On May 14, 1955, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance was signed in the capital of socialist Poland. Its participants were the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania. The document provided for the provision of military assistance in the event of an attack on one of the parties.
The military union was called the Warsaw Pact Organization (ATS). Within its framework, the states of the socialist camp established the Political Consultative Committee (PAC), the Joint Command of the Armed Forces (OKVS) and various subsidiary bodies. The contract was concluded for 20 years with an automatic extension for ten years. In 1985, it was extended for another 20 years.
The creation of a collective self-defense system of the USSR and Eastern European states was a response to the emergence of the North Atlantic Alliance in 1949. These blocks have become symbols of the bipolar system of international relations, characterized by ideological confrontation and the Cold War.
In a conversation with RT, the head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, Alexander Mikhailov, called the formation of the police department a logical process. In his opinion, the activities of the Warsaw Pact Organization were aimed at balancing the balance of power between the West and the East.
“After the victory over fascism, the USSR and the USA actually divided Europe into zones of influence. It was a reality of that time, and it was unlikely, given the existing contradictions, it could be different. Washington united the states loyal to him within the framework of NATO, Moscow - in the form of the Warsaw Pact, ”Mikhailov stated.
In an interview with RT, the director of the Center for Military-Political Studies of MGIMO, Alexey Podberyozkin, said that the activities of the Warsaw Pact Organization prevented the outbreak of a new global armed conflict.
“ATS was a purely defensive alliance. The members of the organization were not going to attack anyone - a combination of efforts was required to effectively deter NATO, which appeared almost six years earlier. From the point of view of global security, the existence of the Warsaw Pact was the guarantor of peace, since the West understood what a serious adversary it would have to deal with, ”Podberyozkin explained.
Security architecture
The Warsaw Pact became the legal basis for intensive military cooperation of the signatory states. The Soviet Union actively rearm the armies of Eastern European states with modern equipment and stimulated the development of the national defense industry. The materials of the RF Ministry of Defense say that the USSR Minister of Defense (1976-1984) Marshal Dmitry Ustinov played a huge role in this process.
The armies of Eastern European countries and Soviet troops regularly conducted joint exercises, including large-scale ones. For example, at least 100 thousand people became participants in the West-81 operational-strategic maneuvers.
- The work of rocket artillery in the exercises "West-81"
- RIA News
- © V. Kiselev
Also, one of the largest missile ATS exercises is considered to be Shield-82. In the West, they were dubbed “the seven-hour nuclear war” due to the fact that on June 18, 1982 between 06:00 and 13:00 Moscow time, the USSR carried out dozens of missile launches from land, sea and air carriers.
An important contribution to improving the interaction of the armies of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was made by the Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces (1977-1984) Nikolai Ogarkov. So, for the West-81 maneuvers, an automated command and control system was first used.
“The Soviet Union invested a huge amount of resources in this organization, in fact, built the entire security architecture. Many officers, including senior officers, were trained in Moscow, including at the Academy of the General Staff. Thus, the USSR formed a loyal military elite in the countries of the socialist camp and at the same time raised the level of its professionalism, ”Mikhailov noted.
However, the relations of states within the framework of ATS were not cloudless. The first serious crisis within the bloc occurred in 1956, when an anti-government uprising broke out in Hungary. Initially, the Soviet government did not intend to use force and even decided to withdraw troops from the republic.
But at the end of October, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev, ordered an operation to remove the Hungarian leader Imre Nagy. In early November, a 30,000-strong Soviet group under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov entered Budapest at the invitation of the government created by Janos Kadar and dispersed the forces of the rebels. The bulk of the Hungarian army at the same time remained neutral.
Another disturbing event was the famous Prague Spring. On August 18, 1968, after lengthy negotiations with the head of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubcek, the leaders of the USSR, Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Bulgaria decided to introduce a contingent of the police department in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak armed forces did not intervene in the situation, and anti-communist protests were suppressed.
