Soviet Bloc

Cultural  

1. The communist nations closely allied with the Soviet Union, including Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, whose foreign policies depended on those of the former Soviet Union. It did not include communist nations with independent foreign policies, such as China, Yugoslavia, and Albania. The Soviet Union used its military force several times in the Soviet Bloc to ensure that the countries' governments followed Soviet preferences: in East Germany in 1953, in Hungary and Poland in 1956, and in Czechoslovakia in 1968, for example. (See Warsaw Pact.)

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Example Sentences

The case against him seemed damning when a wiretap captured a KGB officer instructing Ogorodnikova to lure Miller to Warsaw, which was part of the Soviet Bloc.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 23, 2025

It has been stationed near the Czech border, close to the former frontier with the Soviet Bloc, since 1960.

From New York Times • Jan. 24, 2023

They are the latest in a series of highly touted changes adopted over the past 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc stripped Cuba of its most important sources of aid and trade.

From Seattle Times • Aug. 25, 2022

Francis likened relations with Beijing to the "small steps" policy carried out by Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, a renowned Vatican diplomat, with Soviet Bloc countries in Eastern Europe, staring in the 1960s.

From Reuters • Sep. 1, 2021

The publics of the former Soviet Bloc place surprisingly great emphasis on the environment, for instance - hitherto thought to be a preoccupation of their more affluent neighbours to the west.

From The Belgian Curtain Europe after Communism by Vaknin, Samuel