Soviet Bloc

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.)