Brezhnev Doctrine

6 Key excerpts on "Brezhnev Doctrine"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Gorbachev's Third World Dilemmas

  • Kurt M. Campbell, S. Neil Macfarlane, Kurt M. Campbell, S. Neil Macfarlane(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  glasnost, or openness, in discussion of domestic and foreign policy includes the Brezhnev Doctrine and related subjects, thus permitting a more ready identification of points in debate among the leadership on this issue. But before examining how the Soviet view of the Brezhnev Doctrine has evolved under Gorbachev, it is first necessary to review how Brezhnev and his associates defined it.

  The Brezhnev Doctrine

  Space does not permit even a cursory review of the events leading up to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.1 Shortly afterward, Pravda published a justification for the intervention:

  ... the CPSU Central Committee has maintained and maintains that the fate of the socialist gains of the Czechoslovak people, the fate of Czechoslovakia as a socialist state linked by allied commitments with our country and other fraternal countries, is not exclusively the internal affair of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. It is the common affair of the entire community of the countries of socialism, of the whole communist movement. That is why the CPSU Central Committee sees as its international duty promoting by all means the strengthening of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, safeguarding and stabilizing socialism in Czechoslovakia, and defending Czechoslovakia from imperialist intrigues. This is our international duty; it is the international duty of all fraternal parties and we would not be communists if we declined to fulfil it. Such is the principled position of the CPSU, a position founded on Marxist-Leninist principles, on proletarian internationalism.2

  In other words, the Soviet Union claimed the right to intervene militarily in Czechoslovakia to preserve socialist rule. The reasoning in this statement, however, could be applied more broadly to any other Warsaw Pact state in Eastern Europe.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The United States And The Ussr In A Changing World

  Soviet And American Perspectives

  • Andrei Bochkarev, Don L Mansfield(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The processes and tensions found in Soviet ideological discourse today are reflected in the conduct of Soviet foreign policy. They particularly affect the Soviet Union's active efforts to defend and promote socialism in the world.

  The Sinatra Doctrine

  The region where the Soviets have expanded the most military and political capital in the service of such aims is, of course, Eastern Europe. After World War II the Soviets ensured the installation of the region's socialist governments. In 1956 and 1968 they even used military force on a large scale to suppress counter-revolutionary trends. In 1968, in what Westerners call the "Brezhnev Doctrine," the Soviets declared that socialist countries have a limited form of sovereignty that affords other socialist countries a right, even an obligation, to intervene militarily to prevent any deviation from socialism.

  Given recent Soviet acquiescence in political changes that have brought noncommunist governments to power in Eastern Europe, however, there is no question that the Brezhnev Doctrine is now dead. Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov seemed to relish the announcement of its demise in October 1989 when he said: "In the Soviet Union of today we have replaced the Brezhnev Doctrine ... with the Frank Sinatra doctrine, from the title of one of his famous songs, 'I Did It My Way.'... I think, in fact, that each Eastern country is doing it its own way."

  There is thus substance as well as style in new Soviet policy. The Soviet Union has gone beyond acquiescing to the changes in Eastern Europe: It has promoted them actively. In August 1989, when the new Polish government was being formed, Gorbachev reportedly telephoned leaders of the Polish Communist party and successfully pressed them to be more accommodating to the interdependent trade union movement Solidarity. Shortly after Gorbachev's visit to East Germany in October [1988], President Erich Honecker resigned and the government launched into a series of dramatic reforms, including freedom of travel to the West. In November Gorbachev reportedly called then Czechoslovak Communist party chief Milos Jakes to urge him to loosen his grip over Czechoslovak society. And in December the Soviets not only openly supported the forces overthrowing the Communist party regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, but even sent them medical and relief aid. The West may find this type of intervention actually attractive rather than deplorable.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Guide to International Relations and Diplomacy

