Warsaw Pact first secretaries' meeting
바르샤바 조약 공산당 제1서기 회의
The Warsaw Pact first secretaries' meeting refers to consultations among the first secretaries of the member states' communist parties on the alliance's shared political affairs. The 3–5 August 1968 Moscow meeting, for example, was a party-leaders' meeting distinct from a formal summit of heads of state or government.
In depth
This meeting format reveals political coordination among the member parties' leaderships rather than the alliance's military machinery. The offices held by participants therefore help establish whether they were consulting and politically binding their party leaderships, rather than formally representing a government.
The 1968 Moscow meeting illustrates bloc leaders' consultations over reform in Czechoslovakia. Several states subsequently supported military intervention, while Romania did not participate, showing that agreement within the Warsaw Pact was not automatically unanimous.
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) supports the July 1968 Warsaw Pact leaders' deliberation and its relationship to the Prague Spring and invasion decision.
- encyclopedia.com supports the Warsaw Pact's institutional structure and the role of communist first secretaries in its political consultative machinery.