slow, slow me down

Two posts in a day - crazy. But this is actually the fourth post that has been brewing in me, so I thought I'd better post before I forget it like I did number 3. Number two is scribbled down to work on later. And actually, number five is coming too, but I don't think this is the right place. And 3 per day is just far far too keen.

I'm writing an essay - "was there a blueprint for Communist takeover in Eastern Europe". It's interesting, but almost too interesting. There's too much to say, there's too much to read, and no one agrees with anyone else, because it's too complicated. What is a blueprint anyway? I think it was first forwarded as a concept by Seton-Watson, but I haven't actually read his book. It's like two and half inches thick, what I really need is a short journal article that quotes it. And where is East Europe? Does the concept only exist as a result of the Communist government in these nations? If so, then how, in 1945, before the Communist legacy had begun, how could Germany be considered "East"? It's not "East" by today's standards. Anway, I'm half way through using an argument I formulated after doing some reading, that the countries are all too different and Stalin's actions too changeable for there to have been a real clear plan, but now I'm thinking I might want to change my argument. Essentially, Stalin wanted Berlin. I think. Why did he create "puppet states" in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany, but not in Yugoslavia or Albania, or Greece, Turkey or Finland, or even Italy, Austria or Sweden, afterall, they are as far East as Germany. But actually it has been argued that in Poland at least the puppet state was a 'failure' and that Polish communism wasn't Soviet communism. (Davies, I'll give a proper reference if you want) But that's all by the by. Lenin said that whoever controlled Berlin controls Germany, and who controls Germany controls Europe, Stalin just wanted justification to stay in Berlin. That's why the paths of all the other countries were a mishmash; they were just a path to the Reichstag. Maybe.

Why didn't Stalin get involved in China? And Yugoslavia had their own revolution too, if Stalin sought to create communism firstly by political means, as Seton-Watson writes, why didn't he use it.

I don't know. Clearly. This post has descended into chaos, just like the policy making in Eastern Europe did. So I'll be offskii.