INSTABILITY AND CHANGE IN SOVIET-DOMINATED EASTERN EUROPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00857R000100200005-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 49
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2007
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 1, 1982
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of Confidential
Intelligence
Instability and Change
in Soviet-Dominated
Eastern Europe
Confidential
EUR 82-10124
December 1982
Copy 4 91
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Directorate of Confidential
Intelligence
Instability and Change
in Soviet-Dominated
Eastern Europe
This paper was prepared byl
an independent consultant and retired CIA officer,
under the auspices of the East European Division,
Office of European Analysis. Comments and queries
are welcome and may be addressed to the Chief
East European Division, EURA
Confidential
EUR 82-10124
December 1982
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Scope Note In an attempt to place before the policy and intelligence communities provocative
analyses by experienced observers, the Directorate of Intelligence occasionally will
publish uncoordinated essays of particular merit on important subjects. This is
such an essay and the future of Eastern Europe is such a subject. The
interpretations and conclusions are the author's own.
The essay examines the complex and troubled relationship between the USSR and
Eastern Europe in the recent (postwar) past, studies the evolving nature of that re-
lationship in the present, and assays the likelihood of instability and change, over
the longer term. While it cannot predict the precise course of events in an area so
potentially volatile, it does foresee a prolonged period of Sturm and Drang and the
persistence of the struggle between the East European countries, seeking an
enlarged sovereignty, and the Soviet Union, striving to deny it.
iii Confidential
EUR 82-10124
December 1982
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Confidential
Instability and Change
in Soviet-Dominated
Eastern Europe I
Key Judgments The old notion that the Soviet Union is gearing whole societies in Eastern
Information available Europe to its own purposes has in recent years given way to a new truth:
as of 23 November 1982 the Soviets must now gear themselves and their purposes increasingly to
was used in this report.
East European realities-severe economic weaknesses, deeply rooted popu-
lar discontent, recurrent political disruptions, spreading ideological decay,
and a pervasive, often anti-Soviet nationalism. It now seems unlikely, in
fact, that the empire can be held together over the long term without some
significant alterations in the way it is run. At the very least, the persistence
of diversity, disarray, and discord in Eastern Europe will confront the
Soviet leadership-itself preoccupied with domestic problems and perhaps
troubled by the Brezhnev succession-with heavy pressures for fundamen-
tal change.
The history of Soviet relations with Eastern Europe since World War II,
and particularly since the death of Stalin in 1953, is rich in turbulence and
gore-ranging from riots and attempted coups to revolutions and outright
national defections. And the highest levels of unrest and political turmoil
were reached during periods of succession crisis in the USSR when, as in
the mid-1950s and the late 1960s, the Soviet leadership was rent by
political infighting and disputes over policy.
Specifically, the turmoil in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
during the Stalin succession, 1953-57, contributed significantly to the
demoralization of most East European leaderships, the development of
serious party factionalism, the reemergence of long-repressed popular
disaffection, and the vigorous expression of this disaffection in the political
arena. Demands for improved living standards, the democratization of the
system, and the end of Soviet controls were particularly strong in Poland
and Hungary and led ultimately to nationalist revivals, new leaderships,
and a promised about-face in policy in the former and the collapse of the
party and a revolution in the latter.
The succession to Khrushchev, which persisted from 1964 until the early
1970s, was much less traumatic, but disagreements and indecision in the
oligarchy did add in major ways to instability in Eastern Europe.
Romania's ongoing experiment with independence became increasingly
abusive; the East German regime of Walter Ulbricht began to speak with
its own peculiarly condescending voice; the Zhivkov regime in Bulgaria had
to contend with an attempted coup by military officers and former
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partisans, who apparently felt that Moscow lacked the will to interfere; and
the party in Prague started to come apart as bemused conservatives began
to battle increasingly active reform-minded liberals.
The crisis in Czechoslovakia in 1968 posed the most serious threat to Soviet
interests in Eastern Europe since the Hungarian revolution: here again, 12
years later, was a series of events which centered on the twin issues of do-
mestic democratization and relations with the USSR, and here again was
felt the impact of disagreements among the Kremlin leaders as to how best
to damp down the situation and to avoid the secession of a whole people
from the Soviet empire.
Gdansk excepted, the 1970s were fairly tranquil in Eastern Europe, though
the trend toward diversity and autonomy persisted. But toward the end of
the decade, the East European economies began to sag, and the unwritten
contract between peoples and regimes-more cooperation for more
bread-was endangered and, indeed, in Poland, destroyed. The era of
relative tranquility is probably now drawing to a close, not just in Poland,
but also in most of the other East European countries. Indeed, two of the
primary preconditions for serious disruptions there--succession crises in
one or another Bloc capital and severe economic distress-are likely in
some states soon to conjoin.
The USSR of course holds the ultimate trump card, overwhelming military
power and in extremis the will to use it. It also maintains a considerable
variety of other, less dramatic tools of persuasion and power. But military
intervention has its drawbacks and the Soviets are reluctant to use it, and
the other instruments of control and influence by no means constitute a
system of absolute authority. The East European regimes, in fact, are able
to exercise a sort of conditional sovereignty which, if it poses few real
threats to Soviet hegemony, certainly constrains it. And, while attempted
defections from the Bloc do not now seem likely, resistance to Soviet
dominion will surely persist.
The new Soviet leader, Yuriy Andropov, will, of course, have to contend
with this problem, among many others, but his ability to do so more
effectively than his predecessors is open to question. He may bring more
self-assurance to the task, and probably will approach issues in a more
pragmatic way, but there is no quick and easy cure for what ails Eastern
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Europe and relations within the Bloc. Moreover, Andropov, while appar-
ently dominant in the area of foreign (including East European) affairs, is
not likely soon to achieve a clear supremacy in the leadership and will thus
probably find himself encumbered by debates among his Politburo col-
leagues and resistance from influential elements in the party and in the
bureaucracies.
Perhaps the greatest problem the Soviet leaders will face in Eastern Europe
is the state of the economies, parlous in some countries and nowhere
flourishing. Stagnating or declining living standards are particularly
dangerous because they damage productivity and stimulate unrest. And
none of these regimes enjoys positive popular support. Rather, each counts
on a form of popular sufferance, arising from both hope for a better life
and fear of harassment and arrest. Now that prospects of the former are
fast fading, so is the public's stake in stability. Some regimes may, as a re-
sult, place more reliance on fear, which may not work and is in any case
economically debilitating; others may eventually succumb to growing
pressures for greater freedom and/or radical economic reform.
Troubled by serious and long-neglected economic problems of its own, the
Andropov leadership may display little patience vis-a-vis those of Eastern
Europe. It may be inclined to urge retrenchment-economic austerity,
tougher official crackdowns on dissidents, less reliance on Soviet subsidies,
greater integration via CEMA, and, in general, more fidelity to Soviet
policies and interests. Given Andropov's apparent approval of economic
reform in Hungary, the Soviet regime may at the same time press the East
Europeans to move in a Kadarist direction. But if, in fact, Moscow sponsors
change-either or both retrenchment and reform-a number of the East
European regimes can be expected at a minimum to drag their feet.
Though the Andropov regime may be able to survive for a time without
facing large crises in Eastern Europe, its successors are less likely to be
spared. Younger leaders, drawn from the post-Stalin generation, may be
much more innovative than their predecessors. They might, for example:
(1) encourage a program of systemic economic reform more ambitious and
far reaching than the model provided by Kadar's Hungary; (2) simulta-
neously or alternatively provide greater substance to the concept of a
"Socialist Commonwealth" in which each party-state would have more say
about overall Bloc policies and doctrines but would remain bound to the
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USSR; or (3) grant the various countries real independence, taking a path
likely to lead to the Finlandization of Eastern Europe-though chances of
this seem very remote.
But even a bold program could not score quick successes, and pressures
arising out of the East European quest for prosperity and national dignity
and sovereignty are much more likely to grow than to subside over the next
several years. Indeed, over the course of the next decade there will almost
certainly be further outbreaks of serious political strife in Eastern Europe;
and they will be directed, at least in part and implicitly, against the Soviet
Union. If such strife seems to jeopardize Communist power and/or Soviet
hegemony, Moscow will almost certainly intervene, with military force if
necessary. Beyond a decade, however, forecasts become much murkier.
The resolution through force of recurrent imperial problems that have deep
political, economic, and social roots cannot be endlessly appealing in
Moscow. Radical changes in the way the Soviets maintain their empire, the
local regimes preserve their power, and these regimes conduct their
economic affairs do not now seem at all likely, but time, succession
struggles, political crises, and economic adversity may whet the appetite
for systemic change, even in the Kremlin. And an estimate that part or all
of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe will one day find its way to freedom
would be consonant with both the lessons of the past and the trends of the
present.
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Confidential
Scope Note
iii
An Era of (Relative) Tranquility
11
Diversity and Disorder
15
The Tools of the Imperial Craft
16
The East European Response
18
East European Influence on the USSR
20
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Confidential
Instability and Change
in Soviet-Dominated
Eastern Europe
The ultimate dissolution of empires is, like death and
taxes, inevitable. But to the citizen of Athens in, say
200 A.D., bearing the yoke of Rome, or to the
resident of Prague in 1968, throwing stones at a
Soviet tank, this is a truth that could provide scant
comfort. The question for those who suffer the indig-
nities of Soviet overlordship today is not whether the
Soviet empire is destined to collapse-or explode or
disintegrate or simply melt away-but rather in what
way and when:
? Seen in the conventional Western perspective of the
late 1940s and the early 1950s as a monolithic
whole, the empire began to fall apart long ago.
Three of its major pieces (Yugoslavia, China, and
North Korea), part of another (Romania), and one
chip (Albania) have long since been lost, and proba-
bly irretrievably so.
? All the remaining European pieces save one (Bul-
garia) have tried to escape. To be sure, none has
succeeded, but each of the attempts has revealed the
seriousness and persistence of general popular disaf-
fection, widespread disenchantment with Commu-
nism, and a strong urge for national independence.
? Economically the empire is floundering and the East
European states now constitute a questionable asset
for the USSR. Politically and ideologically, the
empire's very existence-dependent as it is on the
Soviets' willingness to use brute force to preserve
their hegemony and doctrinal authority-serves to
belie Moscow's claims of benevolence and common
socialist interests. And militarily, though on paper,
important contributors to the USSR's overall
strength, the East European members of the War-
saw Pact provide only niggardly support to their
defense programs (compared to the Soviet per capita
effort) and could in any case field armed forces of
only uncertain prowess and dubious reliability.
In view of all this, one is permitted to wonder why the
Soviets think that their presence in the area is worth
the effort and the costs. Is it still true, for example,
that
... when we speak of the meaning of
Eastern Europe in the balance of power,
we must ... think less of its contribution
of so many tons of steel, so much grain or
so many barrels of oil than of the impact
of the fact that whole societies are being
geared to the purposes and ends of the
Soviet system.'
... it is precisely the accretion of Eastern
Europe to the USSR, the expansion of a
revolutionary state to a continental sys-
tem, which gives apparent substance to the
communist claim of being the wave of the
future.'
For even aside from the fact that so many barrels of
oil and bushels of grain now flow in a reverse
direction, from east to west, the notion that the East
European states are being geared to Soviet purposes
is, at most, only a half-truth. To a growing degree, in
fact, the Soviets must now gear themselves and their
purposes to East European realities-economic weak-
ness, political turbulence, ideological and political
polycentrism, overall diversity. And their ultimate
goal, whether the eventual establishment of a "Social-
ist Commonwealth" or the absorption of all these
states into the USSR proper, must seem increasingly
remote.
' Henry L. Roberts, Eastern Europe: Politics, Revolution and
Diplomacy, New York, 1970, p. 216.
' Ibid, p. 217.
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The Communist wave of the future seems, at the same
time, to be breaking on the shoals of economic distress
and the reefs of East European discontent and resist-
ance. It does so, moreover, in full sight not only of the
world at large but also of the non-Bloc Communist
parties, which pause and wonder or, more dramatical-
ly as in Italy, chose to flee the Soviet surf.
This is not to say, of course, that the Soviets them-
selves see their problems in this altogether baleful
light. Indeed, the view of Eastern Europe from the
Kremlin's cloudy windows these days, if not exactly
cheering, may not seem all that bad. Poland is now
reassuringly subject to strict martial law; Czechoslo-
vakia has apparently learned how to live in a state of
semivassalage; East Germany (the GDR) and Bulgar-
ia remain gracefully docile; Hungary experiments, but
very carefully; and even troublesome Romania has so
many problems at home that it scarcely seems likely
to stir up new ones with the Soviet Union.
It may be that the Soviet leaders have deluded
themselves into feeling that, given the nature of
Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe-a motley popula-
tion approaching 110 million, an area reaching from
the Baltic to the Black Sea, and a past rich in pride
and turbulence-they have done about as well as
could reasonably be expected. And the prime mistakes
of the past-Stalin's stifling hand, Khrushchev's risky
innovations-were not, after all, of their own making.
But if Moscow's prevailing mood were one of self-
exculpatory optimism, it would follow that the Soviet
leaders could not be wholly aware of the extent and
probable durability of their problems in Eastern Eu-
rope. They are, in fact, neither stupid nor blind; they
can add and subtract, count the number of national-
ists on the head of a pin, and recognize adversity in a
multiplicity of forms. But it is also true that these men
wear deeply tinted ideological blinders; were raised in
schools of power, not perception; and feast on and
assert ideas and convictions of awesome banality.
They thus do not seem fully to understand-or if they
understand, certainly cannot admit-that the difficul-
ties encountered by their own and the East European
economies are systemic, not merely manifestations of
temporary snags, bureaucratic shortcomings, and bad
weather. They do not comprehend that East European
nationalism is a force of such whelming size and
complexity that it may itself be a wave of the future,
and that the Soviet empire cannot be held together
indefinitely as an economic, ideological, and security
entity without some major change in the way it is run
and, as a corollary, some shifts in destinations as well.
It hardly needs saying that if these men in fact do not
understand these things and will not in the future,
then they will not be able to formulate effective
policies and implement lasting solutions.
It is true, of course, that Soviet interest and involve-
ment in Eastern Europe have been foreordained by
centuries of ethnic, economic, and geopolitical ties, all
now reinforced by 40 years of Marxist-Leninist myth.
Accordingly, whatever its level of understanding, and
independently of its ability to pursue sophisticated
policies, neither the Andropov regime nor the next
Soviet leadership is likely to find itself presiding over
the voluntary dismemberment of empire. But, should
he stumble badly, Andropov may, and his successors
almost certainly will, confront enormous pressures for
change, possibly arising during, or even because of, a
struggle for power within the USSR or one or another
of the East European countries or, indeed, both. And
this, in brief, is the subject of this paper: the nature
and outlook for change in Eastern Europe and in
Soviet policies there, especially during periods of
political succession.
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Confidential
When a rock falls on an egg, alas for the egg,
When an egg falls on a rock, alas for the egg.
Old Balkan Saying
Foundations
The Red Army won the Soviet empire in Eastern
Europe on its way to victory in Germany. This was
"no accident," as the Soviets say, nor simply a
byproduct of geography and the fortunes of war. On
the contrary, at least in Stalin's view, the acquisition
of the area was necessary for Soviet security-it
served the time-honored concept of a buffer zone-
and was desirable for the advancement of Soviet
policies and doctrines elsewhere in Europe-it would
provide a springboard for Soviet expansion. But
whether, beyond the achievement of these two goals,
Stalin had thought very much about how to govern his
new empire, what he wanted it to look like, and where
he wanted it to go is not at all clear.
He was also careful to keep tight control over the
policies and personnel of these parties and states and
to issue orders to their leaders, many of whom were
Soviet raised and almost all of whom were Soviet
trained, in essentially the same way he issued orders
within the Soviet Union, counting on the secret police,
the military, and, in general, an atmosphere of terror
to keep everyone in line. At the same time, he insisted
that each of these countries emulate the Soviet system
in its economic, sociopolitical, and cultural entirety.
But beyond control and Sovietization, Stalin's policies
remained murky. Some of them were clearly sense-
less-what purpose, for example, could the quest for
autarky in each of these states possibly serve? It was
almost as if the aging dictator were indifferent to
questions of future development, of political and
economic viability. Still, all this worked, albeit crude-
ly, at least so long as Stalin remained in charge. But a
multitude of problems was merely being stored for
Stalin's heirs.
Although he obviously rejected the idea for the
immediate postwar period, Stalin may once have
envisaged the eventual incorporation of most or all of
the East European states into the multinational
USSR as constituent republics, in the manner of
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. But there were no
clear signs of this, and the question is further ob-
scured by Stalin's willingness after the war to permit
genuine if conditional sovereignty in Finland, despite
the fact that this country had been allied with Germa-
ny and had once belonged to Russia. Stalin, of course,
wanted to grab as many tangible goods from Eastern
Europe as he could, and he did, through reparations
and such devices as so-called joint stock companies
established to siphon off East European production.
He also knew that, after the period of early consolida-
tion of Communist power (1945-47), he would not
tolerate any meaningful non-Communist participation
in the political affairs of these countries, though he
was wary enough of local and Western reactions to
pretend that these states remained independent and
were "peoples' democracies," rather than simple party
dictatorships. After 1948 and the defection of Yugo-
slavia, he was determined to crush any real or imag-
ined manifestations of "Titoism" or "nationalist devi-
ationism" within the individual Communist parties.
