The Soviet Union, which encouraged and partly carried out the post-war expulsions of Germans from the areas under its rule, stopped delivering agricultural products from its zone in Germany to the more industrial western zones, thereby failing to fulfill its obligations under the Potsdam Agreements to provide supplies for the expellees, whose possessions had been confiscated. At Potsdam, it had been agreed[6] that 15% of all equipment dismantled in the Western zones – especially from the metallurgical, chemical, and machine manufacturing industries – would be transferred to the Soviets in return for food, coal, potash (a basic material for fertilisers), timber, clay products, petroleum products, etc. The Western deliveries had started in 1946.