The Soviet Concept of 'Limited Sovereignty' from Lenin to Gorbachev: The Brezhnev Doctrine

by Robert A. Jones

Overview

The book examines the origins, development and contemporary significance of the Soviet doctrine of 'limited sovereignty' ('Brezhnev Doctrine'), with particular reference to the Doctrine's implications for the Soviet Union's relations with Eastern Europe. The author identifies and considers the multiple functions served by the Soviet Union's essentially dualistic or 'bi-axial' approach to sovereignty, which embraces notions derived from both general international law and from Soviet Marxist-Leninist doctrine. The book also includes a comparative analysis of the US 'Monroe Doctrine'. The author argues that, although in the Gorbachev era of 'new thinking', the Soviet doctrine of sovereignty may be developing a 'third axis', Western predictions of the imminent or actual demise of the 'Brezhnev Doctrine' are premature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333433263
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/29/1990
Edition description:	1990
Pages:	337
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Introduction - The Genealogy of the Soviet Conception of Sovereignty - Sovereignty and Stalin's Policy Towards Eastern Europe - Early Post-War Soviet Theories of Socialist International Relations - Marxist-Leninist Doctrine and the Soviet Theory of Sovereignty - The Ideological Dimension - Challenges to Soviet Regional Hegemony in the 1950s and the Soviet Response - Socialist Internationalism and the Warsaw Pact Intervention in Czechoslovakia - Soviet 'Correlation of Forces' Analysis and Afghanistan - The Soviet Proxy Intervention in Poland - Superpower Doctrines of Intervention: Comparisons and Contrasts - Challenges to Soviet Doctrines of Sovereignty in the 1980s - Conclusion - Footnotes - Bibliography - Index