Page "Brezhnev Doctrine" Paragraph 3

In practice, the policy meant that limited independence of communist parties was allowed.

However, no country would be allowed to leave the Warsaw Pact, disturb a nation's communist party's monopoly on power, or in any way compromise the cohesiveness of the Eastern bloc.

Implicit in this doctrine was that the leadership of the Soviet Union reserved, for itself, the right to define " socialism " and " capitalism ".

Following the announcement of the Brezhnev Doctrine, numerous treaties were signed between the Soviet Union and its satellite states to reassert these points and to further ensure inter-state cooperation.

The principles of the doctrine were so broad that the Soviets even used it to justify their military intervention in the non-Warsaw Pact nation of Afghanistan in 1979.

The Brezhnev Doctrine stayed in effect until it was finally ended with the Soviet non-invasion of Poland during the 1980-1981 crisis and later refusal of Mikhail Gorbachev to use military force when Poland held free elections in 1989 and Solidarity defeated the Communist Party.

It was superseded by the facetiously named Sinatra Doctrine in 1989.