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The Warsaw Pact: A Multilateral Single Party System

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A Multilateral Single Party System

“What do you imagine, that we will make some kind of NATO here?” (Soviet Supreme Commander Ivan Konev to Polish politicians in 1957).

Abstract: In modern history, especially contemporary western history, the Warsaw Pact is considered nothing more than a tool utilized by the Soviet Union to bolster itself in the face NATO. Nevertheless, recent historical research has proven that the treaty was in fact something much more complicated and involved, something that allowed the Non-Soviet Member States the ability to maneuver politically. In fact, many different nations under the traditional Soviet sphere-of-influence where able to express this new found right previously unthinkable under Stalin’s unilateral …show more content…

Another major product of the Warsaw Pact was the “New Course” system that replaced the old Stalin-influenced COMNIFORM and revolutionized the internal eastern bloc relations. For the remainder of the essay, multiple different situations are addressed in other Eastern non-Soviet European nations and the effects that Khrushchev’s “New Course” policy had are examined. With this scope of investigation, secondary sources were the primary means of information as they provided the most accurate overview of relations between the Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact members (NSWP) and the …show more content…

Established under Stalin in January of 1949, the COMECON helped direct the economy of the eastern communist nations under direct discretion from the Kremlin. However, under Khrushchev COMECON, which contained the same nations that were now members of the Warsaw Pact, was recreated as an economic tool of ten committees to accelerate the synthesis of Eastern Europe’s markets and economies. Undoubtedly, Khrushchev intended to act on his stated policies and use multilateral Eastern European support as opposed to Stalin’s position of a unilateral Soviet

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