site.btaMay 14, 1955: Warsaw Pact Is Signed

A Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance was signed in Warsaw 70 years ago, on May 14, 1955. The collective defence treaty, informally known as Warsaw Pact, was concluded between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern Bloc countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Hungary, Poland, and Romania.  

The Contracting Parties undertook to "take council among themselves on all important international questions relating to their common interests". In the event of an armed attack in Europe on one or several states signatories to the treaty, each Party pledged "to render immediate assistance to the state or states so attacked [. . .] by all the means it may consider necessary, including the use of armed force" (Article 4). The Treaty provided for the setting up of a Political Consultative Council for consultations among the Parties and for considering problems arising in connection with the implementation of the Treaty.

The pact was to remain in force for 20 years. It was "open to be acceded to by other states, irrespective of their social and state systems". The treaty was extended by a protocol dated April 26, 1985.

For Bulgaria, the Treaty was signed by Prime Minister Valko Chervenkov, acting on a mandate from the Presidium of the National Assembly. The Presidium ratified it by decree on May 28, 1955. Bulgaria's instrument of ratification was deposited with the Government of Poland on May 31, 1955.

The military organization of the Warsaw Pact was established in response to the April 4, 1949 signing of the North Atlantic Treaty and West Germany's accession to it on May 9, 1955.

The Warsaw Treaty Organization resorted to military action on several occasions. Its troops were used to suppress the Hungarian Revolution after Prime Minister Imre Nagy declared his country's neutrality and its withdrawal from the Pact on October 24, 1956. The Polish Uprising in June - October 1956 was crushed by Soviet forces under Marshal Ivan Konev, the first Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization.

The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagement was an invasion of one of its own members, Czechoslovakia, in August 1968. Five of the seven Warsaw Pact countries shared in crushing the Prague Spring. Romania and Albania refused to take part. Albania withdrew from the military bloc on September 13, 1968, even though it had suspended its support back in 1961 after the rift between the USSR and China.

These interventions were in violation of the Warsaw Pact itself, which committed the Contracting Parties to "adhering to the principle of mutual respect for their independence and sovereignty, and non-interference in their internal affairs" (Article 8). The Brezhnev Doctrine, according to which the Soviet Union reserved the right to intervene in Eastern Bloc countries when they risk deviating from Communist ideas, was the overriding consideration.

The GDR also quit the Warsaw Treaty on September 30, 1990, just three days before the German reunification.

As the Cold War drew to an end, the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR was plunged into a crisis, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland announced their withdrawal from the Warsaw Treaty in January 1991, and Bulgaria followed suit in February. The military organization was disbanded on April 1, 1991, and the Treaty itself and its extending protocol were terminated with immediate effect by a protocol signed in Prague on July 1, 1991.

At present, all former Warsaw Pact countries and their successor states with the exception of Russia are part of NATO.

In its International News Bulletin of May 14, 1955, BTA translated the TASS report on the signing of the Treaty and carried its full text (it was signed in four language originals: Russian, Polish, Czech and German).

The Confidential Bulletin of the International News Desk digested analyses from the Western press: the New York Herald Tribune (from UPI) and The Economist of London (from dpa) and own comments by United Press International and Agence France-Presse (AFP):

"Paris. May 14, 1955 (AFP) - Commenting on the conclusion of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the eight countries of Eastern Europe, some observers dwell on Article 5 of the Treaty, which establishes a Joint Command entrusted to General Konev and armed forces to be placed, by agreement among the Contracting Parties, under this Command.

The observers believe that there are grounds to believe that the Soviet Union would thus receive the necessary mandate to maintain forces not only in Hungary and Romania from which, by virtue of the 1946 treaties, the Soviet armed forces were supposed to withdraw 90 days after the entry into force of the Austrian treaty, but also in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, where there are no Soviet garrisons for the time being. The final version of the Treaty in its entirety confirms, according to the same observers, the concern of the Soviet and satellite rulers about leaving the door open for future negotiations on Germany, European security, and disarmament. This concern is also evident in Article 11 of the Treaty, which stipulates that 'in the event of the organization of a system of collective security in Europe', as proposed by [Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav] Molotov at the conference in Berlin in January 1954, the eight-party Treaty 'shall cease to be effective on the date the general European treaty comes into force'. 

This wording explains the Soviet rulers' intention to use the treaty concluded in Warsaw as a bargaining chip during the four-power conference that is to take place. It seems that after the Warsaw Conference the Soviets envisage that a general agreement between East and West will be concluded on the following three basic premises: 1. The conclusion of a security pact (in effect a non-aggression pact guaranteeing the status quo between the two blocs which divide Europe). 2. The unification and neutralization of Germany on the Austrian model, which could be proposed with appropriate modifications with regard to other countries, in particular Yugoslavia. 3. A disarmament agreement, stipulating the gradual withdrawal of the two blocs' troops and the evacuation of bases according to the Soviet proposals, by May 10. All these Soviet projects were made in a rather vague manner so as to enable the Soviets to pursue a resilient tactic vis-a-vis possible Western counterproposals."