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Document No. 133: Romanian Proposal for Reform of the Warsaw Pact, July 4–8, 1988 ——————————————————————————————————————————— Despite Romania’s history of carping at the Soviets over the organization and structure of the Warsaw Pact, Bucharest eventually produced a serious proposal for improving the alliance, described in the letter below to the party central committees of the member -states. Along with promoting “democratization” through such steps as separating the PCC from the alliance’s other institutions and establishing a rotating presidency that would include non-Soviet representatives, the Romanians wanted to make membership open to any European communist country. This was an attempt to keep the door open to new members, such as Yugoslavia and Albania, who could all be expected to back up Romania’s position within the alliance. The Soviets, as indicated in the second document below, did not reject the proposal out of hand. For reasons of their own—namely , the belief that the Warsaw Pact indeed needed an overhaul—they regarded it as a basis for discussion. The proposal nevertheless made no progress for more than a year, until Bulgaria presented a counter-proposal (see Document No. 144). ____________________ a) Letter by the Romanian Party Central Committee to Central Committees of the Warsaw Pact Member-States, July 4, 1988 Esteemed Comrades! The Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party puts before you a few suggestions for improving the organization, and for democratizing the work of the executive body of the Warsaw Treaty. These recommendations take into consideration current global changes and the special attention that socialist countries give to the questions of disarmament, and the easing of tensions and cooperation in Europe and the entire world, including the establishment of conditions for achieving the simultaneous dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact as quickly as possible. We believe it is important during the upcoming meeting of the Political Consultative Committee to discuss and decide on a series of measures concerning the reorganization and improvement of the leadership of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. The Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party believes that the current function of the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Treaty member -states is too focused on military questions, which gives the impression that the party and national leadership are primarily concerned with these questions and have a military character. Therefore, the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party would like to consult with you regarding the following suggestions that it intends to put before the upcoming meeting in Warsaw: 600 1. Reorganization of the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact for the purpose of moving away from its current focus on military questions and achieving a Political Consultative Committee for the socialist states of Europe that is not connected with the Warsaw Pact, which is pursuing military goals. It must be a committee that ensures general cooperation between our parties and states in the political and economic arena. In this regard, the Political Consultative Committee should concentrate its work on investigating and discussing the fundamental problems of building up socialism in our countries, cooperating for the well-being of social–economic development, raising the cultural level and standard of living of our people, strengthening social democracy, strengthening the power of socialism and peace as a whole and—in this context—guaranteeing the ability of socialist states to defend themselves. This Committee—whose term would remain unchanged—would at the same time be open to any European socialist state that would want to participate. 2. The creation of a military defense committee—as the military organ of the Treaty—with a minister of defense from each member-state who is accountable to the government and the supreme commander of each country. 3. In order to strengthen its democratic character, we suggest that the work of the Political Consultative Committee of the socialist states in Europe be based on the principle of an annual rotation of the chairmanship. Additionally, we recommend that the chairmanship of the military defense committee also be based on the principle of an annual rotation, whereby each participating state is guaranteed the opportunity to serve as chair. 4. In connection with the current agreement, according to which the supreme commander serves for 4–5 years, we believe it is important that, in future, senior officers from member-states hold this function for 2 years at a time on a rotating basis, or even for 1 year. In this connection, appointing a supreme commander from representatives or other officers selected...

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