Comecon

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, often abbreviated as Comecon ( KOM-ik-ON) or CMEA, was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world. The descriptive term was often applied to all multilateral activities involving members of the organization, rather than being restricted to the direct functions of Comecon and its organs. This usage was sometimes extended as well to bilateral relations among members because in the system of communist international economic relations, multilateral accords—typically of a general nature—tended to be implemented through a set of more detailed, bilateral agreements. Comecon was the Eastern Bloc's response to the formation in Western Europe of the Marshall Plan and the OEEC, which later became the OECD.