POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW OF THE ARTICLE ENTITLED 'SOVEREIGNTY AND INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF SOCIALIST COUNTRIES' BY S. KOVALEV, PRAVDA, 25 SEPTEMBER 1968

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000200040023-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2005
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: October 15, 1968
• Content Type: MEMO

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15 October 1968
SUBJECT Possible Implications for International Law
of the Article Entitled "Sovereignty and
International Duties of-Socialist Countries"
by S. Kovalev, Pravda, 25 September 1968
1. In discussing the Kovalev article and its implications
.)r international legal standards, we must proceed on the
assumption that the article is, at the very least, a reflection
of the most current ideological theories being advanced by the
Kremlin leadership to justify its foreign policy. The Soviet
Union is and always has been an ideocracy, and its leaders
have always felt compelled to justify every action on the basis
of their avowed system of ideas. Thus, in the aftermath of
the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviet propaganda declarations
of the reasons for that invasion seemed literally to vary from
day to day. Whether or not the Kovalev thesis represents the
final reasoning to be adopted by the CPSU ideocrats-remains to
be seen. However, taking the article-at face value, and
assuming that it articulates current ideological trends in the
evolution of the Soviet union's interpretation of Marxist-
Leninist dialectics, its appearance at this-time is: indeed
significant.
2. First, and perhaps most significantly vis a vis
international norms of legality, the Kovalev article clearly
raises "socialist" law above what is generally accepted as
international law. Kovalev states: "Those who speak about
the illegal actions of the allied socialist countries in
Czechoslovakia forget that in a class society there is not
and there cannot be non-class laws... Formally juridical
reasoning must not overshadow a class approach to the matter.
One who does it, thus losing the only correct class criterion
in assessing legal norms, begins to measure events with a
yardstick of bourgeois law." Explicit here is the assumption
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of the pre-eminence of Moscow's interpretation of the
"inevitable" laws of the "class struggle" over any-system
of legality that would serve anti-Soviet interests. If
decisions adopted in the United Nations, the World Court,
or any arbitrating international body condemned Soviet
aggression in Czechoslovakia (or in any given country) on
the basis of accepted international legal norms, the Soviets
would simply reject such condemnation by falling back on the
higher reality of "socialist law." If and when interpretations
of international law prove menacing-to Soviet interests, they
could be dismissed under the generic heading "bourgeois law"
and rejected as not applying to socialist states.
3. Therefore, on'the basis of the Soviet Union's
concept of "socialist law", no socialist country could
elevate the interests of its own national sovereignty above
the interests of the "socialist community of nations". Writes
Kovalev: "...each Communist party is responsible not only to
its own people, but also to all the socialist. countries, to
the entire Communist movement...' As a social'system, world
socialism is the common gain of the working people of all
lands; it is indivisible and its defense is the common cause
of all Communists and all progressives of the world...
The sovereignty of each socialist country cannot be opposed
to the interests of the world of socialism,. of the world-
revolutionary movement." (italics ours)
4. The above statements represent a departure from
Kremlin policy statements before the Czech invasion. As
late as Spring 1968, during the height of the Czech reform
program, Kosygindeclared that "...The Soviet state-made
its invariable principle in international policy the strict
observance of equality, national independence, and non-
interference in the internal affairs of other states and
peoples." * Now, however, the Soviets formally and explicitly
have allowed Pravda to publish a policy statement to the effect
that socialist norms require that socialist states cannot act
independently when such action is contrary to the interests
of the "socialist community" as a whole. Clearly implicit
in the Pravda article is the view that the criteria of what
constitutes action contrary to the interests of the "socialist
Quoted in Pravda, April 3, 1968.
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community" are determined ultimately by Moscow. The Soviet
Union thus returns to its pre-1956 "Third Rome" role -- that
of sole leader, protector, and savior of the.world Communist
movement. In the Kovalev article, Soviet theoreticians
appear to be asserting the principle of suzerainty of Soviet
Communism over all the Communist parties and Communist-controlled
countries of the world, even those of China, Albania, and other
countries which since Khrushchev's time have rejected the
supremacy of the Soviet Union.
5. One might ask, if Moscow considered the threat of a
possible Czech break-away from her orbit sufficient cause to
invade Czechoslovakia, what prevents the Soviet Union from
adopting similar tactics with regard to Rumania, Yugoslavia,
Albania, China, and perhaps even Cuba? Actually, on the
ideological basis of the Kovalev article, nothing prevents
the Soviet Union from taking such action. As a practical
matter, however, Soviet decision-makers must weigh tactical
objectives against the risks involved at any given time and
they have apparently concluded that the risks are too great
to warrant action against other erring Communist states at
this time. Despite his use of Marxist phraseology, Kovalev
spells out a theoretical justification for a state policy of
imperialism -- the right of the strong to demand the.
subjugation of the weak to the formers military strategy:
(Czechoslovakia's) self-determination "as a result of which
NATO troops would have been able to come up to the Soviet
border, while the community of European socialist countries
would have been split, in effect encroaches upon the vital
interests of the peoples of these countries..."
