The Iron Curtain: The Rise Of The Soviet Union

The aftermath of World War II was not a new beginning of opportunities and independence for the Eastern European countries. Rather, destruction, economic instability, and a social atmosphere of mistrust and fear tormented Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Poland. Amidst all of this, in 1945, the year Anne Applebaum, the author of the Iron Curtain, dubbed zero hour, the Soviet Union sought to establish anti-fascist democratic governments in these countries. As the years progressed, this process evolved into full-fledged Sovietization, the transformation of a society based on the Soviet Union model that focused on the advancement of working and peasant classes.
Historians disagree on whether the Soviet Union knew what it what it wanted all along or whether outside factors influenced the progression from the anti-fascist democratic revolutions to the creation of monolithic, socialist states. However, it is uncontestable that Stalin was the force directing the transformation of the Eastern
Students pursued their academic passions, “attended lectures that interested them without supervision…[and] appeared for examinations in their field of study every few years.” Likewise, the professors had freedom when it came to teaching; they gave lectures as they chose, usually in their specialty, as opposed to being required to teach specific courses.
But once the Sovietization process began, universities lost their decision-making freedom to varying degrees. Although the Soviet model of higher education that Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Poland were to imitate was the same, the extent of Sovietization varied from country to country. The success of Sovietization depended on the strength of each country’s Communist party in terms of professor and student membership and the parties’ ability to cooperate with the Soviet Union.
WHAT DID SOVITIZATION LOOK LIKE