Soviet authorities lift the Berlin blockade

A session of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences endorsed Trofim Lysenko’s theories and rejected genetics. The state imposed an ideological orthodoxy on biology, damaging research and...

The Soviet-backed government in the northern zone formally established the DPRK. The partition of Korea reflected Soviet and U.S. occupation policies and Korean political struggles, constraining a...

The USSR and several Eastern European governments formed Comecon to coordinate economic policy and trade. The institution organized a Soviet-centered regional economy, while member states retained...

Soviet authorities deported tens of thousands of people from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to remote regions of the USSR. Families were targeted as alleged kulaks or nationalist supporters; the...

Twelve Western states signed the treaty establishing NATO. Soviet officials portrayed it as a hostile bloc, and the alliance further institutionalized the division of Europe that had emerged from...

The USSR detonated its first atomic device at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. The test began decades of nuclear testing that exposed nearby Kazakh communities to radiation and environmental...

Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China after the communist victory in the civil war. The event reshaped Soviet diplomacy and Asian geopolitics, while Chinese...

The GDR was established in the Soviet occupation zone after the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany. The new state formalized Germany’s division, while its sovereignty remained constrained...

The Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China signed a thirty-year alliance treaty. It formalized cooperation between two states emerging from revolution and war, but their relationship was shaped...

North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel and attacked South Korea. The war grew from Korea’s division after Japanese colonial rule and involved Soviet support for the North, U.S.-led UN forces,...