The Warsaw Pact

This is the first book to document, analyze, and interpret the history of the Warsaw Pact based on the archives of the alliance itself. As suggested by the title, the Soviet bloc military machine that held the West in awe for most of the Cold War does not appear from the inside as formidable as outsiders often believed, nor were its strengths and weaknesses the same at different times in its surprisingly long history, extending for almost half a century. The introductory study by Mastny assesses the controversial origins of the "superfluous" alliance, its subsequent search for a purpose, its crisis and consolidation despite congenital weaknesses, as well as its unexpected demise. Most of the 193 documents included in the book were top secret and have only recently been obtained from Eastern European archives by the PHP project. The majority of the documents were translated specifically for this volume and have never appeared in English before. The introductory remarks to individual documents by co-editor Byrne explain the particular significance of each item. A chronology of the main events in the history of the Warsaw Pact, a list of its leading officials, a selective multilingual bibliography, and an analytical index add to the importance of a publication that sets the new standard as a reference work on the subject and facilitate its use by both students and general readers.

The Warsaw Pact is generally regarded as a mere instrument of Soviet power. In the 1960s the alliance nevertheless evolved into a multilateral alliance, in which the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact members gained considerable scope for manoeuvre. This book examines to what extent the Warsaw Pact inadvertently provided its members with an opportunity to assert their own interests, emancipate themselves from the Soviet grip, and influence Soviet bloc policy. Laurien Crump traces this development through six thematic case studies, which deal with such well known events as the building of the Berlin Wall, the Sino-Soviet Split, the Vietnam War, the nuclear question, and the Prague Spring. By interpreting hitherto neglected archival evidence from archives in Berlin, Bucharest, and Rome, and approaching the Soviet alliance from a radically novel perspective, the book offers unexpected insights into international relations in Eastern Europe, while shedding new light on a pivotal period in the Cold War.

Drawing on recently declassified information, this is a study of the various intrabloc tensions that plagued both the NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries during the Cold War and how those tensions affected the working of the alliances.

The looming threat of Communist expansion led the United States and eleven Western nations to establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Responding to NATO, the Soviet Union and the Communist Eastern bloc formed the Warsaw Pact. European nations soon aligned with one of the opposing military forces. This book takes a closer look at how NATO, the Warsaw Pact, and the Iron Curtain played a role in the sharp political division between the West and East.

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On August 20, 1968, tens of thousands of Soviet and East European ground and air forces moved into Czechoslovakia and occupied the country in an attempt to end the "Prague Spring" reforms and restore an orthodox Communist regime. The leader of the Soviet Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, was initially reluctant to use military force and tired to pressure his counterpart in Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubccaron;ek, to crack down. But during the summer of 1968, after several months of careful deliberations, the Soviet Politburo finally decided that military force was the only option left. A large invading force of Soviet, Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops received final orders to move into Czechoslovakia; within twenty-four hours they had established complete military control of Czechoslovakia, bringing and end to hopes for "socialism with a human face."

It was long assumed that the Soviet Union dictated Warsaw Pact policy in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America (known as the 'Third World' during the Cold War). Although the post-1991 opening of archives has demonstrated this to be untrue, there has still been no holistic volume examining the topic in detail. Such a comprehensive and nuanced treatment is virtually impossible for the individual scholar thanks to the linguistic and practical difficulties in satisfactorily covering all of the so-called 'junior members' of the Warsaw Pact. This important book fills that void and examines the agency of these states - Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania - and their international interactions during the 'discovery' of the 'Third World' from the 1950s to the 1970s. Building upon recent scholarship and working from a diverse range of new archival sources, contributors study the diplomacy of the eastern and central European communist states to reveal their myriad motivations and goals (importantly often in direct conflict with Soviet directives). This work, the first revisionist review of the role of the junior members as a whole, will be of interest to all scholars of the Cold War, whatever their geographical focus.

As the chief rival to NATO from 1955 - 1991, the Warsaw Pact was, and has since remained, a popular subject for military students and historians alike. On the collecting market the vast range of awards, badges and insignia produced during the Cold War has helped to make the national armies of the Warsaw Pact a popular choice with many military specialists. Surprisingly, even though a great deal has been written about the armor, weapons, uniforms and equipment, no comprehensive reference source on the subject of badges has been printed in the English language.