BrezhnevDoctrine

Abstract

The Brezhnev Doctrine was promulgated to justify the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the troops of five Warsaw Pact countries in August 1968. With the invasion, the Soviet Union and its allies purported to end the liberal reforms the local communist party had initiated since March 1968 and which they considered a threat to the stability of their regimes and the integrity of the communist bloc. The Brezhnev Doctrine claimed the right and duty of socialist countries to interfere, if necessary by force, in another socialist country to safeguard the socialist revolution in that country or protect the interests of international socialism against attack from within or without by hostile, counterrevolutionary forces. Its major legal implication was that this right of international socialist solidarity superseded the principle of non‐intervention and the prohibition to use force from general international law. Under Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–), the Brezhnev Doctrine was revoked. This was the single most crucial step in surrendering Soviet hegemony over East and Central Europe as it created the conditions for liberalization and democratization in the different member‐states of the Warsaw Pact without fear of Soviet military intervention.