Stalin Timeline

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Interactive Timeline: Joseph Stalin's Foreign Relations (1939-1953)

Joseph Stalin by Samuel Johnson Woolf, 1937 (Johnson Woolf). This image is in the public domain.

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A brief background on Joseph Stalin

In August 1939, a non-aggression pact is signed between Hitler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union (Molotov-Ribbentrop). The two nations then invade Poland from opposite fronts and divide the country's territory between themselves, as promised in the secret protocol of the pact (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum).

1939: Molotov- RIbbentrop Pact & Invasion of Poland

From the beginning of WWII to Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the evolution of the Soviet Union's foreign relations from self-defense, then to retaliation, then to manipulation of other nations helped to establish it as a global superpower during the 20th century. This timeline explores events related to Stalin's influence in Europe and Asia. Click the + button to learn more about each event and its significance.

Timeline: Stalin's Foreign Relations

In February 1945, Stalin meets with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in Crimea to decide on how to proceed with the re-establishment of peace and order in post-war Europe (Department of State, ed.).

1945: The Yalta Conference

German troops invade the Soviet Union, thereby breaking the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. This invasion is still incomplete before winter, however, and it is in the midst of this brutal winter that the Germans' siege of Moscow fails. German forces "suffered some 775,000 casualties", but over "800,000 Soviets had been killed” (Taylor).

1941: Operation Barbarossa

In 1941, Stalin signs an agreement to join Great Britain in the fight against Nazi Germany. A 1942 mutual assistance agreement further confirms this promise and contains an additional agreement between the two nations to work together in the rebuilding of Europe over the following twenty years (Twenty-Year...).

1941-1942: Anglo-Soviet & Mutual Assistance Agreements

The Potsdam Conference was another post-war conference between the heads of the U.S.S.R., the U.S., and the U.K. During this conference, these leaders established a Council of Foreign Ministers, made decisions on what would be done with Germany and German peoples in Europe, and made several other declarations on various topics (The Berlin...).

July 1945: Potsdam Conference

From the beginning of WWII to Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the evolution of the Soviet Union's foreign relations from self-defense, then to retaliation, then to manipulation of other nations helped to establish it as a global superpower during the 20th century. This timeline explores events related to Stalin's influence in Europe and Asia. Click the + button to learn more about each event and its significance.

Timeline: Stalin's Foreign Relations

After the American, British, and French-controlled areas of Germany are united into a single country, the Soviet Union blocks off all access to the German capital of Berlin and declares that other countries no longer have any power there (Nelsson, ed.).

1948: The Berlin Blockade

After running a Soviet military government in northern Korea from 1945 to 1948, Stalin rejects the proposition of establishing a single Korean government under the United Nations. Two Korean governments are established, with North Korea being under the direct influence of the Soviet Union (Chang-Il).

Late 1940s: Continual spread of Soviet Influence in Eastern Europe

Stalin uses a mixture of ethnic cleansing, propaganda, targeting of organized groups, and other tactics to spread Communism in Eastern European Countries (Applebaum). Western leaders grow increasingly concerned over the situation while still attempting to maintain their former good relations with the Soviet Union (Churchill).

1948: Creation of North and South Korea

In September 1949, the U.S.S.R. secretly stages the first test of a nuclear device. The test is discovered through a detection of radioactive contamination by the United States, which announces the test to the rest of the world ("Detection...").

September 1949: First successful test of a Soviet atomic bomb

From the beginning of WWII to Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the evolution of the Soviet Union's foreign relations from self-defense, then to retaliation, then to manipulation of other nations helped to establish it as a global superpower during the 20th century. This timeline explores events related to Stalin's influence in Europe and Asia. Click the + button to learn more about each event and its significance.

Timeline: Stalin's Foreign Relations

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Works Cited

As part of ongoing foreign relations with China, also a Communist country, Stalin met in person with Mao Zedong in Moscow in December 1949 to discuss the ongoing tension between their own nations and those in the West (Stalin & Mao). These foreign relations were further embodied in a treaty of “Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance” in February 1950 (The Treaty of Friendship...).

1949-1950: Ongoing Cooperation and Alliance with China

In March 1953, Stalin collapsed and soon died of “a massive hemorrhagic stroke involving his left cerebral hemisphere” (Barth). Though a détente with the West seemed possible and Stalin’s successors at first tried for more moderate policies within the Soviet Union, these efforts soon failed; “In 1961, the Berlin Wall went up, and the Soviets gave up on moderation” (Urschel).

1953: Stalin’s death and the continuation of the Cold War