The Soviet Union After WWII

The Soviet Union, along with the Allies, had just come out the war victorious, defeating the Nazi Germans in Europe. However, the victory for the Soviet Union came with a huge price, and they lost 40 million lives in total during WWII. Also, the country was in ruins as well, both physically and economically. Due to the war, a quarter of the country's resources were destroyed, and both agricultural and industrial production took a steep decline following the war.

It did not help much that Stalin and the government did not allow for much aid from other countries, other than small credits from a few of them. The United States even reached out and offered to help, but the offer was declined. Also, the people of the Soviet Union themselves were not too excited to have to start reconstructing infrastructure and their economy, which served a problem for Stalin, who was working to reconstruct.

During the post-war period, Stalin kept a firm grip over the Soviet Union and regulated production to levels he deemed were fit. Opposers of Stalin were killed by the masses which incentivized the people of the Soviet Union to obey. Due to Stalin's iron grip and control over the Soviet Union, they were actually able to recover quite fast from WWII, and they even went on to become one of the world's two superpowers, along with America.





http://factsanddetails.com/russia/History/sub9_1e/entry-4975.html
https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/210/suppl_6/103/1425685