View source for Formation of the Eastern Bloc

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{{Use British English|date=March 2015}}
The [[Eastern Bloc]] is a collective term for the former [[Communist countries]] in [[Central and Eastern Europe]]. This generally encompasses the [[Soviet Union]] and the countries of the [[Warsaw Pact]].<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=0-618-22647-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/newdictionaryofc00hirs/page/316 316]|quote=Eastern Bloc. The name applied to the former Stalinist 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><ref>{{Citation|last1=Satyendra|first1=Kush|title=Encyclopaedic dictionary of political science|publisher=Sarup & Sons|year=2003|isbn=81-7890-071-8|page=65}}
</ref>
When Soviet Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] expressed concern that the Yalta Agreement's wording might impede Stalin's plans in Central Europe, Stalin responded "Never mind. We'll do it our own way later."<ref name="berthon289">{{Harvnb|Berthon|Potts|2007|p=289}}</ref> After Soviet forces remained in Eastern and Central European countries, with the beginnings of Communist [[puppet regime]]s installed in those countries, by falsified elections, Churchill referred to the region as being behind an "[[Iron Curtain]]" of control from Moscow.<ref>Muller, James W., ''Churchill's "Iron Curtain" Speech Fifty Years Later'', University of Missouri Press, 1999, {{ISBN|0-8262-1247-6}}, pages 1–8</ref>
==Initial control process==
{{Main article|Eastern Bloc politics}}
The initial problem in countries occupied by the Red Army in 1944–45 was how to transform occupation power into control of domestic development.<ref name="wettig35">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=35}}</ref> Because Communists were small minorities in all countries but Czechoslovakia,<ref name="wettig39">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=39}}</ref> they were initially instructed to form coalitions in their respective countries.<ref name="wettig36">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=36}}</ref>
Soviet takeover of control at the outset generally followed a process:
* a general coalition of left-wing, [[Anti-fascist]] forces;
* a reorganised 'coalition' in which the Communists would have the upper hand and neutralise those in other parties who were not willing to accept their supremacy;
* complete Communist domination.<ref name="crampton211">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=211}}</ref>
It was only in the [[Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia]] that former partisans entered their new government independently of Soviet influence. It was the latter's publicly stubborn independent political stances, its insistence on specifically not being a puppet regime, that led to the [[Tito–Stalin split]] and the other moves towards a "[[Titoism]]" that quickly made SR Yugoslavia unique within the context of overall Eastern Bloc politics.
==Property relocation==
By the end of World War II, most of Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union in particular, suffered vast destruction.<ref name="pearson29"/> The Soviet Union had suffered a staggering 27 million deaths, and the destruction of significant industry and infrastructure, both by the Nazi ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' and the Soviet Union itself in a "[[scorched earth]]" policy to keep it from falling in Nazi hands as they advanced over {{convert|1000|mi|km|order=flip}} to within {{convert|15|mi|km|order=flip|abbr=on}} of Moscow.<ref name="pearson29">{{Harvnb|Pearson|1998|pp=29–30}}</ref>  Thereafter, the Soviet Union physically transported and relocated east European industrial assets to the Soviet Union.<ref name="pearson29"/>
This was especially pronounced in eastern European [[Axis powers|Axis]] countries, such as Romania and Hungary, where such a policy was considered as punitive [[War reparations|reparation]]s (a principle accepted by Western powers).<ref name="pearson31">{{Harvnb|Pearson|1998|p=31}}</ref> In some cases, [[Red Army]] officers viewed cities, villages and farms as being open to looting.<ref>Beevor, Antony, ''Berlin: The Downfall 1945'', Penguin Books, 2002, {{ISBN|0-670-88695-5}}. Specific reports also include [http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=7&post=3 Report of the Swiss legation in Budapest of 1945] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090616134419/http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=7&post=3 |date=2009-06-16 }} and [[Hubertus Knabe]]: Tag der Befreiung? Das Kriegsende in Ostdeutschland (A day of liberation? The end of war in East Germany), Propyläen 2005, {{ISBN|3-549-07245-7}} German.</ref> Other Eastern Bloc states were required to provide coal, industrial equipment, technology, rolling stock and other resources to reconstruct the Soviet Union.<ref name="bideleux461">{{Harvnb|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 roughly comparable to the net transfer from the United States to western Europe in the [[Marshall Plan]].<ref name="bideleux461"/>
==East Germany==
{{Main article|German Democratic Republic|Berlin Blockade|Marshall Plan}}
