlements of Ganja as well as its garrison of 14,000 soldiers provided a formidable defence. After Tahmasp Khan Jalayer engaged and routed a joint Ottoman and Crimean Tatar force in the south east Caucasus Nader cut their line of retreat further west dealing them another crippling blow, scattering them into the mountains north.
The mountains to the north in Avarestan made any pursuit of the defeated foe a daunting prospect especially considering the approach of winter, so Nader chose to turn west and besiege Ganja where he was drawn into an intense effort to capture the surprisingly formidable fortress. The Persian artillery was still severely lacking in strong siege guns and consisted mostly of field batteries which were effective in battles but unable to make significant impact against city walls and battlements.
Failing in their siege artillery capacity the Persian sent sappers to dig underground to reach the citadels walls from beneath but the Turks received timely intelligence reports revealing the intention of the besiegers. Tunnelling underground the Persians and Ottomans burrowed into each other's way whence they came to grips in hand-to-hand combat. The Persians were able to detonate six charges killing 700 Ottoman defenders but still failed in their main object of destroying the citadels walls. The Persians also lost some 30 to 40 men themselves.
Nader having besieged many of the key cities and fortresses in the area awaited the arrival of Koprulu Pasha's main army of some 130,000 men according to Nader's court historian Mirza Mehdi Astarabadi, prompting Nader to gather his advance guard of around 15,000 men and march them westwards to engage the relief army under Koprulu Pasha. By the time the main Persian army of 40,000 reached the scene of the battle Nader, despite the enormous disparity in numbers, routed the Ottomans, forcing Istanbul to finally sign a peace recognizing Persian control of the Caucasus and the border in Mesopotamia already agreed to in the treaty of Zuhab.
The crushing defeat at Baghavard also provided sufficient persuasion to retreat for the 50,000 Crimean Tatars who were commanded by the Turkish Sultan to march south along the coast of the black sea descending down into the Caucasus in order to aid Koprulu Pasha's forces.
Under the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Soviet Union reserved the right to intervene in other socialist states. In response, China moved towards the United States following the Sino-Soviet border conflict and later reformed and liberalized its economy while the Eastern Bloc saw the Era of Stagnation in comparison with the capitalist First World. The Soviet–Afghan War nominally expanded the Eastern Bloc, but the war proved unwinnable and too costly for the Soviets, challenged in Eastern Europe by the civil resistance of "Solidarity". In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pursued policies of "glasnost" (openness) and "perestroika" (restructuring) to reform the Eastern Bloc and end the Cold War, which brought forth unrest throughout the bloc.
Post-1991 usage of the term "Eastern Bloc" may be more limited in referring to the states forming the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991) and Mongolia (1924–1992), which are no longer communist states. Sometimes they are more generally referred to as "the countries of Eastern Europe under communism", excluding Mongolia, but including Yugoslavia and Albania which had both split with the Soviet Union by the 1960s.
Prior to the common use of the term, in the 1920s "Eastern Bloc" was used to refer to a loose alliance of the eastern and central European countries.
Even though Yugoslavia was a socialist country, it was not a member of the COMECON or the Warsaw Pact. Parting with the USSR in 1948, Yugoslavia did not belong to the East, but it also did not belong to the West because of its socialist system and its status as a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. However, many sources consider Yugoslavia to be a member of the Eastern Bloc. Others consider Yugoslavia not to be a member after it broke with Soviet policy in the 1948 Tito–Stalin split.
In 1922, the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian SFSR approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who viewed the Soviet Union as a "socialist island", stated that the Soviet Union must see that "the present capitalist encirclement is replaced by a socialist encirclement".
Expansion of the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1940.
In 1939, the USSR entered into the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany that contained a secret protocol that divided Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence. Lithuania was added in a second secret protocol in September 1939.
The Soviet Union had invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland. During the Occupation of East Poland by the Soviet Union, the Soviets liquidated the Polish state, and a German-Soviet meeting addressed the future structure of the "Polish region." Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization of the newly Soviet-annexed areas. Soviet authorities collectivized agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property.
Initial Soviet occupations of the Baltic countries had occurred in mid-June 1940, when Soviet NKVD troops raided border posts in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, followed by the liquidation of state administrations and replacement by Soviet cadres. Elections for parliament and other offices were held with single candidates listed and the official results fabricated, purporting pro-Soviet candidates' approval by 92.8 percent of the voters in Estonia, 97.6 percent in Latvia, and 99.2 percent in Lithuania. The fraudulently installed peoples assemblies immediately requested admission into the USSR, which was granted by the Soviet Union, with the annexations resulting in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. The international community condemned this initial annexation of the Baltic states and deemed it illegal.
In 1939, the Soviet Union unsuccessfully attempted an invasion of Finland, subsequent to which the parties entered into an interim peace treaty granting the Soviet Union the eastern region of Karelia (10% of Finnish territory), and the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was established by merging the ceded territories with the KASSR. After a June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum demanding Bessarabia, Bukovina, and the Hertza region from Romania, the Soviets entered these areas, Romania caved to Soviet demands and the Soviets occupied the territories.
In June 1941, Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by invading the Soviet Union. From the time of this invasion to 1944, the areas annexed by the Soviet Union were part of Germany's Ostland (except for the Moldavian SSR). Thereafter, the Soviet Union began to push German forces westward through a series of battles on the Eastern Front.
