Poland and the Brezhnev Doctrine, 1968-1989: To Hell with Sovereignty Gomułka, 1968

After the Sovietled invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Moscow began to advance the notion of “limited sovereignty”, soon dubbed by Washington the “Brezhnev Doctrine”. The Doctrine was next debated during the period of Solidarity (1980-81) when Soviet leaders considered the pros and cons of a military invasion. After sixteen months of hesitation, the domestic “martial law” alternative was chosen instead. In the late eighties, Gorbachev advised his Eastern European counterparts that violence was no longer an option and that they should therefore reach peaceful accommodations with their own societies. Jaruzelski was the first to do so.