The term
Eastern Bloc or
Communist Bloc refers to the former
communist stateA communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
s of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and the countries of the
Warsaw PactThe Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
. The terms
Communist Bloc and
Soviet Bloc were also used to denote groupings of states aligned with the Soviet Union, although these terms might include states outside Central and Eastern Europe.
The USSR and World War II in Eastern Europe
In 1922, the
RSFSRThe Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the
Transcaucasian SFSRThe Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic , also known as the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian SFSR and the TSFSR for short, was a short-lived republic of the Soviet Union, lasting from 1922 to 1936...
, approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Soviet leader
Joseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, who viewed the Soviet Union as a "socialist island", stated that the Soviet Union must see that "the present capitalist encirclement is replaced by a socialist encirclement."
Expansion of the USSR in 1939–1940
In 1939, the USSR entered into the
Molotov-Ribbentrop PactThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
with
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
that contained a secret protocol that divided eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and
BessarabiaBessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence. Lithuania was added in a second secret protocol in September 1939.
The
Soviet Union had invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to itSoviet invasion of Poland can refer to:* the second phase of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 when Soviet armies marched on Warsaw, Poland* Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 when Soviet Union allied with Nazi Germany attacked Second Polish Republic...
by the
Molotov-Ribbentrop PactThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland. During the Occupation of East Poland by the Soviet Union, the Soviets liquidated the Polish state, and a German-Soviet meeting addressed the future structure of the "Polish region." Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of
sovietizationSovietization is term that may be used with two distinct meanings:*the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets .*the adoption of a way of life and mentality modelled after the Soviet Union....
of the newly Soviet-annexed areas. Soviet authorities
collectivizedCollective farming and communal farming are types of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise...
agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property.
Initial Soviet occupations of the Baltic countries had occurred in mid-June 1940, when Soviet NKVD troops raided border posts in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, followed by the liquidation of state administrations and replacement by Soviet cadres. Elections for parliament and other offices were held with single candidates listed, the official results of which showed pro-Soviet candidates approval by 92.8 percent of the voters of Estonia, 97.6 percent of the voters in Latvia and 99.2 percent of the voters in Lithuania. The resulting peoples assemblies immediately requested admission into the USSR, which was granted by the Soviet Union, with the annexations resulting in the
Estonian Soviet Socialist RepublicThe Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic , often abbreviated as Estonian SSR or ESSR, was a republic of the Soviet Union, administered by and subordinated to the Government of the Soviet Union...
, Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. The international community condemned this initial annexation of the Baltic states and deemed it illegal.
In 1939, the Soviet Union unsuccessfully
attempted an invasion of FinlandThe Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
, subsequent to which the parties entered into an interim peace treaty granting the Soviet Union the eastern region of
KareliaKarelia , the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden...
(10% of Finnish territory), and the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was established by merging the ceded territories with the KASSR. After a June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum demanding
BessarabiaBessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
,
BukovinaBukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
, and the
Hertza regionHertza region is the territory of an administrative district of Hertsa in the southern part of Chernivtsi Oblast in southwestern Ukraine, on the Romanian border...
from Romania, the Soviets entered these areas, Romania caved to Soviet demands and the Soviets occupied the territories.
Eastern Front and Allied Conferences
In June 1941, Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by
invading the Soviet Union and the rest of Eastern EuropeOperation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. From the time of this invasion to 1944, the areas annexed by the Soviet Union were part of Germany's
OstlandReichskommissariat Ostland, literally "Reich Commissariat Eastland", was the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany in the Baltic states and much of Belarus during World War II. It was also known as Reichskommissariat Baltenland initially...
(except for the
Moldavian SSRThe Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...
). Thereafter, the Soviet Union began to push German forces westward through a series of battles on the
Eastern FrontThe Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
.
In Finland, after
more fighting in the Continuation WarThe Continuation War was the second of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II.At the time of the war, the Finnish side used the name to make clear its perceived relationship to the preceding Winter War...
, the parties
signed another peace treaty ceding to the Soviet UnionThe Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland on one side and the Soviet Union and United Kingdom on the other side on September 19, 1944, ending the Continuation War...
in 1944, followed by a Soviet annexation of roughly the same eastern Finnish territories as those of the prior interim peace treaty as part of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic.
From 1943 to 1945, several
conferences regarding Post-War Europe occurred that, in part, addressed the potential Soviet annexation and control of countries in Eastern Europe. British Prime Minister
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
's Soviet policy regarding Eastern Europe differed vastly from that of American President
Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, with the former believing Soviet leader
Joseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
to be a "devil"-like tyrant leading a vile system.
When warned of potential domination by a Stalin dictatorship over part of Europe, Roosevelt responded with a statement summarizing his rationale for relations with Stalin: "I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man. . . . I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace." While meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt in
TehranThe Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference amongst the Big Three in which Stalin was present...
in 1943, Churchill stated that Britain was vitally interested in restoring Poland as an independent country. Britain did not press the matter for fear that it would become a source of inter-allied friction.
In February 1945, at the
conference at YaltaThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
, Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of political influence in Eastern Europe. Stalin eventually was convinced by Churchill and Roosevelt not to dismember Germany. Stalin stated that the Soviet Union would keep the territory of eastern Poland they had already
taken via invasion in 1939Soviet invasion of Poland can refer to:* the second phase of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 when Soviet armies marched on Warsaw, Poland* Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 when Soviet Union allied with Nazi Germany attacked Second Polish Republic...
, and wanted a pro-Soviet Polish government in power in what would remain of Poland. After resistance by Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin promised a re-organization of the current
pro-Soviet governmentThe Polish Committee of National Liberation , also known as the Lublin Committee, was a provisional government of Poland, officially proclaimed 21 July 1944 in Chełm under the direction of State National Council in opposition to the Polish government in exile...
on a broader democratic basis in Poland. He stated that the new government's primary task would be to prepare elections.
The parties at Yalta further agreed that the countries of liberated Europe and former Axis satellites would be allowed to "create democratic institutions of their own choice", pursuant to "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live." The parties also agreed to help those countries form interim governments "pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections" and "facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections."
At the beginning of the July–August 1945
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
after Germany's unconditional surrender, Stalin repeated previous promises to Churchill that he would refrain from a "
sovietizationSovietization is term that may be used with two distinct meanings:*the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets .*the adoption of a way of life and mentality modelled after the Soviet Union....
" of Eastern Europe. In addition to reparations, Stalin pushed for "war booty", which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation. A clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations.
Formation of Eastern Bloc
When Soviet Foreign Minister
Vyacheslav MolotovVyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
expressed worry that the Yalta Agreement's wording might impede Stalin's plans in Eastern Europe, Stalin responded "Never mind. We'll do it our own way later." After Soviet forces remained in Eastern and Central European countries, with the beginnings of communist puppet regimes installed in those countries, Churchill referred to the region as being behind an "
Iron CurtainThe concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
" of control from Moscow.
At first, many Western countries condemned the speech as warmongering, though many historians have now revised their opinions. Members of the Eastern Bloc besides the Soviet Union are sometimes referred to as "satellite states" of the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Initial control process
The initial problem in countries occupied by the Red Army in 1944–45 was how to transform occupation power into control of domestic development. Because communists were small minorities in all countries but Czechoslovakia, they were initially instructed to form coalitions in their respective countries. At the war's end, concealment of the
KremlinA kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
's role was considered crucial to neutralize resistance and to make the regimes appear not only autonomous, but also to resemble "bourgeois democracies".
Soviet takeover of control at the outset generally followed a process:
- a general coalition of left-wing, antifascist forces;
- a reorganized 'coalition' in which the communists would have the upper hand and neutralise those in other parties who were not willing to accept communist supremacy;
- complete communist domination, frequently exercised in a new party formed by the fusion of communist and other leftist groups.
What is sometimes overlooked in the context of how the Eastern Bloc was formed, however, is the political climate of the time in regards to the political orientation of many of those who fought and died to resist fascism on the local and regional levels, as well as the national ones. Quite a significant number of the citizen groupings known collectively as the antifascist 'partisan movement' that did much to defeat fascist forces during the war, were politically communist-oriented or otherwise
radical leftFar left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
in political views, such as left communists and anarchists – continuing to a great extent the political spirit of the failed Republican forces that fought
FrancoFrancisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
during the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
and the anarchist forces who briefly established
a social-anarchist society in CataloniaAnarchist Catalonia was the part of Catalonia controlled by the anarchist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo during the Spanish Civil War.-Anarchists enter government:...
, among other similar precedents. The Soviets, therefore, were to an extent able to 'ride the wave' of respect and admiration these partisans had earned amongst the populations of these countries by the time the war had ended. Their drive to insist on "friendly governments" as the war drew to a close did not happen in an ideological vacuum: the Soviets did indeed impose these pro-Soviet regimes in Eastern Europe by what effectively wound up being unilateral decree – but the role of the partisans on all fronts of the war, as well as the estimated 20,000,000 Soviet soldiers who died to defeat fascism, cannot be dismissed, as it lent a certain amount of the appearance of 'licence' on the part of the Soviet administration to control Eastern Europe that they would not otherwise have had.
It was only in the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia that former partisans entered their new government independently of Soviet influence. It was the latter's publicly stubborn independent political stances, its insistence on specifically not being a puppet regime, that led to the
Tito-Stalin splitThe Tito–Stalin Split was a conflict between the leaders of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau in 1948...
and the other moves towards an "
independent socialismTitoism is a variant of Marxism–Leninism named after Josip Broz Tito, leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, primarily used to describe the specific socialist system built in Yugoslavia after its refusal of the 1948 Resolution of the Cominform, when the Communist Party of...