The Tribulations of Succession
It became clear almost immediately after Stalin's
death in March 1953 that Stalinism without Stalin
simply would not work. It was equally clear that,
incredibly, Stalin had left his successors an empire
but had neglected to bequeath them adequate means
of control. The desperate search for an effective
alternative to Stalin's personal rule then preoccu-
pied-and often split-the Soviet leadership over the
course of the next four years, and the effects of this on
Eastern Europe were especially pronounced and
proved to be, by 1956, extraordinarily dramatic.
Few East European leaders responded quickly to the
new, post-Stalin circumstances in Moscow. But, per-
haps intuitively, the people did. Within a few months
of Stalin's departure there was a major riot in Pilsen,
Czechoslovakia, in May, and even more ominously, a
sizable workers' insurrection in East Germany in
June. The uneasy collective leadership in Moscow,
more or less dominated by Georgi Malenkov (after the
secret policeman, Beria, had been eliminated), was
persuaded even before these outbreaks that living
standards throughout the Bloc had to improve, and it
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proclaimed the era of the New Course. Combined
with emphasis on the need for "socialist legality" (a
diminution of terror), a lessening of tensions with the
West, and a relaxation of demands for total conformi-
ty vis-a-vis Eastern Europe, the New Course was
subsequently adopted by all the East European lead-
erships-significantly, however, not at the same time,
in the same manner, or to an equal degree. A new era
of diversity in Eastern Europe had thus begun.
Struggles between Malenkov and the new CPSU First
Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, during 1954, and the
latter's emergence as the victor in 1955, resulted in
some policy ambivalence, the reassertion of some old
verities that had been amended by Malenkov-in-
cluding the primacy of heavy industry-and no little
confusion concerning, and substantial retrenchment
of, what "liberal" programs had been adopted in
Eastern Europe. But Khrushchev, as aware as Malen-
kov that Stalinism could not be reapplied, actively
sought means to ensure a new form of Soviet-East
European cohesion, the establishment of more effec-
tive and less unpopular regimes, and some way to
restore momentum to creaking and badly unbalanced
economies. In the process, he found it expedient to
allow, within limits, the ruling Communist elites to set
-their own pace and even to exercise primary control
over their own affairs. This was deliberate policy, not
merely a pragmatic adjustment to irreversible trends,
as, indeed, Pravda made explicit fairly early on:
The historical experience of the Soviet
Union and of the People's Democracies
shows that, given unity in the chief funda-
mental matter of ensuring the victory of
socialism, various ways and means may
be used in different countries to solve the
specific problems of socialist construction,
depending on historical and national
features.'
'Pravda, 16 July 1955, as quoted by Zbigniew Brzezinski, The
Soviet Bloc (New York, 1967), p. 172. Khrushchev, typically,
exaggerated this policy in his memoirs, claiming that "in those days
we deliberately avoided applying pressure on other Socialist coun-
tries. We assumed that every Communist party should, and would,
handle its own internal problems by itself." (Strobe Talbot, ed.,
Khrushchev Remembers (Boston, 1970), p. 365.) He did, however,
leave himself an out by using the term "internal affairs" to describe
(and delimit) alleged East European sovereignty; almost anything
that concerned the Soviets thus became a question of intra-Bloc
affairs.
This, while carefully hedged and hardly a grant of
sovereignty, was strong stuff by Stalinist standards.
And if it did not exactly move the East European
leaders to independent action, it did as "Holy Writ"
encourage some of them to try to follow policies much
more attuned to actual national needs, and facilitated
the appearance of increasingly influential reform fac-
tions in various parties. It also paved the way for the
later accession to power in Poland and Hungary of
homegrown Communists who had been imprisoned
during the Stalinist era and who, justifiably or not,
had come to personify the quest for national dignity
and autonomy.
But even more important than official Soviet tolera-
tion of new directions in Eastern Europe were the
effects of the USSR's new approach to two other
problems, both impinging on the conduct of imperial
affairs, but not, as conceived, calculated to alter them.
The first was the rapprochement with Yugoslavia
begun by Khrushchev in 1955. This, inter alia, neces-
sitated public Soviet apologies, Soviet recognition of
the legitimacy--for Yugoslavia only-of the Titoist
road to Socialism, and, later, the quieting of Soviet
condemnation of such unorthodox and previously he-
retical aspects of that road as worker-council manage-
ment of industry.
The East European leaders of a Stalinist persuasion-
probably a majority-felt betrayed by this. All had
applauded Stalin's expulsion of Yugoslavia from the
Cominform, many had won power by accusing and
imprisoning or executing comrades who had allegedly
committed Titoist sins, and few had any wish to
introduce anything remotely resembling Yugoslav in-
novations within their own bailiwicks.4
But if these leaders felt, as they probably did, that the
USSR could inflict no worse a blow to their own ideas
and positions than to come to terms with Tito, they
`Tito himself, though no saint, had this to say concerning the
earlier activities of East European leaders: "These men have their
hands soaked in blood, have staged trials, given false information,
sentenced innocent people to death." (From Documents on Interna-
tional Affairs, 1955 (London, 1958), p. 271, as quoted by Adam B.
Ulam in Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet
Foreign Policy, 1917-67 (New York, 1968), p. 563.)
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Some Leading Men on the East European Stage in the 1950s ...
Wide World O
Georgi Malenkov, who in 1953 inaugurated the post-Stalin "New
Course" for Eastern Europe. This was first denounced by rival
Khrushchev, then adopted by him after Malenkov's ouster and
Siberian exile in 1955.
Piz O
Wladislaw Gomulka, a fallen hero. He was once imprisoned for
"nationalist deviations" but was elevated to Polish leadership
amidst the post-Stalin turmoil of 1956. He subsequently disappoint-
ed the Poles by currying Soviet favor and mismanaging the
economy; was tossed out of power in 1970.
Matyas Rakosi, the Hungarian Stalinist strongman and, according
to his adversaries, the compleat "skin-haired fathead." Months
before the revolution in 1956, Rakosi lost control of the Hungarian
Communist Party and was exiled to the USSR.
Wide World O
Khrushchev and Tito, former foes who developed a wary friendship.
The former's apologies to the latter for the way Stalin had
(mis)treated Yugoslavia had a lot to do with the disruptive events
that followed in Poland and Hungary a year later.
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were badly mistaken. Khrushchev induced even great-
er trauma by vigorously assaulting Stalin in his secret
speech to the 20th Soviet Party Congress early in
1956. His principal purposes were conceived in the
context of Soviet political life but were by no means
confined to it. On the contrary, in Khrushchev's view,
the needs of the empire as a whole, not just his own
and those of the USSR, demanded changes in both
form and substance, and this in turn required that the
greatest of all opponents of change, Josef Stalin's
omnipresent ghost, be exorcised once and for all.'
The Empire Totters: Poland and Hungary
In retrospect it is not surprising that the momentous
events of the mid-1950s-the death of Stalin, the
succession struggle that followed, the accord with
Tito, and Khrushchev's condemnation of Stalin--
plunged the Soviet empire into the gravest crisis it has
ever faced. It was not, however, so obvious at the time.
The shattering events of 1956 in Poland and Hungary
were not generally foreseen in the West-the notion
that individual Communist parties could undergo
major transformations from within was not widely
credited-and thus the West was not prepared to
react.' There should be some solace for the West,
however, in the knowledge that the Soviets, while
infinitely better informed, were at least equally unpre-
pared for the events that erupted in their own back-
yard, events which they had themselves inadvertently
set in motion.'
In fact, Wladislaw Gomulka's return to power in
Poland in October 1956, after years of imprisonment,
stunned the Soviet leaders. In mid-October, sans
' Some of the feelings of old-line Communists at the time came
through, almost plaintively, in the pages of the ordinarily unemo-
tional Czech party daily, Rude Pravo: "Much has happened this
year. Much that was dear to us has been smashed. Our souls are
full of pain because strings have suddenly been touched which we
thought inviolable and feelings which were dear to us.... many an
old Communist will feel sadness. He may even feel bitter." As
quoted by Wolfgang Leonhard, The Kremlin Since Stalin (New
York, 1962), p. 203. Leonhard is well worth reading for his account
of de-Stalinization and its impact in a chapter titled "The Year of
Hope and Confusion."
6 The West also failed to apprehend the real nature of the Soviet-
East European relationship-and what would happen to it after the
architect and enforcer of that relationship, Stalin, had died--and to
appreciate the vigor and force of East European nationalism.
' Khrushchev admits this in his memoirs: "[The Hungarian] mutiny
had been engendered by Stalin's abuse of power and ... the seeds of
discontent had been sown by Stalin's adviser, Rakosi." (Talbot, op
cit, p. 427).
invitation, they hurriedly flew to Warsaw as a group,
to confront Gomulka and his colleagues at the airport,
initially with a string of obscenities, then with some
hard bargaining. While this bargaining ultimately
paid off for the Soviets, the world was treated to the
hitherto unprecedented spectacle of self-anointed as
opposed to Soviet-appointed East European leaders
negotiating with their "betters" about such crucial
issues as independent and much more democratic
roads to Socialism, the sanctity of the Soviet system
and Soviet ideology, and, in general, the degree of
autonomy to be exercised by previously subordinate
regimes. The lesson was, of course, not lost on the
Hungarians.
The Hungarian revolution, at once heroic and tragic,
needs no recounting here. Some of its implications,
however, deserve quick scrutiny insofar as they reflect
the art of the possible in Eastern Europe and Soviet
attitudes and sensibilities, particularly during periods
of political travail:
? The Soviet leadership, still consumed by the politics
of succession and divided by issues of policy and
purpose vis-a-vis both domestic and East European
problems, found itself unable to control or cope
successfully with the crisis in Hungary.
? The Soviets' vacillating reactions to the turmoil in
Hungary encouraged the Hungarians to move faster
and further than anyone had initially contemplated.
The new Hungarian leader, Imre Nagy, responded
in the main to pressures emanating from the rapidly
diversifying Hungarian body politic rather than
from the Soviet Politburo.
? The Soviets could scarcely believe what was happen-
ing in their erstwhile protectorate: the appearance
among the people of a feeling of violent hostility to
the Soviets and their puppets, a psychological condi-
tion one Western observer has called ecstatic eman-
cipation; the almost complete breakdown of Com-
munist and Soviet instruments of power; the
establishment of a wide variety of non- and anti-
Communist political parties; the founding in west-
ern Hungary of an independent "Trans-Danubian
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Republic"; the hanging by feet or neck of Commu-
nists (mostly secret policemen) from Budapest lamp-
posts; the unwillingness of the Hungarian military
to intervene; and the announcement of impending
neutralism (a la Austria) and withdrawal from the
Warsaw Pact.
Until this latter move by Nagy, the Soviets had
apparently hoped that he and the Communist Party
would be able to maintain essential control and that
Hungary-though greatly changed internally and
more independent externally-would survive as a
client state. Some Soviet leaders, Khrushchev proba-
bly among them, were apparently willing to settle for
this, at least until stronger Soviet controls could be
reasserted; others were no doubt opposed to even a
temporary relaxation of the relationship and favored
military intervention early on. Nagy's declaration of
an impending withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact on
31 October (while two Soviet leaders, Mikoyan and
Suslov, were actually in Budapest to study the situa-
tion) probably ended the disagreement, and the Sovi-
ets attacked on 4 November.
While the Soviets were not directly responsible for the
great swell of protest in Hungary and Poland in 1956,
the post-Stalin ambiguities, inaptitudes, and angst of
the leaders in Moscow, together with their constant
political maneuvering against one another, made it
possible for the forces in Eastern Europe to press so
vigorously and even violently for two interdependent
goals, independence and democratization!
By exhibiting uncertainty about how to treat these
issues and forces, by compounding the problem by
destroying the awesome posthumous authority of Sta-
lin and failing to find any replacement for it, and,
finally, by severely weakening in this way the power
of the most pro-Soviet elements in the various Com-
munist hierarchies, the Soviets had badly wounded
themselves in their own East European foot. Though
Moscow ultimately recovered, the recuperation was
painful and incurred a high long-term cost: from now
' Gomulka himself in 1956 clearly and explicitly laid out these two
fundamental elements at issue: "The political differences in the
leadership of the party ... can be reduced to two basic problems: (1)
the conception of Poland's sovereignty; and (2) the conception of
what should be included in what we call the democratization of our
life within the framework of the socialist system" (as quoted by
Brzezinski, op cit, p. 251).
on, Soviet interests, while still paramount, would have
to take divergent East European interests into more
serious account. The Soviet leaders had discovered,
inter alia, that while "their doctrine was rich in
guidelines for coping with enemies ... it offered little
for resolving conflicts and organizing relations among
Communist states." 9
A Khrushchevian Approach and a Romanian Response
For seven years from 1957 through most of 1964, an
imperfect and uneasy calm prevailed between the
USSR and its European allies (Albania, which left the
Bloc in 1961, excepted). The Soviets, under Khru-
shchev, who had by 1957 achieved a precarious
supremacy over his colleagues, tolerated a measure of
diversity but their guidance was neither clear nor
consistent. This tolerance was to a degree pressed on
Moscow by two external factors, the exigencies of the
Sino-Soviet conflict and the requirements of an in-
creasingly active (and demanding) policy of detente
with the West. The first in essence provided the East
European states with greater latitude to behave inde-
pendently, the second restrained any tendency the
Soviets may have felt to crack down on such behavior.
Khrushchev, well aware of the intractability of the
East European problem in the wake of Hungary and
Poland, wanted to preserve the Bloc and the USSR's
authority in it by relying on the good sense and self-
interest of East European leaders who knew that their
survival could be endangered, on the one hand, by
their anti-Communist constituents and, on the other,
by the USSR's demonstrated willingness to use force.
In return for their fidelity, Khrushchev in effect
promised a better deal for these leaders-much im-
proved economic relations, some freedom to deter-
mine domestic policies, and substantial political au-
thority, especially concerning their own parties. Thus,,
there emerged an unwritten compact that sanctified
both the autonomy of the East European parties and
the limits imposed on this autonomy by the greater
needs of the USSR and the Bloc.
Khrushchev understood, however, that to ensure Sovi-
et hegemony, something more was needed. Thus, he
also emphasized the development of economic integra-
tion via the Council of Economic Mutual Assistance
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(CEMA), military integration through the Warsaw
Pact, and ideological unity and orthodoxy through a
variety of bilateral and multilateral conferences, ex-
change programs, joint declarations, the establish-
ment of a Soviet-dominated international Communist
journal, The World Marxist Review (published in
Prague), and so on. For a variety of reasons, however,
none of this worked very well; in fact, relationships
remained for the most part bilateral, as the seemingly
endless rounds of meetings between Khrushchev and
the individual East European leaders demonstrated
most tellingly."
In 1964, encouraged by tacit (and later explicit.)
support from the Chinese, provoked by an apparent
Soviet attempt to remove Gheorghiu-Dej from leader-
ship, and incensed by a Soviet scheme to turn Roma-
nia's economy into a semicolonial raw materials sup-
plier for the more advanced members of CEMA, the
Romanian Workers' Party in effect publicly declared
its independence." But Romania's move and, there-
after, any number of vivid expressions of its independ-
ence-including disruptions of Soviet plans for
CEMA, close relations with China, and an undeclared
alliance with Tito's Yugoslavia-did not prove to be
contagious elsewhere in the Bloc. Partly as a conse-
quence, partly because, to Moscow's relief, the Roma-
nian party remained in firm control at home, and
partly because the Soviet Union could do little to
suppress the heresy short of armed intervention, the
Soviets grudgingly learned to live with the problem.
10 This led to the development of fairly close personal relations
between Khrushchev and many of these leaders, Gomulka promi-
nent among them. This would come back to haunt Khrushchev's
successors in 1964.
" See the "Statement on the Stand of the Romanian Workers'
Party Concerning the Problems of the World Communist and
Working Class Movement," (April 1964) which asserted Romanian
sovereignty in unequivocal terms and in the context of Soviet efforts
to curtail it. (A full text appears in William E. Griffith, Sino-Soviet
Relations, 1964-1965 (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 269-296.) There were
many reasons why the Romanian party took this step and why the
Soviets reacted to it-and to a variety of subsequent Romanian
challenges to their leadership-with restraint. They are summa-
rized in Peter A. Toma, ed., The Changing Face of Communism in
Eastern Europe, chapter 2, Stephen Fisher-Galati, "The Socialist
Republic of Romania," pp. 3-37 (Tuscon, 1970); and by J. F. Brown
in Relations Between the Soviet Union and Its East European
Allies: A Survey (Rand, Santa Monica, 1975), pp. 90-99.
Romania has nonetheless shown the way to a new
form of East European sovereignty and, unless the
Ceausescu regime is toppled (a growing possibility) by
a pro-Soviet faction (less likely), the precedent could
one day come to confound the post-Brezhnev Soviet
leadership.
The Khrushchev Succession
Khrushchev was removed from power in the fall of
1964, a victim of his own excesses and his inability to
anticipate the capacity of his immediate colleagues to
conspire against him. Despite their vigorous denuncia-
tions of Khrushchev's style and his penchant for
radical solutions, the successors were quick not only to
proclaim continuity in policy in general but also
continuity in policy toward Eastern Europe in particu-
lar (the maintenance of "fraternal relations with the
Socialist countries" and of the "collaboration of free
peoples who enjoy equal rights")."
But most of the East European leaders were shocked
by Khrushchev's ouster and by the (understandable)
failure of the plotters to provide them with advance
notice. Some had become quite close to Khrushchev
and probably felt they were able to influence his
decisions; many no doubt were concerned that the new
Soviet leadership would jeopardize the existing rela-
tionship by insisting on greater Bloc conformity to
Moscow's wishes.