[[File:Map-Germany-1947.svg|thumb|right|275px|The red area of Germany (above) is Soviet controlled [[East Germany]]. The Soviets ceded the portion to the east of the [[Oder–Neisse line]] (light beige) to Poland, while a portion of the isolated easternmost section of German [[East Prussia]], the [[Kaliningrad Oblast]], was annexed directly into the [[USSR]]]]
Most of Germany east of the [[Oder–Neisse line]], which contained much of Germany's fertile land, was transferred to what remained of unilaterally Soviet-controlled Poland.<ref name="miller5"/>  At the end of World War II, political opposition immediately materialised after occupying Soviet army personnel conducted systematic pillaging and rapes in their zone of then divided Germany,<ref name="miller12"/> with total rape victim estimates ranging from tens of thousands to two million.<ref>Schissler, Hanna ''The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968''</ref><ref>When members of the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]] (SED) reported to Stalin that looting and rapes by Soviet soldiers could result in negative consequences for the future of socialism in post-war East Germany, Stalin reacted angrily: "I shall not tolerate anybody dragging the honor of the Red Army through the mud." ([[Wolfgang Leonhard]], ''Child of the Revolution'' ,Pathfinder Press, 1979, {{ISBN|0-906133-26-2}}</ref><ref>Norman M. Naimark. ''The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949.'' Harvard University Press, 1995. {{ISBN|0-674-78405-7}}) Accordingly, all evidence of looting, rapes and destruction by the Red Army was deleted from archives in the Soviet occupation zone.([[Wolfgang Leonhard]], ''Child of the Revolution'', Pathfinder Press, 1979, {{ISBN|0-906133-26-2}}.)</ref>
Factories, equipment, technicians, managers and skilled personnel were forcibly transferred to the Soviet Union.<ref name="miller12">{{Harvnb|Miller|2000|p=12}}</ref>  In the non-annexed remaining portion of Soviet-controlled [[East Germany]], like in the rest of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe, the major task of the ruling regime was to channel Soviet orders down to both the administrative apparatus and the other bloc parties pretending that these were initiatives of its own.<ref name="wettig94">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=95-5}}</ref>
The SED won a first narrow election victory in Soviet-zone elections in 1946, even though Soviet authorities oppressed political opponents and prevented many competing parties from participating in rural areas.<ref name="wettig106">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=106}}</ref> Property and industry were nationalised under their government.<ref name="wettig96">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|pp=96–100}}</ref><ref>The political process contrasted with that in western German zones occupied by Britain, France and the United States, where minister-presidents were chosen by freely elected parliamentary assemblies. (Turner, Henry Ashby ''The Two Germanies Since 1945: East and West'', Yale University Press, 1987, {{ISBN|0-300-03865-8}}, page 20)</ref> If statements or decisions deviated from the prescribed line, reprimands and, for persons outside public attention, punishment would ensue, such as imprisonment, torture and even death.<ref name="wettig94"/>
Indoctrination of Marxism–Leninism became a compulsory part of school curricula, sending professors and students fleeing to the west.<ref name="turner47">{{Harvnb|Turner|1987|p=47}}</ref>  Applicants for positions in the government, the judiciary and school systems had to pass ideological scrutiny.<ref name="turner47"/>  An elaborate political police apparatus kept the population under close surveillance,<ref name="turner47"/> including Soviet [[SMERSH]] secret police.<ref name="wettig96"/> A tight system of censorship restricted access to print or the airwaves.<ref name="turner47"/>
What remained of SED opposition parties were also infiltrated to exploit their relations with their "bourgeois" counterparts in western zones to support Soviet unity along Soviet lines, while a [[National Democratic Party of Germany (East Germany)|"National Democratic" party (NDPD)]] was created to attract former Nazis and professional military personnel in order to rally them behind the SED.<ref name="wettig162">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=162}}</ref> In early 1948, during the [[Tito–Stalin split]], the SED underwent a transformation into an authoritarian party dominated by functionaries subservient to Moscow.<ref name="turner46">{{Harvnb|Turner|1987|p=46}}</ref> Important decisions had to be cleared with the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU Central Committee]] apparatus or even with Stalin himself.<ref name="wettig94"/>
