A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991 (National Security Archive Cold War Readers) [Paperback]

Vojtech Mastny (Editor), Malcolm Byrne (Editor)

Book Description

Series: National Security Archive Cold War Readers | Publication Date: August 1, 2006

A Cardboard Castle? is the first book to document, analyze, and interpret the history of the Warsaw Pact based on the archives of the alliance itself. As suggested by the title, the Soviet bloc military machine that held the West in awe for most of the Cold War does not appear from the inside as formidable as outsiders often believed, nor were its strengths and weaknesses the same at different times in its surprisingly long history, extending for almost half a century. The introductory study by Mastny assesses the controversial origins of the "superfluous" alliance, its subsequent search for a purpose, its crisis and consolidation despite congenital weaknesses, as well as its unexpected demise. Most of the 193 documents included in the book were top secret and have only recently been obtained from Eastern European archives by the PHP project. The majority of the documents were translated specifically for this volume and have never appeared in English before. The introductory remarks to individual documents by co-editor Byrne explain the particular significance of each item. A chronology of the main events in the history of the Warsaw Pact, a list of its leading officials, a selective multilingual bibliography, and an analytical index add to the importance of a publication that sets the new standard as a reference work on the subject and facilitate its use by both students and general readers.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Vojtech Mastny is a Senior Fellow at the National Security Archive, where he coordinates the Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact (PHP). Malcolm Byrne is Director of Research at the National Security Archive where he coordinates a program involving Russian and East European scholars in documentary research, conference preparation and publications relating to the Cold War.

Product Details

• Paperback: 726 pages
• Publisher: Central European University Press (August 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9637326073
• ISBN-13: 978-9637326073
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #864,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A mammoth collection, March 24, 2007

By 

Sergey Radchenko (Pittsburg, KS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991 (National Security Archive Cold War Readers) (Paperback)

Back in 2004 when I translated some of the documents for the book, I wondered how the authors would tie them into a readable narrative. But the book works very well. Mastny's introduction gives a sweeping overview of the Warsaw Pact: its potential, its problems, its quarrels and its downfall.

Some of the book's arguments are exceptionally interesting. Among these is Mastny's claim that the Warsaw Pact shifted to an essentially offensive strategy in 1961, and that the military planning reflected Moscow's readiness to take the war deep into Western Europe should it come to it. But the underlying question could be explored in greater depth - why 1961? How did these plans square with Khrushchev's political agenda?

The book's discussion of Romania's obstruction of the Warsaw Pact shows both the Pact's weakness, and also the remarkable tolerance of the Soviet leadership of Romania's persistent sabotage of Moscow's policies.

Mastny makes an interesting point, persuasively in my opinion, that the Brezhnev doctrine preceded the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

China comes up again and again in the narrative, showing the Soviet obsession with Beijing, and how this obsession overshadowed the Warsaw Pact with its emphasis on the Soviet enemies in the West.

The authors' conclusion that the Warsaw Pact was not a cardboard castle, but a "formidable military machine" may be challenged taken the evidence the book itself presents. Readers may get an impression that it was a colossus on clay legs.

Many of the arguments and documents presented in the volume have been previously posted on the website of the Parallel History Project, but it is great to have them in a form of a book.

Overall, the book is indispensable to any scholar of Cold War history; it is an excellent example of the kind of international collaborative effort, which has become a trademark of new Cold War scholarship.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent historical source, October 16, 2005

By 

David Michel (Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cardboard Castle?: An Inside History Of The Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991 (Hardcover)

"A Cardboard Castle?" is an impressively extensive collection of original documents and transcripts of the Warsaw Pact from its beginning in 1955 to its dissolution in 1991. The two main themes in the documents is that the Pact seemed to have no intention of a preemptive attack on Western Europe. The other is that the Pact was not all as united as outside observers believed. This is a great book for historians and for anyone else who is interested in this subject.

However, the book's binding is not the best, so you have to be careful handling it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Own for Cold War Historians, August 24, 2009

By 

Paul Perry (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991 (National Security Archive Cold War Readers) (Paperback)

First, a huge thank you to the Parallel History Project, an organization dedicated to scouring NATO and Warsaw Pact Cold War archives and compiling various documents into collections for general dissemination. Without their tireless efforts, volumes such as A Cardboard Castle would not exist.

A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact is an enormous effort that collects, in a single volume, hundreds of documents dealing with Warsaw Pact internal politics and policies in the Cold War era. The collection is chronological, and presents various forms of correspondence between Warsaw Pact leaders, overview of politburo meetings in the various states, and other archival material that enables one to draw a clearer understanding of the internal issues of the Pact throughout its existence.

What it illustrates is an alliance that is not a cohesive whole, even early on, many petty rivalries are shown, consequences of unilateral Soviet decisions on the various Pact governments, and old historical state tensions and rivalries that seriously call into doubt the reliability of the Pact member states in the event of war with the West. The Hungarian Revolution, "Prague Spring" and Solidarity movement are all well covered from various points of view, along with the events of the late 1980's just prior to, and during, the revolutions that swept the Pact states in 1989. The point of view and clarity these documents provide the reader are invaluable to anyone interested in Cold War history.

In short, this book is a must-have for any historian of the era, given the fact that the information contained herein is unique to the source, and, in my honest opinion, provides the single best narrative on the inner workings of the Warsaw Pact states throughout their history. For what you get, the price cannot be beat.