page_title: Eastern Bloc politics
section_title: Concealment
hierarchical_section_title: Eastern Bloc politics / Seizing control / Concealment
caption_attribution_description: Stanisław Mikołajczyk, Prime Minister of Poland in Exile (1943-1944), Deputy of Prime Minister Of Provisional Goverment of National Unity in Poland 1945-1947
context_page_description: Eastern Bloc politics followed the Red Army's occupation of much of Central and Eastern Europe at the end of World War II and the Soviet Union's installation of Soviet-controlled Marxist-Leninist regimes in the Eastern Bloc through a process of bloc politics and repression. The resulting regimes contained vestiges of representative democracy to initially conceal the process.
  Once in power, each country's Soviet-controlled Communist Party took permanent control of the administration, political organs, police, societal organizations and economic structures to ensure that no effective opposition could arise and to control socioeconomic and political life therein. Party and social purges were employed along with the extensive use of secret police organizations modeled on the Soviet KGB to monitor and control local populations. While multiple political parties continued to nominally exist in some countries, they were all subordinated to the government, and supported government policies. While elections continued to be held, voters were usually presented with a single candidate.
context_section_description: At first, the Soviet Union concealed its role, with the transformations appearing as a modification of western "bourgeois democracy." As one young communist was told in East Germany: "it's got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control."
  With the initial exception of 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".  Moscow cadres in key positions would refuse via veto to provide consensus for opposed changes, while those who opposed communist proposed changes were accused of insubordination to Soviet authorities, frequently followed by harsh punishment. When such measures did not produce the desired effect, occupation officers would directly intervene. Accordingly, elections—which had been promised to the Western allies—did not offer a difference in policy choices. 
  Bloc politics eventually forced purported bourgeois politicians and parties to choose between unconditional political surrender and outright rejection.  If they chose the former, they would alienate their followers and marginalize themselves, while the latter case led to defamation as deviators from the "anti-fascist democratic consensus" and "traitors" to the people, followed by ensuring isolation, prosecution, and liquidation.
  Consequently, the bloc system permitted the Soviet Union to exercise Eastern Bloc domestic control indirectly.  "Bourgeois" politicians willing to follow communist bloc leadership and to support socioeconomic reforms were recruited to further the illusion of classical democracy.  Similar non-communist officials were put in place in some administration positions, while a reliable communist cadre worked behind the scenes to control the apparatus and decision-making process.  Crucial departments such as those responsible for personnel, education, general police, secret police, and youth, were strictly communist run. From the outset, the multiparty system established by Soviet occupation authorities was planned to be temporary. Two kinds of alliances were envisaged: permanent "natural" alliances with related social forces such as peasants willing to submit to communist vanguard parties and temporary accords with bourgeois parties necessary for temporary objectives.  Parties, such as Social Democrats, were seen as belonging to the permanent natural category, but would be eventually expected to undergo transformations.   Moscow cadres distinguished "progressive forces"  from "reactionary elements", and rendered both powerless through self-emasculation or future self-sacrifice.  Such procedures were repeated continuously until communists had gained unlimited power, while only politicians who were unconditionally supportive of Soviet policy remained.
caption: Pre-World War II Polish Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk returned to Poland in 1946 after facing arrest following Bloc politics, persecution, and vote rigging
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