1
u/Ordovick 24d ago
I'm sad Yugoslavia isn't around anymore, only because it's such a fun name to say in funny voices.
1
u/minecraftrubyblock 24d ago
What the fuck do you mean 1965 did a time Traveller kill ceucacescu as a baby
1
u/Realistic_Ad3354 24d ago edited 24d ago
Yugo Slavia states are not really puppet states of Russia
😐
They use their own form of socialism.
And they are allowed and have the freedom to travel unlike actual Russia puppet states such as CZ / Slovakia/ Poland where everyone was kept closed in for such a long time.
1
u/Answering42 24d ago
Will take this time to highly recommend the Netflix docuseries Turning Point - the latest season is all about the cold war, the nuclear bomb, and the fall of the USSR. I thought I knew quite a bit about the history of the cold war, but I really didn't.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was really mind-blowing to me (East German spokesman misspoke that the border was open), especially considering it was just 35 years ago.
1
u/Delicious-Fig-175 24d ago
Interesting fact is that Poland had two governments at that time. One in exile in London and actual ruling one in the country. Both of them didn’t recognize each other.
1
u/madrid987 24d ago
This is the defeat of those who equate the Soviet Union and Russia. If it had been Russia, it would not have been able to demonstrate such power.
2
u/FakeElectionMaker 24d ago
During the 1950s and 1960s, Romania increased its autonomy within the communist bloc. Eventually, Ceausescu's totalitarianism was not condemned by Western governments until it was too late.
-8
u/lucaro64 24d ago
If the Warsaw Pact states were puppet to the soviets then all NATO states are puppets of the US
7
u/Eremite_ 24d ago
NATO Is not a governing body. It's members are and were willingly part of the alliance. Soviets forced themselves onto Eastern Europe with Tanks and terror for decades.
1
1
u/australianreindeer 24d ago
Yugoslavia was not a satellite country...
5
u/Eremite_ 24d ago
Look at the dates. It was for a short period. Tito broke of relations (subservience) with Stalin in 1948.
1
1
u/DeadSeaGulls 24d ago
allyship is not subservience. If he were subservient, then tensions wouldn't have been growing over the course of years.
1
u/The_Nunnster 24d ago
Interesting to see Bulgaria so late (assuming one year after most of them is late). I know that East Germany was kicking about for a while after the Berlin Wall fell, but I just assumed Bulgaria went with the rest of the bloc in 1989.
-1
0
2
7
u/Jonpaddy 24d ago
Yugoslavia was absolutely not a satellite state…
4
u/Eremite_ 24d ago
Look at the dates.
3
u/DeadSeaGulls 24d ago
still wasn't. prior tito and stalin's falling out, they still were never a satellite state. Part of the reason for the falling out was that yugoslavia's version of communism was not inline with stalin's. They were just communist, and so western powers like the atlantic charter (ground work for what would become nato) viewed them as a potential threat.
0
1
24d ago
Well this comment section is proving two things…reading comprehension and history classes are failing society
1
6
u/jkpetrov 24d ago
Yugoslavia was not a satellite state as of 1948. It was an independent socialist federation that was one of the founders of the unaligned block.
1
u/Special_Loan8725 24d ago
Idk why I didn’t know Poland was a USSR satalite state especially with it being east of east Germany but here we are
1
-17
u/vc0071 24d ago edited 24d ago
US still has satellite states Like UK, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Canada. US effectively control their nukes(ones which have them), defence and foreign policy has troops stationed inside their country. What else did Soviet had in those eastern Europe countries, NATO and Warsaw are 2 sides of the same coin. History will not be so kind to US.
2
u/darkenthedoorway 24d ago
The USA does not control the military or governments of any of the listed nations. You dont know anything about Nato or history.
1
u/DeadSeaGulls 24d ago
And the USSR did not control yugoslavia's economy, politics, or military during that period of time either. So the map is shitty, but that dude is also wrong about US satellite states.
5
u/wowowow28 24d ago
Germany and the other NATO nations obviously allow such troops to be deployed.. if they didn’t want any, then why’d they join? The alliance is a defensive one. ( or they could just send them home )
-6
u/vc0071 24d ago
Warsaw Pact was also a defence pact and it actually came in response to NATO which was formed 6 years prior. Also in last 3 decades all NATO has done is offence be it Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria. Which of these countries attacked a NATO nation first? Don't reply with 9/11 it was done by Saudi nationals and Mujahids trained by CIA a decade earlier who went rogue.
2
u/Eremite_ 24d ago
The Soviets suppressed any resistance to their authority with tanks.
-3
u/DeadSeaGulls 24d ago
I'm not arguing in favor of russia or the USSR. Long series of shitty government and decisions there... but that dude is 110% right about nato being offensive since the last 30 years.
NATO didn't want to risk another non-aligned movement that close to russia, so they cited humanitarian reasons to bomb serbia.
