SOVIET POLICY IN EASTERN EUROPE POST-1985: ‘SINATRA DOCTRINE’ OR ‘MOZART DOCTRINE’?


                                            John Wilton

                                      University of Plymouth



In examining the events of 1989 in Eastern Europe (and indeed the few years before), the popular
conception is one of Soviet disengagement and withdrawal of influence.1 Under Gorbachev, the
Brezhnev doctrine of intervention was supposedly abandoned in favour of the neutrality of what
became known as the Sinatra doctrine.2 This article will suggest that in effect Soviet policy of
the period was much more blurred than the image portrayed by the public face of the Sinatra
doctrine. It will argue that the policy was not so much based on the abandonment of the Brezhnev
doctrine as on its adjustment in order to accommodate Soviet needs and interests in Eastern Europe
in a new Gorbachev era. In retrospect, therefore, it may be better represented by the values of
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s masked Don Giovanni than by those underpinning Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’.
Furthermore, it will be suggested that even the public pronouncements of the Sinatra doctrine,
professing the withdrawal of Soviet intervention in Eastern Europe, still constituted a Soviet
influence on events in each of the states, if not always in the way envisaged, as the subsequent
developments of 1989 fully illustrated.



The Brezhnev doctrine

The Soviet Union’s justification for sending its troops and tanks into Prague in August 1968 came
to be known as the Brezhnev doctrine. In essence this justification, and the definition and virtual
codification of the doctrine, appeared in Pravda on 26 September 1968. The article stated that:

“...no action should do harm either to socialism or to the fundamental interests of other socialist
countries and of the entire working-class movement which is striving for socialism. This means that
each Communist party is responsible not only to its own people but also to all the socialist
countries and to the entire communist movement. ... Just as, in V.I. Lenin’s words, someone living
in a society cannot be free of that society, so a socialist state that is in a system of other
states constituting a socialist commonwealth cannot be free of the common interests of that
commonwealth. ... The weakening of any link in the world socialist system has a direct effect on
all the socialist countries, which cannot be indifferent to this.”


Hence, for the USSR a threat to the political system in any socialist country was a threat to the
socialist commonwealth as a whole. Furthermore, the Soviet Union was to be the sole judge of when
the limits of permissible autonomy in the socialist world had been exceeded, and would intervene as
it saw fit to preserve socialism.


Brezhnev reinforced this message on 12 November 1968 at the Fifth Polish Communist Party Congress,
by stating:

“...when internal and external forces, hostile to socialism, seek to reverse the development of any
socialist country whatsoever in the direction of the restoration of the capitalist order, when a
threat to the cause of socialism arises in that country, a threat to the security of the socialist
commonwealth as a whole - this already becomes not only a problem of the people of the country
concerned, but also a common problem and the concern of all socialist countries.”3


Although it took his name, what was labelled the Brezhnev doctrine after the crushing of the Prague
Spring in 1968 was not new. The argument relating to the defence of the common interests of the
working-class and the socialist commonwealth had been employed by the Soviets on more than one
occasion before; for example, in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1953 and in Hungary in
1956. One argument suggests it can be traced back to Bolshevik (and Lenin’s) justification for
Moscow’s assumption of ideological dominance over the Comintern. Certainly, in Pravda on 13
February 1957 the Soviet Foreign Minister, Shepilov, had attempted to justify military intervention
in Hungary the previous year by arguing that had that country been detached from the communist bloc
others would have followed. Consequently, the sovereignties of all the communist states depended on
the cohesion of the bloc as a whole. Therefore, according to Shepilov, the Soviet Union had acted
in Hungary in order to fulfil its international duty, not only to Hungary, but to all socialist
countries.


Brezhnev’s pronouncement of the doctrine after the Prague Spring did represent a slight shift,
however, as it gave a more formal representation of the rules of the relationship between the
Soviet Union and the East European states. Through his words (and, tragically, Soviet actions)
Brezhnev demonstrated that the USSR would not tolerate what it perceived as anti-socialist
degeneration, and thereby a threat to communist rule within Eastern Europe. The crushing of the
Prague Spring in the name of the doctrine illustrated that the Soviet leadership was fully prepared
to use its military power to maintain its control over the region. Also, of course, by formalising
the doctrine in speeches and articles after the ending of the Prague Spring the Soviet leadership
developed a clear signalling device through which to warn any East European states which might
consider reforms unacceptable to Moscow in future. Overall, therefore, the Brezhnev doctrine became
a means by which the Soviets could instill a psychological fear effect, not just in the people of
Eastern Europe, but also in the communist leaders in each of the states.


