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96-449: A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than corrective , and they are also conducted for propagandistic purposes. When aimed at individuals on

192-521: A " 'substantial probability' test". Examples of cases presenting closure issues include organized crime cases (overall security concerns), rape cases (decency concerns), juvenile cases, and through the Silent witness rule and/or Classified Information Procedures Act , cases involving sensitive or " classified " information. Trials may be closed at the behest of the government only if it can show "an overriding interest based on findings that closure

288-531: A " sovietization " of Central Europe. In addition to reparations, Stalin pushed for "war booty", which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation. A clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations. At first, the Soviets concealed their role in other Eastern Bloc politics, with the transformation appearing as

384-688: A "loophole" through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still move west. The 3.5 million East Germans that had left by 1961, called Republikflucht , totaled approximately 20% of the entire East German population. In August 1961, East Germany erected a barbed-wire barrier that would eventually be expanded through construction into the Berlin Wall , effectively closing the loophole. With virtually non-existent conventional emigration, more than 75% of those emigrating from Eastern Bloc countries between 1950 and 1990 did so under bilateral agreements for "ethnic migration". About 10% were refugee migrants under

480-657: A Nazi accomplice with a document that had been previously displayed in a glass cabinet at the Institute of the Working Class Movement as an example of a Gestapo forgery. The trials themselves were "shows", with each participant having to learn a script and conduct repeated rehearsals before the performance. In the Slánský trial in Czechoslovakia , when the judge skipped one of the scripted questions,

576-610: A broader democratic basis in Poland. He stated that the new government's primary task would be to prepare elections. However, the 1946 Polish people's referendum (known as the "Three Times Yes" referendum) and the subsequent 1947 Polish parliamentary election did not meet democratic standards and were largely manipulated. The parties at Yalta further agreed that the countries of liberated Europe and former Axis satellites would be allowed to "create democratic institutions of their own choice", pursuant to "the right of all peoples to choose

672-447: A confession of Rajk in his show trial, regarding "Vladimir" the questioner of Kádár: Vladimir had but one argument: blows. They had begun to beat Kádár. They had smeared his body with mercury to prevent his pores from breathing. He had been writhing on the floor when a newcomer had arrived. The newcomer was Vladimir's father, Mihály Farkas. Kádár was raised from the ground. Vladimir stepped close. Two henchmen pried Kádár's teeth apart, and

768-577: A death sentence and execution. A number of other high ranking Bulgarian officials were also jailed. Stalin and Hungarian leader Mátyás Rákosi met in Moscow to orchestrate a show trial of Rákosi opponent László Rajk , who was thereafter executed. The preservation of the Soviet bloc relied on maintaining a sense of ideological unity that would entrench Moscow's influence in Eastern Europe as well as

864-419: A distance. In addition to emigration restrictions, civil society, defined as a domain of political action outside the party's state control, was not allowed to firmly take root, with the possible exception of Poland in the 1980s . While the institutional design of the communist systems were based on the rejection of rule of law, the legal infrastructure was not immune to change reflecting decaying ideology and

960-482: A large-scale party programs to train personnel who would meet political requirements. Former members of the middle-class were officially discriminated against, though the state's need for their skills and certain opportunities to re-invent themselves as good Communist citizens did allow many to nonetheless achieve success. Communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc viewed marginal groups of opposition intellectuals as

1056-710: A late September 1947 meeting of all communist parties in Szklarska Poręba , Eastern Bloc communist parties were blamed for permitting even minor influence by non-communists in their respective countries during the run up to the Marshall Plan. In the former German capital Berlin, surrounded by Soviet-occupied Germany, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade on 24 June 1948, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin . The blockade

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1152-762: A member of the Comecon or the Warsaw Pact. Parting with the USSR in 1948, Yugoslavia did not belong to the East, but it also did not belong to the West because of its socialist system and its status as a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement . However, some sources consider Yugoslavia to be a member of the Eastern Bloc. Others consider Yugoslavia not to be a member after it broke with Soviet policy in

1248-561: A modification of Western " bourgeois democracy ". As a young communist was told in East Germany, "it's got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control". Stalin felt that socioeconomic transformation was indispensable to establish Soviet control, reflecting the Marxist–Leninist view that material bases, the distribution of the means of production, shaped social and political relations. The Soviet Union also co-opted

