ABSTRACT
Starting in Eastern Europe after 1945, states in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America joined the communist bloc and took sides in the global conflict between capitalism and communism. The populations of Eastern Europe appear to have been at best indifferent to capitalism, being in a region of impoverishment and ethnic tensions. In place of the Soviet model of building socialism and communism based on collectivization, industrialization and central planning, the Yugoslavs developed a more decentralized model, giving much greater powers to the six republics, and instituted a socialist market economy. Communism in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia came about as a result of the national-liberation struggle against the occupying imperialist powers. Gradually, nationalism began to displace communism. Communism was also caught up in postmodernisms revolt against grand narratives: the whole story no longer seemed credible or relevant in the West and had failed to deliver in the East. The communist era was over.