6. The Pravda article also obliquely reveals Soviet
fear of an inherent weakness in the Communist system. Kovalev
writes: "it has got to be emphasized that when a socialist
country seems to adopt a 'non-affiliated' stand, it retains its
national independence, in effect, precisely because of the
might of the socialist community, and above all the Soviet
Union as a central force, which also includes the might of its
armed forces. The weakening of any of the links in the world
system of socialism directly affects all the socialist
countries, which cannot look indifferently upon this." Although
this statement. was no doubt intended to deprecate the attitudes
of ruling Communist parties in China, Albania, Yugoslavia, and
Rumania, which have successfully moved out of Moscow's sphere
of influence, it also brings into focus the fear of the
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inability of Communism to endure in any country solely on its
own merit. Kovalev appears to be warning truant Communist
parties that they cannot expect to remain in power within
their own nations unless they can fall back upon the material
as well as psychological security of the USSR's military
superiority.
7. Apparently implicit here is the conviction that, given
the opportunity to flourish, nationalistic and democratic
forces in a given socialist country will inevitably supersede
and, in the end, liquidate Communist hegemony. However, when
faced with the sobering, ever-present possibility of inter-
vention by the USSR and its "allies", "deviationist" forces
in a given socialist country cannot and will not be allowed to
endure. According to Kovalev, Communism in Czechsolovakia
was thus rescued from extinction through the efforts of the
Soviet Union: "The help to the working people of Czechoslovakia
by other socialist countries, which prevented the export of
counterrevolution from abroad, constitutes the actual
sovereignty of the Czechoslovak socialist republic against those
who would like to deprive it of its sovereignty and give up the
country to imperialism." Ironically, the Soviet intervention
in Czechoslovakia had as its primary objective the destruction
of perhaps the first truly popular Communist regime.
8. Taken at face value, the Pravda article enunciates
the doctrine that all Communist parties, whether in power or
challenging for power, will be considered subject to Moscow's
dictation. The Soviet Union has deemed itself the arbiter of
criteria constituting a threat to the entire socialist system
and if the Kremlin considers a threat inimicable to the over-
riding interests of Soviet policy, it may not be loath to
employ its military might to crush any given "deviating"
Communist party or parties. Such deviation could be explained
away as subversion resulting from the export of counterrevolution
from abroad.
9. Moreover, it seems to follow logically from the
foregoing, that any country which in future adopts a Communist
government,either by revolution or election, automatically
becomes a part of the "socialist community" as defined by the
Soviet Union and, as such, is subject to the doctrine
enunciated in the Kovalev thesis, even against the will of the
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Communist party in power. Thus, if by some remote chance
countries with strong Communist parties like Italy, France,
and Chile were to elect Communist governments, they would
become subject to norms of "socialist law". In effect,
their national sovereignty would become subordinate to the
higher interests of what the Kremlin terms the "socialist
community".
10. Given the Kovalev thesis, we may conclude that the
Soviet Union apparently does not feel restricted by norms
of international legality as understood within the United
Nations; rather, the USSR bases its actions on a higher
"socialist law", the norms of which are to be determined by
the Kremlin. As early as May 1968, on the 150th anniversary
of Karl Marx' birth, Mikhail Suslov, chief architect of
Kremlin ideology stated: "The armed forces of the USSR
will... reliably defend the conquests of socialism". Apparently
the USSR will decide what occasions threaten her "conquests"--
the conquests of socialism.
11. The doctrine elucidated in the Pravda article was
touched upon by Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko in a speech
to the United Nations on October 3, 1968. In response to
Gromyko's speech, British Foreigr. Secretary Michael Stewart
stated that the doctrine of the so-called "socialist
commonwealth" (a phrase used by Gromyko) could be described
as an assertion that Moscow would judge "for itself what the
interests of certain other states may be and will, if it sees
fit, take military action outside its own territory in
accordance with its judgment of what the interests of other
states may be..." Stewart found this "wholly repugnant," and
"speaking as a socialist and representing a country that
belongs to a real commonwealth", rejected both the doctrine
and its "perversity of language.".* .
* Quoted in The New York Times, October 15, 1968, p. 11.
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