This book examines the history of postwar Eastern Europe from 1944 to 1949-the establishment of Communist regimes in the region, incorporating information gleaned from newly opened archives in Eastern Europe, with the collaborative effort of scholars from Russia and the United States.

David Holloway is professor of political science and codirector of the centre for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University. Norman Naimark is professor of history and director of the centre for Russian and East European Studies at Stanford University. Norman Naimark is Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies and chair of the History Department of Stanford University. Leonid Gibianskii is a senior researcher of the Institute of Slavonic and Balkan Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, ISBS-RAN.

Introduction -- War as Revolution -- The CPSU, the Comintern, and the Bulgarians -- The Soviet Leadership and Southeastern Europe -- Postwar Hungary, 1944-1946 -- "Bandits and Reactionaries": The Suppression of the Opposition in Poland, 1944-1946 -- The Soviet Administrators and Their German "Friends" -- The Gomulka Alternative: The Untravelled Road -- Polish Workers and the Stalinist Transformation -- Peasants and Partisans: A Dubious Alliance -- Communist Higher Education Policies in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East Germany -- Censorship in Soviet-Occupied Germany -- The Czech Road to Communism -- The Marshall Plan, Soviet-American Relations, and the Division of Europe -- The Soviet-Yugoslav Split and the Cominform