By early 1949, the SED was capped by a Soviet-style Politburo that was effectively a small self-selecting inner circle.<ref name="turner46"/> The [[German Democratic Republic]] was declared on 7 October 1949, within which the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs accorded the East German state administrative authority, but not autonomy, with an unlimited Soviet exercise of the occupation regime and Soviet penetration of administrative, military and secret police structures.<ref name="wettig179">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=179}}</ref><ref>In a congratulatory telegram, Stalin emphasised that, with the creation of East Germany, the "enslavement of European countries by the global imperialists was rendered impossible." (Wettig, Gerhard, ''Stalin and the Cold War in Europe'', Rowman && Littlefield, 2008, {{ISBN|0-7425-5542-9}}, page 179)</ref>
==Poland==
[[File:Curzon line en.svg|thumb|right|300px|Eastern Poland (grey) was annexed directly into the [[USSR]], while most of Germany east of the [[Oder–Neisse line]] (pink) was ceded to what remained of Poland (white), both of which would constitute the newly created [[People's Republic of Poland]]]]
{{Main article|People's Republic of Poland|Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union}}
After the Soviet invasion of German-occupied Poland in July 1944, [[Polish government-in-exile]] prime minister [[Stanisław Mikołajczyk]] flew to Moscow with Churchill to argue against the annexation of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact portion of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union.<ref name="wettig47">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=47}}</ref> Poland served as the first real test of the American President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Roosevelt]]'s Soviet policy of "giving" to Stalin assuming [[noblesse oblige]],<ref name="berthon251">{{Harvnb|Berthon|Potts|2007|p=251}}</ref> with Roosevelt telling Mikołajczyk before the visit, "Don't worry. Stalin doesn't intend to take freedom from you" and after assuring U.S. backing, concluding "I shall see to it that your country does not come out of this war injured."<ref name="berthon252">{{Harvnb|Berthon|Potts|2007|p=252}}</ref>
Mikołajczyk offered a smaller section of land, but Stalin declined, telling him that he would allow the exiled government to participate in the [[Polish Committee of National Liberation]] (PKWN and later "Lublin Committee"),<ref name="wettig47"/> which consisted of Communists and satellite parties set up under the direct control by the Soviet plenipotentiary [[Colonel-General]] [[Nikolai Bulganin]].<ref name="wettig46">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=46}}</ref> An agreement was reached at the [[Yalta Conference]] permitting the annexation of most of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact portion of Eastern Poland, while granting Poland part of East Germany in return.<ref name="wettig47"/><ref name="crampton212"/>  Thereafter, the [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic]] and the [[Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic]] were expanded to include eastern Poland.<ref name="wettig47"/><ref name="Potichnyj">{{Citation|last=Potichnyj|first=Peter J.|title=Poland and Ukraine, past and present|publisher=CIUS Press|year=1980|isbn=0-920862-07-1|page=329}}</ref><ref name="Cohen">Cohen, Saul Bernard, ''Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations'', Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, {{ISBN|0-7425-5676-X}}, page 211</ref>
The Soviet Union then compensated what remained of Poland by ceding to it the portion of Germany east of the [[Oder–Neisse line]], which contained much of Germany's fertile land.<ref name="miller5">{{Harvnb|Miller|2000|p=5}}</ref><ref name="wettig47"/>  An agreement was reached at Yalta that the Soviets' [[Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland|Provisional Government]] made up of PKWN members would be re-organised "on a broad democratic basis" including the exiled government, and that the re-organised government's primary task would be to prepare for elections.<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><ref name="wettig48">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=48}}</ref>
Pretending that it was an indigenous body representing Polish society, the PKWN took the role of a governmental authority and challenged the pre–World War II [[Polish government-in-exile]] in London.<ref name="wettig46"/>  Doubts began to arise whether the "free and unfettered elections" promised at the [[Yalta Conference]] would occur.<ref name="crampton218">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=218}}</ref> Non-Stalinists and partisans, including those that fought the Nazis, were systematically persecuted.<ref name="wettig46"/>  Hopes for a new free start were immediately dampened when the PKWN claimed they were entitled to choose who they wanted to take part in the government, and the Soviet [[NKVD]] seized sixteen [[Polish underground]] leaders who had wanted to participate in negotiations on the re-organisation in March 1945 brought them to the Soviet Union for a [[show trial]] in June.<ref name="wettig48"/><ref name="crampton218"/>
[[File:PKWN manifest.jpg|thumb|212px|left|A propaganda photo of a citizen reading the [[PKWN Manifesto]], issued on 22 July 1944]]
[[File:Kolejka.jpeg|thumb|left|212px|Line waiting to enter a store, a typical view in [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]] in the 1950s and 1980s.]]
