ABSTRACT
The East European political system is essentially the Soviet political system. It was transplanted after World War II—some thirty years after the October Revolution (in other words, after the system had been perfected in the USSR), by the Soviet Army, Soviet agents, or by-products of the Soviet political system. The first generation of East European leaders were by-products. Many of them spent years and even decades in Moscow, and some, such as Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria), even became a part of the Soviet political apparatus. All the characteristics of the East European partiocracy, and above all the eminent distinction between power and authority, or rather between format and substance, originated in the USSR and were successfully transplanted in Eastern Europe. This is a self-evident fact.
