Kurt London - The Soviet Impact On World Politics (1974) PDF

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THE
SOVIET IMPACT
ON
WORLD POLITICS
Edited by Kurt London
Of the many books written about Moscow's for¬

eign policy, none has focused on the reaction of
countries throughout the world to Soviet power
and its effects on interstate relations. For this vol¬
ume, the editor, an international affairs specialist
who has followed Soviet maneuvers for almost
forty years, has assembled a team of renowned
specialists to provide an understanding of the
Soviet global network of international relations.
The opening chapters analyze the character of
totalitarian foreign policy and the tactical use the
Soviets are making of it. Professor Leonard
Schapiro, of the University of London, examines
the way in which a totalitarian system enjoys a
great advantage over an open system, and Pro¬
fessor Adam Ulam, of Harvard, discusses the
ideological and political framework and possible
future development of Soviet foreign policy.
Among the experts contributing perceptive case
studies of important world regions are: Professor
Hugh Seton-Watson, of the University of London,
covering Eastern Europe; Professor Alfred Grosser,
of the National Foundation of Political Sciences,
University of Paris—Western Europe; Malcolm
Mackintosh, of the International Institute for
Strategic Studies, London—the Middle East; Pro¬
fessor Harold C. Hinton, of the Institute for Sino-
Soviet Studies at George Washington University-
East Asia; Dr. William J. Barnds, Senior Research
Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations—South
Asia; Dr. Guy J. Pauker, of the California Institute
[Continued on back flap)
THE
SOVIET
IMPACT
ON WORLD
POLITICS
THE
SOVIET
IMPACT
ON
WORLD
POLITICS
EDITED BY
Kurt London
HAWTHORN BOOKS, INC.

PUBLISHERS/Aew York
THE SOVIET IMPACT ON WORLD POLITICS
Copyright © 1974 by Hawthorn Books, Inc. Copyright under International and Pan-
American Copyright Conventions. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in
a review. All inquiries should be addressed to Hawthorn Books, Inc., 260 Madison
Avenue, New York, New York 10016. This book was manufactured in the United
States of America and published simultaneously in Canada by Prentice-Hall of Canada,
Limited, 1870 Birchmount Road, Scarborough, Ontario.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-18895

ISBN: 0-8015-6978-8
123456789 10
CONTENTS
Preface by Kurt London vii
PART I
The Nature of Soviet Foreign Policy:

A Conceptual Framework
1 Totalitarianism in Foreign Policy Leonard Schapiro 3
2 The Soviet Union and the Rules of the International Game

Adam B. Ulam 22
PART II
Regional Case Studies on the Impact

of Soviet Foreign Policy
3 Eastern Europe Hugh Seton-Watson 49

4 Western Europe Alfred Grosser 73
5 The Middle East Malcolm Mackintosh 94
6 East Asia Harold C. Hinton ii4
7 Southeast Asia Guy J. and Ewa T. Pauker 13^

8 South Asia William J. Barnds 156
9 Latin America Leon Goure 182
10 The United States Charles Burton Marshall 211
V
vi Contents
PART III
Soviet Global Strategy
11 Soviet Military Strategy and Policy Thomas W. Wolfe 237
PART IV
The Soviet Foreign Policy Network
12 Summary and Conclusions Kurt London 271
Index 301
Preface
This book investigates the impact of Soviet foreign policy on key nations and
regions in order to point out the changes in international relations that are
the result, either directly or indirectly, of Soviet political strategy and tactics.
To my knowledge, and that of many colleagues in the United States, Europe,
and Japan with whom I discussed the project, no such worldwide survey exists.
This study was prompted by the need to better understand the basic nature
of international politics since the Soviet Union became a major power after
World War II. During these years the prewar international equilibrium gave
way to an age of anxiety as the world polarized into Communist and non-
Communist camps. Genuine peace did not follow World War II. Instead the
Kremlin, backed by its sudden world power status, reactivated its concept of
“peaceful coexistence” under which nations with different social systems
attempt to achieve a modus vivendi despite the continuance of the ideological
struggle.
Nevertheless it has recently been asserted that Soviet foreign policy no
longer seeks its traditional goal of world revolution. This view has been
enhanced by the detente since 1970 when Moscow seemed to demonstrate
unusual reasonableness. But history since 1917 shows that Soviet foreign
policy cannot be accepted at face value. The following chapters demonstrate
that Soviet foreign policy is both nationalist and Communist and that it is un¬
possible to separate the two. Failure to understand this unique situation has
given rise to much misunderstanding, particularly on the part of those unfa¬
miliar with Soviet domestic behavior. The degree of Western euphoria over
the apparent detente with Moscow only serves to highlight the need for a
broad survey of what Soviet foreign policy has wrought.
At an early stage I realized that this project could not and should not be
the work of a single mind. Contributions were needed from scholars who not
only understood the nature and rationale of Soviet foreign policy but also
were experts in the political, economic, social, and geographical conditions
of particular areas of the world—rare individuals indeed. The next step was
travel in the United States, Europe, and Japan to consult with various spe¬
cialists, including diplomats, scholars, and foreign correspondents.
Outstanding scholars were found, and the organization of the book fell
painlessly into place. Part One provides a conceptual framework. Part Two
analyzes the impact of Soviet foreign policy in East and West Europe, the
vii
viii Preface
Middle East, Asia (south, southeast, and east), Latin America, and the
United States. Part Three surveys the Soviet Union’s global military strategy,
and Part Four ties together the findings of the previous chapters.
Africa has not been included because Soviet policy-makers evidently have
put it far down on their list of priorities. Given the extraordinary multiplicity
of countries and tribal organizations, one can hardly expect increasing Soviet
activities in Africa for the foreseeable future.
I am grateful to the Earhart Foundation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for a
grant that supported the research for this book. My thanks go to the many
statesmen, diplomats, and scholars who have encouraged me to pursue the
project. I am particularly grateful for the advice and editorial assistance of
Dr. Gary R. Bietz.
Kurt London
PART I
The Nature of
Soviet Foreign Policy:
A Conceptual
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I
Totalitarianism in
Foreign Policy
LEONARD SCHAPIRO
Leonard Schapiro is professor of political science with
special reference to Russian studies, London School of
Economics and Political Science, University of London.
Professor Schapiro holds an Ll.B. and is a barrister-at-
law, a Fellow of the British Academy and of University
College of London, and an honorary foreign member of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His major
publications are; The Origin of the Communist Autoc¬
racy, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, The
Government and Politics of the Soviet Union, Rationalism
and Nationalism in Russian Nineteenth Century Political
Thought, and Totalitarianism.
The term “totalitarian” has had a very checkered career. It has been used
polemically and with great lack of precision and applied to political and
historical situations as well as political systems. There are those who argue
that the term is at worst misleading and at best outmoded and that it con¬
fuses rather than clarifies political analysis. I have tried elsewhere to meet
some of the main arguments that have been advanced in recent years against
the retention of the label “totalitarian” for any of our contemporary soci¬
eties; I have argued that with proper limits and precautions the term still has
a valid place in the language of politics.^
In regard to the Soviet Union a strong case certainly can be made for the
view that, because of the many changes that have taken place in its political
system since Stalin’s death, it is misleading to use the same term for the
USSR in, say, 1939 or 1952 and the USSR today. A strong case but not an
entirely convincing one: Although the Stalin-scale terror is gone and, above
all, the form of completely personal rule that Stalin developed by the end of
the years of the Great Terror, nevertheless there remain many salient and
distinctive features that still clearly differentiate the Soviet Union (and its
satellites and imitators) from other societies, even the most authoritarian.
This argument, which will be elaborated below, is more particularly apt
when the question of foreign policy is at issue. For one of the most significant
recent changes in the Soviet political system is the fact that the Leader, with
3
4 The Soviet Impact on World Politics
a form of personal rule that cut across all legal and constitutional bounda¬
ries, seems to have been replaced by a collective oligarchy in which the
leading figure, Leonid Brezhnev, cannot ignore his colleagues, whatever the
degree of preponderant influence he has in fact acquired over the years. This
is, of course, a most important general change. Yet it is much less evident
where foreign poUcy is concerned.
It has become clear over the past few years that Brezhnev has been assum¬
ing a dominant role in the design and conduct of Soviet foreign policy and
has completely eclipsed his most important partner in government, Alexei
Kosygin, the chairman of the Council of Ministers, in whose province foreign
policy strictly falls. Brezhnev is the architect of the new Soviet policy in
relation to both Europe and the United States. Whatever opposition he may
have encountered, it has been Brezhnev who has conducted the discussions
and paid the relevant foreign visits. Most recently, in April 1973, he clearly
received an endorsement of his policy from the Plenum of the Central Com¬
mittee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and the quite
unprecedented variety of prominent speakers was obviously designed to show
that any past opposition to Brezhnev’s foreign policy was now at an end. The
introduction of the ministers of foreign affairs and defense as full members of
the Politburo at this Plenum (again, virtually unprecedented) may also have
strengthened Brezhnev’s control over foreign policy and related defense
pohcy. For these two ministers were thereby brought under the direct control
of the Politburo and above all its chairman, Brezhnev; previously they had
been only indirectly controlled by the Politburo’s policy as interpreted to
them by the chairman and the Presidium of the Council of Ministers.
It may well be that there has been quite an extensive and significant
erosion of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union in the past twenty years. But if
the argument outlined above is correct, it would follow that the erosion is
likely to have had less effect in the sphere of foreign pohcy than in the area
of domestic pohcy. Speculation over dissent on foreign pohcy inside the
Politburo is a favorite pastime of journalists—in their accounts both Khru¬
shchev’s and now Brezhnev’s careers so often hung in the balance depending
on their success in placating the “hawks” or satisfying the gentler “doves.”
But there has been relatively little evidence to support these extravagant
speculations. No doubt foreign pohcy failures have been used by potential
rivals in the Politburo to weaken an opponent or even to topple one, in the
case of Khrushchev. But the most important issues at stake are invariably
domestic; on foreign pohcy there usually seems in retrospect to have been a
surprising degree of unanimity.
It is true that Soviet pohcy toward the Vietnam War changed sharply after
the fall of Khrushehev. But there were other reasons for this—the military
situation for one. Pohcy toward China, after a short lull, remained the same
—allowing for differences of style. It was not for these reasons that Khru¬
shchev fell but for his internal policies, which made him powerful enemies.
The Nature of Soviet Foreign Policy: A Conceptual Framework 5
Many of the rumors of alleged dissent on policy in the Soviet Union are
plainly put out to deceive a credulous Western public. Shelest was the real
hardliner on Czechoslovakia, while the others wavered; Shelest was the real
opponent of “detente” with the United States: these were the most recent
inspired rumors. The intended moral for the West was that those remaining
in the Politburo since April 1973 are authentic peace-loving “doves” who
deeply regret the invasion of Czechoslovakia and are genuinely anxious for
real “detente.” Such is the advantage of a foreign policy in which police,
press, and diplomacy all act as one disciplined machine.
Space does not permit an extensive analysis of totalitarianism, to which an
enormous literature has been devoted. But the least that must be undertaken
is a search for what appear to be the dominant features of the system under
discussion in order to examine how far and in what way these features apply
to the conduct of foreign policy. The dominant features are derived from a
study of the three societies all of which the term “totalitarianism” was applied
in the English language both between the wars (despite assertions to the con¬
trary in the literature) and after World War II—Mussolini’s Italy, National
Socialist Germany, and the Soviet Union under Stalin.
These features are three in number. The first is “totality”: the concentra¬
tion at one central point of all ultimately effective power over the whole life
of the country and over all individuals. The central point is of course the
leader—even if in practice the leader delegates his power or is forced to
share it for a greater or lesser time. This power can be put into effect in spite
of and in disregard of any existing established checks or barriers—such as
the law, private morality, or parties, groups, or institutions with discrete and
clearly defined functions. In this process ideology plays a vital part, in partic¬
ular the position of exclusive monopoly the ideology enjoys (thus distinguish¬
ing totalitarian ideology from anything comparable in pluralist societies).
It should be particularly noted that the characteristic nature of this kind of
total power is very different from “state” power, however extensive. State
implies some kind of legal order, some system of established, discrete institu¬
tions. On the contrary (and this was particularly evident in National Socialist
Germany), total power is equally hostile to the established state power and
to society as a whole, and it imposes its will on and control over both in
equal degree. This aspect of total power—which becomes particularly rele¬
vant when considering control of foreign policy, and which has been much
neglected in the literature of totalitarianism—cannot be further discussed
here and the interested reader must be referred to other works.^
The second main feature of totalitarianism is a corollary of the first. It is
the lack of independence of any institution, and the lack of strict differentia¬
tion of functions between institutions. Take, for example, the institution of
law. In countries governed by law, the law is intended to act as an indepen¬
dent yardstick for determining the limits of power of different elements in the
machine of government as well as the extent of individual rights. In its codes
and its constitution the Soviet Union claims to be governed by law. In