For almost twenty years after 1968 the doctrine was not merely enforced through the threat of
military intervention. It was also supported economically, socially and culturally through the
instruments of the communist parties and the bureaucracies of the various states, and their links
with Moscow and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Soviet and East European
party-state ties were maintained through regular bilateral and multilateral meetings of communist
party and state officials to co-ordinate policies. Also, an interdependent set of economic
bureaucracies were created through the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA/COMECON).


Within the East European bloc reactions to the crushing of the Prague Spring, and the pronouncement
of the Brezhnev doctrine, were on the whole predictably supportive. The main voice of East European
opposition to the policy was Ceausescu’s in Romania. He argued in Scinteia on 30 November 1968 that
marxism could not be distorted to suit the aims of Soviet foreign policy, and at the 10th Romanian
Communist Party conference in August 1969 he denied that the notion of a socialist world system
implied a renunciation of sovereignty.4


The most enthusiastic supporters of the doctrine were the communist leaderships of Bulgaria, the
GDR and Poland, while the Hungarian response was more cautious. In Poland, Gomulka stated in
October 1968 that “socialist ethics and the principle of internationalism cannot be reduced to
sitting back when the socialist sytem is being abolished in a fraternal country.”5 In the GDR, on
10 September 1968 the Berliner Zeitung called for a campaign of “ideological purification”, while
on 13 October in Neues Deutschland, in a defence of the doctrine Herman Axen promoted the
principles of proletarian internationalism over sovereignty.6


At the international meeting of communist parties in 1969 the leaders of the loyal East European
parties endorsed the Brezhnev doctrine. These included, of course, the new Czechoslovak leadership
under Gustav Husak, who stated that:

“...the class content of the sovereignty of a socialist state is directly linked to its
international responsibility to the confederation of socialist countries and the international
Communist and revolutionary movement.”7


With ‘normalisation’ in Czechoslovakia came the return to ideological orthodoxy, and the Brezhnev
doctrine was soon being endorsed in Rude pravo . It was enshrined in supposed legality in the
Soviet-Czechoslovak mutual assistance treaty of 1970. The Soviet treaty with the GDR in 1975
included a similar provision, although the USSR-Romania treaty, signed two months after the
Czechoslovak treaty, excluded any references to ‘international duty’.


Despite periodic, and in some cases considerable challenges to it (for instance Poland between 1980
and 1982), the Brezhnev doctrine lasted almost twenty years. Its dual functions assisted its
survival. Where Soviet military intervention (and consequently the rationalisation for such
intervention) became more difficult internationally the alternative function of the doctrine was
employed. In those situations its use as an intimidatory signalling device reminded both the
populations and the East European communist leaderships of the socialist commonwealth’s supposed
internationalist ideology, which would both justify and threaten intervention. This second function
- what has been referred to as the ‘damocletian sword’ function of the doctrine - seems to have
been the one employed in Poland in the early 1980s.8


According to his memoirs, Mikhail Gorbachev announced the rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine to a
meeting of the leaders of the Warsaw Treaty Organisation (WTO) countries in the Kremlin after
Chernenko’s funeral in March 1985.9 Gorbachev also states, however, that “The new policy (to
replace the Brezhnev doctrine) towards the Socialist countries was not formulated immediately. It
took shape gradually, as a component part of the new political thinking and in that general
context.”10 This perhaps accounts the initial public impression given by Gorbachev upon coming to
office that there would not be any change ideologically in terms of the Soviet Union’s dominant
hegemonic position in Eastern Europe.


The Sinatra doctrine

The changes in the Soviet Union during the second half of the 1980s can be identified as the key
causal variable in each of the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe.11 Without those changes the
revolutions would not have occurred when they did. Equally, the form of any transformations at a
later or another point in time would have been somewhat different, and in all probability would
have been a great deal more violent. Any attempt at social and political transformation in the East
European states while they were still closely tied to a Soviet Union which had not experienced the
post-1985 changes, and was thus still a repressive ally concerned for its own border security,
would surely have resulted in violent confrontation. Indeed, the lessons of history; of Budapest in
1956 and Prague in 1968, sustain such an argument. Without the changes in the international arena
in the second half of the 1980s (manifested in the changes in the USSR), events in Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, and the other East European states in late 1989, would have been very different.


The post-1985 reforms in the Soviet Union (perestroika and particularly glasnost) affected not only
the relationship between the Soviet Union and its 'satellite' states, but also had a great impact
on  politics and society within the individual East European states. These processes overlapped and
were highly interactive. The greatest impact in both these areas appears to have come from the
eventual Soviet public pronouncement of the Sinatra doctrine policy, which by implication meant the
end of the Brezhnev doctrine. Under the Sinatra doctrine the individual East European states were
supposedly allowed to "do things their way".


