The decisive contribution of the Soviet Union to the destruction of the powers of the Axis cost the country of the human losses (estimated at 26 million people) and material colossal. The rebuilding and the reconversion of the saving in war are the subject of the IV E five-year plan, which marks the return to the development model of pre-war period (priority to heavy industry, extension of the kolkhozes).
The interior relaxation, started since 1941 to support the patriotic feeling, accredited, in particular at the intellectuals, the hope of an irreversible evolution of the mode. The rehabilitation of the traditional values and the recognition of the Greek Orthodox Church seemed the tangible signs of an ideological change.
The post-war period is however characterized by the political intensifying of the control of the power on the company. Since 1946, a violent campaign against the harmful influence of the Occident is started by Andreï Jdanov.
From 1948, the fight against the “cosmopolitanism” gives the signal of repressions anti-semites which touch number of intellectuals and artists. The resumption in hand of the company also results in the setting with the step of nationalities, in particular in the lately acquired Republics (Baltic States, Moldavie and carélo-Finnish République) and in Ukraine, where the deportations of mass begin again.
The international, significant tensions as of the end of the war, are exacerbated in 1947: creation of Cominform (Office of information of the Communist parties and workmen); control crescent of the Communist parties on the policy of the governments of the countries of Eastern Europe. The formation of people's democracies in 1947 and 1948 confirms the seizure of the USSR on the Central and Eastern Europe.
After the crisis of Berlin (1948-1949), the summit of the cold war is reached with the beginning of the year 1950 with the conflict sino-American in Korea, in which Moscow supports the Chinese Communists.