While underground leaders were sentenced to long prison terms, assurances that political prisoners would be released and that Soviet forces and security would leave failed to be supported by concrete safeguards or implementation plans.<ref name="wettig49">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=49}}</ref> Polish government-in-exile figures, including Stanisław Mikołajczyk then returned to a popular reception, and were able to lure several parties to their cause, effectively undermining Bloc politics.<ref name="wettig80">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=80}}</ref>
When the Mikołajczyk's People's Party (PSL) continued to resist pressure to renounce a ticket of its own outside the party bloc, it was exposed to open terror,<ref name="crampton218"/> including the disqualification of PSL candidates in one quarter of the districts and the arrest of over 80,000 PSL activists,<ref name="crampton220">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=220}}</ref> followed by [[electoral fraud|vote rigging]] that resulted in Gomułka's candidates winning a majority in the carefully controlled poll.<ref name="Buchanan">Tom Buchanan, ''Europe's Troubled Peace, 1945–2000: 1945–2000'', Blackwell Publishing, 2005, {{ISBN|0-631-22163-8}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=zeqdrL3Wzy8C&dq=Polish+referendum+1946+falsified&pg=RA1-PA84 Google Print, p.84]</ref><ref name="poloniatodayhistory">[http://www.poloniatoday.com/history13.htm A brief history of Poland: Chapter 13: The Post-War Years, 1945–1990] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080117214309/http://www.poloniatoday.com/history13.htm |date=January 17, 2008 }}. Polonia Today Online. Retrieved 28 March 2007.</ref><ref name="Britannica">[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/466681/Poland "Poland."] Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved on 7 April 2007</ref>
Mikołajczyk lost hope and left the country. His followers were subjected to unlimited ruthless persecution.  Following the forged referendum, in October 1946, the new government [[nationalization|nationalised]] all enterprises employing over 50 people and all but two banks.<ref name="crampton218"/><ref name="historybuffalo">[http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/longhist6.html Poland – The Historical Setting: Chapter 6: The Polish People's Republic.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615172355/http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/longhist6.html |date=2009-06-15 }} Polish Academic Information Center, University at Buffalo. Retrieved 14 March 2007.</ref>  Public opposition had been essentially crushed by 1946, but underground activity still existed.<ref name="wettig110"/>
[[Polish legislative election, 1947|Fraudulent Polish elections]] held in January 1947 resulted in Poland's official transformation to a non-democratic Communist state by 1949, the [[People's Republic of Poland]]. Resistance fighters continued to battle Soviet forces in the Ukrainian annexed portions of eastern Poland, the Soviet response to which included the arrest of as many as 600,000 people between 1944 and 1952, with about one third executed and the rest imprisoned or exiled.<ref>[[William Taubman]]. (2004). ''[[Khrushchev: The Man and His Era]]'' W. W. Norton & Company. {{ISBN|0-393-05144-7}} pg. 195</ref>
==Hungary==
[[File:Matyas Rakosi.jpg|160px|thumb|right|[[Mátyás Rákosi]]]]
{{Main article|Soviet occupation of Hungary|People's Republic of Hungary}}
After [[Soviet occupation of Hungary|occupying Hungary]], the Soviets imposed harsh conditions allowing it to seize important material assets and control internal affairs.<ref name="wettig51">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=51}}</ref>  During those occupations, an estimated 50,000 women and girls were raped.<ref>Mark, James, ''"Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944–1945"'', Past & Present – Number 188, August 2005, page 133</ref><ref name="naimark71">Naimark, Norman M., ''The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949.'' Cambridge: Belknap, 1995, {{ISBN|0-674-78405-7}}, pages 70–71</ref>  After the Red Army set up police organs to persecute class enemies, the Soviets assumed that the impoverished Hungarian populace would support Communists in coming elections.<ref name="wettig85">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=85}}</ref>
The Communists were trounced, receiving only 17% of the vote, resulting in a [[Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party|coalition government]] under Prime Minister [[Zoltán Tildy]].<ref>Norton, Donald H. (2002). ''Essentials of European History: 1935 to the Present'', p. 47. REA: Piscataway, New Jersey. {{ISBN|0-87891-711-X}}.</ref> Soviet intervention, however, resulted in a government that disregarded Tildy, placed Communists in important ministries, and imposed restrictive and repressive measures, including banning the victorious [[Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party]].<ref name="wettig85"/>  Stalin's [[authoritarianism|authoritarian]] regime repeatedly wrestled small concessions from opponents in a process named "[[salami tactics]]".<ref>{{Citation | last=Kertesz | first=Stephen D. | title=Diplomacy in a Whirlpool: Hungary between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia|url=http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/dipl/dipl08.htm |chapter=VIII |location=(Hungary, a Republic)|pages=139–52 | publisher=[[University of Notre Dame Press]], Notre Dame, Indiana | year=1953 | isbn=0-8371-7540-2 }}</ref>  Battling the initial postwar political majority in Hungary ready to establish a democracy,<ref name="granville">Granville, Johanna, ''The First Domino: International Decision Making during the Hungarian Crisis of 1956'', Texas A&M University Press, 2004. {{ISBN|1-58544-298-4}}</ref>  [[Mátyás Rákosi]] invented the term, which described his tactic slicing up enemies like pieces of salami.<ref>Baer, Helmut David, ''The Struggle of Hungarian Lutherans Under Communism'', Texas A&M University Press, 2006 {{ISBN|1-58544-480-4}}, page 16</ref>