Gorbachev initially did not appear to advocate any shift ideologically from Soviet hegemony in the
region. Indeed, his early meetings with East European leaders, and his speeches, consolidated
Soviet-East European links within the Warsaw Treaty Organisation (WTO) and CMEA/COMECON.12 However,
he soon began to indicate a change in policy, especially upon the introduction of the policies of
glasnost and perestroika within the Soviet Union following Gorbachev’s identification of the need
for the Soviets to address the problems of their own economy. Gorbachev clearly emphasised a new
official Soviet position - that there could be no heirarchy and no system of seniority amongst the
Comecon states - at the CPSU Twenty-Seventh Congress, when he stated that "unity has nothing in
common with uniformity, heirarchy, interference by some parties in the affairs of others, or the
striving of any party to have a monopoly over what is right".13 Also, speaking on the new character
of Soviet and East European relations, Gorbachev said in Prague in April 1987:

"First and foremost we proceed from the premise that the entire system of the socialist countries'
political relations can and must be built on the basis of equality and mutual responsibility. No
one has the right to claim special status in the socialist world. We consider the independence of
every party, its responsibility to the people of its own country, and its right to decide the
question of the country's development to be unconditional principles."14


Probably the clearest statement of the public change in policy came at the United Nations in
December 1988, when Gorbachev declared his commitment to “freedom of choice” for all nations. His
emphasis on this as a principle that “knows no exceptions”, and his announcement of the unilateral
withdrawal of 50,000 Soviet troops and 5,000 tanks from Eastern Europe, sent a clear message to the
people of Eastern Europe that the USSR would never militarily intervene in their countries while he
was Soviet leader.


These statements by Gorbachev, and pronouncements by other Soviet spokesmen regarding the Sinatra
doctrine, had wide-ranging effects in each of the East European states. Broadly, these can be
separated into two interactive categories of consequences. Firstly, to some extent the ‘fear
factor’ of Soviet military intervention (such as had occurred, for example, in 1956 and 1968)
against reform and reformers in the East European states was removed. Secondly, the Soviet reforms
of perestroika, and particularly glasnost, together with the publicly stated change in Soviet
policy in Eastern Europe, created great dilemmas and problems for the ‘old guard’ hardline East
European communist leaderships, in terms of how they should respond to the changes.


The alleviation of fear

People in Eastern Europe were well aware of the changes occurring after 1985 in the USSR, and could
see no reason why they could not experience them for themselves. Many of them received television
and radio broadcasts from the Soviet Union, and those broadcasts increasingly embraced and extolled
the virtues of glasnost and perestroika. At the very least there must have been some psychological
impact from this, and from the enunciation by Soviet spokespersons on the 'world stage' of the
Sinatra doctrine. Even if greeted with some scepticism by the citizens of Eastern Europe, the
suggestion that Soviet tanks were not going to roll into Warsaw or Prague, for example, at the hint
of reform in Poland or Czechoslovakia must have removed some of the fear factor from the minds of
those who sought change. The fear of Soviet intervention, premised in the history of 1956 and 1968,
was removed.


In 1987 Adam Michnik, the Solidarnosc activist, illustrated the importance of this change (and of
the dilemma the communist leaders faced in each state), when he pointed out that "General
Jaruzelski is being forced toward real reform by pressure from two sides. On one hand there are the
activities of the opposition and the yearnings of Polish society, and on the other, there are the
words and deeds of Mr. Gorbachev".15 In effect, Hungary and Poland had been practising some limited
forms of perestroika and glasnost for the best part of the previous twenty years. The important
point arising from the Soviet Union's embrace of perestroika and glasnost, however, was that it
gave reformers - both in the ruling communist elites and in the opposition dissident movements -
encouragement. After all, if perestroika and glasnost were good enough for Soviet citizens, why
were they not good enough for Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians, Bulgarians, or ultimately,
Romanians?


Practical representation of the influence within the states of the believed change in Soviet policy
came through the Polish government's response to the August 1988 Gdansk shipyard strike. Despite
the fact that the strike was comparatively mild compared to those of 1980, the government acceded
to the strikers’ demands and agreed to Round Table negotiations between the then still banned
Solidarnosc and the Jaruzelski regime. It seems unlikely that this would have occurred without the
Polish communist regime and Solidarnosc having concluded that the Soviets were not likely to
intervene militarily. This conclusion was no doubt influenced by the fact that only a month
previously, in July 1988, the Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, had spoken of a policy
reliant "on such principles as non-aggression, respect for sovereignty and national independence,
non-interference in internal affairs".16


The most concrete evidence of the Soviet Union's military non-interventionist stance, and a key
point in time in terms of the alleviation of the fear of Soviet invasion, was a forty minute
telephone conversation between Gorbachev and the then Polish Communist Party General Secretary,
Mieczyslaw Rakowski, in the midst of the Polish crisis on 22 August 1989. Following success in the
recent election, the newly legalised Solidarnosc was attempting to form a coalition government with
the communists, who held reserved positions in the Defence and Interior Ministries. The Central
Committee of the Polish Communist Party was split over whether or not to join the coalition.
According to the Polish Communist Party spokesman, Jan Bisztyga, in the telephone conversation with
Rakowski Gorbachev encouraged communist participation in the Solidarnosc coalition.17 Two days
after the phone call the communists agreed to participate in the Solidarnosc led government, with
Tadeusz Mazowiecki as the new Prime Minister.


