title: Central America
abstract: From the end of the Second World War and the Yalta Agreement of 1945, Central and Eastern Europe fell – or, in the case of the Soviet Union itself, remained – under communist rule and was thus subject to an authoritarian system of government. Various popular uprisings or reform movements were crushed by Soviet military intervention (East Germany 1953, Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968), some states removed themselves – partly or wholly – from Soviet influence (Yugoslavia, Albania and Romania)