" that quickly made SR Yugoslavia unique within the context of overall Eastern Bloc politics.
Property relocation
By the end of World War Two, most of Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union in particular, suffered vast destruction. The Soviet Union had suffered a staggering 27 million deaths, and the destruction of significant industry and infrastructure, both by the Nazi
WehrmachtThe Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
and the Soviet Union itself in a "
scorched earthA scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...
" policy to keep it from falling in Nazi hands as they advanced over 1,000 miles to within 15 miles of Moscow. Thereafter, the Soviet Union physically transported and relocated east European industrial assets to the Soviet Union.
This was especially pronounced in eastern European Axis countries, such as Romania and Hungary, where such a policy was considered as punitive
reparationWar reparations are payments intended to cover damage or injury during a war. Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or goods changing hands, rather than such property transfers as the annexation of land.- History :...
s (a principle accepted by Western powers). In some cases,
Red ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
officers viewed cities, villages and farms as being open to looting. Other Eastern Bloc states were required to provide coal, industrial equipment, technology, rolling stock and other resources to reconstruct the Soviet Union. Between 1945 and 1953, the Soviets received a net transfer of resources from the rest of the Eastern Bloc under this policy roughly comparable to the net transfer from the United States to western Europe in the
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
.
East Germany
Most of Germany east of the
Oder-Neisse lineThe Oder–Neisse line is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
, which contained much of Germany's fertile land, was transferred to what remained of unilaterally Soviet-controlled Poland. At the end of World War II, political opposition immediately materialized after occupying Soviet army personnel conducted systematic pillaging and rapes in their zone of then divided Germany, with total rape victim estimates ranging from tens of thousands to two million.
In a June 1945 meeting, Stalin told German communist leaders in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany 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 then would stand in the way of a united Germany under communist control within the Soviet orbit. Stalin and other leaders told visiting Bulgarian and Yugoslavian delegations in early 1946 that Germany must be both Soviet and communist.
Factories, equipment, technicians, managers and skilled personnel were forcibly transferred to the Soviet Union. In the non-annexed remaining portion of Soviet-controlled East Germany, like in the rest of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe, the major task of the ruling communist party was to channel Soviet orders down to both the administrative apparatus and the other bloc parties pretending that these were initiatives of its own. At the direction of Stalin, Soviet authorities forcibly unified the
Communist Party of GermanyThe Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
and
Social Democratic PartyThe Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
into the
SEDThe Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
, claiming at the time that it would not have a Marxist-Leninist or Soviet orientation.
The SED won a first narrow election victory in Soviet-zone elections in 1946, even though Soviet authorities oppressed political opponents and prevented many competing parties from participating in rural areas. Property and industry were nationalized under their government. If statements or decisions deviated from the prescribed line, reprimands and, for persons outside public attention, punishment would ensue, such as imprisonment, torture and even death.
Indoctrination of Marxism-Leninism became a compulsory part of school curricula, sending professors and students fleeing to the west. Applicants for positions in the government, the judiciary and school systems had to pass ideological scrutiny. An elaborate political police apparatus kept the population under close surveillance, including Soviet
SMERSHSMERSH was the counter-intelligence agency in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially founded on April 14, 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin...
secret police. A tight system of censorship restricted access to print or the airwaves.
What remained of non-communist SED opposition parties were also infiltrated to exploit their relations with their "bourgeois" counterparts in western zones to support Soviet unity along Soviet lines, while a
"National Democratic" party (NDPD)The National Democratic Party of Germany was an East German political party that acted as an organisation for former members of the NSDAP, the Wehrmacht and middle classes...
was created to attract former Nazis and professional military personnel in order to rally them behind the SED. In early 1948, during the
Tito-Stalin splitThe Tito–Stalin Split was a conflict between the leaders of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau in 1948...
, the SED underwent a transformation into an authoritarian party dominated by functionaries subservient to Moscow. Important decisions had to be cleared with the
CPSU Central CommitteeThe Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", earlier was also called as the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party ...
apparatus or even with Stalin himself.
By early 1949, the SED was capped by a Soviet-style Politburo that was effectively a small self-selecting inner circle. The
German Democratic RepublicThe German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
was declared on 7 October 1949, within which the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs accorded the East German state administrative authority, but not autonomy, with an unlimited Soviet exercise of the occupation regime and Soviet penetration of administrative, military and secret police structures.
Poland
After the Soviet invasion of German-occupied Poland in July 1944, Polish government-in-exile prime minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk flew to Moscow with Churchill to argue against the annexation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact portion of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union. Poland served as the first real test of the American President
RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's Soviet policy of "giving" to Stalin assuming
noblesse obligeNoblesse oblige is a French phrase literally meaning "nobility obliges".The Dictionnaire de l’Académie française defines it thus:# Whoever claims to be noble must conduct himself nobly....
, with Roosevelt telling Mikołajczyk before the visit, "Don't worry. Stalin doesn't intend to take freedom from you" and after assuring U.S. backing, concluding "I shall see to it that your country does not come out of this war injured."
Mikołajczyk offered a smaller section of land, but Stalin declined, telling him that he would allow the exiled government to participate in the
Polish Committee of National LiberationThe Polish Committee of National Liberation , also known as the Lublin Committee, was a provisional government of Poland, officially proclaimed 21 July 1944 in Chełm under the direction of State National Council in opposition to the Polish government in exile...
(PKWN and later "Lublin Committee"), which consisted of communists and satellite parties set up under the direct control by the Soviet plenipotentiary Colonel-General
Nikolai BulganinNikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin was a prominent Soviet politician, who served as Minister of Defense and Premier of the Soviet Union . The Bulganin beard is named after him.-Early career:...
. An agreement was reached at the
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
permitting the annexation of most of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact portion of Eastern Poland, while granting Poland part of East Germany in return. Thereafter, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic were expanded to include eastern Poland.
The Soviet Union then compensated what remained of Poland by ceding to it the portion of Germany east of the
Oder-Neisse lineThe Oder–Neisse line is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
, which contained much of Germany's fertile land. An agreement was reached at Yalta that the Soviets' Provisional Government made up of PKWN members would be reorganized "on a broad democratic basis" including the exiled government, and that the reorganized government's primary task would to be prepare for elections.
Pretending that it was an indigenous body representing Polish society, the PKWN took the role of a governmental authority and challenged the pre–World War II Polish government-in-exile in London. Doubts began to arise whether the "free and unfettered elections" promised at the
Yalta conferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
would occur. Non-communists and partisans, including those that fought the Nazis, were systematically persecuted. Hopes for a new free start were immediately dampened when the PKWN claimed they were entitled to choose who they wanted to take part in the government, and the Soviet
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
seized sixteen Polish underground leaders who had wanted to participate in negotiations on the reorganization in March 1945 brought them to the Soviet Union for a
show trialThe term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
in June.
While underground leaders were sentenced to long prison terms, assurances that political prisoners would be released and that Soviet forces and security would leave failed to be supported by concrete safeguards or implementation plans. Polish government-in-exile figures, including Stanisław Mikołajczyk then returned to a popular reception, and were able to lure several parties to their cause, effectively undermining Bloc politics.
Stalin then directed that Mikołajczyk's Polish People's Party (PSL) must accept just one fourth of parliamentary mandated seats, or else repressions and political isolation would ensue. Polish Communists, led by Władysław Gomułka and Bolesław Bierut, were aware of the lack of support for their side, especially after the failure of a referendum for policies known as "
3 times YESThe People's Referendum of 1946, also known as the "Three Times Yes" referendum, was a referendum held in Poland on 30 June 1946 on the authority of the State National Council...
" (
3 razy TAK;
3xTAK), where less than a third of Poland's population voted in favor of the proposed changes included massive communist land reforms and nationalizations of industry.
When the Mikołajczyk's People's Party (PPP) continued to resist pressure to renounce a ticket of its own outside the communist party bloc, it was exposed to open terror, including the disqualification of PPP candidates in one quarter of the districts and the arrest of over 1000,000 PPP activists, followed by
vote riggingElectoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
that resulted in Gomułka's communists winning a majority in the carefully controlled poll.
Mikołajczyk lost hope and left the country. His followers were subjected to unlimited ruthless persecution. Following the forged referendum, in October 1946, the new government
nationalizedNationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
all enterprises employing over 50 people and all but two banks. Public opposition had been essentially crushed by 1946, but underground activity still existed.
Fraudulent Polish electionsThe Polish legislative election of 1947 was held on January 19, 1947 in the People's Republic of Poland. The anti-communist opposition candidates and activists were persecuted and the eventual results were falsified...
held in January 1947 resulted in Poland's official transformation to a non-democratic communist state by 1949, the
People's Republic of PolandThe People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
. Resistance fighters continued to battle Communists in the Ukrainian annexed portions of eastern Poland, the Soviet response to which included the arrest of as many as 600,000 people between 1944 and 1952, with about one third executed and the rest imprisoned or exiled.
Hungary
After
occupying HungaryThe Soviet occupation of Hungary, followed the defeat of Hungary in World War II, lasted for 45 years ending in 1991 shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union -World War II:...
, the Soviets imposed harsh conditions allowing it to seize important material assets and control internal affairs. During those occupations, an estimated 50,000 women and girls were raped. After the Red Army set up police organs to persecute class enemies, the Soviets assumed that the impoverished Hungarian populace would support communists in coming elections.
