The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Soviet Bloc, the Socialist Bloc and the Workers 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). These states followed Marxism–Leninism and various forms of socialism and opposed the capitalist Western Bloc. The Eastern Bloc was often called the "Second World", while the term "First World" referred to the Western Bloc and "Third World" referred to the non-aligned countries that were mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America but also included the pre-1948 European Soviet ally Yugoslavia. Non-Marxist (yet still socialist) countries, such as the Arab socialist governments of the United Arab Republic, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, etc., are sometimes considered part of the bloc.
In Western Europe, the term 'Eastern Bloc' generally referred to the USSR and Central and Eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact (East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania). In Asia, the Eastern Bloc comprised Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, North Korea, South Yemen and China. In the Americas, the countries aligned with the Eastern Bloc were Cuba from 1961, and for a short period, Nicaragua and Grenada.Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976, .
Terminology The term Eastern Bloc was often used interchangeably with the term Second World. This broadest usage of the term would include not only Maoist China and Cambodia, but also short-lived Soviet satellites such as the Second East Turkestan Republic (1944–1949), the People's Republic of Azerbaijan (1945–1946) and the Republic of Mahabad (1946), as well as the Marxist–Leninist states straddling the Second and Third Worlds before the end of the Cold War: the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (from 1967), the People's Republic of the Congo (from 1969), the People's Republic of Benin, the People's Republic of Angola and People's Republic of Mozambique from 1975, the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada from 1979 to 1983, the Derg/People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1974, and the Somali Democratic Republic from 1969 until the Ogaden War in 1977.Ludlow, N. Piers, European integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik-Westpolitik, 1965–1973, Routledge, 2007, , pp. 37, 39Ahonen, Pertti, After the expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe, 1945–1990, Oxford University Press, 2003, , pp. 125-126 & 183Zwass, Adam, Globalization of Unequal National Economies: Players and Controversies, M.E. Sharpe, 2002, , p. 214Skinner, Kiron F., The strategy of campaigning: lessons from Ronald Reagan & Boris Yeltsin, University of Michigan Press, 2007, , pp. 137–138 Although not Marxist–Leninist, leadership of Ba'athist Syria officially regarded their country as part of the Socialist Bloc and established a close economic, military alliance with the Soviet Union.
Many states were accused by the Western Bloc of being in the Eastern Bloc when they were part of the Non-Aligned Movement. The most limited definition of the Eastern Bloc would only include the Warsaw Pact states and the Mongolian People's Republic as former satellite states most dominated by the Soviet Union. Cuba's defiance of complete Soviet control was noteworthy enough that Cuba was sometimes excluded as a satellite state altogether, as it sometimes intervened in other Third World countries even when the Soviet Union opposed this.
Post-1991 usage of the term "Eastern Bloc" may be more limited in referring to the states forming the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991) and Mongolia (1924–1991), which are no longer communist states. Sometimes they are more generally referred to as "the countries of Eastern Europe under communism",Satyendra, Kush, Encyclopaedic dictionary of political science, Sarup & Sons, 2003, , p. 65 excluding Mongolia, but including Yugoslavia and Albania which had both split with the Soviet Union by the 1960s.
Even though Yugoslavia was a socialist country, it was not a member of the Comecon or the Warsaw Pact. Parting with the USSR in 1948, Yugoslavia did not belong to the East, but it also did not belong to the West because of its socialist system and its status as a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. However, some sources consider Yugoslavia to be a member of the Eastern Bloc. Others consider Yugoslavia not to be a member after it broke with Soviet policy in the 1948 Tito–Stalin split.
