• This report was produced for the Foreign Office by someone living in Czechoslovakia in 1956.
  
• The report is based on a booklet published by the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia. The booklet sets out the aims of Communist government in Czechoslovakia. The report sums up what was said in the booklet.
  
• The 'People's Democracies' means the Eastern European states ruled by Communism and allied to the USSR.
  
• In Stalin's time (up to 1953), the economies of all these states were planned and organised by COMECON in Moscow. This organisation decided how much each country should produce of goods like food, coal, steel etc. Many critics of COMECON said that all the industries of Eastern Europe were simply producing for the benefit of the USSR.
  
• At the time of the report (and booklet) Khrushchev had just emerged as the new Soviet leader. He favoured economic reform and improved relations with the West, Yugoslavia and China.