The communists were trounced, receiving only 17% of the vote, resulting in a
coalition governmentThe Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party is a political party in Hungary...
under Prime Minister
Zoltán TildyZoltán Tildy , was an influential leader of Hungary, who served as Prime Minister from 1945–1946 and President from 1946-1948 in the post-war period before the seizure of power by Soviet-backed communists....
. Soviet intervention, however, resulted in a government that disregarded Tildy, placed communists in important ministries, and imposed restrictive and repressive measures, including banning the victorious
Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic PartyThe Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party is a political party in Hungary...
. The Communist Party repeatedly wrested small concessions from opponents in a process named "
salami tacticsSalami tactics, also known as the salami-slice strategy, is a divide and conquer process of threats and alliances used to overcome opposition. With it, an aggressor can influence and eventually dominate a landscape, typically political, piece by piece. In this fashion, the opposition is eliminated...
". Battling the initial postwar political majority in Hungary ready to establish a democracy,
Communist leader
Mátyás RákosiMátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
invented the term, which described his tactic slicing up enemies like pieces of salami. In 1945, Soviet
MarshalMarshal of the Soviet Union was the de facto highest military rank of the Soviet Union. ....
Kliment VoroshilovKliment Yefremovich Voroshilov , popularly known as Klim Voroshilov was a Soviet military officer, politician, and statesman...
forced the freely elected Hungarian government to yield the Interior Ministry to a nominee of the
Hungarian Communist PartyThe Communist Party of Hungary , renamed Hungarian Communist Party in 1945, was founded on November 24, 1918, and was in power in Hungary briefly from March to August 1919 under Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The communist government was overthrown by the Romanian Army and driven...
. Communist Interior Minister
László RajkLászló Rajk was a Hungarian Communist; politician, former Minister of Interior and former Minister of Foreign Affairs...
established the
ÁVH secret policeThe State Protection Authority was the secret police force of Hungary from 1945 until 1956. It was conceived of as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's secret police forces, but attained an indigenous reputation for brutality during a series of purges beginning in 1948, intensifying in 1949...
, which suppressed political opposition through intimidation, false accusations, imprisonment and torture.
In early 1947, the Soviets pressed Rákosi to take a "line of more pronounced class struggle." The
People's Republic of HungaryThe People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
was formed thereafter. At the height of his rule, Rákosi developed a strong cult of personality. Dubbed the “bald murderer,” Rákosi imitated Stalinist political and economic programs, resulting in Hungary experiencing one of the harshest dictatorships in Europe. He described himself as "Stalin's best Hungarian disciple" and "Stalin's best pupil." Repression was harsher in Hungary than in the other satellite countries in the 1940s and 1950s due to a more vehement Hungarian resistance.
Approximately 350,000 Hungarian officials and intellectuals were purged from 1948 to 1956. Thousands were arrested, tortured, tried, and imprisoned in concentration camps,
deported to the eastPopulation transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers," deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite...
, or were executed, including ÁVH founder László Rajk. Repeated collectivizations in Hungary occurred from the 1940s through the 1960s. Nearly a decade after stricter state control following the Soviet invasion suppressing the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (including the execution of leader
Imre NagyImre Nagy was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions...
),
János KádárJános Kádár was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his forced retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary makes Kádár the longest ruler of the People's Republic of Hungary...
introduced
Goulash CommunismGoulash Communism or Kádárism refers to the variety of communism as practised in the Hungarian People's Republic from the 1960s until the collapse of Communism in Hungary in 1989...
which led to a less repressive era.
Bulgaria
On 5 September 1944, the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria claiming that Bulgaria was to be prevented from assisting Germany and allowing the Wehrmacht to use its territory. On 8 September 1944, the Red Army crossed the border and created the conditions for the
coup d'étatThe Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944, also known as the 9 September coup d'état and called in pre-1989 Bulgaria the National Uprising of 9 September or the Socialist Revolution of 9 September was a change in the Kingdom of Bulgaria's administration and government carried out on the eve of 9 September...
the following night. The government was taken over by the "
Fatherland FrontThere have been at least two organisations known as the Fatherland Front:*Vietnamese Fatherland Front*Fatherland's Front *Fatherland Front...
" where the communists played a leading role and an armistice followed. The Soviet military commander in Sofia assumed supreme authority, and the communists and their allies in the Fatherland Front whom he instructed, including
Kimon GeorgievColonel General Kimon Georgiev Stoyanov was a Bulgarian general and prime minister.Born at Pazardzhik, Kimon Georgiev graduated from the Sofia military academy in 1902. He participated in the Balkan Wars as a company commander and in the First World War as a commander of a battalion. In 1916 he...
, took full control of domestic politics.
On 8 September 1946, a national plebiscite was organized in which 96% of all votes (91% of the population voted) for the abolition of the monarchy and the installation of a republic. In October 1946 elections, persecution against opposition parties occurred, such as jailing members of the previous government, periodic newspaper
publication banA publication ban is a court order which prohibits the public or media from disseminating certain details of an otherwise public judicial procedure. In Canada, publication bans are most commonly issued when the safety or reputation of a victim or witness may be hindered by having their identity...
s and subjecting opposition followers to frequent attacks by communist armed groups. Thereafter, the
People's Republic of Bulgaria was formed and
Georgi DimitrovGeorgi Dimitrov Mikhaylov , also known as Georgi Mikhaylovich Dimitrov , was a Bulgarian Communist politician...
became the first leader of the newly-formed republic.
On 6 June 1947, parliamentary leader
Nikola PetkovNikola Dimitrov Petkov was a Bulgarian politician, one of the leaders of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union . He entered politics in the early 1930s. Like many other peasant party leaders in Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria in 1945-1947, Petkov was tried and executed soon after postwar Soviet...
, a critic of communist rule, was arrested in the Parliament building, subjected to a
show trialThe term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
, found guilty of espionage, sentenced to death, and hanged on 23 September 1947. The Bulgarian secret police arranged for the publication of a false Petkov confession. The confession's false nature was so obvious that it became an embarrassment and the authorities ceased mentioning it. Soon after that, all opposition parties had been banned, while the non-communist members of the Fatherland Front (with the exception of BZNS) either dissolved themselves or joined the Communist party.
Czechoslovakia
In 1943, Czechoslovakian leader in exile
Edvard BenešEdvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
agreed to Stalin's demands for unconditional agreement with Soviet foreign policy, including the
expulsion of over one million Sudeten ethnic GermansThe expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II was part of a series of evacuations and expulsions of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II....
identified as "rich people" and ethnic Hungarians, directed by the
Beneš decreesDecrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...
. Beneš promised Stalin a "close postwar collaboration" in military and economic affairs, including confiscation and nationalization of large landowners' property, factories, mines, steelworks and banks under a Czechoslovakian "national road to socialism". While Beneš was not a Moscow cadre and several domestic reforms of other Eastern Bloc countries were not part Beneš' plan, Stalin did not object because the plan included property expropriation and he was satisfied with the relative strength of communists in Czechoslovakia compared to other Eastern Bloc countries.
Beneš traveled to Moscow in March 1945. After answering a list of questions by the Soviet
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, Beneš pleased Moscow with his plans to deport two million ethnic Sudeten Germans and 400,000 to 600,000 Hungarian, and to build a strong army that would closely coordinate with the Red Army. In April 1945, the Third Republic, a national front coalition ruled by three socialist parties, was formed. Because of the Communist Party's strength (they held 114 of 300 seats) and Beneš' loyalty, unlike in other Eastern Bloc countries, the Kremlin did not require Bloc politics or "reliable" cadres in Czechoslovakian power positions, and the executive and legislative branches retained their traditional structures.
However, the Soviet Union was, at first, disappointed that the communist party did not take advantage of their position after receiving the most votes in 1946 elections. While they had deprived the traditional administration of major functions by transferring local and regional government to newly established committees in which they largely dominated, they failed to eliminate "bourgeois" influence in the army or to expropriate industrialists and large landowners.
The existence of a somewhat independent political structure and Czechoslovakia's initial absence of stereotypical Eastern Bloc political and socioeconomic systems began to be seen as problematic by Soviet authorities. While parties outside the "National Front" were excluded from the government, they were still allowed to exist. In contrast to countries occupied by the Red Army, there were no Soviet occupation authorities in Czechoslovakia upon whom the communists could rely to assert a leading role.
Hope in Moscow was waning for a communist victory in the upcoming 1948 elections. A May 1947 Kremlin report concluded that "reactionary elements" praising western democracy had strengthened. Following Czechoslovakia's brief consideration of taking
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
funds, and the subsequent scolding of communist parties by the
CominformFounded in 1947, Cominform is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties...
at
Szklarska PorębaSzklarska Poręba is a town in Jelenia Góra County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. The town has a population of around 7,000...
in September 1947,
Rudolf SlánskýRudolf Slánský was a Czech Communist politician. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary after World War II, he was one of the leading creators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia...
returned to
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
with a plan for the final seizure of power, including the
StBSTB is an acronym that can mean:* Sacrae Theologiae Baccalaureus – Bachelor of Sacred Theology* Set-top box – a television device that converts signals to viewable images* Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP -- a law firm...
's elimination of party enemies and purging of dissidents.
In early February 1948, Communist Interior minister Václav Nosek illegally extended his powers by attempting to purge remaining non-Communist elements in the National Police Force. Soviet Ambassador
Valerian ZorinValerian Alexandrovich Zorin was a Soviet diplomat and statesman.-Biography:After joining the Soviet Communist Party in 1922, Zorin held a managerial position in a Moscow City Committee and the Central Committee of the Komsomol until 1932...
arrived in
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
to arrange the
Czechoslovak coup d'étatThe Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 – in Communist historiography known as "Victorious February" – was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, ushering in over four decades...
