Evolution of the Brezhnev Doctrine

Evolution of the Brezhnev Doctrine

The Brezhnev Doctrine commonly refers to the justification given for the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, which formalized the right of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe. It would also be taken abroad to justify intervention in affairs of non-socialist entities. The policy, first outlined in the September 26, 1968 issue of Pravda, and later reiterated by Leonid Brezhnev in his speech to the Fifth Congress of the Polish United Worker's Party . However, the reality that the USSR had virtual carte blanche to conduct its foreign policy within its sphere of influence dated long before 1968. After the Soviets consolidated their power in Eastern Europe following WWII, they placed a heavy emphasis on creating a united ideological front. To ensure this united front against the perceived advancement of "Western Imperialism" the Soviet Union used an array of tactics. Over time Moscow's ability to control the inner workings of the communist parties within its sphere of influence diminished, and as a result more and more drastic and costly measures had to be taken in order to accomplish this goal, including full-scale invasions of sovereign nations that would ultimately contribute to the downfall of the Soviet Union.

At the closing of WWII, the Cold War began to divide the World into decisively bipolar camps. The United States proclaimed itself the savior of capitalism and through programs like the Marshall Plan, effectively consolidated its power in Western Europe, and even attempted to advancement into Eastern Europe. To counter the United State's "predatory and expansionist course," the Soviet Union formed the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau), as well as the COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. The Cominform was to enforce uniformity within the Communist Parties of Europe. The COMECON was an attempt to counter the Marshall Plan in rebuilding the economies of war ravaged Eastern European countries, and more importantly to bind the economies of these countries to the USSR.

The first hiccup in Stalin's plan to dominate the states of Eastern Europe was the schism between Josef Bronz Tito's Yugoslavia and Stalin's USSR. The origin of the rift between Yugoslavia and the USSR may well lay in the similarities between Stalin and Tito, as well as the fact that in liberation from the Nazis, Yugoslavia required minimal presence of the Red Army. Tito was a chief proponent of the forming of the Cominform bureau in 1947; he was as hard-line in his policies of collectivization, foreign policy and policies of imperialism as Stalin was. In order to impose a united front, all nationalistic feelings of Soviet Satellite States so that allegiance to the Soviet Union was first. Tito's brand of communism diverged from the theory that one country should form the model for all other states. Tito contended that states should use "different roads to communism," and that the centralization of the Soviet state's economy and bureaucracy was a brand of "state capitalism."

Because of Yugoslavia's resistance to the USSR's aspirations of conformity, Stalin attempted to replace Tito with Andrija Hebrang. Tito, who had the full authority of his state, party, and most importantly the military and secret police, promptly had Hebrang arrested. In March and April of 1948, Tito formally won the support of the Yugoslav Communist Party to challenge the right of the Soviet party to interfere in Yugoslavia's internal affairs. On June 28, 1948, at the 2nd meeting of the Cominform it was resolved that the YCP was to be formally expelled from the Cominform under the grounds that it had departed from Marxism-Leninism, and that it had exhibited an anti-Soviet attitude. Tito showed his similarity to Stalin labeling the thousands of supporters of the Cominform eviction "Cominformists," and banishing them to a gulag type prison called Goli-otok.

Yugoslavia was to remain a bastion of Nationalist Communism in a region otherwise dominated by Soviet force. Khrushchev famously reported (in his "Secret Speech") that Stalin had said, "I will shake my little finger Ð'- and there will be no more Tito. He will fall." However, Tito did not fall; Yugoslavia was unique in that because of its independent liberation from the Nazis, no Soviet troops had occupied Yugoslav territory, as was the case in other East European States. Furthermore, his party and the Yugoslav people were fiercely loyal to him for his role in expelling the Nazis, and to overthrow him would require an all out Soviet invasion. It would later become clear that Stalin's unwillingness to remove Tito by force left a precedent for challenging Soviet hegemony.

Other states within the Soviet sphere were not so lucky as to be removed from the presence of the Red Army within their borders. Curtailing independent and nationalistic tendencies facilitated the consolidation of power in Eastern Europe. Between 1947 and 1953, Stalin engaged in a brutal purge of the socialist leaders (labeled "Titoists") that emerged in the aftermath of WWII. Stalin handpicked the men that replaced them for their loyalty not to their state, but to Moscow, these men garnered the nickname of "Little Stalins" for their strict adherence to Stalinism as well as their ruthlessness. Stalin himself created a model of total political domination over Easter Europe, but it was mostly his merciless and domineering character held together the Eastern Bloc.

In 1953, with the death of Stalin and subsequent regime change the era of iron-fisted rule of Eastern Europe began to decline as a period of moderate economic liberalization swept in. Georgy Malenkov inherited control of the Soviet Union, and in August of that year, he announced and began to enact a "New Course" for the Soviet Union and its Eastern European socialist allies. The burden of heavy taxation and low standards of living had been choking the citizens of all countries in the Soviet bloc. East Germany had had a general strike in June of 1953, and was the first to enact the New Course whereby production quotas were relaxed, the USSR agreed to return control of East German enterprises, and halted reparation payments. In September 1953, Nikita Khrushchev assumed the position as First Secretary of the CPSU, with Malenkov remaining as Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Premier) bringing about a duumvirate rule, which would last until his forced resignation in February 1955. Nevertheless, the New Course policy continued with varying degrees of success, considering its divergent applications in each case.

The conditions in Hungary were some of the worst in the Eastern Bloc, as it was an underdeveloped country yoked with forced industrialization