Emigration Policy of the East Central European State Socialist Regimes, 1945–1989

The paper compares the emigration policies of East-Central European states from 1945 to 1989, shedding light on some—but by no means all—aspects of Soviet-type emigration policies. These include the selectivity and types of legal emigration, the relationship between emigration and citizenship policies, and the scope of illegal emigration and its punishment. Although the emigration policies of the Soviet Bloc were quite similar during the Stalin era, differences gradually emerged after 1953. The manifestations and causes of this process will also be summarized. The study is based on archival research for Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and on secondary sources for the other countries of the Eastern Bloc.