, followed by the occupation of non-Communist ministers' ministries, while the army was confined to barracks. Communist "Action Committees" and trade union militias were quickly set up, armed, preparing to carry through a purge of anti-Communists, with Zorin pledging the services of the
Red ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
.
On 25 February 1948, Beneš, fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention, capitulated and appointed a
Communist Party of CzechoslovakiaThe Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....
(KSČ)-dominated government under the leadership of Stalinist
Klement GottwaldKlement Gottwald was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician, longtime leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia.-Early life:...
, who was sworn in two days later, ushering in a dictatorship. The only non-Communist to hold an important office,
Jan MasarykJan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician and Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948.- Early life :...
, was found dead two weeks later. The public brutality of the Soviet-backed coup shocked Western powers more than any event before it, set in a motion a brief scare that war would occur and swept away the last vestiges of opposition to United States President Truman's
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
in the United States Congress.
Romania
As the Red Army battled the
WehrmachtThe Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
and Romanian forces in August 1944, Soviet agent
Emil BodnăraşEmil Bodnăraş was an influential Romanian Communist politician, an army officer, and a Soviet agent...
organized an underground coalition to stage a coup d'état that would put communists—who were then two tiny groups—into power. However, King Michael had already organized a coup, in which Bodnăraş also had participated, putting Michael in power. After Soviet invasions following two years of Romania fighting with the
AxisThe Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
, at the February 1945
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
and the July 1945
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
, the western allies agreed to the Soviet absorption of the areas.
Michael accepted the Soviets' armistice terms, which included military occupation along with the annexation of Northern Romania.
The Soviets' 1940 annexation of
BessarabiaBessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
and part of Northern Bukovina to create the important agricultural region of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (while other Romanian territories were converted into the
Chernivtsi OblastChernivtsi Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine, bordering on Romania and Moldova. It has a large variety of landforms: the Carpathian Mountains and picturesque hills at the foot of the mountains gradually change to a broad partly forested plain situated between the Dniester and Prut rivers....
and
Izmail OblastIzmail Oblast was an oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. It had a territory of 12.4 thousand km².The oblast was organized on August 7, 1940 on the territory, known as Budjak or southern Bessarabia, occupied by the Soviet Union from Romania. It was originally known as Akkerman Oblast until December 1,...
of the
Ukrainian SSRThe Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
) became a point of tension between Romania and the Soviet Union, especially after 1965. The
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
also had granted the Soviet Union a predominant interest in what remained of Romania, which coincided with the
Soviet occupation of RomaniaThe Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
.
The Soviets organized the
National Democratic Front, which was composed of several parties including the
Ploughmen's FrontThe Ploughmen's Front was a Romanian left-wing agrarian-inspired political organisation of ploughmen, founded at Deva in 1933 and led by Petru Groza. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.-History:...
. It became increasingly communist dominated. In February 1945, Soviet proponents provoked a crisis to exploit support by the Soviet occupation power for enforcement of unlimited control. In March 1945, Stalin aide Andre Vyshinskii traveled to Bucharest and installed a government that included only members subservient to the National Front.
This included
Ploughmen's FrontThe Ploughmen's Front was a Romanian left-wing agrarian-inspired political organisation of ploughmen, founded at Deva in 1933 and led by Petru Groza. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.-History:...
member Dr.
Petru GrozaPetru Groza was a Romanian politician, best known as the Prime Minister of the first Communist Party-dominated governments under Soviet occupation during the early stages of the Communist regime in Romania....
, who became prime minister. Groza installed a government that included many parties, though communists held the key ministries. The potential of army resistance was neutralized by the removal of major troop leaders and the inclusion of two divisions staffed with ideologically trained prisoners of war. Bodnăraş was appointed General Secretary and initiated reorganization of the general police and secret police.
Over western allies' objections, traditional parties were excluded from government and subjected to intensifying persecution. Political persecution of local leaders and strict radio and press control were designed to prepare for an eventual unlimited communist dictatorship, including the liquidation of opposition. When King Michael attempted to force Groza's resignation by refusing to sign any legislation ("the royal strike"), Groza enacted laws without Michael's signature.
In the
Romanian general election of November 1946The Romanian general election of 1946 was a general election held on November 19, 1946, in Romania. Officially, it was carried with 79.86% of the vote by the Romanian Communist Party , its allies inside the Bloc of Democratic Parties , and its associates — the Hungarian People's Union , the...
that the Soviets had promised the western allies, the
Romanian Communist PartyThe Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
(PCR) was trounced, with U.S. embassy estimates of the bloc receiving only about 8% of the vote compared to 70% for the rival Peasant Party. The shocked communists asked Moscow for advice, and were told to simply falsify the results. Forty eight hours later, they announced that the PCR bloc received 70% of the vote, setting off sharp western protests.
In early 1947, Bodnăraş reported that Romanian leaders
Gheorghiu-DejGheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
and
MaurerIon Gheorghe Iosif Maurer was a Romanian communist politician and lawyer.-Biography:Born in Bucharest to a Saxon father and a Romanian mother of French origin, he completed studies in Law and became an attorney, defending in court members of the illegal leftist and Anti-fascist movements...
were seeking to bolster the Romanian economy by developing relations with Britain and the United States and were complaining about Soviet occupying troops. Thereafter, the PCR eliminated the role of the centrist parties, including a
show trialThe term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
of National Peasant Party leaders, and forced other parties to merge with the PCR. By 1948, most non-Communist politicians were either executed, in exile or in prison. The Communists declared a
People's RepublicPeople's Republic is a title that has often been used by Marxist-Leninist governments to describe their state. The motivation for using this term lies in the claim that Marxist-Leninists govern in accordance with the interests of the vast majority of the people, and, as such, a Marxist-Leninist...
in 1948.
Albania
In December 1945, elections for the Albanian People's Assembly were held, with the only ballot choices being those of the communist
Democratic Front (Albania)The Democratic Front was an Albanian political mass organization formed on August 5, 1945 to succeed the National Liberation Front as the leading political movement for recently liberated Albania under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. It was administered by the Party of Labour of Albania...
, led by
Enver HoxhaEnver Halil Hoxha was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary andthe leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...
. Its successor, the National Liberation Front, took control of the police, the court system and the economy, while eliminating several hundred political opponents through a series of show trials conducted by judges without legal training. In 1946, Albania was declared the People's Republic of Albania and, thereafter, it broke relations with the United States and refused to participate in the 1947
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
.
Albania's close ties with
YugoslaviaYugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
lasted only until the latter's rift with the Soviet Union in 1948. Albania was a founding member of the
Warsaw PactThe Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
and was heavily dependent upon Soviet aid. Because of Hoxha's dogmatic Stalinist adherence, Albania broke with the Soviet Union in 1960 following the Soviet de-stalinization. Albania began to establish closer contacts with
Mao ZedongMao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
's People's Republic of China. Following Mao's death, Albania also severed ties with China in 1978.
Yugoslavia
At the end of World War II,
YugoslaviaYugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
was considered a victor power and had neither an occupation force nor an allied control commission. Communism was considered a popular alternative to the west, in part, because of Communist partisan activity in World War II and opposition to former Royalist Yugoslav Army leader
Draža MihailovićDragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...
and
King PeterPeter II, also known as Peter II Karađorđević , was the third and last King of Yugoslavia...
. A cabinet for the new Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was formed, with twenty five of the twenty eight members being former Communist Yugoslav Partisans led by
Josip Broz TitoMarshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
. The
League of Communists of YugoslaviaLeague of Communists of Yugoslavia , before 1952 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Savez komunista Jugoslavije/Савез комуниста Југославије, Slovene: Zveza komunistov Jugoslavije, Macedonian: Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na...
formed the
National Front of YugoslaviaPeople's Front of Yugoslavia was an organization of antifascist and democratic masses of nations of Yugoslavia. The idea of its creation sprang up in the 1930s, especially during the May 5, 1935 parliamentary elections in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia....
coalition, with opposition members boycotting the first election because it presented only a single government list which could be accepted or rejected, without opponents. Censorship, denial of publication allocations and open intimidation of opposition groups followed. Three weeks after the election, the Front declared that a new Republic would be formed, with a new constitution put in place two months later in January 1946 initiating the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. The Communists continued a campaign against enemies, including arresting Mihailović, conducting a controversial trial and then executing him, followed by several other opposition arrests and trials. Thereafter, a pro-Soviet phase continued until the
Tito-Stalin splitThe Tito–Stalin Split was a conflict between the leaders of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau in 1948...
of 1948 and the subsequent formation of the
Non-Aligned MovementThe Non-Aligned Movement is a group of states considering themselves not aligned formally with or against any major power bloc. As of 2011, the movement had 120 members and 17 observer countries...
.
Concealed transformation dynamics
At first, the Soviets concealed their role in other Eastern Bloc politics, with the transformation appearing as a modification of western "bourgeois democracy". As a young communist was told in East Germany: "it's got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control." Stalin felt that socioeconomic transformation was indispensable to establish Soviet control, reflecting the Marxist-Leninist view that material bases, the distribution of the means of production, shaped social and political relations.
Moscow-trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation. Elimination of the
bourgeoisieIn sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
's social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority. These measures were publicly billed as "reforms" rather than socioeconomic transformations. Except for initially in Czechoslovakia, activities by political parties had to adhere to "Bloc politics", with parties eventually having to accept membership in an "antifascist" "bloc" obliging them to act only by mutual "consensus". The bloc system permitted the Soviet Union to exercise domestic control indirectly.