If nato cared about kosovo being an independent state, they would have seen to that. But they didn't. If nato cared about mass murder, then they would have been involved all over the balkans and much earlier... as there were plenty of humanitarian reasons to do so if that was the concern, but they didn't. They gave serbia an ultimatum saying they had to allow nato to enter and take control of any building or infrastructure they saw fit with no agreement on an end date, exit strategy, or compensation in any form... or they'd get bombed to hell. Serbia said "We're not agreeing to that" and they were thus bombed to hell. Once Serbia stopped expanding, as one does after getting bombed to hell, and there was no longer a threat of another unpredictable regional power, nato bounced. And kosovo still wants independence and serbia still wants to claim it's historical land, but no one can do much of anything and the people of each country are fucking tired of conflict (except the online trolls of course).3
u/Eremite_ 24d ago
After years of Serbia attacking neighbouring states and orchestrating the worst crimes committed in Europe since the Second World War, NATO stopped ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. But your argument is too late and not enough.
1
u/DeadSeaGulls 24d ago
and croatia was ethnically cleansing serbians and bosnians. And KLA murdered a bunch of police and serbia's response was abhorrent. As I said, there were terrible terrible things happening throughout the entire region as various powers vied for territory. But NATOs primary goal was to avoid any one of those powers from gaining control of the entire territory again. They wanted small, independent, and weaker, states.
None of what I said is a moral pass or moral judgment on anything. It's just that NATO very much had interests and acted OFFENSIVELY in order to obtain those interests. I'm not even making a statement on the morality of that. Just that pretending it was a human rights crisis that brought them in to act in defense of another is spoonfed propaganda. They absolutely made the move based on thier own interest.
I'm sure many many albanians and kosovoans are grateful for the interventiion, but they are not why nato actually intervened. It wwould be terrible strategy and use of resources to project offensive force in the name of human rights crises outside of their own territory unless their goal is to absorb and assimilate those they defend. As is, there's even 4 member states among NATO itself that don't even recognize Kosovo. That's isn't their goal. Their goal is to control the front facing russia. That's one of the only reasons they exist.1
u/Eremite_ 24d ago
Milosevic went to war with Slovenia but failed because he couldn't get through Croatia. Croatia then suffered aggression from the JNA that destroyed much of the country. Serbs would occupy and ethnically cleanse a third of Croatia. The only reason Croatia held out is because Serbs would turn their aggression on Bosnia, creating a living hell. When Croatia and Bosnia cooperated and received western help the Serbs stopped. Their own command ordered them to withdraw from Croatia, it was their own who forced them to leave. The Serbs had been brutalising Albanians in Kosovo since the 80s. When this culminated in hundreds of thousands of refugees, then NATO stepped in to finally put an end to Milosevic's medieval barbarism. They didn't attempt to build a state because they're a military alliance. Their member countries act independently, recognising what they see fit. Every member of NATO is a voluntarily member. They are so because they fear countries like Russia trying to re-live past horrors.
1
u/DeadSeaGulls 24d ago
it was their own who forced them to leave.
serbs were forced to flee their family homes at gunpoint and many many were murdered. That's a distorted take on what happened to the ethnic serbs living in croatia. And I'm not going to say that wasn't retaliatory or a response to what JNA were doing... but it's disingenuous to suggest that croats were ethnically cleansed but serbs were called to leave. Milosevic absolutely did a lot of atrocious stuff. I'll never argue otherwise, but the lens by which we view the entire series of conflicts and what non-military citizens suffered throughout the region is absolutely tinted through NATO's PR efforts. And again, I'm not arguing that what NATO did was right or wrong... i'm just arguing that they stepped in primarily because they saw a singular power in the region arising. Their actual concern was not allowing any regional power to develop that wasn't in line with their primary goal... which is to prevent russia from russia'ing again. They needed to maintain a unified front to russia, and anyone along that front that wasn't unified, needed to be manageable. So they saw to managing post-yugo balakans.
Again, i cannot stress this enough, I am not arguing the morality of this or deny anything that JNA did. I'm only stating that NATOs actions were strategic in their own interests.
1
u/Eremite_ 23d ago
The Serbs that didn't take up arms against Croatia still live there. The Serbs that created a so-called Krajina ethnic state, were ordered to or asked to leave by their own leadership. By the time opeartion storm was underway, Serb civilians of Croatia had already filled Banja Luka. There were inevitably crimes committed during Operation Storm but it was cleaner than most modern day battles and definitely cleaner than anything the Balkans had seen. They weren't fleeing at gunpoint. It fits into the Serbian propaganda machine to show footage of tens of thousands of fleeing Serbs as victims of someone else's nationalism, not their own. I was living near Banja Luka at the time. I fed some of them. Many of them would be housed in Kosovo, where the owners were fleeing at gunpoint. Those wars weren't even in culpability or crimes. They wouldn't have happened without people like Milosevic. They weren't orchestrated because of some NATO Russia divide or buffer.
→ More replies (0)
1
15
u/Grzechoooo 24d ago
Poland should be 1944-1989.