In early 1947, the Soviets pressed Rákosi to take a "line of more pronounced class struggle."<ref name="wettig110">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=110}}</ref> The [[People's Republic of Hungary]] was formed thereafter. At the height of his rule, Rákosi developed a strong cult of personality.<ref name="sugar375"/> Dubbed the “bald murderer,” Rákosi imitated Communist political and economic programs, resulting in Hungary experiencing one of the harshest dictatorships in Europe.<ref name="granville"/><ref>Gati, Charles, ''Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt'', Stanford University Press, 2006 {{ISBN|0-8047-5606-6}}, page 9-12</ref> He described himself as "Stalin's best Hungarian disciple"<ref name="sugar375">Sugar, Peter F., Peter Hanak and [[Tibor Frank]], ''A History of Hungary'', Indiana University Press, 1994, {{ISBN|0-253-20867-X}}, page 375-77</ref> and "Stalin's best pupil."<ref name="matthews93">Matthews, John P. C. , ''Explosion: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956'', Hippocrene Books, 2007, {{ISBN|0-7818-1174-0}}, page 93-4</ref> Repression was harsher in Hungary than in the other satellite countries in the 1940s and 1950s due to a more vehement Hungarian resistance.<ref name="granville"/>
Approximately 350,000 Hungarian officials and intellectuals were purged from 1948 to 1956.<ref name="granville"/>  Thousands were arrested, tortured, tried, and imprisoned in [[concentration camps]], [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union|deported to the east]], or were executed, including ÁVH founder László Rajk.<ref name="Tokes317">Tőkés, Rudolf L. (1998), ''Hungary's Negotiated Revolution: Economic Reform, Social Change and Political Succession'', p. 317. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. {{ISBN|0-521-57850-7}}</ref><ref name=lawsoc>{{Citation | last=Gati | first=Charles | title=Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt | publisher=Stanford University Press |date=September 2006 | isbn=0-8047-5606-6 }} (page 49)</ref> Gati describes "the most gruesome forms of psychological and physical torture...The reign of terror (by the Rákosi government) turned out to be harsher and more extensive than it was in any of the other Soviet satellites in Central and Eastern Europe."
==Bulgaria==
{{Main article|People's Republic of Bulgaria}}
On 5 September 1944, the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria claiming that Bulgaria was to be prevented from assisting Germany and allowing the Wehrmacht to use its territory.<ref name="wettig40">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=50}}</ref> On 8 September 1944, the Red Army crossed the border and created the conditions for the [[Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944|coup d'état]] the following night.<ref name="wettig40"/>  The government was taken over by the "[[Fatherland Front (Bulgaria)|Fatherland Front]]" where the Communists played a leading role and an armistice followed.<ref name="wettig40"/>  The Soviet military commander in [[Sofia, Bulgaria|Sofia]] assumed supreme authority, and the Communists and their allies in the Fatherland Front  whom he instructed, including [[Kimon Georgiev]], took full control of domestic politics.<ref name="wettig40"/> An armed resistance guerilla movement, known as the [[Goryani]] Movement, began immediately after Soviet occupation in 1944 and lasted until the late 1950s. It is known to be the longest as well as the first anti-Soviet armed resistance in the Eastern Bloc. The movement eventually subsided following the quelling of the 1956 uprising in Budapest, which lead to the realisation that no help would come from Western powers.
On 8 September 1946, a national plebiscite was organised in which 96% of all votes (91% of the population voted) for the abolition of the monarchy and the installation of a republic.<ref>[http://www.bg-history.info/calendar/510/Provezhda-se-referendum-za-monarhiia-ili-narodna-republika.html Провежда се референдум за монархия или народна република], bg-history.info</ref>  In October 1946 elections, persecution against opposition parties occurred, such as jailing members of the previous government, periodic newspaper [[publication ban]]s and subjecting opposition followers to frequent attacks by Communist armed groups.<ref name="wettig85"/>  Thereafter, the [[People's Republic of Bulgaria]] was formed and Vasil Kolarov was appointed by the Parliament as a President (chairman) of the Republic though in fact Georgi Dimitrov, who took the post of a prime-minister, became the first man in power of the newly formed republic. The nine-year-old king Simeon II of Sax-Cobourg-Gotta was sent to exile accompanied by his mother the Queen Jovana of Savoy and his sister princess Maria-Louisa.