In any case, these leaders--even the most faithful
among them, including Ulbricht and Novotny-made
no secret of their unhappiness, expressed reservations
about the coup, and conspicuously failed to partici-
pate in the recitation of Khrushchev's alleged sins.
Thus did the East Europeans, refusing to support the
CPSU in its hour of need, demonstrate anew their
ability to act on their own.
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A Survivor, a Pedant, a Tragedian, and Just Another Pretty Cult of Personality
Enver Hoxha, a bloody-minded man who became the Albanian Walter Ulbricht of East Germany, senior Communist statesman,
Communist leader in the same year that Japan attacked Pearl who looked down on Khrushchev's successors in Moscow. Brezhnev
Harbor. He has in the past switched sides from Yugoslavia to the and company didn't much care for this-or Ulbricht's unconcealed
Soviet Union to China. Now he and his country have no foreign distaste for detente-and eased him out in 1971.
friends at all.
Sovfoto/Eastfoto ? UPI Q
Alexander Dubcek, the Czechoslovak leader with the all-too-human Nicolae Ceausescu, founder of a dynasty in Romania and the
socialist face. In 1968 he was arrested by the invading Soviets, USSR's least favorite Latin. He looks pretty good defying the
released to play front man for a while, then finally in 1969, was Soviets but pretty bad running his own country.
retired in disgrace.
25X1
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As it turned out, however, the new Soviet leaders did
honor the unwritten contract on the relationship that
had emerged during the Khrushchev years, and
Soviet-East European relations remained relatively
quiet during the first three years of the new Soviet
regime. But during the same period the collective
leadership in Moscow sometimes found itself at odds
over both issues of policy and questions of power, and,
partly as a consequence, the East Europeans were able
to assert growing authority over their own affairs.
Romania's experiment with sovereignty became open-
ly abusive; the Zhivkov regime in Bulgaria was
subjected to an attempted coup by military officers
and former partisans, who might have felt that the
new leadership in Moscow would not interfere;" the
East German regime of Walter Ulbricht began to
speak with its own peculiarly condescending voice
about its own ideological creativity and its own biases
vis-a-vis West Germany; and the party in Prague
started to come apart as bemused conservatives began
to battle increasingly vigorous reform-minded
liberals.
The Challenge From Czechoslovakia
The crisis in Czechoslovakia in 1968 posed the most
serious threat to Soviet interests in Eastern Europe
and to the Soviet system itself since the Hungarian
revolution. Here again, 12 years later, was a series of
events centered on the twin issues of domestic democ-
ratization and relations with the USSR: Soviet mis-
handling of events from the very onset of the crisis;"
the pressure of new-wave politics threatening to get
out of hand, with potentially disastrous results for the
monopoly power of the party and the position of the
" This surprising event, apparently "the only indigenous military
coup ever organized within a European Communist state"--with
the possible, partial recent exception of Poland-is discussed by
Myron Rush in How Communist States Change Their Rulers
(Ithaca, 1974), pp. 110-112 and, as cited by Rush, by J. F. Brown in
Bulgaria Under Communist Rule (New York, 1970), pp. 173-189.
" Novotny was voted out of the first-secretaryship by the Czecho-
slovak party in early January 1968. It had been clear during the
preceding fall, however, that his position was in jeopardy. Brezhnev,
visiting Prague in December, presumably on Novotny's invitation,
refused to give full support to Novotny, making it clear "that the
Czechoslovak leadership was free to oust Novotny if it so desired"
(Rush, op cit, p. 139). Thus, by standing aside, Brezhnev-perhaps
reflecting indecision in Moscow-avoided an immediate problem
but probably compounded the long-term one.
Soviet Union vis-a-vis that party;` and, finally, de-
spite constant reassurances of continuing fidelity to
the USSR, the specter of neutralism and Western
inroads in a key area of the Bloc.
However great one's sense of moral out-
rage in the face of Soviet suppression of
the liberal experiment in Czechoslovakia,
it cannot be claimed that ... Soviet fears
[of the events in Prague] were unjustified.
The Prague Spring was by far the most
virulent case of revisionism that Leninism
in power had faced throughout its histo-
ry.... Had the Prague Spring been per-
mitted to survive, the Soviets would have
been rightly more fearful than at any time
since 1956, not only for their East Euro-
pean hegemony, but also for their own
Leninist party-state system as they know
it.16
And yet, while this enormous challenge was emerging
during the early months of 1968 and burst into flower
in the spring and summer, the guardians of "scientific
socialism" in the Soviet Union may not have been
able to agree on its size and scope and how best to
combat it.
To be sure, by March 1968 it had become clear to the
Soviets-and to the equally alarmed Poles and East
Germans-that, if their momentum continued, the
" Some Western observers maintain that the principal Soviet fear
at the time was that the Czech party would fall under the control of
its "progressive" faction, which would free itself from Soviet
authority, not that the party would lose power altogether. See
Christopher Jones, Soviet Influence in Eastern Europe (New York,
1981), p. 58. This contention seems to overlook the implications of
the actual course of events during the first seven months of 1968;
inter alia, the "progressive" wing of the party, which did win
dominance, was not strong enough to resist popular pressures for a
thorough democratization of national political life-and in effect
the surrender of the party's monopoly of power-even had it wished
to do so, which is doubtful. While certainly opposed to the
"progressives" (revisionists), Moscow preferred working with them
(as they did in Poland in October 1956) to the alternative,
intervening with troops.
16 Fritz Ermarth, Internationalism, Security, and Legitimacy: The
Challenge to Soviet Interests in East Europe, 1964-1968 (Rand,
Santa Monica, 1969), p. 61.
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events in Czechoslovakia could constitute a menace to
the Soviet Union and the Bloc as a whole." But the
collective leadership in Moscow was not at all sure
how best to proceed beyond exhorting the excited
Czechs to calm down.
Should [the Soviet leaders] attempt to
reverse or merely limit post-January de-
velopments in Czechoslovakia; if limit,
how should the limits be defined? What
tactics should be employed to enforce
Soviet will? While it remains as yet im-
possible to document them, differences
within the Politburo must certainly have
arisen over these questions very early. The
result was a Soviet diplomatic perform-
ance too convoluted and contradictory to
be termed subtle. It was at once clumsy
and indecisive.'8
In hindsight it seems reasonable to assume that at
least until the summer, some Soviet leaders (perhaps
Brezhnev and the ideologist Suslov among them), even
while no doubt afflicted with gloom, still sought a way
out, and still hoped that an invasion would not prove
necessary. The Czechoslovak party leader, Alexander
Dubcek, they thought, could be forced into accommo-
dation, could be made to control his own party, and
could be coerced to take the necessary steps to
reassert the party's dictatorship.
Other leaders were probably less prone to rationaliza-
tion and less reluctant to use force, sensing in the
Czechoslovak experiment a dangerous model for all
Eastern Europe. (Both the East German and Polish
" In this context, one concern of the Soviets at the time was the
appearance of an incipient alliance between Czechoslovakia, Roma-
nia, and Yugoslavia, a revival, as it were, of the prewar Little
Entente. But none of the partners expected the Soviets to resort to
military force in Czechoslovakia (or elsewhere), and so, whatever
the purposes of such a partnership, they did not see it primarily as a
deterrent to Soviet aggression. In particular, the Yugoslavs felt that
the Czechs had avoided Nagy's mistakes (withdrawal from the
Warsaw Pact, and so forth) and that the Soviets had evolved too far
from Stalinism and were too interested in the maintenance of East-
West detente to seriously contemplate armed action against
Czechoslovakia. See Dennison Rusinow, The Yugoslav Experi-
ment, 1948-1974 (Berkeley, 1978), p. 240.
" Ermarth, op cit, p. 67.
regimes adhered to this view; the Romanians and
Yugoslavs vigorously opposed it.) Indecision and com-
promise-necessitated by a form of collective rule in
which Brezhnev was usually dominant but not su-
preme-may have been responsible for the actual
shape of Soviet policy; that is, the peculiar combina-
tion of correct party-to-party relations with the Dub-
cekian heretics, warnings of severe political and eco-
nomic countermeasures (few if any of which were
actually implemented), the maneuvers and entry into
Czechoslovakia in June of the Soviet military, its
subsequent (temporary) withdrawal, and the peculiar
meetings between Soviet and Czech leaders at Brati-
slava and Cierna in July and August.
As in Hungary during the brief period in 1956 when
the Soviet military disengaged and partly withdrew
and then attacked, the anomalies in all this could
have reflected simply a graduated response or con-
cealed outright duplicity, to gain time for the later
massive blow. But the case for this is not persuasive,
especially in view of signs (and reports) of Soviet
floundering during both crises. Indeed, even the Sovi-
ets' handling of Dubcek after the invasion in August
1968-his kidnaping and forced trip to the USSR, his
subsequent release, and then, bewilderingly, his rein-
statement in office-is more suggestive of confusion
and disagreement than of a carefully crafted plot.
An Era of (Relative) Tranquillity
Withal, after 1968 the Soviets began to display a
more knowing and more sophisticated approach to
their problems in Eastern Europe. Surprisingly Brezh-
nev, who thereafter was able more and more to
assume control in the Politburo, seems not to have
concluded from his Czech experience that all manifes-
tations of individualistic behavior in Eastern Europe
had to be eliminated at the outset. This was true in
Czechoslovakia itself, where the stifling of dissent and
the removal of the liberals were carried out only over
time and did not result in a revival of Stalinist terror.
Similarly, threats of military intervention in Roma-
nia, prominent during the fall of 1968, were played
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down and then extinguished; the Poles were allowed
to handle the Baltic riots of 1970 and Gomulka's
subsequent removal without interference; the political
retirement of the troublesome Walter Ulbricht from
the helm in East Germany was accomplished with
quiet skill; and the innovative reform movement in
Hungary was permitted to proceed.
At the same time, though integration under CEMA
was pushed even harder, the East Europeans were
encouraged directly and by Soviet example to increase
economic ties with the West. (The volume of trade
between the West and the East European states
virtually tripled between 1960 and 1971.) Clearly,
though fearful of growing Western influence in the
area, Brezhnev and Co. understood not only that
Eastern Europe, like the USSR, needed Western
goods, know-how, and credits, but also believed that
"the economic strengthening of Eastern Europe could
help to enhance domestic political stability in the
area; might relieve the USSR of certain economic
burdens ... and could lead to a growing East Europe-
an contribution ... to the process of economic ad-
vancement in the USSR itself." 19
Significantly, Soviet restraint vis-a-vis Eastern Eu-
rope took place in the context of an active and
forward Soviet policy of detente in Western Europe.
This, in turn, rested on the Soviets' growing confi-
dence in their ability to maintain hegemony in their
sphere (after demonstrating their determination to do
so in Czechoslovakia) and increasing optimism about
their prospects in Western Europe (where the reaction
to the invasion of Czechoslovakia had been short lived
and overtaken by the momentum of West Germany's
Ostpolitik). For much of the 1970s in fact, Eastern
Europe appeared to be tranquil and Western Europe
seemed to be susceptible. Any temptation in Moscow
to crack down on wayward trends in the empire was
constrained by a strong Soviet desire to exploit the
West Europeans' weariness with the Cold War, their
anxiety for peace, and-through expanded economic
relations with the East-their expectations of profit.
Reenter Poland
The Solidarity movement in Poland in 1980-81 may
have posed the most serious nonviolent indigenous
threat to Soviet interests and influence yet mounted in
Eastern Europe. The Hungarian freedom fighters of
1956 and the Czechoslovak democratic revisionists of
1968 could be overwhelmed by military force, and the
threat of Polish national Communism in 1956 could
be restrained and ultimately dissolved by adroit ma-
neuvering. But the rise of the Polish working-class
movement to a position of power at least comparable
to that of the Polish party itself represented a new
kind of challenge to Communist legitimacy and Soviet
security. It was a challenge, moreover, that might be
especially difficult for the Soviets to quell with brute
force without, in the process, entailing -the risk of a
bloody, if short, war with Poland.
Tangible signs of severe worker unrest in Poland go
back more than a quarter of a century to the riots in
Poznan in the summer of 1956 and include the near-
revolution of the workers on the Baltic coast in 1970.
These events, though tripped by economic complaints,
were also political since the workers were expressing
profound resentment over their own lack of power and
in each instance vented their wrath against the reign-
ing Communist authorities, both regional and
national.
The accession to top leadership of Edward Gierek in
1970 was made possible by Gomulka's inability to
cope with the workers' insistence on higher standards
of living and a share in the formulation of economic
policies. Gierek promised to raise living standards and
to heed the workers' complaints and, for several years
thereafter, governed with their implicit sufferance.
But the economy began to sag in the late 1970s, partly
as a consequence of Gierek's profligate mismanage-
ment, and his standing with. the workers declined
apace. Finally in 1980 Gierek lost his job, and his
successors faced an ever-growing list of popular de-
mands, including legal recognition of the right of the
workers to strike and to organize free trade unions. As
it turned out, the new leaders' willingness to deal with
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Sovfoto/Eastfoto m
Soviet Marshal Viktor G. Kulakov, Commander in Chief of War-
saw Pact forces, who was the Brezhnev team's acting proconsul in
Warsaw in 1981-82. It didn't take him long to find out that Poland
is no joke.
Liaison
General Wojiech Jaruzelski, no patriot to the Poles, nevertheless is
probably no pushover for the Soviets. It looks as if he's a survivior,
but success-vis-a-vis his own unhappy people and the faltering
Polish economy-will probably elude him.
an independent power bloc (Solidarity) began a pro-
cess of official capitulation. This was, in the main,
nervous, hesitant, and grudging, but it was facilitated
at times by elements in the party which sought
reforms within the party and were sympathetic to
Solidarity's proletarian origins and its enormous pa-
triotic appeal, if not its specific program and its
apparent willingness to disrupt the nation's economy.
The solution pressed on the Poles by an increasingly
alarmed Soviet leadership was, of course, martial law.
This approach was hitherto untried in the Bloc but
consistent with aspects of Polish traditions and, as it
has turned out (because it has so far worked), appro-
priate to unprecedented circumstances.
Lessons for the Soviets
Though the crisis in Poland was in the end contained
in a manner satisfactory to Moscow, the Soviets have
little reason to congratulate themselves. On the con-
trary, the aging leadership in the Kremlin was simply
not able to respond quickly and effectively and would
be hard put to persuade even its most devoted follow-
ers that it had handled itself well or resolved its
problems in Poland and Eastern Europe in any funda-
mental, lasting way.20
Once again, the Soviets demonstrated in Poland that
they were reluctant to face up to the growing possibili-
ty of crisis. By mid-September of 1980, after two
months of frenzied contention between Polish workers
and politicians, it had become clear that the latter
were in retreat. But it was then too late for the Soviets
to insist that the party mount a direct political assault
on Solidarity and too late to count on the unity and
strength of that party to preserve its own position in
m One school of thought holds that, in part as a sort of first step in
the Brezhnev succession struggle, members of the Soviet Politburo
very seriously disagreed over how to deal with the Polish crisis-in
particular, over the question of military intervention-and that the
Soviet military was heavily involved in the dispute. (See Richard D.
Anderson, "Soviet Decision-Making and Poland," Problems of
Communism, March-April 1982, pp. 22-36.) That there was indeed
some disagreement over tactics seems altogether plausible, but the
article cited fails to make a persuasive case that a faction favoring
invasion was able, twice, to order mobilization and that a faction
(headed by Brezhnev) opposed to invasion was able, twice, to order
demobilization.
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the power structure. By the beginning of 1981 it was
even too late (and the situation too complex) to force a
retreat by Solidarity simply by threatening the use of
the Soviet Armed Forces.
The Soviets had discovered in 1956 that their post-
Stalin grant of autonomy to the Poles precluded the
simple issuance of orders to acquiescent subordinates.
But over the years, though they were certainly aware
of the hostility of the Polish people, they may have
convinced themselves that the congruence of Soviet
and Polish interests, their fraternal relations with both
Gomulka and Gierek, their relative noninterference in
Polish affairs, and their "benevolent" concern for
Polish welfare in general had restored their prestige
and authority in Warsaw to the point, at least, where
Polish leaders in need of aid would eagerly seek and
respond to their advice-if not necessarily their
instructions.
It did not work out that way. During most of the crisis
in 1980-81, the Polish leadership, though weakened
by internal divisions and the confrontation with Soli-
darity, nonetheless acted as a surprisingly independ-
ent entity, negotiating with Moscow rather than
capitulating to it. Even at the end, it is not at all clear
that Jaruzelski, as some Westerners maintain, surren-
dered to the Soviets; rather, as others assert, he may
well have moved primarily because he feared Solidari-
ty and its threat to the established order, and he
wished to forestall a threatened Soviet invasion.
The distinction may seem academic. Poland is under
martial law whatever the motives behind it, and
undeniably, this was the course urged and welcomed
by Moscow. But it was the last course available to the
Soviets short of invasion, and it was a move inspired in
the main by desperation. If Jaruzelski believes essen-
tially that he acted for his own reasons and even to
serve Polish interests, and he is surrounded by like-
minded men in and out of the Polish military, then
Poland has preserved a measure of sovereignty which
could one day return to plague the Soviet Union anew.
