DIED. Comecon, 42, the Soviet-led trading bloc that once coordinated communist economies around the world; of irrelevance; in a 15-minute meeting of the nine member states; in Budapest. Comecon's demise was brought about by the collapse of communism in what used to be the Soviet Union's East European satellite states. Attempts to keep the organization up to date could not keep pace with the rapid transition to free-market economies.