  • Michael Graham Fry, Erik Goldstein, Richard Langhorne(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  At the same time Soviet leaders endeavoured to mould together neighbouring socialist countries. Such a socialist bloc was seen as means to redress the West. A Cold War mentality guided Soviet foreign policy. Moscow became unsettled early in 1968 when the people of Czechoslo-vakia, during what has come to be known as the 'Prague Spring', began to show an open interest in democratic reforms. Fearing that evidence of Czechoslovak commitment to freedom would weaken Moscow's hold over other satellite countries, the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia with military forces from the Warsaw Pact countries. The invasion required the Soviet Union either to renounce the general international law principles of territorial integrity and national sovereignty or to explain or justify their non-application. The Brezhnev Doctrine con-stituted the Soviet justification. On 13 November 1968, in an address to the Polish United Workers' Party, Brezhnev stated, as he had done before, that socialist states possess a limited national sovereignty. He asserted the right of the Soviet Union, as the self-appointed guardian of the interests of the 'socialist commonwealth', to send military aid to a fraternal country in order to cut short a threat to the socialist system. He excoriated imperialists and imperialism. He stated that when 'external and internal forces hostile to socialism try to turn the development of a given socialist country in the direction of restoration of the capitalist system, when a threat arises to the cause of socialism in that country -this is no longer merely a problem for SOVIET UNION 417 that country's people, but a common problem, the concern of all socialist countries'. Soviet officials justified the invasion and the doctrine by invoking the concept of an integrated 'socialist commonwealth'.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Russia's International Relations in the Twentieth Century

  • Alastair Kocho-Williams(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Liberalization in other Eastern bloc states was stopped, and ties to the Soviet Union were reinforced. The show of force clearly frightened other Communist states in Eastern Europe, with Yugoslavia and Romania concerned that they too might be invaded, and saw hard-line repressive policies introduced to stop the potential threat that another reformist state might pose. While the intervention can be seen to have delivered the restoration of control that the Soviets desired, it also exposed the reality of the ends to which the Soviets would go in order to maintain their dominance within Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union had shown the world that it would contravene international law and intervene in a sovereign state in the pursuit of its own interests and to keep communist regimes in place. The Brezhnev Doctrine, which emerged in the wake of the Soviet action in 1968, articulated the notion that problems within the socialist world were to be addressed by the rest of the socialist world in the interests of the preservation of the socialist regime. This, although after the fact, gave a veneer of legitimacy to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, but also provided a pretext for further similar actions in support of troubled Communist regimes around the world. The Soviet Union had bared its teeth very publicly, and made it very clear that it would lash out in a similar fashion to other challenges to its authority. Healing the wounds of the Cold War: détente with the United States and attempted rapprochement with China After the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Soviet Union enjoyed a tense relationship with the United States, but it was not long before the wounds of the past began to be healed and the two powers moved towards a situation of détente. Key in the development of this situation was that the Soviet Union, by the end of the 1960s, had caught up with the United States in nuclear arms possession and had achieved parity

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Russia in the Twentieth Century

  The quest for stability

  • David R. Marples(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the indigenous populations in most of the non-Russian republics could be found in positions of authority. In the Baltic republics, particularly Lithuania, Russians had been virtually excluded from the power structure. In Central Asia, the progress had been slower, but already the native populations comprised more than half of the ruling party elite. Was this phenomenon a sign of the success of the Soviet regime or of its failure? The ageing masters of the Kremlin decided the latter. In Belarus, Russians dominated the party leadership; but, in Minsk, Petr Masherov had distanced himself from the corruption and intrigue of the Kremlin. He had remained a more steadfast Communist and moreover one significantly more popular than Brezhnev himself. Masherov’s role was important in keeping alive a Belarusian entity. Belarusians in this period generally had a good standard of living and were free from the political intrigues and high-level official farce in Moscow. At the same time, the Russian language had assumed a position of control over state and urban life. The vast majority of books, journals, and newspapers were published in Russian. Because of the similarity of the Belarusian and Russian languages, and the “invisibility” of the large Russian minority, an acute level of Russian linguistic assimilation took place in the republic, making it much more difficult for subsequent national self-assertion. In Moldavia, the leadership was under firm Russian and Slavic control. One may exaggerate the dilemma that arose before the Politburo by the mid-1970s – the ruling elite itself was Russian (including ten out of twelve members of the Politburo elected in this decade). As the Politburo grew in size, Russian membership was maintained. The authorities also tried to stress the natural friendship and links between the three Slavic nations, their common roots in the Kyivan state of the 10th century, and a common history in which the key aspect was Russian friendship and guidance of the “younger brothers.” Often state propaganda would revert to the war years, to a theme of common actions against a foreign occupant, heroism, and love for the Motherland. In turn, the growing Soviet power in the world was also a common topic. The period had hardly been a successful one for the rival power, the United States, which had suffered badly – particularly in terms of internal protests – during the war in Vietnam. The Brezhnev regime therefore sought to present an image of a state that was united and based on the friendship of its peoples. National distinctions thus were blurred as far as possible. Yet they were never eradicated and would re-emerge during the Gorbachev period as a new and pressing dilemma for the Soviet leadership.

