Riga Pact
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The Riga Pact is the common name for the alliance created by the Treaty of Mutual Defence and Friendship signed into effect in 1953 in Riga, Latvia, and continuing until the dissolution of the SNOR in 1990-1991. It was a primarily defensive treaty in which all the signatory states agreed to come to the aid of any member that was attacked.
The membership of the alliance was as follows:
- Russia
- Belorussia
- Malorussia
- Crimea
- Estonia
- Latvia
- Skuodia
- Slevania
- Hungary
- Moldova
- Oltenia
- Muntenia
- Bulgaria
- Georgia
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Turkestan
- Uyguristan
- Moghul National Realm – joined in 1984
- Mongolia
- Ezo
- Filipinas - withdrew in 1983 after the fall of its SNORist regime.
The Treaty, together with its resultant web of alliances, was the product of the SNOR regime of Russia and the spread of Snorist or pro-Snorist ideology to Russia's satellite states after the end of GWII. It was intended as a defensive alliance to counter perceived aggressions from the Communist Danubian states, from the West, and from the East. The Riga Pact was also designed to maintain Russian supremacy in the "client state" relationships it was developing with the other Snorist regimes, all the while giving the appearance of being an alliance of more-or-less equal partners.
Thus, for example, in the interests of "standardisation" across the Riga Pact countries, nations such as Oltenia and Turkestan were effectively forbidden from exporting military hardware, making Russia the main, if not the sole supplier of military equipment. This "ban" on exports was primarily directed within the Riga Pact signatory bloc; thus, some nations manufacturing their own military equipment (such as Oltenia) were able to use their contacts outside the Snorist bloc to become weapons exporters, while others (such as Turkestan) had few meaningful contacts outside the Riga Pact signatory group, and were unable to develop export industries.
This "ban" was not an outright forbiddance, however, but more a product of Russian-driven and Russian-led procurement policies which favoured Russian domestic suppliers over others, particularly those non-Slavic in origin, for ideological reasons.
In this respect, the Riga Pact was the military counterpart of the CMAEC economic alliance, and was used similarly to further Russian military aims without necessarily serving the interests of its other signatories. Unlike CMAEC, which was largely designed to facilitate Russian exploitation of its "partners", the Riga Pact was in some ways truer to its appearance. Russia was generally prepared to defend and stand by its Riga Pact allies, at least, up to a point.
One of the earliest tests of the Riga Pact alliance was its intervention in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The Snorist Hungarian government called upon its allies for aid in suppressing the revolt, and while Russia provided the bulk of the foreign troops sent to "assist the government in maintaining order", the other signatory nations at least sent token forces.
Documents released after the SNOR was dissolved, particularly the so-called "Queen's Sacrifice" series of secret Russian battle plans, show that Riga Pact military doctrine and planning assumed that the eventual target of any attack on a Snorist state was Russia itself. The alliances were therefore designed ultimately to defend Russia, and especially the Russian heartland, from attackers. While the most favourable way of doing this was to engage any attacker on the soil of one or more of its allies, the cold-blooded lengths to which the Russian chief strategists of the Riga Pact were prepared to sacrifice the satellite Snorist states to preserve Russia intact was a shocking revelation to some of the signatory nations.
