Warsaw Pact, abbreviation WP by AbbreviationFinder, Warsaw Treaty Organization, abbreviation WVO, 1955–91 military alliance of communist states in Europe under the leadership of the Soviet Union.
The Warsaw Pact was alongside the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance the most important multilateral organization of these states. The Warsaw Pact was founded on May 14, 1955 in Warsaw with the “Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance” (Warsaw Treaty) signed by Albania, Bulgaria, the GDR, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The contract, which came into force on 4 June 1955 with a term of 20 years (extension for a further 10 years if not terminated) and extended in 1985, required consultations on all important questions of international politics. a. if there is a risk to the safety of one of the contracting parties (Article 3),
Political organization: The Political Advisory Committee, in which each participating State was represented (Article 6), functioned as the political leading body of the Warsaw Pact. In 1976, two auxiliary bodies were set up with their headquarters in Moscow: the “United Secretariat” and the “Committee of Foreign Ministers”, which were responsible for drawing up recommendations on foreign policy issues.
Military organization: The Warsaw Pact’s military command was the “United Command of the Armed Forces” based in Moscow. In 1969 two more institutions were created, the “Military Council of the United Armed Forces” and the “Committee of Defense Ministers”; the commander in chief of the United Command of the Armed Forces was always a Soviet general (1955-60 I. S. Konjew, 1960-67 A. A. Grechko, 1967-76 I. I. Jakubowski, 1977-89 W. G. Kulikow, 1989-91 P. G. Lyuschew), who in addition to his deputies one from Representatives of the individual national general staffs were trained by the United Armed Forces staff.
The military strategies of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR were almost identical as a result of Soviet dominance. The war as such – provided that its nature and objectives fulfilled the demands of the international class struggle – was regarded as a legitimate means of politics, including weapons of mass destruction. Despite peaceful coexistence with the West, the Soviet leadership never left any doubts about the East-West conflict if necessary to fight militarily. After a possible outbreak of a war, according to the Soviet view (also influenced by historical experience), it was in any case necessary to conduct combat operations on the opposing territory in order to protect one’s own territory. For this purpose, the superiority of one’s own forces had to be ensured already in peacetime and their ability to wage war had to be guaranteed. After the start of the attack, the conventional forces were to quickly occupy the strategic areas of the theaters of war and thus bring about the quick victory of the Warsaw Pact forces. A war should also be feasible and winable under nuclear conditions. In the event that the use of nuclear weapons had become “mandatory”,
History: After signing the Paris Treaties and thus the admission of the Federal Republic of Germany to NATO and the Western European Union (WEU) wanted the Soviet Union to have contractually guaranteed rights to station its troops in the states of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe and thus to create a counterweight to NATO, to unify the armed forces of the European communist states and to bind these states as closely as possible to itself. The Warsaw Pact Alliance was supplemented by bilateral agreements with all member states as well as by military stationing agreements between the Soviet Union and Poland (1956), the GDR (1957), Romania (1957), Hungary (1957) and Czechoslovakia (October 1968). The termination of membership by Hungary in 1956 (in the course of the Hungarian popular uprising) was rendered ineffective by the armed intervention of Soviet troops. In fact, when the Soviet-Chinese conflict broke out in 1961, officially in 1968 after the Warsaw Pact troops marched into Czechoslovakia, Albania withdrew from the alliance; the GDR resigned on September 24, 1990.
After the political upheavals in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe in 1989/90, the character and function of the Warsaw Pact were initially to be changed; On February 25, 1991, however, the member states decided to dissolve the military structure and thus the mutual military assistance obligation by April 1, 1991. On July 1, 1991, a final protocol on the final dissolution of the Warsaw Pact was signed in Prague. H. also the political organization, signed.
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The Warsaw Pact (1955-1991) was a military-political alliance led by the Soviet Union. In addition to the Soviet Union, members were the socialist states of Europe.
After the end of the Second World War, another conflict soon determined the balance of power in Europe: the Cold War. The antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union developed into a global conflict that divided the world into two power blocs. The USA stood for a capitalist world order, the Soviet Union for a socialist one. In order to prepare for the event of another war, both sides formed alliances with friendly states that were supposed to support each other in the event of war. Under the leadership of the USA, NATO came into being in 1949. In 1955, the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact. Both alliances were hostile to each other during the Cold War. There were repeated threats of war during this period, which led to a military build-up with medium-range missiles and nuclear weapons on both sides.
In Europe, too, the two great powers struggled for influence. The border between the two blocks – the so-called Iron Curtain – ran right through the continent. It was the dividing line between the market- oriented, democratic states in western Europe and the planned-economy, socialist states in the east. Most clearly visible was the Iron Curtain on the Berlin Wall, which separated the Federal Republic of Germany from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1961.
When the Federal Republic of Germany joined NATO in 1955, the Soviet Union responded with its own alliance: the Warsaw Pact. This was supposed to prevent the USA from expanding its influence in Europe further east. Its member states secured military support in the event of an attack on their territory in order to defend the idea of socialism against the West.
The Warsaw Pact’s promise of assistance was not only directed against the West, but was also applied inside the Eastern Bloc. For example, at the instigation of the Soviet Union, a popular uprising was suppressed in the GDR and Hungary, and a democratic reform movement in Czechoslovakia.
Because of the increasing economic problems of the Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Union initiated a political change of course in the 1980s. The Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev presented plans for military disarmament in order to prevent a state bankruptcy. The opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 symbolized the end of the Cold War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the democratic upheaval in the states of Eastern Europe, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved in 1991. Soviet troops withdrew from the Warsaw Pact states. In 1994 the last Russian soldiers left the reunified Germany. However, Russia continued to regard the Warsaw Pact territory as an area of influence and a buffer zone vis-à-vis NATO.
