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| Central
Europe, January 1950 - December 1959 |
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| 09.1951 | CS | Rudolf Slansky is replaced by Klement Gottwald as first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, then arrested. |
| 23.01.1952 | PL | New Polish constitution confirms the country to be a 'People's Republic'. |
| 11.1952 | CS | Rudolf Slansky and ten others are sentenced to death and hanged. |
| 03.1953 | DDR | The height of emigration from the DDR: 59 000 leave this month. |
| 05.3.1953 | Stalin's death. He is replaced as party secretary by Nikita Krushchev. | |
| 30.05.1953 | CS | In Plzeņ and other Czechoslovak towns, police disperse demonstrations against price rises. |
| 05.1953 | DDR | Ration cards are withdrawn from a selected section of the DDR population and prices are increased amidst food shortages. Subsequent production quota increases cause work stoppages and some strikes in June. |
| 06.1953 | DDR | SED describes DDR quota increases as "justified". |
| 13.06.1953 | DDR | Workers' Uprising in East Berlin, to protest against government demands to increase productivity. Demands include free elections. 260 Soviet tanks quell riots here and in other cities. 7 die. |
| 25.09.1953 | PL | Cardinal Wyszynski is arrested and imprisoned in Poland. |
| 04.1955 | H | Rakosci denounces Nagy and he is expelled from the Hungarian CP. |
| 11-
14.05.1955 |
WTO | The Soviet Union and European allies sign the Mutual Assistance Treaty, forming the Warsaw Treaty Organisation. |
| 07.06.1955 | DDR | FRG and USSR agree to normalise relations. |
| 02.1956 | Krushchev's speech to closed session of the XX Congress of the CPSU denounces Stalin and his methods, the 'personality cult and its consequences'. | |
| 06.1956 | PL | Strikes commencing in Poznįn spread to other Polish factories. The army is used to quell riots, leading to many deaths. |
| 21.10.1956 | PL | Gomu³ka is rehabilitated and becomes the First Secretary of the Communist Party in Poland. |
| 30.10.1956 | Soviet Union recognises the validity of separate national roads to socialism, faced with events in Poland. | |
| 04.11.1956 | H | Second and final Soviet intervention in Hungary. |
| 1957 | DDR | Inner-German travel falls to 2.7m visits to the East. Laws in the DDR are changed so that each exit out of the DDR is "Republikflucht" - flight from the Republic - carrying up to three years imprisonment. |
| 06.1958 | H | Nagy is sentenced to death and executed for his role in losing Soviet control over Budapest. |
| 07.1958 | DDR | V Party conference of the SED (DDR) decides on complete collectivisation. Causes a large wave of emigration to the West. |
| 1959 | DDR | A mere 900 000 visits from FRG to the DDR. Refugee numbers rise dramatically after Krushchev's Berlin ultimatum. 143 917 citizens of the DDR seek refuge in West Berlin. |
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