View source for Eastern Bloc

{{Short description|Former group of states aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2022}}
[[File:Europe-blocs-49-89x4.svg|thumb|250px|right|Political alignments in Europe during the [[Cold War]] after 1961]]
{{Eastern Bloc sidebar|expanded=all}}
 
The '''Eastern Bloc''', also known as the '''Communist Bloc''' ('''Combloc'''), the '''Socialist Bloc''', the '''Workers Bloc''', and the '''Soviet Bloc''', was an unofficial coalition of [[Communist state]]s of [[Central and Eastern Europe]], [[Asia]], [[Africa]], and [[Latin America]] that were aligned with the [[Soviet Union]] and existed during the [[Cold War]] (1947–1991). These states followed the ideology of [[Marxism–Leninism]] and [[Types of socialism|various types of socialism]], in opposition to the [[Capitalism|capitalist]] [[Western Bloc]]. The Eastern Bloc was often called the "[[Second World]]", whereas the term "[[First World]]" referred to the Western Bloc and "[[Third World]]" referred to the [[Non-Aligned Movement|non-aligned countries]] that were mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America but notably also included former [[Tito–Stalin split|pre-1948]] Soviet ally [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]], which was located in Europe.

In [[Western Europe]], the term Eastern Bloc generally referred to the USSR and [[Central and Eastern Europe]]an countries in the [[Comecon]] ([[East Germany]], [[Polish People's Republic|Poland]], [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]], [[Hungarian People's Republic|Hungary]], [[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]], [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]], and [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania|Albania]]).{{efn|Albania was a member of the Eastern Bloc until the [[Albanian–Soviet split]] from 1961 to 1970.|group=a}} In [[Asia]], the Eastern Bloc comprised [[Mongolian People's Republic|Mongolia]], [[Vietnam]], [[Laos]], [[People's Republic of Kampuchea|Kampuchea]], [[North Korea]], [[South Yemen]] and [[China]].{{Efn|Until the [[Sino-Soviet split]] in 1961.|group=c}}{{Efn|Sources:
* Loth, Wilfried, ''The Division of the World, 1941–1955'', Routledge, 1988, {{ISBN|0-415-00365-2}}, p. 297
* Haggett, Peter, ''Encyclopedia of World Geography'', Marshall Cavendish, 2001, {{ISBN|0-7614-7289-4}}, p. 1,850
* Rees, G. Wyn. ''International Politics in Europe: The New Agenda'', Routledge, 1993, {{ISBN|0-415-08282-X}}, p. 6
* {{Citation|last1=Satyendra|first1=Kush|title=Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Political Science|publisher=Sarup & Sons|year=2003|isbn=978-81-7890-071-1|page=65|quote=... the countries of Eastern Europe under communism ... .}}
* {{cite book | last1 = Janzen | first1 = Jörg | last2 = Taraschewski | first2 = Thomas | editor-last = Shahshahānī | editor-first = Suhaylā | title = Cities of Pilgrimage | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=0T7DAJqAN7wC| series = Iuaes-series | volume = 4 | year = 2009 | publisher = LIT Verlag | location = Münster | isbn = 9783825816186 | page = 190 | quote = Until 1990, despite being a formally independent state, Mongolia had ''de facto'' been an integral part of the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc. | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150905212712/https://books.google.com/books?id=0T7DAJqAN7wC | archive-date = 5 September 2015 | url-status = live }}
* {{Cite book |first1=Przemysław |last1=Gasztold-Seń |first2=Massimiliano |last2=Trentin |first3=Jan |last3=Adamec |url=https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/syria/article/view/1462 |title=Syria During the Cold War: The East European Connection |publisher=University of St Andrews, Centre for Syrian Studies |year=2014 |volume=5 |version=2 |isbn=9780956873224 |issn=2056-3175 |location=St Andrews, Scotland, U.K.}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Ginat |first=Rami |date=April 2000 |title=The Soviet Union and the Syrian Ba'th regime: From hesitation to Rapprochement |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4284075 |journal=Middle Eastern Studies |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=150–171 |doi=10.1080/00263200008701312 |jstor=4284075 |s2cid=144922816 |location=London, U.K.|url-access=subscription }}}} In the [[Americas]], the countries aligned with the Soviet Union included [[Cuba]] from 1961 and for limited periods [[Junta of National Reconstruction|Nicaragua]] and [[People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada)|Grenada]].<ref name="Piero">[[Piero Gleijeses]], ''Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976'', {{ISBN|978-0-8078-5464-8}}.</ref>

==Terminology==
The term Eastern Bloc was often used interchangeably with the term [[Second World]]. This broadest usage of the term would include not only [[Maoist China]] and [[Democratic Kampuchea|Cambodia]], but also short-lived Soviet satellites such as the [[Second East Turkestan Republic]] (1944–1949), the [[People's Republic of Azerbaijan]] (1945–1946) and the [[Republic of Mahabad]] (1946), as well as the Marxist–Leninist states straddling the Second and Third Worlds before the end of the Cold War: the [[People's Democratic Republic of Yemen]] (from 1967), the [[People's Republic of the Congo]] (from 1969), the [[People's Republic of Benin]], the [[People's Republic of Angola]] and [[People's Republic of Mozambique]] from 1975, the [[People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada]] from 1979 to 1983, the [[Derg]]/[[People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia]] from 1974, and the [[Somali Democratic Republic]] from 1969 until the [[Ogaden War]] in 1977.<ref>Ludlow, N. Piers, ''European integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik-Westpolitik, 1965–1973'', Routledge, 2007, {{ISBN|0-415-42109-8}}, pp. 37, 39</ref><ref>Ahonen, Pertti, ''After the expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe, 1945–1990'', Oxford University Press, 2003, {{ISBN|0-19-925989-5}}, pp. 125-126 & 183</ref><ref>Zwass, Adam, ''Globalization of Unequal National Economies: Players and Controversies'', M.E. Sharpe, 2002, {{ISBN|0-7656-0731-X}}, p. 214</ref><ref>Skinner, Kiron F., ''The strategy of campaigning: lessons from Ronald Reagan & Boris Yeltsin'', University of Michigan Press, 2007, {{ISBN|0-472-11627-4}}, pp. 137–138</ref> Although not [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]], leadership of [[Ba'athist Syria]] officially regarded their countries as part of the Socialist Bloc and established a close economic, military alliance with the Soviet Union.<ref name="Gasztold-Seń, Trentin, Adamec 2014">{{Cite book |first1=Przemysław |last1=Gasztold-Seń |first2=Massimiliano |last2=Trentin |first3=Jan |last3=Adamec |url=https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/syria/article/view/1462 |title=Syria During the Cold War: The East European Connection |publisher=University of St Andrews, Centre for Syrian Studies |year=2014 |isbn=9780956873224}}</ref><ref name="Ginat 150–171">{{Cite journal |last=Ginat |first=Rami |date=April 2000 |title=The Soviet Union and the Syrian Ba'th regime: From hesitation to Rapprochement |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4284075 |journal=Middle Eastern Studies |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=150–171 |doi=10.1080/00263200008701312 |jstor=4284075 |s2cid=144922816 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Many states were accused by the Western Bloc of being in the Eastern Bloc when they were part of the [[Non-Aligned Movement]]. The most limited definition of the Eastern Bloc would only include the Warsaw Pact states and the [[Mongolian People's Republic]] as former satellite states most dominated by the Soviet Union. [[Cuba]]'s defiance of complete Soviet control was noteworthy enough that Cuba was sometimes excluded as a satellite state altogether, as it sometimes intervened in other Third World countries even when the Soviet Union opposed this.<ref name="Piero" />

Post-1991 usage of the term "Eastern Bloc" may be more limited in referring to the states forming the [[Warsaw Pact]] (1955–1991) and [[People's Republic of Mongolia|Mongolia]] (1924–1991), which are no longer communist states.<ref name="satyendra">{{Citation |last1=Satyendra |first1=Kush |title=Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Political Science |page=65 |year=2003 |publisher=Sarup & Sons |isbn=978-81-7890-071-1 |quote="The countries of Eastern Europe under communism"}}</ref><ref name="Janzen">{{cite book | last1 = Janzen | first1 = Jörg | last2 = Taraschewski | first2 = Thomas | editor-last = Shahshahānī | editor-first = Suhaylā | title = Cities of Pilgrimage | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=0T7DAJqAN7wC| series = Iuaes-series | volume = 4 | year = 2009 | publisher = LIT Verlag | location = Münster | isbn = 9783825816186 | page = 190 | quote = Until 1990, despite being a formally independent state, Mongolia had ''de facto'' been an integral part of the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc. | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150905212712/https://books.google.com/books?id=0T7DAJqAN7wC | archive-date = 5 September 2015 | url-status = live }}</ref> Sometimes they are more generally referred to as "the countries of Eastern Europe under communism",<ref>Satyendra, Kush, ''Encyclopaedic dictionary of political science'', Sarup & Sons, 2003, {{ISBN|81-7890-071-8}}, p. 65</ref> excluding Mongolia, but including [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] and [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania|Albania]] which had both split with the [[Soviet Union]] by the 1960s.<ref name=houghlin>{{Citation|last1=Hirsch|first1=Donald|first2=Joseph F.|last2=Kett|first3=James S.|last3=Trefil|title=The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|year=2002|isbn=978-0-618-22647-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/newdictionaryofc00hirs/page/316 316]|quote=Eastern Bloc. The name applied to the former communist states of eastern Europe, including Yugoslavia and Albania, as well as the countries of the Warsaw Pact|url=https://archive.org/details/newdictionaryofc00hirs/page/316}}</ref>

Even though Yugoslavia was a socialist country, it was not a member of the Comecon or the Warsaw Pact. Parting with the USSR in 1948, Yugoslavia did not belong to the East, but it also did not belong to the West because of its socialist system and its status as a founding member of the [[Non-Aligned Movement]].<ref name="Glisic">{{Citation|last1=Glisic|first1=Jelena|title=East-West Trade and Japanese-Yugoslav Relations during the Cold War|publisher=Acta Slavica Iaponica|year=1976|pages=120 and 121|quote=The Eastern bloc was composed of socialist states, who were members of the Warsaw Pact and The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), led by the USSR.&nbsp;... In works examining the Western bloc countries' [[International relations|relations]] with the Eastern bloc, Yugoslavia was not considered part of the Eastern bloc.}}
</ref> However, some sources consider [[Yugoslavia]] to be a member of the Eastern Bloc.<ref name=houghlin/><ref>{{Citation|last1=Teichova|first1=Alice|first2=Matis|last2=Herbert|title=Nation, state, and the economy in history|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-0-521-79278-3|page=150|quote=Within the Eastern Bloc, Poland, Yugoslavia and Hungary tended to be reformist and deviated most from the rigid Soviet model}}
</ref>{{sfn|Cook|2001|p=897|ps=: "In the Eastern Bloc, only Yugoslavia, alongside efforts to eradicate or at least degrade previously existing nationalisms, made the gallant attempt to both foster a new nationalism and a new identify, that of being a Yugoslav."}}<ref>{{Citation|last1=Ahonen|first1=Pertti|title=After the Expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe, 1945–1990|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=2003|page=212|quote=The other Eastern bloc states – except Romania's fellow mavericks Albania and Yugoslavia – reacted to the breakthrough between Bonn and Bucharest by coordinating their own stances towards the Federal Republic.}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last1=White |first1=N. D. |title=The United Nations and the maintenance of international peace and security |page=183 |year=1990 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0-7190-3227-1 |quote=Nevertheless, the Eastern Bloc countries, including Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, argued that UNSCOB had been constituted illegally}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last1=Library of Congress|title=The Quarterly journal of the Library of Congress|publisher=Library of Congress|year=1980|volume=37|quote=80 Yugoslavia is perhaps the most international of the Eastern Bloc countries. }}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last1=Ryan|first1=James|first2=Hana|last2=Mastrini|first3=Mark|last3=Baker|title=Eastern Europe|publisher=John Wiley and Sons|year=2009|isbn=978-0-470-39908-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/frommerseasterne00bake_0/page/651 651]|quote=Tito played his cards right and – unlike other Eastern Bloc countries – Yugoslavia enjoyed a fairly open relationship with the rest of the world|url=https://archive.org/details/frommerseasterne00bake_0/page/651}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last1=Stanilov|first1=Kiril|title=The post-socialist city: urban form and space transformations in Central and Eastern Europe after socialism|publisher=Springer|year=2007|isbn=978-1-4020-6052-6|page=362|quote=During the socialist period, Yugoslavia was marked by a system of socialist self-management, which place greater importance not he development of market-type relations in the economy than any of the other socialist countries of Europe. This strategy was a significant factor in achieving a higher [[standard of living]] and a lower level of under-urbanization compared to other members of the Eastern Bloc.}}</ref> Others consider Yugoslavia not to be a member after it broke with Soviet policy in the 1948 [[Tito–Stalin split]].<ref>{{Citation|last1=Hawkesworth|first1=M. E.|first2=John|last2=Paynter|title=Encyclopedia of government and politics|publisher=Routledge|year=1992|isbn=978-0415072250|page=[https://archive.org/details/companiontoconte0000unse/page/1244 1244]|quote=The processes of change in the Eastern Bloc affected Yugoslavia as well, although this country, having been outside the bloc since 1948, had evolved specific political, economic and federal systems of its own.|url=https://archive.org/details/companiontoconte0000unse/page/1244}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last1=Binder|first1=David|title=Many from Eastern Bloc Seek Yugoslav Asylum |work=[[The New York Times]] |year=1982}}</ref><ref name="Glisic"/>

==List of states==
[[File:Stamp of USSR 1556.jpg|thumb|1950 Soviet stamp, depicting the flags and peoples of communist states at the time, including those of Eastern Europe]]

===[[Warsaw Pact]] (1955–1991)===
* {{Flagcountry|People's Socialist Republic of Albania}} (1946–1991, ceased participating in [[Comecon]] and Warsaw Pact activities in 1961, then [[Albanian–Soviet split|officially withdrew]] in 1968 from the WP and in 1987 from Comecon)
* {{Flagcountry|People's Republic of Bulgaria}} (1946–1990)
* {{Flagcountry|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic}} (1948–1989)
* {{Flag|East Germany}} (1949–1989)
* {{Flagcountry|Hungarian People's Republic|1949}} (1949–1989)
* {{Flagcountry|Polish People's Republic}} (1947–1989)
* {{Flagcountry|Socialist Republic of Romania}} (1947–1989, limited participation in Warsaw Pact activities after 1964){{efn|See [[De-satellization of the Socialist Republic of Romania|De-satellization of Communist Romania]]}}
* {{Flag|Soviet Union}} (1922–1991; previously as the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], 1917–1922)
** {{flag|Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic|name=Soviet Byelorussia}} (1919–1991, UN member state from 1945)
** {{flag|Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|name=Soviet Ukraine}} (1919–1991, UN member state from 1945)

===Other Communist states===
* {{Flagcountry|Democratic Republic of Afghanistan|1980}} (1978–1991)
* {{Flagcountry|People's Republic of Angola}} (1975–1991)
* {{Flagcountry|People's Republic of Benin}} (1975–1990)
* {{flagicon|People's Republic of Kampuchea}} [[People's Republic of Kampuchea|Cambodia]] (1979–1989)
** {{flagicon|Cambodia|1989}} [[People's Republic of Kampuchea#Transition|State of Cambodia]] (1989–1991)
* {{Flag|China}} (1949–1961){{efn|See [[Sino–Soviet split]]}}
* {{Flagcountry|People's Republic of the Congo}} (1963–1991)
* {{Flag|Cuba}} (1959–1991)
* {{Flagcountry|People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia}} (1987–1991) 
** {{flagicon image|Flag of Ethiopia (1975–1987, with emblem).svg}} [[Derg|Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia]] (1974–1987)
* {{Flagdeco|Grenada}} [[People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada)|Grenada]] (1979–1983)
* {{Flag|North Korea|1948}} (1948–1990)
* {{Flag|Laos}} (1975–1989)
* {{Flagdeco|Madagascar}} [[Democratic Republic of Madagascar|Madagascar]] (1975–1990)
* {{Flagcountry|Mongolian People's Republic}} (1924–1990)
* {{Flagcountry|People's Republic of Mozambique|1975}} (1975–1990)
* {{Flagdeco|Somalia}} [[Somali Democratic Republic|Somalia]] (1969–1977)
* {{Flag|South Yemen}} (1967–1990)
* {{Flag|Vietnam}} (1976–1989) 
** {{Flagdeco|Vietnam}} [[North Vietnam]] (1954–1976) 
*** {{flagicon|Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam}} [[Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam|Republic of South Vietnam]] (1975–1976)
* {{Flagcountry|Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia}} (1945–1948){{efn|See [[Tito–Stalin split]]}}

===Other aligned states===
[[File:Communist Block.svg|thumb|250px|States that had communist governments in red, states that the Soviet Union believed at one point to be [[moving toward socialism]] in orange, and other states allied with the Soviet Union at some point in yellow]]
* {{flag|Algeria}} (1962–1991)
* {{flagicon|Bangladesh}} [[Bangladesh]] (1971–1975)
* {{flagicon|Burkina Faso}} [[History of Burkina Faso#Burkina Faso|Burkina Faso]] (1983–1987)
* {{flagicon|Burma|1974}} [[Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma|Burma]] ([[1962 Burmese coup d'état|1962]]–[[8888 Uprising|1988]])
* {{flag|Burundi}} (1966–1991)
* {{flag|Chad}} (1979–1982)
* {{flag|Cape Verde|1975}} (1975–1990)
* {{flag|Chile}} ([[Presidency of Salvador Allende|1970–1973]]){{efn|Soviet-Chilean alliance ended with the overthrow of the Allende government in a [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|military coup]], after which Chile became a Cold War ally of the United States. The Soviet Union would later support an [[Armed resistance in Chile (1973–1990)|armed insurgency]] against the military government until Chile returned to democracy in 1990.}}<ref>"[http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/lang_2/doc_1140.html Soviet Intelligence in Latin America During the Cold War] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100228185053/http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/lang_2/doc_1140.html |date=28 February 2010 }}", Lectures by General Nikolai Leonov, Centro de Estudios Publicos (Chile), 22 September 1999.</ref>
* {{flagdeco|Comoros|1975}} [[State of the Comoros|Comoros]] (1975–1978)
* {{flag|Djibouti}} (1981–1991)
* {{flagicon image|Flag of Egypt (1952–1958).svg}} [[Republic of Egypt (1953–1958)|Republic of Egypt]] (1953–1958)
** {{flagicon|Egypt|1958}} [[United Arab Republic]] (1958–1971)
*** {{flagicon|Egypt|1972}} [[History of Egypt under Anwar Sadat#Domestic policy and the Infitah{{!}}Arab Republic of Egypt]] (1971–1974)
* {{flag|Equatorial Guinea}} (1968–1979)
* {{flag|Ghana|1964}} (1960–1966)
* {{flag|Guinea}} (1960–1984)
* {{flagicon|Guinea Bissau}} [[Guinea Bissau]] (1973–1991)
* {{flag|Guyana}} (1980–1991)
* {{flag|India}} (1971–1991)
* {{flagicon|Indonesia}} [[Indonesia]] ([[Guided Democracy in Indonesia|1959–1965]])
* {{flag|Iran}} (1979–1991)
* {{flagicon|Iraq|1959}} [[First Republic of Iraq|Republic of Iraq]] (1958–1963)
** {{flagicon|Iraq|1963}} [[Arab Socialist Union (Iraq)|Nasserist Iraq]] (1963–1968)
*** {{flagicon|Ba'athist Iraq}} [[Ba'athist Iraq]] (1968–1979)
* {{flag|Israel}} ([[David Ben-Gurion|1948–1953]])<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Forgotten Friendship: Israel and the Soviet Bloc 1947–1953|first=Ilana|last=Kass|journal=[[American Political Science Review]]|volume=71|issue=3|date=September 1977|pages=1304–1305|doi=10.2307/1960285 |jstor=1960285 |s2cid=146764535 |issn=0003-0554}}</ref>
* {{flagicon|Libya|1972}} [[History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi#Libyan Arab Republic (1969–1977)|Libyan Arab Republic]] (1969–1977)
** {{flagicon|Libya|1977}} [[Libyan Arab Jamahiriya]] (1977–1991)
* {{flag|Mali}} (1960–1991)
* {{flagdeco|Mauritania|1959}} [[Republic of Mauritania (1960-1978)|Mauritania]] (1961–[[1984 Mauritanian coup d'état|1984]])
* {{Flag|Nicaragua}} (1979–1990)
* {{flag|Peru}} ([[Juan Velasco Alvarado#Military dictatorship (1968–1975)|1968–1975]])
* {{flag|Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic}} (1976–1991)
* {{flag|Sao Tome and Principe}} (1975–1991)
* {{flagdeco|Seychelles|1977}} [[One-party rule in Seychelles|Seychelles]] (1977–1991)
* {{flagdeco|Sudan}} [[Democratic Republic of the Sudan]] ([[1969 Sudanese coup d'état|1969]]–[[1971 Sudanese coup d'état|1971]])
* {{flag|Suriname}} ([[1980 Surinamese coup d'état|1980]]–1987) ([[1990 Surinamese coup d'état|1990]]–1991)
* {{flagicon image|Flag of Syria (1930–1958, 1961–1963).svg}} [[Second Syrian Republic|Syria]] ([[Syrian Crisis of 1957|1957]]–[[1958 Syrian United Arab Republic referendum|1958]])
** {{flagicon|United Arab Republic}} [[United Arab Republic|Nasserist Syria]] ([[1958 Syrian United Arab Republic referendum|1958]]–[[1961 Syrian coup d'état|1961]])
*** {{flagicon|Syria|1980}} [[Ba'athist Syria]] ([[1963 Syrian coup d'état|1963]]–1991)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sunayama |first=Sonoko |title=Syria and Saudi Arabia: Collaboration and Conflicts in the Oil Era |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-84511-302-5 |location=New York |pages=31}}</ref><ref name="Gasztold-Seń, Trentin, Adamec 2014"/><ref name="Ginat 150–171"/>
* {{flag|Tanzania}} (1964–1991)
* {{flag|Tunisia|1957}} (1964–1988)
* {{flagdeco|Uganda}} [[History of Uganda (1963–1971)|First Republic of Uganda]] ([[Mengo Crisis|1966]]–[[1971 Ugandan coup d'état|1971]])
**{{flagdeco|Uganda}} [[History of Uganda (1979–1986)|Third Republic of Uganda]] (1979-1980)
***{{flagdeco|Uganda}} [[National Resistance Movement|Fourth Republic of Uganda]] ([[Ugandan Bush War|1986]]-1991)
* {{flagicon|North Yemen}} [[Yemen Arab Republic|North Yemen]] ([[North Yemen civil war|1962]]–1972)
* {{flag|Zambia}} (1964–1991)
* {{flag|Zimbabwe}} (1980–1991)

==Foundation history==
[[File:EasternBloc BorderChange38-48.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|Eastern Bloc Area Border changes 1938 to 1948]]

In 1922, the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], the [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]], the [[Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic|Byelorussian SSR]] and the [[Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic|Transcaucasian SFSR]] approved the [[Treaty of Creation of the USSR]] and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the [[Soviet Union]].<ref>Julian Towster. ''Political Power in the U.S.S.R., 1917–1947: The Theory and Structure of Government in the Soviet State'' Oxford Univ. Press, 1948. p. 106</ref> Soviet leader [[Joseph Stalin]], 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".<ref name="tucker46">{{Harvnb|Tucker|1992|p=46}}</ref>

