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.