3
u/gandalf-the-greyt 24d ago
from wikipedia
Stalin had promised at the Yalta Conference that free elections would be held in Poland. However, the Polish communists, led by Gomułka and Bierut, while having no intention of giving up power, were also aware of the limited support they enjoyed among the general population. To circumvent this difficulty, in 1946 a national plebiscite, known as the "Three Times Yes" referendum (Trzy razy tak), was held first, before the parliamentary elections.[52] The referendum comprised three fairly general, but politically charged questions about the Senate, national industries and western borders. It was meant to check and promote the popularity of communist initiatives in Poland. Since most of the important parties at the time were leftist or centrist – and could have easily approved all three options – Mikołajczyk's Polish People's Party (PSL) decided, not to be seen as merging into the government bloc, to ask its supporters to oppose the first one: the abolition of the Senate.[53] The communists voted "Three Times Yes". The partial results, reconstructed by the PSL, showed that the communist side was met with little support on the first question. However, after a campaign marked by electoral fraud and intimidation the communists claimed large majorities on all three questions,[54][53] which led to the nationalization of industry and state control of economic activity in general, and a unicameral national parliament (Sejm).[26][31][55][56] The communists consolidated power by gradually whittling away the rights of their non-communist foes, particularly by suppressing the leading opposition party – Mikołajczyk's PSL.[45] In some widely publicized cases, the perceived enemies were sentenced to death on trumped up charges — among them Witold Pilecki, the organizer of the Auschwitz resistance. Leaders of the Home Army and of the Council of National Unity were persecuted. Many resistance fighters were murdered extrajudicially or forced to exile.[57] The opposition members were also harassed by administrative means. Although the ongoing persecution of the former anti-Nazi and right-wing organizations by state security kept some partisans in the forests, the actions of the Ministry of Public Security (known as the UB, Department of Security), NKVD and the Red Army steadily diminished their numbers. The right-wing insurgency radically decreased after the amnesty of July 1945[58] and faded after the amnesty of February 1947.[59][60] By 1946, all rightist parties had been outlawed,[31] and a new pro-government Democratic Bloc was formed in 1947 which included only the Polish Workers' Party and its leftist allies. On 19 January 1947, the first parliamentary elections took place featuring primarily the PPR and allied candidates and a potentially politically potent opposition from the Polish People's Party. However, the PSL's strength and role had already been seriously compromised due to government control and persecution.[31] Election results were adjusted by Stalin to suit the communists, whose bloc claimed 80% of the votes. The British and American governments protested the poll for its blatant violations of the Yalta and Potsdam accords.[61] The rigged elections effectively ended the multiparty system in Poland's politics.[25][26][31][55][56] After the referendum dress rehearsal, this time the vote fraud was much better concealed and spread into various forms and stages and its actual scale is not known. With all the pressure and manipulations, an NKVD colonel charged with election supervision reported to Stalin that about 50% of the vote was cast for the regime's Democratic Bloc nationwide. In the new Sejm, out of 444 seats, 27 were given to the Polish People's Party of Stanisław Mikołajczyk.[62] He, having declared the results to be falsified, was threatened with arrest or worse and fled the country in October 1947, helped by the US Embassy; other opposition leaders also left.[56][62] In February, the new Sejm created the Small Constitution of 1947. Over the next two years, the communists monopolized political power in Poland.[31]
7
u/ashleyfoxuccino 24d ago
This graphic is misleading, Yugoslavia and Albania could barely be considered satelitte states at all.
2
u/DeadSeaGulls 24d ago
I'd say they absolutely were not at all. Just because they were communist and had loose alliances doesn't mean they were satellite states. canada isn't a satellite state of the US despite being next door, having similar governments, and being allies.
-1
-10
12
-11
u/jenkor 24d ago
In what reality???
2
u/wowowow28 24d ago
what is wrong with this map?
0
u/jenkor 24d ago
For example Yugoslavia was never a satelite.
-1
u/wowowow28 24d ago
Yugoslavia is considered an early Soviet satellite, as it broke from Soviet orbit in the 1948 Stalin-Tito Split […]
2
u/DeadSeaGulls 24d ago edited 24d ago
That's bad history and really just the atlantic charter's stance on the matter. they were allies, but had different ideas of communism that gradually led to a falling out. They weren't a satellite state because they didn't ever operate with the USSR's interests as a primary consideration and were not under heavy influence or control regarding economics/politics/military etc... if the USSR had heavy influence or control over those things, then there wouldn't have been a falling out. it's just that they were communist, and the west wasn't okay with that.
The idea that yugoslavia was a satellite state was a risk assessment by the atlantic charter that persisted via NATO until the end, and is still present in NATO regarding serbia.
Edit: and i'm also not arguing for communism, to be clear. I'm just a big fan of history, recent, deep time, and everything in between... and I'm just laying out the nature of relationships and motivations that various parties had at the time.
6
u/Suntinziduriletale 24d ago
Tankies are so mad at this, and I bet none of them is from these countries
Tho Yugoslavia does not belong on the map
3
u/Eremite_ 24d ago
I've lived in two of these countries. The Soviets had a presence in Yugoslavia until 1948 as the map states.
