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Eastern Bloc politics A propaganda photo of a citizen reading the Polish communist party PKWN Manifesto, ed- ited by Joseph Stalin, posted after the initial 1944 Soviet occupation of Poland in World War II before it was transformed into the People’s Republic of Poland. Eastern Bloc politics followed the Red Army’s occupation of much of eastern Europe at the end of World War II and the Soviet Union installation of Soviet-controlled com- munist governments in the Eastern Bloc through a process of bloc politics and repres- sion. The resulting governments contained vestiges of western democracies to initially conceal the process. Once in power, each country’s Soviet-con- trolled communist party took permanent con- trol of the administration, political organs, police, societal organizations and economic structures to ensure that no effective opposi- tion could arise and to control socioeconomic and political life therein. Party and social purges were employed along with the extens- ive use of secret police organizations modeled on the Soviet KGB to monitor and control local populations. Background Creation of the Eastern Bloc In 1922, the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian Map of the Eastern Bloc SFSR, approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Soviet Union.[1] At the end of World War II by mid-1945, all eastern and central European capitals were controlled by the Soviet Union.[2] Dur- ing the final stages of the war, the Soviet Union began the creation of the Eastern Bloc by directly annexing several countries as Soviet Socialist Republics that were origin- ally effectively ceded to it by Nazi Germany in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. These in- cluded Eastern Poland (incorporated into two different SSRs)[3], Latvia (became Latvia SSR)[4][5], Estonia (became Estonian SSR)[4][5], Lithuania (became Lithuania SSR)[4][5], part of eastern Finland (became Karelo-Finnish SSR)[6] and eastern Romania (became the Moldavian SSR).[7][8] By 1945, these additional annexed countries totaled From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 1 approximately 180,000 additional square miles, or slightly more than the area of West Germany, East Germany and Austria com- bined.[9] Other states were converted into Soviet Satellite states, such as the People’s Republic of Poland, the People’s Republic of Hungary[10], the Czechoslovak Socialist Re- public[11], the People’s Republic of Romania, the People’s Republic of Albania,[12] and later East Germany from the Soviet zone of German occupation.[13] The Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was also considered part of the Bloc, [14][15], though a Tito-Stalin split occurred in 1948[16] followed by the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement. Conditions in the Eastern Bloc A line for the distribution of cooking oil in Bucharest, Romania in May 1986 Further information: Eastern Bloc, Eastern Bloc emigration and defection, Eastern Bloc information dissemination, and Eastern Bloc economies Throughout the Eastern Bloc, both in the Soviet Socialist Republic and the rest of the Bloc, Russia was given prominence, and re- ferred to as the naibolee vydajuščajasja nacija (the most prominent nation) and the rukovodjaščij narod (the leading people).[9] The Soviets encouraged the worship of everything Russian and the reproduction of their own Communist structural hierarchies in each of the Bloc states.[9] The defining characteristic of communism implemented in the Eastern Bloc 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.[17] While over 15 million Eastern Bloc residents migrated westward from 1945 to 1949,[18] 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.[19] The Soviets mandated expropriation and etatiza- tion of private property.[20] The Soviet-style "replica regimes" that arose in the Bloc not only reproduced Soviet command economies, but also adopted the brutal methods em- ployed by Joseph Stalin and Soviet secret po- lice to suppress real and potential opposi- tion.[20] Furthermore, the Eastern Bloc ex- perienced economic mis-development by central planners resulting in those countries following a path of extensive rather than in- tensive development, and lagged far behind their western European counterparts in per capita Gross Domestic Product.[21] In addi- tion, media in the Eastern Bloc served as an organ of the state, completely reliant on and subservient to the communist party.[22] The state owned radio and television organiza- tions while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the ruling communist party.[22] Seizing initial control Starting the Bloc politics process The SED emblem represented the handshake between Communist Wilhelm Pieck and So- cial Democrat Otto Grotewohl when their parties were forcibly merged in 1946 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 2 Further information: Eastern Bloc The initial issue in countries occupied by the Red Army in 1944 and 1945 was the manner in which to transform occupation power into control over domestic development.[23] At first, western countries’ willingness to sup- port "antifascist" action and for "democratiz- ation" with a socialist element helped Soviet efforts to permit communists in their respect- ive countries to initiate a process of gradual almost imperceptibly slow Sovietization.[23] [24] Because communists were relatively small minorities in all countries but Czechoslovakia,[25] they were initially in- structed to form coalitions in their respective countries.[24] At the war’s end, concealment of the Kremlin’s role was considered crucial to neutralize resistance and to make the re- gimes appear not only autochthonous, but also to resemble "bourgeois democra- cies".[25] Joseph Stalin had already effectively 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.[26] During this period, and even for 25 years after Stalin’s death, the few diplo- mats and foreign correspondents permitted inside the Soviet Union were usually restric- ted to within a few miles of Moscow, their phones were tapped, their residences were restricted to foreigner-only locations and they were constantly followed by Soviet au- thorities. [26] Dissenters who approached such foreigners were arrested.[27] For many years after World War II, even the best in- formed foreigners did not know the number of arrested or executed Soviet citizens, or how poorly the Soviet economy had per- formed.[27] In the other countries of the Bloc, Stalin stated that the Eastern European version of democracy was a mere modification of west- ern "bourgeois democracy."[28] Con- sequently, Soviet takeover of control at the outset generally followed a three stage "bloc politics" process: (i) a general coalition of left-wing, antifascist forces; (ii) a bogus coali- tion in which communists neutralized those in other parties not willing to accept com- munist supremacy; and (iii) complete com- munist domination, frequently exercised in a new party formed by the fusion of communist and other leftist groups.[29] At the same time, Soviet advisers were placed in government institutions, with higher concentrations in the army and the police, while trade agreements gave the USSR a preponderant influence in local economies.[29] The result of the process was that, from 1944 to 1948 in the Eastern Bloc, political parties, organizations, volun- tary associations and territorial communities were covertly steered to gradually incapacit- ate, dissolve, and spend themselves by their own efforts in various processes.[30] Socioeconomic transformations through "reforms" Stalin felt that socioeconomic transformation was indispensable to establish Soviet control, reflecting the Marxist-Leninist view that ma- terial bases—the distribution of the means of production—shaped social and political rela- tions.[24] This "sovietization" involved the gradual assimilation of local political, so- cioeconomic, and cultural patterns into the Soviet model while severing ties with “bour- geois” Western values and traditions.[31] Mo- scow trained cadres were placed into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding so- ciopolitical transformation.[24] Elimination of the bourgeoisie’s social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority.[28] These measures were publicly billed as re- forms rather than socioeconomic transforma- tions.[28] Throughout all of eastern Europe, except for Czechoslovakia, societal organiza- tions such as trade unions and associations representing various social, professional and other groups, were erected with only one or- ganization for each category, with competi- tion excluded.[28] Those organizations were managed by communist cadres, though some diversity was permitted initially.[32] Soviet and local concerns formed "joint stock com- panies" permitting Soviet officials to exercise direct control over important sections of the economy.[29] Concealment and Bloc politics Further information: Eastern Bloc At first, the Soviet Union concealed its role, with the transformations appearing as a modification of western "bourgeois demo- cracy."