Eastern Bloc
Emigration and any travel abroad were not allowed without an explicit permission from the government and KGB. People who were not allowed to leave the country are known as "refuseniks". During the final stages of World War II, the Soviet Union began the creation of the Eastern Bloc by directly annexing several countries as Soviet Socialist Republics that were originally effectively ceded to it by Nazi Germany in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. These included Eastern Poland (incorporated into two different SSRs), Latvia (became Latvia SSR), Estonia (became Estonian SSR), Lithuania (became Lithuania SSR), part of eastern Finland (became Karelo-Finnish SSR) and northern Romania (became the Moldavian SSR). Other states were converted into Soviet Satellite states, such as the People's Republic of Poland, the People's Republic of Hungary, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the People's Republic of Romania, the People's Republic of Albania, and later East Germany from the Soviet zone of German occupation.
By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc (along with China, Mongolia and North Korea). Up until 1952, the lines between East Germany and the western occupied zones could be easily crossed in most places. Accordingly, before 1961, most of that east-west flow took place between East and West Germany, with over 3.5 million East Germans emigrating to West Germany before the 1961, On August 13, 1961, barbed-wire barrier that would become the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin was erected by East Germany. Two days later, police and army engineers began to construct a more permanent concrete wall.
In East Germany, the term Republikflucht (fugitives from the Republic) was used for anyone wishing to leave to non-socialist countries. A propaganda booklet published by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1955 for the use of party agitators outlined the seriousness of 'flight from the republic', stating "leaving the GDR is an act of political and moral backwardness and depravity", and "workers throughout Germany will demand punishment for those who today leave the German Democratic Republic, the strong bastion of the fight for peace, to serve the deadly enemy of the German people, the imperialists and militarists".
Famous defectors include Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, Mig-25 pilot Viktor Belenko, U.N. Undersecretary General Arkady Shevchenko, chess grand master Viktor Korchnoi, ballet stars Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova and Alexander Godunov. Famous East German defectors include author Wolfgang Leonhard, East German soldier Conrad Schumann who was photographed jumping the Berlin wall while under construction and a number of European football players, including Jörg Berger. While media sources often reported high level defections, non-prominent defections usually went unreported.
Read more about this topic: Illegal Emigration
Famous quotes containing the words eastern and/or bloc:
“See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led Wizards haste with odours sweet . . .”
—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.”
—Russell Baker (20th century)