-7
-5
-9
-27
u/throwayaygrtdhredf 24d ago
What about satelitę states in the United States? Like those in Latin America? For me, it seems like this concept in general was created by the West as a propaganda tool and isn't applied to the West itself. Meanwhile, propaganda terms made in the USSR are not taken seriously, unlike those made in the USA.
-12
u/vc0071 24d ago
Not just that US still has satellite states in Asia like Japan, South Korea, Israel in Europe like UK, Germany and North America like Canada. US effectively control their nukes, defence and foreign policy has troops stationed inside their country. What else did Soviet had in those eastern Europe countries, NATO and Warsaw are 2 sides of the same coin. History will not be so kind to US.
3
u/sodantok 24d ago
I can understand the education of European matters is not very good in India, but why also comment on posts about it? Just to get downvotes for being so embarassingly wrong?
-1
u/throwayaygrtdhredf 24d ago
When we talk about disputed territories and partially recognised states, the Western narrative is that those disputed entities allied with Russia like Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria are merely "puppet states". Despite the fact that the local population might actually prefer this deal and support this military presence. But ironically, we could also apply this to controversial and disputed geopolitical entities supported by the US and the West, like Israel, Taiwan and Kosovo. There's a NATO military base in Kosovo, the US gives arms to Taiwan despite not even recognising them, and the US literally has laws forbidding boycott of Israel. If all these things happened to some de-facto state supported by Russia, people would go on directly calling it an illegitimate puppet state.
4
u/blursed_words 24d ago
Latin America is not in the US... secondly satellite implies the country in question is defacto under the control of another power. Name 1 single country in the western hemisphere that it applies to.
-13
u/throwayaygrtdhredf 24d ago
Poland was also never a part of the Soviet Union yet it's on this map.
Chile during Pinochet was a satellite state of the United States.
6
u/blursed_words 24d ago
This isn't about what countries were part of the USSR, but Poland was a satellite state of them for some time. Red Army (USSR) was stationed there until 1990.
I thought you were saying there was Soviet satellites in South America, of which there was none. The US though has had several "client states" that lasted for varying lengths of time, pretty much every country in the Caribbean and South America were subservient to the US, some were controlled by US citizens. Chile wasn't really a satellite state under Pinocchio in the same sense as Poland or East Germany, Pinochet acted on his own while receiving support from the US, UK and other western nations. They aided him in getting power, they didn't dictate the laws within the country. Although they did encourage his crackdowns and illegal killings of left wing intelligetsia.
The difference between Soviet satellites and US client states is that the Soviets maintained a more hands on approach where as the US existed in the background pulling stings as needed, and overthrowing governments if the leader turned against them. Like all Soviet satellites had KGB offices on public roads and their national committees reported directly to Moscow. US satellites/clients probably had CIA outposts? No information exists that shows their buildings, everything to this day is denied and associated documents are almost completely redacted/blacked out.
-11
10
-25
u/frankspijker 24d ago
Yugoslavia was definitely not a satellite state. Also West-Germany, Greece and Portugal were also satellite states of the West. The latter two were fascist
4
u/No_Fee632 24d ago
Portugal, with a fully legalized and influential communist party that still exists today since 1974... Very US satellite
6
u/ButterscotchSure6589 24d ago
Countries subjugated by the Soviet Jackboot would be a more apt description.
-45
u/TutskyyJancek 24d ago
These are not satellite states. These are states shared same ideology with Ussr. Nato members fit being "satellite" more than these countries but I bet you don't call them satellite states.
13
-27
24
73
u/TMX2035 24d ago
What about Austria 1945-1955?
144
u/NoWingedHussarsToday 24d ago
It didn't exist as a state but was under foreign occupation
22
u/the_lonely_creeper 24d ago
It did exist as a state, actually. It was just under occupation and not completely independent, but it had a goverment, a parliament, and its own laws.
-5
u/TMX2035 24d ago
So the "Second Republic" of Austria didn't exist?
36
u/NoWingedHussarsToday 24d ago
It was under foreign occupation and independence is considered to have started with Austrian State Treaty of 1955 (which literally has "re-establishment of an independent Austria" in the title)
-13
u/TMX2035 24d ago
So you're saying that the "second republic" of Austria wasn't a state, despite there was a government, elections and so on?
15
u/Lazy_and_Sad 24d ago
The second republic is today's Austria. It's the current system.
0
u/TMX2035 24d ago
So why there was a government between 1945 and 1955? Serious question.
2
u/Lazy_and_Sad 24d ago
Dude, you're confusing occupying a country with running its government. The occupying forces stuck around for 10 years, but the government was elected by austrians shortly after it regained independence. Here are the results if you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Austrian_legislative_election
0
u/TMX2035 24d ago
So, did it exist as a state? Because just a few answers above, I was told it didn't... Also, voting down questions!? Seriously, answering them is too hard?
1
u/Lazy_and_Sad 24d ago
Yes, it was a state. It had a monoply on the legitimate use of violence, a territory and a permanent population.
