Soviet Pledge Appears to Kill Intervention Doctrine

The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia pledged on Friday to respect the right of all Communist parties to choose their own paths, saying they have no intention of imposing their systems on anyone.

Analysts said the declaration, in a joint statement at the end of a visit to Yugoslavia by Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, formally invalidated the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine of limited sovereignty that justified Soviet intervention if Communist states deviated from the path mapped by the Kremlin.

The doctrine, named after former Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev, was used as a pretext for the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush the “Prague Spring” reforms of Czechoslovak Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek, who was subsequently forced into internal exile.

Yugoslavia, although not a member of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, was severely jolted by the Czechoslovak invasion and built its defense posture on the possibility of a Soviet intervention.

The doctrine was also retroactively used to justify having sent Soviet tanks into Hungary in 1956 to put down a popular revolt.

Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December, 1979, was interpreted by some Western analysts as an extension of the Brezhnev Doctrine, three years before his death.

Friday’s statement was released as Gorbachev left after a five-day visit to Yugoslavia. He arrived in Moscow on Friday evening, the Soviet news agency Tass said.

In the statement, the two countries declared, “Proceeding from the conviction that no one has a monopoly over the truth, the two sides declare that they have no pretensions of imposing their concepts of social development on anyone. “

The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia attached special importance to observing international documents “which prohibit aggression, the violation of frontiers, the conquest of foreign territories, any threat or use of force and any interference in the internal affairs of other states under any pretext whatsoever,” it added.

“Communist, workers’, socialist, social democratic, national liberation and other progressive parties and movements” have the inalienable right to decide independently on their own paths of social development.

Formalized a Gradual Retreat

Analysts said the declaration formalized a gradual retreat from the Brezhnev Doctrine apparent over the past three years.

“The Soviets have effectively dropped the Brezhnev Doctrine since Gorbachev came in,” one veteran analyst of Soviet affairs commented. “This may be the formal burial.”

Soviet ideologists, in a number of theoretical articles in the 1960s, argued that each Communist country had the duty to ensure that socialist gains in other Communist countries were not threatened.

Gorbachev, who took office in March, 1985, has sought to impose a new vision of Moscow’s relations with its East Bloc allies as he proceeds with a bold program of political and economic reforms at home.

Friday’s declaration also recognized and paid tribute to the role of the so-called Nonaligned Movement as a factor of peace and stability in the world.

It also added a new dimension to the Kremlin’s disarmament drive, calling for the elimination of all conventional as well as nuclear arms.

“The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union reaffirm their conviction that a world without arms, without threats of force . . . can be achieved,” it said.

‘Complete Disarmament’

It called on all nations “to embark on the irreversible process of nuclear and conventional disarmament with a view to achieving general and complete disarmament under effective international control.”

Previous Soviet appeals have called for scrapping nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological arms, coupled with deep cuts in, but not the total elimination of, conventional armaments.

The statement said accords on a total nuclear test ban and the prevention of the militarization of space were indispensable and possible.

It said the socialist world faced the challenge of presenting a “cogent vision of progressive change in the world and to reply to the new questions confronting man as an individual and the society in which he lives.”

Gorbachev extended his stay in Yugoslavia by about one hour to make a walking tour of Dubrovnik, postponed from Thursday due to rain. Thousands of local residents applauded as he strolled through the marble-paved streets, relaxed and smiling beside his wife, Raisa.

No Visit to Albania

Gorbachev’s visit to Yugoslavia completed tours by him of all European Communist countries, except Stalinist Albania, aimed at projecting the new Soviet image and at cross-fertilization of ideas for adapting socialism to the demands of the late 20th Century.

Yugoslavs, who have not seen such a powerful world figure on their streets since the 1980 death of president Josip Broz Tito, gave Gorbachev a hero’s welcome as he toured the country.

Leaders of Yugoslavia’s eight republics and provinces have been feuding since Tito’s death over solutions to the country’s political and economic crisis, and Gorbachev said Moscow hopes that Yugoslavia could be a strong and unified nation.

“The Soviet leadership, our Communist Party and the workers of our country want to see a strong and monolithic Yugoslavia, a land of open perspectives,” he said during a final dinner with his Yugoslav hosts on Thursday.

During his stay, the first official visit to Yugoslavia by a Kremlin leader in 12 years, Gorbachev compared notes on economic reform and the pitfalls to be avoided in talks with Yugoslav President Lazar Mojsov and party leader Bosko Krunic.