===Expansion of the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1940===
{{Main|Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact|Soviet invasion of Poland|Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union|Occupation of the Baltic states|Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|Winter War|Moscow Armistice}}

In 1939, the USSR entered into the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] with [[Nazi Germany]]<ref name="britannicamr"/> that contained a secret protocol that divided Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland into German and Soviet spheres of influence.<ref name="britannicamr">Encyclopædia Britannica, ''German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact'', 2008</ref><ref name="mrtext">[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html ''Text of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141114231303/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html |date=14 November 2014 }}, executed 23 August 1939</ref> Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and [[Bessarabia]] in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the [[Soviet sphere of influence]].<ref name="mrtext"/> Lithuania was added in a second secret protocol in September 1939.<ref name="christie">Christie, Kenneth, ''Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: Ghosts at the Table of Democracy'', RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, {{ISBN|0-7007-1599-1}}</ref>

The [[Soviet invasion of Poland|Soviet Union had invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it]] by the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland.<ref name="stalinswars43">{{Harvnb|Roberts|2006|p=43}}</ref><ref name="sanford">{{Citation |author-link=George Sanford (scholar) |last=Sanford |first=George |year=2005 |title=Katyn and the Soviet Massacre Of 1940: Truth, Justice And Memory |location=London, New York |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0-415-33873-8}}</ref> During the [[Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union|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".<ref name="Nekrich131">{{Harvnb|Nekrich|Ulam|Freeze|1997|p=131}}</ref> Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of [[sovietization]]<ref name="Sowietyzacja">{{Citation | title =Sowietyzacja Kresów Wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej po 17 wrzesnia 1939 | year =1998 | editor =Adam Sudol | page =441 | publisher=Wyzsza Szkola Pedagogiczna | location =Bydgoszcz | isbn =978-83-7096-281-4 |language=pl}}</ref><ref name="Relocation">{{Citation | title =Demography and National Security | year =2001 | editor =Myron Weiner, Sharon Stanton Russell | pages =308–315 | chapter =Stalinist Forced Relocation Policies | chapter-url =https://books.google.com/books?id=J9nuv7MGQ5MC&q=Sovietization&pg=PA309 | publisher=Berghahn Books | isbn =978-1-57181-339-8}}</ref> of the [[Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union|newly Soviet-annexed areas]].<ref>The Soviets organized staged elections,{{in lang|pl}} Bartlomiej Kozlowski [http://kalendarium.polska.pl/wydarzenia/article.htm?id=132394 ''Wybory" do Zgromadzen Ludowych Zachodniej Ukrainy i Zachodniej Bialorusi''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090923190801/http://kalendarium.polska.pl/wydarzenia/article.htm?id=132394 |date=23 September 2009 }}, [[Naukowa i Akademicka Sieć Komputerowa|NASK]], 2005, Polska.pl, the result of which was to become a legitimization of Soviet annexation of eastern Poland. [[Jan Tomasz Gross]], ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=XKtOr4EXOWwC&pg=PA71 Revolution from Abroad]'', Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 396 {{ISBN|0-691-09603-1}}</ref><ref>Soviet authorities attempted to erase Polish history and culture, Trela-Mazur, Elzbieta, ''Sowietyzacja oswiaty w Malopolsce Wschodniej pod radziecka okupacja 1939–1941 (Sovietization of Education in Eastern Lesser Poland During the Soviet Occupation 1939–1941)'', ed. Wlodzimierz Bonusiak, ''et al''. (eds.), Wyzsza Szkola Pedagogiczna im. Jana Kochanowskiego, 1997, {{ISBN|978-83-7133-100-8}}</ref><ref>Soviet authorities withdrew the [[Polish złoty|Polish currency]] without exchanging rubles,{{in lang|pl}}, [[Karolina Lanckoronska]] ''Wspomnienia wojenne; 22 IX 1939 – 5 IV 1945'', 2001, ed, p. 364, [http://www.lwow.com.pl/karolina.html Chapter I – Lwów] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327101720/http://www.lwow.com.pl/karolina.html |date=27 March 2009 }}, ZNAK, {{ISBN|83-240-0077-1}}</ref> Soviet authorities [[collective farming|collectivized]] agriculture,<ref name="PWN OKUPACJA SOWIECKA W POLSCE 1939–41">{{cite web |url=https://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo/okupacja-sowiecka-ziem-polskich;3950665.html |title=okupacja sowiecka ziem polskich 1939–41 |trans-title=Soviet occupation of Polish territories 1939–41 |language=pl |website=[[Internetowa encyklopedia PWN|Encyklopedia PWN]] |access-date=6 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190324085324/https://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo/okupacja-sowiecka-ziem-polskich;3950665.html |archive-date=24 March 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> and [[nationalized]] and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property.<ref name="Piotrowski_11">{{Harvnb|Piotrowski|2007|p=11}}</ref><ref>Soviet authorities regarded service for the pre-war Polish state as a "crime against revolution" [[Gustaw Herling-Grudziński]], ''A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II'', 1996, p. 284, [[Penguin Books]], {{ISBN|0-14-025184-7}} and "counter-revolutionary activity",{{in lang|pl}} [[Władysław Anders]], ''Bez ostatniego rozdzialu'', 1995, p. 540, Test, {{ISBN|83-7038-168-5}} and subsequently started arresting large numbers of Polish citizens.</ref><ref>During the initial Soviet invasion of Poland, between [[Polish prisoners-of-war in the Soviet Union after 1939|230,000 to 450,000 Poles were taken as prisoner, some of which were executed]] (see also [[Katyn massacre]]).[[George Sanford (political scientist)|Sanford]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=PZXvUuvfv-oC&pg=PA20 Google Books, pp. 20-24.]; [[Benjamin Fischer (historian)|Fischer, Benjamin B.]], "[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/winter99-00/art6.html The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100324185250/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/winter99-00/art6.html |date=24 March 2010 }}", ''[[Studies in Intelligence]]'', Winter 1999–2000; [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/pdf/v43i3a06p.pdf ''Stalin's Killing Field''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080709144143/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/pdf/v43i3a06p.pdf |date=9 July 2008 }}</ref>

Initial Soviet [[Occupation of the Baltic states|occupations of the Baltic countries]] had occurred in mid-June 1940, when Soviet NKVD troops raided border posts in [[History of Lithuania#First Soviet occupation|Lithuania]], [[Estonia in World War II#Soviet occupation|Estonia]] and [[Latvia#Latvia in World War II|Latvia]],<ref name="wettig20">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=20}}</ref><ref name="senn">Senn, Alfred Erich, ''Lithuania 1940 : revolution from above'', Amsterdam, New York, Rodopi, 2007 {{ISBN|978-90-420-2225-6}}</ref> followed by the liquidation of state administrations and replacement by Soviet cadres.<ref name="wettig20"/><ref>34,250 Latvians, 75,000 Lithuanians and almost 60,000 Estonians were deported or killed. [[Simon Sebag Montefiore]], ''Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar'', p. 334</ref> Elections for parliament and other offices were held with single candidates listed and the official results fabricated, purporting pro-Soviet candidates' approval by 92.8 percent of the voters in Estonia, 97.6 percent in Latvia, and 99.2 percent in Lithuania.<ref name="wettig21">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=21}}</ref><ref>Furthermore, the Latvian results are known to be fabrications, having been accidentally released to the press in London and published a day ahead of schedule. Visvaldis, Mangulis, ''Latvia in the Wars of the 20th century'', 1983, Princeton Junction: Cognition Books, {{ISBN|0-912881-00-3}}, Chapter=VIII. September 1939 to June 1941; Švābe, Arvīds. ''The Story of Latvia''. Latvian National Foundation. Stockholm. 1949. Feldbrugge, Ferdinand et al., ''Encyclopedia of Soviet Law'', 1985, Brill, {{ISBN|90-247-3075-9}}, p. 460</ref> The fraudulently installed "people's assemblies" immediately declared each of the three corresponding countries to be "Soviet Socialist Republics" and requested their "admission into [[Stalin]]'s Soviet Union". This formally resulted in the Soviet Union's annexation of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in August 1940.<ref name="wettig21"/> The international community condemned this annexation of the three Baltic countries and deemed it illegal.<ref name="smithpabriksxix">{{Harvnb|Smith|Pabriks|Purs|Lane|2002|p=xix}}</ref><ref name="oconnor117">{{Harvnb|O'Connor|2003|p=117}}</ref>

In 1939, the Soviet Union unsuccessfully [[Winter War|attempted an invasion of Finland]],<ref name="ckpipe">{{Citation|last=Kennedy-Pip|first=Caroline|title=Stalin's Cold War|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=1995|isbn=978-0-7190-4201-0}}</ref> subsequent to which the parties entered into an [[Moscow Peace Treaty|interim peace treaty]] granting the Soviet Union a portion of the eastern region of [[Karelia]] (10% of Finnish territory),<ref name="ckpipe"/> and the [[Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic]] was established by merging the ceded territories with the [[Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic|KASSR]]. After a June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum demanding Bessarabia, [[Bukovina]], and the [[Hertsa region]] from Romania,<ref name="stalinswars55">{{Harvnb|Roberts|2006|p=55}}</ref><ref name="shirer794">{{Harvnb|Shirer|1990|p=794}}</ref> the Soviets entered these areas, Romania caved to Soviet demands and the [[Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|Soviets occupied the territories]].<ref name="stalinswars55"/><ref>The occupation accompanied [[religious persecution during the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina]] and [[Soviet deportations from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina]].</ref>

===Eastern Front and Allied conferences===
{{further|Operation Barbarossa|Eastern Front (World War II)|List of World War II conferences|Yalta Conference|Potsdam Conference}}
[[File:Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W).jpg|thumb|left|The Big Three ([[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|British Prime Minister]] [[Winston Churchill]], [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and [[Premier of the Soviet Union]] [[Joseph Stalin]]) at the [[Yalta Conference]], February 1945]]
In June 1941, Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by [[Operation Barbarossa|invading the Soviet Union]]. From the time of this invasion to 1944, the areas annexed by the Soviet Union were part of Germany's [[Reichskommissariat Ostland|Ostland]] (except for the [[Moldavian SSR]]). Thereafter, the Soviet Union began to push German forces westward through a series of battles on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]].

In the aftermath of [[Continuation War|World War II on the Soviet-Finnish border]], the parties [[Moscow Armistice|signed another peace treaty ceding to the Soviet Union]] 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]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://heninen.net/sopimus/1944_e.htm|title=Armistice Agreement|date=1997|access-date=27 August 2019}}</ref>

From 1943 to 1945, several [[List of World War II conferences|conferences regarding Post-War Europe]] occurred that, in part, addressed the potential Soviet annexation and control of countries in Central Europe. There were various Allied plans for state order in Central Europe for post-war. While [[Joseph Stalin]] tried to get as many states under Soviet control as possible, British Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]] preferred a Central European Danube Confederation to counter these countries against Germany and Russia.<ref>[https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/churchill-und-die-deutschen-a-946593.html "Churchill and the Germans" in Der Spiegel, 13 August 2010.]</ref> Churchill's Soviet policy regarding Central Europe differed vastly from that of American President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], with the former believing Soviet leader Stalin to be a "devil"-like tyrant leading a vile system.<ref name="miscamble51">{{Harvnb|Miscamble|2007|p=51}}</ref>

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.&nbsp;... 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".<ref name="miscamble52">{{Harvnb|Miscamble|2007|p=52}}</ref> While meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt in [[Tehran Conference|Tehran]] in 1943, Churchill stated that Britain was vitally interested in restoring Poland as a politically independent country.<ref name="wettig44"/> Britain did not press the matter for fear that it would become a source of inter-allied friction.<ref name="wettig44">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=44}}</ref>

In February 1945, at the [[Yalta Conference|conference at Yalta]], Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of political influence in Central Europe.<ref name="stalinswars241"/> Stalin eventually was convinced by Churchill and Roosevelt not to dismember Germany.<ref name="stalinswars241"/> Stalin stated that the Soviet Union would keep the territory of eastern Poland they had already [[Soviet invasion of Poland|taken via invasion in 1939]] with [[Territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II|some exceptions]], and wanted a pro-Soviet Polish government in power in what would remain of Poland.<ref name="stalinswars241">{{Harvnb|Roberts|2006|pp=241 & 244}}</ref> After resistance by Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin promised a re-organization of the current [[Polish Committee of National Liberation|pro-Soviet government]] on a broader democratic basis in Poland.<ref name="stalinswars241"/> He stated that the new government's primary task would be to prepare elections.<ref name="wettig47">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|pp=47–8}}</ref> However, the [[1946 Polish people's referendum]] (known as the "Three Times Yes" referendum) and the subsequent [[1947 Polish parliamentary election]] did not meet democratic standards and were largely manipulated.<ref name="NS">{{cite book |editor1-last=Nohlen |editor1-first=Dieter |editor2-last=Stöver |editor2-first=Philip |editor1-link=Dieter Nohlen |title=Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook |date=2010 |publisher=Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft |isbn=978-3832956097 |page=1475}}</ref>

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".<ref name="yaltareport">11 February 1945 Potsdam Report, ''reprinted in'' Potsdam Ashley, John, Soames Grenville and Bernard Wasserstein, ''The Major International Treaties of the Twentieth Century: A History and Guide with Texts'', Taylor & Francis, 2001 {{ISBN|0-415-23798-X}}</ref> 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".<ref name="yaltareport"/>

At the beginning of the July–August 1945 [[Potsdam Conference]] after Germany's unconditional surrender, Stalin repeated previous promises to Churchill that he would refrain from a "[[sovietization]]" of Central Europe.<ref name="stalinswars274">{{Harvnb|Roberts|2006|pp=274–78}}</ref> 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.<ref name="wettig90"/> A clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations.<ref name="wettig90">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|pp=90–1}}</ref>

==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]]".<ref name="wettig37"/> As a young communist was told in East Germany, "it's got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control".<ref>{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=211}}</ref> 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.<ref name="wettig36"/> The Soviet Union also co-opted the Eastern European countries into its sphere of influence by making reference to some cultural commonalities.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Lewkowicz|first=Nicolas|title=The United States, the Soviet Union and the Geopolitical Implications of the Origins of the Cold War|publisher=Anthem Press|year=2018|isbn=978-1783087990|location=New York|page=119}}</ref>

Moscow-trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation.<ref name="wettig36">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=36}}</ref> Elimination of the [[bourgeoisie]]'s social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority.<ref name="wettig37">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=37}}</ref> These measures were publicly billed as "reforms" rather than socioeconomic transformations.<ref name="wettig37"/> 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".<ref name="wettig38">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=38}}</ref> The bloc system permitted the Soviet Union to exercise domestic control indirectly.<ref name="wettig39">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=39}}</ref>

Crucial departments such as those responsible for personnel, general police, secret police and youth were strictly Communist run.<ref name="wettig39"/> Moscow cadres distinguished "progressive forces" from "reactionary elements" and rendered both powerless. Such procedures were repeated until Communists had gained unlimited power and only politicians who were unconditionally supportive of Soviet policy remained.<ref name="wettig41">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=41}}</ref>

==Early events prompting stricter control==
{{see also|Formation of the Eastern Bloc}}

===Marshall Plan rejection===
{{further|Marshall Plan}}
[[File:Europe-blocs-49-89x4.svg|thumb|left|250px|Political situation in Europe during the [[Cold War]]]]
In June 1947, after the Soviets had refused to negotiate a potential lightening of restrictions on German development, the United States announced the [[Marshall Plan]], a comprehensive program of American assistance to all European countries wanting to participate, including the Soviet Union and those of Eastern Europe.<ref name="miller16">{{Harvnb|Miller|2000|p=16}}</ref> The Soviets rejected the Plan and took a hard-line position against the United States and non-communist European nations.<ref name="wettig139">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=139}}</ref> However, Czechoslovakia was eager to accept the US aid; the Polish government had a similar attitude, and this was of great concern to the Soviets.<ref>{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=138}}</ref>

{{Three worlds}}
In one of the clearest signs of Soviet control over the region up to that point, the Czechoslovakian foreign minister, [[Jan Masaryk]], was summoned to Moscow and berated by Stalin for considering joining the Marshall Plan. Polish Prime minister [[Józef Cyrankiewicz]] was rewarded for the Polish rejection of the Plan with a huge 5-year trade agreement, including $450&nbsp;million in credit, 200,000 tons of grain, heavy machinery and factories.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855998,00.html |title=Carnations |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=9 February 1948 |access-date=1 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114182613/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855998,00.html |archive-date=14 January 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

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 II]] division of Europe.<ref name="bideleaux"/> Thereafter, Stalin sought stronger control over other Eastern Bloc countries, abandoning the prior appearance of democratic institutions.<ref name="wettig148">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=148}}</ref> When it appeared that, in spite of heavy pressure, non-communist parties might receive in excess of 40% of the vote in the [[1947 Hungarian parliamentary election|August 1947 Hungarian elections]], repressions were instituted to liquidate any independent political forces.<ref name="wettig148"/>

In that same month, annihilation of the opposition in Bulgaria began on the basis of continuing instructions by Soviet cadres.<ref name="wettig148"/><ref name="wettig149">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=149}}</ref> At a late September 1947 meeting of all communist parties in [[Szklarska Poręba]],<ref name="wettig140">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=140}}</ref> 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.<ref name="wettig148"/>

===Berlin blockade and airlift===
{{main|Berlin Blockade}}
[[File:Germans-airlift-1948.jpg|thumb|left|German civilians watching Western supply planes at [[Berlin Tempelhof Airport]] during the [[Berlin Blockade|Berlin Airlift]]]]
In the former German capital Berlin, surrounded by Soviet-occupied Germany, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade on 24 June 1948, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in [[West Berlin]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Gaddis|2005|p=33}}</ref> The blockade was caused, in part, by early local elections of October 1946 in which the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]] (SED) was rejected in favor of the Social Democratic Party, which had gained two and a half times more votes than the SED.<ref name="turner19">{{Harvnb|Turner|1987|p=19}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Harvnb|Miller|2000|pp=65–70}}</ref>

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,<ref name="turner29">{{Harvnb|Turner|1987|p=29}}</ref> while 300,000 Berliners demonstrated and urged the international airlift to continue.<ref>Fritsch-Bournazel, Renata, ''Confronting the German Question: Germans on the East-West Divide'', Berg Publishers, 1990, {{ISBN|0-85496-684-6}}, p. 143</ref> In May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin.<ref name="Gaddis 2005, p. 34">{{Harvnb|Gaddis|2005|p=34}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Miller|2000|pp=180–81}}</ref>

===Tito–Stalin split===
{{further|Tito–Stalin split}}
After disagreements between Yugoslav leader [[Josip Broz Tito]] and the Soviet Union regarding Greece and [[Socialist People's Republic of Albania|Albania]], a [[Tito–Stalin split]] occurred, followed by Yugoslavia being expelled from the [[Cominform]] in June 1948 and a brief failed Soviet putsch in Belgrade.<ref name="wettig156">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=156}}</ref> The split created two separate communist forces in Europe.<ref name="wettig156"/> A vehement campaign against [[Titoism]] was immediately started in the Eastern Bloc, describing agents of both the West and Tito in all places as engaging in subversive activity.<ref name="wettig156"/>

Stalin ordered the conversion of the [[Cominform]] into an instrument to monitor and control the internal affairs of other Eastern Bloc parties.<ref name="wettig156"/> He also briefly considered converting the Cominform into an instrument for sentencing high-ranking deviators, but dropped the idea as impractical.<ref name="wettig156"/> Instead, a move to weaken communist party leaders through conflict was started.<ref name="wettig156"/> 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.<ref name="wettig156"/> This accompanied a continuous stream of accusations of "nationalistic deviations", "insufficient appreciation of the USSR's role", links with Tito and "espionage for Yugoslavia".<ref name="wettig157"/> This resulted in the persecution of many major party cadres, including those in East Germany.<ref name="wettig157">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=157}}</ref>

The first country to experience this approach was [[Socialist People's Republic of Albania|Albania]], where leader [[Enver Hoxha]] immediately changed course from favoring Yugoslavia to opposing it.<ref name="wettig157"/> In [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]], leader [[Władysław Gomułka]], who had previously made pro-Yugoslav statements, was deposed as party secretary-general in early September 1948 and subsequently jailed.<ref name="wettig157"/> In [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|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.<ref name="wettig157"/> A number of other high ranking Bulgarian officials were also jailed.<ref name="wettig157"/> Stalin and Hungarian leader [[Mátyás Rákosi]] met in Moscow to orchestrate a show trial of Rákosi opponent [[László Rajk]], who was thereafter executed.<ref name="wettig158">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=158}}</ref> The preservation of the Soviet bloc relied on maintaining a sense of ideological unity that would entrench Moscow's influence in Eastern Europe as well as the power of the local Communist elites.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Lewkowicz|first=Nicolas|title=The Role of Ideology in the Origins of the Cold War|publisher=Scholar's Press|year=2020|isbn=978-620-2317269|location=Saarbrucken|page=55}}</ref>

The port city of [[Trieste]] was a particular focus after the Second World War. Until the break between Tito and Stalin, the Western powers and the Eastern bloc faced each other uncompromisingly. The neutral buffer state [[Free Territory of Trieste]], founded in 1947 with the United Nations, was split up and dissolved in 1954 and 1975, also because of the détente between the West and Tito.<ref>Christian Jennings "Flashpoint Trieste: The First Battle of the Cold War", (2017), pp 244.</ref><ref>Karlo Ruzicic-Kessler "Togliatti, Tito and the Shadow of Moscow 1944/45–1948: Post-War Territorial Disputes and the Communist World", In: Journal of European Integration History, (2/2014).</ref>

==Politics==
{{main|Eastern Bloc politics}}
[[File:Communist block.svg|thumb|left|300px|Countries which once had overtly [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] governments in bright red and countries the USSR considered at one point to be "moving toward socialism" in orange]]
Despite the initial [[Stalinism|institutional design of communism implemented]] by [[Joseph Stalin]] in the Eastern Bloc, subsequent development varied across countries.<ref name="hardt11">{{Harvnb|Hardt|Kaufman|1995|p=11}}</ref> 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.<ref name="wettig108">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|pp=108–9}}</ref> Right from the beginning, Stalin directed systems that rejected Western institutional characteristics of [[market economy|market economies]], capitalist parliamentary democracy (dubbed "bourgeois democracy" in Soviet parlance) and the rule of law subduing discretional intervention by the state.<ref name="hardt12">{{Harvnb|Hardt|Kaufman|1995|p=12}}</ref> The resulting states aspired to total control of a political center backed by an extensive and active repressive apparatus, and a central role of [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] ideology.<ref name="hardt12"/>
[[File:Eastern block flags.png|thumb|300x300px|Communist countries and [[Soviet republic (system of government)|Soviet republics]] in Europe with their representative flags (1950s)]]
However, the vestiges of democratic institutions were never entirely destroyed, resulting in the façade of democratic-style institutions such as [[supreme state organ of power]], which effectively just rubber-stamped decisions made by rulers, and [[communist state constitution]]s, to which adherence by authorities was limited or non-existent.<ref name="hardt12"/> 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.<ref name="crampton246">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=246}}</ref>

The first or General Secretary of the [[central committee]] in each [[communist party]] was the most powerful figure in each regime.<ref name="crampton244">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=244}}</ref> The party over which the [[politburo]] 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.<ref name="crampton245">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=245}}</ref> Those who secured membership in this selective group received considerable rewards, such as access to special lower priced shops with a greater selection of high-quality domestic and/or foreign goods ([[confection]]s, [[alcohol (drug)|alcohol]], [[cigar]]s, [[camera]]s, [[television]]s, and the like), special schools, holiday facilities, homes, high-quality domestic and/or foreign-made furniture, works of art, pensions, permission to travel abroad, and official cars with distinct license plates so that police and others could identify these members from a distance.<ref name="crampton245"/>

