A Study Of The Soviet Union’s Transformation Policy On Germany (1945-1949)

In the first half of the 20th century, two successive world wars which were launched by Germany brought an unprecedented calamity on the human being. So, for the purpose of preventing Germany from threatening the world peace and tranquility further, how to eradicate German militarism tradition and its aggressiveness has become a problem which remains to be explored and solved by the international community. In the later part of the Second World War, the chief of state from three powers---Soviet union, United States and Great Britain, reached a consensus on solving the problem in a new way, namely they carry out overall transformation on German politics, economics and national thought and meanwhile it formed four principles consisting of Denazification, Demilitarization, Decartelization and Democratization, known as four Ds. After war, Germany was occupied and divided into different zones separately by the four powers---the Soviet Union, the United States, the Great Britain and France for the purpose of transforming it, and in this process, realistic interest and values conflict which were intertwined aggravated the relation between the Soviet Union and the United States. As a result, the cold war broke up. In turn, the cold war determined the adjustment of transformation policy from different sides. Ultimately, the interaction of all these factors lead to the disruption of Germany which split into two parts and different parts took different path of development. As a result, all these exerted a great influence on Germany and the development course of the postwar international relations.This paper which takes advantage of abundant original files decrypted by Russia and draws lessons from relevant research achievements, on the one hand, tries to specify the relation between the course of the formation, adoption and adjustment of the Soviet Union’s transformation policy on Germany and the cold war, on the other hand, tries to research into the pursued goal, followed ideas and behavior pattern of the Soviet Union’s transformation on Germany. In the meantime, this paper also tries to survey this kind of transformation’s influence on Germany and historical development course of the international relations. In view of the fact that in the history of international relations, the examples that one or more countries, in the name of maintaining world peace and their own safety, transformed the defeated nations are not rarely seen. In today’s international community, the human beings are still making such practice; meanwhile the revelation of the essence and influence of Soviet Union’s transformation policy can provide the historical reference for the policy maker in different countries.On the basis of using historiography, international politics and sociology, this paper, through the detailed analysis of Russian decrypted files, ultimately attempts to illustrate the following questions: (1) The maintenance of European and its own security is the essential target pursued by the Soviet Union’s transformation on Germany and the means of achieving this target does not only include the traditional way such as territory cession, indemnity claim and garrison supervision but also a new way, that is to carry out the transformation on German state system and thought of common people by means of adopting their own state value and behavior pattern. The purpose is to win the respect, identification and get safety through expanding the influence. However, the transformation brought about multiple consequences in the end because of the incompatibility between the target and means. (2) The target setting, the means choice of the Soviet Union’s transformation on Germany and the outbreak of Cold War influence on each other and form a vicious circle, which is the basic reason that Germany split into two parts and different parts took different path of development. (3) The fact that Soviet Union carries out the transformation in the German Soviet occupying region does not only succeed in driving Germany into the way of peaceful development, but in the meantime drive the eastern Germany into the way of lopsided development.