Eastern Bloc politics
Party Country Notes
Communist Party of the Soviet Union Soviet Union Precursor led the Russian Revolution ; General Secretaries included Joseph Stalin ( 1922-53 ) , Nikita Khrushchev ( 1953-64 ) and Leonid Brezhnev ( 1964-1982 )
Socialist Unity Party of Germany German Democratic Republic ( East Germany ) General Secretaries included Walter Ulbricht ( 1950-71 ) and Erich Honecker ( 1971-1989 )
Party of Labour of Albania People 's Socialist Republic of Albania Enver Hoxha was First Secretary from 1944-85
Romanian Communist Party People 's Republic of Romania From 1922-44 , none of its General Secretaries were Romanian ; later , they included Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej ( 1945-54,1955-65 ) and Nicolae Ceauşescu ( 1965-89 )
Hungarian Working People 's Party Hungarian People 's Republic After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 , called the Hungarian Socialist Workers ' Party ; General Secretaries included Mátyás Rákosi ( 1948-56 ) and János Kádár ( 1956-88 )
Polish United Workers ' Party Polish People 's Republic General Secretaries included Bolesław Bierut ( 1948-56 ) , Władysław Gomułka ( 1956-70 ) , Edward Gierek ( 1970-80 ) , and Wojciech Jaruzelski ( 1981-89 )
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Czechoslovak Socialist Republic Chairman was Klement Gottwald ( 1922-53 ) ; First Secretaries included Antonín Novotny ( 1953-1968 ) and Gustáv Husák ( 1969-1987 )
Bulgarian Communist Party People 's Republic of Bulgaria First Secretaries included Vulko Chervenkov ( 1949-54 ) and Todor Zhivkov ( 1954-89 )
League of Communists of Yugoslavia Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia quietly ruled within the Popular Front until 1952 ; General Secretaries included Josip Broz Tito ( 1939-1980 )
Eastern Bloc politics followed the Red Army's liberation of much of eastern Europe at the end of World War II and the Soviet Union's installation of Soviet-controlled Marxist-Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc through a process of bloc politics and repression. The resulting governments contained vestiges of representative democracy (such as parliaments, elections, and sometimes even multiple political parties) to initially conceal the process. Once in power, each country's Soviet-controlled Communist Party took permanent control of the administration, political organs, police, societal organizations and economic structures to ensure that no effective opposition could arise and to control socioeconomic and political life therein. Party and social purges were employed along with the extensive use of secret police organizations modeled on the Soviet KGB to monitor and control local populations. While multiple political parties continued to nominally exist in some countries, they were all subordinated to the government, and supported government policies. While elections continued to be held, voters were usually presented with a single candidate. The national parliaments composed of representatives elected in this manner met infrequently and always approved government proposals.