The origins of the WTO and the reasons for establishing it

 		 
   

The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance

 
    The Warsaw Treaty was, as the name implies, signed in the capital of Poland, on 14. May 1955 between representatives of the socialist republics of Poland, Bulgaria, Albania, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. Of the East European People's Democracies, Yugoslavia was the sole non-signatory state, but it was soon joined by Albania, who formally withdrew from its obligations in 1968. Romania, on the other hand, never officially denounced the Treaty, but increasingly distanced itself from it since the early 1960's.(Szalowski, p. 6)

 
    The treaty consisted of 11 articles whose purpose was to define the member-states' relations to one another, to the United Nations, and to non-member states. The treaty was to be based on a "principle of respect for independence and sovereignty of others and non- interference in internal affairs". According to the Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin, there should in the relationships of the signatories prevail "the noble principles of socialist internationalism, the noble idea of fraternal friendship between free and equal Nations" (Remington, p. 14). As shall be shown in the discussion on socialist conceptions of limited sovereignty in chapter 3, the Treaty's embodiment of "socialist internationalism" on one hand, and of "equality", "sovereignty" and "independence" on the other, turned out not to be compatible with each other.

 
    In the Warsaw Treaty the eight signatory states agreed on henceforth settling all disputes amongst themselves as well as with others through peaceful means. In the event of any one of the partners being threatened with armed attack by outsiders, the members of the Treaty should immediately convene to consult so as to ensure joint defense. In order to draw up the practical guidelines for this joint defense a Joint Command of the allied armies was to be established as well as a body named the Political Consultative Committee, which in turn was to enjoy the highest decision-making authorities in the newly founded organization. The partners pledged their wish to partake in international activities designed to safeguard peace but to not join any alliances in conflict with the Treaty now at hand. The Treaty was to last 20 years, and would automatically continue for a further 10 years for those members who did not denounce it by May 1975. Except Albania, none did. The Treaty would, however, cease to exist the day the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was dismantled or the day a collective European security system was agreed upon. With this objective "all European states" were invited to join the Warsaw Treaty irrespective of their social or economic systems. (see the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance/ Warsaw Treaty text). This mention has to be seen as a carrot for tempting those West European nations, who had surmises about the outspoken stand of NATO as being the champion of capitalism and bourgeois-liberal democracy, instead to join a "truly neutral", "all-comprising" security establishment. In the NATO Treaty text of 1948 the organization had specified a need for consultations whenever "territorial integrity, political independence or security" was at stake, which was fairly obviously put for pre-emptive NATO intervention in case of a communist coup d'etat in a member country. (see the NATO Treaty text) The Warsaw Treaty had no such clauses requiring a specific ideological adherence from its members, let alone did it give any right to the alliance for a military intervention in a partner state. From the textual claim of political neutrality and non-interference in internal affairs the Warsaw Treaty Organization was to emerge with little credit, as shall be seen (Holden p. 10).

   jarkko tuominen: Then what about Finland and The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in 1948? It was the only "european" organisational arrangement where Finland was as a member during the "soviet foreign policy domination".

 

   

Why the Treaty?

 
    In the late forties Stalin had already signed bilateral Treaties of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual assistance with all East European communist states except Albania and East Germany. The practical purpose of these Treaties was to facilitate Soviet military aid to its smaller partners in their fight against external and internal enemies. (Fodor, p. 188). These bilateral treaties already established de facto and de jure the hard core of Soviet military presence and, when required, interventionism in East Europe. In real terms the Warsaw Treaty brought in little that wasn't already there. Why was the Treaty signed, then?

 
    The early years of communist rule in East Europe saw a rapid integration of these states into the Soviet system. This was imposed by the cooperation of the domestic regimes with Stalin, whose attitude towards the East European states was dominated by "a primitive obsession with the superiority of everything Soviet and an unrestricted exploitation of all military and economic resources of the area" (Andrzei Korbonski in Clawson-Kaplan, p. 5.). In the military field this took several expressions. At least partial political reliability was achieved through indoctrination and outright terror through executions of army officers. All high-ranking officers were compelled to take courses at military-political academies and many were sent to the USSR for complementary ideological schooling in agitation (Remington, p. .). In some cases the contempt for East European national feeling went so far that Soviet officers were actually installed at the highest echelons of indigenous armed forces, as when Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky was naturalized as a Pole and made Minister of Defense of that country (Malcolm MacKintosh in Dawesha, p. 138.). Technical matters were closely patterned on Soviet usage in drill, marching techniques and even in styles of uniform. The Soviets strived for functional integration also by procuring the East Europeans with tanks, armed vehicles and airplanes, albeit severely obsolete (Remington, p. 20). With these methods the Soviets had remolded the armed forces of the Peoples' Democracies into separate yet subordinate entities of the Red Army.

