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Following World War II, the Red Army occupied much of the territory that had been formerly held by the Axis countries: there were Soviet occupation zones in Germany and Austria, and Hungary and Poland were under practical military occupation, despite the fact that the latter was formally an Allied country. Soviet-friendly governments were established in Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and homegrown communist regimes existed in Yugoslavia and Albania. Finland retained formal independence, but was politically isolated and economically dependent on the Soviet Union. Greece, Italy and France were under the strong influence of local communist parties, which were at the very least friendly towards Moscow. Stalin hoped that the withdrawal of the Americans from Europe would lead to Soviet hegemony over the whole continent. The foundation of Trizonia and American help for the anti-communist side in the Greek Civil War changed the situation. East Germany was proclaimed a separate country in 1949, ruled by German communists. Moreover, Stalin made a decision to switch to direct control over his satellites in Central Europe: all of the countries were to be ruled by local communist parties that tried to implement the Soviet template locally.
In 1948 this decision led to the establishment of Stalinist governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, later called the "Communist Bloc". Communist Albania remained an ally, but Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito broke with the USSR. Stalin viewed Soviet consolidation of power in the region as a necessary step to protect the USSR by surrounding it with countries with friendly governments, to act as a buffer against possible invaders.
This action reversed the hopes of the West that Eastern Europe would be friendly to the West and form a cordon sanitaire (buffer) against Communism. It confirmed the fears of many in the West that the Soviet Union still intended to spread communism across the world. The relations between the Soviet Union and its former World War II western allies soon broke down, and gave way to a prolonged period of tension and distrust between east and west known as the Cold War. (See also Iron curtain.)
At home, Stalin presented himself as a great wartime leader who had led the USSR to victory against the Nazis. By the end of 1940s, Russian nationalism increased. For instance, some inventions and scientific discoveries were reclaimed by ethnic Russian researchers. Examples include the boiler engine , reclaimed by father and son Cherepanovs; the electric bulb, by Yablochkov and Lodygin; the radio, by Popov; the airplane, by Mozhaysky ; etc.
Stalin's internal repressive policies continued and intensified (including in newly acquired territories), but never reached the extremes of the 1930s.
According to some witness accounts, the anti-Semitic campaigns of 1948-1953 (see Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, rootless cosmopolitan, doctors' plot) were only the precursors of greater repression to come, but if such plans did indeed exist, Stalin died before he could implement them.
Stalin made very few contributions to communist (or, more specifically, Leninist) theory, but the contributions he did make were to be accepted and upheld by all Soviet political scientists during his rule.
In 1936, Stalin announced that the society of the Soviet Union consisted of two non-antagonistic classes: workers and kolkhoz peasantry. These corresponded to the two different forms of property over the means of production that existed in the Soviet Union: state property (for the workers) and collective property (for the peasantry). In addition to these, Stalin distinguished the stratum of intelligentsia. The concept of non-antagonistic classes was entirely new to Leninist theory.
Stalin and his supporters, in his own time and since, have highlighted the notion that socialism can be built and consolidated in one country, even one as underdeveloped as Russia was during the 1920's, and indeed that this might be the only means in which it could be built in a hostile environment.
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