Transcription
[Music] in one of my previous videos and actually a few my recent videos too i talked about the north atlantic treaty organization best known for being the alliance of western market economy democracies that was created following the second world war. my very first video on nato also gave a glimpse into the other major alliance of the cold war, the warsaw pact. today i'm going to look at this counter alliance to nato and how exactly it worked. and if you haven't already, please check out my instagram page, the link to which is in the bio. i'm always looking for new video topics, so please direct message me if you have any.
directly following the second world war, europe and for the most part the world was divided in two. this was between western capitalist states led by the united states and for a time co-led by the united kingdom, and the eastern communist states led mostly by the union of soviet socialist republics. china had somewhat of a sphere of influence later on in the century, though the usa and ussr had been allies during world war ii. the u.s. and uk were worried about communist influence growing globally. the main point of contention between the former allies was the division of germany and temporarily austria. this was one of the major regions that was now under soviet control or influence, with much of the rest of eastern europe also succumbing to its rule. there was one notable exception in eastern europe, yugoslavia. i'll explain why this was in greater detail later on.
anyways, after the nato alliance officially formed in 1949, the soviet union realized it needed a grip on its allied states in eastern europe. also, when west germany joined nato in 1952, talks of a full military alliance for the communist states in eastern europe were now in full swing. the warsaw pact was officially signed into existence in may of 1955 in, you guessed it, warsaw.
now let's take a look at what the members of this alliance were. the main benefactor for the alliance was the soviet union, which had by far the largest population and global influence. it went so far as to influence the politics of all other warsaw pact member states to such an extent that the other member countries could have been seen as soviet puppet states. another notable member of the alliance was east germany. when the pact was created, the whole of germany and berlin was then divided between the two major formal military alliances of the globe. east germany would stay in the alliance until nearly the end, but the unification of germany in 1990 occurred one year before the alliance would ultimately disband.
aside from the soviet union, three other slavic majority countries joined the warsaw pact: poland, czechoslovakia, and bulgaria. the other members that stayed to the end were hungary and romania. one member that joined the alliance but did not stay till the end was albania. the country was never contiguously connected to other member states, so soviet influence was not as strong there. after the sino-soviet split, relations between albania and the soviet union also began to worsen. the warsaw pact invasion of czechoslovakia, something else i will explain in more detail later, was the final straw for soviet-albanian relations, and the country left the alliance in 1968.
one notable exception to eastern european communist states in the warsaw pact was yugoslavia. the leaders of the soviet union and yugoslavia in the late 1940s, joseph stalin and josip broz tito, respectively, were having large disputes in the direction of the communist agenda in the balkans. stalin worked with other soviet satellite states in eastern europe like bulgaria to counter yugoslav interests. tito wanted albania to eventually integrate into yugoslavia, and the nation supported communist guerrillas in northern greece, something the soviet union opposed. yugoslavia eventually cut ties with the soviet union and its allies in 1948, which would outlive the soviet union by a year. yugoslavia still tried to integrate albania into it, though these efforts were ultimately futile.
mongolia was the only country that remained as an observer of the alliance throughout the entire cold war but never joined. the warsaw pact worked similarly to nato in the sense it was a collective defense treaty, meaning if one member state was attacked, all others must come to defend it. however, there were times when this aspect was not necessarily followed in its entirety. hungary had a revolution in 1956, which led to the soviet union invading the country to reinstate a pro-soviet government. in 1968, czechoslovakia was invaded by some warsaw pact members due to the country's reforms that would move it away from the eastern bloc. despite this, romania and albania did not participate in this war and actually spoke out against it.
the warsaw pact was mainly seen as the principal military alliance for the communist world. it served as a counterbalance to the western nato. though, with china emerging as a major global player towards the second half of the cold war, the hegemony of the warsaw pact over the communist world was not total. with east germany leaving in 1990 after uniting with west germany, the warsaw pact was officially disbanded on the 25th of february 1991 by the remaining countries. soon after this, all the communist governments of europe would fall, and many former warsaw pact members and even soviet republics would end up joining nato.
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