<P> Following World War II , Soviet leader Joseph Stalin headed a group of nations on his Western border , the Eastern Bloc , that then included Poland , Hungary and Czechoslovakia , which he wished to maintain alongside a weakened Soviet - controlled Germany . As early as 1945 , Stalin revealed to German communist leaders that he expected to slowly undermine the British position within the British occupation zone , that the United States would withdraw within a year or two , and that nothing would then stand in the way of a united communist Germany within the bloc . </P>
who was the leader of the soviet union when the berlin wall was built
Joseph Stalin