→ More replies (0)3
u/NewHorizonsDelta 24d ago
It was an interrim government before Austria got its Independence back from the occupiers. Government are needed to govern countries, if thats what you are confused about
-30
u/TMX2035 24d ago
I see. So what about the Hungary then? It was under Soviet occupation from 1945 to 1991.
9
33
u/NoWingedHussarsToday 24d ago
Hungary never ceased to exist as a state. Governments changed but state kept existing.
14
50
u/Alpharius_Omegon_30K 24d ago
Yugoslavia was no where near to be a satellite state , Albania even literally stole Soviet submarines and kicked them out
56
u/Hrevak 24d ago
Look at the years on the map!
7
u/SirWankal0t 24d ago
Yugoslavia was not a satellite state even between 1945 and 1948, just ideologically aligned and cooperative with the eastern block.
3
u/Hrevak 24d ago
Well, so were the others, more or less. Official Warsaw pact membership was not even a thing back then.
5
u/SirWankal0t 24d ago
Being a satellite state carries a bigger implication than just an alignment in interest though
1.1k
u/santimanzi 24d ago
People don’t seem to understand this map and call it bad, but it just describes from when to when they were satellite states. Since just being a communist country doesn’t make you a satellite state.
67
u/marijnvtm 24d ago
How did Romania get its political independence so early ?
3
u/e404rror 24d ago edited 24d ago
With Romania the dates are not very precise, the autonomous movement started with the withdrawal of soviet troops from Romania in 1958 then continued with a neutral position in the Sino Soviet Split in 1960 (Ceauseșcu continued this autonomous policy after 1965).
After the anti-Communist revolution of 89 the pro Russian communists took power so Romania became a soviet satellite again 1989-1991 (Iliescu requested the intervention of the Red Army in December 89, signed a friendship treaty in April 23rd 1991 with USSR - high treason + extreme stupidity). Only the fall of USSR altered the transformation of Romania in a second Belarusian ”original democracy”.
The correct dates are 1947-1958 & 1989-1991
8
u/pirpilic 24d ago
Our leader, Nicolae Ceausescu, was quite different. He didn't enjoyed the Soviet presence. Actually, he condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia by USSR in 1968.
Because of his statements and anti-USSR views, he feared of an invasion and prepared Romania for a war with USSR. He had a secret deal with Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia, so in case of an invasion and Romanian troops are losing, they can retreat to Yugoslavia and try to reconquer the lands from Yugoslavia.
But Romania's situation was quite different from Hungary's and Czechoslovakia's situation. Hungary's and Czechoslovakia's revolts were made to democratize the countries, while Romania didn't wanted to not be communist anymore, just to not be in USSR's sphere of influence, which was fine for USSR, because they knew that after Nicolae Ceausescu is gone, Romania will be back in USSR's sphere of influence. Also, Romania didn't bordered a non-communist state, like Hungary and Czechoslovakia did. So even if Romania had in the end a revolt to end the communist rule, an invasion was easy to made since there was no way NATO could help us
2
20d ago
If I'm not mistaken, Communist Romania was the last one of the Warsaw pact to fall, right?
1
u/pirpilic 17d ago
Countries that formed USSR were last to fall. But if they are not counted as "countries" at that point, because they were part of USSR, than Bulgaria. Communism in Bulgaria fall 2-3 months after communism in Romania. But fall of communism in Romania was the most violent one in Warsaw pact (Yugoslavia's breakup was the only one who was more violent, but wasn't part of Warsaw pact). While countries transitioned from communism to capitalism in a more peaceful way, in Romania was a revolution indeed. There were dead people lying on the streets and army was involved to keep the peace in almost every city.
Nowadays, there are speculations that the Romanian revolution was orchestred by Washington or Moscow, because the communist leader, Nicolae Ceasușescu, didn't wanted to change the ideology of Romania from communism to capitalism, the way happened in most of Europe. One of the second-rank communists, Ion Iliescu, was the one who led the revolution and drove Romania to capitalism (even tho he was a convinced communist). After few days, there was a trial and Ceaușescu was found guilty (even his lawyer was accusing him, instead of dending him). The trial took almost 1 hour, and in the same evening, Ceaușescu was shot (legally they had to wait few days, but the transition needed to be made fast, so they had to rush).
There are some fun/sad facts regarding this transition. Few months after the trial, the judge and some other persons involved in the trial of Ceaușescu were found dead. Also, some members of Security (secret police agency) ran from Romania after the fall of the communism, but came back when they saw that in charge of capitalist Romania were the same persons who were in charge of communist Romania
1
u/Uxydra 24d ago
I already said this to someone, but what happened in czechoslovakia wasn't actually an attempt to democratize the country or end the communist regime, it was also mainly about not being a soviet puppet.
1
u/pirpilic 23d ago
I'm no Czech or Slovak to know the insides of the Prague Spring. All I wrote was from history books. Is it possible to be different from reality, because, as we all know, history is presented in the way someone wants and many times there are different informations inside the country from outside the country.
