The Warsaw Pact

Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance

Russian: Договор о дружбе, сотрудничестве и взаимной помощи
Member states in 1990 (dark green) Former member states (light green)
Motto	Union of peace and socialism
Formation	14 May 1955 in Warsaw, Poland
Dissolved	1 July 1991
Type	Military alliance
Headquarters	Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Membership	Albania (withdrew in 1968) Bulgaria Czechoslovakia East Germany (withdrew in 1990) Hungary Poland Romania Soviet Union
Supreme Commander	Petr Lushev (last)
Chief of Combined Staff	Vladimir Lobov (last)

The Warsaw Pact, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional economic organization for the socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 per the London and Paris Conferences of 1954, but it is also considered to have been motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe.

While the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO, there was no direct confrontation between them. Instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs. Its largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 (with the participation of all Pact nations except Albania, Romania and East Germany), which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than a month later. The Pact began to unravel in its entirety with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland and its electoral success in June 1989.