1344-419: A potential threat because of the bases underlying Communist power therein. The suppression of dissidence and opposition was considered a central prerequisite to retain power, though the enormous expense at which the population in certain countries were kept under secret surveillance may not have been rational. Following a totalitarian initial phase, a post-totalitarian period followed the death of Stalin in which

1440-408: A public relations campaign against the western policy change and communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948 preceding large losses therein, while 300,000 Berliners demonstrated and urged the international airlift to continue. In May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin. After disagreements between Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito and

1536-510: A unified Soviet command structure. Beginning in 1964, Romania took a more independent course. While it did not repudiate either Comecon or the Warsaw Pact, it ceased to play a significant role in either. Nicolae Ceaușescu 's assumption of leadership one year later pushed Romania even further in the direction of separateness. Albania, which had become increasingly isolated under Stalinist leader Enver Hoxha following de-Stalinization , undergoing an Albanian–Soviet split in 1961, withdrew from

1632-564: A world of democracy and peace". While meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943, Churchill stated that Britain was vitally interested in restoring Poland as a politically independent country. Britain did not press the matter for fear that it would become a source of inter-allied friction. In February 1945, at the conference at Yalta , Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of political influence in Central Europe. Stalin eventually

1728-408: Is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest". The accused may also request a closure of the trial; in such a case, it must be demonstrated that "first, there is a substantial probability that the defendant's right to a fair trial will be prejudiced by publicity that closure would prevent, and second, reasonable alternatives to closure cannot adequately protect

1824-543: Is replaced by a socialist encirclement". In 1939, the USSR entered into the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany that contained a secret protocol that divided Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence . Lithuania

1920-813: The Azov Regiment , on the charges of involvement in a terrorist organization and taking part in action to overthrow the Russia-backed authorities in the Donetsk region. Most of the Ukrainians standing trials in Russia are members of Ukrainian Armed Forces , which, according to HRW , makes them prisoners of war with corresponding status and protections per the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War . According to HRW and Amnesty International ,

2016-519: The Comecon ( East Germany , Poland , Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Romania , Bulgaria , and Albania ). In Asia , the Eastern Bloc comprised Mongolia , Vietnam , Laos , Kampuchea , North Korea , South Yemen , Syria , and China . In the Americas , the countries aligned with the Soviet Union included Cuba from 1961 and for limited periods Nicaragua and Grenada . The term Eastern Bloc

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2112-538: The Comecon in accordance with Stalin's desire to enforce Soviet domination of the lesser states of Central Europe and to mollify some states that had expressed interest in the Marshall Plan , and which were now, increasingly, cut off from their traditional markets and suppliers in Western Europe. The Comecon's role became ambiguous because Stalin preferred more direct links with other party chiefs than

2208-792: The Communist Bloc ( Combloc ), the Socialist Bloc , and the Soviet Bloc , was the collective term for an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe , Asia , Africa , and Latin America that were aligned with the Soviet Union and existed during the Cold War (1947–1991). These states followed the ideology of Marxism–Leninism , in opposition to the capitalist Western Bloc . The Eastern Bloc

2304-553: The Czechoslovak Communist party . General Heliodor Píka was arrested without a warrant in early May 1948 and accused of espionage and high treason , damaging the interests of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Soviet Union, and undermining the ability of the state to defend itself, Píka was not allowed to present a defence, and no witnesses were called. He was sentenced to death and hanged. During

2400-659: The Kremlin or even Stalin himself, as he had done in the earlier Moscow Trials. Such high-ranking party show trials included those of Koçi Xoxe in Albania and Traicho Kostov in Bulgaria, who were purged and arrested. After Kostov was executed, Bulgarian leaders sent Stalin a telegram thanking him for the help. In Romania, Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu , Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca were arrested, with Pătrășcanu being executed. The Soviets generally directed show trial methods throughout

