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The Soviet Bloc or Eastern bloc was during the [[Cold War]] era the following [[Central Europe|Central European]] countries: [[Bulgaria]], [[Romania]], [[Hungary]], [[East Germany]], [[Poland]], the former [[USSR]], and the former [[Czechoslovakia]].  The Eastern Bloc is also often equated with the [[Warsaw Pact]].

[[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Former Yugoslavia]] (and its six former republics [[Serbia]], [[Montenegro]], [[Croatia]], [[Slovenia]], the [[Republic of Macedonia]], [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]]) was never part of the Eastern Bloc or Warsaw Pact.  Although it was a [[Marxist]] state, its leader, [[Josip Broz Tito|Marshall Tito]], came to power through his efforts as a partisan resistance leader during [[World War II]], and thus he was not installed by the Soviet [[Red Army]], and he owed the USSR no allegiance.  The Yugoslavian government established itself as a neutral state during the Cold War, and the country was one of the founders of the [[Non-Aligned Movement]].

Similarly, the Marxist [[Albania]]n government also came to power independently of the Red Army as a consequence of World War II.  Albania broke with the Soviet Union in the early [[1960s]] and aligned itself instead with the [[People's Republic of China]].

Nations within the Eastern Bloc were held in the Soviet orbit through military force.  Hungary was invaded by the USSR in [[1954]] after it had thrown off its pro-Soviet government; Czechoslovakia was similarly invaded in [[1968]] after a period of liberalization known as the [[Prague Spring]].  The latter invasion was codified in formal Soviet policy as the [[Brezhnev Doctrine]].

The Eastern bloc came to an end with the collapse of the pro-Soviet regimes in Eastern Europe in [[1989]].

[[de:Ostblock]]
[[nl:Oostblok]]
[[pl:Kraje socjalistyczne]]

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====References====
* Adapted from the [[Wikipedia]] article, "Eastern_bloc" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_bloc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_bloc], used under the [[GNU Free Documentation License]]