Crucial departments such as those responsible for personnel, general police, secret police and youth, were strictly communist run. Moscow cadres distinguished "progressive forces" from "reactionary elements", and rendered both powerless through. Such procedures were repeated until communists had gained unlimited power, and only politicians who were unconditionally supportive of Soviet policy remained.
Marshall Plan rejection
In June 1947, after the Soviets had refused to negotiate a potential lightening of restrictions on German development, the United States announced the
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
, a comprehensive program of American assistance to all European countries wanting to participate, including the Soviet Union and those of Eastern Europe. The Soviets rejected the Plan and took a hard line position against the United States and non-communist European nations. However, of great concern to the Soviets was Czechoslovakia's eagerness to accept the aid and indications of a similar Polish attitude.
In one of the clearest signs of Soviet control over the region up to that point, the Czechoslovakian foreign minister,
Jan MasarykJan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician and Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948.- Early life :...
, was summoned to Moscow and berated by Stalin for considering joining the Marshall Plan. Polish Prime minister Josef Cyrankiewicz was rewarded for the Polish rejection of the Plan with a huge 5 year trade agreement, including 450 million in credit, 200,000 tons of grain, heavy machinery and factories.
In July 1947, Stalin ordered these countries to pull out of the Paris Conference on the European Recovery Programme, which has been described as "the moment of truth" in the post–
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
division of Europe. Thereafter, Stalin sought stronger control over other Eastern Bloc countries, abandoning the prior appearance of democratic institutions. When it appeared that, in spite of heavy pressure, non-communist parties might receive in excess of 40% of the vote in the August 1947 Hungarian elections, repressions were instituted to liquidate any independent political forces.
In that same month, annihilation of the opposition in Bulgaria began on the basis of continuing instructions by Soviet cadres. At a late September 1947 meeting of all communist parties in
Szklarska PorębaSzklarska Poręba is a town in Jelenia Góra County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. The town has a population of around 7,000...
, Eastern Bloc communist parties were blamed for permitting even minor influence by non-communists in their respective countries during the run up to the Marshall Plan.
Berlin blockade and airlift
In former German capital Berlin, surrounded by Soviet-occupied Germany, Stalin instituted the
Berlin BlockadeThe Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first resulting in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied...
, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in
West BerlinWest Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
. The blockade was caused, in part, by early local elections of October 1946 in which the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED)The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
was rejected in favor of the Social Democratic Party, which had gained two and a half times more votes than the SED. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began a massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other supplies.
The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against the western policy change and communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948 preceding large losses therein, while 300,000 Berliners demonstrated urged the international airlift to continue. In May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin.
Tito-Stalin Split
After disagreements between Yugoslavian leader
Josip Broz TitoMarshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
and the Soviet Union regarding Greece and Albania, a
Tito-Stalin splitThe Tito–Stalin Split was a conflict between the leaders of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau in 1948...
occurred, followed by Yugoslavia being expelled from the
CominformFounded in 1947, Cominform is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties...
in June 1948 and a brief failed Soviet putsch in Belgrade. The split created two separate communist forces in Europe. A vehement campaign against
TitoismTitoism is a variant of Marxism–Leninism named after Josip Broz Tito, leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, primarily used to describe the specific socialist system built in Yugoslavia after its refusal of the 1948 Resolution of the Cominform, when the Communist Party of...
was immediately started in the Eastern Bloc, describing agents of both the West and Tito in all places engaging in subversive activity.
Stalin ordered the conversion of the
CominformFounded in 1947, Cominform is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties...
into an instrument to monitor and control internal affairs of other Eastern Bloc parties. He briefly considered also converting the Cominform into an instrument for sentencing high-ranking deviators, but dropped the idea as impractical. Instead, a move to weaken communist party leaders through conflict was started. Soviet cadres in communist party and state positions in the Bloc were instructed to foster intra-leadership conflict and to transmit information against each other. This accompanied a continuous stream of accusations of "nationalistic deviations", "insufficient appreciation of the USSR's role", links with Tito and "espionage for Yugoslavia." This resulted in the persecution of many major party cadres, including those in East Germany.
The first country experiencing this approach was Albania, where leader
Enver HoxhaEnver Halil Hoxha was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary andthe leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...
immediately changed course from favoring Yugoslavia to opposing it. In
PolandThe People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
, leader Władysław Gomułka, who had previously made pro-Yugoslavian statements, was deposed as party secretary-general in early September 1948 and subsequently jailed. In
Bulgaria, when it appeared that Traicho Kostov, who was not a Moscow cadre, was next in line for leadership, in June 1949, Stalin ordered Kostov's arrest, followed soon thereafter by a death sentence and execution. A number of other high ranking Bulgarian officials were also jailed. Stalin and Hungarian leader
Mátyás RákosiMátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
met in Moscow to orchestrate a show trial of Rákosi opponent László Rajk, who was thereafter executed.
Politics
Despite the initial
institutional design of communism implementedStalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
by
Joseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
in the Eastern Bloc, subsequent development varied across countries. In satellite states, after peace treaties were initially concluded, opposition was essentially liquidated, fundamental steps towards socialism were enforced and Kremlin leaders sought to strengthen control therein. Initially, Stalin directed systems that rejected Western institutional characteristics of
market economiesA market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...
, democratic governance (dubbed "bourgeois democracy" in Soviet parlance) and the rule of law subduing discretional intervention by the state. The resulting states aspired to total control of a political center backed by an extensive and active repressive apparatus, and a central role of Marxist-Leninist ideology.
However, the vestiges of democratic institutions were never entirely destroyed, resulting in the facade of Western style institutions such as parliaments, which effectively just rubber-stamped decisions made by rulers, and constitutions, to which adherence by authorities was limited or non-existent. Parliaments were still elected, but their meetings occurred only a few days per year, only to legitimize politburo decisions, and so little attention was paid to them that some of those serving were actually dead, and officials would openly state that they would seat members who had lost elections.
The first or General Secretary of the
central committeeCentral Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
in each
communist partyA political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
was the most powerful figure in each regime. The party over which the
politburoPolitburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
held sway was not a mass party but, conforming with Leninist tradition, a smaller selective party of between three and fourteen percent of the country's population who had accepted total obedience. Those who secured membership in this selective party received considerable rewards, such as access to special lower priced shops with a greater selection of goods, special schools, holiday facilities, homes, furniture, works of art and official cars with special white license plates so that police and others could identify these members from a distance.
Political and civil restrictions
In addition to emigration restrictions, civil society, defined as a domain of political action outside the party's state control, was not allowed to firmly take root, with the possible exception of Poland in the 1980s. While the institutional design on the communist systems were based on the rejection of rule of law, the legal infrastructure was not immune to change reflecting decaying ideology and the substitution of autonomous law. Initially, communist parties were small in all countries except Czechoslovakia, such that there existed an acute shortage of politically "trustworthy" persons for administration, police and other professions. Thus, "politically unreliable" non-communists initially had to fill such roles. Those not obedient to communist authorities were ousted, while Moscow cadres started a large-scale party programs to train personnel who would meet political requirements.
Communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc viewed marginal groups of opposition intellectuals as a potential threat because of the bases underlying Communist power therein. The suppression of dissidence and opposition was considered a central prerequisite to retain power, though the enormous expense at which the population in certain countries were kept under secret surveillance may not have been rational. Following a totalitarian initial phase, a post-totalitarian period followed the death of Stalin in which the primary method of Communist rule shifted from mass terror to selective repression, along with ideological and sociopolitical strategies of legitimation and the securing of loyalty. Juries were replaced by a tribunal of a professional judges and two lay assessors that were dependable party actors.
The police deterred and contained opposition to party directives. The political police served as the core of the system, with their names becoming synonymous with raw power and the threat of violent retribution should an individual become active against the collective. Several state police and secret police organizations enforced communist party rule, including:
- East Germany – Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
, VolkspolizeiThe Volkspolizei , or VP, were the national police of the German Democratic Republic . The Volkspolizei were responsible for most law enforcement in East Germany, but its organisation and structure were such that it could be considered a paramilitary force as well...
and Combat Groups of the Working ClassThe Combat Groups of the Working Class was a paramilitary organization in East Germany, founded in 1953 and abolished in 1990. It numbered about 400,000 volunteers for much of its existence.-History:...
- Soviet Union – NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, KGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
and GRUGRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
- Czechoslovakia – StB
STB is an acronym that can mean:* Sacrae Theologiae Baccalaureus – Bachelor of Sacred Theology* Set-top box – a television device that converts signals to viewable images* Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP -- a law firm...
- Bulgaria – Darzhavna Sigurnost
- Albania – Sigurimi
The Drejtoria e Sigurimit të Shtetit , commonly called the Sigurimi, was the state security, intelligence and secret police service of the Socialist People's Republic of Albania...
- Hungary – ÁVH
- Romania – Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
- Poland – Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, Służba Bezpieczeństwa and ZOMO
Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej , were paramilitary-police formations during the Communist Era, in the People's Republic of Poland...
Media and information restrictions
The press in the communist period was an organ of the state, completely reliant on and subservient to the communist party. Before the late 1980s, Eastern Bloc radio and television organizations were state-owned, while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the local communist party. Youth newspapers and magazines were owned by youth organizations affiliated with communist parties.
The control of the media was exercised directly by the communist party itself, and by state censorship, which was also controlled by the party. Media served as an important form of control over information and society. The dissemination and portrayal of knowledge were considered by authorities to be vital to communism's survival by stifling alternative concepts and critiques. Several state Communist Party newspapers were published, including:
- Central newspapers of the Soviet Union
The following publications were known as central newspapers in the Soviet Union. They were organs of the major organizations of the Soviet Union.*Pravda , the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union....