practice there has never been a period in Russian history, let alone Soviet
Russian history, when the actual source of power—the emperor, the execu¬
tive, the CPSU, or whatever—-could not ignore, circumvent, influence, or at
least neutralize the legal framework or the courts.
All governments no doubt flout or try to flout the law in greater or lesser
degree at one time or another. But most governments know when they are
doing so and there tends to be a public outcry when they are found out. This
was to some extent true in Russia during the period of the reforms, between
1864 and 1917. It is not true of Soviet Russia, where the authorities, from
Lenin to Brezhnev, have held the profound conviction (whatever they may
have found it convenient to say) that laws are a facade and do not apply to
those at the top. The members of the “democratic movement” in the Soviet
Union today have occasionally reported that their endeavors to insist on their
legal rights when they come up against the KGB are met with the rejoinder
that the law “does not apply” to them. This boast is not strictly true even in
practice in the Soviet Union today, but it is illustrative of a deeply ingrained
attitude of mind that characterizes the totalitarian society and its officials.
The third characteristic feature of the totalitarian society is its purpose:
world Communist power or Aryan domination over inferior races, coupled
with a mission to transform man or mankind. The totalitarian rulers, unlike
the rulers of a police state, are not content merely to stay in power and
suppress their enemies and critics. They have to persuade themselves that
they have a historic mission to perform, a mission that gives them some
special rights over their fellow men. This conviction imbues them with the
sense of self-righteousness and determined hypocrisy that so strongly char¬
acterizes today’s Communist rulers in their dealings with the outside world.
These three aspects of totalitarian rule are of the greatest relevance when
one examines the peculiar characteristics of totalitarian foreign policy, es¬
pecially the last of the three characteristics—the sense of a determined pur¬
pose. Of Hitler s determined purpose there is no need to say much, except
to record the obvious fact that if the statesmen of the United States and
Europe (including Stalin) had paid a little more serious attention to the
avowed, explicit, and often repeated “ultimate purpose” of National Social¬
ism the history of the past fifty years might have been very different.
The avowed purpose of Soviet Russia has been less crudely formulated
and has changed in the course of the past fifty-six years with respect to both
timetable and emphasis. But it has not changed in its essential feature, which
is and always has been a world in which what is usually described as “social¬
ism, and which in practice means state capitalism administered by a Com¬
munist party oligarchy, prevails.
This comparatively simple picture, admirably suited to the monistic nature
of a totalitarian regime, has been obscured by a number of factors. Among
these are the apparent, frequent tactical retreats from the general purpose;
certain flexibilities of policy that are quite inconsistent with the existence of a
Soviet blueprint for the imposition of world socialism; and the fact that in
many respects the Soviet Union behaves in the same way as other aggres¬
sive, chauvinistic, expansionist world powers. These facts have led some
people to draw the inference that communism is no longer a relevant factor
and that the current approach is simply old-fashioned, imperialistic Russian
foreign policy with traditional aims. It is suggested that each of these implied
or explicit denials of an ultimate purpose in Soviet policy is fallacious.
One can distinguish three main phases of Soviet foreign policy since iqi?;
separated by two major tactical retreats or, at any rate, changes of position.
The first phase, until the end of 1920 or the beginning of 1921, was char¬
acterized by a determined if somewhat unrealistic belief that revolution was
imminent in the main industrial countries. Naturally enough this euphoria
could not lead to any serious doctrine of foreign policy; it was only after the
realization that the capitalist world was going to survive for quite a while
that a policy was evolved for long-term coexistence with it.
Broadly speaking this new policy rested on several premises. First, that
trade and diplomatic relations with the capitalist powers could be advanta¬
geous to Soviet Russia. Second, that the nature of the political systems of the
major capitalist powers made them particularly vulnerable to political sub¬
version and propaganda from the Soviet side. Lenin’s Infantile Disease of
Leftism in Communism remains a monument to the Soviet view of policy in
conditions of coexistence.
Indeed Lenin never tired of emphasizing that the capitalists’ greed for
profit would blind them to the fact that in building up revolutionary Russia
they would be bolstering their avowed enemy. A private memorandum by
Lenin, never officially published but beyond question authentic, puts the
Soviet calculation in terms that cannot be improved on. After emphasizing
that the “deaf-mute” capitalists will only too readily believe Soviet assertions
that their government organs are quite independent of both party and Comin¬
tern, he adds that the capitalists
will open their doors wide to us, and through these doors will speedily
enter the emissaries of the Comintern and of our party, investigation
organs in the guise of diplomatic, cultural and trade representatives. . . .
They will open up credits for us, which will serve us for the purpose of
supporting Communist parties in their countries. They will supply us with
the materials and technology which we lack and will restore our military
industry, which we need for our future victorious attacks on our suppliers.
As the last sentence quoted shows, Lenin probably believed (and indeed it
remained official doctrine until after the fall of Malenkov in 1955) that in
the last resort the capitalists would stand and fight and the socialist countries.
with the support of the colonial peoples, would be victorious. This part of the
doctrine has been replaced by the third phase in Soviet foreign policy. It is
now recognized that the emergence of all-destructive nuclear weapons pre¬
cludes an all-out military fight to the death between the socialist and the
capitalist powers and that the achievement by the Soviet Union of parity or
near parity with the United States in nuclear capacity has meant that for a
long time to come the two nuclear world powers will have to agree on how to
divide up pohtical influence over the rest of the world without engaging in
mutual destructive conflict.
Yet—and this is where the importance of ultimate purpose becomes
apparent—there is nothing to indicate that the main aim has ever been
abandoned. World socialism is now to be achieved by subversion, political
warfare, and military preponderance. Witness the greatly superior Soviet
forces facing the North Atlantic Treaty powers. These forces have been
steadily increasing in the past few years, despite persistent talk of detente.^
Or witness the steady increase in the past two years in the number of Soviet
intelligence officers in the countries of Europe.®
The use of an overwhelming military presence and the maximum espio¬
nage and subversion presence are part of what has always been described in
Soviet terminology as “ideological struggle,” which is repeatedly asserted as
the necessary concomitant of “peaceful coexistence.” As Brezhnev said on
June 27, 1972:
While pressing for the assertion of the principle of peaceful coexistence,

