The main, though not exclusive, answer to the question of why communism lasted so long in most European countries

lay in the political resolve and military power of the USSR.

Soviet leaders, until the late 1980s, were determined to sustain the communist systems they had created or helped to create.

To the extent that the regimes were deemed a foreign imposition, they were not sustainable

without Soviet support. That leads naturally to the question, why did communism survive in the

Soviet Union itself for over 70 years.

In the first place, there was the effectiveness of communist institutions as instruments

of social and political control.

The Communist Party had a presence in every substantial workplace, as did the security

police, although the latter were

less identifiable. In normal times, the party was strictly disciplined and had a clearly

defined hierarchy, with vast power concentrated in the apparatus of the Central Committee and

its inner leadership. The Department of Propaganda, of the Central Committee, its inner leadership. The Department of Propaganda of the Central Committee

oversaw television and radio, newspapers, journals,

and the book trait, and the propaganda work of both party and state institutions.

There was a systematic censorship with many layers.

Newspapers, journals, and books were subject to an official censorship.

But most of the censorship was done by editors and authors themselves.

They knew the limits of the possible and self-censored their work accordingly.

Some writers were skillful at stretching the limits of the possible,

but for the most part, the system worked to keep ideas dangerous to the system from being expressed,

or, if expressed, done so in such an asopian way,

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