This was a key moment as it meant that the Soviets were prepared to see East European communists
give up power, and really were not prepared to return to the past and use force (or the threat of
force) to sustain communist power and Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. Crucially, the telephone
call, and what occurred in Poland (with power being surrendered to a non-communist government in a
Warsaw Pact country with Soviet acquiescence), had a tremendous impact on politics and society
within the East European states. In the late summer of 1989 it sent a clear message of Soviet
non-intervention - at least in terms of overt military intervention - to the people and the
dissident movements.




The dilemma for the communist leaderships

The Soviet reforms gave the opposition dissidents, and the people in general in each of the states,
hope and a greater opportunity and margin to manoeuvre. As the above examples illustrate, however,
they also destabilised the rigid orthodox communist leaders as they became increasingly uncertain
how to react and respond to the dilemma they faced both from the changes in the Soviet Union and in
Soviet policy in Eastern Europe. One further example from the period fully illustrates their
dilemma. Jan Urban, a leading Czechoslovak dissident, travelled to Moscow in December 1987 for the
First International Independent Human Rights Seminar, organised by Press Club Glasnost. He met
Andrei Sakharov and other prominent Soviet human rights activists. Urban suggested that "By
participating together with the Soviets in such a public manner, we presented an insoluble
conundrum for the Husak regime: not to arrest me for such a flagrant defiance was a mistake; but
equally to arrest me for meeting with Andrei Sakharov at a time of Gorbachev's Glasnost, would be
an even bigger one!"18


In his memoirs Gorbachev suggests that his reforms, and the change in Soviet policy towards Eastern
Europe, put the leaders of those states “in a somewhat awkward situation ... following the path of
reforms begun in the Soviet Union meant the end of the system they embodied. No longer could they
count on Soviet tanks to prop them up.”19 Gorbachev offers an illustration of the dilemma the East
European leaders faced. In fact, he suggests “I believe I can pinpoint the moment when the reaction
of rejecting Soviet perestroika manifested itself in some leaders”.20 To substantiate this
Gorbachev cites the actions of Honecker in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in January 1987. At
that time the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee considered issues of democratisation and the
Party’s cadre policy. Honecker’s response, according to Gorbachev, was to say that “the path of
perestroika did not suit East Germany.”21 He issued an unprecedented instruction that the
proceedings of the plenum should not be published in the GDR press. Subsequently, however, the
proceedings were published in GDR dissident literature.


Both of these strands of analysis of the effect of the changes in the Soviet Union in facilitating
the events of 1989 require greater and deeper investigation than is possible here. Nevertheless,
even from such a brief outline it can be argued that the reforms in the Soviet Union were a key
factor in alleviating the fear of repression through Soviet military intervention. Equally, they
caused great confusion and contradictions - ideological and real - within the hard-line communist
leaderships, while offering new hope to the people of Eastern Europe.


Doubts about the Sinatra doctrine

It was, of course, the Soviet leadership’s public pronouncements on the virtues of their reforms,
and on their new policy towards Eastern Europe, which produced these effects of new hope within the
populations of the different states, as well as confusion amongst their communist leaders. It seems
clear that the change meant Soviet non-intervention militarily. Whether the Soviet public embrace
of the Sinatra doctrine policy really did mean complete Soviet non-intervention in the internal
affairs of the East European states must, however, be open to some doubt.


In other words, it is questionable whether the Sinatra doctrine was indeed the policy employed in
relations with each of the states during the Gorbachev period, or instead just a facade by which
diplomatic and political pressure replaced the threat of military intervention.


Clearly the Soviet troops in the East European states were ordered to remain in their barracks
rather than take the Red Army tanks on to the streets, as they had done in 1956 and 1968.
Nevertheless, there is some evidence to suggest that while the Soviet leadership was espousing the
Sinatra doctrine publicly, other key institutional Soviet power holders (for example, the KGB) were
applying diplomatic and political pressure in order to maintain influence in Eastern Europe. This
took the form of attempting to engineer the removal of the remaining hard-line Stalinist leaders in
some of the East European states and facilitating their replacement with Gorbachev-type reformers.