[28] As one young communist was told in East Germany: "it’s got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our con- trol."[29] With the initial exception of From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 3 Photo of the Polish PKWN Manifesto 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 in mutual "consensus".[32] Moscow cadres in key positions would refuse via veto to provide consensus for opposed changes, while those who opposed communist pro- posed changes were accused of insubordina- tion to Soviet authorities, frequently followed by harsh punishment.[32] When such meas- ures did not produce the desired effect, occu- pation officers would directly intervene.[32] Accordingly, elections—which had been promised to the Western allies—did not offer a difference in policy choices.[25] Bloc politics eventually forced purported bourgeois politi- cians and parties to choose between uncondi- tional political surrender and outright rejec- tion.[33] If they chose the former, they would alienate their followers and marginalize themselves, while the latter case led to de- famation as deviators from the "anti-fascist democratic consensus" and "traitors" to the people, followed by ensuring isolation, pro- secution and liquidation.[33] Pre-World War II Polish Prime Minister Stan- isław Mikołajczyk returned to Poland in 1946 and then fled in 1947 after facing arrest fol- lowing Bloc politics, persecution, and vote rigging Consequently, the bloc system permitted the Soviet Union to exercise Eastern Bloc do- mestic control indirectly.[25] "Bourgeois" politicians willing to follow communist bloc leadership and to support socioeconomic re- forms were recruited to further the illusion of classical democracy.[25] Similar non-com- munist officials were put in place in some ad- ministration positions, while a reliable com- munist cadre worked behind the scenes to control the apparatus and decision-making process.[25] Crucial departments such as those responsible for personnel, general po- lice, secret police and youth, were strictly communist run.[25] From the outset, the mul- tiparty system established by Soviet occupa- tion authorities was planned to be tempor- ary.[33] Two kinds of alliances were envis- aged: permanent "natural" alliances with re- lated social fores such as peasants willing to submit to communist vanguard parties and temporary accords with bourgeois parties ne- cessary for temporary objectives.[25] Parties, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 4 such as Social Democrats, were seen as be- longing to the permanent natural category, but would be eventually expected to undergo transformations.[25] Moscow cadres distin- guished "progressive forces" from "reaction- ary elements", and rendered both powerless through self-emasculation or future self-sacri- fice.[33] Such procedures were repeated con- tinuously until communists had gained unlim- ited power, while only politicians who were unconditionally supportive of Soviet policy remained.[33] Political systems Further information: Politics of Communist Czechoslovakia Eastern Bloc people’s democracies Despite the initial institutional design of com- munism implemented by Joseph Stalin in the Eastern Bloc, subsequent development varied across countries.[17] In satellite states, after peace treaties were initially concluded, op- position was essentially liquidated, funda- mental steps toward socialism were enforced and Kremlin leaders sought to strengthen control therein.[34] While communism came to power in the Soviet Union following a class civil war presumably won by the working class, of some embarrassment to the ruling regimes was that, in the rest of the Eastern Bloc, it came to power with the occupation of the Red Army.[35] What emerged is what Hungarian communist László Rajk (who was later executed) called "a dictatorship of the proletariat without the Soviet form" called a "people’s democracy."[35] The defining char- acteristic of communism implemented therein 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.[17] Initially, Stalin directed systems that rejected Western institutional character- istics of market economies, democratic gov- ernance (dubbed "bourgeois democracy" in Soviet parlance) and the rule of law subduing discretional intervention by the state.[36] The resulting states aspired to total control of a political center backed by an extensive and active repressive apparatus, and a central role of Marxist-Leninist ideology.[36] Vestiges of "bourgeois democracy" The vestiges of democratic institutions were never entirely destroyed, resulting in a re- maining facade of Western style institutions such as parliaments, which effectively just rubber-stamped decisions made by rulers, and constitutions, to which adherence by au- thorities was limited or non-existent.[36] Government institutions purported to prac- tice democratic centralism, where subordin- ate organs did not question decisions once made by the leadership.[37] Decisions were made by the ruling Communist parties, which were not political parties in the western sense, but apparatuses for running states and controlling societies.[38] They did not repres- ent sectional interests, they imposed them.[38] Parliaments were elected, but their meetings occurred only a few days per year and they served to only create legitimacy for politburo decisions.[38] So little attention was paid to them that some of those serving in parliaments were actually dead and officials would sometimes openly state that they would seat members who had lost elec- tions.[38] Ruling communist party "Congresses" of non-Soviet Eastern Bloc communist parties met every five years, not long after the Soviet Communist Party had held its congress, to elect central committees and endorse new party programs, though "emergency" congresses could be called by central committees.[37] Attendance at party congresses was frequently given as a reward for long service.[37] Parties also sometimes held national conferences to address specific issues.[37] The Central Committees usually met in full, or plenary, sessions two to three times per year to elect members of the politburo or praesidium and the communist party "secret- ariat", which numbered 15-20 senior party in- dividuals who each was in charge of a depart- ment of the party secretariat.[40] These de- partments were either party "shadows" of the actual government departments they ended up governing (e.g., agriculture, foreign af- fairs, eduction, etc.) or party specific institu- tions in charge of cadres or a party control commission that investigated any alleged in- fringements of party discipline.[40] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 5 Official painting of People’s Republic of Hun- gary Stalinist leader Mátyás Rákosi, called the "bald murderer" for running a harsh dic- tatorship,[10][39] who was the General Secret- ary of the Hungarian Communist Party The General Secretary or First Secretary of the Central Committee was the most powerful figure in each regime.[40] He exer- cised his day-to-day authority through the politburo or praesiudium, which generally possessed 10-15 full members.[40] During the Stalinist period, the head of the party also lead the executive branch, with variations in the practice occurring after Stalin’s death, though executive authority always resided in the party’s highest organs.[38] In Romania after the mid-1960s, no politburo existed and, instead, General Secretary Nicolae Ceauşes- cu nominated a small permanent executive committee from which he nominated a small permanent bureau consisting of himself, his wife and four to five other members.[40] In general, the longer the First or General Sec- retary was in office, the more powerful he be- came, and he could generally retain power as long as he remained healthy.[40] The degree of leadership freedom varied, with Ceauşescu facing little debate, while Bulgaria’s Todor Zhivkov could undertake actions such as for- cing Bulgarian names on ethnic Turks without even discussing the matter.[40] A Soviet bureaucrat carries bags after a pur- chase from Beryozka Gastronom, a store in which premium goods could be bought using foreign currency The party over which the politburo held sway was not a mass party but, comporting with Leninist tradition, a smaller selective party of between three percent (e.g., Albania) and fourteen percent (e.g., Czechoslovakia) of the country’s population whom had accep- ted total obedience.[41] For example, a Polish communist described faith in the Polish Un- ited Workers’ Party as that it "means that his faith in it is uncritical at every stage, no mat- ter what the party is saying. It is a person with the ability to adapt his mentality and his conscience in such a way that he can unre- servedly accept the dogma that the party is never wrong, even though it is wrong all the time."[41] Entry usually required a period of probation.