Publisher's Synopsis
This book provides a study of communist Europe from situation that emerged directly from the great-power system of the 19th century to the dissolution of the 40-year dictatorships at the end of the 1980s. The central theme of the book is the progressive drawing apart of Eastern Europe from the West through the course of the 20th century. It argues that the separation of the divergence of the two areas cannot be attributed to the advance of the Red Army in 1945. There already existed at this stage in Europe two different worlds.