Both events, experts say, are now used as a pretext for inciting Russophobia and fighting the memory of the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany.
“Now it’s very easy to blame Moscow for everything, but in reality the situation was much more complicated. One of the reasons for both revolts was the fact that Hungary was an ally of Germany during the Second World War, and Czechoslovakia was a protectorate of Berlin. After the war, anti-Soviet forces that were supported by the West remained in these countries. However, in the USSR they were guided by the slogan “friendship of peoples”, therefore it was not accepted to talk about it, ”explained Alexey Podberyozkin.
Unbalanced
Experts drew attention to the fact that the USSR is often blamed for the allegedly dominant position in the framework of the ATS. This statement is often justified by the fact that the Joint Command of the Armed Forces was located in Moscow, and its leaders were exclusively Soviet military leaders.
However, according to Mikhailov, Moscow was not able to exercise total control over the Eastern European republics. For example, in 1968, Albania left the police department.
An independent policy was pursued by Romania. Bucharest condemned the entry of troops into Czechoslovakia, did not support the Afghan campaign of the USSR, and collaborated with the FRG and Pakistan in the development of nuclear weapons. In addition, the republic used IMF loans and interspersed elements of nationalism in the nominally socialist ideology.
- Heads of ATS Member States at a meeting of the Political Advisory Committee (GAC)
- © Wikimedia commons / Bundesarchiv, Bild
“The countries of the social camp were different from each other and actually had great autonomy from Moscow. There were a lot of factors that influenced relations with the USSR, including economic ones. And with the collapse of socialist regimes, the fate of the police department was a foregone conclusion, ”Mikhailov argues.
In February 1991, the Warsaw Treaty member countries decided to dissolve the organization’s military structures. On July 1 of the same year, representatives of these states signed a protocol on the complete termination of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.
As noted by Alexei Podberyozkin, after the elimination of the police department, a unipolar system of international relations reigned in the world, which is characterized by the dominance of one military bloc. The expert called NATO intervention in the Bosnian crisis of 1992-1995 and alliance aggression in Yugoslavia in 1999 the direct consequences of the destruction of the previous balance of power.
“Yugoslav statehood was the first victim of an alliance military invasion, but this aggression would not have been possible with the existence of ATS. With the destruction of the Warsaw Pact Organization, NATO's natural counterbalance disappeared, and the Western bloc decided that it could intervene with impunity in the affairs of sovereign states, ”said Podberyozkin.
However, with the elimination of the ATS in the world, the need for an international structure that could ensure an equilibrium balance of forces did not disappear, said Andrei Koshkin, an expert at the Association of Military Political Scientists in a RT commentary.
“The main reasons for the collapse of the police department were the crisis of Soviet statehood and the desire of the leadership of the USSR at that time to put an end to the Cold War. However, the West took advantage of the weakening of Moscow to take control of Eastern Europe. In the 2000s, Russia began to join forces with its neighbors in the framework of the CSTO and the SCO. These organizations cannot be called a replacement for ATS, but their existence indicates that a unipolar system is gradually becoming a thing of the past, ”Koshkin emphasized.
In addition, as experts emphasized, another consequence of the collapse of the ATS was the expansion of NATO to the east. This process was contrary to the promises given by Moscow to US officials and the alliance. As a result of the inclusion in the Western bloc of the former parties to the Warsaw Pact, as well as the Baltic republics, the situation on the western border of Russia has noticeably worsened.
According to Mikhailov, from the first days of its existence, the North Atlantic Alliance posed a serious threat to the security of our country. In the case of a hypothetical conflict with him, the existence of the ATS made it possible to meet the aggressor at distant approaches, he explained.
“With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the expansion of NATO to the east, this buffer has disappeared. As a result, we see how in recent years the alliance has been increasing tension on our western borders. Although modern Russia, of course, has effective means of deterring NATO, which sober up Western strategists, ”the analyst said.