 
    The measures described were however unrefined, cruel and, thus, in many instances counterproductive. After Stalin's death new more subtle means were required. The Warsaw Treaty was a step in this direction. The Treaty formalized Soviet hegemony in Europe, while the creation of an alliance made the East European regimes at least formally equal in status with the USSR and consequently the stationing of Soviet troops a little more acceptable to their respective populations (Fodor, p. 28). In case there was a need to quell domestic unrest, this would not be done by the Soviets, but rather by formally multilateral action. For the detested Central- and East European communist governments the visible Soviet presence provided vital backing.

 
    In face of the extracommunist world the Treaty infused a visible symbol of the alleged unity of the socialist commonwealth, as has been noted by Holden (1991 s. 9). In fact it quite on the contrary limited the independent foreign policy maneuverability of the East European partners, since once the Covenant was signed the member states could, according to the Treaty text, not join other organizations in conflict with the Warsaw one (the compatibility was naturally decided by the Russians), nor were there any processes specified for resigning from the Pact (see the Treaty of FCMA/ Warsaw Treaty text). The supposed unity of the communist camp and the leadership of the same were direly needed for Moscow's prestige. Before the World War the USSR had been virtually encircled by hostile capitalist governments, alone in its ideological persuasion. Now, as the leader of a military alliance, it had to be juxtaposed with the U.S, which meanwhile had emerged as the leader of NATO. The early fifties had seen a great leap forwards in the field of bloc-building for the United States. NATO and the USA had become involved in several overtly anticommunist coalitions during the last few years; such were ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-the US), the South-East Asian Treaty Organization and the Baghdad Pact. (Holden, p. 7)

 
    The fear of NATO as a reason for establishing the WTO should therefore not be underestimated. Neither should it, however, be overestimated: NATO had at the time of the deliverance of the WTO been in existence for seven full years, and the Soviets had thus far been quite content with verbally complaining about it as being openly anti-Soviet, adding to international tensions and heralding a new World War (Fodor, p. 10). Moscow's true fear seems rather to have been a resurgent, remilitarized Germany. From the Soviet point of view NATO had taken the decisive step when it had allowed West Germany to rise to the rank of full alliance member in May 1955. A disproportionate fear of a rearmed Germany appears to have been alive and well in the USSR well into the 1960's (see, for instance, Juhani Suomis biographies of President Kekkonen for a fuller account of such anxieties). The unresolved German question was for the USSR also a propagandistic means of marketing the Treaty to the East European states: the GDR lived in constant fear of the potential annexationist plans of its western neighbor, the Czechs had their Sudetenfrage and the newly acquired Oder-Neisse-borderlines of Poland had yet not been acknowledged by West Germany.(Steele, p. 96)

 
    May 1955 also saw the signing of the Austrian State Treaty, which in neutralizing the country brought along Soviet troop withdrawal from Austrian soil. When those forces were withdrawn, there wouldn't have been any grounds for having Soviet rear service units in Hungary and Romania either, since these had been effectively only securing and supplying the Austrian-positioned troops. The Warsaw Treaty thus provided a legal justification for an indefinitely extended Soviet military presence in Hungary and Romania, with the true mission of the armies being the support for the frail socialist regimes.(Korbonski in Clawson-Kaplan, p. 6-7.)

 
    One last fact should be noted in this context. The creation of the Warsaw Pact in May 1955 prompted very few immediate measures to establish a full-fledged organizational framework for a functioning military coalition; in fact it was largely to remain only on paper for the following few years. This leads us to reasoning, as does Holden (1991, p. 9.) that it was created much as a mere bargaining chip in the early détente taking shape with Chruchevs ascension to power. If any arms reductions talks were commenced, there would from now on be two equal partners engaged in bargaining - NATO and the WTO. The deal was that if NATO consented to absolving itself, the Warsaw Pact would follow suit. Upon Moscow's system of bilateral treaties established in the 1940's this would have had no effect, so in military terms there would have been nothing to loose but all the more to gain for the Soviets. Moreover, the moment the Warsaw Pact would be complied with as an equal negotiating partner, some of the Soviet domination of East Europe would be given formal status.