2496-1030: The Moscow Trials of the Great Purge period (1937–38). Such trials paralleled the institution of self-criticism within Communist Party cadres and Soviet society . Known show trials in Soviet Ukraine include "Union for the Liberation of Ukraine" trial (1930), "People's Revolutionary Socialist Party" trial  [ uk ] (1930), " Ukrainian National Center  [ uk ] " trial (1931). During its full-scale invasion into Ukraine, around 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers were taken prisoners by Russia in Mariupol in May 2022. In 2023 Russia began criminal prosecutions against members of

2592-610: The Ogaden War in 1977. Although not Marxist–Leninist , leadership of Ba'athist Syria officially regarded the country as part of the Socialist Bloc and established a close economic, military alliance with the Soviet Union. Many states were accused by the Western Bloc of being in the Eastern Bloc when they were part of the Non-Aligned Movement . The most limited definition of the Eastern Bloc would only include

2688-581: The People's Republic of Slovenia . First was the Nagode Trial in which 32 non-communist intellectuals were tried as spies, three of them sentenced to death. Second was a series of so-called Dachau trials in which 37 members of the Communist Party were sentenced, 15 of them to death. Stalin's NKVD emissary coordinated with Hungarian General Secretary Mátyás Rákosi and his ÁVH head the way

2784-549: The Prague Spring of 1968, Píka's case was reopened at the request of Milan Píka (son of Heliodor) and the elder Píka's lawyer, and a military tribunal declared Heliodor Píka innocent of all charges. Milada Horáková , a Czech politician focused on social issues and women's rights, who was jailed during the German occupation for her political activity, was accused of leading a conspiracy to commit treason and espionage at

2880-646: The Soviets occupied the territories . In June 1941, Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by invading the Soviet Union . From the time of this invasion to 1944, the areas annexed by the Soviet Union were part of Germany's Ostland (except for the Moldavian SSR ). Thereafter, the Soviet Union began to push German forces westward through a series of battles on the Eastern Front . In

2976-681: The Warsaw Pact was formed partly in response to NATO 's inclusion of West Germany and partly because the Soviets needed an excuse to retain Red Army units in Hungary. For 35 years, the Pact perpetuated the Stalinist concept of Soviet national security based on imperial expansion and control over satellite regimes in Eastern Europe. This Soviet formalization of their security relationships in

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3072-564: The open court principle and related legislation, legal proceedings are generally open to the public and the media. Section 135(1) of the Courts of Justice Act (Ontario) states the general principle that "all court hearings shall be open to the public". In Quebec, however, under the Quebec Act 1774, the French legal system (including non-public trials) was allowed to remain intact, including

3168-851: The 1948 Tito–Stalin split . In 1922, the Russian SFSR , the Ukrainian SSR , the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian SFSR approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Soviet Union . Soviet leader Joseph Stalin , who viewed the Soviet Union as a "socialist island", stated that the Soviet Union must see that "the present capitalist encirclement

3264-483: The Bloc were instructed to foster intra-leadership conflict and to transmit information against each other. This accompanied a continuous stream of accusations of "nationalistic deviations", "insufficient appreciation of the USSR's role", links with Tito and "espionage for Yugoslavia". This resulted in the persecution of many major party cadres, including those in East Germany. The first country to experience this approach

3360-434: The Comecon's indirect sophistication; it played no significant role in the 1950s in economic planning. Initially, the Comecon served as cover for the Soviet taking of materials and equipment from the rest of the Eastern Bloc, but the balance changed when the Soviets became net subsidizers of the rest of the Bloc by the 1970s via an exchange of low cost raw materials in return for shoddily manufactured finished goods. In 1955,

3456-500: The Eastern Bloc reflected Moscow's basic security policy principle that continued presence in East Central Europe was a foundation of its defense against the West. Through its institutional structures, the Pact also compensated in part for the absence of Joseph Stalin's personal leadership since his death in 1953. The Pact consolidated the other Bloc members' armies in which Soviet officers and security agents served under

3552-408: The Eastern Bloc, despite attempts by authorities to jam the airways. Under the state atheism of many Eastern Bloc nations, religion was actively suppressed. Since some of these states tied their ethnic heritage to their national churches, both the peoples and their churches were targeted by the Soviets. In 1949, the Soviet Union , Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia , Hungary, Poland, and Romania founded

