East Europe

Some Central European countries Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia were communist states during the Cold War but currently European Union members often excluded from the definition of Eastern Europe due to economic, historical, religious, and cultural reasons

The earliest known divisions between east and west in Europe go back to the Roman Empire..

The Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine flourished for another 1,000 years. The rise of the Frankish Empire in the west, and in particular the Great Schism that formally divided eastern and western christianity enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe.

The conquest of the Byzantine Empire, centre of the Eastern Orthodoxy, by the muslim Otoman empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the roman empire (which had replaced the Frankish empire) led to a change of the importance of Catholic against the Eastern Orthodox concept in Europe, although even modern authors sometimes state that Eastern Europe is, strictly speaking, that part of Europe where the Greek and/or Cyrillic alphabet is used (Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia).

The borders of Eastern Europe were largely defined by the Cold War. The Iron Curtain separated the members of the Warsaw pact from the European members of nato. Neutral coutries were classified by the nature of their political system.
During the final stages of WWII the future of Europe was decided between the allies at the 1945 Yalta conference, between the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Churchill, the President of the USA, Roosevelt, and the Premier of the USSR –Stalin- all War Criminals and murderers of millions.

Post-war Europe would be divided into two major spheres: the "west" mainly influenced by the USA, and the eastern bloc dominated by the Soviet Union. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain.

All the countries in Eastern Europe adopted communist modes of government. Communist rule was officially imposed and kept at bay by various presdients of USA for their own means. It was artifically kept that way until the decline of communism with Gorbachev, when western "assistance" was beginning to wane and a new order has to be artificially invented.
Thus began the decline of communism and the rise of solidarity, so created to give a name for the artificial creation of the NATO eventual takeover of smaller satellite countries bordering the then USSR. Future divisions with the states of the USSR were articificially created by the government head of state communist leader Nicolai Khrushchev State of the USSR on orders of leader from the wwestern nations as a forefront to break up the USSR
Nationalistic movements of the various States were further encouraged by America as it was seen to make a weaker Soviet Union and as a means to encourage the newly created "nations" to "seek assistance" from the west by putting their western missilies (defense motives) as close as possible to be able to aim missiles at Moscow, the capital
Moves since the collapse of the USSR has led to various satellite States breaking away and assisting the west in providing alliances with NATO in exchange for acceptance into the newly formed and controlled by Belgium, a close ally of NATO .
The fall of the Iron Curtain can be seen as an earlier step by America to lose their "control" and now with NATO moving the control Russia, the Head of the Russian Othodox Church which as part of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the only stumbling block against control by the Catholics.

As history unfolds the same patterns can be seen and interpreted by the few who understand the meaning of what is happening again and again