The Demise of the Brezhnev Doctrine and the Dismantling of

the Warsaw Treaty Organization

The early 1980's saw a new major crisis for the Warsaw Treaty Organization in the shape of the Polish events of 1980-81. In the end the Solidarity movement and the workers' uprisings were subdued by the imposition of Martial Law and by domestic Polish forces under the command of General Wojcech Jaruzelski. Only in 1992 did it become known from recovered Soviet sources that he had acted in the nick of time to prevent a Soviet invasion (Hartmann-Wendzel, p. 305). The Martial Law is also known to have been planned under the direct supervision of the WTO Commander-in-Chief, Soviet Marshal V.G Kulikov. In case the purely Polish solution should have failed, the Soviets had planned also to employ nominal detachments of Czech and East German units in the back- up intervention, no doubt for reasons of legitimacy (Starr, p.65). The Soviets were understandably distressed about what might follow of an intervention perceived as a Russian one in a fiercely patriotic country such as Poland.

The beginning of the eighties however also witnessed a gradual easing of Warsaw Pact discipline. The East European denial of the Soviet interpretation of the Warsaw Treaty text as allowing the use of multilateral Pact forces outside the European theater of war, e.g. in Afghanistan, should be noted in this context (Holden, p. 112-113). Also, Soviet pressures on her East European allies for a five per cent increase in domestic defense spending since the late seventies seems to have been in vain as well - much implies that the budget spending actually dropped. (Holloway-Sharp, p. 61-62)

1985 was the year of both a unanimous extension of the Warsaw Treaty for another 20 years, and the beginning of a re-evaluation of the same(Internet 1996). The latter was prompted by the election of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the CPSU in the spring of 1985 and took the form of an unprecedented, though modest, Soviet discussion about the premises which interstate socialist relations, the Brezhnev Doctrine and the WTO as its tool were based upon. Reformists in the Gorbachev administration rejected the traditional notion that national interests were unconditionally subordinate to common socialist ones. Instead, according to these analysts, the uneven pace of economic development within the socialist camp meant that contradictions between their interests could plausibly not be avoided (Holtsmark, p. 34). Such voices rejecting in effect socialist internationalism should not, however, be seen as representative of the Soviet establishment at this stage - it was the rise of a sufficiently liberal debate itself that was the salient feature.

An analysis of Gorbachev's own statements on foreign issues dating from these early years reveals an emphasis on inter-state cooperation rather than class struggle and a downplayed stress on ideological differences rather than an enhancement of them (Robert Jones, p. 244). Ideologically he was opposed among others by the institutions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which still aimed at strengthening a remarkably orthodox view on socialist internationalism.(Holtsmark, p. 36)

!n the course of 1988 Soviet media rapidly extended the range free discussion subjects from domestic to foreign policy. A number of overtly critical articles assessing the uneven Soviet treatment of its junior allies were published. On the formal inter-state level the joint Soviet-Yugoslav Declaration of March that year had potential significance for the Soviet relations to other East European countries as well, as it stated that the principles governing Soviet-Yugoslav relations were valid for the conduct of all intersocialist affairs. The two parties declared their readiness to abstain from interference in one anothers internal business "under any pretext". The Gorbachev speech before the UN General Assembly of December 1988 had a similar point of departure. The Party First Secretary endorsed the unrestricted right of choice in foreign policies for every nation - to deny this right was condemnable "under whatever words it may be concealed".(ibid. p. 48). The significance of this statement lay in its supposed universal applicability. Though Soviet rhetoric had for forty years stressed the "complete sovereignty" of the junior states of its camp, such statements had always been followed by a long line of "buts" imposed by the strains of socialist internationalism.