3648-409: The Eastern Bloc, including a procedure in which confessions and evidence from leading witnesses could be extracted by any means, including threatening to torture the witnesses' wives and children. The higher-ranking the party member, generally the more harsh the torture that was inflicted upon him. For the show trial of Hungarian Interior Minister János Kádár , who one year earlier had attempted to force

3744-863: The Eastern European countries into its sphere of influence by making reference to some cultural commonalities. Moscow-trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation. Elimination of the bourgeoisie 's social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority. These measures were publicly billed as "reforms" rather than socioeconomic transformations. Except for initially in Czechoslovakia, activities by political parties had to adhere to "Bloc politics", with parties eventually having to accept membership in an "antifascist bloc" obliging them to act only by mutual "consensus". The bloc system permitted

3840-720: The Polish rejection of the Plan with a huge 5-year trade agreement, including $ 450 million in credit, 200,000 tons of grain, heavy machinery and factories. In July 1947, Stalin ordered these countries to pull out of the Paris Conference on the European Recovery Programme, which has been described as "the moment of truth" in the post- World War II division of Europe. Thereafter, Stalin sought stronger control over other Eastern Bloc countries, abandoning

3936-670: The Soviet Union regarding Greece and Albania , a Tito–Stalin split occurred, followed by Yugoslavia being expelled from the Cominform in June 1948 and a brief failed Soviet putsch in Belgrade. The split created two separate communist forces in Europe. A vehement campaign against Titoism was immediately started in the Eastern Bloc, describing agents of both the West and Tito in all places as engaging in subversive activity. Stalin ordered

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4032-478: The Soviet Union to exercise domestic control indirectly. Crucial departments such as those responsible for personnel, general police, secret police and youth were strictly Communist run. Moscow cadres distinguished "progressive forces" from "reactionary elements" and rendered both powerless. Such procedures were repeated until Communists had gained unlimited power and only politicians who were unconditionally supportive of Soviet policy remained. In June 1947, after

4128-562: The Soviet public trials are commonly associated with Stalin era show trials , such as Moscow Trials , nevertheless in Russian culture the term "public trial" did not acquire negative connotations, despite the apparent attributes of a show, primarily because the publicity of any information in pre- glasnost era was severely limited by the Soviet state. The term "show trial" corresponds to Russian "показной процесс" ( pokaznoy process ). Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc , also known as

4224-511: The Soviets had refused to negotiate a potential lightening of restrictions on German development, the United States announced the Marshall Plan , a comprehensive program of American assistance to all European countries wanting to participate, including the Soviet Union and those of Eastern Europe. The Soviets rejected the Plan and took a hard-line position against the United States and non-communist European nations. However, Czechoslovakia

4320-497: The United States Constitution establishes the right of the accused to a public trial. The right to a public trial is strictly enforced, but is not absolute. Trials may in exceptional cases be regulated. Closures are decided case-by-case by the judge evaluating a claimed danger to a substantial or legitimate public interest. But whatever the interest at stake, the likelihood of danger to that interest must meet

4416-504: The Warsaw Pact in 1968 following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia . In 1917, Russia restricted emigration by instituting passport controls and forbidding the exit of belligerent nationals. In 1922, after the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR , both the Ukrainian SSR and the Russian SFSR issued general rules for travel that foreclosed virtually all departures, making legal emigration impossible. Border controls thereafter strengthened such that, by 1928, even illegal departure

4512-503: The Warsaw Pact states and the Mongolian People's Republic as former satellite states most dominated by the Soviet Union. Cuba 's defiance of complete Soviet control was noteworthy enough that Cuba was sometimes excluded as a satellite state altogether, as it sometimes intervened in other Third World countries even when the Soviet Union opposed this. Post-1991 usage of the term "Eastern Bloc" may be more limited in referring to

4608-407: The West and Tito. Despite the initial institutional design of communism implemented by Joseph Stalin in the Eastern Bloc, subsequent development varied across countries. In satellite states, after peace treaties were initially concluded, opposition was essentially liquidated, fundamental steps towards socialism were enforced, and Kremlin leaders sought to strengthen control therein. Right from

4704-400: The West. The trial of Horáková and twelve of her colleagues began on 31 May 1950 and the State's prosecutors were led by Dr. Josef Urválek and included Ludmila Brožová-Polednová . The trial proceedings were carefully orchestrated with confessions of guilt secured from the accused, though a recording of the event, discovered in 2005, revealed Horáková's defence of her political ideals. Horáková