List of states
Warsaw Pact (1955–1991) (1946–1968, ceased participating in Comecon and Warsaw Pact activities in 1961, then officially withdrew in 1968 from the WP and in 1987 from Comecon) (1946–1990) (1948–1989) (1949–1989) (1949–1989) (1947–1989) (1947–1989, limited participation in Warsaw Pact activities after 1964) (1922–1991; previously as the Russian SFSR, 1917–1922) (1919–1991, UN member state from 1945) (1919–1991, UN member state from 1945)
Other communist states (1978–1991) (1975–1991) (1975–1990) Burkina Faso (1983–1987) Cambodia (1979–1989) State of Cambodia (1989–1991) (1949–1961) (1963–1991) (1959–1991) (1987–1991) Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia (1974–1987) Grenada (1979–1983) (1948–1990) (1975–1989) Madagascar (1975–1990) (1924–1990) (1975–1990) Seychelles (1977–1991) Somalia (1969–1977) (1967–1990) (1976–1991) Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1950–1976; also known as North Vietnam since 1954) Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (1969–1976) (1945–1948)
Other aligned states
(1962–1991) Bangladesh (1971–1975) Burma (1962–1988) (1966–1991) (1979–1982) (1975–1990) (1970–1973)"Soviet Intelligence in Latin America During the Cold War ", Lectures by General Nikolai Leonov, Centro de Estudios Publicos (Chile), 22 September 1999. Comoros (1975–1978) (1981–1991) Republic of Egypt (1953–1958) United Arab Republic (1958–1971) Arab Republic of Egypt (1971–1974) (1968–1979) (1960–1966) (1960–1984) Guinea Bissau (1973–1991) (1980–1991) (1971–1991) Indonesia (1959–1965) (1979–1991) Republic of Iraq (1958–1963) Nasserist Iraq (1963–1968) Ba'athist Iraq (1968–1979) (1948–1953) Libyan Arab Republic (1969–1977) Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (1977–1991) (1960–1991) Mauritania (1961–1984) (1979–1990) (1968–1975) (1976–1991) (1975–1991) (1960–1981) Democratic Republic of the Sudan (1969–1971) (1980–1987) (1990–1991) Syria (1957–1958) Nasserist Syria (1958–1961) Ba'athist Syria (1963–1991) (1964–1991) (1964–1988) First Republic of Uganda (1966–1971) Third Republic of Uganda (1979–1980) Fourth Republic of Uganda (1986-1991) North Yemen (1962–1971) (1974-1978) (1964–1991) (1980–1991)
Foundation history
In 1922, the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian SFSR approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Soviet Union.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 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who viewed the Soviet Union as a "socialist island", stated that the Soviet Union must see that "the present capitalist encirclement is replaced by a socialist encirclement".
Expansion of the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1940
In 1939, the USSR entered into the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany that contained a secret protocol that divided Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland into German and Soviet spheres of influence.Encyclopædia Britannica, German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 2008Text of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact , executed 23 August 1939 Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence. Lithuania was added in a second secret protocol in September 1939.Christie, Kenneth, Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: Ghosts at the Table of Democracy, RoutledgeCurzon, 2002,
The Soviet Union had invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland. During the Occupation of East Poland by the Soviet Union, the Soviets liquidated the Polish state, and a German-Soviet meeting addressed the future structure of the "Polish region". Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization of the newly Soviet-annexed areas.The Soviets organized staged elections, Bartlomiej Kozlowski Wybory" do Zgromadzen Ludowych Zachodniej Ukrainy i Zachodniej Bialorusi , NASK, 2005, Polska.pl, the result of which was to become a legitimization of Soviet annexation of eastern Poland. Jan Tomasz Gross, Revolution from Abroad, Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 396 Soviet authorities attempted to erase Polish history and culture, Trela-Mazur, Elzbieta, Sowietyzacja oswiaty w Malopolsce Wschodniej pod radziecka okupacja 1939–1941 (Sovietization of Education in Eastern Lesser Poland During the Soviet Occupation 1939–1941), ed. Wlodzimierz Bonusiak, et al. (eds.), Wyzsza Szkola Pedagogiczna im. Jana Kochanowskiego, 1997, Soviet authorities withdrew the Polish currency without exchanging rubles,, Karolina Lanckoronska Wspomnienia wojenne; 22 IX 1939 – 5 IV 1945, 2001, ed, p. 364, Chapter I – Lwów , ZNAK, Soviet authorities collectivized agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property.Soviet authorities regarded service for the pre-war Polish state as a "crime against revolution" Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II, 1996, p. 284, Penguin Books, and "counter-revolutionary activity", Władysław Anders, Bez ostatniego rozdzialu, 1995, p. 540, Test, and subsequently started arresting large numbers of Polish citizens.During the initial Soviet invasion of Poland, between 230,000 to 450,000 Poles were taken as prisoner, some of which were executed (see also Katyn massacre).Sanford, Google Books, pp. 20-24.; Fischer, Benjamin B., "The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field ", Studies in Intelligence, Winter 1999–2000; Stalin's Killing Field