Beyond this, there was much in the Polish crisis to
inspire fear and loathing in Moscow. The largest and
perhaps closest of all the USSR's allies in Eastern
Europe had come perilously close to at least partial
secession from the empire. After a reign of almost 40
years, the Communist regime, governed by men pre-
sumably skilled in the art of politics and suppression
and backed by the power of the USSR, had all but
fallen apart. It had almost succumbed to forces that
were unarmed, unsophisticated, and (relatively) unor-
ganized. And these forces were not counterrevolution-
aries or fascists or Western agents but the workers in
whose very name the regime professed to rule.
Even if, as seems probable, the Soviets did not see
matters precisely in this light, they could not have
avoided a painful feeling of deja vu and rekindled
apprehensions about the future. Except in propaganda
utterances that must ring hollow even to their authors,
recurrent outbreaks of anti-Communism and anti-
Sovietism can no longer be explained away by refer-
ences to class enemies, Western imperialism, and the
like. Some leading figures in the Soviet Union, even if
they do not question the need to maintain the empire,
must be dismayed by their paucity of influence at key
junctures, the fragility of the Communist party's hold
on a theoretically subjugated society, and their ulti-
mate dependence on brute force to maintain their
position (or a semblance thereof). They must wonder if
part of the problem does not lie in their system, at
least as it is applied in Eastern Europe, and if that
system should not be changed accordingly.
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The events of recent years have made it plain that the
Communist camp is neither homogenous, monolithic,
nor unchanging.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
(1967)
Diversity and Disorder
Eastern Europe is more a label of convenience than a
reference to homogeneity. The Republic of Montene-
gro in Yugoslavia bears little resemblance politically,
economically, culturally, or geographically to, say,
Bohemia in Czechoslovakia or the province of Bialy-
stok in northeastern Poland. Albania, a bizarre and
backward state, was for many years a client of China
but is now an independent and isolationist Balkan
redoubt. East Germany, though a member of the
USSR's East European Bloc, is not even in Eastern
Europe. And so on, the point being that diversity in
the area, and in the Bloc, is not a recent or superficial
phenomenon. The uniformity imposed by Stalin and
maintained to a lesser degree by his successors (except
over Albania), however, is in a sense both. It is as if
the Soviets had covered these states with a thin fabric
which conceals much of the varied, mountainous
topography beneath but does not flatten it or, as we
have already seen, eliminate the occasionally active
volcano.
Within the specific context of how the Soviets main-
tain their fabric, especially in those areas where it is
rent or worn, and how those beneath it react-are
they content to remain in its shadow or do they seek
sunlight?-the observer is faced with problems of
perception and measurement and even definition:
? The Soviets possess substantial power in Sofia but
rarely seem to need to exercise it. The Bulgarian
leaders not only act swiftly to conform to Moscow's
expressed wishes, they are also adept at anticipating
them, dancing to their superior's tune even before it
is played."
? The Soviets wield comparable power in Prague, but
here the situation is much more complex, requiring
close Soviet attention, frequent interventions, and
some willingness to heed the opinions of the Czecho-
slovak leadership.
? The East German leaders accept Soviet authority
but, short on humility and long on pride of accom-
plishment, they do not reflexively bow to Soviet
wisdom, nor do they shy from proffering advice of
their own.
? The Soviet position in Poland rests on uncertain
foundations. Instructions are received but may be
resisted, partly because the military regime is not
simply a creature of the Soviets, partly because
circumstances-popular opposition, the power of the
Church, for example-make compliance difficult.
On balance, if the Soviets' ultimate hegemony is not
challenged, aspects of their operational authority
probably are.
? In Budapest the relationship is ambiguous. On the
one hand, the Hungarians move on their own to
reassure and placate, and they seem never to chal-
lenge the Soviets directly. On the other, they feel
free to innovate at home-keeping Big Brother
reasonably well-informed but not always seeking his
advance consent-and sometimes to behave as Hun-
garians (not simple satraps) abroad. Thus, to para-
phrase the old saw, the Hungarians may be content
to enter the revolving door behind the Soviets, but
they exert every effort to leave it ahead of them.
? There remains Romania, a country that has raised
the level of national Communist politics to an art.
Party and state leader Ceausescu has successfully
redefined the role of a member of the Bloc, main-
taining ties that are mostly formal and confining
Soviet influence almost entirely to the negative.
Ceausescu accepts certain limits on his country's
sovereignty but, within these, he accepts neither
advice nor inspiration.
Z' Put another way: "The role the present Bulgarian leadership
appears to see itself in vis-a-vis the Soviet Union is obviously not
that of a subservient lackey but of a faithful lieutenant, entrusted
with certain responsibilities and receiving in turn certain favors-
indeed, almost a genuinely feudal relationship" (J. F. Brown, op cit,
p. 53).
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The Tools of the Imperial Craft
Most of the East European Bloc states thus no longer
deserve the demeaning appellation "satellite," for if
they remain in orbit they do so at a further remove or
in a much more eccentric ellipse. This does not mean,
of course, that the center of this system has lost its
gravitational pull or simply given up its means of
influence and control. On the contrary, the USSR has
maintained a considerable variety of instruments of
persuasion and power, both tangible and intangible.
Among them:
Force of Arms. The USSR is no stranger to the
application of armed force or the threat to use such
force. The threat by itself has failed on occasion, as in
Hungary and Czechoslovakia, but seemed partly to
work in Poland, and no doubt helped to head off crises
elsewhere. Whatever, the existence of Moscow's over-
whelming military capability, together with its dem-
onstrated willingness to use it and to justify it ideolog-
ically via the Brezhnev Doctrine, constitutes a
pervasive instrument of ultimate control, the most
potent deterrent to East European defection the Sovi-
ets possess.22 Once employed, of course, it is brutally
effective, at least for a time. There is a drawback,
however: the Soviets do not want to use it because,
among other things, it incurs political costs abroad
and is tantamount to a confession of policy failure.
This reluctance, moreover, is by now generally recog-
nized in Eastern Europe, where the lesson of past.
Soviet interventions and noninterventions has been
twofold: Moscow will move militarily if need be, but it
will pay a price to avoid the necessity. This under-
standing, in turn, provides the East Europeans with
some real, though circumscribed, leverage of their
own (for example, Romania).
22 As first (turgidly) enunciated (in Pravda, 25 September 1968), the
Brezhnev Doctrine asserts that, though the peoples and parties of
each Socialist country "must have freedom to determine their
country's path of development... any decision of theirs must
damage neither socialism in their own country nor the fundamental
interests of the other socialist country nor the worldwide worker's
movement". . . Ergo, "every Communist Party is responsible not
only to its own people but also to all socialist countries and to the
entire Communist movement... The sovereignty of individual
socialist countries cannot be counterposed to the interests of world
socialism and the world revolutionary movement."
Institutional Ties. While perhaps not as binding as
the Soviets would like to see, a great variety of these
means are available-diplomatic relations; treaty ob-
ligations; membership in Blocwide bodies (CEMA,
the Warsaw Pact, various councils and committees of
both); official ;party-to-party contacts; international
Communist conferences, scientific congresses; educa-
tional, cultural, and academic exchanges; and nota-
bly, secret police ties. (The 1CGB must seem almost as
omnipresent in most of Eastern Europe as in the
USSR; while its influence is surely less-in part
because largely indirect-it nonetheless plays a major
part in the preservation of Soviet influence, and
Andropov will surely seek to keep it that way.) This
panoply of persistent relationships forms a complicat-
ed web designed and used by the Soviets to exercise
dominance, curb disaffection, and, not so incidentally,
to keep informed. Still, though generally effective,
institutional strings are much too diffuse and too
remotely controlled to form a single instrument of
control; moreover, some of the most important
strands, for example, CEMA, are vulnerable to East
European expressions of self-interest and
recalcitrance.
Relations Among Leaders. This is a vital aspect of the
relationship which is at once tangible and intangible.
Meetings between Soviet and East European leaders
(usually bilateral, except during international Com-
munist conclaves, including party congresses) provide
the former an opportunity to deliver lectures, provide
counsel, apply pressure, and occasionally demand
accommodation. Most East European leaders proba-
bly find themselves listening to their Soviet mentors
attentively, though the days of bowing and scraping
are mostly over. And once in. a while, the visitor may
decide to give as good as he gets.
Congruent Interests. While they often operate at
cross-purposes with Moscow's designs, some purely
national East European interests-specific interests
not common to the Bloc as a whole-can also be an
important element in Moscow's arsenal of influence.
Poland's and Czechoslovakia's fear of German revan-
chism and the East German regime's fear and hatred
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of West Germany are prominent cases in point. So too
is Bulgaria's hostility toward Yugoslavia, Greece, and
Turkey. Less obvious, but potentially significant, are
the quarrels among the Bloc states themselves, which,
among other things, pretty much preclude East Euro-
pean unity vis-a-vis the Soviets. The USSR ordinarily
represses but on occasion exploits such quarrels, for
instance, the Romanian-Hungarian dispute over
Transylvania and ill will between the Czech lands and
Slovakia.
There are, in addition, a bundle of interests and
attitudes common to one degree or another to the
regimes of the Bloc as a whole. Such "macrointerests"
include the doctrinal disapproval of capitalism, de-
mocracy, and "degenerate" Western society in gener-
al; joint suspicion of Western intentions in Eastern
Europe and the world at large; and, above all, a
shared apprehension that they and their systems
simply could not survive if Soviet support were
withdrawn.
Ideology. As China and Yugoslavia have repeatedly
made clear, a presumably common ideology can di-
vide as well as unite. Indeed, unless orthodoxy is
defined and imposed by some higher authority, ideo-
logical differences within the family become almost
inevitable over time. Still, as the principal seat of
Marxist-Leninist thought and as the Communist
world's founding state, the USSR enjoys a certain
ideological prestige and preeminence (though hardly
as much as it claims). East Europeans who would
contend with the USSR therefore must contemplate a
charge of heresy as well as the usual secular forms of
pressure. While this may not prove decisive, it is at
least discouraging. More important, the CPSU's ideo-
logical credentials provide the Bloc with a common
means of communication, give Moscow a pretext for
an endless series of pronouncements about matters
that otherwise would seem to impinge on the internal
affairs of the East European (and other) states, lend
authority to Soviet concepts of intra-Bloc affairs, and
define the limits of the junior partners' relations with
the infidels in the outside world. More subtly, ideolo-
gy provides the same rationale to all the parties of the
Bloc for their very existence; why a church without
beliefs? This means, in turn, that these parties share a
reluctance to tamper with doctrine, lest it-and their
survival-be put at risk.
Economic Ties. The sheer volume of Soviet-East
European economic intercourse assures the USSR of
a powerful instrument of influence. Though gradually
diminishing over the years, the percentage of East
European trade with the Soviet Union remains high
enough (imports ranging in 1981 from a low of 20
percent in the case of Romania to over 50 percent for
Bulgaria, exports conforming to a similar pattern) to
imply a substantial degree of economic dependence.
This is especially so since an obvious alternative,
greatly expanded trade with the West, is not as a
practical matter available to the East Europeans,
either now (in the wake of Poland's near financial
collapse) or in the foreseeable future. The Soviets also
appear to be the primary source of badly needed
economic aid over the next few years, even though the
level of such aid will almost certainly decline-and
East European economies suffer as a consequence-as
the USSR's own economic problems grow.
But while the USSR's economic ties to Eastern
Europe are certainly useful in a variety of ways-they
create tangible means of contact, can be employed as
political weapons, and generally inhibit East Europe-
an moves toward independence-they do not neces-
sarily serve as a battery of heavy artillery when there
are serious strains in a relationship. Thus, Soviet
threats of economic retaliation and economic warfare
have not always proved effective (for example, against
Romania and Czechoslovakia in the 1960s). When
they were actually carried out-against China in
1960 and against Yugoslavia, virtually sealed off from
economic relations with the entire Bloc after 1948-
they failed to produce either an economic collapse or a
favorable change in political behavior. In any event
the East European regimes retain some small econom-
ic leverage of their own, and they can argue that
Soviet failure to provide adequate levels of assistance
might jeopardize domestic tranquillity and their own
authority.
The Military Connection. Nothing has testified to the
efficacy of Soviet military power as a direct instru-
ment of control quite so eloquently as the conse-
quences of its removal from Yugoslavia, Romania,
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and, after a long delay, Czechoslovakia. The mistake
of withdrawal is not likely to be repeated in the
foreseeable future.
In addition to using occupying forces as a means of
intimidation and a reminder of Soviet might, the
USSR has insisted on maintaining close oversight of
Bloc forces via the Warsaw Pact and indirectly
controls many of their activities through mission.
assignments and training exercises. (Romania is a
partial exception.) The purpose is fourfold: to forestall
the use of East European armies in ways inimicable to
Soviet interests; to augment Soviet forces in the event
of war; to develop a cadre of pro-Soviet officers and a
locus of pro-Soviet power which can be used not only
against the population at large but also as a politically
restraining force in the event that a local regime has
embarked on a wayward course; and, in extremis, as
recently demonstrated for the first time in Poland, to
make political use of these forces when the existing
regime is faltering or disloyal.
But here again, there are drawbacks and risks. In
Romania, for example, the armed forces supported
the regime's drive for independence; elements of the
Hungarian army did the same in 1956, and none are
thought to have sided with the Soviets; and the Polish
Army in 1982 seems to have proved its loyalty to its
own high command and the Jaruzelski regime but
given no sign that it would help the Soviets in a
contest between the two.
Personal Contacts. Very little is known about the
quality and extent of the private, personal relation-
ships between Soviet and East European leaders and
other politicians and prominent administrators. Cer-
tainly they exist; sometimes signs of this are reflected
in public statements, as when Gomulka, Kadar,
Novotny, and others seemed to register some degree
of personal dismay at the ouster of Khrushchev in
1964. But how much importance should be placed on
specific attachments can only be conjectural.
At a lower level, however, there is some firsthand
testimony which suggests that personal contacts be-
tween East European party apparatchiki and other
bureaucrats with their Soviet opposite numbers are
very widespread and probably of great importance to
the Soviets as a continuing, low-key means of exerting
influence. Simple prudence apparently dictates that
the East European official stay abreast of Soviet
attitudes relevant to his own professional interests;
similarly, concern over the security of his own position
and eagerness for advancement would encourage that
official to pay serious attention to Soviet advice,
particularly if he suspects, as he should, that similar
concerns prompt comparable behavior at higher levels
within his own organization. While all this does not
automatically ensure East European conformity and
fidelity, and may at times help the East Europeans to
exercise some influence on the Soviets, it must in
general foster East European caution-not an un-
known proclivity in bureaucracies anyhow-encour-
age the avoidance of disagreement, and promote a
sort of miasmic susceptibility to Soviet guidance.
The Soviet "Presence. " Finally, among the weapons
of influence in. the Soviet armory is something even
more amorphous than personal contacts, the fact that
the Soviets are simply but overwhelmingly there in
Eastern Europe. To be sure.. the effects of this,
principally psychological, are negative as well as
positive; "Russki Go Home" would adorn fully half
the available walls of Eastern Europe were the youth
of these countries as given to graffiti as their Western
compatriots (and cans of spray paint equally avail-
able). And the collective sighs of relief in Yugoslavia,
Romania, and China in the wake of massive with-
drawals of Soviet military or "advisory" personnel
were clearly audible throughout the world. But else-
where the continuing Soviet presence can (though it
not always does) produce a kind of ennui and resigna-
tion, a feeling of helplessness-why fight city hall?-
in the face of such awesome odds.
The East European Response
While clearly effective as ways to influence East
European development and constrain East European
sovereignty, the instruments of persuasion, control,
and intimidation outlined above by no means consti-
tute a system of absolute authority. On the contrary,
as history has demonstrated, the pattern that has
emerged over the years since Stalin's death has done
so in piecemeal fashion rather than as the result of
some grand design, emphasizes in the main bilateral
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rather than empirewide relationships, and lacks a
consistent, cohesive set of rules and standards through
which East European conduct can be filtered and
against which East European behavior can be judged.
The system, then, has many faults and is, in addition,
relatively inchoate.
The East European states have had considerable
experience in operating within imperial systems-
most have enjoyed national independence only briefly
in the modern era. There are similarities in the ways
the individual regimes have dealt with the Soviets and
the ways their non-Communist predecessors dealt
with the Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, and Ottomans.
Their behavior has been and is essentially opportunis-
tic, running the gamut from bargaining over legalities
to outright defiance:
? Low-key resistance to innovation and to "general
orders" is perhaps the most frequent and telling
form of negative East European response. It is
easier and safer, for example, to drag one's feet than
to flatly oppose; it is also easier to find collegial
support for delaying tactics than for clear refusals,
the former demanding subterfuge, the latter
courage.
? Even the most adamant and heroic among East
European Communist "rebels"-Tito and Nagy-
did not initially seek to sever themselves and their
countries from their Soviet association, and Dubcek
never did. In the case of Nagy and Dubcek, both
men earnestly sought compromise, not conflict, but
both ultimately found themselves propelled by irre-
sistible forces at work within their own societies.
? Even the most obeisant of East European satraps
are capable of occasional obduracy. Thus, Polish
leaders in the late 1940s, apparently fearing wide-
spread rebellion, failed to collectivize agriculture on
the scale demanded by Stalin; conservative regimes
in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria only pretended to
go along with Moscow's call for a "New Course" in
the mid-1950s; and Ulbricht made known his severe
reservations about Soviet policy toward West Ger-
many in the late 1960s.
? In Hungary the Kadar leadership has chosen to
follow an innovative course of its own, a novel and
relaxed approach to domestic affairs, without great
regard for fashions in vogue elsewhere in the Bloc.