4800-425: The aftermath of World War II on the Soviet-Finnish border , the parties signed another peace treaty ceding to the Soviet Union in 1944, followed by a Soviet annexation of roughly the same eastern Finnish territories as those of the prior interim peace treaty as part of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic . From 1943 to 1945, several conferences regarding Post-War Europe occurred that, in part, addressed

4896-412: The basis of protected classes or characteristics, show trials are examples of political persecution . The term was first recorded in 1928. A similar concept is " kangaroo court ". After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 , show trials were given to "rioters and counter-revolutionaries" involved in the protests and the subsequent military massacre. Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo

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4992-455: The beginning, Stalin directed systems that rejected Western institutional characteristics of market economies , capitalist parliamentary democracy (dubbed "bourgeois democracy" in Soviet parlance) and the rule of law subduing discretional intervention by the state. The resulting states aspired to total control of a political center backed by an extensive and active repressive apparatus, and a central role of Marxist–Leninist ideology. However,

5088-432: The behest of the United States, Great Britain, France and Yugoslavia. Evidence of the alleged conspiracy included Horáková's presence at a meeting of political figures from the National Socialist, Social Democrat and People's parties, in September 1948, held to discuss their response to the new political situation in Czechoslovakia. She was also accused of maintaining contacts with Czechoslovak political figures in exile in

5184-412: The better-rehearsed Slánský answered the one which should have been asked. In 1946, Draža Mihailović and a number of other prominent figures of the Chetnik movement during World War II were tried for high treason and war crimes committed during WWII. The trial opened in the presence of about 60 foreign journalists. Mihailović and ten others (two in absentia) were sentenced to death by a firing squad;

5280-603: The charges are war crimes and, per HRW, are an excuse to prosecute Ukrainian soldiers for participating in the conflict. Observers called those prosecution show trials. Following some dissent within ruling communist parties throughout the Eastern Bloc , especially after the 1948 Tito–Stalin split , several party purges occurred, with several hundred thousand members purged in several countries. In addition to rank-and-file member purges, prominent communists were purged, with some subjected to public show trials. These were more likely to be instigated, and sometimes orchestrated, by

5376-455: The colonel, negligently, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, urinated into his mouth. The evidence was often not just non-existent but absurd, such as Hungarian George Paloczi-Horváth 's party interrogators claiming "We knew all the time—we have it here in writing—that you met professor Szentgyörgyi not in Istanbul , but in Constantinople ." In another case, the Hungarian ÁVH secret police also condemned another party member as

5472-413: The conversion of the Cominform into an instrument to monitor and control the internal affairs of other Eastern Bloc parties. He also briefly considered converting the Cominform into an instrument for sentencing high-ranking deviators, but dropped the idea as impractical. Instead, a move to weaken communist party leaders through conflict was started. Soviet cadres in communist party and state positions in

5568-410: The core of the system, with their names becoming synonymous with raw power and the threat of violent retribution should an individual become active against the State. Several state police and secret police organizations enforced communist party rule, including the following: The press in the communist period was an organ of the state, completely reliant on and subservient to the communist party. Before

5664-594: The country's population who had accepted total obedience. Those who secured membership in this selective group received considerable rewards, such as access to special lower priced shops with a greater selection of high-quality domestic and/or foreign goods ( confections , alcohol , cigars , cameras , televisions , and the like), special schools, holiday facilities, homes, high-quality domestic and/or foreign-made furniture, works of art, pensions, permission to travel abroad, and official cars with distinct license plates so that police and others could identify these members from

5760-551: The defendant's fair trial rights". But before a judge can close a courtroom, the judge must consider all potential alternatives to closure. This is a very strict standard; the Supreme Court has held that "trial courts are required to consider alternatives to closure even when they are not offered by the parties," or by anyone else. In other words, a judge who does not want to be reversed on appeal must be confident that there cannot possibly be any alternative to closure that might later be conjured up by some appellate lawyer. Pursuant to

