The Warsaw Pact was a collective defense treaty among eight communist states of Central and
Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement
to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the
communist States of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was in part a Soviet military
reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 per the Paris Pacts of 1954,
but was primarily motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in
Central and Eastern Europe; in turn meant to maintain peace in Europe, guided by the
objective points and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. After the collapse
of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the alliance was transformed into the subsequent
Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO.
Nomenclature
In the Western Bloc, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance
is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance; abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Elsewhere,
in the former member states, the Warsaw Treaty is known as:
Albanian: Pakti i miqësisë, bashkëpunimit 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
Structure The Warsaw Treaty's organization was two-fold:
the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command
of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in
Warsaw, Poland. Furthermore, the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw
Treaty Organization was also a First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, and the Chief
of Combined Staff of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was also
a First Deputy Chief 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. Strategy
The strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet
Union to dominate Central and Eastern Europe. This policy was driven by ideological and
geostrategic reasons. Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism
and communism and act as the leader of the global socialist movement. A corollary to
this idea was the necessity of intervention if a country appeared to be violating core
socialist ideas and Communist Party functions, which was explicitly stated in the Brezhnev
Doctrine. Geostrategic principles also drove the Soviet Union to prevent invasion of its
territory by Western European powers, which had occurred most recently by Nazi Germany
in 1941. The invasion launched by Hitler had been exceptionally brutal and the USSR emerged
from the Second World War in 1945 with the greatest total casualties of any participant
in the war, suffering an estimated 27 million killed along with the destruction of much
of the nation's industrial capacity. History
Beginnings
In March 1954, the USSR, fearing "the restoration of German Militarism" in West Germany, requested
admission to NATO. By then, laws had already been passed in West Germany ending denazification
and the Gehlen Organization, predecessor of the West German Federal Intelligence Service,
was fully operative and employing hundreds of ex-Nazis.
The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February
1954. Soviet foreign minister Molotov made different proposals to have Germany reunified
and elections for a pan-German government, under conditions of withdrawal of the four
powers armies and German neutrality, but all were refused by the other foreign ministers,
Dulles, Eden and Bidault. Proposals for the reunification of Germany were nothing new:
earlier in 1952, talks about a German reunification ended after the United Kingdom, France, and
the United States insisted that a unified Germany should not be neutral and should be
free to join the European Defence Community and rearm.
Consequently Molotov, fearing that EDC would be directed in the future against the USSR
therefore "seeking to prevent the formation of groups of European States directed against
other European States", made a proposal for a General European Treaty on Collective Security
in Europe "open to all European States without regard as to their social systems" which would
have included the unified Germany. But again, Eden, Dulles and Bidault opposed the proposal.
One month later, the proposed European Treaty was rejected not only by supporters of the
EDC but also by western opponents of the European Defense Community who perceived it as "unacceptable
in its present form because it excludes the USA from participation in the collective security
system in Europe". The Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments
of the USA, UK and France stating to accept the participation of the USA in the proposed
General European Agreement. And considering that another argument deployed against the
Soviet proposal was that it was perceived by western powers as "directed against the
North Atlantic Pact and its liquidation", the Soviets decided to declare their "readiness
to examine jointly with other interested parties the question of the participation of the USSR
in the North Atlantic bloc", specifying that "the admittance of the USA into the General
European Agreement should not be conditional on the three western powers agreeing to the
USSR joining the North Atlantic Pact". Again all proposals, including the request
to join NATO, were rejected by UK, US, and French governments shortly after. Emblematic
was the position of British General Hastings Ismay, supporter of NATO expansion, who said
that NATO "must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella." He opposed
the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that "the Soviet request to
join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force".
In April 1954 Adenauer made his first visit to the USA meeting Nixon, Eisenhower and Dulles.
Ratification of EDC was delaying but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer
that EDC would have to become a part of NATO. Memories of the Nazi occupation were still
strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too. On 30 August 1954 French
Parliament rejected the EDC, thus ensuring its failure and blocking a major objective
of US policy towards Europe: to associate Germany militarily with the West. The US Department
of State started to elaborate alternatives: Germany would be invited to join NATO or,
in the case of French obstructionism, strategies to circumvent a French veto would be implemented
in order to obtain a German rearmament outside NATO.
