Stalin, at Yalta, promises free elections in post-war eastern Europe

The Soviets instal a puppet government in Romania while the fight continues against Germany

Tito becomes head of a provisional government in newly liberated Yugoslavia

With the surrender of the Japanese, Vietminh guerrillas seize the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi

Ho Chi Minh proclaims the democratic republic of Vietnam, independent of the colonial power, France

The Communists become the largest party in Czechoslovakia, winning 38% of the vote in a free election

Communist leader Enver Hoxha begins nearly 40 years as dictator of Albania

An election campaign in Poland, marked by violence and the use of terror, brings a Communist landslide

President Truman defines postwar US policy by pledging support for any nation defending itself against Communism

An armed coup, led by Klement Gottwald, imposes single-party Communist rule in Czechoslovakia

Kim Il Sung becomes prime minister of North Korea on the withdrawal of the Soviet occupying force

The Soviet Union imposes a blockade on Berlin by denying the other powers access through the land corridor to the city

Defeated by the Communists, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) resigns before the final collapse of his regime

Mao Zedong, standing on the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing, proclaims the new People's Republic of China

The USSR grants nominal independence to east Germany as the newly established German Democratic Republic

A witch hunt begins when Senator Joseph McCarthy says he knows the names of 205 Communists in the US State Department

Joseph Stalin dies, four days after suffering a stroke

Imre Nagy becomes prime minister of Hungary, but is driven out of office two years later by hard-line Communists because of his relative liberalism

The first Soviet hydrogen bomb is successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan

Senator McCarthy's Communist witch-hunt is broadcast live for several weeks on US television

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb', is investigated for Communist sympathies and his security clearance is withdrawn

The term Domino Theory is coined to reflect President Eisenhower's view of how states might fall to Communism

Russia forms the Warsaw Treaty Organization (or Warsaw Pact) with her east European allies, as a counterbalance to NATO

Nikita Khrushchev denounces Stalin, dead now for three years, at a party congress in the USSR

Students are fired on in Budapest when protesting against repressive Communist policies