Eastern Bloc politics followed the Red Army's occupation of much of eastern Europe at the end of World War II and the Soviet Union's installation of Soviet-controlled communist governments in the Eastern Bloc through a process of bloc politics and repression. The resulting governments contained vestiges of western democracies 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.
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Famous quotes containing the words eastern, bloc and/or politics:
“Now Morn her rosy steps in th’ eastern clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“Unpleasant questions are being raised about Mother’s Day. Is this day necessary? . . . Isn’t it bad public policy? . . . No politician with half his senses, which a majority of politicians have, is likely to vote for its abolition, however. As a class, mothers are tender and loving, but as a voting bloc they would not hesitate for an instant to pull the seat out from under any Congressman who suggests that Mother is not entitled to a box of chocolates each year in the middle of May.”
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“All is politics in this capital.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)