 Complete the following phrase:  After the war, Stalin sought to secure the Soviet Unions western border by installing communist-dominated regimes under Soviet influence in bordering countries. During and in the years immediately after the war, the Soviet Union annexed several countries as Soviet Socialist Republics within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Many of these were originally countries effectively ceded to it by Nazi Germany in the MolotovRibbentrop Pact, before Germany 