we realize that successes in this important matter in no way signify the
possibility of weakening the ideological struggle. On the contrary, we
should be prepared for an intensification of this struggle and for it to as¬
sume an increasingly more acute form of struggle between the two social
systems.®
In essence this view is the logical implementation of Lenin’s policy of

combining trade and correct diplomatic relations on the one hand with sub¬
version and pohtical warfare on the other. The difference today is that vic¬
tory can only be won by political means and not by the all-out conflict that
Lenin probably beUeved inevitable—possibly because he overestimated the
resistance and ultimate tenacity of the “deaf-mutes.”
The difference between the third and second stages, as outlined above,
should not be exaggerated, for two reasons. In the first place, Soviet policy
has never been militaristic in the sense of taking risks in order to pursue its
aims by force. The Soviet Union’s military moves since World War II have
either been miscalculations (as in the invasion of Korea, when it was misled
by Dean Acheson’s assertion that South Korea was not within the American
“defense perimeter”) or made in the certainty that they would not be op¬
posed by force (as in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968). Con¬
versely, on the rare occasions when the West has stood firm in the face of
Soviet aggression, Soviet response has bordered on panic surrender—as over

Cuba in 1962.
The fact is that military might for the Soviet Union is seen primarily as a
political weapon, a means of furthering political aims by military blackmail
or intimidation. The overwhelming strength the Soviet Union has built up
against the forces of NATO is such a political force; its full potential is
designed to unfold as the political and military influence of the United States
in Europe declines (this is the Soviet Union hope and intent). The Soviet
Navy, which has been greatly developed in recent years, is intended not as a
combat force so much as a force that can rapidly support a political uprising
favorable to the Soviet Union before anyone else can get there.
This intimate link between the armed forces and foreign policy was char¬
acteristic of Lenin’s outlook from the start, since Lenin, who greatly admired
Clausewitz, drew no firm distinction between war and politics, and whose
specific contribution to twentieth century foreign policy is its militarization.
For Lenin as for Clausewitz, war and politics were alternative means to the
same end—victory—to be selected as circumstances dictated. Moreover the
rules of warfare applied fully to politics, in particular the concentration of
overwhelming strength at the decisive point and the mobilization of political
forces in support of the military advance.’’’
'The fact that Lenin himself believed there would be an ultimate military
clash loses much of its relevance. The use of military force as a political
weapon was indeed part of his outlook. However the use of military force as
an integral part of foreign policy, which involves the maintenance of enor¬
mous forces in what are supposed to be times of peace, presents great prob¬
lems of expenditure and morale that would be quite insuperable for a power
that did not pursue a “total” policy and did not exercise as nearly as possible
total control over its population and resources.
Thus these different phases of Soviet foreign policy are quite consistent
with, indeed are only consistent with, a continuing ultimate purpose of
“world socialism.” But some are inclined to doubt this ultimate purpose,
arguing that Soviet foreign policy over the years shows such a variety of
tactical moves and changes of line that it is quite impossible to infer the
existence of any plans for world revolution. The argument is indisputable; the
inference is false.
There has never, it is true, been any evidence that the Soviet Union has at
any time acted according to some master plan in its progress toward “world
socialism.” On the contrary, the evidence is conclusive that the Soviet Union
pursues its course with full regard for the strengths and weaknesses of its
antagonists as it encounters them—retreating before the former, exploiting
the latter. “World socialism” is in no sense a blueprint, but it is essentially a
compass. The course is set; although the needle may and must veer fre¬
quently from the course, it always returns to it as soon as circumstances
permit. There have been some failures, such as Cuba—but even here the
Soviet Union succeeded in extracting virtual recognition of Communist Cuba

by the United States in exchange for abandoning a rash gamble that the
Soviet Union had no available means of supporting at the time (1962).
Also, one frequently encounters the argument that Soviet policy aims are
no more than Russia’s traditional foreign policy aims, which Russia under
any government would pursue if it had the necessary armed might. This
argument is true in part; certain aspects of Soviet policy are traditional to
Russia and have been embarked on by the Soviet Union as and when its
military power—or what it could make the United States believe was its
military power—grew strong enough. Such aims include the search for a
warm water outlet for Soviet ships, for control of the Baltic Sea, and for the
creation of a land barrier to the West on Soviet European frontiers.
However, it would be erroneous to ignore the additional dimension created
by over fifty years of reiterated ideology—the self-declared righteousness, the
denigration of opponents, the drive, the purpose, the sacrifice—in short, all
the aspects of foreign policy that all countries display in time of war. The
point is that the Soviet Union always behaves as if at war and believes this, if
only because in many senses it is true.
Also, the militarization of the population is something no democratic state
could hope to achieve in times when there were no actual or imminent
hostilities. Nor indeed could any dictatorship achieve this militarization with¬
out total control over its population and resources. It is for this reason, if for
no other, that the often reiterated Soviet fears of aggression from the West¬
ern powers carry little conviction. It is also worth noting that, in contrast to
the intensified “ideological struggle” that is so often emphasized as the other
aspect of “peaceful coexistence,” the period of “peaceful coexistence” be¬
tween Stalin and Hitler after the pact of August 1939 was characterized by
total silence on the Soviet side on the subject of the National Socialist re¬
gime. In the case of Hitler there evidently was a real fear on the Soviet side
that abuse might provoke an attack; in the case of the Western powers today
there evidently is not.
The character of total militarization in Soviet foreign policy is thus in turn
dependent on the totalitarian nature of Soviet power internally. This must
now be examined in more detail in the light of the short analysis of totalitar¬
ian rule with which this chapter began. The question of the dominant pur¬
pose has been dealt with. But the dominant purpose, and the militarized
policy it serves, can only be pursued by a government that is in full control of
all power; that need fear neither obstruction nor impediment from any pri¬
vate or public concern, institution, or vested right; and that has the means at
its disposal to overcome any obstruction or impediment with relative ease.
(Hitler left his “Aryan” capitalists relatively unmolested but had no difficulty
in bringing them to heel when he thought it necessary, and the evidence
suggests that had he been victorious an even more extensive policy of control
over capital would have been embarked upon.)
The Nature of Soviet Foreign Policy: A Conceptual Framework ii
Moreover such a militarized policy can only be pursued by a government