===Political and civil restrictions===
{{further|Political repression in the Soviet Union|Human rights in the Soviet Union|Elections in the Soviet Union|Population transfer in the Soviet Union|Gulag|Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc|Suppressed research in the Soviet Union|Samizdat|Sharashka}}
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 [[History of Poland (1945–1989)#Final decade of the Polish People's Republic (1980–89)|Poland in the 1980s]].<ref name="hardt18">{{Harvnb|Hardt|Kaufman|1995|p=18}}</ref> While the institutional design of 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.<ref name="hardt18"/> 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.<ref name="wettig40">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=40}}</ref> Thus, "politically unreliable" non-communists initially had to fill such roles.<ref name="wettig40"/> 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.<ref name="wettig40"/> Former members of the middle-class were officially discriminated against, though the state's need for their skills and certain opportunities to re-invent themselves as good Communist citizens did allow many to nonetheless achieve success.<ref name="James, M (2005)">{{cite journal |last1=Mark |first1=James |title=Discrimination, opportunity, and middle-class success in early Communist Hungary |journal=The Historical Journal |date=June 2005 |volume=48 |issue=2 |pages=499–521 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X05004486 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/33CC6D7338635CA31C36D84DE015E1AD/S0018246X05004486a.pdf/div-class-title-discrimination-opportunity-and-middle-class-success-in-early-communist-hungary-div.pdf |archive-date=27 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190427095703/https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/33CC6D7338635CA31C36D84DE015E1AD/S0018246X05004486a.pdf/div-class-title-discrimination-opportunity-and-middle-class-success-in-early-communist-hungary-div.pdf |access-date=17 May 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc viewed marginal groups of opposition intellectuals as a potential threat because of the bases underlying Communist power therein.<ref name="Pollackxiv">{{Harvnb|Pollack|Wielgohs|2004|p=xiv}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Pollackxiv"/> 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.<ref name="Pollackxv">{{Harvnb|Pollack|Wielgohs|2004|p=xv}}</ref> Juries were replaced by a tribunal of professional judges and two lay assessors that were dependable party actors.<ref name="crampton247">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=247}}</ref>

The police deterred and contained opposition to party directives.<ref name="crampton247"/> 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 State.<ref name="crampton247"/> Several state police and secret police organizations enforced communist party rule, including the following:
* Soviet Union – [[KGB]]
* East Germany – [[Stasi]], [[Volkspolizei]] and [[Combat Groups of the Working Class|KdA]]
* Czechoslovakia – [[StB|STB]] and [[People's Militias (Czechoslovakia)|LM]]
* Bulgaria – [[Committee for State Security (Bulgaria)|KDS]], usually referred to as just "Darzhavna sigurnost" ("State Security")
* Albania – [[Sigurimi]]
* Yugoslavia – [[Directorate for State Security (Yugoslavia)|UDBA]]
* Hungary – [[State Protection Authority|ÁVH]] and [[Workers' Militia|Munkásőrség]]
* Romania – [[Securitate]] and [[Patriotic Guards (Romania)|GP]]
* Poland – [[Urząd Bezpieczeństwa]], [[Służba Bezpieczeństwa]] and [[ZOMO]]

===Media and information restrictions===
<!-- Commented out: [[File:Esti-Budapest-6-October-1956.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|''[[Esti Budapest]]'', 6 October]] -->
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Rude pravo.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[Rudé Právo]] poster stating: "More work for our republic – that's our agitation!" "Strength of Communist Party – strength of the republic!" "Rudé Právo for every family"]] -->

{{main|Eastern Bloc media and propaganda}}
{{further|Deutscher Fernsehfunk|Mass media in Communist Czechoslovakia|Propaganda in the People's Republic of Poland|Propaganda in the Soviet Union|Soviet Information Bureau}}

[[File:TrybunaLudu3.png|thumb|upright=1.2|Announcement of [[martial law in Poland]] by ''[[Trybuna Ludu]]'',14 December 1981]]
The press in the communist period was an organ of the state, completely reliant on and subservient to the communist party.<ref name="oneil15">{{Harvnb|O'Neil|1997|p=15}}</ref> 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.<ref name="oneil25">{{Harvnb|O'Neil|1997|p=125}}</ref> Youth newspapers and magazines were owned by youth organizations affiliated with communist parties.<ref name="oneil25"/>

The control of the media was exercised directly by the communist party itself, and by state censorship, which was also controlled by the party.<ref name="oneil25"/> Media served as an important form of control over information and society.<ref name="oneil1">{{Harvnb|O'Neil|1997|p=1}}</ref> The dissemination and portrayal of knowledge were considered by authorities to be vital to communism's survival by stifling alternative concepts and critiques.<ref name="oneil1"/> Several state Communist Party newspapers were published, including:
* [[Central newspapers of the Soviet Union]]
* [[Trybuna Ludu|Trybuna Ludu (Poland)]]
* {{ill|Czerwony Sztandar (Vilnius)|pl|Czerwony Sztandar (Wilno)}} (1953–1990), Polish-language newspaper in Lithuanian SSR
* [[Népszabadság]] (until 1956 [[Szabad Nép]], Hungary)
* [[Neues Deutschland|Neues Deutschland (East Germany)]]
* [[Rabotnichesko Delo|Rabotnichesko Delo (Bulgaria)]]
* [[Rudé právo|Rudé právo (Czechoslovakia)]]
* [[Rahva Hääl|Rahva Hääl (annexed former Estonia)]]
* [[Pravda (Slovakia)]]
* [[Kauno diena|Kauno diena (annexed former Lithuania)]]
* [[Scînteia|Scînteia (Romania)]]
* [[Zvyazda|Zvyazda (Belarus)]].

The [[Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union|Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS)]] 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 [[NKVD]] and [[Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye|GRU]]. TASS had affiliates in 14 Soviet republics, including the [[Lithuanian SSR]], [[Latvian SSR]], [[Estonian SSR]], [[Moldavian SSR]]. [[Ukrainian SSR]] and [[Byelorussian SSR]].

Western countries invested heavily in powerful transmitters which enabled services such as the [[BBC]], [[VOA]] and [[Radio Free Europe]] (RFE) to be heard in the Eastern Bloc, despite attempts by authorities to jam the airways.

==Religion==
[[File:Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Baku.jpg|thumb|The [[Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Baku|Alexander Nevsky Cathedral]], once the most dominant landmark in [[Baku]], was demolished in the 1930s under Stalin.]]
{{main|Treatment of Christians in Communist Bloc countries}}
Under the [[state atheism]] of many Eastern Bloc nations, religion was actively suppressed.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hobby|first=Jeneen|title=Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life: Europe|year=2009|publisher=Gate|isbn=978-1-4144-6430-5}}</ref> Since some of these states tied their ethnic heritage to their national churches, both the peoples and their churches were targeted by the Soviets.<ref>President of Lithuania: Prisoner of the Gulag a Biography of [[Aleksandras Stulginskis]] by Afonsas Eidintas Genocide and Research Center of Lithuania {{ISBN|978-9986757412}} p. 23 "As early as August 1920 [[Lenin]] wrote to [[Ephraim Sklyansky]], President of the Revolutionary War Soviet: "We are surrounded by the greens (we pack it to them), we will move only about 10–20 versty and we will choke by hand the bourgeoisie, the clergy and the landowners. There will be an award of 100,000 rubles for each one hanged." He was speaking about the future actions in the countries neighboring Russia.</ref><ref>Christ Is Calling You : A Course in Catacomb Pastorship by Father [[George Calciu]] Published by Saint Hermans Press, 1997 {{ISBN|978-1-887904-52-0}}</ref>

==Organizations==
{{main|Cominform|Comecon|Warsaw Pact}}
In 1949, the [[Soviet Union]], Bulgaria, [[Czechoslovakia]], Hungary, Poland, and Romania founded the [[Comecon]] 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 Plan]],<ref name="loc-cs">Germany (East), Library of Congress Country Study, [http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/germany_east/gx_appnb.html ''Appendix B: The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501075842/http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/germany_east/gx_appnb.html |date=1 May 2009 }}</ref><ref name="crampton240">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=240}}</ref> and which were now, increasingly, cut off from their traditional markets and suppliers in Western Europe.<ref name="bideleaux">Bideleux, Robert and Ian Jeffries, ''A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change'', Routledge, 1998, {{ISBN|0-415-16111-8}}</ref> 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.<ref name="turnock26">{{Harvnb|Turnock|1997|p=26}}</ref> 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.<ref name="turnock27">{{Harvnb|Turnock|1997|p=27}}</ref>

In 1955, the [[Warsaw Pact]] was formed partly in response to [[NATO]]'s inclusion of [[West Germany]] and partly because the Soviets needed an excuse to retain [[Red Army]] units in Hungary.<ref name="crampton240"/> 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.<ref name="michta31">{{Harvnb|Michta|Mastny|1992|p=31}}</ref> 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.<ref name="michta31"/> Through its institutional structures, the Pact also compensated in part for the absence of Joseph Stalin's personal leadership since his death in 1953.<ref name="michta31"/> The Pact consolidated the other Bloc members' armies in which Soviet officers and security agents served under a unified Soviet command structure.<ref name="michta32">{{Harvnb|Michta|Mastny|1992|p=32}}</ref>

Beginning in 1964, Romania took a more independent course.<ref name="crampton313"/> While it did not repudiate either Comecon or the Warsaw Pact, it ceased to play a significant role in either.<ref name="crampton313">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|pp=312–3}}</ref> [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]]'s assumption of leadership one year later pushed Romania even further in the direction of separateness.<ref name="crampton313"/> Albania, which had become increasingly isolated under Stalinist leader [[Enver Hoxha]] following [[de-Stalinization]], undergoing an [[Albanian–Soviet split]] in 1961, withdrew from the Warsaw Pact in 1968<ref name="cook18">{{Harvnb|Cook|2001|p=18}}</ref> following the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia]].<ref name="crampton378">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=378}}</ref>

==Emigration restrictions and defectors==
{{main|Emigration from the Eastern Bloc}}
{{further|List of Eastern Bloc defectors|Berlin Wall|Republikflucht|Iron Curtain|Soviet Border Troops|Refusenik|Passport system in the Soviet Union|Grepo|Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic}}
In 1917, Russia restricted emigration by instituting passport controls and forbidding the exit of belligerent nationals.<ref name="dowty68">{{Harvnb|Dowty|1989|p=68}}</ref> In 1922, after the [[Treaty on the Creation of the USSR]], both the [[Ukrainian SSR]] and the [[Russian SFSR]] issued general rules for travel that foreclosed virtually all departures, making legal emigration impossible.<ref name="dowty69">{{Harvnb|Dowty|1989|p=69}}</ref> Border controls thereafter strengthened such that, by 1928, even illegal departure was effectively impossible.<ref name="dowty69"/> This later included [[Passport system in the Soviet Union|internal passport controls]], which when combined with individual city [[Propiska in the Soviet Union|Propiska]] ("place of residence") permits, and internal freedom of movement restrictions often called the [[101st kilometre]], greatly restricted mobility within even small areas of the Soviet Union.<ref name="dowty70">{{Harvnb|Dowty|1989|p=70}}</ref>

[[File:Berlin Wall Potsdamer Platz November 1975 looking east crop.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Berlin Wall]] in 1975]]
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.<ref name="dowty114">{{Harvnb|Dowty|1989|p=114}}</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.stmas.bayern.de/migration/aussiedler/aussstat.pdf ''Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Arbeit und Sozialordnung, Familie und Frauen, Statistik Spätaussiedler''] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090319224912/http://www.stmas.bayern.de/migration/aussiedler/aussstat.pdf |date=19 March 2009 }}, Bundesgebiet Bayern, Dezember 2007, p.3 (in German)</ref><ref name="loescher60">{{Harvnb|Loescher|2001|p=60}}</ref> One reason for the sharp 1953 increase was fear of potential further [[Sovietization]] with the increasingly paranoid{{dubious|date=September 2017}} actions of [[Joseph Stalin]] in late 1952 and early 1953.<ref name="loescher68">{{Harvnb|Loescher|2001|p=68}}</ref> 226,000 had fled in just the first six months of 1953.<ref name="dale17">{{Harvnb|Dale|2005|p=17}}</ref>

With the closing of the Inner German border officially in 1952,<ref name="harrison99">{{Harvnb|Harrison|2003|p=99}}</ref> the Berlin city sector borders remained considerably more accessible than the rest of the border because of their administration by all four occupying powers.<ref name="dowty121">{{Harvnb|Dowty|1989|p=121}}</ref> Accordingly, it effectively comprised a "loophole" through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still move west.<ref name="harrison99"/> The 3.5&nbsp;million East Germans that had left by 1961, called [[Republikflucht]], totaled approximately 20% of the entire East German population.<ref name="dowty122">{{Harvnb|Dowty|1989|p=122}}</ref> In August 1961, East Germany erected a barbed-wire barrier that would eventually be expanded through construction into the [[Berlin Wall]], effectively closing the loophole.<ref name="pearson75">{{Harvnb|Pearson|1998|p=75}}</ref>

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".<ref name="bocker209">{{Harvnb|Böcker|1998|p=209}}</ref> About 10% were refugee migrants under the Geneva Convention of 1951.<ref name="bocker209"/> 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.<ref>{{Harvnb|Krasnov|1985|p=1&126}}</ref> The fall of the [[Iron Curtain]] was accompanied by a massive rise in European East-West migration.<ref name="bocker209"/> Famous [[Eastern Bloc emigration and defection#Defectors|Eastern Bloc defectors]] included Joseph Stalin's daughter [[Svetlana Alliluyeva]], who denounced Stalin after her 1967 defection.<ref name="krasnov2">{{Harvnb|Krasnov|1985|p=2}}</ref> {{clear}}

==Population==
Eastern Bloc countries such as the Soviet Union had high rates of population growth. In 1917, the population of Russia in its present borders was 91&nbsp;million. Despite the destruction in the [[Russian Civil War]], the population grew to 92.7&nbsp;million in 1926. In 1939, the population increased by 17 percent to 108&nbsp;million. Despite more than 20&nbsp;million deaths suffered throughout World War II, Russia's population grew to 117.2&nbsp;million in 1959. The Soviet census of 1989 showed Russia's population at 147&nbsp;million people.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://kprf.ru/rus_soc/56296.html |title=Г.А.Зюганов. Система вымирания. Лидер КПРФ анализирует безрадостные итоги правления Путина. Демографическая проблема отражает все недуги общества |publisher=Kprf.ru |date=13 April 2008 |access-date=19 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402135400/http://kprf.ru/rus_soc/56296.html |archive-date=2 April 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Soviet economical and political system produced further consequences such as, for example, in [[Baltic states]], where the population was approximately half of what it should have been compared with similar countries such as Denmark, Finland and Norway over the years 1939–1990. Poor housing was one factor leading to severely declining birth rates throughout the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="sillince35"/> However, birth rates were still higher than in Western European countries. A reliance upon abortion, in part because periodic shortages of birth control pills and [[intrauterine devices]] made these systems unreliable,<ref name="frucht851">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Frucht|2003|p=851}}</ref> also depressed the birth rate and forced a shift to pro-natalist policies by the late 1960s, including severe checks on abortion and propagandist exhortations like the 'heroine mother' distinction bestowed on those [[People's Republic of Romania|Romanian]] women who bore ten or more children.<ref name="turnock17">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=17}}</ref>

In October 1966, artificial birth control was proscribed in [[People's Republic of Romania|Romania]] and regular pregnancy tests were mandated for women of child-bearing age, with severe penalties for anyone who was found to have terminated a pregnancy.<ref name="crampton355">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Crampton|1997|p=355}}</ref> Despite such restrictions, birth rates continued to lag, in part because of unskilled induced abortions.<ref name="turnock17"/> The populations of the Eastern Bloc countries were as follows:<ref name="turnock15">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=15}}</ref><ref>Andreev, E.M., et al., Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1922–1991. Moscow, Nauka, 1993. {{ISBN|978-5-02-013479-9}}</ref>

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left"
|+Eastern Bloc population
|-
!Country
!Area (000s)
!1950 (mil)
!1970 (mil)
!1980 (mil)
!1985 (mil)
!Annual growth (1950–1985)
!Density (1980)
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Albania|Albania]] || {{convert|28.7|km2}} || 1.22 || 2.16 || 2.59 || 2.96 || +4.07% || 90.2/km<sup>2</sup>
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] || {{convert|110.9|km2}}|| 7.27 || 8.49 || 8.88 || 8.97 || +0.67% || 80.1/km<sup>2</sup>
|-
|align=left|[[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] || {{convert|127.9|km2}} || 13.09 || 14.47 || 15.28 || 15.50 || +0.53% || 119.5/km<sup>2</sup>
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]] || {{convert|93.0|km2}}|| 9.20 || 10.30 || 10.71 || 10.60 || +0.43% || 115.2/km<sup>2</sup>
|-
|align=left|[[East Germany]] || {{convert|108.3|km2}} || 17.94 || 17.26 || 16.74 || 16.69 || −0.20% || 154.6/km<sup>2</sup>
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]] || {{convert|312.7|km2}}|| 24.82 || 30.69 || 35.73 || 37.23 || +1.43% || 114.3/km<sup>2</sup>
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Romania|Romania]] || {{convert|237.5|km2}}|| 16.31 || 20.35 || 22.20 || 22.73 || +1.12% || 93.5/km<sup>2</sup>
|-
|align=left|[[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet Union]] || {{convert|22300|km2}}|| 182.32 || 241.72 || 265.00 || 272.00 || +1.41% || 11.9/km<sup>2</sup>
|-
|align=left|[[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] ||{{convert|255.8|km2}} ||16.34 ||20.4 ||22.36 ||23.1 || +1.15% ||92.6/km<sup>2</sup>
|}

==Social structure==
Eastern Bloc societies operated under anti-meritocratic principles with strong egalitarian elements. For example, Czechoslovakia favoured less qualified individuals, as well as providing privileges for the [[nomenklatura]] and those with the right class or political background. Eastern Bloc societies were dominated by the ruling communist party, dubbed "partyocracy" by Pavel Machonin.<ref name="Machonin, P (1993)">{{cite journal |last1=Machonin |first1=Pavel |title=The Social Structure of Soviet-Type Societies, Its Collapse and Legacy |journal=Czech Sociological Review |date=1993 |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=234–235 |jstor=43945192 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43945192 |access-date=17 May 2024}}</ref> Former members of the middle-class were officially discriminated against, though the need for their skills allowed them to re-invent themselves as good communist citizens.<ref name="James, M (2005)"/><ref name="Tchouikina, S (2009)">{{cite book |last1=Tchouikina |first1=Sofia |editor1-last=Packard |editor1-first=Noel |title=Sociology of Memory: Papers from the Spectrum |date=2009 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |location=Newcastle upon Tyne |isbn=978-1-4438-0199-7 |pages=63–99 |url=https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01904567 |access-date=17 May 2024 |language=en |chapter=Collective Memory and Reconversion of Elite: Former Nobles in Soviet Society after 1917}}</ref>

==Housing==
{{Main|Housing construction in the Soviet Union}}
A housing shortage existed throughout the Eastern Bloc. In Europe it was primarily due to the devastation during [[World War II]]. Construction efforts suffered after a severe cutback in state resources available for housing starting in 1975.<ref name="sillince1">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=1}}</ref> Cities became filled with large [[Panelák|system-built apartment blocks]]<ref name="bideleux475"/> Housing construction policy suffered from considerable organisational problems.<ref name="sillince2">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=2}}</ref> Moreover, completed houses possessed noticeably poor quality finishes.<ref name="sillince2"/>

===Housing quality===
[[File:Mdm1.png|thumb|upright=1.5|Prominent examples of urban design included Marszałkowska Housing Estate (MDM) in [[Warsaw]].]]
The near-total emphasis on [[Residential building series|large apartment blocks]] was a common feature of Eastern Bloc cities in the 1970s and 1980s.<ref name="turnock54">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=54}}</ref> [[East Germany|East German]] authorities viewed large cost advantages in the construction of [[Plattenbau]] apartment blocks such that the building of such architecture on the edge of large cities continued until the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="turnock54"/> Buildings such as the [[Panelák]]s of [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] and [[Panelház]] of [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]]. Wishing to reinforce the role of the state in the 1970s and 1980s, [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]] enacted the [[Systematization (Romania)|systematisation]] programme, which consisted of the demolition and reconstruction of existing hamlets, villages, towns, and cities, in whole or in part, in order to make place to standardised apartment blocks across the country (''blocuri'').<ref name="turnock54"/> Under this ideology, Ceaușescu built [[Centrul Civic]] of Bucharest in the 1980s, which contains the [[Palace of the Parliament]], in the place of the former historic center.