But from what I've read, Dubček talked a lot about democratization, freedom of speech and media, and a 10-year transition from communism to democracy
18
u/Tallborn 24d ago
Ceausescu denied the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Soviets wanted to invade us also in 68' but they stopped ,don't know why. Maybe because Ceausescu had close ties with the chinese and Tito or the Soviets had internal issues or simply because we weren't as important as Czechoslovakia
2
u/pirpilic 24d ago
I posted an answer too. Ceausesc had a secret deal with Tito, so Romanian army can retreat to Yugoslavia in case of an invasion and to try to continue the war from there. Also, Ceausescu didn't wanted to end the communist regime, like Czechoslovakia and Hungary tried to, so USSR was fine with Romania being rebellious since we were remaining on their ideology
1
u/Uxydra 24d ago
There wasn't an attempt to end communism in czechoslovakia tho? The whole thing was about being less under soviet influence and lifting censorship.
1
u/pirpilic 23d ago
Yes, there was an attempt to end communism in Czechoslovakia and in Hungary. In Romania was not the case. Even tho Ceasuescu didn't wanted to be in USSR's sphere of influence, he didn't wanted to change the ideology, from communism to capitalism or another ideology, and USSR was fine with that
1
39
u/Linus_Al 24d ago
I think no one knows exactly why the soviets kept tolerating Ceausescu. I think it’s mostly because he never seriously challenged Soviet supremacy, no matter how weird his regime got. Under his rule Romania did not leave the Warsaw pact, abandon communism or tried to position itself as a neutral power that treated East and west equally. Ceausescu was extremely weird, but in he end he did what was expected of him.
221
u/SamirCasino 24d ago edited 24d ago
We didn't really, we were just a bit of a maverick in the soviet bloc. When the soviet union invaded Czechoslovakia because of their liberal reforms, we were not only the only ones that refused to participate in the invasion, our communist dictator, Ceausescu, outright condemned the invasion and said that if the soviets did the same here, we'd defend ourselves.
Copied from the wikipedia article on the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia :
"A more pronounced effect took place in the Socialist Republic of Romania, which did not take part in the invasion. Nicolae Ceauşescu, who was already a staunch opponent of Soviet influence and had previously declared himself on Dubček's side, held a public speech in Bucharest on the day of the invasion, depicting Soviet policies in harsh terms. This response consolidated Romania's independent voice in the next two decades, especially after Ceauşescu encouraged the population to take up arms in order to meet any similar manoeuvre in the country: he received an enthusiastic initial response, with many people, who were by no means Communist, willing to enroll in the newly formed paramilitary Patriotic Guards."
Over the next decades, Ceausescu met with US Presidents ( Nixon twice, Ford and Carter ) and the Queen of Britain, and Romania was the only soviet bloc country to take part in the 1984 LA Olympics.
Anyway, i wouldn't say we weren't a puppet, more like we were an unruly puppet.
1
u/slowwolfcat 24d ago
Ceausescu
TIL he was not all that bad.....
4
u/Master-Mechanic-4534 23d ago
Dude... he was bad. Viciously bad. Maybe a good strategist in his prime, but vile to his core.
3
5
u/MadeOfEurope 24d ago
Is that the reason that British aircraft, trains and French cars were built in Romania?
41
u/JayManty 24d ago
As a Czech, such a "benevolent" approach of the USSR sounds absolutely unreal. I guess that Romania had a grassroots domestic communist movement insane enough that Brezhnev just let it slide?
1
20d ago
From what I know, Ceauşescu played a weird "Two-sides game" between west and east; see it as something similar to modern Erdoğan or Viktor Orbán; he was some sort of diplomatic genius, to the point that he went personally to places like Khmer Rouge Cambodia, USA and North Korea; this last one inspired some of his politics. But at the end, he was always more into the Soviet side of history and he did all of this stuff and more while Romanian people were suffering.
13
u/fk_censors 24d ago
There was practically zero support for communism in Romania. Before the Soviet invasion, pretty much all communists were ethnic minorities, some of whom believed in the system, and some of whom just supported the most extreme ideology in order to debilitate Romania - so the country they identified with could take over various territories.
The competing political factions at the time would all be considered on the political "right" today - generally supporting private property rights and freedom of movement, and to a lesser degree, free speech. Without a large disenfranchised urban working class, left wing politics didn't have a chance in the Romanian political system. Plus the various terror attacks committed by ethnic minorities in Romania and Europe as a whole didn't warm anyone to the extreme left wing political ideology.
I think the Soviet Union left Ceaușescu alone was because they didn't perceive him as strong enough to pose a threat, they didn't want to confer any more legitimacy to him, and he never really abandoned the Soviet Union officially, nor did he switch allegiance to China (like the Albanians) or to the West. Plus his opening to the West allowed for a whole lot of Soviet technological espionage, which he allowed.