that can concentrate control at one focal point to a much greater extent than
can a prime minister or president who must take account not only of parlia¬
ment or congress but of a vigorous free press and an opportunity for public
criticism that is even less restricted in the United States than in a country like
Great Britain where an official secrets act is in force.
While the single leader who has tended to emerge in the formulation of
Soviet policy is relatively immune from criticism, this immunity no doubt does
not extend to the secret councils of the Politburo or on occasion even the
Central Committee. But this private and secret criticism does not discredit the
policy of the leader, except for the rare occasions when he happens to be
ousted. Moreover, as has been suggested, the use of inspired rumors and no
doubt other less publicly evident instruments of deception can be used to
bolster a leader who may in fact be facing severe criticism. In fact, as the
experience of Brezhnev has shown over the past two years, skillful political
manipulation of the top offices in the CPSU can, on some occasions, success¬
fully overcome internal doubt and opposition.
The result is that in the conduct of his foreign policy a Soviet leader can
convincingly display determination and ability to put a novel policy into
effect—something the leader of a democratic system could not hope to do
without genuine support behind him. Elections in Western democracies are
regular and certain and their results usually unpredictable. The ‘palace revo¬
lutions” of the Soviet Union are rare enough (only one in the past twenty
years) for everyone to pretend that they cannot happen.
The fact that in his conduct of foreign policy the totalitarian leader can
ignore or control public opinion and discount the possibility of public criti¬
cism gives him two further advantages over his democratic opposite number.
The first is that a policy completely inconsistent with what has been asserted
before can be pursued without either difficulty or visible loss of face. There is
no evidence that a Soviet leader has been inconvenienced or has had his
authority shaken by such complete reversals of policy as the Stalin-Hitler
pact; or has faced serious internal difficulties over a policy of alliance with
countries like Egypt that suppress their Communists; or, more recently, that
Brezhnev, after years of abusing U.S. policy in Vietnam, ever hesitated about
entertaining President Nixon immediately after the mining of Haiphong har¬
bor and the outcry that followed it. Or, at all events, if Brezhnev did face
opposition on this issue and in general on the policy of so-called detente
with the United States—as was rumored in connection with Shelest’s removal
from the Politburo in April 1973, although the official charge against him
was Ukrainian nationalism—he had little difficulty in overcoming it. A leader
of a democratic society could easily have fallen from office on such an
issue.
But the totalitarian leader enjoys a second advantage as the result of his
control over public opinion and sources of information, an advantage the
Soviet Union has always made great use of. No Soviet leader, from Lenin to
Brezhnev, has failed to attach supreme importance to the battle for the minds
of his opponents. It is toward this end that the whole machinery of state
propaganda is directed, aimed at the populations of the countries of the non-
Communist world, designed when necessary to drive a wedge between the
population and its government, to neutralize or cast doubt on information
about Soviet life or policy unfavorable to the Soviet Union, and the like.
This is aU familiar enough—although whether the full effectiveness of this
propaganda over the past fifty years is always realized in the West is another
matter. But the totalitarian leader, because of his control over information
inside his own country, derives a special benefit in his conduct of foreign
policy and plays a very significant role in the propaganda process. The
benefit is twofold. First, he can bolster the alleged success of his policy in a
non-Communist country by citing the views of pro-Communist groups of no
importance or influence in their own countries. In so doing he can rely on the
ignorance of his own countrymen, remaining confident that they will be un¬
able to assess the true worth of the information presented to them. But the
leader can also, through his control over internal expression of opinion,
create an impression of internal solidarity and support that may be quite false
but which adds to his authority when dealing with the outside world.
In recent years the Soviet Union has failed to keep some dissident voices
from being heard outside the Soviet Union. Although these voices have been
raised mostly on internal issues of civil rights, including the right to emigrate,
on occasion they have certainly extended to foreign policy issues, such as the
invasion of Czechoslovakia. This voice of dissent has been a serious breach in
the totalitarian armor. All evidence at present points to the fact that the
Soviet authorities regard the repair of this breach by more severe repression
as a high-priority task. It is easy to see why, from their point of view, this
should seem the proper approach; whether they will succeed is another ques¬
tion. What is certain is that it is not in the interests of any power that does
not wish to see the influence of the Communist bloc advanced to help the
Soviet authorities to silence dissent in their own midst.
The Soviet leader thus derives great advantages from his controlled propa¬
ganda machine and his control over internal news and opinion, even if today
the latter cannot always be maintained at the high degree of perfection he
would wish. But the most curious aspect of the interrelation between the
leader’s foreign policy and his propaganda machine is the way his policy in
practice helps to consolidate and expand a position that starts off as no more
than propaganda—if only by wearing down the patience of his opponents.
This is illustrated by a Soviet diplomatic technique that has been skillfully
adapted to the policy of an expanding power. Underlying it is the proposition
the Soviet Union treats in all negotiations as unassailable, unchallengeable,
and indeed outside the limits of discussion: All “socialist” advances are pro-
gressive, historically determined, and therefore irreversible. By contrast, any

