Editing Eastern Bloc (section)

==Organizations==
{{main|Cominform|Comecon|Warsaw Pact}}
In 1949, the [[Soviet Union]], Bulgaria, [[Czechoslovakia]], Hungary, Poland, and Romania founded the [[Comecon]] in accordance with Stalin's desire to enforce Soviet domination of the lesser states of Central Europe and to mollify some states that had expressed interest in the [[Marshall Plan]],<ref name="loc-cs">Germany (East), Library of Congress Country Study, [http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/germany_east/gx_appnb.html ''Appendix B: The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501075842/http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/germany_east/gx_appnb.html |date=1 May 2009 }}</ref><ref name="crampton240">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=240}}</ref> and which were now, increasingly, cut off from their traditional markets and suppliers in Western Europe.<ref name="bideleaux">Bideleux, Robert and Ian Jeffries, ''A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change'', Routledge, 1998, {{ISBN|0-415-16111-8}}</ref> The Comecon's role became ambiguous because Stalin preferred more direct links with other party chiefs than the Comecon's indirect sophistication; it played no significant role in the 1950s in economic planning.<ref name="turnock26">{{Harvnb|Turnock|1997|p=26}}</ref> Initially, the Comecon served as cover for the Soviet taking of materials and equipment from the rest of the Eastern Bloc, but the balance changed when the Soviets became net subsidizers of the rest of the Bloc by the 1970s via an exchange of low cost raw materials in return for shoddily manufactured finished goods.<ref name="turnock27">{{Harvnb|Turnock|1997|p=27}}</ref>

In 1955, the [[Warsaw Pact]] was formed partly in response to [[NATO]]'s inclusion of [[West Germany]] and partly because the Soviets needed an excuse to retain [[Red Army]] units in Hungary.<ref name="crampton240"/> For 35 years, the Pact perpetuated the Stalinist concept of Soviet national security based on imperial expansion and control over satellite regimes in Eastern Europe.<ref name="michta31">{{Harvnb|Michta|Mastny|1992|p=31}}</ref> This Soviet formalization of their security relationships in the Eastern Bloc reflected Moscow's basic security policy principle that continued presence in East Central Europe was a foundation of its defense against the West.<ref name="michta31"/> Through its institutional structures, the Pact also compensated in part for the absence of Joseph Stalin's personal leadership since his death in 1953.<ref name="michta31"/> The Pact consolidated the other Bloc members' armies in which Soviet officers and security agents served under a unified Soviet command structure.<ref name="michta32">{{Harvnb|Michta|Mastny|1992|p=32}}</ref>

Beginning in 1964, Romania took a more independent course.<ref name="crampton313"/> While it did not repudiate either Comecon or the Warsaw Pact, it ceased to play a significant role in either.<ref name="crampton313">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|pp=312–3}}</ref> [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]]'s assumption of leadership one year later pushed Romania even further in the direction of separateness.<ref name="crampton313"/> Albania, which had become increasingly isolated under Stalinist leader [[Enver Hoxha]] following [[de-Stalinization]], undergoing an [[Albanian–Soviet split]] in 1961, withdrew from the Warsaw Pact in 1968<ref name="cook18">{{Harvnb|Cook|2001|p=18}}</ref> following the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia]].<ref name="crampton378">{{Harvnb|Crampton|1997|p=378}}</ref>