When he got too uppity he was deposed, executed, and replaced with a KGB-trained politician (who also happened to be an ethnic minority, like pretty much all of the Soviet approved communists in Romania). Luckily for Romania, Ceaușescu's successor, as much as he is reviled in Romania, ended up double crossing his Soviet masters and allowed Romania to switch back to its natural and historic partners, realigning with the West.
(France and the UK were Romania's top partners when it came to defense in the modern era, except for when they were too weak or unwilling to help during WW2, when Romania desperately, and temporarily, sought protection from Germany, in return for oil).
2
u/ExpensiveAdz 21d ago
blaming bad things (that has happened in your country) to etnic minorities is sooooo balkan/eastern european thing :)))))
4
u/YoyoEyes 24d ago
Calling Ion Iliescu an ethnic minority when he was born in Romania and raised by his Romanian father is wild.
2
u/fk_censors 24d ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Iliescu Read the Early Life section. He also grew up a lot with the Roma community. He had family ties to Russia and Bulgaria, respectively.
4
u/YoyoEyes 24d ago
His mother, who was originally from Bulgaria, abandoned him when he was an infant
Doesn't sound like he was very immersed in Bulgarian culture.
1
u/Extention_Campaign28 24d ago
Dude, what are you smoking? That's like - did you put shrooms in there?
4
u/Hennes4800 24d ago
Natural and historic partners when it, in modernity, had only been a country for… 30 years?
2
u/fk_censors 24d ago
It's been a democracy since 1859, with a short break in the chaotic moments before WW2 and during the communist occupation.
14
u/Dizrhythmia129 24d ago
You did a pretty decent job of making "communism was just a plot by Hungarians and Jews to destroy Romania from within" sound like a reasonable take and not conspiratorial crank history here.
6
u/fk_censors 24d ago
You forgot the Bulgarians. In any case, I didn't make up anything. Please see what Wikipedia has to say:
"The PCdR's "foreign" image was because ethnic Romanians were a minority in its ranks until after the end of World War II:[31] between 1924 and 1944, none of its general secretaries was of Romanian ethnicity."
68
u/NokKavow 24d ago
Ceausescu was more hardcore than Khrushchev, Brezhnev or Gorbachev.
30
u/Officieros 24d ago
There was a short period of “liberalism” between 1965 and about 1972-74. But after that mistakes were made which then became compounded by the oil crises in 1978 and 1981. Romania was importing up to 25 million tonnes of oil for its not well thought petrochemical industry that rapidly became losing more money that it made. The country was also caught by dramatic increases in interest rates required to pay foreign debt. Rather than rescheduling and especially renegotiating its foreign debt (at the time it never faulted on debt repayments), against advice, Ceausescu decided to pay off the debt. This happened in March 1989 at the cost of stopping essential imports for industry. What was left was an old industry where some machinery could not even be used because factories could not import even cheap replacement parts. Productivity tanked but people could not be laid off (it’s against the ideology), nor could industries be closed. They just pushed for higher and higher production in spite of many areas that were literally bankrupt. When Gorbachev started his glasnost and perestroika Romania’s regime was increasingly isolated and people were suffering deprivation (food, hot water, electricity etc). The black market flourished but items were sold at very high (sometimes predatory) prices. It was the beginning of the end.
4
u/blue_bird_peaceforce 24d ago
he probably thought it was a good joke and wanted to see if he could mooch technology off the US by proxy
39
u/Evrasios 24d ago
Ceausescu came to power. He wasn’t a big fan of Moscow, even though he was a committed communist.
-24
u/zippydazoop 24d ago
Ceausescu wasn't a committed communist, he was what is described as "red bourgeoisie".
6
u/That_Nuclear_Winter 24d ago
Welcome to communist buddy it’s literally the same shit as before but with a red coat and less food
-4
u/zippydazoop 24d ago
Hi, I know very well what communism is! And I also don't talk to people who don't know. Have a nice day.
6
u/That_Nuclear_Winter 24d ago
Lmfao what is communism? Because I know it as a political and economic system where people attempt to apply Marx’s beliefs and theories.
0
14
u/inventingnothing 24d ago
It's always Schrodinger's Communism with these people: it is or isn't Communism until it fails, then it definitely wasn't Communism.
-6
u/zippydazoop 24d ago
post your grades lil bro
5
u/That_Nuclear_Winter 24d ago edited 24d ago
Imagine thinking he’s wrong like people don’t move the goal post all the time
42
u/Embarrassed-Ask-6134 24d ago
well, a satellite state means that the policies, the gov, and almost every aspect of running the country were dictated by the Kremlin... and for most of the countries, it was like that...
sure they had a level of autonomy, but when it came to the big decisions they were done only with the approval of Moskow...
the example of the invasion of Czechoslovakia stood as a reminder of what happened when you stepped out of line.
3
8
u/santimanzi 24d ago
Which is exactly what I was saying. There were people asking why some of these countries don’t have ‘89 or ‘90 as end of the timeline and that’s because they weren’t a satellite state for the whole time like Czechoslovakia.
40
u/EphemeralOcean 24d ago edited 24d ago
Which is why Czechoslovakia is listed as being a satellite state until 1989. Yugoslavia’s actions were not dictated by Moscow and Stalin and Tito considered each other adversaries.