attempt to overthrow or weaken a “socialist” regime is counterrevolutionary
and reactionary and the Soviet Union is justified in helping to restore “social¬
ism” where it can. The importance of this doctrine, which was fundamental to
Leninism, becomes readily apparent when—by sheer persistence, double¬
speak, and exhaustion—it is successfully foisted on powers that do not adhere
to it.
This may be illustrated by the position of East Berlin. The status of Berlin
as a whole was regulated by agreement among the four Allies after World
War II, and plainly no one power had the right to alter that status. Yet this is
precisely what the Soviet Union did after 1958 when it recognized East
Germany and encouraged the transfer of control over East Berlin to the newly
recognized state, which the other Allies did not recognize. Thereafter the
Soviet Union not only refused to discuss the status of East Berlin but pro¬
ceeded by various forms of harassment, both directly and indirectly through
its satellite East Germany, to create a West Berlin problem (although the
status of West Berlin was still regulated by the four-power agreement). In
1971, when Brezhnev formulated his foreign policy, recognition of East Ger¬
many was one of its central features. He has now achieved this recognition—
in return for concessions on West Berlin. These concessions, even if as sub¬
stantial as claimed by the German Federal Republic, do not include any
concessions on East Berlin, which was not a question on the agenda.
Thus, over a period of some twenty years, a combination of propaganda,
some intimidation, and skillful foreign policy leadership have enabled the
Soviet Union to consolidate a “socialist gain.”® This is far from the only
example that could be cited on the unity of leadership and propaganda. It is
difficult to imagine the success of this technique in the absence of unified,
total control over the formulation and conduct of foreign policy.
When necessary the totalitarian leader can also, to a greater degree than his
democratic opposite number, ignore the advice of his military leaders
though it must be emphasized that this is only a matter of degree. A prime
minister or president can, and at times does, ignore his military advisers. But
he runs the risk of resignations, public criticism, party splits, and government
changes—all the not easily predictable consequences of the working of the
democratic machine. Khrushchev ignored his military advisers over the Cuban
adventure in 1962. It was a relative though not complete failure, and it
apparently threw Khrushchev into a panic; at least this seems the only reason¬
able explanation of the fact that his signal to President Kennedy of October
26 has never been published by the United States. No doubt the Cuban incident
was one of the reasons Khrushchev was persuaded to abandon much of his
defense policy, which was characterized by overreliance on nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless it is worth reflecting that, with a less resolute and skillful reac¬
tion than that of President Kennedy, the gigantic bluff over Cuba might have
succeeded; it might have yielded greater dividends for the Soviet Union than it
did.
Such then are some of the advantages a totalitarian leader can enjoy in the
conduct of foreign policy given his immunity from public control and his
insulation from public opinion and debate. The Soviet leader in particular
derives additional strength from the ideological assertions and certainties that
have been nurtured by over fifty years of political warfare.
It is now time to look at some of the advantages deriving from the nature of
the rule exercised by the leader of a totalitarian society and his ruling ehte. It is
of interest in this context to note that it is in the overall political leader that this
totality of control over foreign policy is concentrated—a fact underlined by
the normal absence from the Politburo, the policy-making apex of the Soviet
government system, of both the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of
defense. The elevation of these two ministers to the Politburo in April 1973
may have altered this situation, but this is unlikely.
However, the fact remains that since Stalin’s death—and of course during
Stalin’s period of virtual one-man rule—Soviet foreign policy has been largely
formulated by the man who as chairman of the Politburo necessarily wields
more power over all aspects of the country’s life and resources than any other
individual—in other words, the first or general secretary of the CPSU.
Khrushchev, it is true, combined the offices of first secretary of the party
and chairman of the Council of Ministers after 1958 (semiformally after
1955) and Brezhnev does not. But Brezhnev succeeded, certainly by the end
of the sixties if not before, in asserting a degree of control over foreign policy
that effectively eclipsed the chairman of the Council of Ministers. After al¬
lowance has been made for the elements of collective consultation, interest
pressures, eeonomic demands, and other similar factors that operate on all
governments, it is not far wrong to regard Soviet foreign policy as more of a
one-man show than would be possible in any parliamentary or presidential
system.
High on the list of Soviet advantages in the conduct of foreign policy is
government control over foreign trade and the absence of private, uncon¬
trolled capitalist enterprise. Negatively this means that economic pressures for
trade will not be allowed to work to the detriment of overall policy. Thus, on
the non-Communist side, a policy of economic isolation of the USSR—assum¬
ing that such a policy is in the interest of the non-Communist world, which is
at any rate an arguable case—would inevitably be defeated by commercial
pressures on the governments concerned. Or again, in developing trade with
the Soviet Union and China, technological skills or long-term credits might
well be so vital to the USSR or China that valuable political concessions could
be exacted in return.
There would be nothing reprehensible about demanding such concessions.
Communists are realists and are prepared to pay a price for something they
want badly enough. But in conditions of private enterprise where the state has
no monopoly of foreign trade, it is difficult if not impossible for a government
to restrict or direct the foreign commercial dealings of the private enterprises
so as to correlate them with the government’s political objectives. There is, of
course, no difficulty about such correlation on the Soviet or Chinese side.
As with trade, so with many other aspects of national life. In theory the
totalitarian leader can bring into one coordinated plan his education policy,
his economic policy, his diplomacy, his international lawyers, and his intelli¬
gence officers, to name only a few. Judging by results, for example, in Africa,
one might be tempted to say that better advice might have been obtained from
old-fashioned, independent academic study than from some of the nonsense
that emanated from the Communist-controlled institutes.
But there are many cases where the drafting of students to their subjects
and their jobs may well be usefully correlated with a change in foreign policy,
or where the faculties and institutes of international law can be relied on not
to produce inconvenient academic criticism of government policy but on the
contrary to produce political arguments suitably dressed up as scholarship.
Similarly it is no doubt a convenience to have the required number of
linguists available when embarking on foreign policy operations in an area
that has hitherto been left unexplored. The coordination of intelligence with
foreign policy is not peculiar to totalitarian systems. Naturally enough the
bunglings and failures, or just misfortunes, of intelligence operators will on
occasion cause acute embarrassment to the Soviet authorities; even the Soviet
propaganda machine at times finds such errors difficult to deal with. But at all
events the Soviet leader is spared the harassment of his own press, parliament,
politicians, and public opinion.
He probably enjoys yet another advantage in this respect. There is no doubt
that in planning intelligence operations to fit in with their foreign policy both
Khrushchev and Brezhnev have been careful to avoid too much risk that the
former might have the effect of wrecking the latter. But they have been able to
take a fairly high degree of risk. This is the result of long experience and of
disposing of a much larger and more widely spread intelligence service than
their adversaries.
It is also not unrelated to the fact that for half a century, ever since the last
years of Lenin and the early years of the Comintern, Soviet Russia has been
sedulously striving—with some limited success—to persuade the Western
world that it is all right for Communist Russia to preach coexistence and
practice subversion at one and the same time, while anyone who points to this
inconsistency may be attacked for “cold warmongering” or the equivalent.
We have so far been concerned with the advantages a totalitarian leader

enjoys in the conduct of his foreign policy vis-a-vis his democratic adversary.
It is now time to look at some of the limitations, disadvantages, and weak¬
nesses of totalitarian foreign policy and to strike some general balance.
One of the main factors limiting the totalitarian leader’s freedom of action
in his foreign relations is his constant preoccupation with maintaining himself
and his associates in power. For the outside world he needs to create, by
manipulating public opinion, the appearance of a legitimacy he cannot risk
exposing to freely held elections. But at home he must calculate the extent to
which he can compel and the extent to which he must conciliate; on this
calculation far-reaching decisions of foreign relations will necessarily depend.
Thus, since the death of Stalin, decisions to purchase grain abroad in order
to counteract bad harvests and farming inefficiency have been related to the
fact that the growing demand for higher food consumption is no longer re¬
garded as something that can be regulated by repressive measures as it was
under Stalin. This kind of consideration applies to other matters of internal
government as well. Stalin did not hesitate over the degree of terror he was
prepared to use or the number of victims he was ready to immolate. But
Stalin’s was virtually a one-man government; neither of his successors has
been able to achieve this extent of power, and it is unlikely for the foreseeable
future that the top leaders of the USSR will permit any one of their number to
acquire such power.
And so the Soviet leader, be he Khrushchev or Brezhnev, finds himself still,
to a significant extent, limited by having to take some account of outside
opinion in pursuing his policy internally. He must balance the degree of
odium he acquires against his skill in deceiving the outside world and the
degree of risk (hitherto very small indeed) that his treatment of intellectuals
or national minorities will seriously affect trade or cultural contacts or any¬
thing else the Soviet Union is seeking to obtain from the non-Communist
world.
However it should be noted that when the Soviet Union is really convinced
of the need to act—if, for example, it feels that the security of its own rule is
at risk—it will act with complete disregard for the effect on outside opinion.
The invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956 and 1968 illustrate
this principle very weU. In each case the Soviet leaders must have been well
aware of the severe shock their actions were bound to cause to even their
most loyal supporters overseas. In both cases the fear that the Soviet bloc
would break up, or that the disintegration of Communist rule in a satellite
would spread to the Soviet Union itself, was sufficient to overcome any reluc¬
tance there may have been to act.
However, with this important quahfication, outside opinion, potential loss
of left-wing good will, reluctance to tarnish the Communist image, and the
like are all factors that can exercise some restraint on a Soviet leader’s ac¬
tions. One would have thought that the Western powers would make much
more use than they usually do of this reality in order to force concessions in
their own favor upon the Soviet Union. But this they very seldom seem to do,
and for two reasons.
One is the mistaken belief that attempts to interfere in Soviet internal
matters will give the Soviet Union a right to interfere in the internal affairs of
others—mistaken because the Soviet Union has for fifty-seven years claimed
and exercised what it considers its right, in the interests of promoting socialism
or as self-appointed champion of human liberties, to interfere constantly in the
affairs of other countries. And the Soviet Union will certainly continue to do
so however those other countries act toward it.
The second and main reason why Western countries so often fail to exploit
any hold they may have over the Soviet Union is that, in dealings with
countries where free enterprise prevails, the Soviet authorities can and do deal
with individuals and individual firms that operate mainly with their own inter¬
ests in mind; the actions of these individuals simply are not coordinated or to
any considerable degree controlled by the governments concerned.
The one limitation that has not hitherto proved much of a restraining
influence on Soviet leaders is fear of internal public criticism. This is not only
to be explained by the degree to which a Soviet government controls the
expression of opinion; it is also partly due to the tradition of indifference to
foreign policy, or at least the ingrained feeling that has always prevailed in
Soviet Russia—that foreign policy is something completely outside public
control.
Moreover the propaganda machine builds up the successes of foreign policy
and plays down the failures; it succeeds very effectively in conveying a picture
of one great unrelieved Soviet success story in the pages of the internal party
press. And success is very popular with the Soviet public, as with any other. It
is little concerned to probe such questions as the rights and wrongs of what
appear to the average Soviet citizen as troublesome and ungrateful Czechs
for it was a small minority indeed inside the Soviet Union that viewed the
1968 invasion with anything but satisfaction.
Such then are the main limitations on the totalitarian conduct of foreign
policy. It also has certain disadvantages. The Soviet system may be better
adapted than others at training sufficient numbers of linguists, for example, to
serve its foreign policy needs. But it can break down very badly when it comes
to the pursuit of the true facts. Ideology, lack of high standards of scholar¬
ship, lack of general free access to non-Soviet sources, restrictions on travel—
these and many other factors have often operated to produce an inadequate
academic and historical basis for foreign policy, especially in new and unfa¬
miliar areas.
Africa is a case in point. Although Soviet study of Africa has been improv¬
ing, it was for years bedeviled by dogmatic preconceived assumptions based
more on theory than on the realities of African life. The natural results were
the repeated occasions in the past ten or fifteen years when Soviet policy in a
particular part of Africa (Guinea, Ghana) ended in failure.
Again, although the extent to which the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 was
actively encouraged by the Soviet Union is open to conjecture, there can be no
doubt that the Soviet Union attached undue weight to the preponderance of
weapons and equipment supplied to Egypt and failed to attach sufficient