The leading example of this was in Czechoslovakia. A government commission investigating the
activities of the Czechoslovak secret police (the StB), set up after the revolution, uncovered the
involvement during the days of the November 1989 revolution of the KGB, who orchestrated the
attempted replacement of the hard-line Czechoslovak communist leadership with a 'Czech
Gorbachev'.22 The plan was to bring about the overthrow of the hard-line communist regime of Jakes
through popular demonstrations (and specifically through the manipulation of events around a
demonstration in Prague on 17th November 1989), and thereby open the way for the installation of a
moderate reform communist, Zdenek Mlynar, as president. Mlynar, who was expelled from the Czech
Communist Party in March 1970 in the wake of the Prague Spring, was reportedly flown to Moscow to
meet with Gorbachev during the revolutionary period of late November 1989. Gorbachev, however, with
whom he had been a student and friend in the 1950s in Moscow, failed to persuade Mlynar to take
office.


Similarities can be identified between this Czechoslovak experience and events in the GDR, where
Erich Honecker was initially replaced during the revolutionary period of October 1989 by Egon
Krenz. Honecker's removal came eleven days after Gorbachev's visit to the GDR, and his decidedly
cool attitude to Honecker. Between Gorbachev's visit and Honecker's removal a leading ideologue of
the GDR Communist Party, Kurt Hager, travelled to Moscow and returned calling for the "necessary
renovations" to the GDR system.23 On taking over from Honecker, the previously hard-line Krenz
suddenly started firing Stalinists from the GDR Politburo. Following a visit to Moscow, two weeks
after his succession, he began to attempt to follow Gorbachev's perestroika line.


Krenz was replaced on 8th November 1989 by the GDR's most prominent reform-minded official, the
Dresden party boss, Hans Modrow. As early as 1987 Modrow had been identified by Soviet diplomats at
their East Berlin Embassy as Gorbachev's favoured choice to eventually replace Honecker.24 Also in
1987, Vladimir Kryuchkov, the Soviet KGB Vice-Chairman, visited Dresden in order to discuss reform
proposals, and the plans of GDR reformers, at an institute for the social sciences.25 As Modrow was
the district's chief executive at the time it seems likely that he would have had some form of
contact with such an important visitor.26 Interestingly, the leader of the plot in November 1989 to
replace the Czechoslovak hard-line communist leadership, the Interior Minister and head of the StB
Czech security services, General Lorenc, flew to Moscow in September 1989 to meet with Kryuchkov,
who by then was Chairman of the KGB.27 Although he earlier appeared to be a committed supporter of
Gorbachev’s reforms, Kryuchkov became increasingly hostile throughout 1989 to the changes both
inside the Soviet Union and in Soviet foreign policy, and was one of the major initiators of the
attempted coup in August 1991


Suspicions also linger over Moscow's role in the events in Bucharest in December 1989. Arguments
concerning the involvement and active participation of a number of Soviet secret agents in
Ceausescu's removal have been promoted in various texts.28 Certainly, Ion Iliescu, Romania's first
post-1989 revolution President, was a close friend of Gorbachev, having attended university with
him in Moscow in the 1950s while studying law. Also, Silviu Brucan, a central figure in the initial
post-1989 National Salvation Front government in Romania, visited Moscow in November 1988. Brucan
has claimed to have had contacts "in the Kremlin" during his visit, where the talks had been of "a
political nature", with an emphasis on "the resistance movement in Romania" and a conspiracy to
remove Ceausescu.29 He claimed to have secured reluctant Soviet agreement to the overthrow of
Ceausescu. In the same interview in which Brucan made these revelations, one of his leading
colleagues in the first post-revolution leadership, Nicolae Militaru, referred to Iliescu as being
viewed in the 1980s by both "the generals and Brucan as the right man to replace Ceausescu as party
leader".30 In the period after the revolution there were many rumours that an 'inner council' of
the National Salvation Front had been formed in secret six months prior to the events of December
1989 and had plotted Ceausescu's overthrow.


In Bulgaria, an emergency plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee took place on November
10th 1989, the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At it Bulgaria's President Todor Zhivkov's
resigned, and was replaced by the reform communist Petar Mladenov. A few days before the emergency
plenum Mladenov made a stop over visit to Moscow on his return journey to Bulgaria after a visit to
China in his capacity as Foreign Minister.


