According to Campbell, “by the spring of 1948 Stalin had succeeded in his primary purpose, which was to seal off the entire area from the Arctic to the borders of Greece from the military and effective political influence of the west” (Campbell, J, cited in Terry, S (ed), 1984, pg.5). The onset of the Cold War would make the security of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe a more pressing concern. The extension of the Stalinist system throughout Eastern Europe set the tone for their mutual development. The Soviet Union would either suffer the burden of the Stalinist system or make attempts at reform through successive leadership. According to Brown, the Soviet Union had to cope with a blend of domestic forces from within Eastern Europe which meant that “the main aim of Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe has been to find the right balance between cohesion and viability” (Brown, J cited in Vine , R (ed), 1987, pg. 52). Stalin’s chosen methods of coping with this balance were somewhat one-sided. Stalin preferred conformity over legitimacy through the use of political terror and purges and control of the party via his cult of personality. His rule was facilitated by the subordination of Eastern European states through the denial of sovereignty and the prevention of multilateral communication between members of the communist bloc. It must be emphasised at this point that Stalin’s policy in Eastern Europe was to pillage resources from the ‘satellites’ in order to rebuild a war-torn Russia.
Khrushchev swung the balance back toward an appeal for viability in Eastern Europe with not altogether positive results. In the context of this paper, the relaxation initiated under Khrushchev was to lead to national roads to socialism-a concession of a degree of self determination in Poland in response to industrial unrest (which led to the re-privatisation of large parts of the agricultural industry) and an attempted revolution in Hungary. The result of the rebellion in Hungary-the crushing of unrest by Soviet troops-was to send a message that while some relaxation was underway, there was a limit. There could be no withdrawal from the Soviet Union. Khrushchev maintained and strengthened (with the cessation of political terror) the communist parties and in particular maintained the primacy of the CPSU in the hierarchy. But according to Gati, “what was changed was the Soviet Union’s new willingness to make such concessions as were necessary to assure the bloc’s endurance and the maintenance of one-party communist regimes” (Gati, C, 1990, pg. 34). Soviet internationalism was initiated by Stalin but carried on by Khrushchev and later Brezhnev and still remained influential under Gorbachev.
The Brezhnev doctrine was perhaps the most famous expression of Soviet internationalism. With one hand Eastern European communist parties were given the right to adopt different paths to development but on the other, the actual power of the communist parties to go against the principle of democratic centralism was limited. The implementation of different paths to communism was restricted because “any discussion of theirs must damage neither socialism in their own country nor the fundamental interest of the other socialist countries nor the worldwide workers’ movement, which is waging a struggle for socialism” and “whoever forgets this by placing sole emphasis on the autonomy and independence of communist parties lapses into one-sidedness, shirking his internationalist obligations” (Pravda, September 26, 1968, cited in Gati,C, 1990, pg. 47).
Soviet interests in Eastern Europe
The foremost reason that the Soviets remained in Eastern Europe for so long despite persistent crisis were because it acted as a defensive buffer against Western European states. The defensive ‘glacis’ was held to be particularly important in the aftermath of the Second World War and the onset of the Cold War and the arms race further increased the importance of ensuring that western influence was kept at bay in Eastern Europe. The Cold War also established Eastern Europe as a base for maintaining an offensive threat against the west. For Brown, there are three aspects of Soviet offensive strategy in Eastern Europe-these are first ideological grounds in which “Eastern Europe is the advance guard of the world communist movement”; second, its military use “for purposes either of intimidation or actual aggression; finally, in its political use, “Eastern Europe is a suitable base for political initiatives and propaganda designed to manipulate Western Europe and particularly the Federal Republic of Germany” (Brown, J, cited in Vine, R (ed), 1987, pg. 44).
The situation facing Gorbachev
According to Brown, “the failure of Soviet efforts to achieve the right balance between cohesion and viability has not been for want of trying” (Brown, J, in Vine, R, (ed), 1987, pg.59). The loosening of the Stalinist iron grip of the territories of Eastern Europe by Khrushchev shifted the balance toward viability, though the Soviet interpretation of the problem did still present two dichotomous alternatives. The real issues were that the Soviet Union lacked any proper legitimacy and the stability of the system relied upon the standard of living enjoyed (or suffered) in the country in question and this, in turn, relied upon the functioning of a command economy which was veering toward crisis toward the 1970s-especially in Poland. The Eastern Europeans would, more often than not look toward Moscow for someone to blame and the Soviet system was becoming increasingly unpopular. The lack of any sovereignty or self-determination on top of a lack of sovereignty and self-determination rights for states in and the political suppression in the Eastern bloc was a spur to unrest. The Soviet government witnessed and presided over periods of crisis followed by repression and then reform in repeating cycles.