On the military side Gorbachev, as supreme commander of Soviet Armed Forces, defined "reasonable sufficiency" - a level of combat readiness sufficient to deter NATO from assault in any range of weaponry - as the objective of the Warsaw Pact. Chemical weapons and "offensive" ground forces were to be withdrawn unilaterally from East Central Europe.(Starr, p. 62) The decision of Gorbachev to reduce the Soviet hold of the region has to be seen primarily of the rapidly deteriorating state of Soviet economics. The "New Thinking" of both Gorbachev and his Foreign Minister Eduard Sjevardnadze was largely induced by a pursuit of cost effectiveness. The party leadership gradually came to understand that the sustaining of domestic perestroika in the USSR was endangered by the inability of an inefficient economy to carry the burdens of excessive overseas military spending in the form of the Warsaw Pact (Pick in NATO Review p. 13). The military linkages of the Brezhnev Doctrine became increasingly irrelevant when it was realized that it could only be upheld by a military organization which was a serious liability to the nation, in the end perhaps even overturning it.

The years 1988 and 1989 were, however, labeled by diametrically opposed tendencies. For instance Gati (1991, pp. 132-133) has seen symptoms for the strengthening of Soviet command over the WTO and a subsequent weakening of East European control over the national militaries during these late years of Gorbachev rule. Certain advanced features of Soviet military equipment and weaponry was still withheld to ensure Soviet superiority as well as to secure protracted East European reliance on Soviet supplies. Reportedly it was difficult for the East European armed forces to conduct maneuvers without the participation of the Soviets simply because not enough ammunition was available. Similarly, Gati continues, none of the pending higher commands of the Pact were given to East Europeans. The Soviet hegemony at the upper echelons of Pact commissions was still solid.

Heedless of the obstinacy of the WTO to adjust to a changing international environment, it could by now no longer change the rapid transformation of Eastern Europe .The year of 1989 witnessed the substitution for the old regimes with new, non-communist ones all over the region. The first to ascend to power was the Polish Solidarity-headed one in September. In October the Hungarian Socialist Party voted to abandon communist theories in favor of Western-style democracy. By end-November the Czechoslovak Communist Party agreed to give up its monopoly on governmental power and was followed in its decision by its East German counterpart on December 1. Three days later the WTO partners denounced their intervention in Czechoslovakia as "unfounded" and "erroneous". (Hartmann-Wendzel, p. 356)

The mild reactions on the part of the Soviet Union to these developments and especially its acquiescence in the East German withdrawal from the WTO to merge with West Germany and to subsequently join NATO showed in practice that the Brezhnev Doctrine no longer was one of its foreign policy fundaments. The WTO Chief of Staff, General Vladimir Lobov, declared the unhesitating support of his organization to the principles of "respect for independence and national sovereignty, settlement of conflicts by political means, non- use of force or threat of force, inviolable borders and territorial integrity, non interference in internal affairs, equal rights€.and generally recognized principles of international law".(Arbatov-Karagonov-Lobov, p. 23)

Despite of the thus stated rebuttal of the Brezhnev Doctrine, the new non-communist governments of Eastern Europe were not happy with the WTO as it was. The question of dismantling the organization came up to public debate more and more frequently. The USSR preempted the possibility of unilateral withdrawal from the pact by suggesting that its military activities should cease , thus in effect rendering it a political organization. The political role aspired by the Soviets for the Pact was that as a negotiator with NATO over arms control. The problem of bloc arms control had, however, become largely irrelevant to the East European states with the rise of the potential for them to make independent foreign policy; arms control was seen as a purely bilateral Soviet-U.S problem. (Pick in NATO Review, p. 16)

On the 25 of February 1991 the Foreign and Defense Ministers of the Warsaw Pact partner states met in Budapest to close down the institutions of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. The dismantling of the Pact was agreed upon without difficulties.(ibid. p.12) The Soviet Union itself met the same fate the very year. The failed August coup by the conservative communist junta led to the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and to the subsequent rise of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States as its Heirs Apparent.

The East European states on their part have pursued paths of integration to the West, and the Western military coalitions have seemed eager to support this trail. Still back in 1991 NATO invited the East European nations to join its newly formed North Atlantic Cooperation Council. Later both NATO and the Western European Union have continued their extended courtships of the Eastern Europeans and to a somewhat lesser degree of the states of the former USSR. In the near future the first East European nations are likely to gain full membership of NATO, vociferous Russian objections notwithstanding.