weight to the incapacity of the Egyptians to use them. Had it been otherwise
the Soviet Union would surely have attempted, both earlier and more vigor¬
ously, to dissuade the Egyptians from provoking the Israeli attack. *
It is probably true, however, that although the present Soviet leaders are
liable to miscalculate in this or similar manner because of the inadequacy of
their objective study of the facts, they are unlikely to make mistakes on the
magnitude of Stalin’s mistakes—his blind confidence in the security of his
bargain with Hitler, for example, in defiance of all the evidence. Stalin’s
foreign policy was one man’s creation in which no one else played any part;
for all the power and influence Brezhnev has accumulated in the sphere of
foreign policy, there is no parallel between his position and Stalin’s.
But mistakes will continue to be made, although certainly in the past decade
the indications are that the research on which successful foreign policy must
be based is improving in the Soviet Union. It is not easy, for lack of evidence,
to estimate the value of the research side of the Soviet intelligence service. Its
espionage and subversion sides are in many respects outstanding. No doubt
the research necessary to service espionage and subversion must be excellent.
But this kind of research is different from what historians and political scien¬
tists in Western universities mean by research—an all-around, objective ex¬
amination, not necessarily limited by or geared to any particular, practical
political purpose.
It is unlikely that the Soviet leaders can get this kind of research from their
intelligence service. If the facts were better known, it might well turn out that
one of the disadvantages of Soviet foreign policy is overreliance on the intelli¬
gence service for the kind of analysis that ought to be but usually is not
provided by truly independent Soviet universities, scholars, and institutes.
Overreliance on the intelligence service may be a handicap to the Soviet
Union in other respects. For example, it is extremely difficult to see what
advantages the Soviet Union has derived from repeated unsuccessful attempts
to subvert certain foreign governments and install governments favorable to
itself—in Yugoslavia, for example, in Albania, and probably in China. The
real successes of Soviet control in obtaining a stranglehold over a foreign
government through its intelligence service have invariably followed either
military conquest, as in the case of the KGB’s control over Czechoslovakia, or
an economic stranglehold, like the one that gave the KGB control in Cuba.
Although space does not permit full discussion of the question, a sketch of
Editor s note: Whether or not the Soviets goaded the Egyptians into attacking Israel
in October 1973 is also a matter of conjecture. Since Brezhnev seems eager to maintain
the East-West “detente,” there is some doubt that he actively supported a new war at a
crucial stage of U.S.-USSR economic negotiations. It appears that the Politburo is
divided on the detente issue, and the possibility of underhanded manipulations by “hawk¬
ish” members cannot be entirely ruled out. In any event, the internal pressures in Egypt
and Syria apparently had reached a boiling point that the Soviets could not control.
totalitarian foreign policy as exemplified by the Soviet Union would be incom¬

plete without some reference to the three main respects in which Soviet con¬
trol over a wide area has been diminished since StaUn’s death: the loosening
of the Communist bloc, the relative independence of the non-bloc Communist
parties, and the break with China. Each of these factors has reduced the
monolithic strength of the Soviet Union as the leader of a world movement;
each has certainly reduced the total nature of Soviet power, whatever strains
and discontents may have been seething underneath. Yet these strains should
not be exaggerated unduly.
The members of the Communist bloc, or some of them, may be striving
for some degree of political and economic independence from the tutelary
power of the Soviet Union. Romania, Hungary, and Poland, at any rate, are
casting lustful glances at the European Economic Community. Romania has
tried at every opportunity to demonstrate that its foreign policy is not always
a carbon copy of the Soviet Union’s. Yet, despite these small shoots of inde¬
pendence, the Soviet Union can continue to rely on a very solid bloc of
powers whose destinies, in the last resort, must depend on the strongest
Communist state and whose regimes would not last one hour if communism
should ever collapse in the USSR.
The bloc may no longer be monolithic, even in appearance. But its value to
the total foreign policy of the USSR remains immeasurably greater than any
other system of client powers or alliances between unequals in the world
today. For one thing, and this is no mean advantage, the Soviet Union can
fully utilize as part of its general intelligence service network—an important
adjunct to its foreign policy—the intelligence services of the various bloc
countries.
Insofar as independence of action is concerned, of course, the Communist
parties in the non-Communist countries are greatly changed from the days of
the Comintern when they were obedient tools of Soviet foreign policy. Since
Stalin’s death they have successfully persuaded the Soviet Union—or forced it
to accept as inevitable—that their political progress in their own countries is
directly related to the degree to which they can persuade their fellow country¬
men that they are no longer merely the tools of a foreign power. And so
discordant and critical voices have been heard in the various Communist
parties on the subject of Soviet policy toward Czechoslovakia in 1968, on
policy toward Israel, on Soviet anti-Semitism, on Soviet treatment of intellec¬
tuals, even on the European Economic Community.
However, even if the Soviet Union may have lost subservient agents, has it
not gained, in the pursuit of its general foreign policy aims, perhaps a more
convincing chorus of advocates in the Western world? For again, in the main
essentials the Communist parties continue to support Soviet foreign policy
aims. And can it be doubted that the electoral victory of a Communist party
in Italy, say, or in France would be of inestimable value to the Soviet Union
in its general aim of weakening the North Atlantic Alliance, even if Italian or
French Communists continued to berate the Soviet authorities for such mat¬
ters as ill-treating Solzhenitsyn?
The breach with China is in a different category and raises issues that far
exceed the modest aims of this chapter.® There is no doubt that considerable
damage has been done to the strength and unity of world communism by the
emergence of a second center of authority, in open conflict with the first, on
the interpretation of the sacred canon and on the conduct and development of
revolution.
Because of this schism both Khrushchev and Brezhnev repeatedly tried to
procure the condemnation as heretics by the Communist parties of the world
of the Chinese Communist party. All these efforts failed and have now appar¬
ently been abandoned. Their failure was indeed a measure of the degree of
independence Communist parties have acquired in their relation to the Soviet
Union, no doubt in part as the result of the emergence of Communist China.
The existence of a hostile Communist China gravely impairs one aspect of the
Soviet Union’s “total” conduct of its foreign policy. The limitation on Soviet
action imposed by the existence of China extends mainly to Asia. This factor
may have the effect, indeed may already have had the effect, of reducing
Soviet interest and diplomatic activity in Asia and intensifying Soviet interest
in what have always been the areas to which the Soviet Union devotes its
primary attention—Europe and the United States.
Such then are the advantages and disadvantages, the strengths and weak¬
nesses, of the totalitarian system of foreign policy, as exemplified by the
Soviet Union. There can be no doubt that in many respects its purpose, its
unity, its immunity from internal criticism and pressure, its freedom from the
vagaries of private enterprise, its comparative freedom in fixing priorities in
disregard of internal political factors, all give the totalitarian leader consider¬
able advantages over his democratic opponent. Even if there are important
limitations on the “total” nature of his conduct of policy, the advantages
would seem heavily to outweigh the disadvantages.
Experience, however, seems to suggest that there may be two respects in
which totalitarian foreign policy can prove particularly vulnerable. First, it is
essentially rigid—in terms of its ideology, its view of the world, its purpose,
and the nature and extent of its knowledge and understanding of foreign
countries. It is slow to adapt to a changing world, reluctant to abandon a
dogma, inhibited by traditional categories of political judgment. All these
limitations could prove serious handicaps if the Soviet Union should be faced
in the future with diplomatic opponents who understand Soviet methods and
purposes and who are not too ready to be deluded by phrases and bluffed by a
well-worn technique for dealing with the “deaf-mute” capitalists whom Lenin
so vividly sketched over fifty years ago.
Second, Soviet diplomatic success has always depended much more on skill
in exploiting the weaknesses of opponents than on the strength of the Soviet
The Nature of Soviet Foreign Policy: A Conceptual Framework 2I
case. Time and again, when faced with determined opposition to its ploys, the
Soviet Union has been forced to retreat. If, as seems to be the case, the Soviet
Union is entering a policy phase in which it recognizes that it will long be
dependent on economic and technological support from the Western world,
the United States and Western Europe will have only themselves to blame if
they fail to exact a full political price for such support.
NOTES
1. Leonard Schapiro, Totalitarianism (New York: Praeger, 1972).

