The Brezhnev Doctrine was first set forth in the Pravda newspaper back in 1968. The main essence of the doctrine gave it a second name - "the doctrine of limited sovereignty."
In order to understand the essence of this direction, it is necessary to return to the period after the Second World War, which significantly changed the balance of power in Europe. After the Soviet Union defeated fascism, it no doubt began to dictate certain conditions in world space. This was manifested primarily in the spread of socialism in Western Europe and in strengthening the position of pro-communist forces in the parliaments of such states as Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, etc. Only Yugoslavia recovered in time from the communist dominance and quickly turned the vector towards the developed capitalist countries. The countries of Eastern Europe, for greater control, were united in a new military alliance - the ATS - the Warsaw Treaty Organization , which arose in 1955. This made it possible to polarize the world political arena even more: two distinct warring parties appeared, the capitalist and socialist camp. The tone of the socialist camp has always been set by the leaders of the Soviet Union. Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, whose foreign policy also bore the imprint of his personality, was no exception. This was a qualitatively new course, which differed from the orientation of previous politicians, as it was built taking into account the mistakes of Stalin and Khrushchev.
What are the features of the course? Brezhnev’s foreign policy was primarily aimed at maneuvering and self-elimination from heated global conflicts. Brezhnev, by nature, was a patient and rather cautious politician, in addition, at the end of his reign, after a stroke, he tried not to get involved in major disputes between the giants of this world. In most cases, Leonid Ilyich only agreed with obvious, uncompromising decisions aimed at appeasing. And those party members who in recent years stood behind Brezhnev did not dare to go global on foreign policy — they preferred to “do things” within their own country. The Brezhnev doctrine also had another feature - collectivity in decision-making. In most cases, it was a solid props, since all decisions were made by the leader, and for the world community this was the decision of several countries. Of course, it looked much more democratic from the outside, but it’s worth remembering that all these countries were parties to the Warsaw Treaty Organization, which means they were puppets in the hands of the Soviet Union.
Outwardly, such decisions were supported by a wonderful ideological background. The Brezhnev doctrine was built on the rallying of the peoples of the countries of Eastern Europe, who should have been clearly aware: the foreign policy of the Union is the policy of proletarian internationalism, which means equality, sovereignty and independence. Therefore, all the actions conducted by the Soviet state were considered quite justified, because they were carried out in the framework of achieving this same equality, sovereignty and independence. And it does not matter that sometimes to carry out certain events it was necessary to use military force, as was done in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Another pillar on which Brezhnev’s doctrine was built is a change in the chronological framework for achieving communism. Rather, communism itself, which had been going on since the time of V. I. Lenin, was now referred to as developed socialism, and its achievement was prolonged forward for hundreds of years. This made it possible to hide many failures and shortcomings in terms of the economy, which now no longer promised the Soviet people a bright future in ten to twenty years. And for a long time the desire for socialism was proposed by L. I. Brezhnev to live in peace and harmony with countries of various types of development, for example, capitalist ones. This led to Brezhnev's tolerance for the developed countries of Europe, an active rapprochement with some of them.
The Brezhnev doctrine has revealed its entire caricature to date, but in the seventies of the last century it was a competent and correct strategic step, which allowed avoiding military conflicts in the future and directing the Union’s foreign policy in a peaceful direction.