Postwar Stalinism, Part 4

Question 1: Describe Comecon.

Answer 1: Comecon is the abbreviated name for the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, a worldwide economic organization of communist states. It included the Soviet Union and all of its satellite states, as well as other communist nations like Vietnam and Cuba. Notable non-members included China and North Korea. Comecon was founded in 1949 by the Eastern Bloc nations of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Some of Comecon’s duties included planning for future economic development (including the ubiquitous five-year plans), setting the prices of goods and services, and negotiating trading between its member countries. The Soviet Union was by far the most prominent member nation of Comecon, possessing a large majority of the member countries’ land, energy resources, population, income, and military power. As such, when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Comecon dissolved with it.

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Question 2: Discuss the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship.

Answer 2: The Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship (formally the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance) defined the friendly relationship between the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and People’s Republic of China throughout the 1950s. The treaty was concluded by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese leader Mao Zedong on February 14, 1950 and included a 30-year military alliance. Sino-Soviet relations were not at a premium, however. Both countries felt they had the proper model for an ideal communist society, although their alliance endured these ideological differences. However, following Stalin’s death in 1953, his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, began a series of programs and reforms that discouraged Mao. By the beginning of the 1960s, such differing opinions between the two communist leaders set the stage for what would eventually become the Sino-Soviet Split.

Question 3: Briefly describe the Eastern Bloc.

Answer 3: The Eastern Bloc was a collection of communist nations in Eastern Europe formed by the Warsaw Pact in 1955 and in effect until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Bloc consisted of the Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Yugoslavia, and Albania. All nations were Soviet satellite states except Yugoslavia since 1948 and Albania since 1960. As with the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc was characterized by extensive control over politics and censorship of the press and other media to maintain the strength of the governments by deceiving the public. Emigration was also restricted, leaving citizens who wished to relocate to other countries few options except to defect. The Bloc survived several revolts, but it was nevertheless ill-equipped to sustain itself, and its command economies struggled in the years it existed.The Eastern Bloc was dissolved along with the Soviet Union in 1991.

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