Brezhnev accepts the Prague spring.

[123lll]

Leonid Brezhnev and the Soviet delegation in attendance of the bilateral talks with the Czechoslovakian representatives from the 29th of July to 1st of August comes to an agreement with the Czechs that he will not interfere with nor try to stop the reforms of Alexander Dubček and the reformist wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and assures them that the Soviets will hold back the rest of the from Warsaw Pact from making moves against them, aid them against the hardliners in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and will even aid them in their reforms itself on the conditions that it does not comprise the stability of the Eastern block and they still remain firmly in the Soviet sphere of influence. Brezhnev decides that his acceptance of the Prague spring will damage the stability of his secretariat and power base and so orders Yuri Andropov to place the Central committee under surveillance by the KGB and prevent them from trying to form a block to overthrow him like he did Khrushchev and if necessary, neutralize them. Brezhnev then decides that since he probably alienated a lot of hardliners and damaged his power base by his acceptance of the Prague spring, he might as well do some reforms himself, so he decides to introduce the 1965 soviet economic reforms proposed by Kosygin and even takes some inspiration from the reformist wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

How does this change the history of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and the Eastern bloc? Does this start a wave of reformations throughout the Eastern bloc or reinforce the hardliners? How does Dubček and his supporters react to Brezhnev's acceptance of what their doing along with the wider Czech public to the USSR backing Dubčeck's reformists? What does the Soviet Union look like with a now reformist Brezhnev?

 

[Dancing Fool]

will even aid them in their reforms itself on the conditions that it does not comprise the stability of the Eastern block and they still remain firmly in the Soviet sphere of influence

and maybe also support the Soviet alliance in terms of steel production and/or other heavy industry.

And I can Brezhnev moving toward the general approach of — market is fine for consumer goods, but not for science, tech, and heavy industry which affects the very future of the USSR.

 

[neopeius]

Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Albania all taking separate paths? I feel like the house of cards collapses...

 

[The Banker]

interesting thread
I hope we get more answers and great discussions
will be watching this thread

 

[Dan]

Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Albania all taking separate paths? I feel like the house of cards collapses...

Will it collapse? Or will it provide a stronger foundation going forward, especially with a more* liberal USSR?

I don't have anything to back this up, but my gut feel is that economic reforms before 1970 or so could see the USSR survive longer, potentially even not falling.
I wonder if we would see the USSR as TTL's "China" in terms of consumer manufacturing?

If that's the case, would a less successful China be inevitable, in which case could we see a "USSR" style collapse of Communist China in the early 90's with all the butterflies which that presents?



*More liberal than OTL USSR, not necessarily actually liberal.

 

[Snaut]

Soviet imperialism needed the Brezhnev Doctrine for a reason. Tolerating the Prague Spring will encourage the peoples of the Warsaw Pact to try to imitate it and go farther. Unless the USSR intervenes at some point its Warsaw Pact satellites all become independent, capitalist, and closely tied to the Western bloc economically, and the only question is whether they join NATO or not.

 

[The Banker]

Soviet imperialism needed the Brezhnev Doctrine for a reason. Tolerating the Prague Spring will encourage the peoples of the Warsaw Pact to try to imitate it and go farther. Unless the USSR intervenes at some point its Warsaw Pact satellites all become independent, capitalist, and closely tied to the Western bloc economically, and the only question is whether they join NATO or not.

but at the same time, USSR did tolerate alternative economic forms elsewhere in Hungary(Goulash Communism) and Romania(Pre-DPRK visit Caucescue)

 

[Snaut]

but at the same time, USSR did tolerate alternative economic forms elsewhere in Hungary(Goulash Communism) and Romania(Pre-DPRK visit Caucescue)

This fell far short of what the Soviet subject societies wanted. It only worked because the USSR had demonstrated its readiness to attack if it decided that someone had crossed its red lines. As soon as it stopped being obviously ready to attack the Autumn of Nations happened.

 

[Onedotman]

Soviet imperialism needed the Brezhnev Doctrine for a reason. Tolerating the Prague Spring will encourage the peoples of the Warsaw Pact to try to imitate it and go farther. Unless the USSR intervenes at some point its Warsaw Pact satellites all become independent, capitalist, and closely tied to the Western bloc economically, and the only question is whether they join NATO or not.

Interesting how both the Soviets and Americans believed in this same slippery slope argument about domino theory.

 

[Karelian]

The perceived lesson from Hungary and this course of action would be clear: peaceful internal reforms could be tolerated, but violent uprisings will be met with tanks.
Then again the Czech heresy goes against the established party dogmas of dialectic materialism and Marxist-Leninist dictatorship of the proletariat.

Where do they stop, if they establish a genuine political opposition and multi-party system more than in name only?

 

[LordMartinax]

Where do they stop, if they establish a genuine political opposition and multi-party system more than in name only?

