Der Warschauer Pakt: Von der Gründung bis zum Zusammenbruch 1955 bis 1991 (review)

The articles in this publication focus on relations within the Warsaw Pact. After an introductory outline of its history by Winfried Heinemann, Christian Nünlist discusses why Nikita Khrushchev decided to add a multilateral alliance to bilateral arrangements on mutual assistance. He shares the view that the Soviet leader's motive was political. Until the early 1960s, the Pact was militarily unimportant but demonstrated Soviet determination to counter West German accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Pact was also designed to make Western publics believe that the USSR was willing to sacrifice alliance with the other socialist countries in exchange for a system of European security that allegedly would overcome East-West conflict. Underlying the Soviet move was a calculus that this would eliminate NATO, terminate U.S. presence in Europe, and establish Soviet hegemony on the Continent.

In Moscow's view, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was the crucial ally. Rüdiger Wenzke argues that the USSR needed the GDR not only as a glacis against Western Europe but as an indispensable source of uranium for nuclear weapons. The National People's Army was under tight Soviet control. The Group of Soviet Forces in Germany had a privileged status and were even exempt from the country's legal order. Torsten Diedrich addresses the problems that resulted from the conflicting objectives of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) regime in the GDR—its unwavering commitment to alliance with the USSR and at the same time its inability to rid itself of ties to West Germany. The GDR population's attention was directed toward the Federal Republic as the nation's other, infinitely more attractive, state. The SED regime also failed to overcome economic weakness. Despite a major effort to "eliminate disturbance," SED leaders remained economically dependent on deliveries and, from the early 1970s onward, even on material aid from West Germany. As a result, alliance relations with the Soviet Union were continually, if slowly, undermined.

Andrzej Paczkowski describes Iosif Stalin's extreme distrust of Poland as a country strongly opposed to his rule and policy. Although Polish society underwent the harshest repression, Polish military forces were put under the command of Soviet generals and officers to an unheard-of extent. Even after Soviet personnel no longer formed the majority of the Polish officer corps, they continued to hold both the key positions at the military center and the higher troop commands. When, during the "Polish October" of 1956, Defense Minister Konstanty Rokossowski, a Soviet citizen, was finally removed from Poland, the whole country—including the most devoted Communists—rejoiced. What remained, though, was a group of Soviet military advisers who participated in major decisions. Also, Moscow's strategic guidelines and military instructions continued to be obligatory. Soviet control of the Polish army was loosened but not terminated. At the political level, however, the USSR was less able to enforce agreement. As Wanda Jarząbek states in her article, the conflict between Warsaw and Moscow became significant when, from 1966 onward, the Federal Republic of Germany embarked on a policy of active Ostpolitik.

As Csaba Békés's article on internal argument with regard to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe makes clear, détente policy was a subject of heated controversy in the Warsaw Pact in the early 1970s. The USSR failed to make its views prevail, and Hungary played a mediating role. On the basis of much new Soviet source material, Mark Kramer provides an informative, detailed study on the USSR's decision-making with regard to intra-alliance crises. Although Soviet leaders were quick in sending troops to crush the Hungarian revolt in 1956, they waited a good deal longer when orthodox Communist rule was challenged by Czechoslovak reformism in 1968 and by Poland's Solidarność movement in 1980–1981. The leaders of the GDR and other socialist countries had wanted military intervention from...