[40] Those who secured member- ship in this selective party received consider- able rewards, such as access to special lower priced shops with a greater selection of goods, special schools, holiday facilities, cinemas, homes, furniture, works of art and official cars with special white license plates (instead of the usual black plates) so that po- lice and others could identify these members from a distance.[41] Envelopes containing banknotes, and sometimes foreign hard cur- rency, were not infrequently passed out to certain party or politburo members.[38] After the confiscation through nationalizations from prior owners following Soviet occupa- tion, the party at first possessed considerable additional property and real estate to give members.[38] All members possessed a party card or book in which were recorded attend- ance at meetings, service to the party and From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 6 Party Country Notes Communist Party of the Soviet Union Soviet Union Precursor led the Russian Revolution; General Secretaries included Joseph Stalin (1922-53), Nikita Khrushchev (1953-64) and Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982) Socialist Unity Party of Ger- many (SED) German Demo- cratic Republic (East Germany) General Secretaries included Walter Ulbricht (1950-71) and Erich Honecker (1971-1989) Party of La- bour of Albania People’s Re- public of Albania Enver Hoxha was First Secretary from 1944-85 Romanian Workers Party People’s Re- public of Romania From 1922-44, none of its General Secretaries were Ro- manian; later, they included Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1945-54,1955-65) and Nicolae Ceauşescu (1965-89) Hungarian Working People’s Party People’s Re- public of Hungary After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, called the Hungari- an Socialist Workers’ Party; General Secretaries included Mátyás Rákosi (1948-56) and János Kádár (1956-88) Polish United Workers’ Party People’s Re- public of Poland General Secretaries included Bolesław Bierut (1948-56) and Władysław Gomułka (1956-70) Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Czechoslovak Socialist Republic Chairman was Klement Gottwald (1922-53); First Secretar- ies included Antonín Novotny (1953-1968) and Gustáv Husák (1969-1987) Bulgarian Communist Party People’s Re- public of Bulgaria First Secretaries included Vulko Chervenkov (1949-54) and Todor Zhivkov (1954-89) Communist Party of Yugoslavia Socialist Feder- al Republic of Yugoslavia quietly ruled within the "Popular Front" until 1952;[42] Gen- eral Secretaries included Josip Broz Tito (1939-1980) any deviation from party conduct.[41] Period- ically, these cards would be inspected, fre- quently as a prelude to a culling or purge of those considered undesirable or insufficiently committed.[41] The communist party was at the center of the political system in the Eastern Bloc, with its leading role being absolute political rule with virtually no political discussion.[42] Most of the parties in non-Soviet Eastern Bloc countries differed from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in that they were technic- ally coalitions.[42] Only in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania (and only after 1965) did the parties use the word "communist" in their name.[42] The rul- ing parties in the Eastern Bloc included: Ruling communist parties in the Eastern Bloc While, in some states, other parties were al- lowed to exist, frequently their only substan- tial function was to legitimize the existence of a national front or some similar umbrella organization.[37] The organization of the party was based on the "territorial-produc- tion" principle, meaning that the lowest level unit could be based either in an area or in a place of work.[37] The next highest level was territorial, into districts, towns, regions and states.[37] Each level had its own committees, bureau and secretariat.[37] Party control through purges and show trials Further information: Uprising of 1953 in East Germany In accordance with Soviet directives, "build- ing communism" in the Eastern Bloc included liquidation of class enemies and constant vi- gilance against counterrevolutionaries, espe- cially within the Communist parties them- selves.[20] In the late 1940s and early 1950s, more frequently after the campaign to route out "Titoists" after the 1948 Tito-Stalin split, protests occurred, with many of those taking part being workers, intellectuals, dissatisfied From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 7 1952 show trial of Czechoslovakian General Secretary Rudolf Slánský was executed with 11 others, with their ashes used to pave roads outside of Prague 1950 show trial of Czechoslovakian parlia- ment member Milada Horáková, who was tried with 12 others and, thereafter, hanged young men inducted into the peasantry as part of collectivizations and those who were originally most enthusiastic about Commun- ist systems.[43][44] In response, in Poland, the central committee held a "vigilance plenum" against nationalists.[45] One of the methods of control involved several party purges between 1948 and 1953, including 90,000 purged in Bulgaria, 200,000 in Romania (about one third of party), 200,000 in Hun- gary, 300,000 in East Germany, 370,000 in Poland (about one quarter of party members) and 550,000 in Czechoslovakia (30% of the party).[43][45] In Hungary, approximately 150,000 were also imprisoned, with 2,000 summarily executed.[43] In the Estonian SSR, a purge of "bourgeois nationalists" from the Estonian Communist party occurred from 1949 to 1951.[46] In Czechoslovakia, approx- imately 130,000 people were sent to prisons, labor camps and mines.[43] The evolution of the resulting harshness of purges in Czechoslovakia, like much of its history after 1948, was a function of the late takeover by the communists, with many of the purges fo- cusing on the sizable numbers of party mem- bers with prior memberships in other parties.[47] Party leader Klement Gottwald’s early claims that Czechoslovakia was differ- ent than the rest of the Eastern Bloc created jealousy and additional danger later when Stalin was showing an almost paranoiac de- sire for unity and uniformity.[47] Nine copies of reports, confessions and other documents in all countries’ purges were circulated to Soviet and other Eastern Bloc leaders.[48] In Poland, when the local leadership resisted Soviet pressure for show trials, the Soviets demanded the construction of more prisons, including one containing a special wing for high-ranking party mem- bers.[49] The intensity of the purges varied by country, with thorough purges in places with a relatively popular party in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, and less thorough purges in places where the party was initially less well- established, such as Poland, Romania and East Germany.[50] Any member with a western connection was immediately vulnerable, which included large numbers of people who had spent years in exile in the West during the Nazi-occupa- tion of Czechoslovakia and Hungary.[48] Many veterans of the Spanish Civil War were imprisoned or killed because they were tain- ted by their western experiences.[48] Persons with western wives also were the targets of persecution.[48] In addition to connections with Tito or Yugoslavia, persons who had pre- viously belonged to non-communist parties merged in the Bloc politics process were also at risk, as were members from a non-working class background.[48] In addition to rank-and-file member purges, prominent communists were purged, with some subjected to public show trials.[45] These were more likely to be instigated, and sometimes orchestrated, by the Kremlin or even Stalin himself, as he had done in the Moscow Trials of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.[48] They included Koçi Xoxe in Albania and Traicho Kostov, who were purged and arrested.[44] After Kostov was executed, Bulgarian leaders sent Stalin a telegram thanking him for the help.[48] In Ro- mania, Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, Ana Pauker and From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 8 Even after the party reneged on a deal to prevent the execution of Hungarian Foreign Minister László Rajk, after his show trial and just before his execution, Rajk alleged screamed "long live the party!" The cover of official Hungarian Working People’s Party newspaper Esti Budapest, October 6, 1956, describing the reburial of László Rajk and other defendants Vasile Luca were arrested, with Pătrăşcanu being executed.[45] Stalin’s NKVD emissary coordinated with Hungarian General Secret- ary Mátyás Rákosi and his ÁVH head the way the show trial of Hungarian Foreign Minister László Rajk, who was later executed.[48] The Rajk trials led Moscow to warn Czechoslovakia’s parties that enemy agents had penetrated high into party ranks, and when a puzzled Rudolf Slánský and Klement Gottwald inquired what they could do, Stal- in’s NKVD agents arrived to help prepare subsequent trials. The Czechoslovakian party subsequently arrested Slánský himself, Vladimír Clementis, Ladislav Novomeský and Gustáv Husák (Clementis was later ex- ecuted).