Russia

It did so in August 1968, when Leonid Brezhnev, who now presided in the Kremlin, reluctantly authorized Soviet forces to suppress the ‘Prague Spring’. Liberalization in Czechoslovakia had produced a ferment there which, it was feared, might lead to disturbances and, given the country’s geographical position, pointing as it were to the heart of the Soviet Bloc, invite Western military interference. Albeit by the narrowest of votes in the Politburo, pre-emptive action was taken. No matter that the operation was designed to avoid casualties and was implemented reluctantly, alongside contingents from other members of the Bloc (but not Romania), it seemed shocking that the Soviet Union should have used violence against an ally of such long standing, the only country in Eastern Europe, apart from Yugoslavia, which had freely voted the Communists into power. Leonid Brezhnev took care to explain the action to the world, proclaiming a Soviet equivalent to America’s Monroe Doctrine. But, rather than straightforwardly delineating a sphere into which other powers must not intrude, he chose to dress the message up in the awkward language of Party principle:

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has always advocated that each socialist country determine the concrete forms of its development … but when deviation from common laws of socialist construction and a threat to the cause of socialism in that country arises … it is no longer just a problem for that country’s people but a common problem for all socialist countries. ²⁷

Washington reacted by assuring Moscow that American ideological objections to the action would not be allowed to interfere with negotiations between the two nuclear superpowers. And the Czechs themselves — more pragmatic and less romantic than the Poles — soon diverted their energies from the public to the domestic sphere.

In the Soviet Union itself, Party membership offered a promising career path to aspiring youth and the Party not only served to co-ordinate policy, it offered means of social interaction through mutual visits and conferences, and provided a kind of social glue. Party functionaries, like ministers and senior police officials, got to know each other, to take each other’s measure, to share a sense of common purpose. Other Soviet Bloc organizations served similar social as well as political ends. The Warsaw Treaty Organization was formed in May 1955 in response to the rearming of West Germany and its inclusion in NATO, and came to mirror NATO to a great extent. The supreme commander was invariably a Russian general, as NATO’s was an American, and the equipment followed the standards set by the alliance’s leading partner. Meetings not only thrashed out differences and provided a forum for the statement of national wishes, they were also occasions for the exercise of charm and persuasion and encouraged a spirit of comradeship in arms. The Poles, whose army was second only in size to the Red Army, found the WTO somewhat reassuring because it constituted a guarantee against a German resurgence, for many Poles felt that they had suffered even more at German than at Russian hands. Yet when Khrushchev had proposed integrating most of the member forces under Soviet command with standardized uniforms and ranks as well as arms, Romania baulked. Such conformities denied Romania’s distinctiveness.

COMECON, which promoted economic co-operation within the Bloc, pre-dated the WTO. In 1954 it was given the task of co-ordinating the national plans of the member countries, and it soon assumed other roles, developing a common electricity grid and sharing a pipeline which gave members access to Soviet oil. It seemed to be imitating the West’s European Economic Community (now the European Union): the design of its Moscow headquarters seemed to have been inspired by the EU building in Brussels. But its philosophy was different. Its strategic aim, agreed in 1962, was to ‘eliminate technical and economic backwardness … [chiefly by means of] socialist industrialization with the principal emphasis … on heavy industry and its core, engineering’. ²⁸