Even by the late 1980s, [[sanitary conditions]] in most Eastern Bloc countries were generally far from adequate.<ref name="sillince18">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=18}}</ref> For all countries for which data existed, 60% of dwellings had a density of greater than one person per room between 1966 and 1975.<ref name="sillince18"/> The average in western countries for which data was available approximated 0.5 persons per room.<ref name="sillince18"/> Problems were aggravated by poor quality finishes on new dwellings often causing occupants to undergo a certain amount of finishing work and additional repairs.<ref name="sillince18"/>
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left"
|+Housing quality in the Eastern Bloc by the 1980s<ref name="sillince19">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|pp=19–20}}</ref>
|-
!Country
!Adequate sanitation % (year)
!Piped water %
!Central heating %
!Inside toilet %
!More than 1 person/room %
|-
|align=left|[[People's Socialist Republic of Albania|Albania]] || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] || n/a || 66.1% || 7.5% || 28.0% || 60.2%
|-
|align=left|[[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] || 60.5% (1983) || 75.3% || 30.9% || 52.4% || 67.9%
|-
|align=left|[[East Germany]] || 70.0% (1985) || 82.1% || 72.2% || 43.4% || n/a
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]] || 60.0% (1984)|| 64% (1980) || n/a || 52.5% (1980) || 64.4%
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]] || 50.0% (1980) || 47.3% || 22.2% || 33.4% || 83.0%
|-
|align=left|[[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]] || 50.0% (1980) || 12.3% (1966) || n/a || n/a || 81.5%
|-
|align=left|[[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet Union]] || 50.0% (1980) || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a
|-
|align=left|[[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] || 69.8% (1981)|| 93.2% || 84.2% || 89.7% || 83.1%
|}
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left"
|+Housing quality in Hungary (1949–1990)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nepszamlalas.hu/hun/kotetek/11/tables/load1_3.html|title=Központi Statisztikai Hivatal|website=www.nepszamlalas.hu|access-date=23 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050129024838/http://www.nepszamlalas.hu/hun/kotetek/11/tables/load1_3.html|archive-date=29 January 2005|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
!Year
!Houses/flats total
!With piped water
!With sewage disposal
!With inside toilet
!With piped gas
|-
|align=left|1949 || 2,466,514 || 420,644 (17.1%) || – || 306,998 (12.5%) || 174,186 (7.1%)
|-
|align=left|1960 || 2,757,625 || 620,600 (22.5%) || – || 440,737 (16%) || 373,124 (13.5%)
|-
|align=left|1970 || 3,118,096 || 1,370,609 (44%) || 1,167,055 (37.4%) || 838,626 (26.9%) || 1,571,691 (50.4%)
|-
|align=left|1980 || 3,542,418 || 2,268,014 (64%) || 2,367,274 (66.8%) || 1,859,677 (52.5%) || 2,682,143 (75.7%)
|-
|align=left|1990 || 3,853,288 || 3,209,930 (83.3%) || 3,228,257 (83.8%) || 2,853,834 (74%) || 3,274,514 (85%)
|}
The worsening shortages of the 1970s and 1980s occurred during an increase in the quantity of dwelling stock relative to population from 1970 to 1986.<ref name="sillince14">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=14}}</ref> Even for new dwellings, average dwelling size was only {{convert|61.3|m2}} in the Eastern Bloc compared with {{convert|113.5|m2}} in ten western countries for which comparable data was available.<ref name="sillince14"/> Space standards varied considerably, with the average new dwelling in the Soviet Union in 1986 being only 68% the size of its equivalent in Hungary.<ref name="sillince14"/> Apart from exceptional cases, such as [[East Germany]] in 1980–1986 and [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] in 1970–1980, space standards in newly built dwellings rose before the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="sillince14"/> Housing size varied considerably across time, especially after the oil crisis in the Eastern Bloc; for instance, 1990-era West German homes had an average floor space of {{convert|83|m2}}, compared to an average dwelling size in the GDR of {{convert|67|m2}} in 1967.<ref name="berlinwall">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Pugh|2008|p=135}}</ref><ref name="germanhousing">{{cite web |url=http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-4908.html |title=Germany – Housing |publisher=Country-data.com |access-date=19 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923222624/http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-4908.html |archive-date=23 September 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref>
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left"
|+Housing characteristics in new dwellings of the Eastern Bloc<ref name="sillince15">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=15}}</ref>
|-
! || colspan=3|Floor space/dwelling || colspan="3" |People/dwelling
|-
!Country
!1970
!1980
!1986
!1970
!1986
|-
|align=center|Western Bloc ||colspan=3 align=center| {{convert|113.5|m2}}|| n/a || n/a
|-
|align=left|[[People's Socialist Republic of Albania|Albania]] || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] || {{convert|63.7|m2}} || {{convert|59.0|m2}} || {{convert|66.9|m2}} ||3.8 || 2.8
|-
|align=left|[[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] || {{convert|67.2|m2}} || {{convert|73.8|m2}} || {{convert|81.8|m2}} || 3.4 || 2.7
|-
|align=left|[[East Germany]] || {{convert|55.0|m2}} || {{convert|62.7|m2}} || {{convert|61.2|m2}} || 2.9 || 2.4
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]] || {{convert|61.5|m2}} || {{convert|67.0|m2}} || {{convert|83.0|m2}} || 3.4 || 2.7
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]] || {{convert|54.3|m2}} || {{convert|64.0|m2}} || {{convert|71.0|m2}} || 4.2 || 3.5
|-
|align=left|[[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]] || {{convert|44.9|m2}} || {{convert|57.0|m2}} || {{convert|57.5|m2}} || 3.6 || 2.8
|-
|align=left|[[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet Union]] || {{convert|46.8|m2}} || {{convert|52.3|m2}} || {{convert|56.8|m2}} || 4.1 || 3.2
|-
|align=left|[[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] || {{convert|59.2|m2}} || {{convert|70.9|m2}} || {{convert|72.5|m2}} || n/a || 3.4
|}
Poor housing was one of the four major factors (others being poor living conditions, increased female employment and abortion as an encouraged means of birth control) which led to declining birth rates throughout the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="sillince35">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=35}}</ref>

==Economies==
[[File:Destroyed Warsaw, capital of Poland, January 1945.jpg|thumb|During World War II, [[Destruction of Warsaw|85% of buildings in Warsaw were destroyed by German troops]].]]

Because of the [[Criticisms of the labour theory of value|lack of market signals]], Eastern Bloc economies experienced mis-development by [[Soviet-type economic planning|central planners]].<ref name="hardt15">{{Harvnb|Hardt|Kaufman|1995|p=15}}</ref><ref name="dale85">{{Harvnb|Dale|2005|p=85}}</ref> The Eastern Bloc also depended upon the Soviet Union for significant amounts of materials.<ref name="hardt15" /><ref>{{Harvnb|Hardt|Kaufman|1995|p=16}}</ref>

Technological backwardness resulted in dependency on imports from Western countries and this, in turn, in demand for Western currency. Eastern Bloc countries were heavily borrowing from [[Club de Paris]] (central banks) and [[London Club]] (private banks) and most of them by the early 1980s were forced to notify the creditors of their insolvency. This information was however kept secret from the citizens and propaganda promoted the view that the countries were on the best way to socialism.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.clubdeparis.org/en/traitements?tid_1=118&tid_2=All&tid=All&field_treatment_date_value%5Bvalue%5D%5Byear%5D=|title=Agreements concluded with Paris Club|website=clubdeparis.org|access-date=12 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180923113520/http://www.clubdeparis.org/en/traitements?tid_1=118&tid_2=All&tid=All&field_treatment_date_value%5Bvalue%5D%5Byear%5D=|archive-date=23 September 2018|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.clubdeparis.org/en/traitements?tid_1=97&tid_2=All&tid=All&field_treatment_date_value%5Bvalue%5D%5Byear%5D=|title=Agreements concluded with Paris Club|website=clubdeparis.org|access-date=12 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180923121046/http://www.clubdeparis.org/en/traitements?tid_1=97&tid_2=All&tid=All&field_treatment_date_value%5Bvalue%5D%5Byear%5D=|archive-date=23 September 2018|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.clubdeparis.org/en/traitements?tid_1=98&tid_2=All&tid=All&field_treatment_date_value%5Bvalue%5D%5Byear%5D=|title=Agreements concluded with Paris Club|website=clubdeparis.org|access-date=12 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180923120608/http://www.clubdeparis.org/en/traitements?tid_1=98&tid_2=All&tid=All&field_treatment_date_value%5Bvalue%5D%5Byear%5D=|archive-date=23 September 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Social conditions===
{{further|Eastern Bloc emigration and defection|Eastern Bloc information dissemination|Eastern Bloc politics}}

As a consequence of [[World War II]] and the German occupations in Eastern Europe, much of the region had been subjected to enormous destruction of industry, infrastructure and loss of civilian life. In Poland alone the policy of plunder and exploitation inflicted enormous material losses to Polish industry (62% of which was destroyed),<ref>Historia Polski 1918–1945: Tom 1 Czesław Brzoza, Andrzej Sowa, p. 697, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2006</ref> agriculture, infrastructure and cultural landmarks, the cost of which has been estimated as approximately €525&nbsp;billion or $640&nbsp;billion in 2004 exchange values.<ref>[http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1324630,00.html Poles Vote to Seek War Reparations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100403152040/http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1324630,00.html |date=3 April 2010 }}, ''[[Deutsche Welle]]'', 11 September 2004</ref>

Throughout the Eastern Bloc, both in the USSR and the rest of the Bloc, Russia was given prominence and referred to as the ''naiboleye vydayushchayasya natsiya'' (the most prominent nation) and the ''rukovodyashchiy narod'' (the leading people).<ref name="graubard150">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Graubard|1991|p=150}}</ref> The Soviets promoted the reverence of Russian actions and characteristics, and the construction of Soviet structural hierarchies in the other countries of the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="graubard150"/>

[[File:Bucur Obor (1986).jpg|thumb|A line for distribution of cooking oil in [[Bucharest]], [[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]], May 1986]]
The defining characteristic of [[Stalinist]] [[totalitarianism]] was the unique symbiosis of the state with society and the economy, resulting in politics and economics losing their distinctive features as autonomous and distinguishable spheres.<ref name="hardt11"/> Initially, Stalin directed systems that rejected Western institutional characteristics of [[market economy|market economies]], [[democracy|democratic governance]] (dubbed "bourgeois democracy" in Soviet parlance) and the rule of law subduing discretional intervention by the state.<ref name="hardt12"/>

The Soviets mandated expropriation and ''etatisation'' of private property.<ref name="roht83">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Roht-Arriaza|1995|p=83}}</ref> The Soviet-style "replica regimes" that arose in the Bloc not only reproduced the Soviet [[command economy]], but also adopted the brutal methods employed by [[Joseph Stalin]] and Soviet-style secret polices to suppress real and potential opposition.<ref name="roht83"/>

Stalinist regimes in the Eastern Bloc saw even marginal groups of opposition intellectuals as a potential threat because of the bases underlying Stalinist power therein.<ref name="Pollackxiv"/> The suppression of dissent and opposition was a central prerequisite for the security of Stalinist power within the Eastern Bloc, though the degree of opposition and dissident suppression varied by country and time throughout the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="Pollackxiv"/>

In addition, media in the Eastern Bloc were organs of the state, completely reliant on and subservient to the government of the USSR with radio and television organisations being state-owned, while print media was usually owned by political organisations, mostly by the local party.<ref name="oneil15"/> While over 15&nbsp;million Eastern Bloc residents migrated westward from 1945 to 1949,<ref>{{Harvard citation no brackets|Böcker|1998|pp=207–9}}</ref> emigration 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.<ref name="dowty114"/>

===Initial changes===

====Transformations billed as reforms====
[[File:Vilnius Energy and Technology Museum 48.JPG|thumb|left|Reconstruction of a typical [[Proletariat|working class]] flat interior in a [[khrushchyovka]]]]
In the USSR, because of strict Soviet secrecy under [[Joseph Stalin]], for many years after World War II, even the best informed foreigners did not effectively know about the operations of the Soviet economy.<ref name="laqueur23">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Laqueur|1994|p=23}}</ref> Stalin had sealed off outside access to the Soviet Union since 1935 (and until his death), effectively permitting no foreign travel inside the Soviet Union such that outsiders did not know of the political processes that had taken place therein.<ref name="laqueur22">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Laqueur|1994|p=22}}</ref> During this period, and even for 25 years after Stalin's death, the few diplomats and foreign correspondents permitted inside the Soviet Union were usually restricted to within a few kilometres of Moscow, their phones were tapped, their residences were restricted to foreigner-only locations and they were constantly followed by Soviet authorities.<ref name="laqueur22"/>

The Soviets also modeled economies in the rest of Eastern Bloc outside the Soviet Union along Soviet [[command economy]] lines.<ref name="turnock23">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=23}}</ref> Before World War II, the Soviet Union used draconian procedures to ensure compliance with directives to invest all assets in state planned manners, including the [[collectivisation]] of agriculture and utilising a sizeable labor army collected in the [[gulag]] system.<ref name="2turnock267"/> This system was largely imposed on other Eastern Bloc countries after World War II.<ref name="2turnock267"/> While propaganda of proletarian improvements accompanied systemic changes, terror and intimidation of the consequent ruthless Stalinism obfuscated feelings of any purported benefits.<ref name="turnock27"/>

Stalin felt that socioeconomic transformation was indispensable to establish Soviet control, reflecting the [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] view that material bases, the distribution of the means of production, shaped social and political relations.<ref name="wettig36"/> Moscow trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation.<ref name="wettig36"/> Elimination of the bourgeoisie's social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority.<ref name="wettig37"/>

These measures were publicly billed as reforms rather than socioeconomic transformations.<ref name="wettig37"/> Throughout the Eastern Bloc, except for [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]], "societal organisations" such as trade unions and associations representing various social, professional and other groups, were erected with only one organisation for each category, with competition excluded.<ref name="wettig37"/> Those organisations were managed by Stalinist cadres, though during the initial period, they allowed for some diversity.<ref name="wettig38"/>

====Asset relocation====
At the same time, at the war's end, the Soviet Union adopted a "[[plunder]] policy" of physically transporting and relocating east European industrial assets to the Soviet Union.<ref name="pearson29">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Pearson|1998|pp=29–30}}</ref> Eastern Bloc states were required to provide coal, industrial equipment, technology, rolling stock and other resources to reconstruct the Soviet Union.<ref name="bideleux461">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Bideleux|Jeffries|2007|p=461}}</ref> Between 1945 and 1953, the Soviets received a net transfer of resources from the rest of the Eastern Bloc under this policy of roughly $14&nbsp;billion, an amount comparable to the net transfer from the United States to western Europe in the [[Marshall Plan]].<ref name="bideleux461"/><ref name="black86">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Black|English|Helmreich|McAdams|2000|p=86}}</ref> "Reparations" included the dismantling of railways in Poland and Romanian reparations to the Soviets between 1944 and 1948 valued at $1.8&nbsp;billion concurrent with the domination of [[SovRoms]].<ref name="2turnock267"/>

In addition, the Soviets re-organised enterprises as [[Joint-stock company|joint-stock companies]] in which the Soviets possessed the controlling interest.<ref name="black86"/><ref name="crampton211">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Crampton|1997|p=211}}</ref> Using that control vehicle, several enterprises were required to sell products at below world prices to the Soviets, such as uranium mines in [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] and [[East Germany]], coal mines in [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]], and oil wells in [[People's Republic of Romania|Romania]].<ref name="black87">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Black|English|Helmreich|McAdams|2000|p=87}}</ref>

====Trade and Comecon====
{{Main|Comecon|History of the Comecon}}

The trading pattern of the Eastern Bloc countries was severely modified.<ref name="black88">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Black|English|Helmreich|McAdams|2000|p=88}}</ref> Before World War II, no greater than 1%–2% of those countries' trade was with the Soviet Union.<ref name="black88"/> By 1953, the share of such trade had jumped to 37%.<ref name="black88"/> In 1947, [[Joseph Stalin]] had also denounced the [[Marshall Plan]] and forbade all Eastern Bloc countries from participating in it.<ref name="black82">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Black|English|Helmreich|McAdams|2000|p=82}}</ref>

Soviet dominance further tied other Eastern Bloc economies<ref name="black88"/> to Moscow via the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) or [[Comecon]], which determined countries' investment allocations and the products that would be traded within Eastern Bloc.<ref name="frucht382"/> Although Comecon was initiated in 1949, its role became ambiguous because Stalin preferred more direct links with other party chiefs than the indirect sophistication of the council. It played no significant role in the 1950s in economic planning.<ref name="turnock26"/>

Initially, 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 subsidisers of the rest of the Bloc by the 1970s via an exchange of low cost raw materials in return for shoddily manufactured finished goods.<ref name="turnock27"/> While resources such as oil, timber and uranium initially made gaining access to other Eastern Bloc economies attractive, the Soviets soon had to export Soviet raw materials to those countries to maintain cohesion therein.<ref name="2turnock267">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|2006|p=267}}</ref> Following resistance to Comecon plans to extract [[People's Republic of Romania|Romania]]'s mineral resources and heavily utilise its agricultural production, Romania began to take a more independent stance in 1964.<ref name="crampton313"/> While it did not repudiate Comecon, it took no significant role in its operation, especially after the rise to power of [[Nicolae Ceauşescu]].<ref name="crampton313"/>

===Heavy industry emphasis===
According to the official propaganda in the Soviet Union, there was unprecedented affordability of housing, health care and education.<ref name="ria.ru">{{cite web|url=http://ria.ru/history_spravki/20101108/293796130.html|title=Советская экономика в эпоху Леонида Брежнева|work=РИА Новости |date=8 November 2010|access-date=23 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402092007/http://ria.ru/history_spravki/20101108/293796130.html|archive-date=2 April 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=August 2019}} Apartment rent on average amounted to only 1 percent of the family budget, a figure which reached 4 percent when municipal services are factored in. Tram tickets were 20 kopecks, and a loaf of bread was 15 kopecks. The average monthly salary of an [[engineer]] was 140–160 [[Soviet ruble|ruble]]s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://2000.net.ua/2000/svoboda-slova/sotsium/77009 |title=Ирония нашей судьбы : Социум : Еженедельник 2000 |publisher=2000.net.ua |access-date=19 November 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020071603/http://2000.net.ua/2000/svoboda-slova/sotsium/77009 |archive-date=20 October 2013 }}</ref>

The Soviet Union made major progress in developing the country's consumer goods sector. In 1970, the USSR produced 679&nbsp;million pairs of leather footwear, compared to 534&nbsp;million for the United States. Czechoslovakia, which had the world's highest per-capita production of shoes, exported a significant portion of its shoe production to other countries.<ref>''The world hides, skins, leather and footwear economy''. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1970. p.85</ref>

According to official statistics, the rising standard of living under socialism led to a steady decrease in the workday and an increase in leisure. In 1974, the average workweek for Soviet industrial workers was 40 hours. Paid vacations in 1968 reached a minimum of 15 workdays. In the mid-1970s the number of free days per year-days off, holidays and vacations was 128–130, almost double the figure from the previous ten years.<ref>Planning of manpower in the Soviet Union. Progress Publishers. 1975. p. 101</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=July 2025}}

Because of the lack of market signals in such economies, they experienced mis-development by central planners resulting in those countries following a path of extensive (large mobilisation of inefficiently used capital, labor, energy and raw material inputs) rather than intensive (efficient resource use) development to attempt to achieve quick growth.<ref name="hardt15"/><ref name="bideleux474"/> The Eastern Bloc countries were required to follow the Soviet model overemphasising [[heavy industry]] at the expense of light industry and other sectors.<ref name="crampton251">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Crampton|1997|p=251}}</ref>

Since that model involved the prodigal exploitation of natural and other resources, it has been described as a kind of "slash and burn" modality.<ref name="bideleux474"/> While the Soviet system strove for a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]], there was little existing proletariat in many eastern European countries, such that to create one, heavy industry needed to be built.<ref name="crampton251"/> Each system shared the distinctive themes of state-directed economies, including poorly defined property rights, a lack of market clearing prices and overblown or distorted productive capacities in comparison with corresponding market economies.<ref name="hardt11"/>

Major errors and waste occurred in the resource allocation and distribution systems.<ref name="bideleux475"/> Because of the party-run monolithic state organs, these systems provided no effective mechanisms or incentives to control costs, profligacy, inefficiency and waste.<ref name="bideleux475"/> Heavy industry was given priority because of its importance for the military-industrial establishment and for the engineering sector.<ref name="turnock29">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=29}}</ref>

Factories were sometimes inefficiently located, incurring high transport costs, while poor plant-organisation sometimes resulted in production hold-ups and knock-on effects in other industries dependent on monopoly suppliers of intermediates.<ref name="turnock24"/> For example, each country, including [[People's Republic of Albania|Albania]], built steel mills regardless of whether they lacked the requisite resource of energy and mineral ores.<ref name="crampton251"/> A massive metallurgical plant was built in [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] despite the fact that its ores had to be imported from the Soviet Union and transported {{convert|320|km}} from the port at [[Burgas]].<ref name="crampton251"/> A Warsaw tractor factory in 1980 had a 52-page list of unused rusting, then useless, equipment.<ref name="crampton251"/>

This emphasis on heavy industry diverted investment from the more practical production of chemicals and plastics.<ref name="frucht382">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Frucht|2003|p=382}}</ref> In addition, the plans' emphasis on quantity rather than quality made Eastern Bloc products less competitive in the world market.<ref name="frucht382"/> High costs passed through the product chain boosted the 'value' of production on which wage increases were based, but made exports less competitive.<ref name="turnock24"/> Planners rarely closed old factories even when new capacities opened elsewhere.<ref name="turnock24"/> For example, the Polish steel industry retained a plant in [[Upper Silesia]] despite the opening of modern integrated units on the periphery while the last old [[Siemens-Martin process]] furnace installed in the 19th century was not closed down immediately.<ref name="turnock24"/>

Producer goods were favoured over consumer goods, causing consumer goods to be lacking in quantity and quality in the [[shortage economy|shortage economies]] that resulted.<ref name="dale85"/><ref name="bideleux474"/>

By the mid-1970s, budget deficits rose considerably and domestic prices widely diverged from the world prices, while production prices averaged 2% higher than consumer prices.<ref name="zwass12">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Zwass|1984|p=12}}</ref> Many premium goods could be bought either in a [[Second economy of the Soviet Union|black market]] or only in special stores using foreign currency generally inaccessible to most Eastern Bloc citizens, such as [[Intershop]] in [[East Germany]],<ref name="zwass34"/> [[Beryozka (Russian retail store)|Beryozka]] in the Soviet Union,<ref>Adelman, Deborah, ''The "children of Perestroika" come of age: young people of Moscow talk about life in the new Russia'', M.E. Sharpe, 1994, {{ISBN|978-1-56324-287-8}}, p. 162</ref> [[Pewex]] in [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]],<ref>Nagengast, Carole, ''Reluctant Socialists, Rural Entrepreneurs: Class, Culture, and the Polish State'', Westview Press, 1991, {{ISBN|978-0-8133-8053-7}}, p. 85</ref><ref name="bugajski189">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Bugajski|Pollack|1989|p=189}}</ref> [[Tuzex]] in [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]],<ref name="graubard130">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Graubard|1991|p=130}}</ref> [[Corecom]] in Bulgaria, or [[Comturist]] in Romania. Much of what was produced for the local population never reached its intended user, while many perishable products became unfit for consumption before reaching their consumers.<ref name="bideleux475"/>

===Black markets===
{{See also|Second economy of the Soviet Union}}

As a result of the deficiencies of the official economy, [[black market]]s were created that were often supplied by goods stolen from the public sector.<ref name="crampton252">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Crampton|1997|p=252}}</ref><ref name="frucht204">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Frucht|2003|p=204}}</ref> The [[informal sector|second, "parallel economy"]] flourished throughout the Bloc because of rising unmet state consumer needs.<ref name="bugajski188">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Bugajski|Pollack|1989|p=188}}</ref> Black and gray markets for foodstuffs, goods, and cash arose.<ref name="bugajski188"/> Goods included household goods, medical supplies, clothes, furniture, cosmetics and toiletries in chronically short supply through official outlets.<ref name="bugajski189"/>

Many farmers concealed actual output from purchasing agencies to sell it illicitly to urban consumers.<ref name="bugajski189"/> Hard foreign currencies were highly sought after, while highly valued Western items functioned as a medium of exchange or bribery in Stalinist countries, such as in [[People's Republic of Romania|Romania]], where [[Kent (cigarette)|Kent]] cigarettes served as an unofficial extensively used currency to buy goods and services.<ref name="bugajski190">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Bugajski|Pollack|1989|p=190}}</ref> Some service workers [[wikt:moonlight#Verb|moonlighted]] illegally providing services directly to customers for payment.<ref name="bugajski190"/>

===Urbanization===
The extensive production [[industrialization]] that resulted was not responsive to consumer needs and caused a neglect in the service sector, unprecedented rapid urbanization, acute urban overcrowding, chronic shortages, and massive recruitment of women into mostly menial and/or low-paid occupations.<ref name="bideleux475"/> The consequent strains resulted in the widespread used of coercion, repression, [[show trials]], purges, and intimidation.<ref name="bideleux475">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Bideleux|Jeffries|2007|p=475}}</ref> By 1960, massive urbanisation occurred in Poland (48% urban) and Bulgaria (38%), which increased employment for peasants, but also caused illiteracy to skyrocket when children left school for work.<ref name="bideleux475"/>

Cities became massive building sites, resulting in the reconstruction of some war-torn buildings but also the construction of drab, dilapidated, system-built apartment blocks.<ref name="bideleux475"/> Urban living standards plummeted because resources were tied up in huge long-term building projects, while industrialization forced millions of former peasants to live in hut camps or grim apartment blocks close to massive polluting industrial complexes.<ref name="bideleux475"/>

===Agricultural collectivization===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1987-0122-023, Infografik, Landwirtschaft der DDR Getreideerträge.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Graphic showing change in [[East Germany|East German]] agricultural production between 1981 and 1986]]
[[Collectivization]] is a process pioneered by [[Joseph Stalin]] in the late 1920s by which [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] regimes in the Eastern Bloc and elsewhere attempted to establish an ordered socialist system in rural agriculture.<ref name="frucht144">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Frucht|2003|p=144}}</ref> It required the forced consolidation of small-scale peasant farms and larger holdings belonging to the landed classes for the purpose of creating larger modern "[[collective farms]]" owned, in theory, by the workers therein. In reality, such farms were owned by the state.<ref name="frucht144"/>

