Soviet-East European relations : consolidation and conflict, 1968-1980

The image of a Soviet leader being greeted with genuine enthusiasm on the streets of Prague, as happened in April 1987, or of East Berlin youth shouting “Gorbachev” and “glasnost” in protests along the Berlin Wall, as they did two months later, would have been hard to conjure up a few years ago, when this book was first published. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, it was the Soviet leadership that represented a dynamic, fresh approach to the challenges of the day—in stark contrast to the gray gerontocracies in power in Eastern Europe. The winds of change were blowing from Moscow and Leningrad; Budapest had become the citadel of conservatism and caution. After an initial period of domestic consolidation, Gorbachev launched a series of sweeping reform proposals under the rubrics of glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”), punctuated by such dramatic gestures as the release from exile of Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov. In foreign policy, the new image and style of the Gorbachev leadership was followed by a steady stream of arms proposals that kept Western governments in a constantly defen¬ sive and reactive posture, particularly after the U.S.-Soviet minisummit in Reykjavik in the fall of 1986. Among West European publics, Gorbachev skillfully played on growing antinuclear and anti-American sentiment by stress¬ ing the common interests “we Europeans” share in promoting international peace. Even Britain’s Prime Minister Thatcher found Gorbachev “a man I can do business with.” But for all his innovation at home and in relations with the West, Gorbachev’s early approaches to Eastern Europe were tentative and conservative. He sought closed ranks and improved coordination in foreign policy, stressed Leninist discipline in party policies, and largely followed the lead of his predecessors in intrabloc affairs. At least initially, changes in style did not yield changes in substance—reflecting, perhaps, the intractability of Eastern Europe’s economic and political dilemmas. Figures xi Tables xiii Preface to the Paperback Edition: Gorbachev and Eastern Europe xv Preface xxix Introduction 1 PART ONE: THE SOVIET BLOC IN EVOLUTION 1 From Budapest to Prague: The Soviet Bloc, 1956-1968 15 The Stalinist Legacy 16 Toward a New Cohesion 20 The Creation ofthe Warsaw Pact 21 Comecon and the ‘ ‘Basic Principles'9 24 Drift and Disarray 29 The Sino-Soviet Split 29 Warsaw Pact Westpolitik 31 The Prague Spring 34 End ofthe Khrushchev Era 38 2 The Politics of Normalization, 1968-1969 40 “Limited Sovereignty”: Doctrinal Disputes 41 The Brezhnev Doctrine 42 International Communist Reaction 44 The Reintegration of Czechoslovakia 47 Phase One: Normalization with a Human Face 48 Phase Two: Capitulation and Resovietization 50 Alliance Management: The Legacy of Prague 52 vii Vlll Contents Balkan Nervenkrieg 54 The Moscow Conference and the Questfor Stability 56 3 Alliance Restructuring, 1969-1971 59 Directions of Change 61 Westpolitik: Controlled Bilateralism 62 Toward Socialist Integration? 64 The Budapest Reforms of the Warsaw Pact 61 The Budapest Conference 69 Implementing the Reforms 73 Comecon and the Comprehensive Program 76 CMEA between Plan and Market 77 The 23rd and 24th CMEA Council Sessions 80 The 25th Session and the Comprehensive Program 83 PART TWO: SOCIALIST INTERNATIONALISM IN THE 1970s 4 Confronting the Seventies 93 Foreign Relations: Soviet-East European Summit Diplomacy 94 The Crimea Conferences 98 Warsaw Pact Summitry after Helsinki 103 Afghanistan and After 109 Domestic Affairs: The Party Congresses 115 Coexistence and Consumerism: 1971-1975 116 Stability and Stagnation: 1976-1980 124 A Summing Up 133 5 Political and Military Relations: The Entangling Alliance 136 Consultation in the Warsaw Pact 138 Military-Strategic Relations 145 The ‘ ‘Entangling’ ’ Functions of the Warsaw Pact 154 Doubly Entangled: The Bilateral Pact System 160 6 Economic Relations: Dilemmas of Dependency 169 From the 26th to the 34th Council Sessions: Toward a ‘ ‘CMEA Plan’ ’? Multilateralism in CMEA: Incipient Supranationalism? 180 Institutional Issues 181 Economic Issues 187 The East European Economies between East and West 192 7 On the Ideological Front 206 Inter-Communist Conflict 207 Soviet-East European Ideological Relations 216 Waging the Ideological Struggle 218 172 Contents IX Toward a ‘ ‘New, Socialist Culture’ ’ 223 Ritual and Reality 226 Conclusion: Pax Sovietica without Peace 229 Notes 239 Selected Bibliography 287 Index 301