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Soviet Union [USSR] SOVIET-EAST EUROPEAN RELATIONS
Continued Soviet influence over the East European countries
belonging to the Warsaw Pact and Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (Comecon)--Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,
Hungary, Poland, and Romania--remained a fundamental regional
priority of Soviet foreign policy in 1988
(see Soviet Union USSR - Appendix B;
Soviet Union USSR - Appendix C).
The CPSU party program ratified at the Twenty-Seventh Party
Congress in 1986 designated these East European states as members
of the "socialist commonwealth" (along with Cuba, Mongolia, and
Vietnam) and depicted the establishment of socialism in Eastern
Europe as a validation of "the general laws of socialism
[communism]." By staking the validity of Marxist-Leninist ideology
on the continuation of communism in Eastern Europe, the Soviet
leadership in effect perceived attempts to repudiate communism as
threats to the ideological validity of the Soviet system itself.
The Soviet leadership expressed this sentiment in terms of the
"irreversibility of the gains for socialism" in Eastern Europe. In
the late 1980s, however, liberalization occurred, and the situation
was tolerated by the Soviet leadership.
After the August 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia,
which ended a process of liberalization begun by the Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union made clear the
irreversibility of communism in Eastern Europe through statements
that have come to be known in the West as the "Brezhnev Doctrine"
and are termed by the Soviet Union as "socialist internationalism."
In a speech delivered in Poland in November 1968, Brezhnev stated,
"When external and internal forces hostile to socialism try to turn
the development of a given socialist country in the direction of
the restoration of the capitalist system . . . this is no longer
merely a problem for that country's people, but a common problem,
the concern of all socialist countries." The Brezhnev Doctrine was
repeated in the 1986 party program's call for "mutual assistance in
resolving the tasks of the building and defense of the new
society," indicating no real change in this doctrine during the
mid- to late 1980s. During his visit to Yugoslavia in March 1988,
Gorbachev made statements that some Western observers termed the
"repudiation of the Brezhnev Doctrine," signaling Soviet
willingness to tolerate some political liberalization in Eastern
Europe.
Soviet influence over Eastern Europe began with the Soviet
occupation of territories during World War II. By 1948 communist
regimes had come to power in all the East European states. In
Yugoslavia, however, Josip Broz Tito, a nationalist communist who
had played a major role in the resistance to the occupying German
forces, opposed Joseph V. Stalin's attempts to assert control over
Yugoslav domestic politics. Tito's actions resulted in Yugoslavia's
expulsion from the Cominform in 1948 and the declaration of a trade
embargo. In 1954, after Stalin's death, the Cominform ended its
embargo. In May 1955, Nikita S. Khrushchev visited Belgrade and
proclaimed the doctrine of "many roads to socialism," acknowledging
Yugoslavia's right to a relatively independent domestic and foreign
policy.
Leadership changes in the Soviet Union have often been followed
by upheaval in Eastern Europe. Stalin's death created popular
expectations of a relative relaxation of coercive controls. The
slow pace of change contributed to domestic violence in three East
European states--East Germany, Hungary, and Poland--within four
years of Stalin's death in March 1953. In June 1953, the Soviet
army peremptorily suppressed a wave of strikes and riots in East
Germany over increased production quotas and police repression. In
June 1956, four months after the Twentieth Party Congress at which
Khrushchev delivered his "secret speech" denouncing Stalinist
terror, anti-Soviet riots broke out in Poznan, Poland. In Hungary,
anti-Soviet riots broke out in October 1956 and escalated
immediately to full-scale revolt, with the Hungarians calling for
full independence, the disbanding of the communist party, and
withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union invaded Hungary
on November 4, 1956, and Hungarian prime minister Imre Nagy was
arrested and later executed. The events of the 1950s taught the
Soviet Union at least three lessons: that the policy of teaching
the younger generation in Eastern Europe to support Soviet-imposed
communism had failed; that Soviet military power and occupation
forces were the main guarantees of the continued existence of East
European communism; and that some limited local control over
domestic political and economic policy had to be granted, including
some freedom in the selection of leading party officials.
Czechoslovakia's 1968 liberalization, or "Prague Spring" (which
occurred during a period of collective leadership in the Soviet
Union while Brezhnev was still consolidating power), led to a
Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, illustrating that even gradual
reforms were intolerable at that time to the Soviet Union. This
lesson was illustrated again, but in a different form, during the
events in Poland of 1980-81. The reforms sought by Polish workers--
independent trade unions with the right to strike--were
unacceptable to the Soviet Union, but for a variety of reasons the
Soviet Union encouraged an "internal invasion" (use of Polish
police and armed forces to quell disturbances) rather than
occupation of the country by Soviet military forces. The new Polish
prime minister and first secretary of the Polish United Workers'
Party, Army General Wojciech Jaruzelski, declared martial law on
December 13, 1981, and banned the independent trade union movement
Solidarity.
Gorbachev's political report to the Twenty-Seventh Party
Congress in February-March 1986 emphasized the "many roads to
socialism" in Eastern Europe and called for cooperation, rather
than uniformity, in Soviet-East European relations. The new party
program ratified at the congress, however, reemphasized the need
for tight Soviet control over Eastern Europe. Additionally, the
five-year plan ratified at the congress called for integrated
perestroika (see Glossary) among the Comecon countries, with
each East European country specializing in the development and
production of various high-technology goods under arrangements
largely controlled by the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev's emphasis on
perestroika and
glasnost'
(see Glossary) domestically and within Eastern Europe was supported
to varying degrees by the East European leaders in the mid- to late
1980s. The leaders of Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria apparently
supported Gorbachev's reforms, while the leaders of East Germany,
Czechoslovakia, and Romania resisted far-reaching reforms. Although
there were varying degrees of compliance in Eastern Europe with
Gorbachev's reform agenda, in the mid- to late 1980s the basic
Soviet policy of maintaining a high level of influence in Eastern
Europe had not been altered, although the nature of Soviet
influence apparently had shifted away from coercion toward
political and economic instruments of influence.
Data as of May 1989
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