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In the closing months of World War II and the latter half of 1940s, the Soviet Union oversaw the establishment of Communist regimes throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Over the next four decades, these regimes constituted the so-called Soviet bloc. The Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe is often referred to as The Iron Curtain - a name given by Winston Churchill in 1946. Although from 1947 to 1951, Marshal Plan injected billions of US dollars into European nations for post-war rebuilding, these loans came with strict conditions, such as the adoption of liberal, democratic and capitalist policies. Unsurprisingly, the Soviet regime forbade access to the financial aid, which enabled the reconstruction of Western Capitalist Europe, while advancing American commercial and foreign policy interests. In the context of the Cold War, the Marshall Plan helped weak and war-ravaged governments and economies to recover, without falling prey to communist infiltration and being swallowed by the Soviet bloc.

==The initial entrenchment and spread of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe==