Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, in the west better known as the Warsaw Pact (it used to be known as the Warsaw Treaty Organisation too, but that name has now disappeared due to a more famous organisation taking the acronym), was a military defense alliance of the USSR and its European satellite states. It was pretty much formed as a direct response to NATO.

Accordingly, it's a good place for us to discuss Central and Eastern Europe as Commie Land.

One should not treat the entirety of the Soviet bloc as the same thing. There were many differences in policies and repression levels, both between countries and within the same country at different times (sticking dissidents in mental hospitals was pretty common though).

Very important note: Yugoslavia and Albania don't count. They were part of Commie Land, but not the Warsaw Pact. Yugoslavia was never a member and Albania finally left over the Prague Spring. The latter aligned for some time more with China.

The states of the Warsaw Pact were:
 * East Germany
 * Poland
 * Czechoslovakia
 * Hungary
 * Romania
 * Bulgaria
 * The USSR

Officially the countries were not supposed to intervene in each other's internal affairs. Interventions in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968) were justified under "requests by the local governments".

With Hole in Flag, the Warsaw Pact collapsed.

In fiction, the existence of Warsaw Pact members other than the Soviet Union and East Germany is often ignored. Especially in Spy Dramas. Commie spies will almost invariably be Russian. Their home country will nearly always be depicted like Russia. You won't see the warm, almost-Mediterranean climate of southern Bulgaria, nor the medieval architecture of Prague (unless it's meant to be a crossover with Überwald).

In case of World War, break glass

For most of the Cold War, the conventional military balance in Europe was in favor of the Warsaw Pact from the 1950s to the late 1980s, a imbalance which was off-set by NATO's nuclear superiority until the Soviets achieved rough parity in the late-60s. From the mid-80s on, the introduction of various emerging "information age" technologies for military use swung the balance to the West. The plans for World War Three were to go on the offensive immediately, in case of attack. The Warsaw Pact never planned to strike first. Neither did NATO for that matter. This meant that a Third World War could only have been started by accident. But neither side knew this, and often assumed that the other was preparing to strike first.

WP equipment was virtually all Soviet or local copies of Soviet weaponry (notable exception- the Czechoslovak L-39 trainer aircraft series. Remember the beginning of Tomorrow Never Dies? That one). When these countries later joined NATO, the US had some MiGs and Sukhois to play with. Most of these states are now slowly retiring their Soviet-made aircraft.

A lot of works called into question the reliability of the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact members in an offensive war against NATO. The general answer would be as long as the Soviets were successful, the loyalty of the Warsaw Pact nations would certainly be assured. Even then, the Soviets would had to take some measures to avoid the Pact from unreliability, like not having East Germans fight West Germans, having Poles fight British or American troops, and using a Soviet formation in between two Pact armies.

For those interested in that subject click here, which a transcript of a conference where former senior officers from both sides discuss their war plans with each other. Additionally, one can also can some interviews here to see the perspectives from Soviet officials, including members of the USSR General Staff.

Allow me to add that one of my life's greatest moments was at the viking market in Wolin 1998 where I met a former Polish para who had trained to invade the part of Denmark I was training to defend, he even knew some local village names. We quickly agreed that we were content that it never happened and shared a few beers, then a few more. The rest of the evening was hazy as we discovered that "The Other" was a young chap just like ourselves.

As Commie Land, all the states turn up at some point.

Comic Books

 * Superman: Red Son had the Soviets publicly announce his existence using the intro from the radio and tv series with one natural substitution: "the American way" was replaced with "expansion of the Warsaw Pact".

Film

 * From Russia with Love had some Bulgarian DS agents preforming counter-espionage on MI 6's Istanbul division for the Soviets.

Literature

 * In Red Storm Rising, bar a small appearance from GDR forces pre-war, the non-Soviet forces are ignored.
 * In Red Army, DDR, Polish and Czech officers attend Malinsky's front briefing, but only East German forces play a minor role subordinate to Starukhin's Third Shock Army.

Video Games

 * East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland along with the Soviet Union are playable sides in Wargame: European Escalation.