[45] Slánský and eleven others were convicted together of being "Trotskyist- zionist-titoist-bourgeois-nationalist traitors" in one series of show trials, after which they were executed and their ashes were mixed with material being used to fill roads on the outskirts of Prague.[45] By the time of the Slánský trials, the Kremlin had been arguing that Israel, like Yugoslavia, had bitten the Soviet hand that had fed it, and thus the tri- als took an overtly anti-Semitic tone, with el- even of the fourteen defendants tried with Slánský being Jewish.[50] The Soviets directed show trial methods, including a procedure in which confessions and "evidence" from leading witnesses could be extracted by any means, including threat- ening to torture the witnesses’ wives and children.[49] The higher ranking the party member, generally the more harsh the tor- ture that was inflicted upon him.[49] For the show trial of Hungarian Interior Minister János Kádár, who had one year earlier had at- tempted to force a confession of Rajk in his show trial, regarding "Vladimir" the question- er of Kádár:[49] “ Vladimir had but one argument: blows. They had begun to beat Kádár. They had smeared his body with mercury to prevent his pores from breathing. He had been writh- ing on the floor when a newcomer had arrived. The newcomer was Vladimir’s father, Mihály Farkas. Kádár was raised from the ground. Vladimir stepped close. Two hench- men pried Kádár’s teeth apart, and the colonel, negligently, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, urinated into his mouth. ” After this trial, Kádár later rose to General Secretary of the ruling Hungarian Commun- ist Party when Imre Nagy was executed. Once in the interrogation room, the inquisit- ors made no pretense about attempting to seek real evidence, making it clear that their From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 9 only task was to extract a confession that would be used to convince other people of the defedant’s guilt.[49] Many dedicated party members accepted the argument that they could perform one last service to the party by allowing themselves to be convicted of crimes that they had not committed.[49] Even after the party reneged on a deal that was supposed to have spared László Rajk, Ra- jk allegedly yelled just before his execution "long live the party!"[50] For those not ex- ecuted, degradation and humiliation contin- ued for years in prison or labor camps.[49] The evidence was often not just non-exist- ent but absurd, with Hungarian George Paloczi-Horváth’s party interrogators de- lightedly exclaiming "We knew all the time—we have it here in writing—that you met professor Szentgyörgyi not in Istanbul, but in Constantinople."[50] In another case, the Hungarian ÁVH secret police also con- demned another party member as a Nazi ac- complice with a document that had actually been previously displayed in glass cabinet of the Institute of the Working Class Movement as an example of a Gestapo forgery.[50] The trials themselves were "shows", with each participant having to learn a script and con- duct repeated rehearsals before the perform- ance.[50] In the Slánský trial, when the judge skipped one of the scripted questions, the better-rehearsed Slánský answered the one which should have been asked.[50] Some of the notable show trials in the Eastern Bloc after 1944 Administrative structures Initially, communist parties were small in all countries except Czechoslovakia, such that there existed an acute shortage of politically "trustworthy" persons for administration, po- lice and other professions.[51] Accordingly, "politically unreliable" non-communists ini- tially filled such roles.[51] 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.[51] In addition, throughout the Eastern Bloc, armies appeared in Soviet-style uniforms studying military manuals copied from the Red Army. [52] The party dominated the armed forces, with party members compris- ing almost every rank above captain.[38] Two lists were often kept by the party structure: the cadre and the nomenklatura lists. The latter contained every post in each country that was important to the smooth ap- plication of party policy, including military posts, administrative positions, directors of local enterprises, social organization admin- istrators, newspapers, etc.[53] In Czechoslov- akia, the nomenklatura lists were thought to contain 100,000 post listings, while the num- ber estimated in Poland was 2-3 times that figure.[53] The names of those that the party considered to be trustworthy enough to se- cure a nomenklatura post were compiled on the cadre list.[53] One did not have to be a party member to be on the cadre list, but any sign of unconventional behavior would mean exclusion from the list.[53] The considerable amount of information disseminated to the party from police or trusted observers en- sured that the cadre lists were timely and comprehensive.[53] The end result was that anyone aspiring to have an influential or re- warding job had to conform to party dic- tates.[53] De-Stalinization Some relaxation of Soviet control occurred after Stalin’s death in 1953 and the sub- sequent de-stalinization.[54] State brutality and repression waned in the Bloc.[20] The Red Army withdrew from the Balkans, though not from East Germany and countries needed for transit purposes.[54] Continuing mainten- ance of communist power was guaranteed by the Brezhnev Doctrine, such as in the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, on the grounds that a threat to the system in one country was a challenge to the alliance as a whole.[54] Like with Yugoslavia after the Tito-Stalin split, Albania took a different course than most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc. Because of Party of Labour of Albania First Secretary Enver Hoxha’s dogmatic Stalinist adherence, Albania broke with the Soviet Union in 1960 following the Soviet de-stalinization.[55] Al- bania began to establish closer contacts with Mao Tse Tung’s People’s Republic of Ch- ina.[55] Following Mao’s death and China seeking close ties with the United States,[56] Albania also severed ties with China in 1978.[55] The cult of personality intensified around Hoxha, who became increasingly paranoid From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 10 Member Party Notes László Rajk Hungarian Working People’s Party Hungarian Foreign Minister; orchestrated by Mátyás Rákosi, Joseph Stalin and János Kádár; tried with seven others; ex- ecuted with two others János Kádár Hungarian Working People’s Party Beaten, mercury poured on skin, and mouth urinated in; even- tually became General Secretary Rudolf Slánský Communist Party of Czechoslovakia General Secretary who was tried in the Slánský trial with four- teen other mostly Jewish defendants; eleven executed; roads paved with ashes Vladimír Clementis Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Minister of Foreign Affairs; hanged; erased from photograph with Klement Gottwald Solomon Lozovsky Communist Party of the Soviet Union Chairman of Sovinformburo; tried in anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot; executed with thirteen other Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee members Solomon Bregman Communist Party of the Soviet Union Deputy minister of State Control; tried in anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot; died in jail purportedly of heart disease after severe beatings Aaron Katz Communist Party of the Soviet Union General of the Stalin Military Academy; tried in anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot; after beatings, he was released aftter Stalin’s death Traicho Kostov Bulgarian Com- munist Party President of Council of Ministers; tried with ten others; executed Koçi Xoxe Party of Labour of Albania Defense and Interior Minister; forced to admit conpired with Tito; hanged Rudolf Margolius Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade; executed Bedřich Reicin Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Deputy Minister of National Defense; hanged with ten others Otto Šling Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Regional Party Secretary; executed; wife imprisoned during trial Milada Horáková Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Parliament member; show trial of Horáková and 12 others broadcast on radio; hanged Arthur London Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs; sentenced to life in prison Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu Romanian Workers Party Central Committee member; possible Securitate torture; one leg amputated before trial; executed Ana Pauker Romanian Workers Party Foreign Minister; charged with "cosmopolitanism" (Pauker was Jewish); released after Stalin’s death; purged after later trial on other matters Teohari Georgescu Romanian Workers Party Interior Minister; wife and two children also arrested; admitted guilt, but released From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 11 Vasile Luca Romanian Workers Party Minister of Finance; sentenced to death, but sentence com- muted to life imprisonment and hard labour; died nine years in- to term One of over 700,000 bunkers built by Enver Hoxha in Albania about foreign intrigue and conspiracy.