BY THE YEAR 1950 or 1951, it was no longer possible to identify anything so coherent as a political opposition anywhere in Eastern Europe. The public sphere had been cleansed so thoroughly that visitor to Warsaw -- or to Prague, Sofia, Budapest and East Berlin -- in the early 1950s would have observed no dissent whatsoever. The press contained regime propaganda. Holidays were celebrated with regime parades. Conversations did not deviate from the official line if an outsider were present.
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