George Georgevich

Over the course of my research on Soviet foreign policy during the major crises of Communist rule in Eastern Europe, I've decided that the historical personage the current crusader-in-chief most parallels is one Leonid Ilitch Brezhnev, former leader of the Soviet Union.

The comparison first became stark when I read the following passage from At the Red Summit: Interpreter Behind the Iron Curtain, the memoir of Erwin Weit, a former interpreter for the Polish government who was present at the Warsaw summit the month before the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968:

"It was interesting to see how Brezhnev insisted on basing his arguments on the agreement of the five Warsaw Pact countries taking part in the meeting. It was the same old story. Anyone planning to put an evil action into effect always tries to implicate his audience in his decision. Clearly the Soviet authorities felt that their unilateral action in suppressing the Hungarian uprising of 1956 had been a mistake." [Emphasis in original. That's right, the original.]

Now, perhaps the "five", those nations that participated in the invasion of Czechoslovakia under the aegis of the Warsaw Pact -- the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany and Poland (don't forget about Poland!) -- were a bit more eager to use military force against a sovereign country than, say, the coalition of the willing. At least, the Poles contributed a good number more troops in this exercise in foreign military adventurism than they sent to Iraq. But there can be no mistaking that this was, above all else, a Soviet invasion. Even if the other nations supported the mission, even if they had wanted to tear into Czechoslovakia and depose the sitting government, it wouldn't have happened without Soviet approval.

But there's more. Militarily, the invasion was a terrific success. The Czech and Slovak resistance was, well, non-existent. The Czechoslovak army had been ordered to stay in its barracks and not resist, and in wake of the 200,000 foreign troops that invaded the country, it was the only practical course. You would think Brezhnev would've made a stunt landing on a barge in the Vltava to proclaim victory amid signs reading "Mission Accomplished," but no. Occupation, it turned out, were exceedingly difficult. Despite the military takeover of the country, spontaneous acts of civil resistance thwarted efforts to pacify the country and prevented the installation of a quisling government to form a puppet regime. Initial claims that members of the government in Prague had "invited' foreign troops were quickly dispelled. As a result, the rationale for the intervention had to be retroactively changed to offering "fraternal assistance." Civilian casualties were officially said to be no more than a few dozen, and these owed mainly to complications stemming from the occupation, such as traffic accidents caused by the presence of tanks on busy city streets. In reality, the death toll was in the hundreds, and many of the victims were felled by Soviet ordnance.

Thus, while major combat operations were over almost before they began, the process of making the country pliant lasted many months longer. It was almost a year before a new, wholly subservient government could be installed, and only then could the terrifying process of "normalization" be initiated. Ultimately, the population's will to resist was broken, but the hard feelings the occupation fostered endured. The new government lacked legitimacy and had to rely on coercion to keep the people quiet. Their dissatisfaction, however, was palpable, and ultimately, when the regime's Weberian monopoly on force was broken -- more accurately, when the occupying power had decided to pull out its troops and leave matters in the hands of local forces -- the regime fell, the system collapsed and the great imperial power died.

Now, perhaps the last parallel is mere wishful thinking on my part, but don't think that I'm laboring the similarities between Bush and Brezhnev. (Hey: both their surnames start with 'B'!)

For you see, during his tenure as top man in the Kremlin, Brezhnev presided over three unmitigated foreign policy debacles. The invasion of Czechoslovakia under the guise of "fraternal assistance" was only the first. In 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, which proved a long, costly and failed endeavor, one that put the Soviet Union on perilous ground and helped pave the way for its subsequent collapse. Of course, while tied down in Kabul, the Soviets faced another disaster when an independent trade union, Solidarity, formed out of exasperation with the supposed workers state in Poland. Much as the Soviets might have liked to play a bigger role in crushing that movement in Poland, they found themselves effectively unable to lend any assistance but moral support to the Polish government as it proclaimed martial law and brutally repressed the nascent civil society. Seems their military and economic commitments in Afghanistan precluded the possibility of lending brotherly aid once more. (Don't worry -- Brezhnev never found Osama bin Laden either.)

Then there's that matter of Brezhnev presiding over the worst period of economic stagnation the Soviet Union ever experienced. And repealing certain rights afforded to Soviet citizens.

I suppose I could also mention Brezhnev's propensity for popping pills and drinking heavily, but that'd just be getting unnecessarily personal.