In addition to eradicating the perceived inefficiencies associated with small-scale farming on discontiguous land holdings, collectivization also purported to achieve the political goal of removing the rural basis for resistance to Stalinist regimes.<ref name="frucht144"/> A further justification given was the need to promote industrial development by facilitating the state's procurement of agricultural products and transferring "surplus labor" from rural to urban areas.<ref name="frucht144"/> In short, agriculture was reorganized in order to proletarianize the peasantry and control production at prices determined by the state.<ref name="turnock34"/>

The Eastern Bloc possesses substantial agricultural resources, especially in southern areas, such as [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]]'s [[Great Hungarian Plain|Great Plain]], which offered good soils and a warm climate during the growing season.<ref name="turnock34">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=34}}</ref> Rural collectivization proceeded differently in non-Soviet Eastern Bloc countries than it did in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s.<ref name="bideleux473"/> Because of the need to conceal the assumption of control and the realities of an initial lack of control, no Soviet [[dekulakisation]]-style liquidation of rich peasants could be carried out in the non-Soviet Eastern Bloc countries.<ref name="bideleux473">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Bideleux|Jeffries|2007|p=473}}</ref>

Nor could they risk mass starvation or agricultural sabotage (e.g., [[holodomor]]) with a rapid collectivization through massive state farms and agricultural producers' cooperatives (APCs).<ref name="bideleux473"/> Instead, collectivization proceeded more slowly and in stages from 1948 to 1960 in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, and from 1955 to 1964 in Albania.<ref name="bideleux473"/> Collectivization in the Baltic republics of the [[Lithuanian SSR]], [[Estonian SSR]] and [[Latvian SSR]] took place between 1947 and 1952.<ref name="oconnorxx">{{Harvard citation no brackets|O'Connor|2003|p=xx–xxi}}</ref>

Unlike Soviet collectivization, neither massive destruction of livestock nor errors causing distorted output or distribution occurred in the other Eastern Bloc countries.<ref name="bideleux473"/> More widespread use of transitional forms occurred, with differential compensation payments for peasants that contributed more land to APCs.<ref name="bideleux473"/> Because [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] and [[East Germany]] were more industrialized than the Soviet Union, they were in a position to furnish most of the equipment and fertilizer inputs needed to ease the transition to collectivized agriculture.<ref name="bideleux474">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Bideleux|Jeffries|2007|p=474}}</ref> Instead of liquidating large farmers or barring them from joining APCs as Stalin had done through [[dekulakisation]], those farmers were utilised in the non-Soviet Eastern Bloc collectivizations, sometimes even being named farm chairman or managers.<ref name="bideleux474"/>

Collectivisation often met with strong rural resistance, including peasants frequently destroying property rather than surrendering it to the collectives.<ref name="frucht144"/> Strong peasant links with the land through private ownership were broken and many young people left for careers in industry.<ref name="turnock34"/> In [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]] and [[Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]], fierce resistance from peasants, many of whom had resisted the Axis, led to the abandonment of wholesale rural collectivisation in the early 1950s.<ref name="bideleux474"/> In part because of the problems created by collectivisation, agriculture was largely de-collectivised in Poland in 1957.<ref name="frucht144"/>

The fact that Poland nevertheless managed to carry out large-scale centrally planned industrialisation with no more difficulty than its collectivised Eastern Bloc neighbours further called into question the need for collectivisation in such planned economies.<ref name="bideleux474"/> Only Poland's "western territories", those eastwardly adjacent to the [[Oder-Neisse line]] that were annexed from Germany, were substantially collectivised, largely in order to settle large numbers of Poles on good farmland which had been taken from German farmers.<ref name="bideleux474"/>

===Economic growth===
[[File:Robotron-KC87-1.jpg|thumb|A [[Robotron KC 87]] home computer made in [[East Germany]] between 1987 and 1989]]

There was significant progress made in the economy in countries such as the Soviet Union. In 1980, the Soviet Union took first place in Europe and second worldwide in terms of industrial and agricultural production, respectively. In 1960, the USSR's industrial output was only 55% that of America, but this increased to 80% in 1980.<ref name="ria.ru"/>{{unreliable source?|date=February 2021}}

With the change of the Soviet leadership in 1964, there were [[1965 Soviet economic reform|significant changes made to economic policy]]. The Government on 30 September 1965 issued a decree "On improving the management of industry" and the 4 October 1965 resolution "On improving and strengthening the economic incentives for industrial production". The main initiator of these reforms was Premier [[Alexei Kosygin]]. Kosygin's reforms on agriculture gave considerable autonomy to the collective farms, giving them the right to the contents of private farming. During this period, there was the large-scale land reclamation program, the construction of irrigation channels, and other measures.<ref name="ria.ru"/> In the period 1966–1970, the gross national product grew by over 35%. Industrial output increased by 48% and agriculture by 17%.<ref name="ria.ru"/> In the eighth Five-Year Plan, the national income grew at an average rate of 7.8%. In the ninth Five-Year Plan (1971–1975), the national income grew at an annual rate of 5.7%. In the tenth Five-Year Plan (1976–1981), the national income grew at an annual rate of 4.3%.<ref name="ria.ru"/>

The Soviet Union made noteworthy scientific and technological progress. Unlike countries with more market-oriented economies, scientific and technological potential in the USSR was used in accordance with a plan on the scale of society as a whole.<ref>Aleksandr Andreevich Guber. USSR: Intensified Economy and Progress in Science and Technology. Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1985. p. 14</ref>

In 1980, the number of scientific personnel in the USSR was 1.4&nbsp;million. The number of engineers employed in the national economy was 4.7&nbsp;million. Between 1960 and 1980, the number of scientific personnel increased by a factor of 4. In 1975, the number of scientific personnel in the USSR amounted to one-fourth of the total number of scientific personnel in the world. In 1980, as compared with 1940, the number of invention proposals submitted was more than 5&nbsp;million. In 1980, there were 10 all-Union research institutes, 85 specialised central agencies, and 93 regional information centres.<ref>Yearbook the USSR. Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1982. p. 174</ref>

The world's first nuclear power plant was commissioned on 27 June 1954 in Obninsk.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}} Soviet scientists made a major contribution to the development of computer technology. The first major achievements in the field were associated with the building of analog computers. In the USSR, principles for the construction of network analysers were developed by S. Gershgorin in 1927 and the concept of the electrodynamic analog computer was proposed by N. Minorsky in 1936. In the 1940s, the development of AC electronic antiaircraft directors and the first vacuum-tube integrators was begun by L. Gutenmakher. In the 1960s, important developments in modern computer equipment were the BESM-6 system built under the direction of S. A. Lebedev, the MIR series of small digital computers, and the Minsk series of digital computers developed by G.Lopato and V. Przhyalkovsky.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.computer.org/portal/web/awards/lebedev |title=Sergey A. Lebedev |publisher=Computer.org |access-date=19 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130725052538/http://www.computer.org/portal/web/awards/lebedev |archive-date=25 July 2013 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Author Turnock claims that transport in the Eastern Bloc was characterised by poor [[infrastructure|infrastructural]] maintenance.<ref name="turnock42">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=42}}</ref> The road network suffered from inadequate load capacity, poor surfacing and deficient roadside servicing.<ref name="turnock42"/> While roads were resurfaced, few new roads were built and there were very few [[Dual carriageway|divided highway]] roads, urban ring roads or bypasses.<ref name="turnock41">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=41}}</ref> Private car ownership remained low by Western standards.<ref name="turnock41"/>

{{multiple image
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| image1            = Trabant 601 Mulhouse FRA 001.JPG
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| image2            = AWE_Wartburg_353W,_Verkehrszentrum_des_Deutschen_Museums.JPG
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| caption2          =
| footer            = A [[Trabant 601]] Limousine (left), manufactured between 1964 and 1989; and a [[Wartburg 353]] (right), manufactured between 1966 and 1989; they were made in [[East Germany]] and exported throughout the Eastern Bloc.
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{{multiple image
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| image2            = 1980_-_VAZ_2101.JPG
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| caption2          =
| footer            = A Soviet-made [[ZAZ Zaporozhets|ZAZ-968]], manufactured between 1971 and 1994 (left) and a [[VAZ-2101|VAZ-2101/Lada 1200]], manufactured between 1970 and 1988 (right)
}}

{{multiple image
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| image2 = FSO Polonez MR'83 in Museum of Technology in Warsaw.jpg
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| footer = A Polish-made [[Fiat 126|Polski Fiat 126p]], manufactured between 1973 and 2000 (left) and an [[FSO Polonez|FSO Polonez 1500]], manufactured between 1978 and 1991 (right)
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| image1 = Oltcit Auto.jpg
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| image2 = 1982 Dacia 1310 (GDR export model) in Bucharest.jpg
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| caption2 =
| footer = A Romanian-made [[Oltcit Club]], manufactured between 1981 and 1995 (left); and a [[Dacia 1300]], manufactured between 1969 and 2004 (right)
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| image1 = Škoda 105 S Klasyki w FSO.jpg
| width1 = 200
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| image2 = Tatra 613 2 at Legendy 2014.JPG
| width2 = 200
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| caption2 =
| footer = A Czechoslovak-made [[Škoda 105]], manufactured between 1976 and 1990 (left); and a [[Tatra 613]], manufactured between 1974 and 1996 (right)
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{{multiple image
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| image1 = 1987 Yugo GV in Burgundy, front right.jpg
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| image2 = FCC Poděbrady 2017 29a. Zastava 1100.jpg
| width2 = 200
| alt2 =
| caption2 =
| footer = A Yugoslav-made [[Yugo Koral|Zastava/Yugo Koral]], manufactured between 1980 and 2008 (left); and a [[Zastava 101]], manufactured between 1971 and 2008 (right)
}}
Vehicle ownership increased in the 1970s and 1980s with the production of inexpensive cars in [[East Germany]] such as [[Trabant]]s and the [[Wartburg (car)|Wartburg]]s.<ref name="turnock41"/> However, the wait list for the distribution of Trabants was ten years in 1987 and up to fifteen years for Soviet [[Lada]] and Czechoslovakian [[Škoda Auto|Škoda]] cars.<ref name="turnock41"/> Soviet-built aircraft exhibited deficient technology, with high fuel consumption and heavy maintenance demands.<ref name="turnock42"/> Telecommunications networks were overloaded.<ref name="turnock42"/>

Adding to mobility constraints from the inadequate transport systems were bureaucratic mobility restrictions.<ref name="turnock43"/> While outside of Albania, domestic travel eventually became largely regulation-free, stringent controls on the issue of passports, visas and foreign currency made foreign travel difficult inside the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="turnock43"/> Countries were inured to isolation and initial post-war [[autarky]], with each country effectively restricting bureaucrats to viewing issues from a domestic perspective shaped by that country's specific propaganda.<ref name="turnock43"/>

Severe [[Natural environment|environmental]] problems arose through urban traffic congestion, which was aggravated by pollution generated by poorly maintained vehicles.<ref name="turnock43">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=43}}</ref> Large thermal power stations burning [[lignite]] and other items became notorious polluters, while some hydro-electric systems performed inefficiently because of dry seasons and silt accumulation in reservoirs.<ref name="turnock39">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=39}}</ref> [[Kraków]] was covered by smog 135 days per year while [[Wrocław]] was covered by a fog of [[Chromium|chrome]] gas.{{Specify|date=September 2010}}<ref name="turnock63">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=63}}</ref>

Several villages were evacuated because of copper smelting at [[Głogów]].<ref name="turnock63"/> Further rural problems arose from piped water construction being given precedence over building sewerage systems, leaving many houses with only inbound piped water delivery and not enough sewage tank trucks to carry away sewage.<ref name="turnock64">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=64}}</ref> The resulting drinking water became so polluted in [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]] that over 700 villages had to be supplied by tanks, bottles and plastic bags.<ref name="turnock64"/> Nuclear power projects were prone to long commissioning delays.<ref name="turnock39"/>

The [[Chernobyl disaster|catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukrainian SSR]] was caused by an irresponsible safety test on a reactor design that is normally safe,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.insc.anl.gov/neisb/neisb4/NEISB_3.3.A1.html|title=NEI Source Book: Fourth Edition (NEISB_3.3.A1)|date=8 September 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100908155118/http://www.insc.anl.gov/neisb/neisb4/NEISB_3.3.A1.html|archive-date=8 September 2010}}</ref> some operators lacking an even basic understanding of the reactor's processes and authoritarian Soviet bureaucracy, valuing party loyalty over competence, that kept promoting incompetent personnel and choosing cheapness over safety.<ref>{{Cite book|last = Medvedev|first = Grigori|title = The Truth About Chernobyl|publisher = VAAP. First American edition published by Basic Books in 1991|year = 1989|isbn = 978-2-226-04031-2|title-link = The Truth About Chernobyl}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last = Medvedev|first = Zhores A.|author-link = Zhores A. Medvedev|title = The Legacy of Chernobyl|url = https://archive.org/details/legacyofchernoby00medv|url-access = registration|publisher = W. W. Norton & Company|year = 1990|isbn = 978-0-393-30814-3}}</ref> The consequent release of fallout resulted in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people<ref name="Chernobyl.info">{{cite web|title=Geographical location and extent of radioactive contamination |publisher=Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation |url=http://www.chernobyl.info/index.php?navID=2 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070630071332/http://www.chernobyl.info/index.php?navID=2 |archive-date=30 June 2007 }} (quoting the "Committee on the Problems of the Consequences of the Catastrophe at the Chernobyl NPP: 15&nbsp;Years after Chernobyl Disaster", Minsk, 2001, pp.&nbsp;5/6 ff., and the "Chernobyl Interinform Agency, Kiev und", and "Chernobyl Committee: MailTable of official data on the reactor accident")</ref> leaving a massive desolate [[Zone of alienation]] containing extensive still-standing abandoned urban development.

[[Tourism]] from outside the Eastern Bloc was neglected, while tourism from other Stalinist countries grew within the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="turnock45">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=45}}</ref> Tourism drew investment, relying upon tourism and recreation opportunities existing before World War II.<ref name="turnock44">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=44}}</ref> By 1945, most hotels were run-down, while many which escaped conversion to other uses by central planners were slated to meet domestic demands.<ref name="turnock44"/> Authorities created state companies to arrange travel and accommodation.<ref name="turnock44"/> In the 1970s, investments were made to attempt to attract western travelers, though momentum for this waned in the 1980s when no long-term plan arose to procure improvements in the tourist environment, such as an assurance of freedom of movement, free and efficient money exchange and the provision of higher quality products with which these tourists were familiar.<ref name="turnock45"/> However, Western tourists were generally free to move about in Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia and go where they wished. It was more difficult or even impossible to go as an individual tourist to East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. It was generally possible in all cases for relatives from the west to visit and stay with family in the Eastern Bloc countries, except for Albania. In these cases, permission had to be sought, precise times, length of stay, location and movements had to be known in advance.

Catering to western visitors required creating an environment of an entirely different standard than that used for the domestic populace, which required concentration of travel spots including the building of relatively high-quality infrastructure in travel complexes, which could not easily be replicated elsewhere.<ref name="turnock45"/> Because of a desire to preserve ideological discipline and the fear of the presence of wealthier foreigners engaging in differing lifestyles, [[People's Republic of Albania|Albania]] segregated travelers.<ref name="2turnock350">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|2006|p=350}}</ref> Because of the worry of the subversive effect of the tourist industry, travel was restricted to 6,000 visitors per year.<ref name="turnock48">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=48}}</ref>

====Growth rates====
Growth rates in the Eastern Bloc were initially high in the 1950s and 1960s.<ref name="turnock23"/> During this first period, progress was rapid by European standards and per capita growth within the Eastern Bloc increased by 2.4 times the European average.<ref name="turnock24"/> Eastern Europe accounted for 12.3 percent of European production in 1950 but 14.4 in 1970.<ref name="turnock24"/> However, the system was resistant to change and did not easily adapt to new conditions. For political reasons, old factories were rarely closed, even when new technologies became available.<ref name="turnock24"/> As a result, after the 1970s, growth rates within the bloc experienced relative decline.<ref name="hardt16">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Hardt|Kaufman|1995|p=16}}</ref> Meanwhile, West Germany, Austria, France and other Western European nations experienced increased economic growth in the [[Wirtschaftswunder]] ("economic miracle"), [[Trente Glorieuses]] ("thirty glorious years") and the [[post-World War II boom]].

From the end of World War II to the mid-1970s, the economy of the Eastern Bloc steadily increased at the same rate as the economy in Western Europe, with the non-reformist Stalinist nations of the Eastern Bloc having a stronger economy than the reformist-Stalinist states.<ref>{{Harvard citation no brackets|Teichova|Matis|2003|p=152}}</ref> While most western European economies essentially began to approach the [[per capita]] [[gross domestic product]] (GDP) levels of the United States during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Eastern Bloc countries did not,<ref name="hardt16"/> with per capita GDPs trailing significantly behind their comparable western European counterparts.<ref name="hardt17">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Hardt|Kaufman|1995|p=17}}</ref>

The following table displays a set of estimated growth rates of GDP from 1951 onward, for the countries of the Eastern Bloc as well as those of Western Europe as reported by [[The Conference Board]] as part of its ''[[Total Economy Database]]''. In some cases data availability does not go all the way back to 1951.
{|class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align: left"
|- "
!GDP growth rates in percent for the given years<ref>{{cite web|title=Total Economy Database, November 2016. Output, Labor, and Labor Productivity, 1950–2016|url=https://www.conference-board.org/retrievefile.cfm?filename=TED_1_NOV20161.xlsx&type=subsite|access-date=4 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170517180734/https://www.conference-board.org/retrievefile.cfm?filename=TED_1_NOV20161.xlsx&type=subsite|archive-date=17 May 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>
!1951
!1961
!1971
!1981
!1989
!1991
!2001
!2015
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|People's Socialist Republic of Albania||6.608||4.156||6.510||2.526||2.648||−28.000||7.940||2.600
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|People's Republic of Bulgaria||20.576||6.520||3.261||2.660||−1.792||−8.400||4.248||2.968
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Hungarian People's Republic||9.659||5.056||4.462||0.706||−2.240||−11.900||3.849||2.951
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Polish People's Republic||4.400||7.982||7.128||−5.324||−1.552||−7.000||1.248||3.650
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Socialist Republic of Romania||7.237||6.761||14.114||−0.611||−3.192||−16.189||5.592||3.751
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic/[[Czech Republic]]||–||–||5.215||−0.160||1.706||−11.600||3.052||4.274
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic/Slovakia||–||–||–||–||1.010||−14.600||3.316||3.595
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Soviet Union/Russia||–||7.200||4.200||1.200||0.704||−5.000||5.091||−3.727
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Austria||6.840||5.309||5.112||−0.099||4.227||3.442||1.351||0.811
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Belgium||5.688||4.865||3.753||−1.248||3.588||1.833||0.811||1.374
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Denmark||0.668||6.339||2.666||−0.890||0.263||1.300||0.823||1.179
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Finland||8.504||7.620||2.090||1.863||5.668||−5.914||2.581||0.546
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|France||6.160||5.556||4.839||1.026||4.057||1.039||1.954||1.270
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Germany (West)||9.167||4.119||2.943||0.378||3.270||5.108||1.695||1.700
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Greece||8.807||8.769||7.118||0.055||3.845||3.100||4.132||−0.321
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Ireland||2.512||4.790||3.618||3.890||7.051||3.098||9.006||8.538
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Italy||7.466||8.422||1.894||0.474||2.882||1.538||1.772||0.800
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Netherlands||2.098||0.289||4.222||−0.507||4.679||2.439||2.124||1.990
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Norway||5.418||6.268||5.130||0.966||0.956||3.085||2.085||1.598
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Portugal||4.479||5.462||6.633||1.618||5.136||4.368||1.943||1.460
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Spain||9.937||12.822||5.722||0.516||5.280||2.543||4.001||3.214
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Sweden||3.926||5.623||2.356||−0.593||3.073||−1.146||1.563||3.830
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Switzerland||8.097||8.095||4.076||1.579||4.340||−0.916||1.447||0.855
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|United Kingdom||2.985||3.297||2.118||−1.303||2.179||−1.257||2.758||2.329
|}
The [[United Nations Statistics Division]] also calculates growth rates, using a different methodology, but only reports the figures starting in 1971 (for Slovakia and the constituent republics of the USSR data availability begins later). Thus, according to the United Nations growth rates in Europe were as follows:
{|class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align: left"
|-
!GDP growth rates in percent for the given years<ref>{{cite web|title=UN Statistics Division, December 2016. Growth Rate of GDP and its breakdown|url=https://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnltransfer.asp?fID=16|access-date=4 August 2017}}{{Dead link|date=July 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
!1971
!1981
!1989
!1991
!2001
!2015
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|People's Socialist Republic of Albania||4.001||5.746||9.841||−28.002||8.293||2.639
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|People's Republic of Bulgaria||6.897||4.900||−3.290||−8.445||4.248||2.968
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Hungarian People's Republic||6.200||2.867||0.736||−11.687||3.774||3.148
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Polish People's Republic||7.415||−9.971||0.160||−7.016||1.248||3.941
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Socialist Republic of Romania||13.000||0.112||−5.788||−12.918||5.592||3.663
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic/[[Czech Republic]]||5.044||−0.095||0.386||−11.615||3.052||4.536
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic/Slovakia||–||–||–||−14.541||3.316||3.831
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Soviet Union/Russia||5.209||5.301||6.801||−5.000||5.091||−3.727
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Ukraine||–||–||–||−8.699||8.832||−9.870
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Lithuania||–||–||–||−5.676||6.524||1.779
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Yugoslavia/Serbia||9.162||1.400||1.500||−11.664||4.993||0.758
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Austria||5.113||−0.144||3.887||3.442||1.351||0.963
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Belgium||3.753||−0.279||3.469||1.833||0.812||1.500
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Denmark||3.005||−0.666||0.645||1.394||0.823||1.606
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Finland||2.357||1.295||5.088||−5.914||2.581||0.210
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|France||5.346||1.078||4.353||1.039||1.954||1.274
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Germany (West)||3.133||0.529||3.897||5.108||1.695||1.721
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Greece||7.841||−1.554||3.800||3.100||4.132||−0.219
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Ireland||3.470||3.325||5.814||1.930||6.052||26.276
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Italy||1.818||0.844||3.388||1.538||1.772||0.732
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Netherlands||4.331||−0.784||4.420||2.439||2.124||1.952
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Norway||5.672||1.598||1.038||3.085||2.085||1.611
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Portugal||6.632||1.618||6.441||4.368||1.943||1.596
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Spain||4.649||−0.132||4.827||2.546||4.001||3.205
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Sweden||0.945||0.455||2.655||−1.146||1.563||4.085
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Switzerland||4.075||1.601||4.331||−0.916||1.447||0.842
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|United Kingdom||3.479||−0.779||2.583||−1.119||2.726||2.222
|}
[[File:Eastern bloc economies GDP 1990.jpg|thumb|upright=1.8|Per capita GDP in the Eastern Bloc from 1950 to 2003 (1990 base [[International dollar|Geary-Khamis dollars]]) according to [[Angus Maddison]]]]
<!-- several errors{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align: left"
|-
!GDP per Capita, according to the [[UN]]<ref>{{cite web|title=Un statistics Division December 2016, GDP per capita|url=https://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnltransfer.asp?fID=9|access-date=7 August 2017}}</ref>
!1970
!1989
!2015
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|United Kingdom||$2,350||$16,275||$44,162
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Italy||$2,112 ||$16,239||$30,462
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Austria||$2,042 ||$17,313||$44,118
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Japan||$2,040 ||$25,054||$34,629
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Soviet Union/Russia||{{color|red|$1,789}}||{{orange|$2,711}}||$9,243
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Ukraine||-||-||$2,022
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Lithuania||-||-||$14,384
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Greece||$1,496 ||$7,864||$17,788
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Ireland||$1,493 ||$11,029||$60,514
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Spain||$1,205||$10,577||$25,865
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic/[[Czech Republic]]||{{color|red|$1,136}}||{{color|orange|$3,764}}||$17,562
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic/Slovakia||-||-||$16,082
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|People's Republic of Bulgaria||{{color|red|$1,059}}||{{color|orange|$2,477}}||$6,847
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|People's Socialist Republic of Albania||{{color|red|$1,053}}||{{color|orange|$904}}||$3,984
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Cyprus||$1,004 ||$9,015||$21,942
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Polish People's Republic||{{color|red|$1,000}}||{{color|orange|$2,229}}||$12,355
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Portugal||$935||$6,129||$19,239
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Yugoslavia/Serbia||{{color|red|$721}}||{{color|orange|$4,197}}||$5,239
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Cuba||{{color|red|$653}}||{{color|red|$2,577}}||{{color|red|$7,657}}
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Socialist Republic of Romania||{{color|red|$619}}||{{color|orange|$2,424}}||$9,121
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Hungarian People's Republic||{{color|red|$615}}||{{color|orange|$3,115}}||$12,351
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|China||{{color|red|$111}}||{{color|red|$406}}||{{color|red|$8,109}}
|-style="text-align:center;"
|style="text-align:left;"|Vietnam||{{color|red|$64}}||{{color|red|$94}}||{{color|red|$2,068}}
|} -->
[[File:GDP per capita of the Eastern Bloc.png|thumb|450px|GDP per capita of the Eastern Bloc in relations with the GDP per capita of the United States during 1900–2010]]
The following table lists the level of [[nominal GDP]] per capita in certain selected countries, measured in [[US dollar]]s, for the years 1970, 1989, and 2015:
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align: left"
|- "
!Nominal GDP per Capita, according to the [[UN]]<ref>{{cite web|title=Un statistics Division December 2016|url=https://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp|access-date=7 March 2017|archive-date=7 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190107193830/https://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp|url-status=dead}}</ref>
!1970
!1989
!2015
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|United Kingdom||$2,350||$16,275||$44,162
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Italy||$2,112 ||$16,239||$30,462
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Austria||$2,042 ||$17,313||$44,118
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Japan||$2,040 ||$25,054||$34,629
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Soviet Union/[[Russia]]||{{color|red|$1,789}}||{{orange|$2,711}}||$9,243
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|[[Ukraine]]||-||-||$2,022
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|[[Lithuania]]||-||-||$14,384
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Greece||$1,496 ||$7,864||$17,788
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Ireland||$1,493 ||$11,029||$60,514
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Spain||$1,205||$10,577||$25,865
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic/[[Czech Republic]]||{{color|red|$1,136}}||{{color|orange|$3,764}}||$17,562
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|[[Slovakia]]||-||-||$16,082
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|People's Republic of Bulgaria||{{color|red|$1,059}}||{{color|orange|$2,477}}||$6,847
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|People's Socialist Republic of Albania||{{color|red|$1,053}}||{{color|orange|$904}}||$3,984
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Cyprus||$1,004 ||$9,015||$21,942
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Polish People's Republic||{{color|red|$1,000}}||{{color|orange|$2,229}}||$12,355
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Portugal||$935||$6,129||$19,239
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Yugoslavia/[[Serbia]]||{{color|red|$721}}||{{color|orange|$4,197}}||$5,239
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Cuba||{{color|red|$653}}||{{color|red|$2,577}}||{{color|red|$7,657}}
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Socialist Republic of Romania||{{color|red|$619}}||{{color|orange|$2,424}}||$9,121
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Hungarian People's Republic||{{color|red|$615}}||{{color|orange|$3,115}}||$12,351
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|China||{{color|red|$111}}||{{color|red|$406}}||{{color|red|$8,109}}
|- style="text-align:center;"
| style="text-align:left;"|Vietnam||{{color|red|$64}}||{{color|red|$94}}||{{color|red|$2,068}}
|}
While it can be argued the [[World Bank]] estimates of GDP used for 1990 figures underestimate Eastern Bloc GDP because of undervalued local currencies, per capita incomes were undoubtedly lower than in their counterparts.<ref name="hardt17"/> [[East Germany]] was the most advanced industrial nation of the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="zwass34">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Zwass|1984|p=34}}</ref> Until the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, East Germany was considered a weak state, hemorrhaging skilled labor to the West such that it was referred to as "the disappearing satellite".<ref name="graubard8">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Graubard|1991|p=8}}</ref> Only after the wall sealed in skilled labor was East Germany able to ascend to the top economic spot in the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="graubard8"/> Thereafter, its citizens enjoyed a higher quality of life and fewer shortages in the supply of goods than those in the Soviet Union, Poland or Romania.<ref name="zwass34"/>

