ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the immediate and lasting effects of victory on Soviet society. It was only after the war that they had time to reflect on the tragic losses of human life in First World War and the Civil War. Stalin's authority reached a new peak in 1945 but not his control of the country. As a former Commissar of Nationalities Stalin was acutely aware of the political potential of national antagonisms. Economic development was the key to control. The Roman Catholic Church, centred in Lithuania, was under severe pressure during the last years of Stalin. Soviet foreign policy during the last years of Stalin was defensive, as it had been ever since 1917. Literature is intensely Russian and Soviet and the campaign against cosmopolitanism and formalism ensured that if a foreigner stepped on the page he left behind a negative imprint. Soviet literature represented a higher culture and had the right to reach the world.