Given the circumstances it is not easy to uncover any concrete evidence of the Soviet Union’s (or
Gorbachev's personal) involvement in these cases, even if any exists. Indeed, in the Romanian case
Michael Shafir has cast doubt over both Brucan and Militaru's revelations, although he does appear
to accept that the Soviet authorities knew of the plan to remove Ceausescu by stating that
"apparently all the Soviet authorities did for the conspiracy was to refrain from warning
Ceausescu".31


In the Czechoslovak case there is some evidence that Gorbachev specifically refrained from becoming
personally involved in the events of late 1989. Oskar Krejci, political adviser to the last
communist leader, Ladislav Adamec, recalls how three times during November 1989 Moscow was asked to
assist the Czechoslovak reform communists in removing the dogmatic hard-liners in the party from
power, or at least in shifting their approach to one more in line with Gorbachev's reforms.32 These
pleas for help, which according to Krejci Gorbachev refused, included sending the Speaker of the
Czechoslovak parliament to Moscow, and attempting to arrange a meeting between Adamec and Gorbachev
(which Gorbachev also refused). Although, Gorbachev's reluctance in the Czechoslovak case differs
from his seemingly central involvement in the Polish crisis period in August 1989 and in the East
German crisis period in November 1989 (referred to later).


Within the labyrinth of the Soviet power structure it is possible that other forces, such as the
KGB, were acting without Gorbachev's knowledge, and were instrumental in attempting forms of
pressure other than military to effect change in the East European states without losing Soviet
influence. Although the supposed meeting between Mlynar and Gorbachev in Moscow during the November
days of 1989 would seem to cast doubts over this scenario. Clearly the Soviet military-industrial
complex and the KGB viewed with alarm Gorbachev’s intended withdrawal of Soviet troops from the
whole of Eastern Europe. In particular, the KGB must have been concerned about their loss of
influence on their client organisations in Eastern Europe if there was a strict adherence to the
Sinatra doctrine. It appears, therefore, that publicly an image of a Soviet 'hands-off' approach
was being conveyed, while privately the Soviet political apparatus and security forces were very
much involved in an attempt to place new ‘Gorbachev’ puppets in power in Eastern Europe and replace
their old Stalinist marionettes.


Further confirmation of the public face of the Soviet non-intervention policy came with the
breaching of the Berlin Wall on November 9th 1989. According to several members of the then GDR
Communist Party Central Committee, during the build up of demonstrations in the days preceding the
fall of the wall the new communist leader, Egon Krenz, telephoned Gorbachev for advice on how to
deal with the crisis. Gorbachev is said to have advised that the border between East and West
Germany should be opened to provide an escape valve and stop any unrest that threatened to see the
communists removed from power.33


Although the fall of the Berlin Wall publicly confirmed the Soviet non-intervention policy, the
communication with Krenz also suggests that even at that late stage Gorbachev wanted to see
communist control continuing in at least the GDR, and probably other parts of Eastern Europe. The
Soviet leadership apparently believed that events in the GDR “would lead to the setup of a truly
democratic socialist state in Germany”.34 Indeed, together with the KGB involvement in events in
Prague a week after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the telephone communications Gorbachev had with
Krenz and with Mieczyslaw Rakowski (in August 1989 regarding the Polish Communist Party’s
participation in a Solidarnosc led government - referred to earlier), illustrate that despite the
public face of the 'Sinatra doctrine' the policy may not have been all it seemed, and the Soviet
Union was still attempting to exert influence in Eastern Europe, even if not overtly.


Conclusion

Although its public face clearly had an effect on the people and leaders in Eastern Europe
pre-1989, some doubts must remain over the real validity of the Sinatra doctrine. Just how clear
any evidence is of Soviet involvement (or intentions) in the events of late 1989 cannot be, and
quite possibly never will be, ascertained.


It seems clear that the Soviets desired and needed change in Eastern Europe just as surely as it
was required in the USSR, not least because within the Soviet bloc each country was tied to the
USSR. Prior to the events of 1989 Moscow had great influence and leverage within Eastern Europe,
and could set in motion and promote change if it chose so to do. In the words of the programme of
the CPSU approved at the 27th Congress in 1986, the Soviet Union was part of a community of
“fraternal peoples” in Eastern Europe, who shared “common historical destinies”.35 Even as late as
September 1989 an official communique from an Eastern bloc meeting in Bulgaria called for greater
“interaction, solidarity, and unanimity of the Central Committees in the socialist countries”.36
The Soviet leadership had a vision of the type of regimes they wished to see emerge from changes in
the East European states. However, the key questions are firstly, in order to attain that vision
how much covert influence did the Soviet Union exert during the revolutionary period, and secondly,
how aware was Gorbachev of that influence?


Gorbachev's memoirs sustain the Sinatra doctrine, although he does appear to have believed that the
promotion of reforms, similar to those in the USSR., would have automatically made the communist
reformers popular in their individual states.37 This was predicated on the assumption that the
reform communists in each of the states could play a leading role in establishing a revolutionary
new 'third way' between western democratic capitalism and Soviet-style communism. In effect, the
policy had similarities with Alexander Dubcek's 'socialism with a human face' of the Prague Spring
of 1968, and it reinforces the suggestion that the Soviet desire was to see the removal of the
hard-line communist leaders and their replacement by reform communists.


