Trouble in the Soviet bloc

By the early 1960s the notion of a communist monolith had proved to be a myth. Already in 1948 the differences between Soviet and Yugoslav leaders had produced the Tito-Stalin split.

Moreover, continued opposition to Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe had manifested itself in unrest in East Germany in 1953 and Hungary in 1956. In each case the USSR had resorted to force and the uprisings had been suppressed. However, when the differences between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China began to boil over towards the end of the 1950s such measures could not be seriously considered. As their ideological differences increased, as the Chinese became more disillusioned by the nature of Soviet aid and as the doctrine of peaceful co-existence was rejected in Beijing as heresy, the conflict between the two communist giants eventually came out into the open. In 1960 the two countries ended their military co-operation, and by 1961 both sides were openly criticizing each other for revisionism. Meanwhile, China raced ahead to register its self-reliance through independent diplomacy and by developing its own nuclear weapon. By the end of the decade, the two countries would be in a de facto state of war as Soviet and Chinese troops clashed along the Ussuri River.

peaceful co-existence

An expression coined originally by Trotsky to describe the condition when there are pacific relations between states with differing social systems and competition takes place in fields other than war. The idea was vital to Soviet diplomacy particularly after the death of Stalin.

see Chapter 15

While the Sino-Soviet schism was probably the most significant development within the socialist bloc, the unity of the Soviet bloc was in question in Europe as well. Albania and, to a lesser extent, Romania moved closer to China and away from the Soviet Union; later in the 1960s Romania began to establish trade links to Western Europe.

Yugoslavia continued its independent course, despite a partial rapprochement in the mid-1950s. In the meantime, the Soviets responded to the apparent trouble within their sphere by attempting to reorganize the Warsaw Pact’s structure. Its effort to introduce a political consultative committee did not, though, prove a success, for decision-making could simply not be shared within the Soviet-led alliance even as a cosmetic measure. More significantly in 1966—67 the Warsaw Pact did advance similar notions of detente to those adopted by NATO in the Harmel Report in late 1967. However, its initial proposal was for a European security conference that, at this point, would exclude the United States, an idea that held little attraction for the West.

Prague Spring

A brief period of liberal reforms attempted by the government of Alexander Dubcek in 1968. The period ended with the invasion by Soviet-led Warsaw Pact military forces.

Brezhnev Doctrine

The ‘doctrine’ expounded by Leonid Brezhnev in November 1968 affirming the right of the Soviet Union to intervene in the affairs of communist countries in order to protect communism.

The most severe challenge to Warsaw Pact unity came in 1968. A movement towards political liberation in Czechoslovakia — the so-called Prague Spring

— ultimately resulted in a Warsaw Pact invasion of the country in August. In its aftermath Soviet policy was characterized as being based on the Brezhnev Doctrine, the idea that the USSR/Warsaw Pact had the right to intervene if a socialist country’s internal political system was under threat. In short, the suppression of the Prague Spring was effectively a reassertion of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe.

The Prague invasion did not, however, kill the hopes for detente. To be sure, it did result in a momentary stall in the tentative moves towards lowering tensions that had characterized East-West relations in previous years. A prospective summit between US President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Premier Kosygin, which had been planned for October 1968, was cancelled.

However, after the victory of Richard Nixon in the American presidential election of November 1968, the new administration in Washington was ready to reassess its relationship with the Soviet Union. Moreover, the Western reaction to the Prague events

- much as in the brutal crackdown on Hungary twelve years earlier - was ultimately relatively restrained. To the Soviets this seemed to indicate that the Western Powers might still be ready to pursue detente, despite the military action in Czechoslovakia. A temporary stall, in other words, did not necessarily translate into long-term hostility.

Within the socialist bloc, however, there seemed to be little prospect of detente between the two principal antagonists. To the PRC the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia was further proof that the Soviets were, as official Chinese rhetoric put it, ‘socio-imperialists’. The Soviets, for good measure, blasted Chinese revisionism as a key obstacle to socialist unity. In the spring of 1969 it became clear that this was not merely empty rhetoric.

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Source: Best Antony. International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Routledge,2008. — 638 p.. 2008

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