Notes

The Cold War satellite states were countries which formed part of the
Soviet sphere of influence at the end of WW2 and which then became
Stalin’s buffer zone to defend the USSR from attack from the West. The
satellite states were the result of the Soviet policy of expansionism.
The satellite states made up the buffer zone that Stalin was
determined to create at the end of the war. Between 1944 and 1949,
Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and East
Germany all became satellite states. They were called this because
each country had a Communist government which was linked to the
government in the Soviet Union, revolving around them as satellites do
around a planet. At the end of the war, the Soviet Red Army was fighting its way west,
defeating the Nazis and freeing countries from Nazi control as they
went. These countries then became the Soviet sphere of influence as
Stalin did not want to give up land that his troops had fought hard for.
Stalin wanted control of Eastern Europe as a defensive measure against
potential invasion from the West – this was not really unreasonable as
Russia had been invaded from the west in 1812, 1915 and 1941. So
although the US believed Stalin was paranoid, as we know from the
Long Telegram, he saw expansionism as a reasonable defensive
measure, given the number of times that they had bee*/