THE Russians have a special phrase to describe their relationship with the Eastern European Communist countries within their sphere of influence. It is sotsialisticheskoe sodruzhestvo, which, translated into English, has a reassuring and almost beneficent ring: Socialist Commonwealth. Since the invasion of Czechoslovakia, however, the term has acquired a new and ominous meaning. It has come to reflect a departure in Soviet policy that some people suggest should be called the Brezhnev Doctrine, after Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev, whose brutal and brusque attitude toward the Czechoslovak leaders has made him a symbol of the Soviet Union's belligerent mood.
In the past, of course, the Soviets have always regarded it their duty to defend Communism against the imperialists. But now, as enunciated by Soviet Foreign Secretary Andrei Gromyko at the U.N. and by Pravda, the official party newspaper, the Soviet Union asserts the right to intervene in any member country of the Socialist Commonwealth where the purity or supremacy of the party might be threatened. Diplomats are uncertain whether the pronouncement represents only an after-the-fact rationalization for the invasion of Czechoslovakia or whether it is a major development in Soviet doctrine that could justify the dispatch of Red Army troops into other socialist nations, such as Rumania, Yugoslavia and perhaps even Albania, where Communism does not thoroughly conform to the Kremlin model.
Improving Defenses. In two private chats with Gromyko in New York last week, Secretary of State Dean Rusk tried to sound out the Russian diplomat about Soviet intentions, but Gromyko remained unhelpful. Gromyko was equally uncooperative during a chat with West German Foreign Minister Willy Brandt, who came away with the impression that the Soviets were unyielding in their determination to prevent the Federal Republic from having any further trade and diplomatic contacts with the East bloc.
The Russians also kept up what is developing into practically a weekly habit: either scaring or putting off balance yet another neighbor. Recently Rumania, Yugoslavia, West Germany and Austria have all received the treatment. This time it was Finland's turn. On the same day that Izvestia charged that West Germany was menacing Finland, who should arrive for a three-day visit but Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin. Afterward President Urho Kekkonen tried to reassure the Finns that the Russian premier had come only to allay any Finnish uneasiness.
Kremlin Dictation. As unlikely as it seemed, Kosygin may actually have sought to reassure the scrupulously neutral Finns. But in the long run, the only way that Russia can allay the worries of the Finns, or of anyone else, is to loosen its grip on Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately, the Soviets are in the process of tightening it. Last week, after First Party Secretary Alexander Dubček and two fellow leaders returned from another session in the Kremlin, there were disturbing reports from Prague. "This time the Kremlin leaders did not even bother to debate any point," said a shaken Czechoslovak delegate. "They just dictated terms." In fact, the text of the final communique, which, among other things, acceded to the Soviet demand for permanent stationing of some 100,000 troops in Czechoslovakia, was written before the Czechoslovaks arrived in Moscow.