- Trybuna Ludu (Poland)
Trybuna Ludu was one of the largest newspapers in communist Poland. It was the official media outlet of the Polish United Workers' Party and one of its main propaganda outlets.-Creation:...
- Czerwony Sztandar (annexed former eastern Poland)
Kurier Wileński is the main Polish-language newspaper in Lithuania. Printed in Vilnius, it is the only Polish-language daily newspaper published east of Poland...
- Esti Budapest (Hungary)
Esti Budapest was a Hungarian newspaper, and was the organ of the Budapest Party Committee of the Hungarian Working People's Party and the Budapest City Council. It was published daily from April 2, 1952 to October 23, 1956. It was later replaced by Esti Hírlap....
- Neues Deutschland (East Germany)
Neues Deutschland is a national German daily newspaper. It was the official party newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany , which governed the German Democratic Republic , and as such served as one of the party's most important organs...
- Rudé právo (Czechoslovakia)
Rudé právo was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia....
- Rahva Hääl (annexed former Estonia)
Rahva Hääl was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Estonia during Soviet occupation of Estonia. It was founded shortly after the first Soviet takeover in 1940 based on offices and resources of Uus Eesti , an earlier Estonian newspaper.-See also:*Eastern Bloc information dissemination...
- Pravda (Slovakia)
Pravda is a major newspaper in Slovakia. It is owned by Northcliffe International, part of British media group, the Daily Mail and General Trust.- Communist Pravda :...
- Kauno diena (annexed former Lithuania)
Kauno diena is a Lithuanian daily newspaper, printed in Kaunas. In 1998, it was bought by Norwegian media giant Orkla Media subsidiary Orkla Press, and in December 2006 by investment company Hermis Capital...
- Scînteia (Romania)
Scînteia was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history...
- Zvyazda (Belarus).
The
Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS)The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union , was the central agency for collection and distribution of internal and international news for all Soviet newspapers, radio and television stations...
served as the central agency for collection and distribution of internal and international news for all Soviet newspapers, radio and television stations. It was frequently infiltrated by Soviet intelligence and security agencies, such as the
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
and
GRUGRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
. TASS had affiliates in 14 Soviet republics, including the
Lithuanian SSRThe Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Lithuanian SSR, was one of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union...
,
Latvian SSRThe Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Latvian SSR for short, was one of the republics that made up the Soviet Union. Established on 21 July 1940 as a puppet state during World War II in the territory of the previously independent Republic of Latvia after it had been occupied by...
, Estonian SSR,
Moldavian SSRThe Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...
.
Ukrainian SSRThe Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
and
Byelorussian SSRThe Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union. It was one of the four original founding members of the Soviet Union in 1922, together with the Ukrainian SSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
.
Western countries invested heavily in powerful transmitters which enabled services such as the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, VOA and
Radio Free EuropeRadio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
(RFE) to be heard in the Eastern Bloc, despite attempts by authorities to jam the airways.
Organizations
In 1949, the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Bulgaria,
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Hungary, Poland, and Romania founded the
ComeconThe Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organisation under hegemony of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world...
in accordance with Stalin's desire to enforce Soviet domination of the lesser states of Central Europe and to mollify some states that had expressed interest in the
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
, and which were now, increasingly, cut off from their traditional markets and suppliers in Western Europe. The Comecon's role became ambiguous because Stalin preferred more direct links with other party chiefs than the Comecon's indirect sophistication; it played no significant role in the 1950s in economic planning. Initially, the Comecon served as cover for the Soviet taking of materials and equipment from the rest of the Eastern Bloc, but the balance changed when the Soviets became net subsidizers of the rest of the Bloc by the 1970s via an exchange of low cost raw materials in return for shoddily manufactured finished goods.
In 1955, the
Warsaw PactThe Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
was formed partly in response to
NATO's inclusion of
West GermanyWest Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
and partly because the Soviets needed an excuse to retain
Red ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
units in Hungary. For 35 years, the Pact perpetuated the Stalinist concept of Soviet national security based on imperial expansion and control over satellite regimes in Eastern Europe. This Soviet formalization of their security relationships in the Eastern Bloc reflected Moscow's basic security policy principle that continued presence in East Central Europe was a foundation of its defense against the West. Through its institutional structures, the Pact also compensated in part for the absence of Joseph Stalin's personal leadership since his death in 1953. The Pact consolidated the other Bloc members' armies in which Soviet officers and security agents served under a unified Soviet command structure.
Beginning in 1964, Romania took a more independent course. While it did not repudiate either Comecon or the Warsaw Pact, it ceased to play a significant role in either.
Nicolae CeauşescuNicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
's assumption of leadership one year later pushed Romania even further in the direction of separateness. Albania, which had become increasingly isolated under Stalinist leader
Enver HoxhaEnver Halil Hoxha was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary andthe leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...
following
de-StalinizationDe-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
, withdrew from the Warsaw Pact in 1968 following the
Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoslovakiaOn the night of 20–21 August 1968, the Soviet Union and her main satellite states in the Warsaw Pact – Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic , Hungary and Poland – invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in order to halt Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring political liberalization...
.
Emigration restrictions and defectors
In 1917, Russia restricted emigration by instituting passport controls and forbidding the exit of belligerent nationals. In 1922, after the
Treaty on the Creation of the USSRThe Treaty on the Creation of the USSR is a document that legalized the creation of a union of several Soviet republics in the form of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...
, both the
Ukrainian SSRThe Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
and the Russian SFSR issued general rules for travel that foreclosed virtually all departures, making legal emigration impossible. Border controls thereafter strengthened such that, by 1928, even illegal departure was effectively impossible. This later included
internal passport controlsThe Soviet passport is an identity document issued upon the laws of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the citizen of the USSR. For the general purposes of identity certification Soviet passports contained such data as name, date of birth, sex, place of birth, nationality and citizenship...
, which when combined with individual city
PropiskaPropiska was both a residence permit and migration recording tool in the Russian Empire before 1917 and from 1930s in the Soviet Union. It was documented in local police registers and certified with a stamp in internal passports....
("place of residence") permits, and internal freedom of movement restrictions often called the
101st kilometre101st kilometre is a colloquial name for the law restricting freedom of movement in the Soviet Union.In the Soviet Union, the rights of an inmate released from the prison would typically still be restricted for a long period of time...
, greatly restricted mobility within even small areas of the Soviet Union.
After the creation of the Eastern Bloc, emigration out of the newly occupied countries, except under limited circumstances, was effectively halted in the early 1950s, with the Soviet approach to controlling national movement emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc. However, in East Germany, taking advantage of the Inner German border between occupied zones, hundreds of thousands fled to West Germany, with figures totaling 197,000 in 1950, 165,000 in 1951, 182,000 in 1952 and 331,000 in 1953. One reason for the sharp 1953 increase was fear of potential further
SovietizationSovietization is term that may be used with two distinct meanings:*the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets .*the adoption of a way of life and mentality modelled after the Soviet Union....
with the increasingly paranoid actions of
Joseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
in late 1952 and early 1953. 226,000 had fled in the just the first six months of 1953.
With the closing of the Inner German border officially in 1952, the Berlin city sector borders remained considerably more accessible than the rest of the border because of their administration by all four occupying powers. Accordingly, it effectively comprised a "loophole" through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still move west. The 3.5 million East Germans that had left by 1961, called
Republikflucht"Republikflucht" and "Republikflüchtling" were the terms used by authorities in the German Democratic Republic to describe the process of and the person leaving the GDR for a life in West Germany or any other Western country .The term...
, totaled approximately 20% of the entire East German population. In August 1961, East Germany erected a barbed-wire barrier that would eventually be expanded through construction into the
Berlin WallThe Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, effectively closing the loophole.
With virtually non-existent conventional emigration, more than 75% of those emigrating from Eastern Bloc countries between 1950 and 1990 did so under bilateral agreements for "ethnic migration." About 10% were refugee migrants under the Geneva Convention of 1951. Most Soviets allowed to leave during this time period were ethnic Jews permitted to emigrate to Israel after a series of embarrassing defections in 1970 caused the Soviets to open very limited ethnic emigrations. The fall of the
Iron CurtainThe concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
was accompanied by a massive rise in European East-West migration. Famous Eastern Bloc defectors included Joseph Stalin's daughter
Svetlana AlliluyevaSvetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva , later known as Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only daughter of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin's second wife...
, who denounced Stalin after her 1967 defection.
Economies
Because of the lack of market signals, Eastern Bloc economies experienced mis-development by central planners resulting in those countries following a path of extensive rather than intensive development. Consumer goods were lacking in quantity in the
shortage economiesShortage economy is a term coined by the Hungarian economist, János Kornai. He used this term to criticize the old centrally-planned economies of the communist states of the Eastern Bloc...
that resulted. The Eastern Bloc also depended upon the Soviet Union for significant amounts of materials. Economic activity was governed by
Five Year Plans, divided into monthly segments with government planners frequently attempting to meet plan targets regardless of whether markets existed for the goods being produced. Growth rates within the bloc began to decline.
Meanwhile, Western Germany, Austria, France and other Western European nations experienced increased economic growth in the
WirtschaftswunderThe term describes the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II . The expression was used by The Times in 1950...
("economic miracle")
Trente GlorieusesLes Trente Glorieuses refers to the thirty years from 1945-1975 following the end of the Second World War in France. The name was first used by the French demographer Jean Fourastié...