5856-567: The defendants at the Reichstag fire Trial were acquitted. Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 12,000 Germans were killed on the orders of the "special courts" set up by the Nazi regime . In the current Iranian regime there are no juries in Islamic Revolutionary Courts – trial by peers only exists in some special courts – with verdicts set before the trial; have been several occasions of trials being labeled show for their proceeding. [REDACTED] Media related to Show trials at Wikimedia Commons Public trial The Sixth Amendment to

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5952-436: The end of the Cold War: the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (from 1967), the People's Republic of the Congo (from 1969), the People's Republic of Benin , the People's Republic of Angola and People's Republic of Mozambique from 1975, the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada from 1979 to 1983, the Derg / People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1974, and the Somali Democratic Republic from 1969 until

6048-441: The form of government under which they will live". The parties also agreed to help those countries form interim governments "pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections" and "facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections". At the beginning of the July–August 1945 Potsdam Conference after Germany's unconditional surrender, Stalin repeated previous promises to Churchill that he would refrain from

6144-503: The former believing Soviet leader Stalin to be a "devil"-like tyrant leading a vile system. When warned of potential domination by a Stalin dictatorship over part of Europe, Roosevelt responded with a statement summarizing his rationale for relations with Stalin: "I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man. ... I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for

6240-470: The future structure of the "Polish region". Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization of the newly Soviet-annexed areas . Soviet authorities collectivized agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property. Initial Soviet occupations of the Baltic countries had occurred in mid-June 1940, when Soviet NKVD troops raided border posts in Lithuania , Estonia and Latvia , followed by

6336-453: The lack of a requirement that trials be public. In Soviet Union the terms "open trial" (открытый процесс) and "public trial" (публичный процесс) differed. The term "open trial" implied the possibility for public to be present at the hearings. The term "public trial" implied the purposeful presentation of the process to wide public. Public trials were usually widely discussed in media and hearings were often arranged in larger auditoria . While

6432-419: The late 1980s, Eastern Bloc radio and television organizations were state-owned, while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the local communist party. Youth newspapers and magazines were owned by youth organizations affiliated with communist parties. The control of the media was exercised directly by the communist party itself, and by state censorship, which was also controlled by

6528-416: The liquidation of state administrations and replacement by Soviet cadres. Elections for parliament and other offices were held with single candidates listed and the official results fabricated, purporting pro-Soviet candidates' approval by 92.8 percent of the voters in Estonia, 97.6 percent in Latvia, and 99.2 percent in Lithuania. The fraudulently installed "people's assemblies" immediately declared each of

6624-436: The others were convicted of penalties ranging from 18 months to 20 years in prison. In 2015, a Serbian court invalidated Mihailović's conviction. The court held that it had been a Communist political show trial that was controlled by the government. The court concluded that Mihailović had not received a fair trial. Mihailović was, therefore, fully rehabilitated. During 1946–1949, several well-publicized show trials were held in

6720-446: The parties entered into an interim peace treaty granting the Soviet Union a portion of the eastern region of Karelia (10% of Finnish territory), and the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was established by merging the ceded territories with the KASSR . After a June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum demanding Bessarabia, Bukovina , and the Hertsa region from Romania, the Soviets entered these areas, Romania caved to Soviet demands and

6816-525: The party. Media served as an important form of control over information and society. The dissemination and portrayal of knowledge were considered by authorities to be vital to communism's survival by stifling alternative concepts and critiques. Several state Communist Party newspapers were published, including: The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) served as the central agency for collection and distribution of internal and international news for all Soviet newspapers, radio and television stations. It

6912-517: The potential Soviet annexation and control of countries in Central Europe. There were various Allied plans for state order in Central Europe for post-war. While Joseph Stalin tried to get as many states under Soviet control as possible, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill preferred a Central European Danube Confederation to counter these countries against Germany and Russia. Churchill's Soviet policy regarding Central Europe differed vastly from that of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt , with

7008-654: The power of the local Communist elites. The port city of Trieste was a particular focus after the Second World War. Until the break between Tito and Stalin, the Western powers and the Eastern bloc faced each other uncompromisingly. The neutral buffer state Free Territory of Trieste , founded in 1947 with the United Nations, was split up and dissolved in 1954 and 1975, also because of the détente between

