Brezhnev Doctrine

Eastern Block

The Brezhnev Doctrine or doctrine of limited sovereignty was a Soviet political doctrine, introduced by Leonid Brezhnev -General Secretary of the CPSU- as a guide for the foreign policy of the USSR, according to an article published in the Soviet daily Pravda in November 1968.

Formulation

The "Brezhnev Doctrine" included an approach by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev expressed in an article in Pravda two months after the Prague Spring, in which the following text was established:

When there are forces that are hostile to socialism and attempt to change the development of a socialist country towards capitalism, they become not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem that concerns all communist countries.

This effectively meant that if a country tried to "move from socialism to capitalism" a political problem was generated that was not only the responsibility of the communist state thus affected, but it should be understood that all other countries under a communist regime should be considered affected by this situation. In fact, this doctrine justified an intervention by the Warsaw Pact in that country where "forces hostile to socialism" appeared. The fact that the "doctrine" was formulated in an article in Pravda and not in an international summit was considered a sign that the USSR claimed the right to set the limits and scope of the new doctrine.

It could also be understood from Brezhnev's words that no member country of the Warsaw Pact was allowed to leave it, nor was it possible to suppress the monopoly of power of each local communist party, leaving aside their national sovereignty. Thus, the doctrine was used to retrospectively justify Warsaw Pact intervention in the 1953 East German Uprising, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring.

Brezhnev's phrase also implicitly determined that only the USSR could define what was a "force hostile to socialism" or determine at what point a country "would pass from socialism to capitalism" and thus justify a military intervention. The Brezhnev Doctrine was superseded by the Sinatra Doctrine in 1989.

History

Origins

The origins of the doctrine of limited sovereignty can be found in the Russian civil war. In this context, the Soviet of People's Commissars issued a proclamation entitled The socialist fatherland is in danger!, in which -among other principles- it lists two:

1st. All the forces and all the resources of the country are placed completely at the service of the revolutionary defense.

2nd. All Soviets and revolutionary organizations are obliged to defend each position to the last drop of blood.

The doctrine of limited sovereignty was widely used during the cold war. In addition to the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, already mentioned, the Soviet Union, allegedly using this doctrine, also intervened in Poland in 1982.

Currently

Some analysts believe that the doctrine of limited sovereignty is still in force. In fact, Russia's military invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is considered to be an application of this doctrine.

Fonts

• Freedman, Lawrence, and Jeffrey Michaels. "Soviet Doctrine from Brezhnev to Gorbachev." in The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2019) pp. 527-542.
• Gompert, David C.; Binnendijk, Hans; Lin, Bonny (2014). Blinders, Blunders, and Wars: What America and China Can Learn. Santa Monica: Rand Corporation..
• Jones, Robert A. The Soviet Concept of 'Limited Sovereignty' from Lenin to Gorbachev: The Brezhnev Doctrine (Springer, 2016).
• Kramer, Mark. "The Kremlin, the Prague Spring, and the Brezhnev Doctrine." in Promises of 1968 (2010) pp: 285-370. online
• Ouimet, Matthew: The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London. 2003.
• Rostow, N. (1981). «Law and the use of force by states: The Brezhnev Doctrine». Yale Journal of International Law 7 (2): 209-243.
• Schwebel, Stephen M. (1972). «The Brezhnev Doctrine Repealed and Peaceful Co-Existence Enacted». The American Journal of International Law 66 (5): 816-819. JSTOR 2198512. doi:10.2307/2198512.