Assured of Kadar's basic loyalty, reassured by his
regime's public devotion to Soviet foreign policies,
and surely not anxious to risk renewed turbulence in
a nation that has historically proved a reluctant-
client, the Soviets have apparently gone along with
the experiment, though at times with hesitation and
anxiety.
? Particularly risky, of course, has been the peculiar
"independentist" Romanian way of Gheorghiu-Dej
and Ceausescu. This has involved the previously
mentioned "Declaration of Independence" in 1964,
unprecedented public references to unredeemed Ro-
manian territory in the USSR, frank appeals to
nationalist sentiments among the people at large, an
informal (undeclared) political alliance with Yugo-
slavia potentially directed against the Soviet Union,
and "vetoes" of Soviet initiatives concerning both
CEMA and the Warsaw Pact. It has also 'involved
criticism of Soviet ideological precepts designed to
reinforce Soviet claims to hegemony and support of
implicitly anti-Soviet "polycentrist" themes pro-
pounded by the Yugoslavs and Eurocommunists. All
these moves and positions have been swallowed by
the post-Stalin Soviet leaderships, which sometimes
seem less tolerant than simply outplayed.
? Clearly however, there are limits to the game that
both parties understand. First and most obvious is
the Ceausescu regime's pledge not to abandon the
Communist system at home (which is not something
that regime would wish to do in any case) and not
formally and completely to abandon the Soviet Bloc
system abroad (which, though less clearly so, is also
an event the regime would rather not undertake,
even were it feasible). For its part, the Soviet
leadership has not invaded-though it has certainly
not foresworn the threat-nor, for roughly 20 years,
has it sought actively to overthrow the obstreperous
gang in Bucharest. Presumably, Moscow's reason-
ing is that a known thorn in the side is better than
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the unknowns and costs and hazards of seeking to
remove it, particularly if that thorn happens to be,
as it is, the poorest, most isolated geographically,
and arguably the least important strategically of all
the Bloc states.
The "final" options open to the East European
states-rebellion and secession-seem less likely in
this era of the Brezhnev Doctrine (and what it signi-
fies) than in the 1950s and 1960s, precisely because
the invasion threat is credible enough to make them
seem "final." At the same time, however, because
these options remain possible, the threat of either or
both continues to concern the USSR and gives the
East European regimes some room for maneuver.
Aside from these forms of resistance to Soviet control,
the East European states exercise a kind of reverse
influence on the Soviet Union that is hardly dramatic
but that may help at least indirectly to curb Soviet
hegemony.
East European Influence on the USSR
When the stakes are very high, most East European
leaders are probably prepared to assert their own
interests with vigor and conviction. Indeed, the re-
gimes of all the East European states, even including
those of the fiefdom of Bulgaria and of that curious
contrivance of the Cold War, East Germany, see
themselves as representatives of national entities with
peculiar national interests. Each regime is capable of
seeing problems in its own light, relatively free of the
shadow of Soviet policy and doctrine. Thus it was that
the dean of the faithful, Walter Ulbricht, fearing a
threat to the national existence of the GDR, actively
and effectively resisted trends in Soviet policy toward
West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s; thus
it would be in Sofia, for roughly the same kinds, of
reasons, if the Soviets should ever side with Yugosla-
via on the question of Macedonia.
The point is, not only do East European interests
sometimes conflict with Soviet and sometimes cause
trouble; the existence and expression of these interests
also influences Soviet policy, helps to shape it, even
puts limits on it. Indeed, this is one way the empire
fights back.
The East Europeans, in addition, offer the Soviet body
.politic, not to mention its dissenters, a variety of
alternatives--intellectual, cultural, and economic-
which of course is one reason why the flow of East
European ideas to the USSR is so severely restricted
by the Soviet authorities. The East European leaders
can also provide direct political support or opposition
to one or another Soviet leader framing policies or
seeking allies., though the East European role seems
not to have been large during past periods of Soviet
succession. And finally, Eastern Europe, as an area of
potential turbulence, can help indirectly to shape
Soviet politics and policies by remaining calm and
acquiescent, or, conversely by becoming agitated
and/or blowing up.
In the long run as the empire matures, the direct
influence of the East European states on Soviet
behavior and policy seems likely to increase. The
Hungarian economic experiment was tolerated under
Brezhnev and now seems likely to receive greater
attention and approbation under Andropov. All the
East European states have benefited from Romania's
insistence on (and the USSR's recognition of) the
right of members to assert independent views in Bloc
councils. Moscow has demonstrated some willingness
to give these states a greater voice in CEMA-though
this is as much a pragmatic adjustment to economic
realities as it is a capitulation to political pressure-
and has paid at least some lipservice to the notion that
they should play a larger decisionmaking role within
the Warsaw Pact as well. The Soviets have also
displayed a disposition to enhance the status of some
East European leaders (Gomulka was the prime ex-
ample of this), almost as if they were ex officio
members of the Soviet elite.
While the Soviets may wish to view such adjustments
as a sign of growing imperial cohesion-the East
European members of the club are simply being given
a vote-the end result could of course be quite
different if one or another East European leader
interprets them as an accommodation of his own
growing autonomy.
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The approaching succession [in the Soviet Union],
whatever the form and results of its initial stage, will
eventually involve a replacement in the top leadership
and the central establishment on a scale much great-
er than the last two successions and will be combined
with an increased generational turnover of the Soviet
political elite. This ... has no precedent in Soviet
history. It will be a political development of long-
term duration and significance.
The Andropov Succession
Signs that a post-Brezhnev struggle for leadership was
under way in the Kremlin were visible in both the
Soviet political arena and in the area of Soviet
economic policy long before Brezhnev himself had
succumbed to his final heart attack. Maneuvering
among the possible heirs began in earnest in January
1982 when a key power broker, Mikhail Suslov, died
and upset the existing balance.23 Signs of this were
quickly reflected in leadership appearances and ap-
pointments, and debates over longstanding issues of
economic consequence, such as declining labor pro-
ductivity, managerial responsibilities, and technologi-
cal stagnation, soon thereafter surfaced in the Soviet
press.24
That a struggle for Brezhnev's mantle, if at all
protracted and deep, would have a profound impact in
Eastern Europe, and in all probability on relations
between Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union as well,
seems as close to an iron law of empire as one is likely
to get. But there is no law, apparently, which decrees
either the duration or intensity of succession infight-
ing within the USSR. It took Khrushchev four turbu-
lent years to succeed Stalin, Brezhnev six or eight
years of subdued struggle to succeed Khrushchev.
And it now seems possible, though by no means
certain, that Andropov essentially accomplished the
task in just nine or 10 months of relatively moderate
contention.
Specifically, in terms of precedents, the succession to
Khrushchev was far less disruptive and traumatic
than the succession to Stalin. This was partly because
the void left by Stalin's death was incomparably
greater than the one opened up by Khrushchev's
removal. Though "harebrained," Khrushchev's poli-
cies were far less damaging and posthumously contro-
versial than Stalin's and required fewer immediate
amendments (and no potentially explosive anti-
Khrushchev secret speech). The general mood in the
USSR in 1964 was calmer and much less anxiety
ridden than the prevailing mood in 1953 (when the
Soviet leaders actually feared for their skins). Further,
Khrushchev's successors, unlike Stalin's, did not fall
out immediately over the question of power, and they
assured their constituencies that Khrushchev's ex-
cesses of style, his penchant for reorganizations and
assigning economic priorities to pet industries, and his
tamperings with the party machinery would cease
once and for all.
The collective that succeeded Khrushchev and the
Brezhnev regime that, in turn, succeeded the collec-
tive, shifted policy emphases and instituted new pro-
grams over time but in general established a pattern
of leadership that sought a "return to normalcy" and
the "pursuit of policies of institutional continuity,
gradualism, accommodation, and reassurance of the
elite, in short of stability." 25
And all this seemed to argue "for the ability of the
Soviet polity to achieve the [next] transfer of the top
leadership position without major drama, without
undue shock." 26
The apparent success of Yuri Andropov in consolidat-
ing his authority-most obviously his authority over
foreign policy-within hours of Brezhnev's death on
10 November did, in fact, suggest an orderly transfer
of power. Andropov's success can probably be attrib-
uted to the lackluster character of his competitors, to
25 Seweryn Bialer, Stalin's Successors (Cambridge and New York,
1980), pp. 73-75. 25X1
" Ibid, p. 74.
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his own superior talents and general resourcefulness,
and to his ability to line up impressive support from
colleagues in the Politburo and within key interest
groups (surely including the KGB and probably the
military).
Brezhnev's long illness may also have contributed
indirectly to the overtly decorous succession process.
There was time to make various political arrange-
ments and alliances, time for at least the temporary
resolution of some issues, and time for the various
interest groups in Soviet society to be heard and to
bring their influence to bear. And all this could take
place while Brezhnev was still able to provide continu-
ity and national leadership and the appearance of
stability at the top.
This is not to say, however, that "it's all over but the
shouting." Andropov seems to have won dominance
very quickly and efficiently and with a minimum of
political disruption. But this may in part merely have
reflected the unanimous desire in the Politburo to
avoid open signs of disunity in the leadership. And
unless he has somehow already gained complete mas-
tery over the Politburo and the Secretariat (something
Brezhnev never did), the Soviet leadership will contin-
ue to function in part as an oligarchy. This means,
inter alia, that disagreements over policy and resist-
ance to Andropov's rule, though perhaps they will not
be expressed dramatically, are likely to persist."
In the area of policy, especially economic policy.,
Andropov has clearly indicated his desire for change.
But-no doubt with a view to minimizing contention
within the Politburo and uneasiness within the bu-
reaucracy-he has also revealed a willingness to
proceed with caution. Thus concerning (in his words)
"the need to extend the independence" of various
economic enterprises, his declaration of 22 November
is a case in point: "It is necessary," Andropov told the
Central Committee, "to conduct experiments if need
be, to make appraisals, and to take account of the
Z" Grey Hodnett has observed that, even under Khrushchev at the
height of his power, "one-man rule and collective leadership were
both simultaneously part of Soviet political reality." Hodnett has
also noted that one should distinguish between "resistance to the
pretensions and policies of the incumbent leader and outright
competition for his post." (Hodnett, "Succession Contingencies in
the Soviet Union," Problems of Communism, vol. XXIV (March-
April 1975), pp. 4-5.
experience of fraternal countries." This is interesting,
even modestly titillating, but hardly a rousing call to
action.
Beyond Andropov, who is 613, there is a good chance
of far greater change. "This is the first time in Soviet
history that an entire generation of leaders [not just
the top leadership position] is departing history's stage
more or less together. Accordingly, precedents are
fragile and the uncertainties great." 28
The departure of the Great Purge genera-
tion of leaders is in itself an important
turning-point in Soviet political history.
The circumstance, coinciding as it does
with another turning-point in Soviet eco-
nomic history, marks a time of unusual
opportunities and openings for change....
The Soviet system in the 1970s has dis-
played a high level of stability, continuity,
and marginality of change. It is my con-
tention that this ... may be seriously
shaken in the coming decade.... the Sovi-
et Union [of the 1980s may beJ significant-
ly different from the Soviet Union of the
1970s. Of course I am not at all certain
that major changes will take place. What
I do project is a significant increase in
pressures for change."
The New Generation of Soviet Leaders
Over time, perhaps in the middle or later years of this
decade, a new contender for power in the CPSU will
be cast up, probably a younger man, a representative
of the post-Stalin generation, more vigorous and less
committed to the mores and myths of the past. At the
same time, there will be a comparable generational
turnover in all the Soviet political elites. One particu-
larly knowledgeable observer, Seweryn Bialer again,
has studied this new generation and interviewed a
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variety of its members and has provided a good
glimpse of what it may look like:
One of its crucial formative political expe-
riences ... took place during the protract-
edferment and shock of Khrushchev's
anti-Stalin campaign ... a campaign that
questioned authority and established
truths and thereby stimulated critical
thought.
The new generation is clearly a Soviet
generation in its typical and persistent
adherence to the cult of the state. [Its
members are committed to] the basic
forms of Soviet political organization ...
[the] belief that the system is right and
proper... [But] they tend to exhibit little
of their predecessors' xenophobia and
much less of their fear and deeply rooted
suspicion of the outside world.
One most striking trait of this group is its
skepticism about the grander claims of
Soviet propaganda concerning the sys-
tem's merits. Its members display both a
well-developed awareness of the system's
functional shortcomings ... and (of] Sovi-
et backwardness and provinciality in gen-
eral. They do not disguise their dislike
and lack of respect for the old generation
... [This generation is also] grossly mate-
rialistic ... [and] is characterized by high-
ly developed career orientation ... and
elitism.
It is a generation that perceives the inabil-
ity of the Brezhnev administration to lay
out a direction for Soviet development ...
that is less likely to accept actual or
potential international achievements as
substitutes for internal development ...
that may be willing to pay a higher price
in terms of political and social change if
persuaded that such a price would assure
substantial improvement in the growth
and efficiency of the productive and dis-
tributive processes.30
In short, as Bialer sees it, the post-Stalin generation of
the politically elite is essentially pragmatic and for-
ward looking, no less patriotic than its predecessors
but certainly more realistic about the faults of the
system and thus, in the Soviet context, basically
reform minded. This does not mean, however, that the
bulk of its members is likely to favor reforms of a
truly liberal or democratic character, a la Dubcek, or
to seek to emulate the barnstorming, highly ideologi-
cal appproach of Khrushchev. Nor, as Bialer notes,
need it be "easier to deal with in the international
arena"; on the contrary, it might be "less cautious,
more prone to take risks" because it lacks firsthand
experience with "the cost of building Soviet might"
and is accustomed to the USSR's great power status.
One might add to this analysis the notion that there
nonetheless is at least one characteristic the new age
group shares with older generations, the natural polit-
ical tendency to react against the excesses and failures
of the preceding regime. Malenkov and Khrushchev
sought to overcome the suffocating effects of years of
Stalinist tyranny. Brezhnev and his associates in turn
strove to eliminate the unsettling consequences of
Khrushchev's flamboyant style and controversial poli-
cies. Andropov will try to get the USSR moving
again, though without entirely casting off the caution
of his predecessors. The next generation of leaders is
likely to be reactive too, may discard the hardline
wariness of Andropov, try to expand the number of
permissible means to confront problems, and seek to
enlarge and make more realistic the vision of what
Soviet society should ultimately become."
Pressing Policy Problems
Most authorities would probably agree that, given the
seriousness and complexity of the problems confront-
ing the new Soviet leadership, debates over policy are
likely to be intense." Such debates will surely involve
" The individual backgrounds and career paths of the members of
the post-Stalin generation, revealed tentatively by Bialer's study of
a limited sample (the Russian first provincial secretaries), also seem
to suggest a less conservative overall approach, because members of
this group tend to be of middleclass origin, are better educated, are
technocrats as well as apparatchiki, come predominantly from
urban areas, and-presumably in part because of their talents-
have risen rapidly to their present positions.
F_ I 25X1
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questions concerning Soviet relations with the United
States, China, and Eastern Europe, but the sharpest
disagreements will probably focus on the USSR's
economic problems." There can be little doubt, in
fact, that it is in this area that the Andropov leader-
ship and its successors will face their most demanding
task: coping with a variety of awesome problems that
have for some time been neglected by a Brezhnev
regime disposed to compromise, to gratify many
(though not all) competing interest groups, and in
general to muddle through, problems that cannot be
solved, or even partially solved, by placebos and
traditional methods.
Past [economic] problems were concentrat-
ed either on one area at a time and/or
were responsive to a mass mobilization
effort, so to say, to the strategy of a
hammer blow. The approaching problems
of the 1980s are spread across the board
to many vital areas and require sophisti-
cated manipulation ... the strategy of the
scalpel."
Most pressing, of course, will be questions of resource
allocation and the appropriate administrative-mana-
gerial-structural way to deal with them. Near stagna-
tion of the growth of GNP, a looming energy crisis,
impending labor shortages, persisting agricultural
shortcomings, a possible decline in living standards, a
general social malaise, the continuing growth of in-
vestment in the military sector, and declining invest-
ment elsewhere-all these problems and more are
coming together to demand major, systemic changes
imposed from above. They are doing so, moreover,
during a period of political stress and at a time when
it is becoming increasingly apparent that ideology and
existing doctrines not only fail to offer a guide to
prosperity but positively inhibit or even preclude
progress toward that goal. Economic circumstances
thus cry out for radical change, and Bialer, for one,
suggests that, if Andropov does not or cannot respond
effectively, the younger leaders probably will.
Bialer does not believe, however, that a radical solu-
tion to economic problems will carry with it the seeds
of a radical change in the political system. He thinks
the regime will effectively guard against "dangerous
fractures and. ruptures" and that the system is suffi-
ciently strong and stable to survive fundamental
alterations in economic policy." And yet, to be suc-
cessful, a new economic program will have to deal
with difficulties likely to reach crisis proportions by
the middle of the decade and effect truly fundamental
reforms. Further, anything this ambitious and far
reaching would almost inevitably provoke high-level
disagreements over the allocation of resources, even
were resources in more plentiful supply than they will
be. But Bialer seems to minimize the likelihood of a
serious political struggle at the top.
