Changes

==Further changes introduced: transformations billed as reforms==

The economies of the Eastern Bloc countries mirrored and closely copied Soviet’s models and command economy lines. Stalin felt that socioeconomic transformations were 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. Moscow put its excellent trained cadres into all crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation. Elimination of the bourgeoisie’s social and financial power by expropriation of land and industrial property was Stalin’s exclusive directive and absolute priority.

Certainly, the Soviet rule publicly billed these measures altogether as power reforms rather than socioeconomic transformations. Throughout the Eastern Bloc “societal organizations” such as trade unions and associations representing various social, professional and other groups, were monopolized by a single organization for each category. Furthermore, loyal Stalinist cadres dominated and managed all those organizations, which in turn allowed no competition at all.

==Asset relocation and international trade changes, bans and restrictions==

At the same time, at the war’s end the Soviet Union adopted a “plunder policy” of physically transporting and relocating east European industrial assets to the Soviet Union. Eastern Bloc states were required to provide various resources such as coal, industrial equipment, technology, rolling stock etc. to reconstruct the Soviet Union. In addition, the Soviets re-organized enterprises as joint-stock companies in which the Soviets possessed the controlling interest. Using that control vehicle, several enterprises were required to sell products at below world prices to the Soviets.

==Key restrictions introduced: civil, media, speech, information and travelling restrictions==

Communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc viewed marginal groups of opposition intellectuals as a potential threat because of the basis underlying Communist power therein. The Block considered the suppression of any dissidence and opposition a central prerequisite to retain its power, in spite of the enormous expenses required in order to keep certain countries population under secret surveillance. Following a totalitarian initial phase, a post-totalitarian period followed the death of Stalin in which the primary method of Communist rule shifted from mass terror to selective key repression, along with ideological and sociopolitical strategies of legitimation and securing of loyalty. <ref>Political and civil restrictions: purges and show trials - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Bloc_politics</ref>A large number of people were executed or died in custody during the newly established communist People's Republics existence, most during the Stalinist era of the 1950s. While judicial executions between 1945 and 1964 numbered several thousand, deaths in custody were estimated in the hundreds of thousands and even totaled millions. Many more were imprisoned for political, economical or other reasons and suffered abuse, torture and often death in specially established Labour Camps.