Introduction

 		 
    It is often acknowledged that the history of mankind is written by its victors. For no other continent is this more true than for Europe; empires and ideologies have triumphed, perished and fallen into oblivion through the centuries. It is, however, imperative for the creation of a full apprehension of the processes and structures of today also to know the ones who lost and vanished from the European theater of events.

 
    There can hardly be no disagreement on the fact that the late Warsaw Treaty Organization and the ideology that once supported it are such losers. Knowing the role of this formidable military force that not long ago ruled half of our continent may help us understand the dilemmas and anxieties of present East European security policies, the dynamics of bloc politics, the Russian objections to a future NATO enlargement and the equally keen East European advocations of it.

 
    For nearly 50 years Europe was divided into two ideologically opposed spheres of interest. The sovereign ruler of the Eastern one was the Soviet Union. The Soviet interest in Eastern Europe has a long historical standing and can be explained by a number of intertwined reasons. A traditional perception, dating back to the days of Czar Peter the Great, considers the East European region as Russia's natural and rightful sphere of interest. All Great Powers have such spheres; why shouldn't Russia posses one? Having allies on the Western fringes could also be considered as providing a strategic security zone and depth of military defense for Russia in an antagonistic world. In an offensive scenario these allies (or dominions) could, on the other hand, serve as bases for assaults on the enemy in the West, or, in ideological warfare, as instruments of political subversion directed at the same. Conversely, these semi-colonies could also serve as a buffer zone to dilute political subversion from the West directed against Homo Sovieticus. Neither should the weight of psychological factors be underestimated; surely loyal allies in Eastern Europe voicing Soviet concerns underpinned Soviet self-confidence and gave the socialist country international credence as the unquestioned leader of a powerful bloc of like-minded nations. In the paper at hand I shall not primarily deal with the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) as part of a global scenario of power politics. I shall not, as is often done, treat the military pact as a counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. During the cold war it was a widely held assumption in the West that the foremost mission of the WTO was to mobilize East European military personnel on a grand scale for a Soviet offensive (or counteroffensive) against Western Europe.

   Marja Paloheimo: For nearly 50 years Europe was divided into two ideologically opposed spheres of interest. The sovereign ruler of the Eastern bloc was the Soviet Union. The Soviet interest in Eastern Europe has a long historical standing and can be explained by a number of intertwined reasons. A traditional perception, dating back to the days of Czar Peter the Great, considers the East European region as Russia's natural and rightful sphere of interest. All Great Powers have such spheres; why shouldn't Russia posses one? Having allies on the Western fringes could also be considered as providing a strategic security zone and depth of military defense for Russia in an antagonistic world. In an offensive scenario these allies (or dominions) could, on the other hand, serve as bases for assaults on the enemy in the West, or, in ideological warfare, as instruments of political subversion directed at the same. Conversely, these semi-colonies could also serve as a buffer zone to dilute political subversion from the West directed against Homo Sovieticus. Neither should the weight of psychological factors be underestimated; surely loyal allies in Eastern Europe voicing Soviet concerns underpinned Soviet self-confidence and gave the socialist country international credence as the unquestioned leader of a powerful bloc of like-minded nations. In the paper at hand I shall not primarily deal with the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) as part of a global scenario of power politics. I shall not, as is often done, treat the military pact as a counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. During the cold war it was a widely held assumption in the West that the foremost mission of the WTO was to mobilize East European military personnel on a grand scale for a Soviet offensive (or counteroffensive) against Western Europe.

 

    My argument is that this external, offensive task of the alliance was in fact secondary. The forces that the communist countries allied with the Soviet Union contributed to the WTO were militarily weak and possibly unreliable in combat. The preponderance of Soviet power in the Pact was such that it would probably have scored as well without its allies in a conventional European interbloc war. This means that other, more important reasons for the existence of the WTO have to be identified. I will argue that the primary function of the Pact was to create a deterrent against East European nationalist thinking and the institutional frameworks for Soviet military intervention on East European soil when deemed necessary. The alliance was in my opinion also to curtail any capabilities of the indigenous East European armies to lead a sustained armed resistance against such an intervention and a subsequent Soviet occupation. It was not only the Soviets who had a vested interest in the WTO functioning thusly: the military and political elites of the thoroughly unpopular regimes of the Central- and East European countries maintained their positions in power and were able to quell any domestic unrest by the explicit threat of Soviet intervention.

 
    In order to achieve these objectives the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact seems to have used a host of measures of rendering pressure upon its weaker member states. These measures included the fragmentation of national East European control over indigenous armed forces, the creation of multinational practices (such as joint military maneuvers) and agencies of the Pact to legitimize Soviet military presence in the allied countries, and the pursuit for functional and ideological integration through common military doctrine, education, defense agencies and weaponry modeled on Soviet example.

 
    In some cases the strategies employed seem to have been effective; in others not. What was it, then, that made it possible for some member states of the WTO to defy the Pact and Soviet hegemony, while others who tried this were mercilessly crushed?

 
    I will try to shed light on this problemacy through comparing the cases of Yugoslavia and Romania on one hand, and the ones of Hungary and Czechoslovakia on the other, and try to draw some conclusions as to why the former two were able to just walk away from the iron grip of Soviet bloc cohesion.

 
    The research on the Warsaw Treaty Organization has for the most part been handled by American and British scholars of defense and military issues, of organizational questions and of Soviet studies. My essay will follow the lines of reasonig pursued by such anglo- american researchers as Christopher D. Jones, Condoleezza Rice and Gerald Holden. Due to its very nature of a military alliance, the Pact itself was highly secretive as to its institutions and functions during its whole lifespan, and still today no proper Soviet or East European research on the subject exists. Whereas the abovementioned US and West European scholars of defense issues have moved forward to the new problemacies of today, such as NATO enlargement, historians proper have not yet dare touch the theme either because of the evident lack of sources or of fear for the grand scope of study.

   Marja Paloheimo: Your introduction is quite long. You might want to cut it into parts, or move some parts into the actual text. The information is, however, relevant.