On 6 June 1947, parliamentary leader [[Nikola Petkov]], a critic of Soviet rule,<ref name="wettig85"/> was arrested in the Parliament building, subjected to a [[show trial]], found guilty of espionage, sentenced to death,<ref>Crampton, R. J. ''A Concise History of Bulgaria'', p.186. Cambridge University Press (2005), {{ISBN|0-521-85085-1}}</ref> and hanged on 23 September 1947. The Bulgarian secret police arranged for the publication of a false Petkov confession.<ref name="judt"/> The confession's false nature was so obvious that it became an embarrassment and the authorities ceased mentioning it.<ref name="judt">Judt, Tony ''Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945'', p. 175. Penguin Press (2005), {{ISBN|1-59420-065-3}}</ref>
==Czechoslovakia==
[[File:Czechoslovakia01.png|thumb|right|300px|Easternmost Czechoslovakia, [[Carpathian Ruthenia]] (light green) was annexed directly into the [[USSR]], while the rest of the country would become the [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic]]]]
{{Main article|Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic}}
In 1943, Czechoslovakian leader in exile [[Edvard Beneš]] agreed to Stalin's demands for unconditional agreement with Soviet foreign policy, including the [[Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia|expulsion of over one million Sudeten ethnic Germans]] identified as "rich people" and ethnic Hungarians, directed by the [[Beneš decrees]].<ref name="wettig45">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=45}}</ref> Beneš promised Stalin a "close postwar collaboration" in military and economic affairs, including confiscation and nationalisation of large landowners' property, factories, mines, steelworks and banks under a Czechoslovakian "national road to socialism".<ref name="wettig45"/> While Beneš was not a Moscow cadre and several domestic reforms of other Eastern Bloc countries were not part Beneš' plan, Stalin did not object because the plan included property expropriation and he was satisfied with the relative strength of Communists in Czechoslovakia compared to other Eastern Bloc countries.<ref name="wettig45"/>
Beneš traveled to Moscow in March 1945.<ref name="wettig79"/> After answering a list of questions by the Soviet [[NKVD]], Beneš pleased Moscow with his plans to deport two million ethnic Sudeten Germans and 400,000 to 600,000 Hungarians, and to build a strong army that would closely coordinate with the Red Army.<ref name="wettig79">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=79}}</ref> In April 1945, the Third Republic, a national front coalition ruled by three socialist parties, was formed. Because of the USSR's strength (they held 114 of 300 seats) and Beneš' loyalty, unlike in other Eastern Bloc countries, the Kremlin did not require Bloc politics or  "reliable" cadres in Czechoslovakian power positions, and the executive and legislative branches retained their traditional structures.<ref name="wettig86">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=86}}</ref>
However, the Soviet Union was, at first, disappointed that their party did not take advantage of their position after receiving the most votes in 1946 elections.<ref name="wettig152">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=152}}</ref>  While they had deprived the traditional administration of major functions by transferring local and regional government to newly established committees in which they largely dominated, they failed to eliminate "bourgeois" influence in the army or to expropriate industrialists and large landowners.<ref name="wettig138"/>
The existence of a somewhat independent political structure and Czechoslovakia's initial absence of stereotypical Eastern Bloc political and socioeconomic systems began to be seen as problematic by Soviet authorities.<ref>{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|pp=108–9}}</ref> While parties outside the "National Front" were excluded from the government, they were still allowed to exist.<ref name="wettig138"/>  In contrast to countries occupied by the Red Army, there were no Soviet occupation authorities in Czechoslovakia upon whom the USSR could rely to assert a leading role.<ref name="wettig138"/>
Hope in Moscow was waning for a victory in the upcoming 1948 elections.<ref name="wettig110"/>  A May 1947 Kremlin report concluded that "reactionary elements" praising western democracy had strengthened.<ref name="wettig110"/>  Following Czechoslovakia's brief consideration of taking [[Marshall Plan]] funds,<ref name="wettig138">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=138}}</ref> and the subsequent scolding of their parties by the [[Cominform]] at [[Szklarska Poręba]] in September 1947, [[Rudolf Slánský]] returned to [[Prague]] with a plan for the final seizure of power, including the [[StB]]'s elimination of party enemies and purging of dissidents.<ref name="Grogin, p. 134">{{Harvnb|Grogin|2001|p=134}}</ref>
==Romania==
[[File:Romania WWII.png|thumb|right|225px|The northern light green area was annexed into the [[Soviet Union|USSR]] as the [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic]] and [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic]]'s [[Chernivtsi Oblast]] and [[Izmail Oblast|Izmail oblast]]. The dark green area comprises what remained as the [[People's Republic of Romania]].]]
