ABSTRACT
At an international level they were integrated into the Soviet sphere of influence. This was achieved through a network of bilateral treaties, Moscow being suspicious of multi-lateral agreements which might have allowed too much initiative to be shown away from the centre. A multi-lateral military organisation did not come into being until 1955 when the Warsaw Treaty Organisation (WTO) was established. This was partly in response to the inclusion of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in NATO and partly because the Soviets needed an excuse to retain Red Army units in Hungary after the signature of the Austrian state treaty; previously those units had been kept in Hungary officially to guard Soviet supply lines to Austr ia. The international economic organisation, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, Comecon, came into being in 1949 to coordinate eastern economic responses to the Marshall Plan. Until the mid-1950s, however, Comecon had little real effect, employing no more than nine officials in its Moscow headquarters, and after its activation as a living organism its function was not to create an east European equivalent of the common market but rather to coordinate the national economic plans of member states.
