WARSAW TREATY ORGANIZATION

Abstract

This chapter discusses the historical background and structure of Warsaw Treaty Organization. The Warsaw Treaty or Warsaw Pact was concluded at the initiative of the Soviet Union by the signing of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance in the Polish capital on May 14, 1955. In addition to the USSR, the signatory states were Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. On the basis of this treaty, which was supplemented on May 14, 1955 by a resolution on the establishment of a Joint Command, a military and political organization, the Warsaw Treaty Organization, having the character of an international organization was established. The Warsaw Treaty, as a multilateral treaty of alliance, considerably extended the previous Soviet system of alliances made up of bilateral agreements. The Warsaw Pact is above all a multilateral treaty of mutual assistance and it is one of those treaties of alliance that combine cooperation for the purposes of securing peace with the affording of assistance in case of armed attack.