On 23 October 1954 – only nine years after Allies defeated Nazi Germany ending World
War II in Europe – the Federal Republic of Germany was finally admitted to the North
Atlantic Pact. The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on 9 May 1955 was described
as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange, Foreign
Affairs Minister of Norway at the time. On 14 May 1955, the USSR and other seven European
countries "reaffirming their desire for the establishment of a system of European collective
security based on the participation of all European states irrespective of their social
and political systems" established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of the
Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, declaring that: "a remilitarized Western Germany and
the integration of the latter in the North-Atlantic bloc [...] increase the danger of another
war and constitutes a threat to the national security of the peaceable states; [...] in
these circumstances the peaceable European states must take the necessary measures to
safeguard their security". Members
The eight member countries of the Warsaw Pact pledged the mutual defense of any member who
would be attacked. Relations among the treaty signatories were based upon mutual non-intervention
in the internal affairs of the member countries, respect for national sovereignty, and political
independence. However, almost all governments of those members states were indirectly controlled
by the Soviet Union. The founding signatories to the Treaty of
Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance consisted of the following communist governments:
People's Republic of Albania People's Republic of Bulgaria
Czechoslovak Republic German Democratic Republic
People's Republic of Hungary People's Republic of Poland
People's Republic of Romania Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
In July 1963 the Mongolian People's Republic asked to join the Warsaw Pact under Article
9 of the treaty. For this purpose a special protocol should have been taken since the
text of the treaty applied only to Europe. Due to the emerging Sino-Soviet split, Mongolia
remained on observer status. Soviet stationing troops were agreed to stay in Mongolia from
1966. During Cold War
For 36 years, NATO and the Warsaw Treaty never directly waged war against each other in Europe;
the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies implemented strategic
policies aimed at the containment of each other in Europe, while working and fighting
for influence within the wider Cold War on the international stage.
In 1956, following the declaration of the Imre Nagy government of withdrawal of Hungary
from the Warsaw Pact, Soviet troops entered the country and removed the government. Soviet
forces crushed the nation-wide revolt, leading to the death of an estimated 2,500 Hungarian
citizens. The multi-national Communist armed forces'
sole joint action was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. All member
countries, with the exception of the Socialist Republic of Romania and the People's Republic
of Albania participated in the invasion. End of the Cold War
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. Eventually, the populaces of
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania, East Germany, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria deposed their
Communist governments in the period from 1989–91. On 25 February 1991, the Warsaw Pact was declared
disbanded at a meeting of defense and foreign ministers from Pact countries meeting in Hungary.
On 1 July 1991, in Prague, the Czechoslovak President Václav Havel formally ended the
1955 Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance and so
disestablished the Warsaw Treaty after 36 years of military alliance with the USSR.
The treaty was de facto disbanded in December 1989 during the violent revolution in Romania
that toppled the communist government there. The USSR disestablished itself in December
1991. Central and Eastern Europe after the Warsaw
Treaty On 12 March 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
and Poland joined NATO; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia joined
in March 2004; Albania joined on 1 April 2009. Russia and some other post-USSR states joined
in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. In November 2005, the 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
Austria, Denmark, Germany and Netherlands east of River Rhine, 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 – which is 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 battle
plan, Seven Days to the River Rhine gave commanders few defensive-war strategies for fighting
NATO in Warsaw Treaty territory. Gallery
Notes
Further reading Jordan, Robert. The NATO International Staff/Secretariat
1952-1957. London: Oxford University Press. OCLC 59029584.
Heuser, Beatrice. "Victory in a Nuclear War? A Comparison of NATO and WTO War Aims and
Strategies". Contemporary European History 7: 311–327. doi:10.1017/S0960777300004264.
Mark N. Kramer, 'Civil-military relations in the Warsaw Pact,' The East European component,'
International Affairs, Vol. 61, No. 1, Winter 1984-85.
Lewis, William Julian. The Warsaw Pact: Arms, Doctrine, and Strategy. Cambridge, Mass.:
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. ISBN 978-0-07-031746-8. Mastny, Vojtech; Byrne, Malcolm. A Cardboard
Castle ?: An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955–1991. Budapest: Central European
University Press. ISBN 978-963-7326-07-3. Umbach, Frank. Das rote Bündnis: Entwicklung
und Zerfall des Warschauer Paktes 1955 bis 1991. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86153-362-7.
Wahl, Alfred. La seconda vita del nazismo nella Germania del dopoguerra. Torino: Lindau.
ISBN 978-8-87180-662-4. – Original Ed.: Wahl, Alfred. La seconde histoire du nazisme
dans l'Allemagne fédérale depuis 1945.. Paris: Armand Colin. ISBN 2-200-26844-0.
Adenauer, Konrad. Memorie 1945-1953. Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. – English Ed.: Adenauer,
Konrad. Konrad Adenauer Memoirs 1945-53. Henry Regnery Company.
Molotov, Vyacheslav. La conferenza di Berlino. Ed. di cultura sociale. – English Ed.:
Molotov, Vyacheslav. Statements at Berlin Conference of Foreign Ministers of U.S.S.R.,
France, Great Britain and U.S.A., January 25-February 18, 1954. Foreign Languages Publishing
House. External links
The Woodrow Wilson Center Cold War International History Project's Warsaw Pact Document Collection
Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security Library of Congress / Federal Research Division
/ Country Studies / Area Handbook Series / Soviet Union / Appendix C: The Warsaw Pact
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the
Library of Congress Country Studies.