Countries behind the Iron Curtain, controlled by the Soviet Union after WWII, included the Soviet Union itself and its satellite states: Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania, along with Soviet Socialist Republics like Ukraine, Lithuania, and others. These nations in Central and Eastern Europe faced political repression and limited freedoms, forming a dividing line from Western Europe.
Presently, there are five states which are officially communist in the world: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam. In accordance with Marx's theory of the state, communists believe all state formations are under the control of a ruling class.
The nations to the east of the Iron Curtain were Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and the USSR; however, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR have since ceased to exist.
The 15 countries that made up the Soviet Union (USSR) were the 14 republics that became independent plus Russia, comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, each succeeding their respective Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) after the USSR's dissolution in 1991.
Finland is not behind the Iron Curtain. The Soviets have shown a certain restraint towards Finland and have treated her as the “model” border state.
At the end of World War II, the main Allied powers—the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union—divided Germany into two zones. The Soviet Union occupied East Germany and installed a rigidly controlled communist state.
Before 1922, the lands of modern Ukraine were fragmented, known variously as "Little Russia" within the Russian Empire, or as the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) and West Ukrainian People's Republic (WUPR) after the Russian Revolution, with parts also under Polish or Austro-Hungarian rule before becoming the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR), which joined the USSR in December 1922.
Poland before 1991 was called Polish Peoples Republic. It was also socialist republic that was not member-state of the USSR, but was fully controlled by USSR. The territory of Poland before and after 1991 was the same.
However, the Soviet Union faced the problem of unifying the country, and for that reason, Russian was selected as the common language to facilitate communication between members of different ethnic groups.
The Iron Curtain largely ceased to exist in 1989–90 with the communists' abandonment of one-party rule in eastern Europe.
The question is sometimes asked whether Yugoslavia should still be regarded as behind the Iron Curtain. The answer, of course, is that while it is no longer behind the big curtain, it has one of its own, the heaviest part of which cuts it off from the East, but a good deal still blinds the Yugoslavs from the West.
Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia'. Churchill was speaking before the post-war division of Europe became either formalized or permanent.
Communism effectively ended in Russia with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, marked by Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation on December 25, 1991, and the final dissolution of the USSR by its Supreme Soviet on December 26, 1991, replacing the Soviet flag with the Russian tricolor over the Kremlin.
Socialism aims for social ownership and democratic control of production to reduce inequality, allowing some private property, while communism seeks a stateless, classless society with total communal ownership of all property, eliminating private ownership and markets entirely, often envisioned as a final stage after a socialist transition. Key differences lie in property (socialism allows private, communism abolishes it), government (socialism often uses democracy, communism historically uses authoritarian control), and method (socialism through reform, communism through revolution).
Although Marxist theory suggested that industrial societies were the most suitable places for social revolution (either through peaceful transition or by force of arms), communism was mostly successful in underdeveloped countries with endemic poverty such as the Republic of China.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russian: Организация Договора о коллективной безопасности (ОДКБ), romanized: Organizatsiya dogovora o kollektivnoy bezopasnosti (ODKB) is an intergovernmental military alliance in Eurasia consisting of six post-Soviet states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, ...
Rus' (also known as Kyivan Rus' or Ruthenia) was the name of the ancient state founded in Kyiv in the 9th century by a Scandinavian dynasty of Rurikids (Igor and Olga — Ingvarr and Helga in Old Norse — were the founding couple).
The decree was first announced, on the front page of Pravda, on 27 February 1954. The full text of the decree was: On April 26, 1954 The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.
Dominated by the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Western Bloc.
On the morning of August 13, 1961, Berliners awoke to discover that on the orders of East German leader Walter Ulbricht , a barbed wire fence had gone up overnight separating West and East Berlin and preventing movement between the two sides.
While ostensibly a communist state, Yugoslavia broke away from the Soviet sphere of influence in 1948, became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, and adopted a more de-centralized and less repressive form of government as compared with other East European communist states during the Cold War.