In Central and Eastern Europe, roughly ninety million people live in a political setting labeled as “People's Democracy.” The area constitutes a bloc which stretches from the Elbe and the Baltic to the Black Sea and includes six countries: Poland, Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria. According to official Communist interpretation, these countries are in a phase of transition toward socialism; they have not yet attained the “summit” of development as represented by the Soviet Union. While the People's Democracies are traveling along the road to the form of organization of society established by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the period of time within which complete adoption of the Soviet system is to be achieved has not been defined.