Whether Gorbachev was prepared to sanction continuing covert Soviet involvement in such a process
is a key question. According to Ivan Frolov, a past editor of Pravda and one of Gorbachev's key
associates during his period in office, Gorbachev and his close advisers firmly believed that the
East European states could be liberalised, in a form similar to Dubcek's Prague Spring ideals.38
Contrary to Gorbachev’s memoirs, which stress the idealism of Soviet non-interventionism, Frolov
here suggests that Gorbachev and the Soviet Union retained a keen interest, and some involvement,
in events inside the East European states. Given the collapse of the Soviet Union's influence in
Eastern Europe, however - something Gorbachev clearly did not foresee - it is not surprising that
his memoirs suggest absolute Soviet non-intervention in 1989.


The danger in analysing only the public pronouncements of the Sinatra doctrine is that the policy
can be accepted as the withdrawal  of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. Whichever way one
evaluates the policy, however, it still constituted a Soviet influence on events in each of the
states. Even the public withdrawal of the threat of Soviet intervention constituted Soviet
influence (through the signals it sent to the people of Eastern Europe and the dilemmas it raised
for the hard-line communist leaderships), if not always in the way the Soviet Union hoped, as the
subsequent developments of 1989 fully illustrated.


It may well be that rather than fully embracing the Sinatra doctrine, and abandoning the Brezhnev
doctrine, between 1986 and 1989 the Soviets were in reality seeking an adjustment to ‘Brezhnev’ in
order to accommodate their own needs in the new Gorbachev era, especially economically. It seems
that the Soviet change in policy after 1986 was still based on Soviet and collective security.
This, however, was not to be produced through enforcement by military means. Instead, it was to be
achieved through what Gorbachev clearly saw as the more philosophical embracing of the
establishment of a revolutionary ‘third way’ between western capitalism and old style Soviet
communism - through the embracing of (somewhat tragically ironically for the Czechs and Slovaks)
‘socialism with a human face’. How much this change was born out of Soviet economic necessity,
especially in terms of their economic support for the East European states, is no doubt relevant.
In his memoirs Gorbachev puts strong emphasis on this factor.39


As Zdenek Mlynar illustrated in his recount of the Prague Spring and Moscow’s eventual reaction,
there was a disparity between the public pronouncements of the Soviets (which conformed to, and
fostered, the Soviet Union’s self-image) and the crude language of power employed by the Soviet
leadership during their meetings with the Prague Spring leaders following the Soviet military
intervention in 1968.40 Given Mlynar’s observations and experience, and the Soviet’s past record,
perhaps it should not seem so surprising if the public pronouncements on the Sinatra doctrine were
not all they seemed, and did not match some of the activities of institutional elements of the
Soviet system.


Consequently, the publicly stated Sinatra doctrine may well have been merely a mask, produced in an
effort to hide the identity of those really attempting to manipulate change in the East European
states. In this respect, it may well have been a policy that owed more to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s
‘Don Giovanni’ than to Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’. Ironically, whichever analysis attracts more
validity, just like Don Giovanni, the manipulators (and their schemes) were overtaken by events
beyond their control.






________________________________

1 Whilst I am sympathetic to the argument that many Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and others
make that their countries should be seen as part of Central rather than Eastern Europe, the latter
term has been chosen primarily because it is more readily understood than the terms 'Central
Europe' or 'East/Central Europe', and is still in much wider usage

2 The phrase "Sinatra doctrine" was first used by the Soviet government spokesman, Genadii
Gerasimov, in 1987. It signalled the abandonment of the Brezhnev doctrine by the Soviet leadership,
and a supposed willingness to allow the East European states to do things their way. As such it was
a reference by Gerasimov to the popular song 'My Way', made famous by the American singer Frank
Sinatra.

3 Pravda, 13 November 1968

4 Radio Bucharest, 6 August 1969, Radio Free Europe Research Romania (RFER.R), no.17, 8 August
1969, p.2

5 W. Gomulka, ‘O sobytiiakh v Chekoslovakii’, in Novoe vremia, no.42, 1968,pp.10-11.

6 RFER. GDR, no.15, 17 September 1968, pp.2-3, and Herman Axen, Neues Deutschland, 13 October 1968,
in RFER.GDR, no.17, 25 October 1968, pp.2-3.

7 Mezhdunarodnoe soveshchanie kommunisticheskikh i rabochikh partii: dokumenty i materialy
(International meeting of the Communist and Workers’ parties: documents and materials), Moscow,
Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1969, quoted in C.D. Jones, Soviet Influence in Eastern
Europe, New York, Praeger, 1981, p.11 and p.238.

8 See, for example, R. Jones, The Soviet Concept of ‘Limited Sovereignty’ from Lenin to Gorbachev,
London, Macmillan, 1988, p.193.

