Is Eastern Europe a Liability to the Soviet Union?

Abstract

R ECENT events in Poland have highlighted some of the weaknesses of the Soviet Union in its East European hinterland. In particular, the Polish crisis has emphasised the difficulty of attempting to maintain a uniform political system, closely modelled on the Soviet, on the disparate states of Eastern Europe some of whom are culturally strongly orientated towards the West. The previous major crisis in the area-Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968-were in this respect similar, though the nationalist issue was more blurred on those earlier occasions: in 1956, for example, even Tito condoned Soviet intervention in Hungary because he reckoned that Hungarian Communists were for the moment incapable of arresting counter-revolution unaided. (It is a remarkable coincidence that the major crises of 1956, 1968 and 1980 have occurred at twelve year intervals.) The aim of the present article is to assess the benefits and costs to the Soviet Union of Eastern Europe as it exists today, and to analyse how the present strains affect the Soviet Union's overall international posture. First, a look at the basic Soviet concerns in the area.