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In the closing months of World War II and the latter half of 1940s, the Soviet Union oversaw the establishment of Communist regimes throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Over the next four decades, these regimes constituted the so-called Soviet bloc. The Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe is often referred to as The Iron Curtain - a name given by Winston Churchill in 1946. Although from 1947 to 1951, Marshal Plan injected billions of US dollars into European nations for post-war rebuilding, these loans came with strict conditions, such as the adoption of liberal, democratic and capitalist policies. Unsurprisingly, the Soviet regime forbade access to the financial aid, which enabled the reconstruction of Western Capitalist Europe, while advancing American commercial and foreign policy interests. In the context of the Cold War, the Marshall Plan helped weak and war-ravaged governments and economies to recover, without falling prey to communist infiltration and being swallowed by the Soviet bloc.

====The initial entrenchment and spread of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe====

In Bulgaria and Romania, Soviet troops who had occupied the countries in the late summer of 1944 enabled Communist-dominated governments to assume power by the end of the year. The Bulgarian and Romanian Communist parties had been of negligible influence prior to and during World War II, but the presence of Soviet military forces on Bulgarian and Romanian territory shifted the balance of political power sharply in favor of the Communists during the final months of the war. The new, Soviet-backed governments in both countries initially took the form of coalitions allowing some still popular non-Communist parties to take part as well. Nevertheless, that arrangement was mostly cosmetic and aimed to forestall any immediate frictions with the United States and Britain. No sooner had the governments of both countries been set up that the Communists began methodically eliminating their potential opponents, paving the way for Stalinist transformations. <ref>Cold War: Formation of the Eastern Bloc. From Allies to Satellites - https://www.highbeam.com/topics/cold-war-formation-of-the-eastern-bloc-t10918</ref>

====Further changes introduced: transformations billed as reforms====

The economies of the Eastern Bloc countries mirrored and closely copied Soviet’s models and command economy lines. Stalin felt that socioeconomic transformations were indispensable to establish Soviet control, reflecting the Marxist-Leninist view that material bases, the distribution of the means of production, shaped social and political relations. Moscow put its excellent trained cadres into all crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation. Elimination of the bourgeoisie’s social and financial power by expropriation of land and industrial property was Stalin’s exclusive directive and absolute priority.

Factory managers and supervisors could hold their posts only if they were clear and passed under the nomenclatural list system of party-approved cadres. Furthermore, the party politics effectively limited all free initiatives and strictly constrained and modified the meaning of the term good management. Managers assigned their workers all tasks based on the pattern of “norms, with sanctions for non-fulfillment”. However, the system eventually served to significantly increase inefficiency. This was because once the norms were met and fulfilled, the management would merely increase them even further.

The Soviet Rule under Stalin also introduced the infamous “Lenin shifts” or “Lenin Saturdays”, where laborers had to work additional extra days and hours for no pay. However, the emphasis on the construction of heavy industry provided full employment and social mobility through the recruitment of young rural workers and women. While blue-collar workers enjoyed that they earned as much or more than many professionals, the standard of living did not match the pace of improvement in Western Europe.

====Key restrictions introduced: civil, media, speech, information and travelling restrictions====

Communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc viewed marginal groups of opposition intellectuals as a potential threat because of the basis underlying Communist power therein. The Block considered the suppression of any dissidence and opposition a central prerequisite to retain its power, in spite of the enormous expenses required in order to keep certain countries population under secret surveillance. Following a totalitarian initial phase, a post-totalitarian period followed the death of Stalin in which the primary method of Communist rule shifted from mass terror to selective key repression, along with ideological and sociopolitical strategies of legitimation and securing of loyalty. <ref>Political and civil restrictions: purges and show trials - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Bloc_politics</ref>A large number of people were executed or died in custody during the newly established communist People's Republics existence, most during the Stalinist era of the 1950s. While judicial executions between 1945 and 1964 numbered several thousand, deaths in custody were estimated in the hundreds of thousands and even totaled millions. Many more were imprisoned for political, economical or other reasons and suffered abuse, torture and often death in specially established Labour Camps.

*[[Why did Operation Market Garden in 1944 fail?]]

*[[How did Mussolini become Prime Minister of Italy?]]

*[[Why was France defeated in 1940?]]

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