("thirty glorious years") and the post–World War II boom. Overall, the inefficiency of systems without competition or market-clearing prices became costly and unsustainable, especially with the increasing complexity of world economics. While most western European economies essentially caught up in large part with the United States levels of per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Eastern Bloc countries did not. They possessed per capita GDPs significantly below their comparable western European counterparts, for example (Eastern bloc countries are in green):
Per Capita GDP (1990 $The dollar is the name of the official currency of many countries, including Australia, Belize, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States.-Etymology:...
) |
1950 |
1973 |
1989 |
1990 |
| United States |
$9,561 |
$16,689 |
n/a |
$23,214 |
| Finland |
$4,253 |
$11,085 |
$16,676 |
$16,868 |
| Austria |
$3,706 |
$11,235 |
$16,305 |
$16,881 |
| Italy |
$3,502 |
$10,643 |
$15,650 |
$16,320 |
CzechoslovakiaThe Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 until end of 1989 , a Soviet satellite state of the Eastern Bloc....
|
$3,501 |
$7,041 |
$8,729 |
$8,895(Czech)/
$7,762(Slovakia) |
font style="color:green;">Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
|
$2,834 |
$6,058 |
n/a |
font style="color:green;">$6,871 |
HungaryThe People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
|
$2,480 |
$5,596 |
$6,787 |
font style="color:green;">$6,471 |
PolandThe People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
|
$2,447 |
$5,334 |
n/a |
font style="color:green;">$5,115 |
| Spain |
$2,397 |
$8,739 |
$11,752 |
$12,210 |
| Portugal |
$2,069 |
$7,343 |
$10,355 |
$10,852 |
| Greece |
$1,915 |
$7,655 |
$10,262 |
$9,904 |
| Bulgaria |
$1,651 |
$5,284 |
$6,217 |
$5,552 |
YugoslaviaThe Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
|
$1,585 |
$4,350 |
$5,917 |
$5,695 |
RomaniaCommunist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
|
$1,182 |
$3,477 |
$3,890 |
$3,525 |
| Albania |
$1,101 |
$2,252 |
n/a |
$2,482 |
| Per Capita GDP 1989 Deutsche Marks |
1989 |
West GermanyWest Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
|
35,877 DM |
| font style="color:green;">East Germany |
15,318 DM |
Their economic systems, which required party-state planning at all levels, ended up collapsing under the weight of accumulated economic inefficiencies, with various attempts at reform merely contributing to the acceleration of crisis-generating tendencies.
1953 East Germany uprising
Three months after the death of
Joseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, a dramatic increase of emigration (
Republikflucht"Republikflucht" and "Republikflüchtling" were the terms used by authorities in the German Democratic Republic to describe the process of and the person leaving the GDR for a life in West Germany or any other Western country .The term...
,
brain drainHuman capital flight, more commonly referred to as "brain drain", is the large-scale emigration of a large group of individuals with technical skills or knowledge. The reasons usually include two aspects which respectively come from countries and individuals...
) occurred from East Germany in the first half-year of 1953. Large numbers of East Germans traveled west through the only "loophole" left in the
Eastern Bloc emigration restrictionsEastern Bloc emigration and defection was a point of controversy during the Cold War. After World War II, emigration restrictions were imposed by countries in the Eastern Bloc, which consisted of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern and Central Europe...
, the Berlin sector border. The East German government then raised "norms" – the amount each worker was required to produce—by 10%. Already disaffected East Germans, who could see the relative economic successes of West Germany within Berlin, became enraged. Angry building workers initiated street protests, and were soon joined by others in a march to the Berlin trade union headquarters.
While no official spoke to them at that location, by 2:00 pm, the East German government agreed to withdraw the "norm" increases. However, the crisis had already escalated such that the demands were now political, including free elections, disbanding the army and resignation of the government. By 17 June, strikes were recorded in 317 locations involving approximately 400,000 workers. When strikers set ruling
SED partyThe Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
buildings aflame and tore the flag from the
Brandenburg GateThe Brandenburg Gate is a former city gate and one of the most well-known landmarks of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city centre at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which...
, SED General Secretary
Walter UlbrichtWalter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
left Berlin.
A major emergency was declared and the Soviet
Red ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
stormed some important buildings. With hours, Soviet tanks arrived, but they did not immediately fire upon all workers. Rather, a gradual pressure was applied. Approximately 16 Soviet divisions with 20,000 soldiers from the
Group of Soviet Forces in GermanyThe Group of Soviet Forces in Germany , also known as the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany and the Western Group of Forces were the troops of the Soviet Army in East Germany....
using tanks, as well as 8,000
Kasernierte VolkspolizeiKasernierte Volkspolizei were the military units of the Volkspolizei in the German Democratic Republic...
members, were employed. Bloodshed could not be entirely avoided, with the official death toll standing at 21, while the actual casualty toll may have been much higher. Thereafter, 20,000 arrests took place along with 40 executions.
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
After Stalin's 1953 death, a period of
de-StalinizationDe-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
followed, with reformist
Imre NagyImre Nagy was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions...
replacing Hungarian Stalinist dictator Mátyás Rákosi. Responding to popular demand, in October 1956, the government appointed the recently
rehabilitatedPolitical rehabilitation is the process by which a member of a political organization or government who has fallen into disgrace, is restored to public life. It is usually applied to leaders or other prominent individuals who regain their prominence after a period in which they have no influence or...
reformist Władysław Gomułka as First Secretary of the
Polish United Workers' PartyThe Polish United Workers' Party was the Communist party which governed the People's Republic of Poland from 1948 to 1989. Ideologically it was based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism.- The Party's Program and Goals :...
, with a mandate to negotiate trade concessions and troop reductions with the Soviet government. After a few tense days of negotiations, on 19 October, the Soviets finally gave in to Gomułka's reformist requests.
The revolution began after students of the
Technical UniversityThe Budapest University of Technology and Economics , in hungarian abbreviated as BME, English official abbreviation BUTE, is the most significant University of Technology in Hungary and is also one of the oldest Institutes of Technology in the world, having been founded in 1782.-History:BME is...
compiled a list of
Demands of Hungarian Revolutionaries of 1956On October 23, 1956, a group of Hungarian students compiled a list of sixteen points containing key national policy demands. Following an anti-Soviet protest march through the Hungarian capital of Budapest, the students attempted to enter the city's main broadcasting station to read their demands...
and conducted protests in support of the demands on 22 October. Protests of support swelled to 200,000 by 6 pm the following day, The demands included free secret ballot elections, independent tribunals, inquiries into Stalin and Rákosi Hungarian activities and that "the statue of Stalin, symbol of Stalinist tyranny and political oppression, be removed as quickly as possible." By 9:30 pm the statue was toppled (see photo to the right) and jubilant crowds celebrated by placing
Hungarian flagsThe flag of Hungary is a horizontal tricolour of red, white and green. In this exact form, it has been the official flag of Hungary since October 1, 1957.-Origin:...
in Stalin's boots, which was all that remained the statue. The ÁVH was called, Hungarian soldiers sided with the crowd over the ÁVH and shots were fired on the crowd.
By 2 am on 24 October, under orders of Soviet defense minister
Georgy ZhukovMarshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers' occupation...
, Soviet tanks entered Budapest. Protester attacks at the Parliament forced the dissolution of the government. A ceasefire was arranged on 28 October, and by 30 October most Soviet troops had withdrawn from Budapest to garrisons in the Hungarian countryside. Fighting had virtually ceased between 28 October and 4 November, while many Hungarians believed that Soviet military units were indeed withdrawing from Hungary.
The new government that came to power during the revolution formally disbanded ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the
Warsaw PactThe Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
and pledged to re-establish free elections. The
Soviet PolitburoThe Politburo , known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, functioned as the central policymaking and governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.-Duties and responsibilities:The...
thereafter moved to crush the revolution. On 4 November, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country. The
last pocket of resistanceCsepel is the 21st district and a neighbourhood in Budapest, Hungary. Csepel officially became part of Budapest on 1 January 1950.- Location :...
called for ceasefire on 10 November. Over 2,500 Hungarians and 722 Soviet troops were killed and thousands more were wounded.
Thousands of Hungarians were arrested, imprisoned and deported to the Soviet Union, many without evidence. Approximately 200,000 Hungarians fled Hungary, some 26,000 Hungarians were put on trial by the new Soviet-installed
János KádárJános Kádár was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his forced retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary makes Kádár the longest ruler of the People's Republic of Hungary...
government, and of those, 13,000 were imprisoned. Imre Nagy was executed, along with
Pál MaléterPál Maléter was born to Hungarian parents in Eperjes, a city in the northern part of Historical Hungary, today part of Slovakia. He was the military leader of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution....
and Miklós Gimes, after secret trials in June 1958. Their bodies were placed in unmarked graves in the Municipal Cemetery outside Budapest. By January 1957, the new Soviet-installed government had suppressed all public opposition.
Prague Spring and the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia
A period of political liberalization in
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
called the
Prague SpringThe Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
took place in 1968. The event was spurred by several events, including economic reforms that addressed an early 1960s economic downturn. The event began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Slovak
Alexander DubčekAlexander Dubček , also known as Dikita, was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia , famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring...
came to power. In April, Dubček launched an "
Action ProgramThe Action Programme is a political plan, devised by Alexander Dubček and his associates in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , that was published on April 5, 1968. The program suggested that the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic find its own path towards mature socialism rather than follow the...
" of liberalizations, which included increasing freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of movement, along with an economic emphasis on consumer goods, the possibility of a multiparty government and limiting the power of the secret police.
