What is Brezhnev Doctrine?
The '''Brezhnev Doctrine''' was a policy promoted in 1968 by Soviet leader [[Leonid Brezhnev]]. It said that the [[Soviet Union]] had the right to use military force to maintain the strict rule of the [[Communist Party]] in nearby [[socialism|socialist]] countries. The Brezhnev Doctrine was used to justify the invasion of [[Czechoslovakia]], earlier in 1968 after [[Alexander Dubček]] introduced political reforms there. The principles of the doctrine were so broad that the Soviets used it to justify intervention in the non-[[Warsaw Pact]] nation of Afghanistan in 1979, starting the [[Soviet war in Afghanistan]]. The Brezhnev Doctrine stayed in effect until it was ended with the Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980–1981. {{history-stub}} [[Category:History of the Soviet Union]] [[Category:Communism]] [[Category:1968 establishments]] [[Category:1989 disestablishments]] [[Category:20th-century establishments in the Soviet Union]] [[Category:Disestablishments in the Soviet Union]]