THE SOVIET CONCEPT OF 'LIMITED SOVEREIGNTY' FROM LENIN TO GORBACHEV: THE BREZHNEV DOCTRINE

THE SOVIET CONCEPT OF 'LIMITED SOVEREIGNTY' FROM LENIN TO GORBACHEV: THE BREZHNEV DOCTRINE

The Soviet Concept of 'Limited Sovereignty' from Lenin to Gorbachev The Brezhnev Doctrine Robert A. Jones Senior Lecturer and Course Leader Department of Public Sector Administration and Law Sheffield City Polytechnic Palgrave Macmillan

ISBN 978-1-349-20493-9 ISBN 978-1-349-20491-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20491-5 Robert A. Jones, 1990 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990 978-0-333-43326-3 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 First published in the United States of America in 1989 ISBN 978-0-312-02816-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jones, Robert A., 1946- The Soviet concept of 'limited sovereignty' from Lenin to Gorbachev I Robert A. Jones. p. em. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-312-02816-9 1. Soveit Union-Foreign relations-1917-2. Sovereignty. 3. Communist countries-politics and government. 4. Soviet Union -Foreign relations-europe, Eastern. 5. Europe, Eastern-Foreign relations-soviet Union. I. Title. DK266.45.J66 1990 320.1 '57'0947-<ic19 BS-39264 CIP

Contents List of Figures Vlll A Note on Transliteration ix 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 THE GENEALOGY OF THE SOVIET CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 20 Definitions of sovereignty in Western and Soviet thought 20 Positive and negative Soviet orientations towards sovereignty before the Second World War 24 Bolshevik doctrines of 'revolutionary intervention' 31 'National self-determination' in Bolshevik theory and practice 39 Links between pre- and postwar Soviet attitudes towards sovereignty 44 3 SOVEREIGNTY AND STALIN'S POLICY TOWARDS EASTERN EUROPE 45 Stalin's policy options in Eastern Europe 45 Satellitisation: alternative or prelude to annexation? 49 Asymmetrical power relationships within international subsystems 56 4 EARLY POSTWAR SOVIET THEORIES OF SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 61 The role of the Soviet Union within the socialist camp 61 'Peoples Democracy': a novitiate stage of socialist development 68 Soviet conceptualisations of 'international relations of a new type' 73 Relations with the West 75 5 MARXIST -LENINIST DOCTRINE AND THE SOVIET THEORY OF SOVEREIGNTY 78 1 The primacy of the international class struggle 79 2 Leninist doctrines of unity and discipline 82 3 'Popular sovereignty' 87 4 'Base and superstructure' in Soviet international relations theory 90 v

vi Contents 6 THE IDEOLOGICAL DIMENSION 96 The triple fusion of ideology, power and national interest 97 The functions of Soviet ideology 101 Continuity and change in Soviet ideology 106 7 CHALLENGES TO SOVIET REGIONAL HEGEMONY IN THE 1950s AND THE SOVIET RESPONSE 112 The formal and 'submerged' rules of the Soviet hegemonial system 112 Soviet responses to the crises in Poland and Hungary 114 The enunciation of 'solidarist' concepts 125 'Socialist integration' and sovereignty 135 Relations with the West 137 8 'SOCIALIST INTERNATIONALISM' AND THE WARSAW PACT INTERVENTION IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 140 Uncertainty concerning Soviet tolerance thresholds 143 The sovereignty issue in the 1968 crisis 144 The doctrine of 'limited sovereignty': Soviet theoretical expositions and foreign reactions 153 The Soviet ideological counter-offensive: 'Socialist Internationalism' reaffirmed 167 9 SOVIET 'CORRELATION OF FORCES' ANALYSIS AND AFGHANISTAN 174 The Soviet assessment of the 'correlation of forces' in the 1970s 176 The invasion of Afghanistan: Soviet motives and justifications 183 The Brezhnev Doctrine and Afghanistan: the 'reversibility of socialism'? 188 10 THE SOVIET PROXY INTERVENTION IN POLAND 193 The challenge of Solidarity 193 International responses 198 Soviet analyses of the causes of the Polish crisis: 'deformations of socialism'? 208

Contents vii 11 SUPERPOWER DOCTRINES OF INTERVENTION: COMPARISONS AND CONTRASTS 211 The Monroe and Brezhnev Doctrines compared 211 Postwar US interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean 218 Superpower interventions: the 'rules of the game' 224 12 CHALLENGES TO SOVIET DOCTRINES OF SOVEREIGNTY IN THE 1980s 230 Contemporary Western and Soviet perspectives on 'challenges to sovereignty' 230 The 'new thinking' and the Soviet doctrine of sovereignty: the emergence of a 'third axis'? 234 'National and international interests' within the bloc 239 Gorbachev and Eastern Europe: the Brezhnev Doctrine repealed? 242 CONCLUSION 257 Notes and References 262 Select Bibliography 312 Index 323

List of Figures 2.1 The Soviet class perspective on the 'internal' and 'external' aspects of sovereignty 22 2.2 The Soviet class approach to sovereignty 23 2.3 Soviet attitudes towards sovereignty in the interwar ~~ ~ 12.1 Pressures from the global environment 233 12.2 The emergence of a 'third axis' 236 12.3 The 'old' and 'new' political thinking 244 viii

A note on Transliteration The US Library of Congress system of transliteration has been used for Russian names and words. Exceptions to this are conventional usages in English (e.g. Zinoviev, not Zinov'ev) and the names of authors of Soviet works published in English, since the Soviets use a different system of transliteration (e.g. Korolyov, not Korolev): in these cases, the names are given as they appear in the works cited. R.A.J. lx