[[File:Contested Islands between Romania and Ukraine.jpg|thumb|right|225px|In the late 1940s a number of islands in the [[Danube Delta]] and [[Snake Island (Black Sea)|Snake Island]] were annexed by the Soviet Union into the Ukrainian SSR]]
{{Main article|Socialist Republic of Romania|Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic}}
As the Red Army battled the [[Wehrmacht]] and Romanian forces in August 1944, Soviet agent [[Emil Bodnăraș]] organised an underground coalition to stage a [[coup d'état]] that would put Communists—who were then two tiny groups—into power.<ref name="wettig49"/> However, [[Michael I of Romania|King Michael]] had already organised a coup, in which Bodnăraş also had participated, putting Michael in power.<ref name="wettig49"/> After Soviet invasions following two years of Romania fighting with the [[Axis powers|Axis]], at the February 1945 [[Yalta Conference]] and the July 1945 [[Potsdam Conference]], the western allies agreed to the Soviet absorption of the areas.<ref name="crampton212">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=212}}</ref>
Michael accepted the Soviets' armistice terms, which included military occupation along with the annexation of Northern Romania.<ref name="wettig49"/>
The Soviets' 1940 annexation of [[Bessarabia]] and part of [[Northern Bukovina]] to create the important agricultural region of the [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic]]<ref name="Europa">Europa Publications Limited,''Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, 1999'', Routledge, 1999, {{ISBN|1-85743-058-1}}, page 545</ref> (while other Romanian territories were converted into the [[Chernivtsi Oblast]] and [[Izmail Oblast]] of the [[Ukrainian SSR]]) became a point of tension between Romania and the Soviet Union, especially after 1965.<ref name="cook292">{{Harvnb|Cook|2001|p=292}}</ref> The [[Yalta Conference]] also had granted the Soviet Union a predominant interest in what remained of Romania, which coincided with the [[Soviet occupation of Romania]].
The Soviets organised the ''National Democratic Front'', which was composed of several parties including the [[Ploughmen's Front]].<ref name="wettig49"/> It became increasingly Soviet dominated.<ref name="wettig49"/>  In February 1945, Soviet proponents provoked a crisis to exploit support by the Soviet occupation power for enforcement of unlimited control.<ref name="wettig49"/>  In March 1945, Stalin aide Andre Vyshinskii traveled to Bucharest and installed a government that included only members subservient to the National Front.<ref name="wettig49"/>
This included [[Ploughmen's Front]] member Dr. [[Petru Groza]], who became prime minister. Groza installed a government that included many parties, though Communists held the key ministries. The potential of army resistance was neutralised by the removal of major troop leaders and the inclusion of two divisions staffed with ideologically trained prisoners of war.<ref name="wettig49"/> Bodnăraş was appointed General Secretary and initiated re-organisation of the general police and secret police.<ref name="wettig49"/>
[[File:Emil Bodnaras.jpg|thumb|left|150px|[[Emil Bodnăraș]]]]
Over western allies' objections, traditional parties were excluded from government and subjected to intensifying persecution.<ref name="wettig49"/>  Political persecution of local leaders and strict radio and press control were designed to prepare for an eventual unlimited Communist [[totalitarianism]], including the liquidation of opposition.<ref name="wettig40"/> When [[Michael I of Romania|King Michael]] attempted to force Groza's resignation by refusing to sign any legislation ("the royal strike"), Groza enacted laws without Michael's signature.
In early 1947, Bodnăraş reported that Romanian leaders [[Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej|Gheorghiu-Dej]] and [[Ion Gheorghe Maurer|Maurer]] were seeking to bolster the Romanian economy by developing relations with Britain and the United States and were complaining about Soviet occupying troops.<ref name="wettig110"/>  Thereafter, the PCR eliminated the role of the centrist parties, including a [[show trial]] of [[National Peasants' Party]] leaders, and forced other parties to merge with the PCR.<ref name="wettig83">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=83}}</ref>  By 1947, most non-Communist politicians were either executed, in exile or in prison.  In December, Groza and Gheorghiu-Dej forced Michael to abdicate at gunpoint, and hours later the Communist-dominated legislature proclaimed Romania a "People's Republic."
Following Gheorghiu-Dej's death in 1965, [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]] became [[General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party]]. He changed the name of the country to the [[Socialist Republic of Romania]], and ruled one of the most (by some accounts, ''the'' most) brutal states in the Eastern bloc for nearly 25 years.
