"Action and reaction are equal and opposite" is an axiom of physical science which is also applicable in the social field. The sweep of world revolution and the growth of socialism-communism after 1945 called into being an opposing force of counter-revolution. The greater the successes of socialism, the more ardent and assiduous was the counter drive, aimed to modify, negate and, if possible, to destroy the revolution and restore the social system of imperialism-colonialism built by monopoly capitalism to its prerevolutionary status of planet-wide ascendancy.
Winston Churchill personified this counter revolutionary drive. It was he who proposed to "strangle the Bolshevik infant in its cradle". The Peace Conferees, meeting in Versailles, heeded Lloyd George's warning of March, 1919, and turned their attention to the urgent task of strangling socialism. Revolutionary beginnings in central Europe were stamped out. Funds were raised and arms were supplied to the anti-Bolshevik forces in European Russia and Siberia. At the height of the counter-Bolshevik crusade there were sixteen armies in Soviet Russia with the common aim of destroying Bolshevism and restoring the country to its previous status as one of the pillars of western civilization. This military phase of the counter-revolution lasted for four years. It failed. By 1922 the Soviet leaders were able to turn their energies to the task of rebuilding a devastated country while they planned and organized a socialist society.
Counter revolutionary forces failed to overthrow the Bolsheviks during the civil war of 1918-1921. They failed again when the Nazi armies swarmed into the Soviet Union in June, 1941. The years from 1941 to 1945 cost the Russians perhaps twenty million dead, six million dwelling units and immense damage to their economy and their social organization. When the war ended, responsible observers in the West predicted that if the Soviet power survived, decades must elapse before the country was back on its feet.
War destruction had played havoc with much of Europe. The Soviet Union was especially hard hit. Under the Marshall Plan billions of dollars of United States aid were poured into Britain, France, Belgium and West Germany. At the same time, the Soviet request for United States loans was refused categorically by President Truman. Alone and unaided the Soviet People repaired the extensive damage inflicted by the 1914-18 war, the Russian Civil War and the 1941 military invasion from the West, and went on with the task of socialist construction which the war had interrupted. Within five years--by 1950--the Bolsheviks were again on their feet, going strong, extending substantial aid to China and other professedly socialist countries and playing a crucial part in the struggle for disarmament and peace.