In Western usage, the term has seldom been applied to states other than those in the Soviet orbit.

By the end of 1947, Bulgaria was firmly in the Soviet orbit.

He soon involved himself in efforts to open the countries of the Soviet orbit, and the Soviet Union itself, to student exchanges.

How to explain the exodus from the Soviet orbit of a generation so thoroughly ready for Soviet life?

These two states are more judiciously classed within the Soviet orbit than within her empire.

Or perhaps he was merely expressing caution about Romania's chances of escaping from the Soviet orbit.

The bitterly poor Asian republics, farthest from the West by geography and culture, seem destined to remain in the Soviet orbit.

That gave Washington a strong stake in keeping Tito's Yugoslavia outside the Soviet orbit.

He later witnessed a similar indifference when the West consigned the freedom of postwar Poland into the Soviet orbit.

How could Poland have stayed outside the Soviet orbit, he asks, given the brute facts of size and geography?