==Albania==
{{Main article|Socialist People's Republic of Albania}}
On 29 December 1944, the [[National Liberation Movement (Albania)|National Liberation Movement]] drove the German occupiers out of Tirana.  The LNC, as it was popularly called, was dominated by the two-year-old Albanian Communist Party, led by [[Enver Hoxha]].  From this day onward, unlike the other countries in what became the Eastern Bloc, Albania was an out-and-out Communist dictatorship.  The LNC wasted little time eliminating almost all potential opposition and isolating the country from the non-Communist world.  It swiftly took control of the police, the court system and the economy, while eliminating several hundred political opponents through a series of show trials conducted by judges without legal training.<ref name="cook17"/><ref name=cs>{{csref|country=albania|author=Charles Sudetic|section=Communist Albania}}</ref>
In December 1945, elections for the Albanian People's Assembly were held.  However, voters only had the choice of approving or rejecting a single list from the [[Democratic Front (Albania)]], the successor to the LNC.<ref name="cook17">{{Harvnb|Cook|2001|p=17}}</ref>  In 1946, Albania was declared the [[People's Republic of Albania]] and, thereafter, it broke relations with the United States and refused to participate in the 1947 [[Marshall Plan]].<ref name="cook17"/>
==Yugoslavia==
{{Main article|Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia}}
[[File:Josip Broz Tito Bihać 1942.jpg|thumb|right|172px|[[Josip Broz Tito]]]]
[[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]], the second-largest of the post-war countries, and the sole Communist state with open access to the [[Mediterranean]], was only aligned with the Soviet Union for 3 post-war years (1945–1948). Its leader, [[Josip Broz Tito]], broke with the Soviets with the [[Tito–Stalin split]] of 1948. The country subsequently came under threat of invasion by the Warsaw Pact, with the [[Yugoslav People's Army]] planning defenses against both Eastern and Western Bloc attacks. Throughout the Cold War period, the country steered an independent course, founding the [[Non-Aligned Movement]] in collaboration with Ghana, Egypt and India.
At the end of World War II, [[Democratic Federal Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] was considered a victor power and had neither an occupation force nor an allied control commission.<ref name="crampton216">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=216}}</ref> Communism was considered a popular alternative to the west, in part because of the popularity of the [[Yugoslav Partisans]] during World War II and opposition to former royalist [[Chetnik]] leader [[Draža Mihailović]] and [[Peter II of Yugoslavia|King Peter]].<ref name="crampton216"/> A cabinet for the new [[Democratic Federal Yugoslavia]] was formed, with 25 of the 28 members being former Communist [[Yugoslav Partisans]] led by [[Josip Broz Tito]].<ref name="crampton216"/>  The [[League of Communists of Yugoslavia]] formed the [[National Front of Yugoslavia]] coalition, with opposition members boycotting the first election because it presented only a single government list which could be accepted or rejected, without opponents.<ref name="crampton216"/>  Censorship, denial of publication allocations and open intimidation of opposition groups followed.<ref name="crampton216"/>  Three weeks after the election, the Front declared that a new Republic would be formed, with a new constitution put in place two months later in January 1946 initiating the [[Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia]].<ref name="crampton217">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=217}}</ref>  The Communists continued a campaign against enemies, including arresting Mihailović, conducting a controversial trial and then executing him, followed by several other opposition arrests and trials.<ref name="crampton217"/>  Thereafter, a pro-Soviet phase continued until the [[Tito–Stalin split]] of 1948 and the subsequent formation of the [[Non-Aligned Movement]].
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
==References==
*{{Citation|last1=Berthon|first1=Simon|first2=Joanna|last2=Potts|title=Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-creation of World War II Through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin|publisher=Da Capo Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-306-81538-6}}
*{{Citation|last1=Bideleux|first1=Robert|last2=Jeffries|first2=Ian|title=A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change|publisher=Routledge|year=2007|isbn=978-0-415-36626-7}}
*{{Citation|last=Cook|first=Bernard A.|title=Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2001|isbn=978-0-8153-4057-7}}
*{{Citation|last=Crampton|first=R. J.|title=Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and after|publisher=Routledge|year=1997|isbn=978-0-415-16422-1}}
*{{Citation|last=Miller|first=Roger Gene|title=To Save a City: The Berlin Airlift, 1948–1949|publisher=Texas A&M University Press|year=2000|isbn=978-0-89096-967-0}}
*{{Citation|last1=Grogin|first=Robert C.|title=Natural Enemies: The United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, 1917–1991|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2001|isbn=0-7391-0160-9}}
*{{Citation|last=Pearson|first=Raymond|title=The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire|publisher=Macmillan|year=1998|isbn=978-0-312-17407-1}}
*{{Citation|last=Turner|first=Henry Ashby|title=The Two Germanies Since 1945: East and West|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1987|isbn=978-0-300-03865-1}}
*{{Citation|last=Wettig|first=Gerhard|title=Stalin and the Cold War in Europe|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2008|isbn=978-0-7425-5542-6}}
{{Eastern Bloc}}
{{Cold War}}
{{Joseph Stalin}}
{{Eastern Bloc media}}
{{Eastern Bloc economies}}
{{Eastern Bloc parties}}
[[Category:Eastern Bloc]]