Editing Eastern Bloc (section)

====Transformations billed as reforms====
[[File:Vilnius Energy and Technology Museum 48.JPG|thumb|left|Reconstruction of a typical [[Proletariat|working class]] flat interior in a [[khrushchyovka]]]]
In the USSR, because of strict Soviet secrecy under [[Joseph Stalin]], for many years after World War II, even the best informed foreigners did not effectively know about the operations of the Soviet economy.<ref name="laqueur23">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Laqueur|1994|p=23}}</ref> Stalin had sealed off outside access to the Soviet Union since 1935 (and until his death), effectively permitting no foreign travel inside the Soviet Union such that outsiders did not know of the political processes that had taken place therein.<ref name="laqueur22">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Laqueur|1994|p=22}}</ref> During this period, and even for 25 years after Stalin's death, the few diplomats and foreign correspondents permitted inside the Soviet Union were usually restricted to within a few kilometres of Moscow, their phones were tapped, their residences were restricted to foreigner-only locations and they were constantly followed by Soviet authorities.<ref name="laqueur22"/>

The Soviets also modeled economies in the rest of Eastern Bloc outside the Soviet Union along Soviet [[command economy]] lines.<ref name="turnock23">{{Harvard citation no brackets|Turnock|1997|p=23}}</ref> Before World War II, the Soviet Union used draconian procedures to ensure compliance with directives to invest all assets in state planned manners, including the [[collectivisation]] of agriculture and utilising a sizeable labor army collected in the [[gulag]] system.<ref name="2turnock267"/> This system was largely imposed on other Eastern Bloc countries after World War II.<ref name="2turnock267"/> While propaganda of proletarian improvements accompanied systemic changes, terror and intimidation of the consequent ruthless Stalinism obfuscated feelings of any purported benefits.<ref name="turnock27"/>

Stalin felt that socioeconomic transformation was indispensable to establish Soviet control, reflecting the [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] view that material bases, the distribution of the means of production, shaped social and political relations.<ref name="wettig36"/> Moscow trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation.<ref name="wettig36"/> Elimination of the bourgeoisie's social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority.<ref name="wettig37"/>

These measures were publicly billed as reforms rather than socioeconomic transformations.<ref name="wettig37"/> Throughout the Eastern Bloc, except for [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]], "societal organisations" such as trade unions and associations representing various social, professional and other groups, were erected with only one organisation for each category, with competition excluded.<ref name="wettig37"/> Those organisations were managed by Stalinist cadres, though during the initial period, they allowed for some diversity.<ref name="wettig38"/>