ABSTRACT
The maintenance of the Soviet Union's predominant position in Eastern Europe, mainly the safeguarding of its own military, political, economic, and ideological control over the six buffer states—Poland, GDR, CSSR, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria—continues to hold first place on its foreign policies priorities scale. The instruments of Soviet bloc coordination within the framework of the Warsaw Treaty Organization-Council for Mutual Economic Assistance system during the tenures of Andropov and Chernenko consisted mainly of three methods of conceptual and operational adjustment. During the closing phase of the Brezhnev era, Soviet leaders had conspicuously refrained from using the instruments of multilateral consultation and decisionmaking according to the usual rules of procedure. Instead, Soviet unilateralism and selective bilateralism had been practiced increasingly in dealing with the alliance and cooperating partners. The change of course in Soviet policy towards the US, ushered in by the Reagan-Gromyko talks on 28 September 1984, was coordinated with the other Eastern bloc countries.
