Germany's division was supposed to be temporary. Most of all Germany was destroyed during World War II. Although the country had been destroyed the Soviet-Union had no sympathy for them, mainly because of all the losses they suffered during the war. The Soviets dismantled factories and shipped heavy machinery home. Russia moved entire German factories from Germany to Russia. During 1948 the government of Eastern European countries were under communist control. These nations became known as Soviet Satellites or Soviet block countries. The Soviet- Union blocked efforts to unite Germany. They blocked all rail, water, and highways from going to western Germany. 2,000 East German plants were entirely or partly dismantled and sent to Russia. 1,600 miles of railway line were completely torn out and an additional 7,300 miles of parallel tracks were ripped up. The western powers fed and supplied the 2 million persons in their sectors of Berlin solely by plane during this time. The Western Allies set up political parties in their zones held elections. On September 1949 the three Western zones were officially combined. The death in March 1953 of Soviet leader Josef Stalin undermined the positions of many communist leaders in Eastern Europe and gave the peoples of East Europe hope that regimes would be liberalized. These hopes were quickly dashed in the German Democratic Republic. Buckling under reparations to the U.S.S.R., higher production quotas, and the lack of personal freedom. Workers revolted on June 17, 1953, but the soviet forces quickly put this all down. Until German Reunification in 1990, this became known as the "Day of German Unity". In 1954, the Russian Government made East Germany and independent state with power to make its own internal affairs. In 1955, Russia recognized East Germany as a Sovereign state with power to conduct its own foreign affairs. The Western powers refused to recognize them in the same way.