Warsaw Pact
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The Warsaw Treaty (1955–91) is the informal name for the mutual defense Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance commonly known as the Warsaw Pact subscribed by eight communist states in Eastern Europe, which was established at the USSR’s initiative and realized on 14 May 1955, in Warsaw, Poland.
In the Communist Bloc, the treaty was the military analogue of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the Communist (East) European economic community. The Warsaw Treaty was the Soviet Bloc’s military response to West Germany’s May 1955[1] integration to NATO Pact, per the Paris Pacts of 1954.[2][3][4]
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Nomenclature
In the West, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance; abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Elsewhere, in the member states, the Warsaw Treaty is known as:
- Albanian: Pakti i miqësisë, bashkpunimit dhe i ndihmës së përbashkët
- Bulgarian: Договор за дружба, сътрудничество и взаимопомощ
- Romanized Bulgarian: Dogovor za druzhba, satrudnichestvo i vzaimopomosht
- Czech: Smlouva o přátelství, spolupráci a vzájemné pomoci
- Slovak: Zmluva o priateľstve, spolupráci a vzájomnej pomoci
- German: Vertrag über Freundschaft, Zusammenarbeit und gegenseitigen Beistand
- Hungarian: Barátsági, együttműködési és kölcsönös segítségnyújtási szerződés
- Polish: Układ o Przyjaźni, Współpracy i Pomocy Wzajemnej
- Romanian: Tratatul de prietenie, cooperare şi asistenţă mutuală
- Russian: Договор о дружбе, сотрудничестве и взаимной помощи
- Romanized Russian: Dogovor o druzhbe, sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoy pomoshchi
Member States
The eight member countries of the Warsaw Treaty pledged the mutual defense of any member who is attacked; relations among the treaty signatories were based upon mutual non-interference in the internal affairs of the member countries, respect for national sovereignty, and political independence. The multi-national Communist armed forces’ sole joint action was the Warsaw Treaty involvement of Czechoslovakia crisis, in August 1968.
All member countries, with the exception of the People's Republic of Romania (later Socialist Republic of Romania), participated in the invasion. The founding signatories to the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance consisted of the following communist nations:
People's Republic of Albania (withheld support in 1961 because of the Sino-Soviet split, formally withdrew in 1968).svg.png)
People's Republic of Bulgaria
Czechoslovak Republic (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic since 1960)
German Democratic Republic (withdrew in September 1990, before German reunification)
People's Republic of Hungary
People's Republic of Poland.svg.png)
People's Republic of Romania (later Socialist Republic of Romania between 1965 and 1989)
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Structure
The Warsaw Treaty’s organization was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled civil matters, and the Unified Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. Furthermore, the Supreme Commander of the Warsaw Treaty forces also was the First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, and the head of the Warsaw Treaty Unified Staff also was the First Deputy Head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces.[5]
History
On May 14 1955, the USSR established the Warsaw Treaty in response to the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO in October 1954 — only nine years after the defeat of Nazi Germany (1933–45) that ended only with the Allies' invasion of Germany in 1944/45 during World War II in Europe.
Nevertheless, for 36 years, NATO and the Warsaw Treaty never directly waged war against each other in Europe; but the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies implemented strategic policies aiming at the containment of each other in Europe, while working and fighting for influence within the wider Cold War (1945–91) on the international stage.
Beginning at the Cold War’s conclusion, in late 1989, popular civil and political public discontent forced the Communist governments of the Warsaw Treaty countries from power — independent national politics made feasible with the perestroika- and glasnost-induced institutional collapse of Communist government in the USSR.[6] In the event the populaces of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania, East Germany, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria deposed their Communist governments in the period from 1989–91.
On 1 July 1991, in Prague, the Czechoslovak President, Václav Havel (1989–92), formally ended the 1955 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance and so disestablished the Warsaw Treaty after 36 years of military alliance with the USSR. Five months later, the USSR disestablished itself in December 1991.
Eastern Europe after the Warsaw Treaty
On 12 March 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO Pact; later, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia joined during March 2004; and Albania joined on 1 April 2009.
In November 2005, the conservative Polish government opened its Warsaw Treaty archives to the Institute of National Remembrance who published some 1,300 declassified documents in January 2006. Yet the Polish government reserved publication of 100 documents, pending their military declassification. Eventually, 30 of the reserved 100 documents were published; 70 remained secret, and unpublished.
Among the documents published is the Warsaw Treaty 's nuclear war plan, Seven Days to the River Rhine — a short, swift attack capturing Western Europe, using nuclear weapons, in self defense, after a NATO first strike. The plan originated as a 1979 field training exercise war game, and metamorphosed into official Warsaw Treaty battle doctrine, until the late 1980s — thus why the People’s Republic of Poland was a nuclear weapons base, first, to 178, then, to 250 tactical-range rockets. Doctrinally, as a Soviet-style (offensive) battle plan, Seven Days to the River Rhine gave commanders few defensive-war strategies for fighting NATO in Warsaw Treaty territory.
See also
- Collective Security Treaty Organisation (treaty among 6 post-Soviet states)
- Eastern Bloc
References
- Modern History Sourcebook: The Warsaw Pact, 1955 (full text of the treaty)
- Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress Country Studies.- Library of Congress / Federal Research Division / Country Studies / Area Handbook Series / Soviet Union / Appendix C: The Warsaw Pact (1989)
Notes
- ↑ David S. Yorst. NATO Transformed: The Alliance's New Roles in International Security. (Washington D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1998), 31.
- ↑ Arlene Idol Broadhurst, The Future of European Alliance Systems (Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1982) p. 137.
- ↑ Christopher Cook, Dictionary of Historical Terms (1983)
- ↑ The Columbia Enclopedia, fifth edition (1993) p. 2926
- ↑ V.I. Fes'kov, K. A. Kalashnikov, V. I. Golikov, The Soviet Army in the Cold War Years (1945–1991) (Tomsk: Tomsk University Publisher, 2004) p.6
- ↑ The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, third edition, 1999, pp. 637–8
Further reading
- Vojtech Mastny, Malcolm Byrne, Magdalena Klotzbach: A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955–1991, Central European University Press, Budapest, 2005, ISBN 9637326081, ISBN 978-9637326080
- William J. Lewis: The Warsaw Pact: Arms, Doctrine and Strategy, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. 1982. ISBN 0-07-031746-1. Surveys the armed forces, strategy, a campaign against NATO, matériel, uniforms, and nation- and rank-insignia.
- Václav Havel: To the Castle and Back New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2007.
- (German) Frank Umbach: Das rote Bündnis: Entwicklung und Zerfall des Warschauer Pakts, 1955–1991. Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag, 2005.
External links
- Documents of the Warsaw Pact archives, Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (PHP)
- The CWIHP Warsaw Pact Document Collection
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