  Foreign policy under Brezhnev

  Introduction

  Under Brezhnev, the foreign policy pursued several aims. In Eastern Europe, it faced threats of Communist Party reform and, toward the end of Brezhnev’s leadership, the creation of an independent trade union in Poland. In the developing world, the Soviet Union took advantage of decolonization to spread its influence in India and Afghanistan; in several African countries it established a foothold either directly or by proxy. Relations with China were hostile, and resulted in several military clashes on both sides of the border. At this time China became the main enemy of the Soviet Union. Finally, in the Cold War conflict with the United States, the Soviet leadership was able to reach a position of approximate parity, to promote détente and an official peace campaign. The culmination point was the signing of a SALT-2 Treaty with the United States in Vienna, though the latter did not ratify this, preferring first to ensure that the missile situation in Europe was made more even. By the mid-1970s, the signing of the Helsinki agreement brought a practical end to the Second World War, recognizing the current boundaries, the two German states, and the agreement of the Soviet Union to respect human rights. The period 1964–1982 can be regarded as one of Soviet consolidation and military growth. It saw two Soviet invasions of neighbors – one within Europe and one in the Near East. These were to be justified by the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine, but they revealed that the Communist giant was in essence an imperial regime that would use force to expand its power or to ensure that its satellite states did not try to break the links with Moscow.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Russia

  A Historical Introduction from Kievan Rus' to the Present

  • Christopher J. Ward, John M. Thompson(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In the summer of 1968, however, peaceful coexistence and Soviet foreign policy in general suffered a serious setback when a new crisis erupted inside the socialist camp. A group of communist reformers in Czechoslovakia led by Alexander Dubček began to introduce changes designed to “humanize” Czechoslovak socialism. The reforms were almost entirely related to internal party affairs and domestic policies, and Dubček and his followers were careful to stress that they had no intention of altering Czechoslovakia’s adherence to the Warsaw Pact or its close alliance with the Soviet Union. Why these assurances failed to satisfy the Soviet leaders is not entirely clear. The most likely explanation is that they feared not only how far the Czechoslovak reformers might go but also what impact this might have within the Soviet Union.

  Led by the Soviet Army, Warsaw Pact forces invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Unable to resist, the Czechoslovaks soon found themselves back under a communist government run by pro-Soviet hardliners. Yugoslav and Italian communist leaders protested the brutal repression of independent socialism in Czechoslovakia, as did Western statesmen, but Brezhnev was unfazed, announcing instead that the Soviet Union had the obligation to interfere in the affairs of communist societies that appeared to be “damaging either socialism in their own countries or the fundamental interests of the other socialist countries,” a precept subsequently known as the Brezhnev Doctrine. The armed intervention in Czechoslovakia seriously harmed Soviet prestige worldwide and set back the evolving cooperation between the Soviet Union and the West after 1963. Brezhnev’s repression of the Czechoslovak reformers also ignited protests among Soviet students and intellectuals and strengthened the growing dissident movement in the USSR.

  In the early 1970s, the Soviet Union embarked on a new phase of coexistence, usually called détente. In international parlance, the word refers to a relaxation of tensions, but the Soviet leaders pushed it further in a consistent effort to reach agreements with the United States and the Western European nations on several important issues. The most significant by far was arms control. In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, both the United States and the Soviet Union had tacitly agreed to a nuclear stalemate. Each side made sure that it had enough nuclear weapons that could survive an attack by the other side to permit it to launch a devastating retaliatory strike. The certainty that retaliation would occur prevented, or deterred, the other side from attacking. This strategy of deterrence seemed to work, but it depended on neither side’s getting too far ahead of the other in the arms race.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book