Brezhnev Doctrine
The
Brezhnev Doctrine was a model of
Soviet foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a
September 26,
1968 Pravda article, entitled "Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries."
Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the
Polish United Workers' Party on
November 13,
1968, which stated:
"When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all socialist countries."
In practice, this meant that "limited sovereignty" of communist parties was allowed, but no country would be allowed to leave the
Warsaw Pact, disturb a nation's communist party's monopoly on power, or in any way compromise the strength of the
Eastern bloc. Implicit in this doctrine was that the leadership of the Soviet Union reserved, for itself, the right to define "socialism" and "capitalism". The doctrine was used to justify the invasions of
Czechoslovakia that terminated the
Prague Spring in
1968 and of the non-Warsaw Pact nation of
Afghanistan in
1979. The Brezhnev Doctrine was superseded by the facetiously named
Sinatra Doctrine in
1989.
