Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Socialist Bloc, Workers' Bloc, etc. refers to a collection of socialist states which emerged in Eastern Europe following their liberation in the Second World War (1939–1945). The countries of the socialist camp prior to 1956 established people's democratic systems in which the proletariat held political power.
After 1956, the socialist states (with the exception of the People's Republic of Albania) deviated from socialist construction and adopted revisionism following the death of Joseph Stalin and rise to power of Nikita Khrushchev. At that point, the countries of the Eastern Bloc rapidly became subjugated to Soviet social-imperialism, represented in organizations such as the Warsaw Pact and COMECON.