7104-401: The primary method of Communist rule shifted from mass terror to selective repression, along with ideological and sociopolitical strategies of legitimation and the securing of loyalty. Juries were replaced by a tribunal of professional judges and two lay assessors that were dependable party actors. The police deterred and contained opposition to party directives. The political police served as

7200-469: The prior appearance of democratic institutions. When it appeared that, in spite of heavy pressure, non-communist parties might receive in excess of 40% of the vote in the August 1947 Hungarian elections , repressions were instituted to liquidate any independent political forces. In that same month, annihilation of the opposition in Bulgaria began on the basis of continuing instructions by Soviet cadres. At

7296-441: The rest were sentenced to death. Slánský was hanged at Pankrác Prison on 3 December 1952. His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered on an icy road outside of Prague. Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany established a large number of Sondergerichte that were frequently used to prosecute those hostile to the regime. The People's Court was a kangaroo court established in 1934 to handle political crimes, after several of

7392-593: The sharp 1953 increase was fear of potential further Sovietization with the increasingly paranoid actions of Joseph Stalin in late 1952 and early 1953. 226,000 had fled in just the first six months of 1953. With the closing of the Inner German border officially in 1952, the Berlin city sector borders remained considerably more accessible than the rest of the border because of their administration by all four occupying powers. Accordingly, it effectively comprised

7488-436: The show trial of Hungarian Minister of Interior László Rajk should go, and he was later executed. The Rajk trials in Hungary led Moscow to warn Czechoslovakia's parties that enemy agents had penetrated even high into party ranks, and when a puzzled Rudolf Slánský and Klement Gottwald inquired what they could do, Stalin's NKVD agents arrived to help prepare subsequent trials. First, these trials focused on people outside

7584-399: The states forming the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991) and Mongolia (1924–1991), which are no longer communist states. Sometimes they are more generally referred to as "the countries of Eastern Europe under communism", excluding Mongolia, but including Yugoslavia and Albania which had both split with the Soviet Union by the 1960s. Even though Yugoslavia was a socialist country, it was not

7680-413: The substitution of autonomous law. Initially, communist parties were small in all countries except Czechoslovakia, such that there existed an acute shortage of politically "trustworthy" persons for administration, police, and other professions. Thus, "politically unreliable" non-communists initially had to fill such roles. Those not obedient to communist authorities were ousted, while Moscow cadres started

7776-499: The three corresponding countries to be "Soviet Socialist Republics" and requested their "admission into Stalin 's Soviet Union". This formally resulted in the Soviet Union's annexation of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in August 1940. The international community condemned this annexation of the three Baltic countries and deemed it illegal. In 1939, the Soviet Union unsuccessfully attempted an invasion of Finland , subsequent to which

7872-442: The vestiges of democratic institutions were never entirely destroyed, resulting in the façade of Western style institutions such as parliaments, which effectively just rubber-stamped decisions made by rulers, and constitutions, to which adherence by authorities was limited or non-existent. Parliaments were still elected, but their meetings occurred only a few days per year, only to legitimize politburo decisions, and so little attention

7968-477: Was Albania , where leader Enver Hoxha immediately changed course from favoring Yugoslavia to opposing it. In Poland , leader Władysław Gomułka , who had previously made pro-Yugoslav statements, was deposed as party secretary-general in early September 1948 and subsequently jailed. In Bulgaria , when it appeared that Traicho Kostov, who was not a Moscow cadre, was next in line for leadership, in June 1949, Stalin ordered Kostov's arrest, followed soon thereafter by

8064-589: Was added in a second secret protocol in September 1939. The Soviet Union had invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland. During the Occupation of East Poland by the Soviet Union , the Soviets liquidated the Polish state, and a German-Soviet meeting addressed

8160-634: Was caused, in part, by early local elections of October 1946 in which the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) was rejected in favor of the Social Democratic Party, which had gained two and a half times more votes than the SED. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began a massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other supplies. The Soviets mounted

8256-421: Was convinced by Churchill and Roosevelt not to dismember Germany. Stalin stated that the Soviet Union would keep the territory of eastern Poland they had already taken via invasion in 1939 with some exceptions , and wanted a pro-Soviet Polish government in power in what would remain of Poland. After resistance by Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin promised a re-organization of the current pro-Soviet government on

