Eastern Bloc

Cultural

The name applied to the former communist states of eastern Europe, including Yugoslavia and Albania, as well as the countries of the Warsaw Pact. (See also European Union and Iron Curtain.)

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Tens of thousands left to work in eastern bloc countries like Poland, East Germany and Hungary.

From BBC • Jan. 5, 2025

During the Cold War, eastern bloc countries sought to prevent their citizens from having access to American consumer goods.

From Slate • Jan. 21, 2020

During Brezhnev’s tenure as the Soviet premier, another eastern bloc nation tried unsuccessfully to break away from Soviet domination: Czechoslovakia.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2020

From the 1990s on, he has attributed the emergence of kleptocracy and hypernationalism in the former eastern bloc to the west’s lack of vision and political will during this crucial moment.

From The Guardian • Jul. 6, 2018

Enlargement has been the centerpiece of European thinking ever since the meltdown of the eastern bloc.

From The Belgian Curtain Europe after Communism by Vaknin, Samuel

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023