2. Hans Buchheim, Totalitarian Rule: Its Nature and Characteristics, trans. Ruth Hein,
annotations Kurt P. Tauber and Ruth Hein (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University
Press, 1968).
3. This document, which was first published in 1961, was discovered in 1924 by the
painter Annenkov, who was charged with examining Lenin’s papers shortly after his
death in order to prepare a selection of drawings, paintings, and photographs of Lenin.
Annenkov knew Lenin’s handwriting and took a copy of the letter. The style, the place
where the document was found, and the character of Annenkov all leave no doubt that
the document is authentic. Whether it was ever sent to whomever it was intended for,
presumably Chicherin, is another matter. The full text will be found in Novy Zhurnal,
no. 65 (New York, 1961), pp. 146-147.
4. See the NATO report summarized in the London Times, June 8, 1973.
5. See the details, which there is good reason to believe are reliable, in The Peacetime
Strategy of the Soviet Union (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, February—
March 1973).
6. Pravda, June 28, 1972.
7. For a recent discussion of this theme, see Richard Pipes, Principles of Soviet
Foreign Policy,” Survey 19, no. 2 [87] (Oxford, spring 1973); PP- 4i~6i.
8. This case is well analyzed in ibid. I am indebted to Pipes for this example.
9. Some discussion of the subject by Harold C. Hinton will be found in Chapter 6.
2
The Soviet Union and

the Rules of the
International Game
ADAM B. ULAM
Dr. Adam B. Ulam is professor of government and
director of the Russian Research Center, Harvard
University. Among his books are: Titoism and the Comin-
forni, The Unfinished Revolution, Lenin and the Bol¬
sheviks, Expansion and Coexistence: History of Soviet
Foreign Policy, igi7-ig67, and Stalin and His Era.
The Russian Revolution opened a new era in modern history. This is one of
those rare platitudes that needs to be repeated rather than eschewed. Consider
the European state system, which for the years 1648 to 1918 was virtually
synonymous with the world system. During that period the ideological-religious
character of the given state was at most of secondary importance insofar as its
role in world politics was concerned. There were only occasional and short¬
lived exceptions to this rule.
The First French Republic between 1793-1794 and 1800 constituted a chal¬
lenge to every other major state system in Europe, and ideological proselytiz¬
ing was an important element in its drive for expansion. But beginning with
the Napoleonic phase these ideological pretensions of the French state be¬
came, if not completely eradicated, then subdued by other elements. The
expansionist thrust of the First Empire came to reflect no specific ideology
but French nationalism and even more than that, Napoleon’s personal and
dynastic ambitions. His bid for European domination was no longer coupled
with an ideological challenge to every other form of government. Eventually
the French armies were defeated by the same principle and emotion that had
led to their dazzling successes: nationalism.
Between 1815 and 1914 no state declared itself the carrier of a universal
ideology or sought the overthrow of other forms of government. To be sure,
Nicholas Ts Russia was a self-proclaimed defender of the principle of legiti¬
macy or, as we might call it anachronistically, of counterrevolution. But this
stance, like the Holy Alliance of Nicholas’ predecessor, was designed for the
preservation of the status quo rather than the propagation of a specific ideol-
22
ogy, and in any case both attempts at “freezing,” so to speak, the political
system of Europe of 1815 soon met with failure.
In brief, any citizen, not to mention any statesman of nineteenth-century
Europe, would have had difficulty accepting the thought that there could be a
state that would demand and enjoy all the international appurtenances of
“normal” statehood and membership in the community of nations at the same
time that its professed aim and ideology was to subvert all other existing
forms of government. Nothing resembling such a situation had existed since
the religious wars of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Even the
First French Republic did not explicitly seek destruction of nonrepublican
forms of government in countries with which it was not at war. Paris was not
the center of an international movement with adherents in Vienna or Peters¬
burg plotting the overthrow of their governments. “Friends in peace, enemies
in war” was the ruling maxim of international relations in the era that came to
an end on November 7, 1917.
It is rather startling to reflect that the people who carried out the Bolshevik
Revolution had, only three years before, shared in this concept of interna¬
tional relations. The vision of an eventually socialist world enshrined in the
Second International did not include the notion that the first state to become
socialist would have any international obligations on that account.
One can search in vain in the Russian radical literature prior to 1914 for
any hint of the foreign policy of a socialist Russia. To be sure, the prospect of
such a Russia appeared quite distant. It would have been fantastic to think of
backward Russia as the standard-bearer of militant Marxism. If such a vision
ever passed before the eyes of Lenin, or for that matter Martov, they must
have thought only of revolutionary Russia’s exemplary role to the rest of
Europe rather than of Russia as the center and directing force of a disciplined
international movement.
With the outbreak of the European war Lenin repudiated the social-
democratic tradition of the Second International and made his celebrated
appeal for a return to the earlier militant essence of Marxism. Implicit in this
appeal were two assumptions; (i) The European state system as it had
existed since 1815 had broken down; (2) the moving force in international
relations was to be class struggle, which would at once replace and absorb the
national question as the main element of world politics. The new role of the
Soviet state was to arise from the fact that the first assumption turned out to
be amply justified, the second one only partially so.
In the first flush of their enthusiasm after taking power, the Bolsheviks
believed that a completely new revolutionary era had dawned over Europe. If
their country of the “half savage, stupid and heavy people of the Russian
villages and countryside,” to quote Gorky,^ had become the stage of the first
Victorian socialist revolution, if Russia’s relatively small and backward work¬
ing class had seized power, could one doubt that before too long the workers
of Berlin, Paris, and London would follow suit?
All the cautions of the old social democracy, the schemes of stages of
historical development carefully worked out by Karl Marx suddenly became
obsolete. With World War I capitalism had committed suicide. In Lenin, as in
most other Bolsheviks, the revolutionary triumphed over the historical deter-
minist. So it was foolish to worry about foreign policy in the old sense of the
word, or about other appurtenances and trappings of traditional statehood.
Trotsky, the commissar of foreign relations, a man normally of the most
practical cast of mind, explained to a petitioner for a job that there was hardly
anything worthwhile to do in his department: “I myself took this job so I
would have more time for the Party work. All there is to do is to publish the
secret treaties, then I will close the shop.”^ There was a messianic feeling that
the irresistible wave of revolution would surge through a Europe weary of the
economic system and civilization that had brought the frightful bloodbath.
This feeling received its first check at Brest Litovsk. It is the ratification of
the humiliating and disastrous treaty that marks the true beginning of the
Soviet state. Before then communism can be described as enthusiasm that
seized power. By March 1918 this revolutionary enthusiasm became em¬
bodied in a state that, apart from its self-professed mission to carry out the
world revolution, had to perform traditional tasks of statehood: to collect
taxes, to build roads, to engage in diplomatic negotiations. After their victory
the Soviets addressed European workers over the heads of their governments.
But at Brest their emissaries alRxed their signatures to the treaty along with
those of His Majesty the German Emperor, His Apostolic Majesty the Em¬
peror of Austria and the King of Hungary. This was the first and the most
fundamental lesson in political realism that the rulers of the infant state
absorbed.
Revolutionary enthusiasm lingered on and did not receive its definite check
until the days in September 1920 when the defeated Red Army reeled back
from Warsaw. It was only then that the vision of the world kingdom of
socialism gave way to weary resignation to the purgatory of capitalist en¬
circlement. Russia, Lenin acknowledged, would have to exist within a system
of states and coexist with capitalism.
The very nature of this coexistence was from the beginning to have a
profound influence on the character of the Soviet state and in the longer run,
even before the USSR became a world power, on that of other states.
The uniqueness of the Soviet regime proceeded not only from its Com¬
munist ideology but also from what might be called its existentialist nature.
We may today observe how the character of certain states—Israel is the
example that comes most readily to mind—is shaped not only by their politi¬
cal structure but also by the challenge to their very existence from the hostile
forces surrounding them. The external threat is not an occasional one and it
does not touch on a territorial dispute or rivalry over spheres of influence or
trade; it is directed at the very essence and existence of the political organism.
In some ways this threat can become an element of strength for the regime;
the mentality of the state of siege endows the given society with cohesion.
The Soviet regime has developed the exploitation of external danger to the
level of an art. This is not to argue that at times the danger was not real or felt
as such. Still, capitalist encirclement has been much more than an occasional
propaganda weapon in the armory of Soviet communism. It has been a con¬
tinuous theme in Soviet internal and external politics, an invaluable means for
whoever holds power in the USSR to suppress opposition and dissent.
There was perhaps some superficial logic in the argument around
1921-1922 that the weak and isolated Soviet state could not afford the
luxury of free political debate and that not only other Marxist parties but any
organized attempt at dissent within the Communist party had to be sup¬
pressed. The erstwhile capitalists and landowners were just waiting for inter¬
nal divisions and chaos to attempt, with foreign help, to fasten their yoke on
the people of Russia.
But even today, with Russia a world superpower, with the last of pre-1917
capitalists moldering in the grave, a similar argument is being used to justify
the ban on dissent in the arts, to prohibit publication of certain novels, to jail
or expel those who claim liberties spelled out in the Soviet constitution. The
enemy is always there awaiting a chance, unreconciled to the existence of the
first state to enshrine socialism as its ruling ideology.
There is no question that it was a masterly exploitation of this motif that
enabled Stalin to erect his edifice of tyranny. At crucial points in his struggle
for absolute power he invoked the foreign danger to cow his opponents and
silence the scruples of his own partisans. It is difficult to see how the party
rank and file would have acquiesced in the destruction of Lenin’s companions
led by Trotsky except for Stalin’s ability to persuade the party between 1924
and 1928 that his rivals were “objectively” working for the enemy. And one
decade later he was able to destroy them physically by “proving that they
were in fact agents of Berlin and Tokyo.
Many of those who recoiled from his schemes of social engineering—which
brought about famine, death, and the destitution of millions—had their hands
stayed by the dictator’s argument that the sufferings of mass collectivization
were necessary if Communist Russia was to survive. The existence of foreign
danger and the permanence of international crisis has thus become a fixed
principle of the Soviet philosophy of government and in fact might be de¬
scribed as a principal working tenet of current Communist ideology.
We might now indulge in a brief epistemological disquisition. How is this
tenet of Communist faith actually regarded by its high priests? In their own
innermost thoughts do they perceive foreign dangers to be as concrete and
constant as their oratory has led many to believe?
Even in their public pronouncements Soviet leaders have given us a hint of
their basic ambivalence on this point. Speaking at one of the most danger-
fraught times for the Soviet state, Lenin could still give this amazingly sober
and optimistic appraisal: “We are in a situation in which the raging waves of
imperialist reaction which appear at any moment to overwhelm the small