Other experts, most notably Myron Rush, disagree in
part. Rush, for example, foresees serious political
contention over the direction of the economy; doubts
that even radical reform, if agreed upon, would solve
the economic problem; posits a possible weakening of
the USSR's security position as a consequence; sug-
gests that changes sufficient to turn the economy
around would, in fact, endanger the system as a
whole; and implies that because of this the effort is
not likely to be made .16
Nevertheless, Rush believes that if fundamental re-
form is attempted, it is likely to be associated with a
change in leadership. "Radical reform is most fa-
vored, not simply by succession ... but rather by a
succession consequent upon the manifest failure of a
leadership and its policies." 31
Both Rush and Bialer agree that the need for pro-
found change exists now and will probably become
particularly acute later in this decade. Further, Rush
does not seem to dispute Bialer's characterization of
the post-Stalin elite as, essentially, more open minded
and activist than its predecessors. To the extent that
these two observers disagree, then, the argument may
eventually be settled if the new generation of Soviet
leaders proceeds in a radical way to refashion the
" Ibid, p. 67-68.
" Myron Rush, "The Soviet Military Build-Up and the Coming
Succession," International Security (spring 1981), pp. 169-185.
" Rush, How Communist States Change Their Rulers, p. 239.
ia er, op cit, p. 291.
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economy, believing erroneously that in the process no
damage need be done the political superstructure.
And in this way, the future leaders of the USSR could
unwittingly become the architects of their own fall
from power.
The Impact on Eastern Europe
The nature of the attack on domestic problems in the
USSR by post-Brezhnev leaderships will have major
implications for Eastern Europe. A radical change in
the administration of the Soviet economy, for exam-
ple, would inspire motion toward similar reforms in
other Bloc states. Outcomes would vary according to
the degree of autonomy exercised by each party, the
preferred policies of the individual leaderships, and
the character and force of Soviet guidance. As during
the New Course of the mid-1950s, however, the issue
itself would become important simply because the
USSR had raised it.
There are, in addition, rather more indirect forms of
fallout from changes in Soviet positions. A shift in
investment patterns, for example, might affect the
composition of Soviet trade with Eastern Europe. A
turn toward more provocative acts abroad might
curtail East European trade with Western countries
and further limit the availability of Western credits.
And so on.
All of which might suggest that, because a succession
period in the USSR inevitably involves questions of
policy of interest to the East Europeans, it would
behoove the leaders of these states to make their
feelings known or, if less cautious, to actually try to
involve themselves on one or another side of an issue
or of a political struggle."
As important as the precise nature of Soviet policies
arising out of succession politics, and the degree of
Bloc involvement, are the consequences in Eastern
3e Whether this has happened in the past-for example, Nagy
supporting Malenkov, the exponent of reform; Rakosi, siding with
the then more conservative Khrushchev-is not so easy to deter-
mine. It would have been quite sensible under the circumstances,
but it is hard to document, the initiative for the East Europeans'
limited involvement probably lay with Moscow, and there is in any
case reason to doubt that any East European leader enjoyed
sufficient stature at that time to enter himself into the Soviet
political arena. But this need not rule out interventions by East
European leaders in the future.
Europe of disarray in the top Soviet leadership.
Stability in the Soviet-East European relationship
seems to be enhanced during periods of strong leader-
ship or dictatorship in the Kremlin and weakened
during periods of collective rule. The failure of a
Soviet oligarchy to agree on a program, to provide
clear and consistent direction, and to project an aura
of certainty and unity had obvious, direct, and even
dramatic effects in Eastern Europe during the brou-
haha attending the Stalin succession. Though less
apparent and direct, the impact of the succession to
Khrushchev was almost equally dramatic, at least in
Czechoslovakia." (See the accompanying chart.)
To be sure, some of Moscow's troubles in Eastern
Europe have arisen from its own deliberate decisions
to diminish the worst forms of oppression and to allow
greater autonomy, all in the name of ensuring a more
effective hegemony. But this more enlightened ap-
proach sometimes had unintended results. Soviet re-
luctance to interfere in the domestic squabbles of the
East European parties, for example, occasionally only
exacerbated factionalism, weakened the existing lead-
erships, and encouraged other elements in society to
play a political role. And many Soviet decisions
affecting Eastern Europe were not clearly explained,
consistently applied, or adequately backed up, partly
" This distinction between periods of oligarchic rule and one-man
dictatorship is a useful and generally accurate one but can be
misleading. All political conflict does not disappear from the Soviet
scene simply because a single leading figure becomes dominant;
Khrushchev faced one degree or another of resistance throughout
his career at the top, and the men who surrounded him there
represented institutional and political/economic interests that were
at times hostile to Khrushchev's purposes. The same was true of
Brezhnev, though, because he was less innovative and was more
inclined to accommodate various interests than combat them, he
had an easier time of it, politically, than his ousted predecessor.
Still, major divisions and disagreements within the Politburo do not
seem to be the norm during periods of personal dictatorship in part
because one man can arbitrate disputes and demand conformity
once a decision has been made. This is not the case during a
succession struggle; there is no final referee, perhaps no one with
enough assured power to clamp down on dissent once a decision has
been made, and, indeed, even a strong possibility in some instances
that no decision can be made. The differences between the two
stages of leadership are thus by no means merely academic, and in
terms of their impact, as in Eastern Europe, they may be much
more important than their similarities.
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A Chronology of Events in the USSR
and Eastern Europe, 1953-81 a
Events Affecting and
Circumstances in the
Soviet Politburo
1953
Intense political
struggle in the wake of
Stalin's death.
1954-55
Malenkov-Khrushchev
contest. Malenkov
loses but collectivity
persists.
Policy disputes.
Rapprochement with
Yugoslavia.
1956
Disagreement and division
in Politburo.
Khrushchev's drive for
power and accompanying
anti-Stalin speech.
1957
"Anti-Party Group"
ousted.
Khrushchev dominant.
1958-62
Preoccupation with
emerging Sino-Soviet
dispute, Berlin crises.
Berlin wall. Khrushchev
maintains precarious
supremacy.
1962'
Khrushchev weakened by
Cuban fiasco.
Coincident and/or Related
Developments in
Eastern Europe
New Course declared.
Pilsen riots in
Czechoslovakia.
Insurrection in Berlin.
Increasing autonomy and
diversity.
Back-and-forth policies,
some political shakeups,
growing party factionalism
in Poland and Hungary.
Growing diversity and
autonomy.
Polish October, Gomulka
becomes leader.
Hungarian revolution.
Modified New Course
continues.
Withdrawal of Soviet
troops from Romania.
Albania defects.
Romanian opposition to Soviet
campaign to strengthen CEMA
and Warsaw Pact.
a Periods of succession struggle in the. USSR and major disruptive
events in Eastern Europe are in dark type.
Events Affecting and
Circumstances in the
Soviet Politburo
1964-68
Khrushchev ouster (fall,
1964), low-key succession
struggle, policy
uncertainty.
Emergence of detente,
reaction to Ostpolitik.
1968
Brezhnev seeks dominance.
Confused, initially divided
reaction to Czech events,
then invasion.
1969-early 1970s
Brezhnev moves to
consolidate power.
Detente flourishes.
1970s
Brezhnev clearly
dominant. No
policy surprises.
1980-81
Brezhnev's health fading.
1982
January: succession
struggle begins.
November: Brezhnev dies,
Andropov succeeds.
Coincident and/or Related
Developments in
Eastern Europe
Romania declares
"independence" (spring 1964).
East European leaders
unsettled by Khrushchev's
removal.
Attempted coup in
Bulgaria.
Major riots in Poland (1970),
Gomulka ousted, Soviets
do not interfere.
Era of relative
tranquillity, contacts
with West accelerate.
Romania still disruptive.
because of the uncertainty, anxiety, and division
which dominated the deliberations of the Politburo for
so long.
Andropov, described by his supporters as a man well
equipped to deal with problems intelligently, is pre-
sumably eager to avoid any display of Politburo
indecision and confusion and, indeed, to date has
acted very much as the man in charge. And if the
Andropov regime is now able, in fact, to provide the
East European leaderships with clear, firm, and con-
sistent guidance, some of the tribulations characteris-
tic of the past succession periods can no doubt be
avoided. Andropov, for example, unlike Khrushchev
vis-a-vis Rakosi and Hungary in 1955, will probably
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not find himself in the position of favoring one East
European contender for power over another because
of his own needs and policy positions within the Soviet
Politburo. And, unlike Brezhnev, who could neither
support nor denounce Novotny in Czechoslovakia in
late 1967, Andropov does not seem the sort of man
who would risk political disruptions for the sake of a
putative neutralism (or simply because he was unable
to make up his mind).
Still, many of the basic problems unsuccessfully faced
by Khrushchev and Brezhnev continue to exist, and,
as Andropov will soon find out, some are becoming
more acute and the potential burdens all the larger.
Specifically in the economic area: "The Soviet Union
is running out of incentives for enticing, rather than
compelling, allegiance from its East European allied
elites. This allegiance is undermined by mounting
evidence of the lack of Soviet economic muscle and
the growing certainty that the Soviet Union is no
longer able to make good on its economic
commitments." 4?
On the other hand while the level of Soviet aid will
probably level off or decline, overall East European
economic reliance on the Soviet Union as a trading
partner may not, and-depending in part on the
policies of the West-could even increase, particular-
ly in the vital area of energy imports. Soviet economic
leverage is thus likely at least to be maintained, and
under Andropov perhaps increased, though a tougher
Soviet bargaining stance, greater emphasis on Bloc
integration through CEMA, and diminished Soviet
generosity in general are not likely to win much East
European good will.
A major decline of Soviet economic support would in
any event leave the East European leaders with four
options, all of which involve uncertainties, costs, and
dangers: (1) an effort to muddle through; (2) austerity,
coupled with a more draconian domestic political
program; (3) a thoroughgoing economic overhaul de-
signed to bolster productivity and rationalize manage-
ment through a turn toward market socialism or
through administrative devolution; or (4) a further
shift toward the West for aid and trade. The first
would only postpone the day of reckoning; the second
would risk strong popular discontent, strikes, the
formation of nonparty power blocs, and so forth; the
third would be ideologically controversial, probably
breed party factionalism, and be for a time bureau-
cratically and economically disruptive; and the fourth,
if feasible at all, would bring with it such hazards as
the unsettling growth of political and cultural ties
with, and possible economic dependence on, the West
and might in addition incur Soviet wrath.
Should it persist, indecision or excessive caution on
the part of the Soviets about the direction of their own
troubled economy would no doubt be accompanied by
indecision concerning East European economic prob-
lems and policies as well. In this case the East
European leaders would find themselves pretty much
on their own.
These leaders must be better Kremlinologists than the
Western practitioners of the craft-better able to
decipher the esoteric communications of political
combatants in the Soviet Union-and they surely
have, in addition, far richer sources of hard informa-
tion than even the most enterprising of Western
observers. Thus, if Andropov largely succeeds in
imposing his will and his policies on the Soviet
Politburo, the East Europeans would be among the
first to know and to react. But if Andropov is not able
to assert or sustain clear dominance or supremacy, the
prudent East European leader would try to hunker
down and avoid decisions. He would be subject,
however, to strong pressures from within his own
constituencies and face discrete problems within his
own society, and he could ill afford to remain inactive
for very long. While he might not actively seek
greater autonomy, he might in effect be forced to
exercise it. At the same time elsewhere, a less prudent.
neighbor might provide an unsettling example by
coveting more independence and moving quickly to
exploit the general confusion in Moscow.
True, even if not effectively dominated by one man,
the immediate post-Brezhnev leadership could survive
without facing crises in Eastern Europe comparable to
those of the past. But if so, they will only pass
problems on to their successors who, if they are the
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sort of men Bialer describes, will be much more likely
to confront them head on, perhaps as a part of the
larger question of what to do about Soviet problems in
general. But whatever general course of action they
adopt, hardline or soft, there can be no guarantee of
peace and quiet in an area so inherently volatile as
Eastern Europe.
Succession in Eastern Europe
All but one of the top Communist leaders in the Bloc
states of Eastern Europe are well into their sixties and
most of them are in or approaching their seventies.
Chances are good, therefore, that the composition of
one or more of these regimes will turn over in the
fairly near future. Since none of the current East
European leaders has designated an heir, and since, as
in the CPSU, none of these parties has established a
clear-cut means of succession, the maneuvering and
infighting characteristic of at least past Soviet periods
of succession may sooner or later be duplicated else-
where in the Bloc.
The level of stability maintained in Eastern Europe
during the 1970s, and still generally maintained in the
1980s except in Poland, could thus come to an end.
Years of frustration and discontent could percolate to
the surface, to be addressed by contenders-to-power
who would seek to suppress it or, alternatively, try to
turn it to their own political advantage.
Succession problems may be particularly acute in
Hungary and Romania, though for quite different
reasons. The former has for some time been in the
vanguard of reform. This means, among other things,
that disgruntled elements in the party will likely see
Kadar's demise as an opportunity to regain power and
alter policy. Hardline conservatives will probably not
be able to make a comeback, but moderate conserva-
tives-those who favor retrenchment rather than a
neo-Stalinist revival-are still influential and are well
aware that "Kadarism," a sort of national consensus
based on compromise, has yet to be institutionalized.
They will be bitterly opposed, however, by reformist
components of the body politic, and if the struggle is
at all prolonged, also by elements of the population at
large, many of which hold a strong stake in the
survival of Kadar's "progressive" policies. The latter
development would especially alarm the Soviets, who
would in any case be concerned about the possibility
of a post-Kadar "revisionist"' drift in Hungarian
policies.
Ceausescu in Romania was the designated heir of his
predecessor, Gheorge Gheorgiu Dej, who was the
figure initially responsible for the country's taking a
singular road to independence within the Bloc.
Ceausescu has maintained this aspect of Gheorgiu
Dej's course, which is overwhelmingly supported by
the Romanian people, but has otherwise lost popular
support because of his insistence on his own absolute
authority, his refusal to significantly moderate old-
fashioned, semi-Stalinist economic policies (which em-
phasize heavy industry at the expense of agriculture
and the consumer) and, in general, his harsh and
arbitrary style of leadership, complete with his own
"cult of personality." Not far away, surely, is the
point where the political capital accumulated by
Ceausescu through his defense of independence and
his baiting of the Soviets is exhausted by his oppres-
sive disregard of public welfare.
Whether he is removed by his colleagues in a palace
coup or dies in office, Ceausescu's political demise
may set off a chain of reactions comparable in
intensity, if not scope, to the one in the USSR that
followed the death of a man he resembles in a small
way, Stalin; that is, a sharp struggle within the party
over both succession and policy. Factions might fight
over the most effective ways to appease the population
at large, and one or another element might seek
Soviet support, especially promises of sorely needed
economic aid.
Assuming a strong leadership in Moscow willing to
intervene, the Soviet role in a struggle to succeed
Todor Zhivkov in Bulgaria would probably be deci-
sive. But if the Soviets do not impose a solution, it is
by no means inconceivable that Bulgaria too could
undergo a major succession crisis in the wake of
Zhivkov's death. The placidity of the current scene in
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Sofia, imposed (and occasionally accommodated) by
Zhivkov, no doubt hides a simmering Balkan stew of
diverse attitudes and aspirations. Indeed, from the
end of the war until the early 1960s, when Zhivkov
won a clear ascendancy over his rivals, high-level
infighting was a more or less constant feature of
Bulgarian political life." And there are a number of
forces and factors at work beneath the surface today
that suggest the reemergence of political strife in the
post-Zhivkov period.
Nationalism, directed in the main against Yugoslavia
and Greece but occasionally anti-Soviet in the past, is
one of those forces. It has manifested itself dramati-
cally in the past in the form of a failed (mostly)
military coup against Zhivkov in 1965, and is visible
today in the regime's jingoistic attitudes toward the
Macedonian question. The largely frustrated desire
for a thoroughgoing modernization and reform of the
Bulgarian economy-said by one Western observer to
be characterized by its dependence on wood-burning
computers-is another ingredient, one with strong
political overtones that could become quite visible and
controversial in the post-Zhivkov era. Finally, and
related to this, Zhivkov has brought into positions of
influence in the party and government a group of
young, well-trained leaders who have been responsible
for the limited reform programs introduced in Bulgar-
ia to date; these men will wish to jockey for position in
any post-Zhivkov regime and may push hard-and
against stalwart conservative opposition-for further,
more basic changes in the administration and struc-
ture of the economy.
Also of possible future consequence are Bulgaria's
relative geographic isolation-it is the only Bloc state
(save East Germany) that does not share a border with
the USSR-and, in common with Romania, its
unique good fortune in avoiding permanent Soviet
military occupation. These circumstances would make
any Soviet invasion especially difficult to mount and
sustain, partly because the only land bridge from the
" Sometimes this infighting took bizarre forms. Thus Vulko Cher-
venkov, one of the triumvirate then in charge, actually advocated a
"great leap forward" for Bulgaria in 1958, at a time when strains in
Sino-Soviet relations had already become quite apparent.
Soviet Union to Bulgaria crosses unfriendly Romania,
and they might encourage the Bulgarians-not the
least resolute of peoples-to oppose with force.42
For the most part, the people of Czechoslovakia
appear to have retreated into tight little individual
shells, seeking through the satisfaction of personal
desires some recompense for the pain of 1968 and
some relief from the grayness of life in general.
Further, most former officials of the Dubcek interreg-
num have been exiled or forced into menial labor and
are in no position (or mood) to challenge the existing
regime.
