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elmonoenano t1_jcvfor2 wrote

Reply to comment by DsXano in Weekly History Questions Thread. by AutoModerator

It was also supposed to create an economic sphere to rival the common market in western Europe. It didn't really work well at that. But part of the reason for it was so that the USSR could offer something in place of the Marshall plan money that the USSR was forcing those countries to turn down.
Tony Judt's book, Postwar, does a good job of covering it, but it covers pretty much everything during the postwar period so it's a pretty weighty tome. But it's one of the best history books I've ever read.

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Eminence_grizzly t1_jd23899 wrote

I think the pact itself was no more than a formality. The Russians de facto controlled all those countries so they decided to write that fact down somehow. Some kind of a cargo cult mimicking NATO, I'd say.

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