The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), commonly known in English as East Germany) was created as a socialist republic on 7 October 1949 and began to institute a government based on that of the Soviet Union. The equivalent of the Communist Party in East Germany was the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, SED), which along with other parties, was part of the National Front of Democratic Germany. It was created in 1946 through the merger of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany. Following German reunification, the SED was renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
