Sources of the Brezhnev Doctrine of Limited Sovereignty and Intervention

Abstract

1. Claim to the Right of Intervention in the Defence of Socialism: The Brezhnev Doctrine asserts the Soviet Union's right to intervene in the internal affairs of the states comprising the Socialist Bloc. The source of this Doctrine is Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko's declaration at the June 27, 1968, session of the Supreme Soviet, when he announced that the Socialist commonwealth would not tolerate the withdrawal of any of its constituent parts, should it be attempted.This statement formed the basis of what is called the “Brezhnev Doctrine”, as formulated in an article appearing in Pravda on September 26, 1968. The Doctrine is designed to affirm the “limited sovereignty” of every Socialist State and to justify the military intervention of members of the Warsaw Pact in Czechoslovakia.The Pravda article asserted that Czechoslovakia's self-determination impaired the essential interests of the Socialist commonwealth and required the “Soviet Union and the other Socialist countries…to take actions…in the fulfillment of their international obligations towards the Czechoslovak nation and in the defence of their Socialist achievements”.The Soviet Union's special role within the Socialist commonwealth and its right to intervene in its name was justified as follows: