ABSTRACT
The USSR perceived the Nazi regime in Germany as a threat early on but still entered into an alliance with Germany and participated in the invasion of Poland in 1939. From the Soviet point of view, the war lasted from 1941 to 1945, with Germany’s defeat signifying the moral and ideological superiority of the USSR over the corrupt West. After the end of the war, the USSR gained several satellite states, where Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Eastern Germany, among others, formed what was known as the Eastern or Soviet Bloc. The late 1940s and early 1950s in the USSR saw a new series of ideological repressions, and Stalin’s death in 1953 marked the beginning of a more permissive era, known as the Thaw. Upon becoming the new leader of the state, Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalinism and supported the formation of closer relationships with other countries, making the USSR more permeable to foreign visitors.
