<<Using that model western europe was a neo-colony of the US (NATO) and East Europe was a neo-colony of the Soviet Union.
<<I don't think it quite worked like that. >>
No, it didn't. The U.S. poured Marshall Plan aid into the civilian economies of Western Europe and helped them build their armed forces to the point where they could contribute their share (or less) to the "containment" of the U.S.S.R. Europe at that point in time was a customer for American factory output, not a source of raw materials or labour for America's domestic economy. the situation in Western Europe after the War was nothing at all like neo-colonialism. These were proud, independent countries that functioned as genuine Cold War allies, with their own elected governments which the U.S. had little need to manipulate after the immediate post-war years, when it did contribute to the crushing of the local Communists. Basically, these countries had strong upper-class resources of their own for crushing the strength of workers' and farmers' unions in defence of their own class status.
The situation in Eastern Europe was more like the neo-colonialism that I described, except that most of these countries were former allies of Adolf Hitler, had willingly participated in Hitler's invasion of the U.S.S.R. and participated in almost all of the Nazi atrocities there, including of course the massacre of the Jews and gypsies. A lot of destruction and massive loss of human life was caused to the U.S.S.R. by Hitler and his allies, so the Russians were owed big-time reparations and were not too scrupulous in how they got them. However, with the installation of socialist governments in the conquered Eastern European nations, the system became more like the one in Western Europe, socialist states in a mutual defence pact, although the flow of natural resources to the U.S.S.R. did continued.
