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The Brezhnev Doctrine and Communist Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

R. Judson Mitchell
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Extract

Announcement of the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine by Soviet spokesmen in 1968 has been widely regarded in the West as a development marking a new epoch in the evolution of the world communist system. The Doctrine has been commonly viewed as a Soviet response to the exigencies of Great Power politics in circumstances of continuing loss of revolutionary dynamism or as a reaction to the threat to Soviet hegemony in its inner bloc posed by uncontained polycentrism, or both. Much attention has been devoted to the concept of “limited sovereignty,” with this concept being treated as the heart of the Doctrine and as evidence of a major new departure in the Soviet approach to world politics. This assessment, interestingly enough, is generally favored both by Western analysts and by anti-Soviet spokesmen within the world communist system.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 190 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1972

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References

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