While official statistics painted a relatively rosy picture, the [[Economy of the German Democratic Republic|East German economy]] had eroded because of increased central planning, economic autarky, the use of coal over oil, investment concentration in a few selected technology-intensive areas and labor market regulation.<ref name="lipschitz52">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Lipschitz|McDonald|1990|p=52}}</ref> As a result, a large productivity gap of nearly 50% per worker existed between East and West Germany.<ref name="lipschitz52"/><ref name="Teichova72"/> However, that gap does not measure the quality of design of goods or service such that the actual per capita rate may be as low as 14 to 20 per cent.<ref name="Teichova72"/> Average gross monthly wages in East Germany were around 30% of those in West Germany, though after accounting for taxation the figures approached 60%.<ref name="lipschitz53">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Lipschitz|McDonald|1990|p=53}}</ref>

Moreover, the purchasing power of wages differed greatly, with only about half of East German households owning either a car or a color television set as late as 1990, both of which had been standard possessions in West German households.<ref name="lipschitz53"/> The ''[[East German mark|Ostmark]]'' was only valid for transactions inside East Germany, could not be legally exported or imported<ref name="lipschitz53"/> and could not be used in the East German [[Intershop]]s which sold premium goods.<ref name="zwass34"/> In 1989, 11% of the East German labor force remained in agriculture, 47% was in the secondary sector and 42% in services.<ref name="Teichova72">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Teichova|Matis|2003|p=72}}</ref>

Once installed, the economic system was difficult to change given the importance of politically reliable management and the prestige value placed on large enterprises.<ref name="turnock24">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=24}}</ref> Performance declined during the 1970s and 1980s due to inefficiency when industrial input costs, such as energy prices, increased.<ref name="turnock24"/> Though growth lagged behind the West, it did occur.<ref name="frucht382"/> Consumer goods started to become more available by the 1960s.<ref name="frucht382"/>

Before the Eastern Bloc's dissolution, some major sectors of industry were operating at such a loss that they exported products to the West at prices below the real value of the raw materials.<ref name="turnock25">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=25}}</ref> [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungarian]] steel costs doubled those of western Europe.<ref name="turnock25"/> In 1985, a quarter of Hungary's state budget was spent on supporting inefficient enterprises.<ref name="turnock25"/> Tight planning in [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]]'s industry meant continuing shortages in other parts of its economy.<ref name="turnock25"/>

===Development policies===
[[File:Wohnbebauung-Ernst-Thaelmann-Park-09-2018c.jpg|left|thumb|[[East Germany|East German]] [[Plattenbau]] apartment blocks]]
In social terms, the 18 years (1964–1982) of Brezhnev's leadership saw real incomes grow more than 1.5 times. More than 1.6 billion square metres of living space were commissioned and provided to over 160&nbsp;million people. At the same time, the average rent for families did not exceed 3% of the family income. There was unprecedented affordability of housing, health care and education.<ref name="ria.ru"/>

In a survey by the Sociological Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1986, 75% of those surveyed said that they were better off than the previous ten years. Over 95% of Soviet adults considered themselves "fairly well off". 55% of those surveyed felt that medical services improved, 46% believed public transportation had improved and 48% said that the standard of services provided public service establishments had risen.<ref>Update USSR, Vol. 53. April 1986. N.W.R. Publications. p. 11</ref>

During the years 1957–1965, housing policy underwent several institutional changes with industrialisation and urbanisation had not been matched by an increase in housing after World War II.<ref name="sillince36">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|pp=36–37}}</ref> Housing shortages in the Soviet Union were worse than in the rest of the Eastern Bloc due to a larger migration to the towns and more wartime devastation and were worsened by Stalin's pre-war refusals to invest properly in housing.<ref name="sillince36"/> Because such investment was generally not enough to sustain the existing population, apartments had to be subdivided into increasingly smaller units, resulting in several families sharing an apartment previously meant for one family.<ref name="sillince36"/>

The prewar norm became one Soviet family per room, with the toilets and kitchen shared.<ref name="sillince36"/> The amount of living space in urban areas fell from 5.7 square metres per person in 1926 to 4.5 square metres in 1940.<ref name="sillince36"/> In the rest of the Eastern Bloc during this time period, the average number of people per room was 1.8 in [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] (1956), 2.0 in [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] (1961), 1.5 in [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]] (1963), 1.7 in [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]] (1960), 1.4 in [[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]] (1966), 2.4 in [[Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] (1961) and 0.9 in 1961 in [[East Germany]].<ref name="sillince36"/>

After Stalin's death in 1953, forms of an economic "New Course" brought a revival of private house construction.<ref name="sillince36"/> Private construction peaked in 1957–1960 in many Eastern Bloc countries and then declined simultaneously along with a steep increase in state and co-operative housing.<ref name="sillince36"/> By 1960, the rate of housebuilding per head had picked up in all countries in the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="sillince36"/> Between 1950 and 1975, worsening shortages were generally caused by a fall in the proportion of all investment made housing.<ref name="sillince48">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=748}}</ref> However, during that period the total number of dwellings increased.<ref name="sillince49">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=49}}</ref>

During the last fifteen years of this period (1960–1975), an emphasis was made for a supply side solution, which assumed that industrialised building methods and high rise housing would be cheaper and quicker than traditional brick-built, low-rise housing.<ref name="sillince49"/> Such methods required manufacturing organisations to produce the [[prefabricated]] components and organisations to assemble them on site, both of which planners assumed would employ large numbers of unskilled workers-with powerful political contacts.<ref name="sillince49"/> The lack of participation of eventual customers, the residents, constituted one factor in escalating construction costs and poor quality work.<ref name="sillince50">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=50}}</ref> This led to higher demolition rates and higher costs to repair poorly constructed dwellings.<ref name="sillince50"/> In addition, because of poor quality work, a black market arose for building services and materials that could not be procured from state monopolies.<ref name="sillince50"/>

In most countries, completions (new dwellings constructed) rose to a high point between 1975 and 1980 and then fell as a result presumably of worsening international economic conditions.<ref name="sillince7">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=7}}</ref> This occurred in Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania (with an earlier peak in 1960 also), Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia while the Soviet Union peaked in 1960 and 1970.<ref name="sillince7"/> While between 1975 and 1986, the proportion of investment devoted to housing actually rose in most of the Eastern Bloc, general economic conditions resulted in total investment amounts falling or becoming stagnant.<ref name="sillince48"/>

The employment of socialist ideology in housing policy declined in the 1980s, which accompanied a shift in authorities looking at the need of residents to an examination of potential residents' ability to pay.<ref name="sillince48"/> Yugoslavia was unique in that it continuously mixed private and state sources of housing finance, stressed self-managed building co-operatives along with central government controls.<ref name="sillince48"/>

===Shortages===
The initial year that shortages were effectively measured and shortages in 1986 were as follows:<ref name="sillince11">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|pp=11–12}}</ref>
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left"
|+Housing shortages in the Eastern Bloc and Yugoslavia
|-
!Country
!Initial year
!Initial year shortage
!% of total stock
!1986 shortage
!1986% of total stock
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Albania|Albania]] || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a || n/a
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] || 1965 || 472,000 || 23.0% || 880,400 || 27.4%
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]] || 1973 || 6,000 || 0.2% || 257,000 || 6.6%
|-
|align=left|[[East Germany]] || 1971 || 340,000 || 5.6% || 1,181,700 || 17.1%
|-
|align=left|[[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]] || 1974 || 1,357,000 || 15.9% || 2,574,800 || 23.9%
|-
|align=left|[[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]] || 1966 || 575,000 || 11.0% || 1,157,900 || 14.0%
|-
|align=left|[[Soviet Union]] || 1970 || 13,690,000 || 23.1% || 26,662,400 || 30.2%
|-
|align=left|[[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] || 1970 || 438,000 || 9.9% || 877,600 || 15.3%
|-
|align=left|[[Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] || n/a || n/a || n/a || 1,634,700 || 23.9%
|}
These are official housing figures and may be low. For example, in the Soviet Union the figure of 26,662,400 in 1986 almost certainly underestimates shortages for the reason that it does not count shortages from large Soviet rural-urban migration; another calculation estimates shortages to be 59,917,900.<ref name="sillince17">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=17}}</ref> By the late 1980s, [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]] had an average 20-year wait time for housing while Warsaw had between a 26- and 50-year wait time.<ref name="sillince27">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=27}}</ref><ref name="turnock25"/> In the Soviet Union, widespread illegal subletting occurred at exorbitant rates.<ref name="sillince33">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=33}}</ref> Toward the end of the Eastern Bloc allegations of misallocations and illegal distribution of housing were raised in Soviet [[CPSU]] Central Committee meetings.<ref name="sillince33"/>

In [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]], housing problems were caused by slow rates of construction, poor home quality (which was even more pronounced in villages) and a large black market.<ref name="sillince2"/> In [[People's Republic of Romania|Romania]], social engineering policy and concern about the use of agricultural land forced high densities and high-rise housing designs.<ref name="sillince3">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=3}}</ref> In [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]], a prior emphasis on monolithic high-rise housing lessened somewhat in the 1970s and 1980s.<ref name="sillince3"/> In the Soviet Union, housing was perhaps the primary social problem.<ref name="sillince3"/> While Soviet housing construction rates were high, quality was poor and demolition rates were high, in part because of an inefficient building industry and lack of both quality and quantity of construction materials.<ref name="sillince3"/>

[[East Germany|East German]] housing suffered from a lack of quality and a lack of skilled labor, with a shortage of materials, plot and permits.<ref name="sillince4">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Sillince|1990|p=4}}</ref> In staunchly Stalinist [[People's Republic of Albania|Albania]], housing blocks (''panelka'') were spartan, with six-story walk-ups being the most frequent design.<ref name="sillince4"/> Housing was allocated by workplace trade unions and built by voluntary labor organised into brigades within the workplace.<ref name="sillince4"/> [[Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] suffered from fast urbanisation, uncoordinated development and poor organisation resulting from a lack of hierarchical structure and clear accountability, low building productivity, the monopoly position of building enterprises and irrational credit policies.<ref name="sillince4"/>

==Revolts==

===1953 East Germany uprising===
{{main|Uprising of 1953 in East Germany}}
Three months after the death of [[Joseph Stalin]], a dramatic increase of emigration ([[Republikflucht]], [[brain drain]]) 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 and defection|Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions]], the Berlin sector border.<ref name="crampton278">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=278}}</ref> The East German government then raised "norms" – the amount each worker was required to produce – by 10%.<ref name="crampton278"/> Already disaffected East Germans, who could see the relative economic successes of West Germany within Berlin, became enraged.<ref name="crampton278"/> Angry building workers initiated street protests, and were soon joined by others in a march to the Berlin trade union headquarters.<ref name="crampton278"/>

While no official spoke to them at that location, by 2:00&nbsp;pm, the East German government agreed to withdraw the "norm" increases.<ref name="crampton279"/> However, the crisis had already escalated such that the demands were now political, including free elections, disbanding the army and resignation of the government.<ref name="crampton279">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=279}}</ref> By 17 June, strikes were recorded in 317 locations involving approximately 400,000 workers.<ref name="crampton279"/> When strikers set ruling [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|SED]] party buildings aflame and tore the flag from the [[Brandenburg Gate]], SED General Secretary [[Walter Ulbricht]] left Berlin.<ref name="crampton279"/>

A major emergency was declared and the Soviet [[Red Army]] stormed some important buildings.<ref name="crampton279"/> Within hours, Soviet tanks arrived, but they did not immediately fire upon all workers.<ref name="crampton279"/> Rather, a gradual pressure was applied.<ref name="crampton279"/> Approximately 16 Soviet divisions with 20,000 soldiers from the [[Group of Soviet Forces in Germany]] using tanks, as well as 8,000 [[Kasernierte Volkspolizei]] 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.<ref name="crampton279"/> Thereafter, 20,000 arrests took place along with 40 executions.<ref name="crampton279"/>

===Hungarian Revolution of 1956===
{{main|Hungarian Revolution of 1956}}
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:HungarianRevolution BudapestAfter.jpg|thumb|Bodies in Budapest after [[Red Army]] invasion in the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]]]] -->
After Stalin's death in 1953, a period of [[de-Stalinization]] followed, with reformist [[Imre Nagy]] replacing Hungarian Stalinist dictator Mátyás Rákosi.<ref>{{Citation | author=János M. Rainer | title = Stalin and Rákosi, Stalin and Hungary, 1949–1953 | date = 4 October 1997 | url =http://www.rev.hu/index_en.html | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20060909035345/http://www.rev.hu/index_en.html | archive-date =9 September 2006 | access-date =8 October 2006 }} (Paper presented on 4 October 1997 at the workshop "European Archival Evidence. Stalin and the Cold War in Europe", Budapest, 1956 Institute).</ref> Responding to popular demand, in October 1956, the Polish government appointed the recently [[Political rehabilitation|rehabilitated]] reformist [[Władysław Gomułka]] as First Secretary of the [[Polish United Workers' Party]], 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.<ref name = satellite>{{cite web | title = Notes from the Minutes of the CPSU CC Presidium Meeting with Satellite Leaders, 24 October 1956 | website = The 1956 Hungarian Revolution, A History in Documents | publisher = George Washington University: The National Security Archive | date = 4 November 2002 | url = http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/doc5.pdf | access-date = 2 September 2006 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060908023412/http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/doc5.pdf | archive-date = 8 September 2006 | url-status = live }}</ref>

The revolution began after students of the [[Budapest University of Technology and Economics|Technical University]] compiled a list of [[Demands of Hungarian Revolutionaries of 1956]] and conducted protests in support of the demands on 22 October.<ref name=sixteen>Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Resolution by students of the Building Industry Technological University: [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1956hungary-16points.html Sixteen Political, Economic, and Ideological Points, Budapest, 22 October 1956] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090306232332/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1956hungary-16points.html |date=6 March 2009 }}. Retrieved 22 October 2006.</ref> Protests of support swelled to 200,000 by 6&nbsp;pm the following day,<ref>UN General Assembly ''Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary'' (1957) {{cite web |url= http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |title= Chapter II. A (Meetings and demonstrations), para 54 (p. 19) |access-date= 9 March 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090320024559/http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |archive-date= 20 March 2009 |url-status= live }}&nbsp;{{small|(1.47&nbsp;MB)}}</ref><ref name="UN report 2C p55">UN General Assembly ''Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary'' (1957) {{cite web |url= http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |title= Chapter II. C (The First Shots), para 55 (p. 20) |access-date= 9 March 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090320024559/http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |archive-date= 20 March 2009 |url-status= live }}&nbsp;{{small|(1.47&nbsp;MB)}}</ref> 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&nbsp;pm the statue was toppled and jubilant crowds celebrated by placing [[Flag of Hungary|Hungarian flags]] in Stalin's boots, which was all that remained the statue.<ref name="UN report 2C p55" /> The [[ÁVH]] was called, Hungarian soldiers sided with the crowd over the ÁVH and shots were fired on the crowd.<ref name="UN report 2C p56">UN General Assembly ''Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary'' (1957) {{cite web |url= http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |title= Chapter II. C (The First Shots), para 56 (p. 20) |access-date= 9 March 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090320024559/http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |archive-date= 20 March 2009 |url-status= live }}&nbsp;{{small|(1.47&nbsp;MB)}}</ref><ref>UN General Assembly ''Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary 1956'' (1957) {{cite web |url= http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |title= Chapter II. C (The First Shots), paragraphs 56–57 (p. 20) |access-date= 9 March 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090320024559/http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |archive-date= 20 March 2009 |url-status= live }}&nbsp;{{small|(1.47&nbsp;MB)}}</ref>

By 2&nbsp;am on 24 October, under orders of Soviet defense minister [[Georgy Zhukov]], Soviet tanks entered Budapest.<ref>UN General Assembly ''Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary'' (1957) {{cite web |url= http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |title= Chapter II.C, para 58 (p. 20) |access-date= 9 March 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090320024559/http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |archive-date= 20 March 2009 |url-status= live }}&nbsp;{{small|(1.47&nbsp;MB)}}</ref> Protester attacks at the Parliament forced the dissolution of the government.<ref>UN General Assembly ''Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary'' (1957) {{cite web |url= http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |title= Chapter II.F, para 65 (p. 22) |access-date= 9 March 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090320024559/http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |archive-date= 20 March 2009 |url-status= live }}&nbsp;{{small|(1.47&nbsp;MB)}}</ref> A ceasefire was arranged on 28 October, and by 30 October most Soviet troops had withdrawn from Budapest to garrisons in the Hungarian countryside.<ref>UN General Assembly ''Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary'' (1957) {{cite web |url= http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |title= Chapter II. F (Political Developments) II. G (Mr. Nagy clarifies his position), paragraphs 67–70 (p. 23) |access-date= 9 March 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090320024559/http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |archive-date= 20 March 2009 |url-status= live }}&nbsp;{{small|(1.47&nbsp;MB)}}</ref> Fighting had virtually ceased between 28 October and 4 November, while many Hungarians believed that Soviet military units were indeed withdrawing from Hungary.<ref>Video: Revolt in Hungary {{cite web|url=http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/selection/rip/4/av/1956-44.html |title=1956-44 |access-date=8 February 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071117094223/http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/selection/rip/4/av/1956-44.html |archive-date=17 November 2007}} Narrator: [[Walter Cronkite]], producer: CBS (1956) – Fonds 306, Audiovisual Materials Relating to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, OSA Archivum, Budapest, Hungary ID number: HU OSA 306-0-1:40</ref>
[[File:József körút - Corvin (Kisfaludy) köz sarok, háttérben a Kilián laktanya romos épülete. Kiégett szovjet T-34-85 harckocsi. Fortepan 24857.jpg|thumb|Budapest in 1956]]
The new government that came to power during the revolution formally disbanded ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the [[Warsaw Pact]] and pledged to re-establish free elections. The [[Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet Politburo]] thereafter moved to crush the revolution. On 4 November, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country.<ref name=troops>UN General Assembly ''Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary'' (1957) {{cite web |url= http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |title= Chapter IV. E (Logistical deployment of new Soviet troops), para 181 (p. 56) |access-date= 9 March 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090320024559/http://mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf |archive-date= 20 March 2009 |url-status= live }}&nbsp;{{small|(1.47&nbsp;MB)}}</ref> The [[Csepel|last pocket of resistance]] called for ceasefire on 10 November. Over 2,500 Hungarians and 722 Soviet troops were killed and thousands more were wounded.<ref>Mark Kramer, "The Soviet Union and the 1956 Crises in Hungary and Poland: Reassessments and New Findings", ''Journal of Contemporary History'', Vol. 33, No. 2, April 1998, p. 210.</ref><ref>Péter Gosztonyi, "Az 1956-os forradalom számokban", ''Népszabadság'' (Budapest), 3 November 1990.</ref>

Thousands of Hungarians were arrested, imprisoned and deported to the Soviet Union, many without evidence.<ref>{{cite web | title = Report by Soviet Deputy Interior Minister M. N. Holodkov to Interior Minister N. P. Dudorov (15 November 1956) | website = The 1956 Hungarian Revolution, A History in Documents | publisher = George Washington University: The National Security Archive | date = 4 November 2002 | url = http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/doc8.pdf | access-date = 2 September 2006 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060908023144/http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/doc8.pdf | archive-date = 8 September 2006 | url-status = live }}</ref> Approximately 200,000 Hungarians fled Hungary,<ref name="Cseresneyes">{{Citation|last=Cseresnyés |first=Ferenc |title=The '56 Exodus to Austria |journal=The Hungarian Quarterly |volume=XL |issue=154 |pages=86–101 |url=http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/no154/086.html |date=Summer 1999 |access-date=9 October 2006 |postscript=. |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041127172402/http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/no154/086.html |archive-date=27 November 2004}}</ref> some 26,000 Hungarians were put on trial by the new Soviet-installed [[János Kádár]] government, and of those, 13,000 were imprisoned.<ref>{{cite conference | first = Adrienne | last = Molnár | author2 = Kõrösi Zsuzsanna | title = The handing down of experiences in families of the politically condemned in Communist Hungary | book-title = IX. International Oral History Conference | pages = 1169–1166 | year = 1996 | location = Gotegorg | url = http://www.rev.hu/portal/page/portal/rev/tanulmanyok/kadarrendszer/kzsma1 | access-date = 10 October 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070607034837/http://www.rev.hu/portal/page/portal/rev/tanulmanyok/kadarrendszer/kzsma1 | archive-date = 7 June 2007 | url-status = live }}</ref> Imre Nagy was executed, along with [[Pál Maléter]] and Miklós Gimes, after secret trials in June 1958. Their bodies were placed in unmarked graves in the Municipal Cemetery outside Budapest.<ref name="BBCJune16">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/16/ "On This Day 16 June 1989: Hungary reburies fallen hero Imre Nagy"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090425235008/http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/16/ |date=25 April 2009 }} British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reports on Nagy reburial with full honors. Retrieved 13 October 2006.</ref> By January 1957, the new Soviet-installed government had suppressed all public opposition.

