[3] In 1922, after the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, both the Ukrainian SSR and the Russian SFSR issued general rules for travel that foreclosed virtually all departures, making legal emigration all but impossible.

[4] In 1929 even more strict controls were introduced, decreeing that any Soviet official serving abroad who went over "to the camp of the enemies of the working class and the peasants" and refused to return would be executed within twenty-four hours of being apprehended.

[17] The defining characteristic of communism implemented in the Eastern Bloc was the unique symbiosis of the state with society and the economy, resulting in politics and economics losing their distinctive features as autonomous and distinguishable spheres.

[25] Initially, Stalin directed systems that rejected Western institutional characteristics of market economies, democratic governance (dubbed "bourgeois democracy" in Soviet parlance) and the rule of law subduing discretional intervention by the state.

[29] Furthermore, the Eastern Bloc experienced economic mis-development by central planners resulting in those countries following a path of extensive rather than intensive development, and lagged far behind their western European counterparts in per capita Gross Domestic Product.

[30] Empty shelves in shops even in East Germany provided an open reminder of the inaccuracy of propaganda regarding purported magnificent and uninterrupted economic progress.

[61][failed verification – see discussion] By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc (along with China, Mongolia and North Korea),[62] with heavy restrictions preventing such emigration.

[48] Yuri Andropov, then the CPSU Director on Relations with Communist and Workers Parties of Socialist Countries wrote an urgent letter, on 28 August 1958, to the Central Committee about the significant 50% increase in the number of East German intelligentsia among the refugees.

[31] The farmers that remained were disinclined to do more than produce for their own needs because fixed procurement prices meant little profit, and conspicuous production invited hasty inclusion in a collective or state farm.

[70] The brain drain of professionals had become so damaging to the political credibility and economic viability of East Germany that the re-securing of the Soviet imperial frontier was imperative.

[73] Orderly planning had become almost impossible in East Germany, with entire towns existing without physicians, crops going unharvested and fifty-five-year-olds put to work running street cars.

[73] With fears of drastic action in Berlin, on 15 July 1961 Ulbricht called a rare press conference, insisting that "no one has any intention of building a wall," but made clear that "the outflow has to stop.

[90] Walter Freidrich, director of the Leipzig Institute, complained that "shortcomings and weaknesses in our own country (e.g., problems with supply of consumer goods and spare parts; media policy; rose tinted perspectives; real democratic participation, etc) are coming increasingly into focus and subjected to sharper criticisms.

[65] Instead, they introduced a long series of bureaucratic approvals an applicant must obtain beyond the passport office—including local police, employers and the state housing commission—with no time limit set for action.

[80] Like in the Soviet Union, attempting to leave without permissions to a non-Eastern Bloc state was punishable as treason, with Albania and Romania invoking the death penalty for such offenses.

[58] The Helsinki Accords of 1975 were an important Cold War-era agreement signed by most European countries, including those of the Eastern Bloc, the United States and Canada.

The "third basket" of the Helsinki Accords contained pledges to uphold rights to international travel, family contact and freedom of information, and to promote cultural exchanges.

[96] In East Germany, while the government downplayed the existence of this provision in the media, as potential emigrants came to slowly perceive that exit visas might be attainable to some, 7,200 first time applicants applied in the late 1970s.

[96] East Germany viewed the payments they received for the release not as ransom, but as compensation of the damage such individuals inflicted on the socialist system, as well as reimbursement for their costs of education.

[97] However, letting some leave legally set a dangerous precedent, including the long term threat of the general public strongly moving for a right to emigrate.

[96] In addition, while waiting, applicants were subject to open discrimination, faced workplace firing or demotion, were denied university access, and were forced to relinquish their passports resulting in the denial of travel rights even within their country of residence.

[97] Emigration restriction liberalisation in 1989 followed another flood of outmigration to West Germany during the Revolutions of 1989 indirectly through third countries—such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland—which accelerated the demise of the East German government when the closure of the borders precipitated demonstrations.

The first signs of major reform came in 1986 when Gorbachev launched a policy of glasnost (openness) in the Soviet Union, and emphasized the need for perestroika (economic restructuring).

Although some demonstrators were arrested, the threat of large-scale intervention by security forces never materialized, with SED leader Helmut Hackenberg and others not receiving precise orders for such action from a surprised East Berlin.

Faced with ongoing and increasing civil unrest, the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) deposed Honecker in mid-October, and replaced him with Egon Krenz.

In November 1989, Ceauşescu, then aged 71, was re-elected for another five years as leader of the Romanian Communist Party, signaling that he intended to ride out the anti-Communist uprisings sweeping the rest of Eastern Europe.

As Ceauşescu prepared to go on a state visit to Iran, on 16 December 1989, his Securitate ordered the arrest and exile of a local Hungarian-speaking Calvinist minister, László Tőkés, for sermons offending the regime.

In the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, a new package of regulations went into effect on 3 July 1990 entitling all Albanians over the age of 16 to own a passport for foreign travel.

Regarding the reasoning for such restrictions, a propaganda booklet published by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1955 for the use of party agitators outlined the seriousness of 'flight from the republic', stating "leaving the GDR is an act of political and moral backwardness and depravity", and "workers throughout Germany will demand punishment for those who today leave the German Democratic Republic, the strong bastion of the fight for peace, to serve the deadly enemy of the German people, the imperialists and militarists".

Undersecretary General Arkady Shevchenko, chess grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi, ballet stars Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, and Alexander Godunov.