BY KEHINDE OLALEYE

On this day in history, in 1955, the international alliance known as the Warsaw Pact was formed. Intended to serve as the Communist counterpart to NATO, the Pact would be comprised of the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, each of which vowed to provide military assistance to any other Pact member, should it fall under attack.

While Albania would be removed from the Pact as a consequence of the critical stance which its officials took against Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev’s policies, which were accused of deviating from Marxist orthodoxy, the Pact would otherwise remain wholly intact until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.