1. Sovietization of Eastern Europe:

- Gradual occupation of Eastern Europe by the Red Army => implementation of communist governments under Soviet protection
- Elimination of non - communist parties in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland (1945 -1947)
- collaboration with non - communist parties in Czechoslovakia => communists used their allies to gain popularity
- creation of a communist regime in the eastern part of Germany occupied by Soviet troops => socialists forced to merge into a larger, communist dominated party

September 1946: US announced an indefinite occupation of Western Germany
    - Stalin withdrew his troops from Austria and from north Iran
    - Finland preserved her parliamentary institution

But:

1. Soviet troops outnumbered US, British, and French military forces, despite American possession of the atomic bomb
2. supported by Tito, communist guerillas started a war in Greece (May 1946)

July 1944: Breton Woods conference => new economic order dominated by US (World Bank, International Monetary Fund) => all foreign currencies aligned to dollar, dollar aligned to gold at a fixed rate

March 12, 1947: Harry Truman announced the "Truman doctrine" - support for Greece, Turkey, etc. against communism

June 1947: George Marshall, US secretary of state, announced the "Marshall plan" (US infusion of economic aid to set the postwar recovery of Europe)

July 1947: George Kennan, US state department official, coined the new policy "containment"

July 1947: re - organization of the US army (nuclear - armed air force independent of army and navy, creation of the Department of Defense) and of secret services (CIA and NSA)

June 1948: Soviet tanks blockaded the western sectors of Berlin => the "Berlin airlift" (food, coal, and gas delivered by aircraft to west Berliners)

April 1949: foundation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

May 1949: the western zones of Germany proclaimed Federal Republic of Germany => Soviet zone proclaimed German Democratic Republic

1947 -1948: Tito purged Soviet agent from the Yugoslav Communist Party => first split in the international communist movement

August 1949: explosion of the first Soviet atomic bomb => anti - communist wave in the US ( Joseph McCarthy's ideological witch - hunt)

1955: foundation of the Warsaw Pact against NATO

2. From Berlin to Cuba:

March 1953: Stalin's death => Nikita Khrushchev's new policy of destalinization and condemnation of Stalin's purges => anti - Soviet revolts in communist countries

1. June 1953: revolt of the German workers crushed by Soviet troops
2. 1956: demonstrations and street fighting in Poznan (Poland)
3. 1956: demonstration in Budapest (Hungary) => moderate communist regime under Imre Nagy proclaimed a multiparty democracy and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact => Hungary invaded by Soviet troops => massive immigration  to the west
1957 -1958: Mao's claim to world ideological leadership of communist movement and failed attempt to seize Taiwan => USSR stopped aid to China's nuclear program => Soviet - Chinese split

October 1957: USSR launched the first artificial satellite (Sputnik) => Soviet military technology posed a real threat, though Khrushchev advocated "peaceful coexistence" with the west

1960: a Soviet anti - aircraft missile knocked down a CIA U - 2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft over central Russia => increasing tension between US and USSR

1959: communist seized power in Cuba (Fidel Castro) => the CIA anti - communist coup ended in disaster (1961) => massive cuban immigration to Florida

1961: the Berlin wall sealed the eastern sectors from the western ones

1962: Soviet ballistic missiles installed in Cuba => naval blockade of Cuba by US navy => USSR withdrew missiles from Cuba

Europe:
- astonishing economic growth after the Marshall plan (West Germany)
- communist parties influenced politics in France and Italy
- democracy in Germany (western) under chancellor Konrad Adenauer