[55] Hoxha tolerated no dissent and thousands of Albanians were executed, sent to state labor camps or exiled to remote areas for work.[57] After a purges in the military and the eco- nomic bureaucracy, in 1976, Albania imple- mented a rigidly marxist-leninist constitution that not only made the party the leading force in state and society, but also limited private property and forbade foreign loans.[56] Isolating itself completely from the rest of the world, Albania embarked on a massive defense program, including the amassing of a huge arsenal of weapons and the construction of more than 700,000 con- crete military bunkers for a country with only 3 million citizens.[55] Political and civil restrictions Further information: Political repression in the Soviet Union, Human rights in the Soviet Union, Soviet democracy, Population transfer in the Soviet Union, Gulag, Telephone tap- ping in the Eastern Bloc, Suppressed re- search in the Soviet Union, Samizdat, and Sharashka While the initial institution of communism destroyed most of the prior institutional and organizational diversity of the Eastern Bloc countries,[58] communist structures existed in different manifestations of strength that also varied over time.[59] In such Communist systems, centralized and unelected state ap- paratuses, command economies, and scarcity or absence of independent civil associations specifically combined to tightly restrict the repertoire of action for those looking to de- fend their interests or press demands on the government.[60] These features did not evolve, but rather were intentionally imposed over a relatively short span of time.[60] As in the Soviet Union, culture was subor- dinated to political needs and creativity was secondary to socialist realism.[52] The the legal system and education were redesigned on Soviet lines.[35] In addition to emigration restrictions, civil society, defined as a domain of political action outside the party’s state control, was not allowed to firmly take root, with the possible exception of Poland in the 1980s.[59] While the institutional designs of the communist systems were based on the re- jection of rule of law, the legal infrastructure was not immune to change reflecting decay- ing ideology and the substitution of autonom- ous law.[59] While institutional changes creat- ing some freedoms occurred, a change to- ward effective constitutionalism could not oc- cur without the collapse of the communist political regimes.[59] Market-oriented re- forms could not work without functioning markets.[36] Such systems’ subordination of society was not so much the result of recur- rent state triumphs over rival groups as it was intermittent state triumphs combined with state-imposed structures that broke re- quisite links and occupied the social space necessary for rival groups to initially form.[61] Political dissidence Further information: Eastern Bloc informa- tion dissemination Communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc viewed even marginal groups of opposition intellectuals as a potential threat because of the bases underlying Communist power therein.[62] The central pillar on which the monopoly power of the Communist elite was based was the belief of the administrative classes -- mid-level leadership cadres in the party apparatus, industry, security organs, education and state administration -- in the From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 12 Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy was ar- rested by Soviet forces, replaced and ex- ecuted after announcing that Hungary would withdraw from the Warsaw Pact in 1956 legitimacy of the Communist Party.[62] The perceived danger posed by dissidence and opposition was less that of the possible mo- bilization of broad open protest movements undermining a regime than that political non- conformism would undermine the reliability of the administrative classes responsible for carrying the party leadership’s directives.[62] Accordingly, the suppression of dissidence and opposition was viewed as a central pre- requisite for the security of Communist power, though the enormous expense at which the population in certain countries were kept under secret surveillance may not have been rational.[62] The degree of opposi- tion and dissident suppression varied by country and time throughout the Eastern Bloc.[62] Following a totalitarian initial phase, a post-totalitarian period followed the death of Stalin in which the primary method of Communist rule shifted from wide scale ter- ror to selective repression and ideological and sociopolitical strategies of legitimiation and the securing of loyalty.[63] Post-totalitarian phase repression varied across Eastern Bloc countries according to the degree of internal coherence and the so- cial anchoring of the Communist elites in each country.[64] Trial by jury was replaced by a tribunal of a professional judge and two lay assessors that were dependable party act- ors.[65] The features of such Communist sys- tems combined to structure the social and political environment to raise the cost of open protest, often to a prohibitive level.[61] While resistance existed, it occurred mainly in the form of individual measures predicated on acceptance of the system as a whole that paradoxically often further atrophied the av- enues of collective redress against the state, such as workers intentionally wasting time on the job or stealing state resources.[61] Citizenry class categorization Citizens were classified by socialist origin and class, with the standard categories be- ing: worker, peasant, intelligentsia, petty em- ployee, others and class enemies.[66] In order to gain a more obedient future intelligentsia, the children of class enemies were restricted to no more than primary education, while those of the fourth and fifth categories would find it difficult to gain entrance into a uni- versity.[66] Criminal codes could also be graded on a class basis, with the class origin of the convicted determining how dangerous to society the crime had been.[66] Broad social purges In addition to party purges, more widespread social purges occurred, and were aimed with equal or greater intensity at all levels of soci- ety.[67] As with the party purges, the social purges were justified theoretically by the Sta- linist doctrine that the class struggle intensi- fies in the immediate aftermath of the social- ist revolution and in the first stages of the construction of socialism.[68] Consquently, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois attitudes arose leading, for example, to the reliance upon home production and the black market in the resulting shortage economies.[68] When added to the perceived external dangers of the Cold War, and especially fol- lowing the paranoia arising from the Tito- Stalin split, an emphasis was put on stopping the internal dangers of petty-bourgeois activ- ities which might foment additional resist- ance and popular sympathy of the masses for the west.[69] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 13 These social purges constituted general- ized episodes of terror intended to be seen as such in order to establish order and con- trol.[67] No person was safe from the purges’ effects and denunciations were rife.[67] The definitions of crime employed in such purges were broad and vague, including the posses- sion of goods in short supply being construed as hoarding.[67] It was the responsibility of all citizens to integrate into their daily lives the responsibility for administering the purges.[67] A former Romanian Securitate leader stated:[67] “ This was achieved by a simple device: a factory, a local government department, a professional organiza- tion was given a quota of people to be weeded out, which might mean sacking, sending to the mines or handing over to the security police as class enemies under the accusation of whatever happened to be the fash- ionable crime. The steering commit- tee of the organization, or the man responsible for personnel matters, knew that if they did not comply they would themselves be the victims. So they did comply, telling everybody that they saved ninety-eight good people by selecting two sacrificial lambs who were anyhow ‘not much good’, were spoiling things for every- body by working too hard, drinking too much or too little, were odd be- cause they refused to sleep with the right person, or simply, and this was always a safe argument, were Jews. ” In Budapest, Hungary, at 2:00 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, vans transported purge targets, who by 1953, numbered approximately 700,000.[67] Of those, 98,000 were branded as spies and saboteurs, 5,000 of which were executed.[67] In Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1954, approximately 150,000 targets were arres- ted.[67] Similar proportions of the population suffered in other Eastern Bloc states.[67] As with the party purges, any institution with western connections was particularly vulnerable.