In the aftermath of World War II on the Soviet-Finnish border, the parties signed another peace treaty ceding to the Soviet Union in 1944, followed by a Soviet annexation of roughly the same eastern Finnish territories as those of the prior interim peace treaty as part of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic.
From 1943 to 1945, several conferences regarding Post-War Europe occurred that, in part, addressed the potential Soviet annexation and control of countries in Central Europe. There were various Allied plans for state order in Central Europe for post-war. While Joseph Stalin tried to get as many states and his control as possible, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill preferred a Central European Danube Confederation to counter these countries against Germany and Russia. Churchill's Soviet policy regarding Central Europe differed vastly from that of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the former believing Soviet leader Stalin to be a "devil"-like tyrant leading a vile system.
When warned of potential domination by a Stalin dictatorship over part of Europe, Roosevelt responded with a statement summarizing his rationale for relations with Stalin: "I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man. . . . I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace". While meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943, Churchill stated that Britain was vitally interested in restoring Poland as an independent country. Britain did not press the matter for fear that it would become a source of inter-allied friction.
In February 1945, at the conference at Yalta, Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of political influence in Central Europe. Stalin eventually was convinced by Churchill and Roosevelt not to dismember Germany. Stalin stated that the Soviet Union would keep the territory of eastern Poland they had already taken via invasion in 1939, and wanted a pro-Soviet Polish government in power in what would remain of Poland. After resistance by Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin promised a re-organization of the current pro-Soviet government on a broader democratic basis in Poland. He stated that the new government's primary task would be to prepare elections.
The parties at Yalta further agreed that the countries of liberated Europe and former Axis satellites would be allowed to "create democratic institutions of their own choice", pursuant to "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live." The parties also agreed to help those countries form interim governments "pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections" and "facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections."
At the beginning of the July–August 1945 Potsdam Conference after Germany's unconditional surrender, Stalin repeated previous promises to Churchill that he would refrain from a "sovietization" of Central Europe. In addition to reparations, Stalin pushed for "war booty", which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation. A clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations.
At first, the Soviets concealed their role in other Eastern Bloc politics, with the transformation appearing as a modification of Western "bourgeois democracy". As a young communist was told in East Germany, "it's got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control". Stalin felt that socioeconomic transformation was indispensable to establish Soviet control, reflecting the Marxist–Leninist view that material bases, the distribution of the means of production, shaped social and political relations.
Moscow-trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation. Elimination of the bourgeoisie's social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority. These measures were publicly billed as "reforms" rather than socioeconomic transformations. Except for initially in Czechoslovakia, activities by political parties had to adhere to "Bloc politics", with parties eventually having to accept membership in an "antifascist bloc" obliging them to act only by mutual "consensus". The bloc system permitted the Soviet Union to exercise domestic control indirectly.
Crucial departments such as those responsible for personnel, general police, secret police and youth were strictly Communist run. Moscow cadres distinguished "progressive forces" from "reactionary elements" and rendered both powerless. Such procedures were repeated until Communists had gained unlimited power and only politicians who were unconditionally supportive of Soviet policy remained.
In June 1947, after the Soviets had refused to negotiate a potential lightening of restrictions on German development, the United States announced the Marshall Plan, a comprehensive program of American assistance to all European countries wanting to participate, including the Soviet Union and those of Eastern Europe. The Soviets rejected the Plan and took a hard-line position against the United States and non-communist European nations. However, Czechoslovakia was eager to accept the US aid; the Polish government had a similar attitude, and this was of great concern to the Soviets.
In one of the clearest signs of Soviet control over the region up to that point, the Czechoslovakian foreign minister, Jan Masaryk, was summoned to Moscow and berated by Stalin for considering joining the Marshall Plan. Polish Prime minister Józef Cyrankiewicz was rewarded for the Polish rejection of the Plan with a huge 5-year trade agreement, including $450 million in credit, 200,000 tons of grain, heavy machinery and factories.
In July 1947, Stalin ordered these countries to pull out of the Paris Conference on the European Recovery Programme, which has been described as "the moment of truth" in the post-World War II division of Europe. Thereafter, Stalin sought stronger control over other Eastern Bloc countries, abandoning the prior appearance of democratic institutions. When it appeared that, in spite of heavy pressure, non-communist parties might receive in excess of 40% of the vote in the August 1947 Hungarian elections, repressions were instituted to liquidate any independent political forces.
In that same month, annihilation of the opposition in Bulgaria began on the basis of continuing instructions by Soviet cadres. At a late September 1947 meeting of all communist parties in Szklarska Poręba, Eastern Bloc communist parties were blamed for permitting even minor influence by non-communists in their respective countries during the run up to the Marshall Plan.
In the former German capital Berlin, surrounded by Soviet-occupied Germany, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade on 24 June 1948, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin. The blockade was caused, in part, by early local elections of October 1946 in which the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) was rejected in favor of the Social Democratic Party, which had gained two and a half times more votes than the SED. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began a massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other supplies.
The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against the western policy change and communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948 preceding large losses therein, while 300,000 Berliners demonstrated and urged the international airlift to continue. In May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin.

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