page_title: Eastern Bloc politics
hierarchical_section_title: Eastern Bloc politics
caption_attribution_description: English: A citizen reads the PKWN manifesto (of the Polish Committee of National Liberation), July 22, 1944 - a symbolic photo of the communist propaganda, copied in numerous books.
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: 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 (such as parliaments, elections, and sometimes even multiple political parties) 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. The national parliaments composed of representatives elected in this manner met infrequently and always approved government proposals.
caption: A propaganda photo of a citizen reading the PKWN Manifesto, edited by Joseph Stalin, posted after the 1944 Soviet occupation of Poland in World War II before it was transformed into the People's Republic of Poland.
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