Iron Curtain Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====Eastern Bloc==== [[File:EasternBloc BasicMembersOnly.svg|thumb|A map of the [[Eastern Bloc]]]] {{Main|Eastern Bloc}} While the Iron Curtain remained in place, much of Eastern Europe and many parts of Central Europe – except [[West Germany]], [[Liechtenstein]], [[Switzerland]], and most of [[Austria]] (all of Austria after the withdrawal of occupying Allied forces and the [[Declaration of Neutrality|declaration of Austria's neutrality]] that resulted from the [[Austrian State Treaty]] in 1955) – found themselves under the hegemony of the [[Soviet Union]]. The Soviet Union annexed: * [[Estonian SSR|Estonia]]<ref name="wettig20" /><ref name="senn" /> * [[Latvian SSR|Latvia]]<ref name="wettig20">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=21}}</ref><ref name="senn">Senn, Alfred Erich, ''Lithuania 1940: Revolution from Above'', Amsterdam, New York, Rodopi, 2007 {{ISBN|978-90-420-2225-6}}</ref> * [[Lithuanian SSR|Lithuania]]<ref name="wettig20" /><ref name="senn" /> as [[Soviet Socialist Republics]] within the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]]. Germany effectively gave Moscow a free hand in much of these territories in the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] of 1939, signed before Germany [[Operation Barbarossa|invaded the Soviet Union]] in 1941. Other Soviet-annexed territories included: * [[Kresy|Eastern Poland]] (incorporated into the [[Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union|Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSRs]]),<ref name="stalinswars43">{{Harvnb| Roberts| 2006| p=43}}</ref> * Part of eastern [[Finland]] (became part of the [[Karelo-Finnish SSR]])<ref name="ckpipe">Kennedy-Pipe, Caroline, ''Stalin's Cold War'', New York: Manchester University Press, 1995, {{ISBN|0-7190-4201-1}}</ref> * Northern [[Romania]] (part of which became the [[Moldavian SSR]]).{{sfn|Roberts|2006|p=55}}{{sfn|Shirer|1990|p=794}} *[[Kaliningrad Oblast]], the northern half of [[East Prussia]], taken in 1945. *Part of eastern [[Czechoslovakia]] ([[Carpathian Ruthenia]], incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR). Between 1945 and 1949 the Soviets converted the following areas into [[satellite state]]s: * The [[East Germany|German Democratic Republic]]<ref name="wettig96">{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|pp=96–100}}</ref> * The [[People's Republic of Bulgaria]] * The [[People's Republic of Poland]] * The [[Hungarian People's Republic]]<ref name="granville">Granville, Johanna, ''The First Domino: International Decision Making during the Hungarian Crisis of 1956'', Texas A&M University Press, 2004. {{ISBN|1-58544-298-4}}</ref> * The [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic]]<ref>{{Harvnb|Grenville|2005|pp=370–371}}</ref> * The [[People's Republic of Romania]] * The [[People's Republic of Albania]]<ref name="cook17">{{Harvnb|Cook|2001|p=17}}</ref> (which re-aligned itself in the 1950s and early 1960s [[Soviet-Albanian split|away from the Soviet Union]] towards the [[China|People's Republic of China]] (PRC) and split from the PRC [[Sino-Albanian Split|towards a strongly isolationist worldview]] in the late 1970s) Soviet-installed governments ruled the Eastern Bloc countries, with the exception of the [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]], which changed its orientation [[Tito–Stalin split|away from the Soviet Union]] in the late 1940s to a progressively [[Non-aligned Movement|independent worldview]]. The majority of European states to the east of the Iron Curtain developed their own international economic and military alliances, such as [[Comecon]] and the [[Warsaw Pact]]. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page