8352-521: Was eager to accept the US aid; the Polish government had a similar attitude, and this was of great concern to the Soviets. In one of the clearest signs of Soviet control over the region up to that point, the Czechoslovakian foreign minister, Jan Masaryk , was summoned to Moscow and berated by Stalin for considering joining the Marshall Plan. Polish Prime minister Józef Cyrankiewicz was rewarded for

8448-523: Was effectively halted in the early 1950s, with the Soviet approach to controlling national movement emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc. However, in East Germany , taking advantage of the Inner German border between occupied zones, hundreds of thousands fled to West Germany, with figures totaling 197,000 in 1950, 165,000 in 1951, 182,000 in 1952 and 331,000 in 1953. One reason for

8544-444: Was effectively impossible. This later included internal passport controls , which when combined with individual city Propiska ("place of residence") permits, and internal freedom of movement restrictions often called the 101st kilometre , greatly restricted mobility within even small areas of the Soviet Union. After the creation of the Eastern Bloc, emigration out of the newly occupied countries, except under limited circumstances,

8640-582: Was frequently infiltrated by Soviet intelligence and security agencies, such as the NKVD and GRU . TASS had affiliates in 14 Soviet republics, including the Lithuanian SSR , Latvian SSR , Estonian SSR , Moldavian SSR . Ukrainian SSR and Byelorussian SSR . Western countries invested heavily in powerful transmitters which enabled services such as the BBC , VOA and Radio Free Europe (RFE) to be heard in

8736-530: Was given a show trial in 2009. Chinese writer and dissident Ma Jian argued that Gu Kailai , the wife of purged Communist Chinese leader Bo Xilai , was given a show trial in 2012. As early as 1922, Lenin advocated staging several "model trials" ("показательный процесс", literally "demonstrative trial", "a process showing an example") in Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine . Show trials became common during Joseph Stalin 's political repressions, such as

8832-541: Was often called the " Second World ", whereas the term " First World " referred to the Western Bloc and " Third World " referred to the non-aligned countries that were mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America but notably also included former pre-1948 Soviet ally Yugoslavia , which was located in Europe. In Western Europe , the term Eastern Bloc generally referred to the USSR and Central and Eastern European countries in

8928-608: Was often used interchangeably with the term Second World . This broadest usage of the term would include not only Maoist China and Cambodia , but also short-lived Soviet satellites such as the Second East Turkestan Republic (1944–1949), the People's Republic of Azerbaijan (1945–1946) and the Republic of Mahabad (1946), as well as the Marxist–Leninist states straddling the Second and Third Worlds before

9024-460: Was paid to them that some of those serving were actually dead, and officials would openly state that they would seat members who had lost elections. The first or General Secretary of the central committee in each communist party was the most powerful figure in each regime. The party over which the politburo held sway was not a mass party but, conforming with Leninist tradition, a smaller selective party of between three and fourteen percent of

9120-945: Was sentenced to death, along with three co-defendants (Jan Buchal, Oldřich Pecl, and Záviš Kalandra ), on 8 June 1950. Many prominent figures in the West, notably Albert Einstein , Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt , petitioned for her life, but the sentences were confirmed. She was executed by hanging in Prague's Pankrác Prison on 27 June 1950. The trials then turned to the communist party itself ( Slánský trial ). In November 1952 Rudolf Slánský and 13 other high-ranking Communist bureaucrats (Bedřich Geminder, Ludvík Frejka, Josef Frank, Vladimír Clementis , Bedřich Reicin , Karel Šváb, Rudolf Margolius , Otto Šling , André Simone , Artur London , Vavro Hajdů and Evžen Löbl), 10 of whom were Jews, were arrested and charged with being Titoists and Zionists , official USSR rhetoric having turned against Zionism . Party rhetoric asserted that Slánský

9216-677: Was spying as part of an international western capitalist conspiracy to undermine socialism and that punishing him would avenge the Nazi murders of Czech communists Jan Šverma and Julius Fučík during World War II. The trial of the 14 national leaders began on 20 November 1952, in the Senate of the State Court, with the prosecutor being Josef Urválek . It lasted eight days. It was notable for its strong anti-Semitic overtones. All were found guilty, with three being sentenced to life imprisonment while

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