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The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were aligned with the Soviet Union and existed during the Cold War (1947–1991).
As the 1920s progressed, Stalin used his position to expel critics within the party and tightened his grip. Stalin's alliance with the party's right wing ended when Stalin decided to proceed with the First Five Year Plan, abandoning the New Economic Policy. [13] Stalin defeated his opponents within the party by 1928, ending internal power ...
By 1949, the Cold War had started between the Western Bloc and the Eastern (Soviet) Bloc, with the Warsaw Pact (created 1955) pitched against NATO (created 1949) in Europe. After 1945, Stalin did not directly engage in any wars, continuing his totalitarian rule until his death in 1953. [4]
Members of the Communist Party of China celebrating Stalin's birthday in 1949. In 1924, Joseph Stalin, a key Bolshevik follower of Lenin, took power in the Soviet Union. [135] Stalin was supported in his leadership by Nikolai Bukharin, but he had various important opponents in the government, most notably Lev Kamenev, Leon Trotsky, and Grigory ...
By the end of World War II, most of Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union in particular, suffered vast destruction. [9] 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 1,600 ...
Stalin and German Communism: A Study in the Origins of the State Party. Social Science Classics (2nd reprint ed.). Transaction Publishers. pp. 471– 496. ISBN 0-87855-822-5; Mandel, Ernest (1 October 1978). From Stalinism to Eurocommunism: The Bitter Fruits of 'Socialism in One Country'. New York City: Verso Books.
In September 1947, a meeting of East European communist leaders established Cominform to co-ordinate the Communist Parties across Eastern Europe and also in France and Italy. [516] Stalin did not personally attend the meeting, sending Andrei Zhdanov in his place. [464] Various East European communists also visited Stalin in Moscow. [517]
Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria with Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, on his lap. As head of the NKVD, Beria was responsible for many political repressions in the Soviet Union. Closer cooperation between the USSR and the West developed in the early 1930s. From 1932 to 1934, the country participated in the World Disarmament Conference.