XXIV. Meeting of the PCC, Moscow, 6-7 June 1990
Editorial Note 

Following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the PCC concentrated on discussing the crucial question of whether the Warsaw Pact should be preserved in any form. There was a wide range of opinion on this subject although none of the participants yet advocated complete dissolution.

As already in 1989, Gorbachev favored the transformation of the alliance into a mainly political organization. He alleged that also the United States favored its preservation, particularly in order to implement the reductions of conventional forces that had been agreed upon between the two alliances. The Bulgarian position was close to the Soviet one.

Poland, represented by Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki, favored the preservation of the Warsaw Pact, mainly to help guarantee Poland's borders with the future unified Germany. East Germany and Romania dwelt on the need for a thorough review of both the political and the military dimensions of the alliance.

Czechoslovakia and Hungary went the farthest in advocating the abolition of the military structures of the Warsaw Pact, although there were significant differences between their respective positions. President Václav Havel of Czechoslovakia stated that his country did not intend to withdraw from the alliance but rather help alter it from within while expecting the CSCE to become the main structure of European security. Hungarian foreign minister Géza Jeszenszky announced that he was under instructions from the parliament to negotiate his country's withdrawal, though with other members' agreement rather than unilaterally.

Havel drafted the final declaration, which proclaimed the end of hostility between the Warsaw Pact and NATO and the rejection of the "ideological enemy image."

The participants agreed to establish a commission to prepare proposals for reform, to be discussed at the PCC's planned next meeting in November 1990 in Budapest, intended to precede the CSCE summit. There were prevailing doubts, however, about the Warsaw Pact's ability to reform itself, which were soon substantiated by the rapid course of events.

Vojtech Mastny