[67] Eastern Bloc branches of or- ganizations with western contacts, such as the boy scouts, the girl guides and the inter- national federation of professional and busi- ness women, were closed.[67] Churches were subjected to attack, including the Uniate church in the Ukraine and Romania, Protest- ants in Bulgaria and the Roman Catholic church in Hungary.[67] People that consti- tuted former "class enemies" because of their social upbringing were at risk, as well as those with prior memberships in non-com- munist parties.[68] While the purges quelled outward mani- festations of dissatisfaction, they also caused severe economic dislocations.[70] Large con- struction projects were launched with insuffi- cient capital such that unpaid prisoners were required to serve in place of modern equip- ment.[70] Disruption of the trained adminis- trative and management elites also caused harm.[70] So many workers were dismissed from established professions that they had to be replaced by hastily trained younger work- ers that did not possess questionable class origins.[70] A Czechoslovakian noted:[70] “ The highly qualified professional people are laying roads, building bridges and operating machines, and the dumb clots—whose fathers used to dig, sweep or bricklay—are on top, telling the others where to lay the roads, what to produce and how to spend the country’s money. The con- sequence is the roads look like plowed fields, we make things we can’t sell and the bridges can’t be used for traffic…. Then they wonder why the economy is going downhill like a ten-ton lorry with the brakes off. ” The purges often coincided with the introduc- tion of the first Five Year Plans in the non- Soviet members of the Eastern Bloc.[71] The objectives of those pland were considered beyond political rapproche even where they were absurd, such that workers that did not fulfill targets were targeted and blamed for economic woes, while at the same time, the ultimate responsibility for the economic shortcomings would be placed on prominent victims of the political purge. [71] In Ro- mania, Gheorghiu-Dej admitted that 80,000 peasants had been accused of siding with the class enemy because they resisted collectiviz- ation, while purged party elite Ana Pauker was blamed for this "distortion".[71] In addition, sizable resources were em- ployed in the purge, such as in Hungary, where almost one million adults were em- ployed to record, control, calculate, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 14 indoctrinate, spy on and sometimes kill tar- gets of the purge.[70] Unlike the repressions under Nazi occupation, no ongoing war exis- ted that could bring an end to the tribula- tions of the Eastern Bloc, and morale severely suffered as a consequence.[72] Be- cause the party later had to admit the mis- takes of much that occurred during the purges after Stalin’s death, the purges also destroyed the moral base upon which the party operated.[72] In doing so, the party ab- rogated its prior Leninist claim to moral infal- libility for the working class.[72] State Police KGB prison doors on display in the Museum of Occupations, Tallinn, Estonia. Officers of the East German Volkspolizei parading through the streets of Neustrelitz in 1955. They are armed with StG 44 rifles. Further information: Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies Eastern Bloc secret police organizations were formed on Lenin’s theory and Stain’s practic- al application of "the defense of the revolu- tion."[73] One of the first acts of Lenin after the October 1917 Revolution was’ the Ivan Serov, appointed KGB chairman after ef- fective early sovietization of the Eastern Bloc establishment of a secret police, the Cheka.[73] Such organizations in the Eastern Bloc became the "shield and sword" of the ruling Communist party.[73] The party’s claim was based on Lenin’s general theory of class struggle, imperialism, legitimate socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat.[73] The police served to deter opposition to party directives, and contain it should it ap- pear.[65] The political police were the core of the system[65] Large numbers of citizens were recruited, sometimes through black- mail, to become informers for the secret po- lice.[74] Sophisticated police networks mon- itored all strata of society while persecuting only those who overtly expressed dissatisfac- tion or disagreement with the regime.[74] The names of each political police organization became synonymous with unbridled power and threats of violent retribution should an individual become active against the collect- ive.[65] After Stalin’s death in 1953, in gener- al, the profile of the secret police declined, and became less a means to instill terror than to preserve the existing distribution of polit- ical power, overall becoming more reactive From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 15 than proactive.[66] The exceptions to this lower profile were in Albania under Enver Hoxha and in Romania under Nicolae Ceau- şescu.[66] The linchpin of Soviet control early in the Eastern Block was General Ivan Serov, who was appointed to chairman of the new Soviet KGB in 1954 as a reward for having ef- fectively applied his secret police expertise to the sovietization of the Eastern Bloc.[75] The KGB and the Stasi’s formation During party purges, the secret police be- came so entrenched within the party that they became their own elite within the elite of the party.[72] State police organizations were vast. The East German Stasi became the Soviet KGB’s most important surrogate following Lenin’s statement that "the princip- al link in the chain of revolution is the Ger- man link, and the success of world revolution depends more on Germany than upon any other country."[73] In 1947, Stalin told Ed- vard Kardelj, then prime minister of Yugoslavia, "We Russians will never get out of Germany."[73] The NKVD at first main- tained a number of former Nazi concentra- tion camps, such as Buchenwald and Sach- senhausen, to house former Nazis.[76] After the forced merger of the SED thousans of anti-Nazi social democrats and communists that opposed the merger also ended up in those camps.[76] Erich Mielke, a key operator for the Soviets after the war, built the Stasi into a vast secret police and espionage or- ganization.[76] Mielke became the longest serving state security chief in the Eastern bloc, and his relationship with the Soviet secret police dated back to 1931, when he had fled Germany for Moscow after murder- ing two Berlin policemen.[76] Although Mielke’s Stasi was superficially granted inde- pendence in 1957, until 1990 the KGB contin- ued to maintain liaison officers in all eight main Stasi directorates, each with his own of- fice inside the Stasi’s Berlin compound, and in each of the fifteen Stasi district headquar- ters around East Germany.[77] Collaboration was so close that the KGB invited the Stasi to estabish operational bases in Moscow and Leningrad to monitor visiting East German tourists and Mielke referred to the Stasi of- ficers as "Chekists of the Soviet Union."[77] In 1978, Mielke formally granted KGB officers in East Germany the same rights and powers they enjoyed in the Soviet Union.[77] All information acquired worldwide by the intelligence and security services in the Eastern bloc was stored in the Soviet com- puter System of Joint Acquisition of Enemy Data (SOUD).[78] The SOUD became a valu- able KGB asset for the Stasi.[78] Stasi engin- eers had actually created the system using stolen and illegally obtained Western techno- logy, but the Soviets insisted that it be based in Moscow.[78] Stasi operations Stasi construction bugs employed in new buildings The Stasi employed 120,000 fill time agents and an official estimate of 100,000 inform- ants to monitor a country that possessed only 16 million inhabitants.[79] Between 1950 and 1989, the Stasi employed a total of 274,000 persons.[80] In terms of total inoffizielle Mit- arbeiter (IMs) Stasi informants, by 1995, 174,000 had been identified, which approx- imated 2.5% of East Germany’s population between the ages of 18 and 60.[80] While these calculations were from official records, because many such records were destroyed, there were likely closer to 500,000 Stasi From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 16 Stasi quiet camera that could take pictures through a 1mm hole in a wall Stasi automated machine to reglue envelopes after mail had been opened for examination informers.[80] A former Stasi colonel estim- ated that the figure could be as high as 2 mil- lion if occasional informants were in- cluded.[80] The result was a society in which resid- ents often did not know whom to trust, and in which few attempted to share their private thoughts with anyone but close friends or col- leagues.[79] A popular saying in East Ger- many was that whenever three people en- gaged in a conversation, one was bound to be a Stasi informant.[79] Stasi efforts with one Stasi garbage can with hidden surveillance equipement agent per 166 citizens dwarfed, for example, the Nazi Gestapo, which employed only 40,000 officials to watch a population of 80 million (one officer per 2,000 citizens) and the Soviet KGB, which employed 480,000 full time agents to oversee a nation of 280 million residents (one agent per 5,830 citizens).