Rationing continues as postwar shortages deepen

Japan signed the instrument of surrender aboard the USS Missouri. The war’s end did not resolve the political futures of Korea, China, and other Asian territories affected by Japanese empire and the...

The first national parliamentary election since 1937 took place under one-party rule and with official candidates unopposed. The vote projected postwar legitimacy while offering no competitive route...

A gathering organized under Soviet security pressure repudiated the Union of Brest and declared the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church absorbed by the Russian Orthodox Church. Clergy who refused faced...

The Supreme Soviet adopted the reconstruction plan for 1946–1950. It prioritized heavy industry and infrastructure after the war; republican economies and workers supplied labor and resources, while...

The Security Council deferred further proceedings until May 6 after the Soviet government said withdrawal had begun and would take five or six weeks. Iran’s appeal challenged the continued presence of...

A Central Committee resolution condemned Zvezda and Leningrad, and Andrei Zhdanov publicly attacked writers and satirists. The intervention marked a broad campaign to discipline intellectual life in...

Severe drought followed several years of poor precipitation. The crop failure interacted with procurement, distribution, and reconstruction policy to produce a famine that struck Ukraine and...

Archival records and survivor testimony document hunger, disease, and rising mortality in the Moldavian SSR. The crisis was especially severe in Bessarabia and southern districts, where drought,...

The General Assembly approved the creation of a United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. The Soviet Union participated in negotiations over international control while pursuing its own nuclear...

The Moldavian SSR government and Communist Party bureau issued a joint resolution providing assistance to collective farms, state farms, and individual farmers after the poor 1946 harvest. Relief...