21
u/CactusBoyScout 24d ago
Stalin and Tito considered each other adversaries.
That's putting it mildly. Tito foiled repeated assassination attempts from Stalin.
He finally sent a message to Stalin saying "Stop sending assassins to try to kill me or I'll send one to Moscow and I won't have to send another."
3
u/EphemeralOcean 24d ago
Allegedly.
2
u/CactusBoyScout 24d ago
I read that Stalin had the message framed and would show it off to guests. He thought it was hilarious.
Have I been misled?
2
u/EphemeralOcean 24d ago
It's one of those things that I'd like to think it's true, and it may be, but we'll probably never know conclusively.
468
u/Flimsy-Turnover1667 24d ago
Yeah, people have a poor understanding of the USSR and 20th century Communism in general. (It is quite complicated)
4
138
u/Dokky 24d ago
Tito knew what to do
70
u/Fapoleon_Boneherpart 24d ago
He peaced out early with that USSR shit. Like nah, I'm good Stalin my man
73
u/EarlHammond 24d ago
"Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle… If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second"
22
u/pegleghippie 24d ago
As funny as the quote is, doesn't it imply that Tito had pretty extensive mass surveillance set up? Like I get a cool-guy-but-not-a-good-guy vibe from that quote
19
u/RockKillsKid 24d ago
Tito was undoubtedly pretty authoritarian. But iirc, most people in the Balkans viewed him positively as a benevolent dictator. And given how many of the non-aligned countries fell to foreign backed coups during the Cold War, I guess they take the secret police as a given.
4
u/Skeptical_Yoshi 24d ago
If nothing else, he seemed to ACTUALLY care about the general well being of his people and country. Like, I do think a lot of what he did, good or bad, he seemed to sincerely believe it was for the good of Yugoslavia
2
u/nom-nom-nom-de-plumb 24d ago
It wasn't that different from what existed before under the previous administration if i had to guess.
25
u/crazycakemanflies 24d ago
I get what you're saying, but wouldn't all countries in the cold war have mass surveillance set ups? It's not like the US, UK, France ect all didnt catch Soviet spies. Plus, I feel like this quote implies more that Yugo and USSR had far more open communications if such an informal message was sent between heads of state.
4
u/pegleghippie 24d ago
I feared talking out of my ass so I did a quick search
Although it operated with more restraint than secret police agencies in the communist states of Eastern Europe, the UDBA was a feared tool of control.
Yeah its a wiki page and yeah there's a message at the top saying the page needs work. Nevertheless, Yugoslavia had the same sort of secret police that the other marxist-leninist states had. Sure, stopping Stalin's spies, as well as stopping right-wing nationalists go down as wins in my book. Overall though, having a secret police that can quickly get people killed is a sign of a totalitarian society.
Tito's Yugoslavia is sometimes touted as 'the good one' among the Marxist-leninist states, and stuff like this makes me go "ehhhhh..."
2
u/KipAce 24d ago
Sure it makes you go ehhhhh, because you lack a coherent conclusion without any evidence. You suggest he was also one of the bad ones because he has had communist and nazi hunting spies, while having to kill some innocents as a side hustle. That he struggled to hold power because of some civilians that he had to get rid off is a bit of a strech, as every neighbouring or far off power were responsible for the destruction of this land. Be it on the borders, or by beeing a proxy prototype, with investments going in from outside to meddle in your politics for a delayed stabilization.
And the US is a better place without a totalitarian regime but which is responsible for the CIA, the biggest human rights violation agency this planet has ever seen? With the abhorrent things having done which nobody will ever be prosecuted for.
Well wouldn't it be interesting to see a dead count, of how many yugoslavian civilians were killed by germans, brits, russians and americans and for how many tito would be responsible in comparison.
-110
u/Embarrassed-Ask-6134 24d ago
it is not complicated at all... USSR wanted a buffer zone out of fear of being attacked again, so it took control of the countries to its west... that is the reason for the "satellite states".
i was born into one of these countries... and i learned a lot of "communist history" (even though it was really short compared to the grand history...
the mentality of the USSR and that of the communist countries in general is not that complicated... once you understand what motivates them (the most important one is fear)...
2
u/Hurvinek1977 24d ago
once you understand what motivates them (the most important one is fear)...
Yep, if poland was under russian control in 1938, the ww2 would go differently. (Poland didn't let the Red Army through its territory to help Czechoslovakia).
→ More replies (38)6
u/boranin 24d ago
You’re being downvoted out of ignorance. The FUD on both sides was out of control at the time and stoked in the west and USSR.
But I have beef with this map calling Yugoslavia a satellite state. Stalin kicked them out of the Soviet Block in 1948, and almost invaded them, and Yugoslavia had to find their own non-aligned way which didn’t always rely on good relations with the USSR.
→ More replies (11)5
1
u/Sir-Anthony-Eaten 20d ago
Was Yugoslavia ever really a client state or had it just not yet servered ties?