As early as 1956 in Hungary, rebellion against the Soviet system was taking place. The Hungarians resented the repression and were suffering particularly poor standards of living. The unpopularity of the Kremlin appointed Gero was the final straw. But it was Nagy’s (Gero’s replacement) intention to withdraw from the Warsaw pact that was the final straw as far as the Soviets were concerned. That the Soviets sent in the military was a sign that ultimately, and particularly in Hungary’s case given its geographical strategic importance, countries in Eastern Europe could not be lost to the west. The alliance could not be risked.
The 1968 ‘Prague Spring’ held a similar story for the Soviets. The command economy was having unpopular effects on Czech industry and the Czech leader (Novotny) was particularly unpopular. The inefficiencies of the regime drew a response from the Czech elite and protest Marches against the Soviets occurred. The Soviet response is relevant because the limit of Soviet tolerance was shown to be dictated by the Brezhnev doctrine. Dubcek’s decision to announce that the primacy of the party in dictating policy making alternatives would end was seen as a sign that the Czech communist party might collapse. Again the military intervened.
The initial situation facing Gorbachev so far as the political relationship between the Eastern European states and the CPSU was, according to Gati, generating contradictions such as “why were intra-bloc relations so seldom harmonious to say the least?” when Soviet Internationalism suggested a community of co-operative nations all pulling in the same direction (Gati, C, 1990, pg. 88). Gorbachev initiated a modification of the Brezhnev doctrine-he retained the traditional emphasis on the socialist community and mutual responsibility, he also emphasised that members of the Union should be equal partners; a degree of never before seen independence was implied (Gati, C1990, pg.76). Quite crucially though, “the decision that force should not be used to defend Soviet interests in Eastern Europe was taken as early as 1987” (Bowker, M in Shearman, P, 1995, pg. 70).
The economic situation, not just in Eastern Europe but the entire Soviet Union was dismal with low growth rates in all Soviet Eastern European states and Bulgaria and Hungary experiencing negative growth in 1985 (Gati, C, 1990, pg. 124). The economic relationship between Moscow and Eastern Europe had transformed from a situation in which Eastern Europe was a beneficial and productive economic region to a region in which, even before the economic slowdown, was being subsidised by Moscow. The amount of Soviet subsidy to the Eastern European region “amounted to as much as $80 billion in the period 1971-1980” (Marrese, M, and Vanous, J, in Shearman, P, 1995, pg. 76). The economic crisis was a sign that the CMEA had failed to govern economic interdependence between stats. Political factors-the growth of nationalism-had prevented the CMEA from constructing a multilateral economic division of labour in Eastern Europe (Gati, C, 1990, pg. 124).
The military strategic value of Eastern Europe had also undergone change; the threat of war was perceived to be gone by Gorbachev whose new political thinking put forward the idea of Europe as a common home and adjusted the tendency for Soviet ideology to portray the west as hostile to Soviet interests. The political changes initiated by Gorbachev were a sign of a new self critical turn of mind in the Soviet Union. The buffer zone against the west had lost its value since war was not on the horizon and as the decision not to intervene in Eastern European strife had already been taken, the reasons for the military presence in many European states had been taken away. Gorbachev’s new political thinking entailed a new perception of the west in which western influence would be embraced in the face of the failures of the socialist system. The new independence he was to grant the Eastern European states was licence to liberalise economically-the Soviet system was seen by Gorbachev as too heavily bureaucratic as it tended to stifle innovation and initiative. Politically too the Soviet Union was undergoing change. Gorbachev had had granted the right of self determination to Eastern European state and this had resulted in free elections: “in the case of Poland, the June 1989 election was rigged in favour of the communists, but it had been agreed that the subsequent nationwide election would be wholly free” (Bowker, M, in Shearman, P, 1995, pg. 74). The least that can be said about the impact on the populations of Eastern Europe and particularly Germany and Poland of the situation in the Soviet Union is that the failure of Soviet policy to properly impress communist values into the people of Eastern Europe for whatever reason meant that the people were still influenced by western attitudes. The tendency of Eastern Europeans to compare their situation with the west rather than other parts of the Union meant that Moscow became the target for any blame for the economic position. The people of Eastern Europe ceased on the first opportunity granted them by Gorbachev to push for withdrawal from the Union.
Whether it was crucial underestimation of the potential for popular unrest in Eastern Europe given these sweeping reforms or a conscious decision to initiate a controlled withdrawal from Eastern Europe is a subject of much debate. The blame for the collapse is similarly contentious. But the underlying reasons for Gorbachev’s reform of the relationship with Eastern Europe roughly correlate with the gradual realisation that the reasons to remain in Eastern Europe no longer existed. These reasons overlap with the main area arguments for the collapse. Economically the Soviet Union was bearing the cost of the relationship. Gorbachev had reformed the party ideology as far as foreign policy was concerned by rejecting the Brezhnev doctrine and his new political thinking began to promote the view that the west was to be viewed as an opportunity rather than a fearsome opponent. Militarily the strategic reasons for maintaining control of Eastern Europe were outweighed by the financial cost. Finally and most crucially, the decision not to use force to ‘rescue’ the communist parties of Eastern European countries from popular unrest meant that when push came to shove the Soviets had no other solution.
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