===Prague Spring and the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia===
{{main|Prague Spring|Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia}}
A period of political liberalization in [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] called the [[Prague Spring]] took place in 1968. The event was spurred by several events, including economic reforms that addressed an early 1960s economic downturn.<ref>{{cite web| title = Photius.com, (info from CIA world Factbook)| url = http://www.photius.com/countries/slovakia/economy/czechoslovakia_economy_economic_policy_and_~777.html| publisher = Photius Coutsoukis| access-date = 20 January 2008| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090116152207/http://www.photius.com/countries/slovakia/economy/czechoslovakia_economy_economic_policy_and_~777.html| archive-date = 16 January 2009| url-status = live}}</ref><ref name="Williams5">{{Harvnb|Williams|1997|p=5}}</ref> The event began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Slovak [[Alexander Dubček]] came to power. In April, Dubček launched an "[[Action Programme (1968)|Action Program]]" 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.<ref>Ello (ed.), Paul (April 1968). Control Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, "Action Plan of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Prague, April 1968)" in ''Dubcek's Blueprint for Freedom: His original documents leading to the invasion of Czechoslovakia''. William Kimber & Co. 1968, pp 32, 54</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Von Geldern |first1=James |last2=Siegelbaum |first2=Lewis|authorlink2=Lewis Siegelbaum |publisher=Soviethistory.org |title=The Soviet-led Intervention in Czechoslovakia |url=http://soviethistory.org/index.php?action=L2&SubjectID=1968czechoslovakia&Year=1968 |access-date=7 March 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090817200255/http://soviethistory.org/index.php?action=L2&SubjectID=1968czechoslovakia&Year=1968 |archive-date=17 August 2009}}</ref>

Initial reaction within the Eastern Bloc was mixed, with [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]]'s [[János Kádár]] expressing support, while Soviet leader [[Leonid Brezhnev]] and others grew concerned about Dubček's reforms, which they feared might weaken the Eastern Bloc's position during the [[Cold War]].<ref name="trans">{{cite web | title = Document #81: Transcript of Leonid Brezhnev's Telephone Conversation with Alexander Dubček, August 13, 1968 | year = 1998 | url = http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/publications/DOC_readers/psread/doc81.htm | website = The Prague Spring '68 | publisher = The Prague Spring Foundation | access-date = 23 January 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080117232525/http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/publications/DOC_readers/psread/doc81.htm | archive-date = 17 January 2008 | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Navrátil|2006|pp=36 & 172–181}}</ref> On 3 August, representatives from the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia met in [[Bratislava]] and signed the Bratislava Declaration, which affirmed unshakable fidelity to [[Marxism–Leninism]] and [[proletarian internationalism]] and declared an implacable struggle against "bourgeois" ideology and all "anti-socialist" forces.<ref>{{Harvnb|Navrátil|2006|pp=326–329}}</ref>

[[File:10 Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia - Flickr - The Central Intelligence Agency.jpg|thumb|left|Czechoslovak protestors carrying their national flag past a burning Soviet tank in Prague, 1968]]
On the night of 20–21 August 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from five Warsaw Pact countries (the Soviet Union, [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]], [[German Democratic Republic|East Germany]], [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]] and [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]]) [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia|invaded Czechoslovakia]].<ref>{{Citation| last = Ouimet | first = Matthew| title = The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy | publisher=University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London| year = 2003 |pages = 34–35}}</ref> The invasion comported with the Brezhnev Doctrine, 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.<ref>{{Harvnb|Grenville|2005|p=780}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last = Chafetz| first = Glenn | title = Gorbachev, Reform, and the Brezhnev Doctrine: Soviet Policy Toward Eastern Europe, 1985–1990| date =  1993| publisher=Praeger Publishers| isbn = 978-0-275-94484-1 |page= 10}}</ref> The invasion was followed by a wave of emigration, including an estimated 70,000 Czechoslovaks initially fleeing, with the total eventually reaching 300,000.<ref>{{cite web| last = Čulík| first = Jan| title = Den, kdy tanky zlikvidovaly české sny Pražského jara| url = http://www.britskelisty.cz/9808/19980821h.html| publisher = Britské Listy| access-date = 23 January 2008| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070928050554/http://www.britskelisty.cz/9808/19980821h.html| archive-date = 28 September 2007| url-status = dead}}</ref>

In April 1969, Dubček was replaced as first secretary by [[Gustáv Husák]] and a period of "[[Normalization (Czechoslovakia)|normalization]]" began.<ref name="Williams">{{Harvnb|Williams|1997|p=xi}}</ref> 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 [[Command economy|re-centralize]] the economy and re-instated the disallowance of political commentary in mainstream media and by persons not considered to have "full political trust".<ref name="Interpolitics">{{Harvnb|Goertz|1995|pp=154–157}}</ref><ref name="KieranPress">{{Harvnb|Williams|1997|p=164}}</ref>

==Dissolution==
{{further|Revolutions of 1989|Dissolution of the Soviet Union|Dissolution of Czechoslovakia|January 1991 events in Latvia|Singing Revolution|Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts|Removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria|European integration}}
[[File:Cold_War_Map_1980.png|thumb|300px|The Cold War in 1980 before the [[Iran–Iraq War]]]]
Soviet control of the Eastern Bloc was first tested by the [[1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état]] and the [[Tito–Stalin split]] over the direction of the [[People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]], the [[Chinese Communist Revolution]] (1949) and Chinese participation in the [[Korean War]]. After [[Stalin's death]] in 1953, the Korean War ceased with the [[1954 Geneva Conference]]. In [[Europe]], [[Anti-Sovietism|anti-Soviet sentiment]] provoked the [[East German uprising of 1953]]. [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s 1956 anti-Stalinist speech ''[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences]]'' was a factor in the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]], which the Soviet Union suppressed, and the Sino–Soviet split. The Sino–Soviet split gave [[North Korea]] and [[North Vietnam]] more independence from both and facilitated the [[Albanian–Soviet split]]. The [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] and the failure of the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]] preserved the [[Cuban Revolution]] from [[rollback]] by the United States but Cuban leader [[Fidel Castro]] became increasingly independent of Soviet influence afterwards, most notably during the 1975 [[Cuban intervention in Angola]].<ref name=Piero /> In 1975, the communist victory in former [[French Indochina]] following the end of the [[Vietnam War]] gave the Eastern Bloc renewed confidence after it had been frayed by [[Soviet leader]] [[Leonid Brezhnev]]'s 1968 [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia|invasion of Czechoslovakia]] to suppress the [[Prague Spring]]. This led to the [[People's Republic of Albania]] withdrawing from the [[Warsaw Pact]], briefly aligning with [[Mao Zedong]]'s China until the [[Sino-Albanian split]].

Under the [[Brezhnev Doctrine]], the Soviet Union reserved the right to intervene in other [[List of non-communist socialist states|socialist states]]. In response, China moved towards the United States following the [[Sino-Soviet border conflict]] and later [[Chinese economic reform|reformed and liberalized its economy]] while the Eastern Bloc saw the [[Era of Stagnation]] in comparison with the capitalist [[First World]]. The [[Soviet–Afghan War]] (24 December 1979 – 15 February 1989) nominally expanded the Eastern Bloc, but the war proved unwinnable and too costly for the Soviets, challenged in Eastern Europe by the [[civil resistance]] of ''[[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|Solidarity]]''. In the late 1980s, Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] pursued policies of ''[[glasnost]]'' (openness) and ''[[perestroika]]'' (restructuring) to reform the Eastern Bloc and end the Cold War, which brought forth unrest throughout the bloc.

During the mid-to-late 1980s, the weakened Soviet Union gradually stopped interfering in the internal affairs of Eastern Bloc nations and numerous independence movements took place.

[[File:President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the first Summit in Geneva, Switzerland.jpg|thumb|Soviet General Secretary [[Mikhail Gorbachev]], who sought to end the Cold War between the Soviet-led [[Warsaw Pact]] and the United States-led [[NATO]] and its other Western allies, in a meeting with President [[Ronald Reagan]]]]
Following the [[Brezhnev stagnation]], the reform-minded Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] in 1985 signaled the trend towards greater liberalization. Gorbachev rejected the Brezhnev Doctrine, which held that Moscow would intervene if socialism were threatened in any state.<ref name="crampton338">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=338}}</ref> He announced what was jokingly called the "[[Sinatra Doctrine]]" after the singer's "My Way" to allow the countries of [[Central and Eastern Europe]] to determine their own internal affairs during this period.

Gorbachev initiated a policy of ''[[glasnost]]'' (openness) in the Soviet Union, and emphasized the need for ''[[perestroika]]'' (economic restructuring). The Soviet Union was struggling economically after the long war in Afghanistan and did not have the resources to control Central and Eastern Europe.

The start of the disintegration of the Eastern Bloc can be attributed to [[1989 Polish parliamentary election|June 1989 Polish parliamentary election]], to the [[Removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria|opening of a border gate]] between [[Austria]] and [[Hungary]] at the [[Pan-European Picnic]] on 19 August 1989, and to the fact that the Hungarian Government granted 108 GDR citizens permission to cross the [[Iron Curtain]]. These citizens had stayed in the [[Embassy of Germany, Budapest|Embassy of Western Germany in Budapest]].<ref>[https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/schwerpunkte-der-bundesregierung/deutsche-einheit/ungarn-laesst-108-ddr-buerger-ausreisen-459164 ''Ungarn lässt 108 DDR-Bürger ausreisen'']</ref> This permission became publicly known. Nine days later, 1,400 had come to the Embassy, on 2 September there were 3,500 and on 4 September 4,700 GDR citizens.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/schwerpunkte-der-bundesregierung/deutsche-einheit/fluechtlinge-stroemen-weiter-nach-ungarn-459148 |title=Flüchtlinge strömen weiter nach Ungarn |language=de |publisher=Die Bundesregierung  |date=4 September 1989 |access-date=15 January 2025}}</ref> At the evening of 9 September 1989, Hungary opened its border to Austria for all GDR citizens.

On 3 October 1990 [[German reunification|East Germany reunited with West Germany]] following the November 1989 [[fall of the Berlin Wall]]. Unlike previous Soviet leaders in [[East German uprising of 1953|1953]], [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|1956]] and [[Prague Spring|1968]], Gorbachev refused to use force to end the [[Revolutions of 1989|1989 Revolutions]] against [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] rule in Eastern Europe. The [[fall of the Berlin Wall]] and [[Warsaw Pact#End of the Cold War|end of the Warsaw Pact]] spread [[Nationalism|nationalist]] and [[Liberalism|liberal]] ideals throughout the Soviet Union. In 1991, Conservative communist elites launched a [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt]], which hastened the end of Marxist–Leninist rule in Eastern Europe. However, the [[1989 Tiananmen Square protests]] in [[China]] were violently repressed by the communist government there, which maintained its grip on power.

In 1989, [[Revolutions of 1989|a wave of revolutions]], sometimes called the "Autumn of Nations",{{Cn|date=August 2024}} swept across the Eastern Bloc.<ref name="Szafarz-221">E. Szafarz, "The Legal Framework for Political Cooperation in Europe" in ''The Changing Political Structure of Europe: Aspects of International Law'', Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. {{ISBN|0-7923-1379-8}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=oGGSGhFbCDEC&dq=%22Autumn+of+Nations%22&pg=PA221 p.221].</ref>

Major reforms occurred in [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]] following the replacement of [[János Kádár]] as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1988.<ref name="crampton381">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=381}}</ref> In [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]] in April 1989, the [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|Solidarity]] organization was legalized and allowed to participate in parliamentary elections. In the [[1989 Polish parliamentary election|elections on 4 June 1989]], it captured 99% of available parliamentary seats.<ref name="crampton392">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=392}}</ref>
[[File:Oliver Mark - Otto Habsburg-Lothringen, Pöcking 2006.jpg|thumb|[[Otto von Habsburg]], who played a leading role in opening the Iron Curtain]]
The opening of the [[Iron Curtain]] between Austria and Hungary at the [[Pan-European Picnic]] on 19 August 1989 then set in motion a chain reaction, at the end of which there was [[German reunification|East Germany]] and the [[#dissolution|Eastern Bloc had disintegrated]].
Extensive advertising for the planned picnic was made by posters and flyers among the GDR holidaymakers in Hungary. The Austrian branch of the [[Paneuropean Union]], which was then headed by [[Karl von Habsburg]], distributed thousands of brochures inviting them to a picnic near the border at [[Sopron]].<ref>Hilde Szabo: ''Die Berliner Mauer begann im Burgenland zu bröckeln'' (The Berlin Wall began to crumble in Burgenland – German), in [[Wiener Zeitung]] 16 August 1999; Otmar Lahodynsky: ''Paneuropäisches Picknick: Die Generalprobe für den Mauerfall'' (Pan-European picnic: the dress rehearsal for the fall of the Berlin Wall – German), in: ''Profil'' 9 August 2014.</ref><ref>Ludwig Greven "Und dann ging das Tor auf", in Die Zeit, 19 August 2014.</ref>
It was the largest escape movement from East Germany since the time before the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. After the picnic, which was based on an idea by [[Otto von Habsburg]] to test the reaction of the [[USSR]] and [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] to an opening of the border, tens of thousands of media-informed East Germans set off for Hungary.<ref>Miklós Németh in Interview, Austrian TV – ORF "Report", 25 June 2019.</ref> Hungary was then no longer prepared to keep its borders completely closed or to commit its border troops to use force of arms. [[Erich Honecker]] dictated to the Daily Mirror for the Paneuropa Picnic: "Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West". The leadership of the GDR in East Berlin did not dare to completely block the borders of their own country and the USSR did not respond at all. Thus the bracket of the Eastern Bloc was broken.<ref>Otmar Lahodynsky "Eiserner Vorhang: Picknick an der Grenze" (Iron curtain: picnic at the border – German), in Profil 13 June 2019.</ref><ref>Thomas Roser: DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln (German – Mass exodus of the GDR: A picnic clears the world) in: Die Presse 16 August 2018.</ref><ref>Andreas Rödder, Deutschland einig Vaterland – Die Geschichte der Wiedervereinigung (2009).</ref>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R1220-401, Erich Honecker (cropped).jpg|thumb|232x232px|[[Erich Honecker]]]]
[[File:Cold War border changes.png|thumb|left|270px|Changes in national boundaries after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc]]
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 Wall and crossed into West Berlin.<ref name="crampton394">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|pp=394–5}}</ref> Parts of the wall were torn down, leading to the [[reunification of Germany]] on 3 October 1990; around this time, most of the remains of the wall were torn down. In [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]], the day after the mass crossings through the Berlin Wall, the leader [[Todor Zhivkov]] was ousted by his Politburo and replaced with [[Petar Mladenov]].<ref name="crampton395">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|pp=395–6}}</ref>

In [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]], following protests of an estimated half-million Czechs and Slovaks demanding freedoms and a [[general strike]], the authorities, which had allowed travel to the West, abolished provisions guaranteeing the ruling Communist Party its leading role.<ref name="crampton398">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=398}}</ref> President [[Gustáv Husák]] appointed the first largely non-Communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948 and resigned in what was called the [[Velvet Revolution]].<ref name="crampton398"/>

Since 1971, [[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]] had [[July Theses|reversed]] the program of [[De-Stalinization in Romania|de-Stalinization]]. Following growing [[Romanian Revolution|public protests]], dictator [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]] ordered a [[Romanian Revolution|mass rally]] in his support outside Communist Party headquarters in [[Bucharest]], but mass protests against Ceaușescu proceeded.<ref name="crampton399">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=399}}</ref> The Romanian military sided with protesters and turned on Ceaușescu. They [[Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu|executed him]] after a brief trial three days later.<ref name="crampton400">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=400}}</ref>

Even before the Eastern Bloc's last years, all of the countries in the Warsaw Pact did not always act as a unified bloc. For instance, the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia|1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia]] was [[Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968|condemned]] by [[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]], which refused to take part in it. [[People's Republic of Albania|Albania]] withdrew from the Pact, and the Eastern Bloc altogether, in response to the invasion. In [[Cambodia]], [[communist rule]] ended in 1992 and monarchy was restored in 1993.

The only surviving communist states are China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Their state-socialist experience was more in line with [[decolonization]] from the [[Global North]] and [[anti-imperialism]] towards the West instead of the [[Red Army]] occupation of the former Eastern Bloc. The five states all adopted [[economic reform]]s to varying degrees. China and Vietnam are usually described as more [[state capitalist]] than the more traditionalist Cuba, Laos, and North Korea. This was previously the case in [[Kazakhstan]] until 2022, [[Uzbekistan]] until 2016, [[Turkmenistan]] until 2006, [[Kyrgyzstan]] [[Tulip Revolution|until 2005]], [[Azerbaijan]] and [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] [[Rose Revolution|until 2003]], [[Armenia]] until 1998, [[Moldova]] until 1997, [[Ukrainia]] and [[Belarus]] until 1994, [[Tajikistan]] until 1992. All presidents of [[post-Soviet Russia]] were members of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] ([[Boris Yeltsin]] before 1990, [[Vladimir Putin]] and [[Dmitry Medvedev]] before 1991). Azerbaijan is an [[authoritarian]] [[dominant-party state]] yet it has officially eliminated mentions of communism from its constitution.

==Legacy==
===Aftermath===
The fall of the Eastern Bloc had varying impacts on former Communist countries in the short and long term.<ref>Fisher, Stanley and Ratna Shahay (February 2000) [https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2000/wp0030.pdf The Transition Economies after Ten Years] ''International Monetary Fund'' pp. 3–6</ref>  Many factors shaped how post-Communist countries performed economically, both in the transition period of the 1990s and into the 21st century.<ref>[https://www.ebrd.com/content/dam/ebrd_dxp/assets/pdfs/office-of-the-chief-economist/transition-report-archive/transition-report-2000/Transition-Report-2000-Employment-Skills-and-Transition-English.pdf Transition report 2000: Employment, skills and transition] (2000) ''European Bank for Reconstruction and Development'' pp. 13–29</ref><ref>Roaf, James, Ruben V. Atoyan, Bikas Joshi, and Krzysztof Krogulski (17 October 2014)[https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781498305631/9781498305631.xml Regional Economic Issues Special Report 25 Years of Transition: Post-Communist Europe and the IMF] ''International Monetary Fund'' v.</ref>  These included the legacy of the Communist-era planned economy and one-party state—both overall and in each individual country—the state of the economy on the eve of reform, the pace and execution of economic reforms, the status of the rule of law, and the relevant international situation.<ref>Fisher, Stanley and Ratna Shahay (February 2000) [https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2000/wp0030.pdf The Transition Economies after Ten Years] ''International Monetary Fund'' pp. 10–14</ref><ref>[https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/319481468770972868/pdf/multi0page.pdf Transition: The First Ten Years] (2002) ''World Bank.'' pp. 11–19</ref><ref>[https://www.ebrd.com/content/dam/ebrd_dxp/assets/pdfs/office-of-the-chief-economist/transition-report-archive/transition-report-2000/Transition-Report-2000-Employment-Skills-and-Transition-English.pdf Transition report 2000: Employment, skills and transition] (2000) ''European Bank for Reconstruction and Development'' pp. 3–7</ref><ref>Roaf, James, Ruben V. Atoyan, Bikas Joshi, and Krzysztof Krogulski (17 October 2014)[https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781498305631/9781498305631.xml Regional Economic Issues Special Report 25 Years of Transition: Post-Communist Europe and the IMF] ''International Monetary Fund'' pp. 1–9</ref>  Some factors applied to every post-Communist country, while others depended on a wide variety of country-specific circumstances.<ref>Fisher, Stanley and Ratna Shahay (February 2000) [https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2000/wp0030.pdf The Transition Economies after Ten Years] ''International Monetary Fund'' pp. 17–21</ref><ref>[https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/319481468770972868/pdf/multi0page.pdf Transition: The First Ten Years] (2002) ''World Bank.'' pp. 11–16</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Havrylyshyn |first1=Oleh |last2=Meng |first2=Xiaofan |last3=Tupy |first3=Marian L. |date=July 12, 2016 |title=25 Years of Reforms in Ex-Communist Countries |url=https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/25-years-reforms-ex-communist-countries-fast-extensive-reforms-led-higher-growth#introduction |access-date=2023-07-07 |website=[[Cato Institute]]}}</ref><ref>Roaf, James, Ruben V. Atoyan, Bikas Joshi, and Krzysztof Krogulski (17 October 2014)[https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781498305631/9781498305631.xml Regional Economic Issues Special Report 25 Years of Transition: Post-Communist Europe and the IMF] ''International Monetary Fund'' pp. 10–14</ref>

By the time the Eastern Bloc fell, the economies of former Communist countries were dominated by obsolete and inefficient heavy industry that was largely uncompetitive in a market environment.<ref>East-Central European economies in transition</ref> The planned economies had long stifled innovation, and it often cost more to produce goods than the final product ultimately cost.<ref>[https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/664481468315296721/pdf/32692.pdf Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform] (2005) ''The World Bank'' p. 196</ref> By the late 1980s, economic imbalances had reached critical levels, and there was a consensus on the need for reform. .<ref>Roaf, James, Ruben V. Atoyan, Bikas Joshi, and Krzysztof Krogulski (17 October 2014)[https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781498305631/9781498305631.xml Regional Economic Issues Special Report 25 Years of Transition: Post-Communist Europe and the IMF] ''International Monetary Fund'' p. 10</ref> 
 
Thus, every former Communist country experienced a period of economic recession, decline in industrial production, and during the transition to a market economy.<ref>[https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/664481468315296721/pdf/32692.pdf Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform] (2005) ''The World Bank'' pp. 196–197</ref>  How deep this recession went, how long it lasted, and how fast a given country recovered depended on various domestic and international factors.