Still, factionalism within the depleted party remains
surprisingly strong and, concerning economic reform,
appears to be heating up. Husak's role as a referee
between contesting factions, reinforced over the years
by close ties to Brezhnev, no longer seems quite so
effective, perhaps because of political and policy
uncertainties generated in part by the succession
maneuvering taking place in Moscow before Brezh-
nev's death. Indeed, signs in Prague of high-level
disagreements over the kinds of economic reform
needed-minimal or moderate-may have reflected
different signals from the various contenders for
leadership in Moscow. Should disputes within the
Czechoslovak party widen-in spite of probable ef-
forts by Andropov to curtail them-and perhaps
eventually cost Husak his job, the struggle to replace
him (and his cautious policies) could become quite
intense.
The two remaining Bloc states, the GDR and Poland,
seem somewhat less likely to suffer disruptive succes-
sion struggles than their southern neighbors. The
42 A word here about two Balkan states, former members of the
Bloc, that do not fall within the purview of this paper. Though
currently unsettled, Yugoslavia has an established means of succes-
sion and is, in any case, both as a society and a system too far
removed from Soviet politics to be much affected by the Soviet
succession. Stalinist Albania, the most backward of all European
countries-once aptly described as a kind of "North Korea without
frills"-is also not likely to be a victim of Kremlin succession
politics, though the demise of longtime party leader Enver Hoxha
could in itself set off a series of violent political shocks.
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party in East Germany is old and smug; in Poland it is
old, discredited, cynical, and, in effect, out of power.
Further, the Soviets were heavily involved in naming
the leaders of both states, maintain a strong political
and military presence in each, and are generally more
concerned about stability in this vital area than to the
south. The leaders of these two states, moreover, have
not been in power as long as their confreres elsewhere.
Honecker in East Germany has kept a firm hand on
his party and his regime and does not seem to be
plagued by serious disagreements and divisions--
testimony to his skill and, until recently, to East
German economic successes. The most serious poten-
tial threat to Honecker's position and to party control
might come not from within but rather, from without,
from the USSR itself if, under a new leadership, it
should one day shift toward greater accommodation
of West German policies and aspirations. For East
German Communists such a turn would carry with it
the specter of reunification which, should it material-
ize, would in all likelihood extinguish the regime and
all its works, the GDR included. (For this and other
reasons, the Soviets are, of course, not likely to make
such a move, but much to Pankow's consternation,
they have flirted with the idea in the past, and they no
doubt-in the event some very large gain in Western
Europe seemed attainable-have kept the option
open.)
Jaruzelski in Poland faces the most sorely troubled of
all East European societies; the vast majority of the
people are in various states of repressed opposition,
the party is weak and factionalized and no longer
rules; and the economy is desperately ill. Jaruzelski's
troubled tenure seems likely to endure for some time,
however, because he controls the Army and there
seems now to be no alternative-other than anarchy
or Soviet invasion-to his martial law regime.
The USSR will of course seek to dominate the course
of succession events in all these countries. But its
ability to do so, short of military intervention, will be
circumscribed in most instances-Bulgaria, East Ger-
many, and Czechoslovakia are possible partial excep-
tions-by the autonomy (or semiautonomy) of the
individual parties where the struggles will take place.
As Andropov well knows, Soviet assets certainly exist
in these parties, but, as he should also know, their
depth and reliability, especially during periods of
crisis, is open to serious question. So too is Moscow's
ability through political action to arrest, much less
reverse, the course of parties bent on defiance; past
attempts to unseat unruly leaders through Soviet-
sponsored coups (in Belgrade, Tirana, and Bucharest),
for example, have all failed.
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If the combination of the economic emergencies fac-
ing the Soviet Union and its empire in the 1980s,
together with the openings afforded by the approach-
ing successions of leaderships and elites, do not yield
serious efforts to reform the traditional system, then
I do not know what may and will.
Seweryn Bialer
(Paraphrase of a commentary, 1980)
Forces at Work
For the past 30 years or so, the vast diversity of
peoples and cultures that has evolved over the centu-
ries in Eastern Europe has been reemerging, by fits
and starts, two thrusts up, one down, but with a kind
of implacable force. History, it may be said, is
reasserting itself, not in any predetermined or "scien-
tific" Marxist way, but with a will that the Soviets, so
far, have been able to check but not eliminate.
There is even some (perhaps superficial) historical
consistency in the kinds of regimes these states cur-
rently put up with. Thus, beginning in the south,
Bulgaria's Zhivkov reigns as a kind of no-nonsense
monarch, which is in the national tradition;
Ceausescu in Romania resembles nothing so much as
another fascist dictator, and there is certainly prece-
dent for that; Kadar in Hungary governs as a relative-
ly benevolent regent, a la Admiral Horthy between
the wars; Husak in Czechoslovakia is an exception,
but had the Russians not intervened, Dubcek (or his
successors) would today rule in the manner of past
democratic presidents; Honecker in the GDR asserts
the kind of strong, personal authority which, if not
exactly Hitlerian, is familiar to observers of the
German scene; and General Jaruzelski in Poland
repeats the Pilsudski pattern of exercising power as a
military dictator.
? The decline of Communist ideology, both as a guide
to behavior and policy and as a common bond.
? The fragmentation of the Communist world and the
establishment of competitive Communist centers of
thought and power.
? The attenuation of some Soviet instruments of
influence and control.
? The limited but meaningful autonomy of individual
parties and regimes.
? The emergence of a new, post-Stalin elite, less
revolutionary in outlook than its predecessors.
? Popular discontent with depressed living standards,
with Communism as a political and economic sys-
tem, and with the USSR as the sponsor and perpe-
trator of this system.
? Recurrent disarray and factionalism in the ruling
parties (and especially during periods of succession
in the Soviet party as well).
? The persistent allure of the West.
? The slowing down, stagnation, or decline of the
various economies; the technological backwardness
of these economies; and the gulf between these
economies and those of the West.
Perhaps the greatest of these forces at the moment is
the last, the state of the East European economies,
parlous in some countries and nowhere flourishing.
Recent rates of growth of GNP have been as follows:
Czechoslovakia 3.4 1.7 -1.0
East Germany 3.5 2.0 1.5
Hungary 3.0 0.3 0.5
Poland 4.0 2.5 -6.6
Romania 4.9 10.9 1.0
Reduced to their essentials, the broad forces at work
in Eastern Europe-each of which conspires in its own
way and to one degree or another to diminish imperial
cohesion-may be listed as follows:
? Strong nationalism throughout the area.
The USSR as a source of relief is necessary but
clearly deficient, given the size of its own economic
problems. The West, greatly concerned about possible
defaults as dramatized by Poland, is no longer a fount
of credit. A possible, perhaps the only, long-term
" Bialer's remarks (ibid., p. 305) are addressed to Soviet problems;
they have been extended here to apply to the empire as a whole.
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solution, the institution of more or less radical re-
forms, would entail short-term economic burdens and
long-term political costs (principally associated with
the role and power of the party machines) and would
not in any event carry with it a guarantee of success.
Partly because of these political costs, the fear that
basic economic changes would lead to purely national
(vice Bloc and Socialist) lines of development and.
perhaps disagreements within the leadership, the So-
viet regime has in the past been loath to encourage
any widespread movement toward genuine, systemic
reform in Eastern Europe.
Deepening economic stress in Eastern Europe com-
bines with forces of social and political decay to create
a setting poor in favorable omens but rich in uncer-
tainties. None of the East European regimes enjoys
positive popular support. Rather each counts on a
form of popular sufferance, itself the product of
fear-fear of harassment, job loss, imprisonment-
and hope-hope that, as promised by the govern-
ments, living standards will improve. Now that pros-
pects for the latter are waning, the public's stake in
stability is too. Thus, the regimes may consider
placing more and more reliance on fear, which may or
may not work and which is, in any case, economically
debilitating, or they may eventually succumb to pres-
sures for radical economic reform.
How, and how well, the Soviets address these kinds of
problems in the years ahead could make the differ-
ence between tension and turmoil, between the kind of
strained stability now evident in most of the empire
and a level of disarray and disorder comparable to or
even greater than that of the past.
A Modest New Soviet Approach
Clearly, except in its ability to build up the USSR's
military power, the Brezhnev regime deserved no
applause for its performance in recent years. It was
much better at postponing problems than solving
them, and it was preservationist in outlook rather than
innovative. Thus, in Eastern Europe while-thanks
largely to Khrushchev-the Stalinist song has ended,
the melody lingers on, a jarring reminder of past
injustices and present inequities. What is needed is a
different score and perhaps, eventually, an entirely
new composition.
A truly new Soviet regime, heavily dominated by one
man, would be in a better position to innovate if, of
course, that man were so disposed. To be sure, some
circumstances (including the USSR's own economic
weaknesses), self-imposed limitations (including the
Soviet leader's likely determination to preserve basic
hegemony), and political realities in Eastern Europe
(including the persistence of national differences)
would constrain any movement toward change. But,
in view of the size and scope of the USSR's problems
in Eastern Europe, the failure of past Soviet leader-
ships to deal with them successfully, and the general
bankruptcy of current Soviet policies and ideas vis-a-
vis the area, the need for something much better will
be obvious and, for a new leader of Andropov's
apparent mien, perhaps compelling.
A new, more flexible program designed to correct the
shortcomings of the past might focus initially on two
seemingly contradictory objectives: the enhancement
of essential Soviet controls and the enrichment of East
European autonomy. Seeking to achieve the first
might involve an effort to weave the diverse elements
of Soviet dominion into a clearly defined, more coher-
ent, and elastic whole; the second might seek to
specify and expand the areas in which the East
European leaders would be free to pursue policies of
their own devising, appropriate to their own peculiar
national circumstances. While ideology would at the
same time be intended to serve as a common bond and
as a very general guide to action, its proscriptive role
could be greatly relaxed so that innovations (especially
economic innovations) would. not automatically be
condemned as heresies.
The Warsaw Pact and CEMA would not be ignored
in the process. On the contrary, each would be
strengthened, partly as a means to ensure Soviet
military and economic predominance, but also in an
attempt to further rationalize command structure and
various economic endeavors. The influence of the East
Europeans in both organizations could nevertheless be
allowed to grow without necessarily endangering the
interests of the largest and most senior partner.
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Especially if the stories about Andropov's support of
extensive economic reform there are true-and some
high-level Hungarians have privately said they are-
contemporary Hungary might serve as a sort of base
model for a new Soviet approach to Eastern Europe's
endemic instability. Kadar's singular willingness to
suspend political warfare with the bulk of the popula-
tion-he long ago revised the old adage, "he who is
not with us is against us" into "he who is not against
us is with us"-his urge to replace anachronistic and
inefficient economic practices and to allow market
forces to play a role, and his apparent ability to run
his own party in pretty much his own way may all be
endorsed by Andropov because they work, that is,
they have contributed to the stability of Hungarian
society and the relatively good prospects of Hungarian
socialism.
Even if not prompted by Andropov, some of the other
East European regimes might be attracted by features
of the Hungarian experiment, particularly by Kadar's
apparent ability to cope reasonably well with econom-
ic problems in new ways without endangering funda-
mental party power or arousing public opposition in
the process.^^
But there would be no real need for Soviet interfer-
ence in a program of this character so long as it did
not threaten to get out of hand and so long as Moscow
itself did not provoke arguments over the purity of
ideology and fidelity to the "socialist system." Indeed,
assuming that the parties concerned retained ultimate
decisionmaking authority over national life and raised
no direct challenges to the USSR's influence over
their foreign policies, Soviet interests could be well
served by Hungarian-style experiments that promised
to alleviate both economic distress and political un-
rest-better prosperous and stable client states than
poor, volatile protectorates.
" Hungary's current problems, including a stagnant rate of growth,
may have dimmed its luster somewhat. But there are mitigating
circumstances: (1) a large proportion of its GNP is in foreign trade
and thus Hungary is more vulnerable than most to the effects of
worldwide recession and, by the same token, more likely to profit
(through its export trade) from the recovery; (2) Budapest seems to
have anticipated and planned for its current economic troubles
better than the other East European capitals and thus has been able
to sustain a relatively high standard of living; and (3) political
stability and previous economic successes have encouraged the
Kadar regime not to retreat from its rational, reformist course,
which promises benefits over the long term.
It does not, in fact, strain credulity to envision the
eventual development of something on this order-
what else is likely to be as effective? But, in practice,
more than a few Soviets and East Europeans would
find aspects of any such new course ideologically
repellent, bureaucratically disruptive, politically risky,
and economically uncertain. Accordingly, East Euro-
pean experimenters, even if given a green light by
Andropov, are likely to find the going precarious.
Even should major reforms be adopted and prove
reasonably successful, the sources of much of the East
European malaise-nationalism and popular political
frustration-would remain beneath the surface, ready
to emerge at the first sign that the program or the
regime was faltering.
The Commonwealth
With or without a new approach along the lines
described above, the Soviets-the Andropov regime or
its successors-will still have the option of pursuing
Khrushchev's concept of a commonwealth of countries
in which, ideally, the USSR would be the first-
among-equals leader of a harmonious association of
like-minded "socialist" states. Though the term it-
self-Socialist Commonwealth of Nations-is no
longer used and was never well defined, the idea is
still alive and has in some ways been expressed in
practice. The Soviets' conditional legitimization of
"separate roads to socialism" and "polycentrism" in
the mid-1950s is a case in point. So too were the only
partly successful Soviet rapprochements with Yugo-
slavia during the same period; Tito was in effect
offered renewed membership in a Soviet camp recon-
stituted along commonwealth lines. Even the military
intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 could be said
to conform to the commonwealth idea in the sense
that it was a joint Soviet-East European undertaking
against something construed as a common threat.
In operation the concept is a two-edged doctrinal
sword: it endorses a form of independence for the East
European states but at the same time sanctions direct
(commonwealth) interference in their affairs when
"socialism" is said to be threatened. But for the
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Soviets, the concept initially offered more form than
substance; Khrushchev, in fact, was probably seeking
in the main to provide appropriate ideological clothing
for Soviet policy as it had actually evolved in the post-
Stalin years.
All the same the notion of independence cum core-
sponsibility does offer the East European regimes an
alternative, on the one hand, to the perpetuation of
their subordinate status and, on the other, to secession
from the Bloc. Among other things, it promises a
more meaningful form of partnership status to the
Bloc states; that is, a real voice in commonwealth
affairs and, in effect and ironically, a means to
participate in the exercise of Soviet hegemony.
Such a partnership might appeal to East European
Communists who seek more autonomy but who (justi-
fiably) fear that their own parties could not survive
without strong ties to the USSR and the Bloc as a
whole. The arrangement, however, would do little to
appease those in the East European elites who are
nationalists and who favor complete sovereignty and/
or a significant liberalization of their own political-
economic systems. Nor, for the same reasons, would it
be likely to ease popular discontent significantly.
The Soviet leaders would also have qualms about.
granting the East Europeans a larger voice in Bloc
and, at least indirectly, Soviet affairs. How effective
would a multinational Bloc board of directors be?
Would each member be granted the right of veto (as
in CEMA)? How could serious disagreements among
members and even multistate alignments be prevent-
ed? And, finally, for Moscow, the ultimate question
is: if the empire is ultimately transformed into some-
thing resembling an alliance, how could the Soviets
maintain the strong degree of dominance they believe
vital to their own interests?
A Radical Alternative
But whatever their interim approach, the Soviets will
find the solution to their problems with the mainte-
nance of hegemony in Eastern Europe on the day they
cease to exercise it. Although there are no signs that
the Soviet leadership under Andropov entertains any
thoughts of surrendering or severely curtailing that
hegemony, such a course of action, while doubtful, is
conceivable in the post-Andropov future. Indeed, a
number of arguments can be made for it:
? Sooner or later it may occur to one or another Soviet
leader-perhaps one seeking a venturesome new
program with which to advance his own career-
that there is no necessary heresy in advocating a
clear-cut liberal change in Soviet policy toward
Eastern Europe: a significant diminution of Soviet
dominance; an accompanying increase in Soviet
tolerance of diverse routes to "socialism"; and a
relaxation of the standards that define the achieve-
ment of that exalted status.
? Though ideology implies a commitment to an ever-
expanding "socialist world," there is nothing in the
evolving body of Marxist-Leninist thought that sug-
gests that the USSR must maintain tight control of
Eastern Europe. The Brezhnev Doctrine, qua doc-
trine (rather than as merely a rationale for past
Soviet invasions and a pretext for future ones), does
not provide theoretical justification for Soviet over-
lordship. Nor, any longer, does the concept of
"proletarian internationalism," which is in any case
more a slogan than a theory.45 Lenin himself, writ-
ing in the 1920s about the union of nations in the
USSR, insisted (though no doubt disingenuously) on
"absolutely voluntary consent" and "a union which
precludes any coercion of one nation by another." 46
And the implications of relevant ideological con-
cepts, such as the ultimate: disappearance of nation-
al boundaries, scarcely suggest a rationale or need
for Soviet hegemony.
? Deviations from Soviet foreign policies, so apparent
in Romanian positions, do not necessarily harm the
USSR, except insofar as Moscow insists that con-
sistent and total unity is essential to the cause. Even
Yugoslav foreign policy, when not addressed to Bloc
problems, frequently coincides, or at least does not
conflict, with Soviet views.
" In fact: " . . . there exists no formal theory of association in the
world Communist system.... Proletarian internationalism is, at
best, two rival conceptual frameworks [Soviet and Chinese] ...; at
worse, it is several hortatory speculations, unverified, imprecise,
and unsystematic." Jan F. Triska, "The World Communist Sys-
tem," in Triska, ed., Communist Party States (Indianapolis, 1969),
p. 21.
" As quoted by Triska, ibid., p. 17.
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? Complete international ideological harmony, while
desirable, need not be vital. A prime requirement,
the legitimacy of party rule, can be maintained
without it (or, conversely, can be lost even with it).
