Brezhnev Doctrine

The Brezhnev Doctrine was promulgated on November 12, 1968 by the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev at the 5th Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party . It started from the “limited sovereignty ” of the socialist states and derived the right to intervene if socialism were threatened in one of these states . The right to intervene - and therefore the decision as to whether socialism was threatened, that is, whether the pre-requisite for interference was met - should rest with the Soviet Union alone. The main thesis was: "The sovereignty of the individual states finds its limit in the interests of the socialist community."

history

One day after the doctrine was proclaimed, the following text appeared in the Soviet daily Pravda :

“And if the internal and external forces hostile to socialism try to turn the development of any socialist country towards the restoration of the capitalist order, if there is a danger for socialism in this country, a danger for the security of the entire socialist community of states , that is not just a problem in the country concerned. "

The Brezhnev Doctrine subsequently attempted to explain and justify the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968 (against the Prague Spring ). The Brezhnev Doctrine was not used to justify the Soviet Union's military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979. Rather, the Soviets cited contractual obligations and the alleged calls for help from the Afghan leaders.

The People's Republic of China , Romania , Albania and Yugoslavia rejected this Soviet claim to leadership, other Eastern bloc states , including the GDR , accepted it.

Warsaw letter to the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

The Warsaw letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR) of July 15, 1968 is seen as an early testimony and the actual cause of the Brezhnev Doctrine. It was delivered 37 days before troops of the Warsaw Pact member states marched into Czechoslovakia, an invasion that put down the so-called Prague Spring .
From the content:

“It was and is not our intention to interfere in matters that are strictly internal to your party and your state. It was and is not our intention to violate the principles of respect for independence and equality in relations between the communist parties and the socialist countries [...]. "

“We cannot, however, agree that hostile forces are pushing your country off the path of socialism and threatening the separation of Czechoslovakia from the socialist community. These are no longer just your business. These are the common affairs of all communist and workers' parties and of all states united by alliance, cooperation and friendship. These are the common affairs of our states, which were united in the Warsaw Treaty in order to guarantee their independence, peace and security in Europe, in order to erect an insurmountable barrier against the imperialist forces of aggression and revenge. "

Lessons from the crisis

The propaganda document Lessons from the critical development in the party and society after the XIII. KSČ party congress , to which the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia approved on December 11, 1970, refers to the Brezhnev Doctrine. In the text it says:

"The foreign policy conception of the right, which was the result of the counterrevolutionary development in the Czechoslovak Republic, not only led to a threat to the internal stability and security of the state and its sovereignty ... but also to the exposure of the western borders of the socialist camp, whose solid wall should be Czechoslovakia on the border of the socialist and capitalist system in Europe. The defense and maintenance of socialism in our country therefore not only concerned the immediate interests of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and our working people, but necessarily became a common concern of the socialist states, the fraternal parties of these countries and the entire communist movement. "

“The Central Committee of the Communist Party rejects the abstract concept of the sovereignty of the socialist state, which propaganda of the bourgeoisie is spreading in the interests of deceiving the masses , and is based on positions which also concern the question of the sovereignty of the class and the international character of the socialist state. "

End of the Brezhnev Doctrine

Mikhail Gorbachev called (according to his own account) at the funeral ceremonies of his predecessor Chernenko in March 1985 the leaders of the Eastern bloc states and made it clear to them that from now on each country was responsible for its own path (and the resulting consequences).

In 1988 the Brezhnev Doctrine was officially repealed. In October 1989 , on the sidelines of a state visit to Finland , the spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Gennady Gerasimov , coined the term “ Sinatra Doctrine ”, which has now replaced the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Web links

Wikisource: Brezhnev Doctrine - Sources and full texts (English)

literature

Matthew J. Ouimet: The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy . Chapel Hill , University of North Carolina Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8078-5411-5 ( review )

Individual evidence

↑ Quoting from: Horst Möller , Hélène Miard-Delacroix , Gregor Schöllgen , Andreas Wirsching (Eds.): Files on the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany 1968. January 1 to June 30 , Volume I, Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN 978- 3-486-71819-5 , pp. 1474 f., Note 19 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
↑ Helmut Hubel: The end of the Cold War in the Orient. The USA, the Soviet Union and the conflicts in Afghanistan, the Gulf and the Middle East 1979–1991 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1994, ISBN 978-3-486-82924-2 , p. 133 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
↑ ^a ^b Oddělení propagandy a agitace ÚV KSČ (ed.): Poučení z krizového vývoje ve straně a společnosti po XIII. sjezdu KSČ. Rezoluce k aktuálním otázkam jednoty strany. Rudé právo, tiskařské závody, Prague 1971, p. 30 f . (Czech, 48 pages, online ). Retrieved December 16, 2019.

[1] Quoting from: Horst Möller , Hélène Miard-Delacroix , Gregor Schöllgen , Andreas Wirsching (Eds.): Files on the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany 1968. January 1 to June 30 , Volume I, Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN 978- 3-486-71819-5 , pp. 1474 f., Note 19 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).

[2] Helmut Hubel: The end of the Cold War in the Orient. The USA, the Soviet Union and the conflicts in Afghanistan, the Gulf and the Middle East 1979–1991 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1994, ISBN 978-3-486-82924-2 , p. 133 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).

[Lehren30-3] Oddělení propagandy a agitace ÚV KSČ (ed.): Poučení z krizového vývoje ve straně a společnosti po XIII. sjezdu KSČ. Rezoluce k aktuálním otázkam jednoty strany. Rudé právo, tiskařské závody, Prague 1971, p. 30 f . (Czech, 48 pages, online ). Retrieved December 16, 2019.