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While fully acknowledging the multidimensional character of Soviet policy in Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989, it is above all within the ideological dimension that the specifics of this policy are to be found. The central argument of this paper is that the existence of Socialist regimes in Eastern Europe was one among many sources, if not the most crucial source of legitimacy for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and even within the USSR itself. It provides a key for understanding recurrent patterns of Soviet Policy towards East European communist countries during the Cold War. It accounts for the constant pursuit of the advent of new Communist States in the world in spite of growing costs and conflicts with many of them. The unexpected tolerance of the USSR during the serial collapse of the East European Communist regimes in 1989 is a clear indication of the search for new sources of legitimacy for Soviet power that dominated USSR in that era.