[81] When informants were included, the Stasi had one spy per 66 citizens of East Ger- many.[81] When part-time informer adults were included, the figures reached approxim- ately one spy per 6.5 citizens.[81] Full-time officers were posted to all major industrial plants and one tenant in every apartment building was designated as a watchdog reporting to an area representative of the Volkspolizei (Vopo).[81] Spies reported every relative or friend that stayed the night at another’s apartment.[81] Tiny holes were bored in apartment and hotel room walls through which Stasi agents filmed citizens with special video cameras.[81] Similarly, schools, universities, and hospitals were ex- tensively infiltrated.[81] Political offenses usually came under broad crimes such as "Treasonable Relaying of Information", "Treasonable Agent Activity" and "Interference in Activities of the State or Society."[82] Defendants usually were per- sons who had requested legal exit permits from East Germany or contacted a Western consulate to inquire about emigration pro- cedures.[82] Sentences of up to two and a half years’ hard labor were not unusual as punish- ment for such inquiries.[82] Those accused of "propaganda hostile to the state" could be those that once stated that it was not neces- sary to station tanks at the border, referred to border fortifications as "nonsense" or re- ceiving West German television programs From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 17 and relaying the contents to others.[83] Writ- ing to friends in the west about wishes to emigrate, which the Stasi could intercept, could draw a conviction for "establishing il- legal contacts."[83] In addition, it was a crime to fail to denounce fellow citizens, such as in- formers who failed to report friends stating they wished to escape to the west.[83] After the mid-1950s, Stasi executions were carried out in the strict secrecy, and usually were ac- complished with a guillotine and, in later years, by a single pistol shot to the neck.[82] In most instances, the relatives of the ex- ecuted were not informed of either the sen- tence or the execution.[82] The corpses were cremated and the ashes buried secretly, sometimes at construction sites.[82] The Stasi also focused upon the allies of the ruling communist SED party.[84] For ex- ample, during the Soviet-backed forced mer- ger of the SED, the Stasi arrested 5,000 SPD party members that disapproved of the mer- ger.[84] 400 died from a mix of executions, malnutrition or disappearing.[84] 200 of them were later sentenced to a total of 10,000 years jail time.[84] Until 1950, all such sen- tences were pronounced by Soviet military tribunals in trials that lasted no more than ten minutes each.[84] While the Stasi had only 4,000 members in 1953, it grew considerably over the years to 52,707 in 1973.[85] Its ranks swelled much more quickly after Eastern Bloc countries signed the 1975 Helsinki accords, which Erich Honecker viewed as a grave threat to his regime because they contained language binding signatories to respect "human and basic rights, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and conviction.[85] Stasi size was immediately increased by 10,000.[85] Mielke was accorded new, wide- ranging powers while the Stasi became the leadership’s instrument of power to an extent not seen in the Eastern Bloc since Stalin’s death, with the possible exception of the Se- curitate in Romania under Nicolae Ceauses- cu.[85] The Stasi then set up 24 internment camps throughout Germany to house six cat- egories of persons to be arrested.[86] Mielke then issued Richtlinie 1/76, a standard operating procedure manual out- lining surveillance of the population down to the last detail.[86] Stasi Division M employed officers at every post office to surreptitiously open all all letters and parcels sent to or re- ceived from a noncommunist country.[87] Writing samples were taken from letters that could be used to match with writing on any dissident pamphlets.[88] Those questioned by the Stasi were forced to put special cloths under the arms that were later stored in sealed and numbered cans in a massive ware- house for later use by bloodhounds in the event of a manhunt.[87] The Stasi also sprayed a special chemical on sidewalks in front of their offices that would adhere to the shoes of those leaving and permit dogs to more easily track them.[88] In the late 1970s, when certain western news organizations were allowed to employ offices in East Berlin, they were required to hire all employees from a specified labor pool, all of which were Stasi informants.[89] State police organizations Under Nicolae Ceauşescu, the powers of the Securitate secret police increased[90] to be- come, in proportion to Romania’s population, one of the largest and most brutal secret po- lice forces in the Eastern bloc.[91] By 1989, total Securitate personnel officers and secur- ity troops totalled 38,682 for a population of 23 million.[92] The Securitate employed nearly a half-million informers.[91][92] After miners struck and several leaders later died of premature disease, it was later discovered that Securitate doctors had subjected them to five minute long chest X-rays in an attempt to develop cancer.[90] After birth rates fell, Securitate agents were placed in all gyneco- logical wards while regular pregnancy tests were mandated for women of child-bearing age in Romania, with severe penalties for anyone who was found to have terminated a pregnancy.[90] The Securitate also arrested 80,000 peasants who opposed labor reforms in 1949.[93] Albania’s Sigurimi under the leadership of isolationist Stalinist Enver Hoxha were as brutal as the Securitate.[56] From the begin- ning, the ÁVH (first known as the ÁVO) acted as the private army of the ruling Hungarian Working People’s Party.[94] Preceding the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the ÁVH, which fired on protesters, was opposed by the Hungarian army and abolished for a brief period during the revolution until the Red Army’s invasion of Hungary thereafter.[95] In Bulgaria, the Sigurnost grew throughout the 1970s and became even more subservient to the KGB as leader Todor Zhivkov declared From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 18 that Bulgaria and the Soviet Union would "act as a single body, breathing with the same lungs and nourished by the same blood stream", and attempted to incorporate Bul- garia in the Soviet Union.[96] The UDBa in Yugoslavia were dominated by ethnic Serbs who helped to enforce Serbian domination over Yugoslavia.[97] In Poland, the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa ("Se- curity Office", or "UB") was initially formed to wage a covert war against communists in Poland.[98] The UB was modelled on the Soviet NKVD, whose specialists had helped forge the new "shield of the state."[98] NKVD chief Ivan Serov had begun training Polish NKVD recruits as early as 1940, when the Soviets initially invaded eastern Poland, in- cluding training in the Soviet Union.[98] By 1945, the UB, under NKVD control, had agents in every branch of the Polish govern- ment.[99] Several state police and secret police or- ganizations enforced communist party rule, including: Notable Police organizations in the Eastern Bloc The secret police and Eastern Bloc dissolution The Stasi acted as a proxy for KGB conduct activities in Poland, where the Soviets were not well liked.[100] When the Polish Solidarity movement arose, Stasi-KGB data was imme- diately handed to the Polish SB which imme- diately arrested hundred of Solidarity mem- bers within a few hours of declaring martial law, as demanded by the Soviets.[101] All telephone, telegraph and mail traffic in and out of Poland was put under Stasi control, while a massive Stasi Tenth Department of the Second Main Directorate (counterintelli- gence) was created to monitor Poland.[102] With worries throughout the Eastern Bloc of a possible collapse if communism fell in any country, the Stasi Tenth Department dis- patched operational groups to Czechoslov- akia and Hungary.[102] The Tenth Depart- ment, however, could not monitor the large number of discontented citizens in the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s, with the first significant breach coming Hungary when the government therein ordered the dismantling of fortifications and barbed wire barriers along its border with Austria in August 1989.[102] Word spread rapidly to East Ger- many, where thousands seeking freedom poured into Hungary.[102] Hungary ignored Stasi threats regarding closure of the bor- der.[102] Thereafter, the battle was effect- ively lost, with East Germany beginning the dismantling of the Berlin Wall months later.[102] Before German unification, the last East German government ordered the burning of thousands of Stasi computer records to at- tempt to protect against later prosecu- tion.[103] In addition, they shredded thou- sands of espionage files and placed the re- mains in 17,2000 paper sacks.