Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Pact, officially known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was an alliance formed by the Soviet Union to combat North Atlantic Treaty Organization. and strengthen the military ties between the countries in the Eastern Bloc. The Warsaw Pact was dominated by the Soviet Union; however, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Finland, Poland, Romania, Albania And Türkiye were also members until the Warsaw Pact's official dissolution on 1 July 1991. Albania withdrew in 1968, and East Germany followed suit in September 1990.
== Members ==
* Soviet Union (1954-1991)
* Albania (1954-1968)
* Bulgaria (1954-1991)
*
* East Germany (1955-1989)
* Finland (1955-1991)
* Lithuania (1954-1991)
* Poland (1954-1991)
* Romania (1955-1991)
* Türkiye (1954-1991)
== History ==
By the end of WW2, the Soviet Union occupied much of Eastern Europe. The United States and United Kingdom told Joseph Stalin (leader of the Soviet Union) to hold free elections in the occupied countries. Stalin ignored their request; instead, he installed Communist governments. On 4 April 1949, the United States, Canada, and ten Western European countries established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also known as NATO. In response, the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Treaty Organization, also known as the Warsaw Pact. Most of its members had very little freedom, and they acted more like satellites of the USSR rather than independent countries in their own right.
Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev began de-Stalization and wanted more freedom within the USSR. However, he suppressed the East German uprising of 1953. Then, he violently suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Finally, he brutally suppressed the 1956 Poznań protests of Poland but allowed the Polish October to happen.
Since life in Warsaw Pact countries was much poorer than in NATO, many people began leaving. Most infamously, many East Berliners immigrated to West Berlin, negatively impacting East Berlin's economy. Thus, Khrushchev began construction of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961.
In 1968, Albania officially withdrew from the Warsaw Pact due to the Sino-Soviet split. Also in 1968, the Soviet Union led a joint invasion of Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring. As a result of the Polish crisis of 1980–1981, martial law was declared in Poland.
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union. His two main policies were glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("restructuring"). When Hungary's prime minister visited Moscow, Gorbachev said he would not stop Hungary from reforming. Poland held elections in June 1989, with Solidarity (the anti-Soviet party) winning all but one seat. Then, in October 1989, Hungary also held free, multi-party elections. 
Hungary allowed travel to the West. East Germans traveled to Hungary, where they then reached West Germany via Austria. The East German leader, Erich Honecker, asked Gorbachev to suppress the reforms; he didn't. Finally, Honecker tried to suppress the protests in East Germany; however, he was voted out of power.
On 9 November 1989, East Berliners were finally allowed to enter West Berlin directly. They then destroyed most of the Berlin Wall, and Germany reunified in 1990. Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania ended Communism in their regimes.
== Dissolution and Future ==
On 1 July 1991, the Warsaw Pact was officially disbanded. The Soviet Union itself officially dissolved on 26 December 1991, and Czechoslovakia peacefully split apart on 31 December 1992. By 2007, all non-Soviet Warsaw Pact members (except Albania) and the Baltic states joined the European Union. Two years later, those same countries, plus Albania, were all NATO members. 
Category:Alliances/Organizations