Writing in 2016, German historian [[Philipp Ther]] asserted that [[Neoliberalism|neoliberal]] policies of liberalization, deregulation, and [[privatization]] "had catastrophic effects on former Soviet Bloc countries", and that the imposition of [[Washington Consensus]]-inspired "[[Shock therapy (economics)|shock therapy]]" had little to do with future economic growth.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ther|first=Philipp|date=2016|title=Europe since 1989: A History|url=https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10812.html|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|isbn=9780691167374|access-date=13 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190402224229/https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10812.html|archive-date=2 April 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>

An estimated seven million premature deaths took place in the former USSR after it collapsed, with around four million in Russia alone.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1 May 2017|title=The effect of rapid privatisation on mortality in mono-industrial towns in post-Soviet Russia: a retrospective cohort study|journal=The Lancet Public Health|language=en|volume=2|issue=5|pages=e231–e238|doi=10.1016/S2468-2667(17)30072-5|issn=2468-2667|doi-access=free|last1=Azarova|first1=Aytalina|last2=Irdam|first2=Darja|last3=Gugushvili|first3=Alexi|last4=Fazekas|first4=Mihaly|last5=Scheiring|first5=Gábor|last6=Horvat|first6=Pia|last7=Stefler|first7=Denes|last8=Kolesnikova|first8=Irina|last9=Popov|first9=Vladimir|last10=Szelenyi|first10=Ivan|last11=Stuckler|first11=David|last12=Marmot|first12=Michael|last13=Murphy|first13=Michael|last14=McKee|first14=Martin|last15=Bobak|first15=Martin|last16=King|first16=Lawrence|pmid=28626827|pmc=5459934}}</ref> Russia experienced the largest drop in life expectancy during peacetime in recorded history after the fall of the USSR.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Ciment|first=James|date=21 August 1999|title=Life expectancy of Russian men falls to 58|journal=BMJ: British Medical Journal|volume=319|issue=7208|page=468|doi=10.1136/bmj.319.7208.468a|issn=0959-8138|pmc=1116380|pmid=10454391}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Men|first1=Tamara|last2=Brennan|first2=Paul|last3=Boffetta|first3=Paolo|last4=Zaridze|first4=David|date=25 October 2003|title=Russian mortality trends for 1991–2001: analysis by cause and region|journal=BMJ: British Medical Journal|volume=327|issue=7421|page=964|doi=10.1136/bmj.327.7421.964|issn=0959-8138|pmid=14576248|pmc=259165}}</ref>
The scholars [[Kristen Ghodsee]] and Mitchell A. Orenstein have referred to this as the "mortality belt of the European former Soviet Union" and assert that it could have been avoided with the implementation of "an aggressive health policy intervention" which could have "prevented tens of thousands of excess deaths."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ghodsee |first1=Kristen |title=Taking Stock of Shock: Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions |last2=Orenstein |first2=Mitchell A. |date=2021 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0197549247 |location=New York |pages=195–196 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780197549230.001.0001 |quote=In the mortality belt of the European former Soviet Union, an aggressive health policy intervention might have prevented tens of thousands of excess deaths, or at least generated a different perception of Western intentions. Instead, Western self-congratulatory triumphalism, the political priority to irreversibly destroy the communist system, and the desire to integrate East European economies into the capitalist world at any cost took precedence.}}</ref>

This economic decline was also linked to a wide variety of social consequences, including rising crime and poverty. These varied by country in severity and speed of recovery.  By the end of the 1990s, the number of people living below the international poverty line went from 3% in 1987–88 to 20%, or around 88 million people.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Izyumov|first=Alexei|date=2010|title=Human Costs of Post-communist Transition: Public Policies and Private Response|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41288494|journal=Review of Social Economy|volume=68|issue=1|pages=93–125|doi=10.1080/00346760902968421|jstor=41288494|s2cid=154520098|issn=0034-6764|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Only 4% of the region lived on $4 a day or less before the USSR dissolved, but by 1994, this number skyrocketed to 32%.<ref name=":0" /> In Russia, [[Boris Yeltsin]]'s [[IMF]]-backed rapid privatization and [[austerity]] policies resulted in unemployment rising to double digits and half the Russian population falling into destitution by the early to mid 1990s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mattei|first=Clara E.|author-link=Clara Mattei|date=2022 |title=The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism|pages=301–303|url=https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo181707138.html|location= |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|isbn=978-0-226-81839-9|quote="If, in 1987–1988, 2 percent of the Russian people lived in poverty (i.e., survived on less than $4 a day), by 1993–1995 the number reached 50 percent: in just seven years half the Russian population became destitute.}}</ref>

Crime, alcohol use, drug use and suicides all skyrocketed after the fall of the Eastern Bloc.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> The GDP fell as much as 50% in some republics during the 1990s. By 2000, Russia's GDP was between 30 and 50% of its pre-collapse output.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=End of the USSR: visualising how the former Soviet countries are doing, 20 years on {{!}} Russia |url=https://theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/aug/17/ussr-soviet-countries-data|access-date=21 January 2021|website=The Guardian |date=17 Aug 2011  |first1=Mark |last1=Rice-Oxley |first2=Ami |last2=Sedghi |first3=Jenny |last3=Ridley |first4=Sasha |last4=Magill |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210128064905/https://amp.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/aug/17/ussr-soviet-countries-data |archive-date= Jan 28, 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Great Depression {{!}} Definition, History, Dates, Causes, Effects, & Facts|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Depression|access-date=21 January 2021|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=13 mind-blowing facts about Russia's economy|url=https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/russia-economy-facts-2019-4-1028116037|access-date=21 January 2021|website=markets.businessinsider.com|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=What Explains the Post-Soviet Russian Economic Collapse?|url=https://thewire.in/economy/post-soviet-russian-economic-collapse|access-date=21 January 2021|website=The Wire}}</ref>

In 2011, ''[[The Guardian]]'' published an analysis of the former Soviet countries twenty years after the fall of the USSR. They found that "GDP fell as much as 50 percent in the 1990s in some republics... as capital flight, industrial collapse, hyperinflation and tax avoidance took their toll", but that there was a rebound in the 2000s, and by 2010 "some economies were five times as big as they were in 1991." Life expectancy has grown since 1991 in some of the countries, but fallen in others; likewise, some held free and fair elections, while others remained authoritarian.<ref name=":2" />

[[File:Eastern Bloc Life-expectancy (1).png|thumb|Life expectancy of some Eastern Bloc countries, compared to Western Europe]]
However, the Central European states of the former Eastern Bloc–Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia–showed healthy increases in life expectancy from the 1990s onward, compared to nearly thirty years of stagnation under Communism.<ref>Hauck, Owen (2 February 2016) [https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/average-life-expectancy-post-communist-countries-progress-varies-25-years-after Average Life Expectancy in Post-Communist Countries—Progress Varies 25 Years after Communism]. Peterson Institute for International Economics. Retrieved 4 January 2021.</ref><ref>Gerr, Christopher J., Yulia Raskina & Daria Tsyplakova (28 October 2017)[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-017-1764-4 Convergence or Divergence? Life Expectancy Patterns in Post-communist Countries, 1959–2010] ''Social Indicators Research''. Retrieved 4 January 2021.</ref><ref>Safaei, Jalil (31 August 2011). [https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecri/2012/137412/ Post-Communist Health Transitions in Central and Eastern Europe]. ''Economics Research International''. Retrieved 4 January 2021</ref><ref>Mackenbach, Johan. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234823288_Political_conditions_and_life_expectancy_in_Europe_1900-2008 Political conditions and life expectancy in Europe, 1900-2008]. ''Social Science and Medicine''. December 2012</ref><ref>Leon, David A. [https://blog.oup.com/2011/04/life-expectancy/ "Trends in European Life Expectancy: a Salutary View"]. OUPblog, Oxford University Press, 23 April 2013. Retrieved 12 March 2021.</ref> Bulgaria and Romania followed this trend after the introduction of more serious economic reforms in the late 1990s.<ref>C Dolea, E Nolte, M McKee. [https://jech.bmj.com/content/56/6/444 Changing life expectancy in Romania after the transition] ''Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health''. Retrieved 4 January 2021.</ref><ref>
Chavez, Lesly Allyn (June 2014). [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335675821_The_Effects_of_Communism_on_Romania's_Population The Effects of Communism on Romania's Population]. Retrieved 4 January 2021]</ref> By the turn of the century, most of their economies had strong growth rates, boosted by the [[enlargement of the European Union]] in [[2004 enlargement of the European Union|2004]] and [[2007 enlargement of the European Union|2007]] which saw Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltic States, Romania and Bulgaria admitted to the European Union. This led to significant improvements in living standards, quality of life, human health and economic performance in the post-Communist Central European states, relative to the late Communist and early post-Communist periods.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/26/this-is-the-golden-age-eastern-europes-extraordinary-30-year-revival {{"'}}This is the golden age': Eastern Europe's extraordinary 30-year revival"]. ''The Guardian''. 26 October 2019.</ref> Certain former Eastern Bloc countries have even become wealthier than certain Western European ones in the decades since 1989. In 2006, the Czech Republic was reported to have become wealthier than [[Portugal]], something also reported to be true of Poland in 2019.<ref>"[https://euobserver.com/economic/20701 Czech republic leapfrogs Portugal in wealth terms]" ''EU Observer''.</ref><ref>"[https://polandin.com/46809897/poland-became-richer-than-portugal-in-2019-imf Poland became richer than Portugal in 2019: IMF] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210128205419/https://polandin.com/46809897/poland-became-richer-than-portugal-in-2019-imf |date=28 January 2021 }}"</ref>

In 2016, the [[Right-libertarianism|libertarian]] think tank [[Cato Institute]] stated that the analyses done of post-communist countries in the 1990s were "premature" and "that early and rapid reformers by far outperformed gradual reformers" on [[Lists of countries by GDP per capita|GDP per capita]], the [[United Nations Human Development Index]], [[political freedom]], and developed better institutions. The institute also stated that the process of privatization in Russia was "deeply flawed" due to Russia's reforms being "far ''less'' rapid" than those of Central Europe and the [[Baltic states]].<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Havrylyshyn |first1=Oleh |last2=Meng |first2=Xiaofan |last3=Tupy |first3=Marian L. |date=July 12, 2016 |title=25 Years of Reforms in Ex-Communist Countries |url=https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/25-years-reforms-ex-communist-countries-fast-extensive-reforms-led-higher-growth#introduction |access-date=2023-07-07 |website=[[Cato Institute]]}}</ref>

It has been argued by several scholars that the cessation of the Socialist Bloc and the end of [[communism]] as a global hegemonic force allowed [[neoliberal]] [[capitalism]] to become the dominant global system, which has resulted in surging [[economic inequality]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Ghodsee |first=Kristen |author-link=Kristen Ghodsee |date=2018 |title=[[Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism]] |url= |location= |publisher=[[Vintage Books]] |pages=3–4 |isbn=978-1568588902|quote=Without the looming threat of a rival superpower, the last thirty years of global neoliberalism have witnessed a rapid shriveling of social programs that protect citizens from cyclical instability and financial crises and reduce the vast inequality of economic outcomes between those at the top and bottom of the income distribution.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Greene|first1=Julie|authorlink1= Julie Greene (historian) |date=April 2020|title=Bookends to a Gentler Capitalism: Complicating the Notion of First and Second Gilded Ages|url=|journal=[[The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era]] |volume=19 |issue=2 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=197–205|doi=10.1017/S1537781419000628|pmc= |pmid= |access-date=}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bartel |first=Fritz |date=2022 |title=The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism |url=https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976788 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=9780674976788 |pages=5–6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Gerstle |first=Gary |author-link=Gary Gerstle |date=2022 |title=The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era |url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-neoliberal-order-9780197519646?cc=us&lang=en& |location= |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=10–12, 149 |isbn=978-0-19-751964-6|quote=The collapse of communism, then, opened the entire world to capitalist penetration, shrank the imaginative and ideological space in which opposition to capitalist thought and practices might incubate, and impelled those who remained leftists to redefine their radicalism in alternative terms, which turned out to be those that capitalist systems could more, rather than less, easily manage. This was the moment when neoliberalism in the United States went from being a political movement to a political order.}}</ref>

A 2009 [[Pew Research Center]] poll showed that 72% of Hungarians, 62% of both Ukrainians and Bulgarians, 48% of both Lithuanians and Slovaks, 45% of Russians, 39% of Czechs, and 35% of Poles felt that their lives were worse off after 1989, when free markets were made dominant.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2 November 2009 |title=End of Communism Cheered but Now with More Reservations |language=en-US |work=Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project |url=http://www.pewglobal.org/2009/11/02/end-of-communism-cheered-but-now-with-more-reservations/ |url-status=live |access-date=14 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180519112519/http://www.pewglobal.org/2009/11/02/end-of-communism-cheered-but-now-with-more-reservations/ |archive-date=19 May 2018}}</ref> A follow-up poll by Pew Research Center in 2011 showed that 45% of Lithuanians, 42% of Russians, and 34% of Ukrainians approved of the change to a market economy.<ref>{{Cite news |date=5 December 2011 |title=Confidence in Democracy and Capitalism Wanes in Former Soviet Union |language=en-US |work=Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project |url=http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/05/confidence-in-democracy-and-capitalism-wanes-in-former-soviet-union/ |url-status=live |access-date=14 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180520020300/http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/05/confidence-in-democracy-and-capitalism-wanes-in-former-soviet-union/ |archive-date=20 May 2018}}</ref> Writing in 2018, the scholars [[Kristen R. Ghodsee]] and [[Scott Sehon]] assert that "subsequent polls and qualitative research across Russia and eastern Europe confirm the persistence of these sentiments as popular discontent with the failed promises of free-market prosperity has grown, especially among older people".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ghodsee |first1=Kristen R. |author-link=Kristen R. Ghodsee |last2=Sehon |first2=Scott |author-link2=Scott Sehon |date=22 March 2018 |title=Anti-anti-communism |url=https://aeon.co/essays/the-merits-of-taking-an-anti-anti-communism-stance |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180925141956/https://aeon.co/essays/the-merits-of-taking-an-anti-anti-communism-stance |archive-date=25 September 2018 |access-date=26 September 2018 |website=[[Aeon (digital magazine)|Aeon]]}}</ref>

In 2019, a Pew Research Survey on European public opinion asked citizens of Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and the former East Germany two questions: whether they approved of the change to a multi-party democracy, and whether they approved of the change to a market economy. The change to a multi-party democracy was approved by 85% of Poles and East Germans, 82% of Czechs, 74% of Slovaks, 72% of Hungarians, 70% of Lithuanians, 54% of Bulgarians, 51% of Ukrainians and 43% of Russians. The transition to a market economy was approved by 85% of Poles, 83% of East Germans, 76% of Czechs, 71% of Slovaks, 70% of Hungarians, 69% of Lithuanians, 55% of Bulgarians, 47% of Ukrainians, and 38% of Russians.<ref>{{Cite news |date=15 October 2019 |title=European Public Opinion Three Decades After the Fall of Communism |work=Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/15/european-public-opinion-three-decades-after-the-fall-of-communism/ |access-date=25 September 2020}}</ref>

===List of existing communist states===
[[File:Communist states (including DPRK).svg|thumb|upright=1.6|A map of current communist states]]

Since 1993, the following countries have remained communist states:
{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Country
!Local name
!Since
!Ruling party
|-
|China{{NoteTag|[[Hong Kong]] and [[Macau]] are administered under the "[[One country, two systems]]" principle.}}
|In [[Standard Chinese|Chinese]]: 中华人民共和国<br />In [[Pinyin]]: ''Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó''
|1 October 1949
|[[Chinese Communist Party]]
|-
|Cuba
|In [[Spanish language|Spanish]]: ''República de Cuba''
|1 July 1961
|[[Communist Party of Cuba]]
|-
|{{no wrap|Laos}}
|In [[Lao language|Lao]]: ''Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao''
|2 December 1975
|{{no wrap|[[Lao People's Revolutionary Party]]}}
|-
|North Korea
|In [[Korean language|Korean]]: ''Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk''
|9 September 1948
|[[Workers' Party of Korea]]
|-
|Vietnam
|{{no wrap|In [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]]: ''Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam''}}
|{{no wrap|2 September 1945 ([[North Vietnam]])<br>30 April 1975 ([[Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam|South Vietnam]])<br>2 July 1976 ([[Reunification Day|unified]])}}
|[[Communist Party of Vietnam]]
|-
|}

==See also==
{{Portal bar|Europe|Socialism|Communism|Soviet Union|Politics}}
* [[Communist nostalgia]]
* [[Eastern European Group]]
* [[Eurasian Economic Union]]
* [[Military occupations by the Soviet Union]]
* [[Soviet empire]]
* [[Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc]]
* [[State socialism]]
* [[Western Bloc]]
* [[Sino-Soviet Split]]
* [[First World]]
* [[Second World]]
* [[Third World]]

==Notes==
{{NoteFoot}}
{{notelist}}

==References==
===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works cited===
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* {{Citation |last=Harrison |first=Hope Millard |title=Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953–1961 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-691-09678-0}}
* {{Citation |last=Krasnov |first=Vladislav |title=Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List |publisher=Hoover Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-8179-8231-7}}
* {{Citation |last=Laqueur |first=Walter |title=The dream that failed: reflections on the Soviet Union |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-19-510282-6}}
* {{Citation |first1=Leslie |last1=Lipschitz |first2=Donogh |last2=McDonald |title=German unification: economic issues |publisher=International Monetary Fund |year=1990 |isbn=978-1-55775-200-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/germanunificatio0000unse}}
* {{Citation |last=Loescher |first=Gil |title=The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-19-829716-1}}
* {{Citation |last1=Michta |first1=Andrew A. |last2=Mastny |first2=Vojtech |author2-link=Vojtech Mastny (historian) |title=East Central Europe after the Warsaw Pact: Security Dilemmas in the 1990s |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-92-64-02261-4}}
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* {{cite thesis |last=Pugh |first=Emily |date=2008 |title=The Berlin Wall and the urban space and experience of East and West Berlin, 1961–1989 |chapter=East Berlin: The Search for a National Building Style and Heimat-GDR |type=PhD |publisher=City University of New York |pages=123–157 |chapter-url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/38055c24869597ea722e32c8159d674c/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y |access-date=10 February 2023}}
* {{Citation |last=Roberts |first=Geoffrey |title=Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-300-11204-7}}
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* {{Citation |title=Housing policies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union |last=Sillince |first=John |year=1990 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-02134-0}}
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* {{Citation |last=Turnock |first=David |title=The East European economy in context: communism and transition |publisher=Routledge |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-415-08626-4}}
* {{cite book |last1=Turnock |first1=David |title=The Economy of East Central Europe 1815-1989: Stages of Transformation in a Peripheral Region |date=2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-18053-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E7c7j8j0r-4C |language=en}}
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{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|colwidth=40em}}
* {{Citation |last=Applebaum |first=Anne |title=Iron Curtain: the Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–56 |publisher=Allen Lane |year=2012 |author-link=Anne Applebaum}}
* Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola, and Matthias Schündeln. "The long-term effects of communism in Eastern Europe". ''Journal of Economic Perspectives'' 34.2 (2020): 172–191. [https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.34.2.172 online]
* {{Citation |last1=Grogin |first1=Robert C. |title=Natural Enemies: The United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, 1917–1991 |publisher=Lexington Books |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-7391-0160-5}}
* {{Citation |last=Maddison |first=Angus |title=The world economy |publisher=OECD Publishing |year=2006 |isbn=978-92-64-02261-4}}
* {{Citation |last1=Myant |first1=Martin |last2=Drahokoupil |first2=Jan |title=Transition Economies: Political Economy in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-470-59619-7}}
* {{Citation |last=Olsen |first=Neil |title=Albania |publisher=Oxfam |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-85598-432-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/albania00neil}}
* {{Citation |last=Overy |first=R. J. |title=The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-393-02030-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/dictators00rich}}
* {{Citation |last=Puddington |first=Arch |title=Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8131-9045-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/broadcastingfree0000pudd}}
* {{Citation |last=Roberts |first=Geoffrey |title=Stalin, the Pact with Nazi Germany, and the Origins of Postwar Soviet Diplomatic Historiography |year=2002 |volume=4 |issue=4}}
* {{Citation |last=Saxonberg |first=Steven |title=The Fall: A Comparative Study of the End of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland |publisher=Routledge |year=2001 |isbn=978-90-5823-097-3}}
* {{Citation |last=Stanek |first=Łukasz |title=Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-0691168708 |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168708/architecture-in-global-socialism}}
* {{Citation |last=Taagepera |first=Rein |title=Estonia: Return to Independence |publisher=Westview Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-8133-1703-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/estonia00rein}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commonscat|Eastern Bloc}}
{{Spoken Wikipedia|Eastern Bloc.ogg|date=10 November 2012}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.pixiport.com/leonid_lazarev___russia/base0.html |title=Photographs of Russia in 1967 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080131154809/http://www.pixiport.com/leonid_lazarev___russia/base0.html |archive-date=31 January 2008 |url-status=dead}}
* [http://www.4020.net/eastbloc/ Candid photos of the Eastern Bloc] September–December 1991, in the last months of the USSR
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060623163117/http://www.vychodniblok.cz/index_en.htm 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.
* [https://catalog.osaarchivum.org/catalog/O8BABAKB RFE/RL East German Subject Files], [[Blinken Open Society Archives]], Budapest
* [https://catalog.osaarchivum.org/catalog/jDen7Y1B RFE Czechoslovak Unit], [[Blinken Open Society Archives]], Budapest
* [http://www.okupatsioon.ee/ Museum of occupations of Estonia] – Project by the [[Kistler-Ritso Estonian Foundation]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071011110357/http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal.php?serwis=en&dzial=23&id=214&search=67445 Gallery of events from Poznań 1956 protests]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090826151840/http://www.osaarchivum.org/digitalarchive/av/index.html OSA Digital Archive] Videos of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090905091553/http://www.osaarchivum.org/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/36-6-112.shtml 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
* [http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1089303.html Chronology Of Events Leading To The 1968 Czechoslovakia Invasion]
* [http://culture.polishsite.us/articles/art52.html Solidarity, Freedom and Economical Crisis in Poland, 1980–81] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110308234448/http://culture.polishsite.us/articles/art52.html |date=8 March 2011 }}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.jfklibrary.org/jfk_berlin_crisis_speech.html |title=1961 JFK speech clarifying limits of American protection during the 1961 Berlin Wall crisis |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060219134229/http://www.jfklibrary.org/jfk_berlin_crisis_speech.html |archive-date=19 February 2006 |url-status=dead}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.restless-soul.co.uk/berlin1.htm |title=Berlin 1983: Berlin and the Wall in the early 1980s |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928214004/http://www.restless-soul.co.uk/berlin1.htm |archive-date=28 September 2007 |url-status=usurped}}
* [http://www.brianrose.com/lostborder.htm The Lost Border: Photographs of the Iron Curtain]

{{Eastern Bloc}}
{{Leaders of the Ruling Parties of the Eastern Bloc |expanded}}
{{Secret police of Communist Europe}}
{{Cold War}}
{{Joseph Stalin}}
{{Eastern Bloc media}}
{{Eastern Bloc economies}}
{{Eastern Bloc parties}}
{{Marxism–Leninism}}
{{Eastern culture}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Eastern Bloc| ]]