The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (, Sovet Ekonomicheskoy Vzaimopomoshchi, , SEV; English abbreviation COMECON, CMEA, or CAME) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world. The Comecon was the Eastern Bloc's reply to the formation of the Organization for European Economic Co-Operation in Western Europe.