IB History Impact of the Cold War on Central and Eastern Europe Key Definitions

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, established in January 1949 to coordinate economic development within the Soviet bloc. COMECON standardised trade, technical norms, and production across member states, supplied Soviet energy to Eastern Europe at below-market prices, and integrated Eastern European economies in ways that served Soviet interests. It was dissolved in 1991.

Under Soviet-backed rule, the habit of performing loyalty to the regime in public, at work, in school, at meetings, while holding different private views at home or among trusted friends. It let people survive daily life under surveillance without genuinely believing official propaganda, and it left regimes with public compliance but little real popular belief.

The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, signed in May 1955 by the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. The Warsaw Pact created a Soviet-dominated military alliance to counter NATO, with Soviet officers commanding joint forces. It provided a legal framework for Soviet military intervention in member states, most notably in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968).