And Moscow's insistence on the universal validity of
its own doctrinal views has: (1) not worked, (2)
produced serious splits in the movement, and (3) led
to the creation of rival centers of thought.
? The USSR's national self-esteem would no doubt be
damaged by a withdrawal from its Western
marches, especially if it appeared to be forced. On
the other hand, its international prestige, especially
in Western Europe, would surely be enhanced.
? The USSR's presence in Eastern Europe is imperial
in nature because it rests ultimately on force.
Clearly, the Soviet leaders would prefer a less
burdensome and more effective arrangement, per-
haps along the commonwealth lines discussed above.
But, if they wish to establish something of this
nature that is truly voluntary-and thus truly effec-
tive-they may finally realize that historical prece-
dence is against them; the number of confederations
more or less voluntarily entered into in the past is
very small (only Switzerland, the United States,
Italy, and perhaps Germany come to mind), and the
elements which in those few cases permitted a free
amalgamation simply are not present in the case of
the USSR and Eastern Europe.47 Recognition of this
verity, if it comes, would of course imply the need
for change, either the attempted restoration of
something akin to Stalinist terror or, conversely, an
honest try for something quite new, perhaps the
Finlandization of Eastern Europe.
prerequisites for voluntary confederation or integration, the first
four of them said to be necessary, the last four desirable. Very
much condensed, these are: (1) a real compatibility of values, a "we-
feeling"; (2) the decline of differences which reinforce boundaries
between states and the emergence of issues which cut across these
boundaries; (3) the rise of a "core area" (in the case of Germany,
the North German Confederation) which undergoes rapid economic
growth; (4) wide areas of reciprocal communication and transac-
tions, the broadening of elites, mobility, and links of social commu-
nication; (5) increasing reluctance to wage war among the states
concerned; (6) some ethnic and linguistic assimilation; (7) strong
economic ties; and (8) a commonly perceived outside military
threat. See Triska, op. cit., pp. xxii.
While these arguments may, in the aggregate, make a
conjectural case for a radical change in Soviet percep-
tions, they are of course theoretical in origin and may
be, lamentably, so general in nature that they defy
specific application. Even should one or another Sovi-
et leader come to ponder similar propositions and
problems, any urge he might feel to seek radical
solutions will encounter strong contrary pressures
arising from, inter alia, the inertia of the system, the
resistance of interest groups, and the risks of change.
Inertia might prove to be the mightiest of these.
The old ways of doing things have a powerful appeal
to party, state, and military officeholders, as
Khrushchev belatedly discovered. Change, especially
experimental change, conjures up images of contro-
versy, uncertainty, danger, and, not least, career
wreckage.
There are, in fact, influential interest groups in Soviet
society that would seek to block any proposed grant of
greater sovereignty to Eastern Europe. The military,
for one, would foresee and fear a concomitant with-
drawal of Soviet armed forces from Eastern Europe-
and thus damage to Soviet security-the abandon-
ment of its controls over armies it had helped to
create, and the dissolution of an alliance structure (the
Warsaw Pact) it has nourished and dominated from
birth. Also unsettled would be CEMA bureaucrats,
workers in foreign trade ministries, Central Commit-
tee apparatchiki and ideologists, managers of many
export industries (who consider Eastern Europe a kind
of captive market), managers of armaments factories,
officers of the KGB with ties to satellite services, and,
indeed, Soviet (and Russian) jingoists at large.
Any substantial loosening of Soviet authority in East-
ern Europe would also incur major risks. Bloc leaders
might try to convert a grant of greater autonomy into
an exit visa; elements of the population in one or
another Bloc country might take advantage of any
relaxation of domestic controls to move into open and
active opposition to the regime; workers might be
encouraged by economic and administrative reform to
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seek self-management and freedom from party con-
trols; and so forth. All of these things, in fact, have
happened in the past.
The biggest risk for the Soviets thus could be-and
they would surely be aware of this-that fundamental
changes in the relationship decreed by the USSR
itself might create precisely those circumstances-
instability in Eastern Europe and, in the face of it,
relative impotence in the USSR-that they were
intended to avoid. In truth, volatile Eastern Europe
even freed of Soviet dominance would not spontane-
ously convert to stability.
Other significant considerations might also compli-
cate or deter any Soviet urge to shift positions.
Foreign objectives, in particular the USSR's desire to
expand its influence and ultimately to extend its
hegemony into Western Europe, might decree the
need for the preservation of its dominant influence in
"springboard" Eastern Europe. So too might the
USSR's longstanding concern over the German ques-
tion and its fear that this might one day be resolved
without Soviet participation and in a manner damag-
ing to Soviet interests. Economic conditions will affect
Soviet calculations, though continuing troubles in
East European economies might pull the Soviets in
opposite directions: toward a de facto loosening of
influence, a casting adrift occasioned by the USSR's
reluctance or inability to provide needed assistance
(not to mention inspiration); or toward tighter con-
trols, prompted by the demands of austerity and
adversity and, perhaps, even a lingering hope that the
East European economies will somehow recover their
health and once more constitute a net asset for the
USSR.
The arguments for a deliberate and significant loosen-
ing of Soviet ties to Eastern Europe are not, in fact,
persuasive. History does not record many instances of
a voluntary surrender of imperial power. Even in this
century, the British and French, for example, did not
spontaneously and altruistically decree freedom. for
their empires; rather they were victims of their own
postwar weaknesses at home and of accelerating
pressures and costs abroad.
Much more likely than an enlightened, self-generated
movement toward a breakup of the Soviet empire in
Eastern Europe would be one permitted by circum-
stances in Moscow (that is, a change in the character
and perspectives of the leadership analogous, say, to
that in Paris following de Gaulle's coming to power in
1958) and forced by the national aspirations and
courses of policy of the East Europeans themselves
(imperfectly analogous to the revolution in Algeria in
the late 1950s and early 1960s).
The Lethal Option: Soviet Military Intervention
Whether the Soviets will intervene militarily in one or
another East European crisis is, ultimately, the essen-
tial question. Surprisingly, it is also a question that
cannot be answered in absolute terms. Past interven-
tions have demonstrated the Kremlin's willingness to
move militarily but have also revealed substantial
reluctance to do so and apparent disagreement among
the leaders on this score as well. Clearly, as was
apparent in Poland in both 1956 and 1980-81, the
Soviet leaders are prepared to run considerable risks
in order to avoid military intervention. They are
aware that invasion and occupation create their own
burdens; aside from effects on world (and internation-
al Communist) opinion, they harm prospects for eco-
nomic growth, damage popular morale, and endanger
the efficacy of the civil contract in general in the
country concerned. Thus is the value of the entity
preserved diminished by the means of preservation.
There is a body of Western thought that believes that
a final decision by Moscow to use armed force to
suppress a "revolt" in Eastern Europe rests less on the
Soviets' apprehensions about the essential character
of that "revolt" than on their calculation of the odds
that the intrusion of their forces would encounter
determined, organized resistance from indigenous
military forces and militia." It is argued that, if the
Soviets conclude that they will have to fight on a large
scale, they will not invade.
'B See especially Christopher D. Jones, Soviet Influence in Eastern
Europe (New York, 1981), pp. 60-105. Jones makes this argument
via a review of appropriate East European "case histories" and
quotes a variety of academicians, journalists, and East European
figures who seem to agree.
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Unquestionably an estimate that Soviet armed forces
would meet fierce and possibly prolonged resistance
would have a substantial effect on Soviet decision-
makers. Such an estimate may indeed have accounted
for Stalin's somewhat surprising failure to act mili-
tarily in the case of Yugoslavia in 1948 and contribut-
ed to Brezhnev's reluctance to invade Romania in the
late 1960s. Past circumstances are thus suggestive-
the Soviets actually invaded only in those instances
when massive opposition seemed unlikely (as in
Czechoslovakia in 1968), and they did not invade
when it seemed likely (as in Poland, 1981). But the
contention that the prospect of battle is the determin-
ing factor for the Soviets certainly cannot be proved.
Other considerations may have played a larger role:
could the problem be resolved by means other than
military, as it was twice in Poland; or would the
problem pose a serious threat to Communist rule in
the country concerned or to Soviet dominance of the
Bloc as a whole, as the Romanian challenge did not.
So the essential question remains: will they or won't
they? If this cannot be answered definitively, one can
at least make a fairly firm estimate, and it is almost
certainly the same most East Europeans would make:
yes they will, if persuaded that the alternative would
be tantamount to the loss of a Bloc state.
The Way of the West
The influence of the West on the course of Eastern
Europe and on the character of Soviet-East European
relations is not easily quantified. Some specific West-
ern actions have had an enormous impact on Eastern
Europe-the Marshall Plan, the formation of NATO,
the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany-
but these have almost always been addressed in the
first instance to other areas and other problems
(postwar reconstruction in Europe, the Soviet threat to
Europe, the continued division of Germany). To be
sure, some major Western policies have been specifi-
cally directed toward Eastern Europe-for example,
support of Yugoslavia-but rarely so, and the lack of
a clear policy-for instance, concerning Hungary in
1956-sometimes has seemed at least as significant.
any Soviet enthusiasm for a tough line toward Eastern
Europe in particular, the improvement of East-West
relations in the 1970s facilitated a quiet growth of
autonomy in several East European capitals and, of
course, expanded contacts between Eastern and West-
ern cultures and economies. Some East Europeans
seemed to feel that in the long run detente would
permit their countries to move (perhaps together with
some West European states) toward a kind of non-
alignment, and to this end they urged the dissolution
of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
At the same time, relative tranquillity and prosperity
in Eastern Europe made the job of the Soviets in the
area easier politically and less burdensome economi-
cally. Aware of a possible drift toward Western
Europe, Moscow continued to insist on the need for
continuing ideological conflict and stepped up efforts
to use CEMA to strengthen its own hold on East
European economies.
It is in the area of economic relations that the West
now plays its largest direct role and could exercise the
greatest leverage. But current Western financial cau-
tion and skepticism in the face of burgeoning Eastern
economic problems will circumscribe relations for
some years to come. West European nations are in
any event chary of seeking to use economic means for
political purposes (unless these purposes are rather
grand, abstract, and remote).
The growth of independence in Eastern Europe might
in the long run be spurred by a resumption of detente
and Western economic support, especially if the West
conditioned the maintenance of its good will and aid
on the character of Soviet policies there. But there can
be no guarantee of this. Certainly prosperity alone
does not assure a more independent or enlightened
approach by any particular East European regime, as
East Germany has demonstrated for quite some time.
It is also possible that economic difficulties could lead
to a decline in Soviet hegemony. Popular pressures
arising initially from economic discontent can broad-
en into an array of demands-for democratization,
Detente affected Eastern Europe in different ways.
Because it provided incentives for restraint in Soviet
policies in Europe in general and tended to dampen
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sovereignty, and so forth-and local regimes can be
persuaded to comply. But if such demands and such
compliance go too far too fast, the Soviets are likely to
interfere and try to force a reverse course.
The West's most influential role in the area is proba-
bly passive. Its mere existence offers an attractive
political, economic, and cultural beacon to the peoples
of Eastern Europe and an alternative source of ideas
and support for the regimes. These are not, to be sure,
very dramatic means of suasion, but they help hope to
survive, and it is, ultimately, hope that will provide
much of the fuel for the next great move toward
change and freedom in Eastern Europe.
Elastic Deformation
Precisely where and when such a move might take
place is not an easy calculation. The inclination of the
Poles and Hungarians to make trouble for their own
regimes and for their Soviet overlords should not have
come as any great shock to observers familiar with
their history and national character. On the other
hand, the willingness of the Czechoslovaks to trans-
form their system in a revolutionary way and of the
Romanians to defy Moscow was indeed surprising,
given the generally acquiescent traditions of the
Czechs and the seedily opportunistic nature of most
Romanian governments.
A lesson of the recent past may be that, while it is not
possible to single out the prime candidates much in
advance, all of the East European states of the Soviet
Bloc are potentially disruptive. Indeed, as has been
said of contemporary Poland, the structures of control
are in place throughout the area, "but just barely-
[what we see is] a crumbling facade with a scaffold
around it." Nine times since the end of the war,
facade and scaffold have threatened to fall or been
torn down, an average of once every four years or so.
Thus the estimate: over the course of the next decade
there will be further outbreaks of serious political
strife in Eastern Europe, and they will be directed at
least in part and implicitly against the Soviet Union.
At the same time if such strife seems to jeopardize
Communist power and/or Soviet hegemony, Moscow
will almost certainly intervene with military force, if
necessary.
Beyond a decade, however, forecasts become much
murkier. The resolution through force of recurrent
imperial problems that have deep political, economic,
and social roots cannot be endlessly appealing in
Moscow; it exacts a form of payment-in "socialist"
credentials, international prestige, economic re-
sources, and even, perhaps, self-esteem-that is hard-
ly negligible. Radical changes in the ways the Soviets
maintain their empire, the local regimes preserve their
power, and these regimes conduct their economic
affairs do not now seem at all likely. But time,
succession struggles, political crises, and economic
adversity may whet the appetite for systemic change,
even in the Kremlin. Major disruptions and manifes-
tations of high-level discord within the USSR-
comparable, for example, to those which followed
Stalin's death-could do the same.49 Thus, while even
a qualified prediction of fundamental shifts in Soviet
policies toward Eastern Europe would certainly be
premature, it does seem reasonable to suggest-
largely on the basis of the preceding estimate that
Eastern Europe will remain a source of trouble-that
the chances of such a shift will probably grow.
Many students of the area, in fact, foresee major
changes in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet position
there over the next few decades, and most seem to be
at least moderately optimistic about the nature of
those changes. Thus Zbigniew Brzezinski, focusing on
the erosion of ideology and the growing feeling among
East European Communist elites that the Soviet-
dominated Bloc brakes the "domestic fulfillment of
their social goals," suggests that the empire and
Communist dictatorships might survive in form but
not in substance.50
" In 1955, presumably inspired by :fears of disorder in Eastern
Europe and on the home front as well, Soviet Premier Malenkov
was so eager for peace and coexistence abroad that he may have
sought a "far-reaching accommodation in Central Europe," includ-
ing even the reunification of a nonaligned Germany, accompanied
by a withdrawal of all foreign forces, and a Soviet withdrawal r-om
Poland as well. (See Vojtech Mastny, "Kremlin Politics and th ;
Austrian Settlement," Problems oJ'Communism, vol. XXXI, July-
August 1982, especially. p. 41.)
S0 Brzezinski, op. cit., pp. 511-512.
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Fritz Ermarth, citing the corrosive effects on Soviet
hegemony of East European nationalism, socioeco-
nomic modernization, and liberalism, believes that "a
regime different from that of Brezhnev ... might be
attracted by the opportunities of a more assertive and
flexible policy" but that if this does not help, "one
may ... hope that the development of the Soviet state
and society opens the alternative of systemic reform."
He adds that if the Soviet system simply calcifies,
"then an alternative system could arise in which
liberal principles could dominate Soviet domestic and
international politics." While trends in this direction
"are not inevitable or even encouraging ... a combi-
nation of good fortune and good [Western] statesman-
ship might someday bring [the USSR] to be ruled by
politicians who are not, by instinct or ideology,
imperialists." 51
J. F. Brown, anticipating a succession crisis or series
of crises in the USSR, writes that the future of Soviet
hegemony is very uncertain. Soviet authority in East-
ern Europe, he argues, might decline; factionalism in
several leaderships might become more intense and
open; some leaders might orient their policies along
more national lines; groupings of East European
states might form; pressure for seeking closer collabo-
ration with the West would likely grow; and so on.52
A theoretician and methodologist, political scientist
Jan F. Triska, adds his own particular perspective of
the Bloc:
With obsolete organizational structure
and without an association theory upon
which a modern, rational organization
could be built, the communist system
organizers are doomed to patching-up,
temporizing, and holding operations,
which in their sum total, are inadequate
even for system maintenance, let alone for
the socialist development and system de-
velopment of the communist party-states.
Politically stagnating and economically
inactive, the system becomes increasingly
vulnerable to adversaries at home and
abroad."]
Finally and most boldly, Harry Schwartz simply
forecasts the end of empire:
(The East European) nations remain
spiritually unconquered and politically in-
digestible.... The West has consistently
tended to underestimate the opportunities
of Eastern Europeans for independent ac-
tion and their willingness to seize those
opportunities. There will be more Titos,
Nagys, Hoxhas, Gheorgiu-Dejs, and Dub-
ceks in Eastern Europe. The system
breeds them automatically. For genera-
tions, moreover, the Eastern Europeans
have seen conquerors come and go; it is
not unlikely that the Russians will also
return home one day."'
What these students of the area seem to be suggesting
or assuming is a process of decline in the USSR's
political, economic, and ideological ability to hold on
to its empire and a simultaneous process of fermenta-
tion within that empire which might reduce Moscow's
will to preserve its position there militarily in the face
of rising, perhaps accelerating, costs.
Thus, perhaps Eastern Europe will one day in this
century be seen in hindsight as having suffered only a
temporary change in shape, produced by an outside
agent of stress (the USSR), a process known to
physicists as an elastic deformation. If so, the area
will have at last returned to Europe, where, as the
East Europeans themselves know best of all, it truly
belongs.
5? Harry Schwartz, Eastern Europe in the Soviet Shadow (New
York, 1973), p. 106.
" Ermarth, op. cit., pp. x-xi.
" Brown, op. cit., pp. 126, 127.
53 Jan F. Triska, op. cit., p. 22.
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