Neither of those was derired by the communist party and Dubček. The Action plan of 1968, which was supposed to guide further reforms, was quite clear on no parties outside of the governing National front. The leading role of the Communist party would also be kept.

Dubček was a reformist communist. A believer in democracy he was not.

 

[ghappy1000]

Dubček, his supporters and the general Czechoslovak public would like Brezhev repeating what Dubček did in Czechoslovakia.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

"Brezhnev decides that his acceptance of the Prague spring will damage the stability of his secretariat and power base and so orders Yuri Andropov to place the Central committee under surveillance by the KGB and prevent them from trying to form a block to overthrow him like he did Khrushchev and if necessary, neutralize them."

This issue is probably the real reason for the IOTL occupation of Czechoslovakia.

The USSR leadership in the 1970s was fine with similar liberalization in Hungary and Poland, and Romania deviating from them in foreign policy to some extent. For that matter, they were willing to tolerate multiparty and capitalist countries that pretty much always followed them in foreign policy (Finland). They even allowed some under the table liberalization in the Baltic republics within the USSR. If they had allowed Dubcek to continue, it probably would have turned out the same way as in Hungary at best, Poland at worst, and we will have never heard of Dubcek.

As long as the Czechs stayed in the Warsaw Pact, and they tried to do this, there was no reason not to tolerate a certain amount of liberalization. The crackdown must have been due to internal USSR central committee issues.

 

[Sam R.]

Will it collapse? Or will it provide a stronger foundation going forward, especially with a more* liberal USSR?

It'd be hard to get liberalism from a movement towards workerism, unless the implication is that partiinost is a kind of torydom and workerism is a kind of whiggery in the parliament of people's parties, and that like the English revolution it would be indefinitely delayed into the 1970s? Imagine the development of appeals routes.

I don't have anything to back this up, but my gut feel is that economic reforms before 1970 or so could see the USSR survive longer, potentially even not falling.
I wonder if we would see the USSR as TTL's "China" in terms of consumer manufacturing?

It does put post-fordist production on the table, but Soviet plant administration was fairly non-dynamic outside of military production: an accommodation familiar to the British capitalists or Detroit employers had occurred: they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.

Destroying high fordism's compromise requried vast latent threats (BRD, Japan), or vast actualised threats (Detroit, UK capitalism, Rogernomics in NZ or The Accord in Australia). So there's a lot of radical social reform that would need to be tabled for committee. That's a lot for Brezhnev to do. So I suppose he gets to go play croquet at a fish canning plant on the Aral and someone is elevated to run that line.

If that's the case, would a less successful China be inevitable, in which case could we see a "USSR" style collapse of Communist China in the early 90's with all the butterflies which that presents?

China is still going to face a couple of leadership's worth of disappointments or gaolings before the engineer's line comes up.

Where do they stop, if they establish a genuine political opposition and multi-party system more than in name only?

Well one, two, many communist parties. Same thing happened in Hungary. I suppose if they're bright they'll dig up a bit from when Lenin was in opposition and wanted party democracy.

Dubček was a reformist communist. A believer in democracy he was not.

Quite. And Dubček was catering to a movement which demanded an expansion of factory and party democracy, not a bourgeois parliament. Whether one believes this to be stable or desirable, that's what was being sought in Prague..

Soviet imperialism needed the Brezhnev Doctrine for a reason. Tolerating the Prague Spring will encourage the peoples of the Warsaw Pact to try to imitate it and go farther. Unless the USSR intervenes at some point its Warsaw Pact satellites all become independent, capitalist, and closely tied to the Western bloc economically, and the only question is whether they join NATO or not.

Which is why Warsaw Pact members invaded societies where workers who wanted factory control and functional control over government policy in the form of union organised bodies with the maintenance and extension of social control over industrial production? Invading left deviant workers movements in riot is a funny way to prevent the restoration of Western capitalist control over production..

This fell far short of what the Soviet subject societies wanted. It only worked because the USSR had demonstrated its readiness to attack if it decided that someone had crossed its red lines. As soon as it stopped being obviously ready to attack the Autumn of Nations happened.

I think, knowing my own ignorance, we ought to have recourse here to the civil war in Poland where the party heights lost effective control over local party organisations as effective massagers, and an underground of intellectuals and factory operatives formed. Believing that Solidarity was doomed to its central leadership's eventual opinions may be as foolish as to claim Imre Nagy wanted parliamentary democracy and a bank rate structured heavy industry investment. Brezhnev's New Socialist Economy has moved the red line in very confusing ways for a lot of people in the west: the Polish Junta's actions would be unthinkable, not because they were repressing democracy, but because they were hindering workers' economic participation and what we may as well call what it would have been: profit sharing arrangements.

yours,
Sam R.

Solidarity is probably the most interesting case as it illustrates a shift in demand structure from "more, better, true" communism but with our local branch leader, the left social democrat leader, the students' leader; into the right to a union and freedom from the absence of rule of law.