By Patricia H. Kushlis
Twenty years ago on November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. Just 16 days before, Mikhail Gorbachev’s
press spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov referred in passing to the “Sinatra Doctrine”
in a press conference during Gorbachev’s state visit to Finland. Whether or not this was the very first time
Frank Sinatra had metamorphosed from an aging pop singer with
a raspy voice and
a raft of questionable Mafiosi friends into a Soviet national security doctrine,
it was certainly the first time the “Sinatra Doctrine” ever came to my
attention.
In any event, the term coined by Gerasimov was not a
throw-away. In essence, it meant that
the Soviet leadership had decided to let all countries including its Warsaw
Pact allies determine their own form of government. The reference to the Sinatra Doctrine came
from the words in the song (written for Sinatra by Paul Anka) “I did it my way”
which had hit American pop charts in early 1969 – twenty years before. But when we, in Helsinki, first heard Gerasimov use it, it was
not at all clear what he meant or its impending ramifications.
As it turned out, this nearing-the-end-of-life song was
prescient in more ways than Gerasimov or others ever conceived at the time. As I understand it the Soviet leadership then
never dreamed that their former allies would abandon all forms of Communism –
Russian style or the softer Euro version – en masse almost immediately after
the threat of a Soviet military crackdown evaporated.
Crooning the Soviet death knell without even knowing it
In fact, the Sinatra Doctrine signaled the death knoll of
the Soviet Union at the relatively tender age
of 74 - seven years before crooner Frank Sinatra died of a heart attack at 82
in 1998. But even before the Soviet Union expired, Moscow’s
decision to stop propping up flailing Communist governments from Warsaw to Sofia altered the
national security playing field in Eastern Europe.
Whether or not the Sinatra Doctrine’s ripple effect alone caused the downfall
of the Soviet Union less than two years later
is questionable but the rhetoric certainly took on a catalytic role.
As the haze surrounding the Sinatra Doctrine cleared, it became
obvious that the Soviet leaders did not expect its East European dominoes to forgo
Communism immediately or in such dramatic fashion as they did over the next few
months. But that’s what happened. Most just crumbled – like the Berlin
Wall. The bloodiest, however, occurred
Christmas time in Bucharest
when and where the Ceaucescus did not go quietly.
A country unraveling
The Sinatra Doctrine was likely fashioned from economic
necessity. The Soviet economy was in
tatters from over-militarization, a clumsy and incompetent economic system and the
bottoming of the market price for oil and gas – its chief exports. Then there were the continuing wars in Afghanistan and the Caucasus.
Growing labor problems and spiraling inflation were also part of the picture.
Simply put the social contract and the country unraveled.
But growing unrest among minorities coupled with the rise of
independent, non-Communist nationalist political “fronts” begun by the tiny Baltic Republics
also made a major difference. From the Baltic
perspective, the incorporation of the previously independent Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania into the Soviet Union had always been illegal. The US and many
other western countries agreed. The
Baltic independence leaders thought that the Sinatra Doctrine should,
therefore, apply to them as well.
OK for the Poles but not the Lithuanians
Moscow did not see that the Sinatra Doctrine should likewise
apply to the Baltics whether because the Russians did not understand the
intensity and longevity of Baltic sentiment or whether they were afraid that if
the Baltic Republics were allowed to “do it their way” their way would lead out
the door followed by a stampede of other republics. I don’t know. My guess is probably both. I never thought the Russians – including Gorbachev
- understood the Baltic
Republics, the peoples or
their aspirations well. But its clear the Kremlin feared the break up of the Soviet Union if the Baltics succeeded in their secession
bids.
In any event, the fact that the Sinatra Doctrine applied to neighboring
Poland as well as to East Germany but not Lithuania did not sit well there. On March 11, 1990, the Lithuanian parliament declared
outright independence. January 12-13,
1991 Soviet Ministry of Interior troops stormed the television station in Vilnius and murdered 14
young demonstrators. They became instant
martyrs. In the short run, the use of
force paid off. It gained the Soviet Union eight more months of an increasingly creaky existence. But that was it. In the end, Frank Sinatra’s “I did it my
way” may have helped usher in the Soviet Union’s
final curtain call or even bring down the house. It's hard to can say.
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