network of bilateral friendship and mutual-assistance treaties
동유럽 양자 우호·상호원조조약 체계
The web of friendship and mutual-assistance treaties that the Soviet Union concluded individually with the states of Eastern Europe from the end of the Second World War into the early Cold War. Czechoslovakia (1943), Poland and Yugoslavia (1945), and Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria (1947–48) each signed bilateral pacts with the USSR, which served as the main legal framework binding the socialist camp until the Warsaw Pact was founded in 1955. Because this bilateral system was judged sufficient in 1949, no multilateral military alliance was built at that time.
In depth
Background
In liberated Eastern Europe the USSR chose to sign separate "friendship and mutual assistance" pacts with each state rather than build a multilateral military alliance. The earliest was concluded with the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in December 1943, followed by Poland and Yugoslavia in 1945 and Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria in 1947–48.
Character and significance
Nominally directed against renewed German aggression, these treaties in practice provided the legal basis for Soviet troop stationing and tied each country's defence and foreign policy to Moscow. According to the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, the Warsaw Pact was concluded "in addition to the existing bilateral treaties of the USSR," and since East Germany and Albania had not been parties to that system, founding the Warsaw Pact represented a real extension of the Soviet alliance network.
End
The bilateral system was superseded and absorbed by the multilateral alliance when the Warsaw Pact was founded in May 1955, though bilateral friendship treaties among the member states continued to be renewed as a supplementary layer.
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) the Warsaw Pact (1955) grew out of and supplemented the network of Soviet bilateral treaties with individual Eastern European states
- opil.ouplaw.com Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law: the Pact was concluded "in addition to the existing bilateral treaties of the USSR"; the GDR and Albania "had not been parties to the system of bilateral treaties"
- ebsco.com notes the Warsaw Pact multilateralized a pre-existing set of bilateral agreements which were initially deemed sufficient for stationing Soviet troops