Initial reaction within the Eastern Bloc was mixed, with
HungaryThe People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
's
János KádárJános Kádár was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his forced retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary makes Kádár the longest ruler of the People's Republic of Hungary...
expressing support, while Soviet leader
Leonid BrezhnevLeonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
and others grew concerned about Dubček's reforms, which they feared might weaken the Eastern Bloc's position during the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. On 3 August, representatives from the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia met in
BratislavaBratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
and signed the Bratislava Declaration, which affirmed unshakable fidelity to
Marxism-LeninismMarxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
and
proletarian internationalismProletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
and declared an implacable struggle against "bourgeois" ideology and all "anti-socialist" forces.
On the night of 20–21 August 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from five Warsaw Pact countries – the Soviet Union,
Bulgaria,
PolandThe People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
,
East GermanyThe German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
and
HungaryThe People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
—
invaded CzechoslovakiaOn the night of 20–21 August 1968, the Soviet Union and her main satellite states in the Warsaw Pact – Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic , Hungary and Poland – invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in order to halt Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring political liberalization...
. The invasion comported with the
Brezhnev DoctrineThe Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries.” Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the...
, a policy of compelling Eastern Bloc states to subordinate national interests to those of the Bloc as a whole and the exercise of a Soviet right to intervene if an Eastern Bloc country appeared to shift towards capitalism . The invasion was followed by a wave of emigration, including an estimated 70,000 Czechs initially fleeing, with the total eventually reaching 300,000.
In April 1969, Dubček was replaced as first secretary by
Gustáv HusákGustáv Husák was a Slovak politician, president of Czechoslovakia and a long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia and of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
, and a period of "
normalizationIn the history of Czechoslovakia, normalization is a name commonly given to the period 1969 to about 1987. It was characterized by initial restoration of the conditions prevailing before the reform period led by Alexander Dubček , first of all, the firm rule of the Communist Party of...
" began. Husák reversed Dubček's reforms, purged the party of liberal members, dismissed opponents from public office, reinstated the power of the police authorities, sought to re-
centralizeA planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...
the economy and re-instated the disallowance of political commentary in mainstream media and by persons not considered to have "full political trust".
Dissolution
During the late 1980s, the weakened Soviet Union gradually stopped interfering in the internal affairs of Eastern Bloc nations. Following the
Brezhnev stagnationThe Era of Stagnation, also known as Brezhnev stagnation or the Stagnation Period, refers to a period of economic stagnation under the rules of Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko in the history of the Soviet Union which started in the mid-1970s.-Terminology:Various authors...
, reform-minded Soviet leader
Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
in 1985 signaled the trend towards greater liberalization.
Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
's abrogation of the
Brezhnev DoctrineThe Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries.” Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the...
, which held that if socialism were threatened in any state then other socialist governments had an obligation to intervene to preserve it, in favor of the so-called "
Sinatra Doctrine"Sinatra Doctrine" was the name that the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbachev used jokingly to describe its policy of allowing neighboring Warsaw Pact nations to determine their own internal affairs...
" had dramatic effects across Central and Eastern Europe during this period.
Gorbachev launched a policy of
glasnostGlasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
(openness) in the Soviet Union, and emphasized the need for
perestroikaPerestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
(economic restructuring). A wave of
Revolutions of 1989The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
, sometimes called the "Autumn of Nations", swept across the Eastern Bloc.
Major reforms occurred in
HungaryThe People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
following the replacement of
János KádárJános Kádár was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his forced retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary makes Kádár the longest ruler of the People's Republic of Hungary...
as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1988. In
PolandThe People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
in April 1989, the Solidarity organization was legalized, allowed to participate in parliamentary elections and captured a stunning 99% of available parliamentary seats.
On 9 November 1989, following mass protests in East Germany and the relaxing of border restrictions in Czechoslovakia, tens of thousands of Eastern Berliners flooded checkpoints along the
Berlin WallThe Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, crossing into West Berlin. In
Bulgaria, the day after the mass crossings across the Berlin Wall, leader
Todor ZhivkovTodor Khristov Zhivkov was a communist politician and leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989....
was ousted by his Politburo and replaced with
Petar MladenovPetar Toshev Mladenov was a Bulgarian communist diplomat and politician. He was the last Communist leader of Bulgaria from 1989 to 1990, and briefly the first President of democratic Bulgaria in 1990.-Early life and career:...
.
In
CzechoslovakiaThe Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 until end of 1989 , a Soviet satellite state of the Eastern Bloc....
, following protests of an estimated half-million Czechs and Slovaks demanding freedoms and a
general strikeA general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
, the authorities, which had caved to pressure to allow travel to the west, abolished provisions guaranteeing the ruling Communist party its leading role. President
Gustáv HusákGustáv Husák was a Slovak politician, president of Czechoslovakia and a long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia and of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
appointed the first largely non-Communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned, in what was called the
Velvet RevolutionThe Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
.
In Romania, which had never undergone even limited
de-StalinizationDe-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
, following unrest, leader
Nicolae CeauşescuNicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
ordered a mass rally in his support outside Communist Party headquarters in Bucharest. But mass protests against Ceauşescu proceeded. The Romanian military sided with protesters, turning on Ceauşescu, who was executed after a brief trial three days later.
Even before the Bloc's last years, all of the countries in the Warsaw Pact did not always act as a unified bloc. For instance, the
1968 invasion of CzechoslovakiaOn the night of 20–21 August 1968, the Soviet Union and her main satellite states in the Warsaw Pact – Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic , Hungary and Poland – invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in order to halt Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring political liberalization...
was condemned by Romania, which refused to take part in it.
Terminology and other countries
Use of the term "Eastern Bloc" generally refers to the "communist states of eastern Europe." Sometimes, more generally, they are referred to as "the countries of Eastern Europe under communism". Many sources consider Yugoslavia to be a member of the Eastern Bloc. Others consider Yugoslavia not to be a member after it broke with Soviet policy in the 1948
Tito-Stalin splitThe Tito–Stalin Split was a conflict between the leaders of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau in 1948...
.
Eastern Bloc was sometimes used interchangeably with the term
Second WorldThe term "Second World" is a phrase used to describe those countries which are allied with or are supported by the "First World" countries . These include countries supported by the United States, such as Colombia, Israel, etc., and those supported by the former Soviet Union, also known as the the...
, and was opposed by the
Western BlocThe Western Bloc or Capitalist Bloc during the Cold War refers to the powers allied with the United States and NATO against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact...
. The Soviet-aligned members of the Eastern Bloc besides the Soviet Union are often referred to as "satellite states" of the Soviet Union. In the 1920s, "Eastern bloc" was used to refer to a loose alliance of eastern and central European countries.
Other countries that were not Soviet Socialist Republics, not Soviet Satellite States or not in Europe were sometimes referred to as being in the Eastern Bloc, Soviet Bloc or Communist Bloc, including:
- The People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
before the Sino-Soviet SplitIn political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
of 1960
- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
) from 1945
- The Republic of Cuba from 1960
- The Mongolian People's Republic
- The Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1954
- The People's Republic of Kampuchea
The People's Republic of Kampuchea , , was founded in Cambodia by the Salvation Front, a group of Cambodian leftists dissatisfied with the Khmer Rouge, after the overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's government...
(1979 to 1990)
See also
- Eastern European Group
The Eastern European Group is one of the five unofficial Regional Groups in the United Nations that act as voting blocs and negotiation forums. Regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from regional groups...
- Post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also commonly known as the Former Soviet Union or former Soviet republics, are the 15 independent states that split off from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in its dissolution in December 1991...
- Second World
The term "Second World" is a phrase used to describe those countries which are allied with or are supported by the "First World" countries . These include countries supported by the United States, such as Colombia, Israel, etc., and those supported by the former Soviet Union, also known as the the...
- Soviet occupations
Soviet occupations is a term used for military occupations by the Soviet Union from the prelude to the aftermath of World War II. The term is typically used for occupations of Eastern European countries...
- Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc
Telephone tapping in the countries of the Eastern Bloc was a widespread method of the mass surveillance of the population by the secret police.-History:...
- Western betrayal
Western betrayal, also called Yalta betrayal, refers to a range of critical views concerning the foreign policies of several Western countries between approximately 1919 and 1968 regarding Eastern Europe and Central Europe...
- Western Bloc
The Western Bloc or Capitalist Bloc during the Cold War refers to the powers allied with the United States and NATO against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact...
External links
- Candid photos of the Eastern Bloc September–December 1991, in the last months of the USSR
- Photographic project "Eastern Bloc" “Eastern Bloc” examines the specificities and differences of living in totalitarian and post totalitarian countries. The project is divided into chapters, each dedicated to one of the Eastern European countries—Slovak Republic, Poland, ex-GDR, Hungary, Czech Republic and ex-Yugoslavia.
- RFE/RL East German Subject Files Open Society Archives, Budapest
- The Lives of Others official website
- RFE Czechoslovak Unit Open Society Archives, Budapest
- Museum of occupations of Estonia – Project by the Kistler-Ritso Estonian Foundation
- Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity
- Gallery of events from Poznań 1956 protests
- OSA Digital Archive Videos of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
- RADIO FREE EUROPE Research, RAD Background Report/29: (Hungary) 20 October 1981, A CHRONOLOGY OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION, 23–4 October November 1956, compiled by RAD/Hungarian Section-Published accounts
- Chronology Of Events Leading To The 1968 Czechoslovakia Invasion
- Solidarity, Freedom and Economical Crisis in Poland, 1980–81 – A PBS site on the context and history of the Berlin Airlift.
- The Lives of Others official website
- The Lost Border: Photographs of the Iron Curtain