This book covers various aspects of the social history of politics on both sides of the Iron Curtain in the period 1945 to 1956. The contributors come from a range of countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and the United Kingdom) and comprise a mixture of established historians and younger scholars engaged in pioneering research. The chosen time-frame saw most of the decisive developments which set the pattern for the remaining Cold War period and is therefore of key importance for any student of this topic.