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In recent years, the transformation of totalitarian societies into democracies has become a central goal of American foreign policy. Yet despite the importance of "democratization," very little attention has been paid to the opposite problem: Namely, the question of how small groups of people managed to impose totalitarianism on their societies in the first place. With this in mind, I propose to write a history of the imposition of Soviet communism on central Europe in the years between 1945 and 1956. I will focus on three countries: Poland, Hungary and East Germany. The book, intended for a popular as well as a scholarly audience, will focus both on repression -- the creation of the secret police, the use of violence -- and on the transformation of schools, media and the arts for propaganda purposes. Past histories of the region have often focused on the origins of the Cold War; this book will explore social and psychological changes within the societies themselves.