In some contexts it also refers to other countries in the Soviet sphere of influence during the Cold War — such as North Korea ( especially in the years surrounding the Korean War ) and Cuba ( particularly after it joined the Comecon ).

Bulgaria was viewed in the West as a satellite state of the Soviet Union, part of Comecon and an Eastern Bloc country, and a Soviet ally during the Cold War, a member of the Warsaw Pact.

After World War II, Bulgaria followed the Soviet model of economic development more closely than any other East Bloc country with becoming one of the first members of Comecon ; the new regime shifted the economy from mainly agrarian type towards industrial economy and much of the labour force from the countryside to the city, providing workers for new large-scale industrial complexes.

After the Second World War, its location happened to lie within the borders of East Germany, whereupon it became one of the most important trade fairs of Comecon and was traditionally a meeting place for businessmen and politicians from both sides of the Iron Curtain.

The Eastern leaders retaliated against these steps by integrating the economies of their nations in Comecon, their version of the Marshall Plan ; exploding the first Soviet atomic device in 1949 ; signing an alliance with People's Republic of China in February 1950 ; and forming the Warsaw Pact, Eastern Europe's counterpart to NATO, in 1955.

In the mid-20th century, the city's trade fair assumed renewed importance as a point of contact with the Comecon Eastern Europe economic bloc, of which East Germany was a member.

In 1949, the Comecon ( Council for Mutual Economic Aid ) was set up, linking the Eastern bloc countries economically.

The Comecon was the Eastern Bloc's reply to the formation of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation in non-communist Europe.

The country belonged to the Eastern Bloc and was a member of the Warsaw Pact and of Comecon.

In addition, in the 1970s Comecon initiated several joint projects, such as the construction of a major natural gas pipeline from the Soviet Union to Eastern Europe and of large nuclear power plants in the Soviet Union.

In the 1980s, Czechoslovakia was — except for the Soviet Union — Eastern Europe's only builder of heavy-duty nuclear power equipment and was a joint supplier of such products to other Comecon members.

With the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, Comecon ceased to exist on June 28, 1991.

Any hard goods supplied to Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union were sold essentially at a discount price, as Comecon prices lagged behind, and were lower than those of the world market.

Whilst other far-left parties, especially those regarding themselves as Trotskyist, in the UK welcomed the demise of the Eastern Bloc and then of the Soviet Union the RCG argued that these events were counterrevolutionary and constituted a setback in the class struggle internationally because many national liberation movements and socialist states in the Third World were supported by the Soviet Union and the Comecon.

As the Soviet Bloc in the face of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( SEV, Comecon ), the Warsaw Pact Organization and the USSR itself collapsed, by 1992 Bulgaria entered a period of transition from socialism to a free market economy and democracy.

It was undertaken by all East European Comecon countries and the Soviet Union at an estimated cost ranging from the equivalent of US $ 5 billion to US $ 6 billion, or about half of the cost of all Comecon projects under the Concerted Plan.

A monetary figure for this assistance was difficult to estimate, although a June 1986 Czechoslovak source valued the exchange between Comecon and developing countries at 34 billion rubles per year, the equivalent of US $ 44. 2 billion.

It was one of the founding members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact and Comecon, and it was the first central European country to withdraw from those organizations, now defunct.

The 3 / 180 ° and 5 / 180 ° connectors were originally standardized and widely used in Germany, Czech republic, and, later, in some other western European countries ( for example the Netherlands, UK, Sweden ) USSR, Comecon countries for interconnecting analog audio equipment, for example a stereo tape recorder to a stereo amplifier or preamplifier, using the five pins for the four signal connections plus ground.

Other East European Comecon countries, such as Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, were also of considerable importance ( seventh and ninth in rank, respectively ).

From 1981 to 1985, the European countries of Comecon attempted to promote the faster growth of exports over imports and sought to strengthen intraregional trade, build up an increased trade surplus, and decrease indebtedness to Western countries.

The liquidity shortage in the early 1980s forced the European Comecon countries to work to strengthen the importance of intraregional trade.

Experience in the early 1980s showed that turning to the West and Japan for technological advancement put Comecon in a very dangerous position because it pulled the East European members further away from the Soviet Union and threatened to leave the entire organization at the mercy of the West.

Soviet-initiated Comecon support for the Council's three least-developed members, Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam, benefited them, but the burden on the six East European Comecon members had been most unwelcome.

At the November 1986 Comecon session in Bucharest, the East European members " outlined measures to further improve cooperation with Vietnam, Cuba, and Mongolia with a view to developing the main sectors of these countries ' national economies ".

In February 1949, Albania gained membership in the communist bloc's organization for coordinating economic planning, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( Comecon ).

Albania joins Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( Comecon ); all foreign trade conducted with member

Czechoslovakia became a satellite state of the Soviet Union ; it was a founding member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( Comecon ) in 1949 and of the Warsaw Pact in 1955.

It was abetted through formal alliances, such as the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( Comecon ) and the Warsaw Pact, and through direct intervention, in the 1968 invasion.

The founding of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( also referred to as Comecon, CMEA, CEMA, or the Council ) dates from a January 1949 communiqué agreed upon by the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania in Moscow.

The controversy over supranational planning led to a compromise in the form of the 1971 Comprehensive Program for the Further Extension and Improvement of Cooperation and the Further Development of Socialist Economic Integration, which laid the guidelines for Comecon activity through 1990.

The Comprehensive Program for Socialist Economic Integration was set up in 1971, and laid the guidelines for Comecon activity until 1990.

The " Council for Mutual Economic Assistance " ( Comecon ) was an economic organization of communist states, created in 1949, and dissolved in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The official hierarchy of Comecon consisted of the Session of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the Executive Committee of the Council, the Secretariat of the Council, four council committees, twenty-four standing commissions, six interstate conferences, two scientific institutes, and several associated organizations:

* Comecon ( the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance )

File: Flag of Comecon. svg | Flag of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( Comecon )

These attempts failed, because of the resistance of the Economic Community of Warsaw Pact states, Comecon.

Active participant in Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( Comecon ), Warsaw Pact, UN and its specialized agencies, and Non-Aligned Movement ; signatory of conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

On 18 December 1958, the 10th session of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( Comecon ), held in Prague, adopted a decision and an agreement was signed on construction of a trunk crude oil pipeline from the USSR into Poland, Czechoslovakia, GDR and Hungary.

Specific functional responsibilities of the Council of Ministers included directing and planning the national economy ; solving problems growing out of membership in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( Comecon — see Appendix B ); coordinating and implementing social policy decisions that have been agreed upon with the support and concurrence of the Free German Trade Union Federation ( Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund -- FDGB ); instructing and controlling subordinate levels of government, i. e., the councils at district, county, and community levels that implemented the laws and decisions of the central government ; improving the functioning of the system of " democratic centralism " within the state apparatus ; and carrying out the basic foreign policy principles of the socialist state.

After Vietnam joined the Soviet-dominated Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation ( Comecon ) and signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union in 1978, China branded Vietnam the " Cuba of the East " and called the treaty a military alliance.