International Proletarian Defense Pact

Service branches
 Supreme Co-Commanders

The **International Proletarian Defense Pact** (German: *Internationale Proletarische Verteidigungspakt*, **INPROV**), also known as the **Berlin Pact**, is the collective military organization of nine socialist states. Its establishment on 18 August 1925 was prompted by the right-wing militarist 25 May Coup in France. It is closely connected to the Communist International.

## Structure

The Berlin Pact is led by the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces, headquartered in Berlin, Germany. Its purpose is to unify the operations of its multi-national member armies. The Combined Command is composed of one commanding officer per full member state, for a total of nine commanders. Two member states, Germany and the Soviet Union, are "Executive Members", whose commanders hold the title of Supreme Co-Commander of Pact Armed Forces. Sweden, the sole observer state, does not participate in the command but does receive military aid and intelligence.

## Members

     **Executive Member**
     **Full Member**
     **Observer**

## History

The Berlin Pact was established on 18 August 1925 in the wake of the 25 May Coup in France, which brought to power a right-wing military government aggressively opposed to the Communist International. The Comintern responded by convening an emergency meeting of its Executive Committee. On 15 July a summit of leaders of socialist states was organized in Berlin, in which a provisional treatise was established for the formation of a collective defense pact. A final meeting was convened on 17 August after a series of negotiations, with the *Berlin Treaty for the Collective Defense of the International Proletariat* being ratified by all nine founding members on 18 August. On 1 May 1930, Sweden was admitted as the first observing member.

Though the establishment of the Berlin Pact represented the first military organization spanning the entire socialist bloc, military cooperation had existed before then through different organizations and structures. For example, Soviet forces in Germany were organized under the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army Group in Germany. Nonetheless, military cooperation through previous structures was often informal and inefficient. The reluctance of the socialist states to form a formal military organization can be explained by the circumstances following the German and Russian Revolutions, in which relations with western nations underwent a thaw with the reintroduction of limited diplomacy and trade agreements. Thus, the formation of a unified military pact, which would be seen as a hostile action to the west, was postponed. This changed with the 25 May Coup, which reintroduced the threat of military conflict and prompted the reimposition of the embargo on the socialist bloc, and as a result, the Berlin Pact was born.

The Berlin Pact has never engaged in a declared military conflict to date, though several skirmishes have occurred between Berlin Pact forces and bordering armies, primarily in the Rhineland. Many military exercises have been organized, with the most recent being a parade in Moscow on 3 November 1930, in which all member armed forces participated.