[103] Examina- tion of what remains of the vast Stasi files is difficult because of their enormous size.[103] In the first three years after the October 3, 1990 German reunification, large numbers of sensational arrests of Stasi infiltrators throughout the former West German govern- ment occurred weekly.[104] It became clear that the entire West German government had been infested by the East German spy organ- ization, as was every political party, West Germany’s industry, banks, the church, and the news media.[104] One female Stasi mole in the BND, an East German agent for seven- teen years, had been entrusted with the job of preparing the daily secret intelligence summary for West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.[104] Stasi archivists estimate that at least 20,000 West Germans had spied for the Stasi and that that estimate may be conservative.[104] After German reunifica- tion, the examination by former targets of their Stasi files led to countless civil suits be- ing filed against informers, with large num- bers of family and friend relationship des- troyed.[105] Notes [1] 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 [2] Wettig 2008, p. 69 [3] Roberts 2006, p. 43 [4] ^ Wettig 2008, p. 21 [5] ^ Senn, Alfred Erich, Lithuania 1940 : revolution from above, Amsterdam, New York, Rodopi, 2007 ISBN 9789042022256 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 19 Organization Type Country Notes Stasi secret police East Germany established in 1950; allegedly assassinated East German football player Lutz Eigendorf and the Swedish journalist Cats Falck Volkspolizei People’s Police East Germany Helped erect the Berlin Wall; used in the up- rising of 1953 in East Germany KdA Paramilitary East Germany Paramilitary organization founded in 1954 that numbered up to 400,000 Grepo Border police East Germany Guarded the Berlin Wall and Inner German border Transportpolizei Transport police East Germany Guarded all methods of transportation NKVD Police Soviet Union Both public and secret police involved with Katyn massacre, Great Purge, Gestapo-NKVD Conferences, Vinnytsia massacre, NKVD pris- oner massacres, Holodomor, etc. 0 KGB Secret police Soviet Union Established in 1954; played an instrumental role in the crushing of the Hungarian Revolu- tion of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring StB secret police Czechoslovak Socialist Republic Used forcing confessions by means of torture, including the use of drugs, blackmail and kidnapping. Lidové milice Paramilitary Czechoslovak Socialist Republic Militia organisation of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1948 - 1989 Sigurnost (DS) secret police People’s Re- public of Bulgaria Best known for writer Georgi Markov’s murder in London in 1978 known for the "Bul- garian umbrella" that was used. Sigurimi secret police People’s Re- public of Albania Instrumental in the regime of Enver Hoxha ÁVH secret police People’s Re- public of Hungary Extorted confessions instrumental in show tri- als surrounding Raoul Wallenberg; arrested László Rajk (later executed); political prison- ers were kep in ÁVH-run concentration camps Workers’ Militia special police People’s Re- public of Hungary Created after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Securitate secret police People’s Re- public of Romania Created with the help of NKVD and SMERSH, it was instrumental in supporting dictator Nic- olae Ceauşescu UB secret police People’s Re- public of Poland Operated from 1945-54; killed notables such as Hieronim Dekutowski, Emil August Fiel- dorf, Boleslaw Kontrym, Witold Pilecki, Jan Rodowicz and Zygmunt Szendzielarz SB secret police People’s Re- public of Poland Replaced the UB in 1956 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 20 Milicja Obywatelska party militia People’s Re- public of Poland PKWN-run; replaced police in 1944 ZOMO Paramilitary People’s Re- public of Poland Known for brutal and sometimes lethal ac- tions of quelling civil rights protests and riot control, including the 1968 Polish political crisis,the Martial law in Poland, and the Pol- ish 1970 protests UDBa secret police Socialist Federal Re- public of Yugoslavia founded in in 1946; assassinated several over- seas enemies of the states, including Ivo Pro- tulipac, newspaper columnist Nahid Kulenov- ić, Vjekoslav Luburić, Bruno Bušić and Stje- pan Đureković OZNA security agency Socialist Federal Re- public of Yugoslavia founded in 1944 [6] Kennedy-Pipe, Caroline, Stalin’s Cold War, New York : Manchester University Press, 1995, ISBN 0719042011 [7] Roberts 2006, p. 55 [8] Shirer 1990, p. 794 [9] ^ Graubard 1991, p. 150 [10]^ 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 [11]Grenville 2005, p. 370-71 [12]Cook 2001, p. 17 [13]Wettig 2008, p. 96-100 [14]Crampton 1997, p. 216-7 [15]Eastern bloc, The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. [16]Wettig 2008, p. 156 [17]^ Hardt & Kaufman 1995, p. 11 [18]Böcker 1998, p. 207-9 [19]Dowty 1989, p. 114 [20]^ Roht-Arriaza 1995, p. 83 [21]Hardt & Kaufman 1995, p. 15-17 [22]^ O’Neil, Patrick (1997). Post- communism and the Media in Eastern Europe. Routledge. ISBN 0714647659. [23]^ Wettig 2008, p. 35 [24]^ Wettig 2008, p. 36 [25]^ Wettig 2008, p. 39 [26]^ Laqueur 1994, p. 22 [27]^ Laqueur 1994, p. 23 [28]^ Wettig 2008, p. 37 [29]^ Crampton 1997, p. 211 [30]Gross 1997, p. 33 [31]Frucht 2003, p. 756 [32]^ Wettig 2008, p. 38 [33]^ Wettig 2008, p. 41 [34]Wettig 2008, p. 108-9 [35]^ Crampton 1997, p. 241 [36]^ Hardt & Kaufman 1995, p. 12 [37]^ Crampton 1997, p. 243 [38]^ Crampton 1997, p. 246 [39]Gati, Charles, Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt, Stanford University Press, 2006 ISBN 0804756066, page 9-12 [40]^ Crampton 1997, p. 244 [41]^ Crampton 1997, p. 245 [42]^ Crampton 1997, p. 242 [43]^ Bideleux & Jeffries 2007, p. 477 [44]^ Crampton 1997, p. 261 [45]^ Crampton 1997, p. 262 [46]O’Connor 2003, p. xx-xxi [47]^ Crampton 1997, p. 270 [48]^ Crampton 1997, p. 263 [49]^ Crampton 1997, p. 264 [50]^ Crampton 1997, p. 265 [51]^ Wettig 2008, p. 40 [52]^ Crampton 1997, p. 240 [53]^ Crampton 1997, p. 249 [54]^ Turnock 1997, p. 1 [55]^ Olsen 2000, p. 19 [56]^ Crampton 1997, p. 356-7 [57]Olsen 2000, p. 20 [58]Hardt & Kaufman 1995, p. 1 [59]^ Hardt & Kaufman 1995, p. 18 [60]^ Sharman 2003, p. 2 [61]^ Sharman 2003, p. 3 [62]^ Pollack & Wielgohs 2004, p. xiv From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 21 [63]Pollack & Wielgohs 2004, p. xv [64]Pollack & Wielgohs 2004, p. xvi [65]^ Crampton 1997, p. 247 [66]^ Crampton 1997, p. 248 [67]^ Crampton 1997, p. 267 [68]^ Crampton 1997, p. 268 [69]Crampton 1997, p. 269 [70]^ Crampton 1997, p. 272 [71]^ Crampton 1997, p. 271 [72]^ Crampton 1997, p. 273 [73]^ Koehler 2000, p. 30 [74]^ Roht-Arriaza 1995, p. 84 [75]Koehler 2000, p. 73 [76]^ Koehler 2000, p. 31 [77]^ Koehler 2000, p. 74 [78]^ Koehler 2000, p. 80 [79]^ Philipsen 1993, p. 10 [80]^ Koehler 2000, p. 8 [81]^ Koehler 2000, p. 9 [82]^ Koehler 2000, p. 18 [83]^ Koehler 2000, p. 19 [84]^ Koehler 2000, p. 127 [85]^ Koehler 2000, p. 142 [86]^ Koehler 2000, p. 143 [87]^ Koehler 2000, p. 144 [88]^ Koehler 2000, p. 145 [89]Koehler 2000, p. 146 [90]^ Crampton 1997, p. 355 [91]^ Craig S. Smith, "Eastern Europe Struggles to Purge Security Services", The New York Times, December 12, 2006 [92]^ Deletant 1995, p. xiv [93]Deletant 1995, p. ix [94]Crampton 1997, p. 223 [95]Crampton 1997, p. 296-300 [96]Crampton 1997, p. 353 [97]Crampton 1997, p. 310 [98]^ Micgiel 1997, p. 94 [99]Micgiel 1997, p. 95 [100]Koehler 2000, p. 76 [101]Koehler 2000, p. 78 [102]̂ Koehler 2000, p. 79 [103]̂ Koehler 2000, p. 20 [104]̂ Koehler 2000, p. 150 [105]Koehler 2000, p. 21 References • Beschloss, Michael R (2003), The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941-1945, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0743260856 • Berthon, Simon & Joanna Potts (2007), Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-creation of World War II Through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0306815389 • Bideleux, Robert & Ian Jeffries (2007), A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change, Routledge, ISBN 0415366267 • Böcker, Anita (1998), Regulation of Migration: International Experiences, Het Spinhuis, ISBN 9055890952 • Brackman, Roman (2001), The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life, Frank Cass Publishers, ISBN 0714650501 • Cook, Bernard A. 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(1995), A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521558794 • Wettig, Gerhard (2008), Stalin and the Cold War in Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0742555429 • Williams, Kieran (1997), The Prague Spring and its Aftermath: Czechoslovak Politics, 1968–1970, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521588030 Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Bloc_politics" Categories: Eastern bloc This page was last modified on 13 May 2009, at 01:09 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax- deductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Eastern Bloc politics 24
