I don't know how to begin to explain this... have you heard of Schroedinger's Cat?
Well, my question is... was this a similar case with the Iron Curtain? In that a country could equally have ended up Socialist or Democratic but it depended on the particular moment the boundary was drawn. I appreciate that the curtain didn't fall overnight. But surely once a country had decided to go Socialist, there was no turning back...
Greece - so close to Russia - and so anti-Nazi - and yet it became 'Western'
Romania - so strongly Latin - and yet it became Communist
Turkey - socialist ideals and anti-religion [much like SSRs in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan etc] - and yet, it became 'Western'
Czech Republic - Eastern
Finland - Western
Hungary - Eastern
Sorry I don't even know what I'm trying to prove here or what I'm trying to argue. I just cannot get my head round the fact that the throw of the 'socio-historical dice' at that particular point in history for a country, could utterly change the destiny of it forever...
Thanks in advance!
You might be interested in this answer I wrote about why the Soviets occupied the areas of Eastern Europe that they did after World War II.
It had little to do with underlying culture, and much to do with the military situation and perceived Soviet strategic and defense needs after the Second World War. A number of European countries were either directly occupied by the Soviets, or (like Czechoslovakia) had governments that were friendly to the USSR and had a strong Communist party in government that eventually gained complete control. Finland was largely "neutralized" from the Soviet perspective. Greece (despite the extremely violent Greek Civil War until 1949) was regarded by the Soviets as in the British sphere of influence per the 1944 "Percentages Agreement", and they actually largely honored that to the point of denying aid to the Greek communists during the war.