9 M. Gorbachev, Memoirs, London, Doubleday, 1996, p.465.

10 M. Gorbachev, Memoirs, London, Doubleday, 1996, p.466.

11 For a fuller examination of this and other variables see J.Wilton, The 1989 East European
Revolutions: A Comparative Political and Historical Analysis, Longman, Harlow, forthcoming.

12 See, for example, V. Kusin, ‘Gorbachev and Eastern Europe’, in Problems of Communism, Jan-Feb.
1986, pp.39-53.

13 M. Gorbachev, ‘Political Report of the COPSU Central Committee to the 27th Congress’, in The
Challenges of Our Time: Disarmament and Social Progress: Highlights, 27th Congress, CPSU, New York,
International Publishers, 1986, p.85.

14 M. Gorbachev, For a 'Common European Home', for a New Way of Thinking, Moscow, Novosti, April
10th, 1987, p.10.

15 M. Kaufman, 'Gorbachev Draws a Mixed Reaction from Soviet Bloc', in New York Times, 12th
February, 1987.

16 19th All-Union Conference of the CPSU: Foreign Politics and Diplomacy', Pravda, 26th July, 1988.

17 A.D. Horne, 'Gorbachev Urges Communists to Join Solidarity Government', Washington Post, 23rd
August, 1989, p.A1, and F.X. Clines, 'Gorbachev Calls, Then Polish Party Drops Its Demands', New
York Times, 23rd August, 1989, p.A1.

18 J. Urban, 'Czechoslovakia: the power and politics of humiliation', in G. Prins, (ed.) Spring in
Winter. The 1989 revolutions, Manchester, Manchester University Press, p.114.

19 M. Gorbachev, Memoirs, London, Doubleday, 1996, p.483-4.

20 M. Gorbachev, Memoirs, London, Doubleday, 1996, p.484.

21 M. Gorbachev, Memoirs, London, Doubleday, 1996, p.484.

22 See the Hulik Commission preliminary findings. See also report in The Independent, 15th May,
1990, and BBC2 television programme 'Czech Mate', broadcast  on 30th May 1990, written by John
Simpson. An outline of these events can also be found in J.Urban, 'Czechoslovakia: the power and
politics of humiliation', in G.Prins, (ed.) Spring in Winter, Manchester, Manchester University
Press, 1990, pp.116-117.

23 Pravda, 14th October, 1989, and Moscow News, (in English), 15th October, 1989.

24 'Parteiliches Handeln', Der Spiegel, 3rd July, 1989, and 'Vierter Mann', Der Spiegel, 17th
September, 1988.

25 F. Oldenburg, ‘Sowjetische Deutschland-Politik nach der Oktober Revolution in der DDR’,
Deutschland Archiv, January 1990, p.69.

26 G.Schabowski, Der Absturz, Berlin, Rowohlt, 1991, p.286.

27 BBC2 television programme 'Czech Mate', broadcast  on 30th May 1990, written by John Simpson.

28 See, for example, M.Castex, Un Mensonage Gros Comme Le Siecle: Roumanie, Histoire d'une
Manipulation, Paris, Albin Michel, 1990; and A.U. Gabanyi, Die Unvollendete Revolution: Rumaenien
zwischen Diktatur und Demokratie, Munich, Piper, 1990.

29 Interview with Silviu Brucan and Nicolae Militaru in Adevarul, 23rd August, 1990.

30 Interview with Silviu Brucan and Nicolae Militaru in Adevarul, 23rd August, 1990.

31 M.Shafir, 'Preparing for the Future by Revising the Past', Radio Free Europe/Report on Eastern
Europe, 12th October, 1990.

32 Interview with Oskar Krejci (by John Wilton), Prague, 24th October, 1994.

33 M.Fisher, 'One Year Later, World Is Learning How Berlin Wall Opened', Washington Post, 10th
November, 1990, p.A23.

34 Interview with CPSU Central Committee staff member, Aleksandr Tsipko, 16th November 1990, quoted
in D.Oberdorfer, The Turn. From the Cold War to a New Era. New York: Poseidon Press, 1991, p.364.

35 Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. A New Edition, Approved by Twenty-Seventh
Party Congress', Information Bulletin, vol..24, no.9, 1986, Moscow, Novosti Press, p.72.

36 Bulgarian Telegraphic Agency, 30th September, 1989.

37 M. Gorbachev, Memoirs, London, Doubleday, 1996, p.486.

38 D. Oberdorfer, The Turn. From the Cold War to a New Era, New York: Poseidon Press, 1991, p.355.

39 M. Gorbachev, Memoirs, London, Doubleday, 1996, p.464-486.

40 Z. Mlynar, Night Frost in Prague, London, Hurst, 1980, pp.239-241.