Soviet Empire
![The USSR is seen in red, while states in light pink were satellites. Yugoslavia, a communist state that was a Soviet ally until 1948, is marked in grey. Albania, a communist state which ceased being allied to the Soviet Union in the '60s after the Sino-soviet split, is marked in orange.](/Images/godic/202502/01/EasternBloc_BasicMembersOnly.svg5519.png")
![States that had communist governments in red, and states that the USSR believed at one point to be](/Images/godic/202502/01/Communist_Block.svg5519.png")
![Communist state alignments in 1980: pro-Soviet (red); pro-Chinese (yellow); and the non-aligned North Korea and Yugoslavia (black). Somalia had been pro-Soviet until 1977. Cambodia (Kampuchea) had been pro-China until 1979.](/Images/godic/202502/01/Sino-Soviet_split_1980.svg5519.png")
![Remains of the](/Images/godic/202502/01/DNV_opona5520.jpg")
The informal term "Soviet Empire" is used by critics of the Soviet Union and Russian nationalists to refer to that country's perceived imperialist foreign policy during the Cold War. The nations said to be part of the "Soviet Empire" were officially independent countries with separate governments that set their own policies (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the country), but those policies had to remain within certain limits decided by the Soviet Union and enforced by threat of intervention by the Warsaw Pact (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Poland 1980). Countries in this situation are often called satellite states.