History

     The communist bloc was part of the Soviet Union east of Germany. The states included what is now Poland, the eastern section of Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania. It actually started primarily in Poland. However, it isn't existent today. That might be because it had a command economy, which couldn't support its large population. Not all of its states wanted tight restrictions and Hungary had a very large revolution against it, not successfully. The communist bloc's leaders were very intent on punishing their side of Germany for the war that Germany brought to Russia in World War 2.^[1] That may been one of the most important reasons why the Cold War started. The communist government kept extremely tight restrictions on its citizens and even tighter restrictions on the Germans. As result, thousands tried to emigrate to the U.K., or other non-communist countries. To counter that, Joseph Stalin set up defenses. Hundreds of armed, Soviet soldiers stood guard and threatened to shoot, or shot anyone who attempted the illegal border-cross in search of a better life. The Yugoslavian president in 1948 broke off from the Soviet Union and formed his own, still communist, government.

Significance

     The communist governments in the communist bloc and the western democratic governments built huge nuclear forces and went into a cold war. A cold war is the term used when no actual fighting or warfare happens, just threats are made.^[2]However, people from democratic countries at the time were extremely afraid that the Soviet Union would use their nuclear weaponry that they had promised to have. They knew that Joseph Stalin was a ruthless leader and had no qualms with killing millions of people. He said, "One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic."^[3]Although we don't know if the people of the Soviet Union feared a nuclear bomb hitting their home, we definitelyknow that people in the U.S. had that fear in the back of their heads. Many times, countries that were enemies of the Soviet Union were in a national emergency or a state of high alert many times. Overall, the significance of the communist bloc was the fear its government's threats insuinated into the democratic governments and citizens around the world.