island of the Socialist Soviet Republic, time and time again break against each
other.”^
Uncompromising hostility to the Soviet system is a basic tendency of world
capitalism. But so are rivalry and inner conflicts characteristic of capitalist-
imperialist systems. The first tendency requires that the Soviet Union never let
its guard down, never assume that permanent peace is achievable as long as
capitalism remains. The second bestows on the Soviet Union an attribute no
social system or regime possessed in the past: indestructibility. The very forces
of history preclude the possibility of Communist Russia being attacked by a
superior combination of powers. This, then, had been the counterpoint of the
Soviet philosophy of international relations. We say “had” for, as we shall
see, nuclear weapons and the rise of another but potentially hostile Commu¬
nist power has called for a reexamination of those basic tenets and challenged
the whole ideological basis of the Soviet state.
For most of its existence the USSR, that is, its rulers, defined its role in
international relations quite differently from that of any state in the past. Due
to its ideologieal character Soviet Russia had different obligations and faced
different dangers than a “normal” state. Therefore the USSR claimed, and
what is rather amazing, aehieved a special status in international relations.
It was to be treated as a regular member of the community of nations, yet
unlike other states its rulers never made a secret of the fact that they sought
and hoped for an overthrow of other forms of government. To be sure, Soviet
diplomacy worked strenuously to maintain the fiction that there is a definite
distinction and separation between the Soviet leaders in their capacity as
governors of their state and as guides of international communism. But al¬
ready in the beginning, and against the advice of his more timid diplomats,
Lenin refused to lend any plausibility to this fiction by having government
figures keep away from the Comintern. “There can be no question of me and
Trotsky leaving the Executive Committee,” he wrote Foreign Commissar
Chicherin.^
Soviet leaders pleading for diplomatic recognition and foreign credits thus
continued as members of the body that issued inflammatory revolutionary
appeals, drew scurrilous characterizations of bourgeois politicians in France
and Britain, and in general interfered in the most flagrant manner in the
internal politics of countries with which the Soviet Union sought normal
diplomatic and trade relations.
The very fact that neither Lenin nor his successors sought to conceal their
roles as spiritual and political directors of a world revolutionary movement
throws an interesting light on the fact that as politicians the Communists
discounted the alleged danger that as ideologists they incessantly invoked.
Had they been really convinced of the imminence of a capitalist attack from
abroad, it is reasonable to assume that they would have chosen to be more
hypocritical, to try to disguise more effectively their role as international
revolutionaries. But as Lenin wrote in the same letter to his foreign commis¬
sar, for Soviet dignitaries to resign from their Comintern posts would only
create the impression of weakness. And a principle the Soviet regime has
observed to this very day, and one that has served it well, is that to create the
impression of weakness among foreigners is much more dangerous than to
maintain the posture of ideological hostility.
By 1933 the Soviet Union obtained what it had sought so persistently and
unflinchingly since 1919: special status in the community of nations in terms
of a virtual acknowledgment by other major states that the USSR had the
right to all the usual appurtenances of statehood and diplomatic and commer¬
cial intercourse even though its professed philosophy was one of hostility to
every other form of government and despite the fact that an international
movement centered in and directed from Moscow had as its professed aim
the spread of communism to all corners of the world.
Major powers that have recognized the Soviet regime as the legal govern¬
ment of Russia, concluding with the United States in 1933, have often de¬
manded and sometimes exacted that Soviet Russia formally renounce its
interference in their internal affairs. But except in the case of the United
States it is difficult to believe that such assurances were sought seriously
rather than as a gesture. Certainly by 1933 it was almost humorous to expect
the Soviet government, as Maxim M. Litvinov pledged in a formal note to
the U.S. Department of State,
... to refrain, and to restrain all persons in Government service and

all organizations of the Government or under its direct or indirect con¬
trol . . . from any act overt or covert, liable in any way to injure the
tranquility, prosperity, order or security of any part of the United
States. . . . Not to permit the formation or residence on its territory of
any organization or group . . . which has as its aim the overthrow or the
preparation for the overthrow ... of the political or social order of the
whole or any part of the United States.®
That such pledges were sought could in itself be taken as proof that the old
diplomatic order had disintegrated beyond any hope of reconstruction.
But by the time the Soviet Union took its place as a full member of the
world community of states its status as such was still more paradoxical, and
by the pre-1914 standards more scandalous, than had been the case in the
twenties.
Until roughly 1925-1926 it could still be claimed with some superficial
validity that the Soviet Communists were members of a world movement in
which their country played the leading but not absolutely dominant role. But
by 1933 it was clear that the rulers of Russia were not mere participants in a
world revolutionary movement and it could not be claimed that, although
enjoying a special status among their fellow revolutionists, they were not the
absolute masters. With Stalin at the helm, foreign Communist were now obe-
dient servants of the Soviet Union, foreign Communist parties an extension

of Soviet power. After 1928-1929 a decision made in the Kremlin was as
binding on the Communist party organizations in Paris and Prague as it was
in Kiev or Minsk.
With the Sixth Congress of the Comintern, the tactics as well as personnel
policies of foreign Communist parties passed under the direct control of Mos¬
cow. Official recognition of the USSR thus amounted to a virtual acknowledg¬
ment by the major powers that they could have normal diplomatic relations
with a state that claimed and received from a number of their own citizens
loyalty superior to that they acknowledged to their own government.
Ironically it fell to the country that has traditionally been most jealous of
the principle that the loyalty of its citizens should be rendered exclusively to
their own government to recognize most vividly the universalistic pretensions
of the Soviet state. On his visit to Moscow in 1935 following the signing of
the Franco-Soviet pact, the French foreign minister, Pierre Laval, sought and
received Stalin’s approval of an internal policy of the French government, a
formal declaration that was thought necessary to make the French Commu¬
nists support their country’s defense effort: “Comrade Stalin expressed com¬
plete understanding and approval of the national defense policy pursued by
France with the object of maintaining its armed forces at a level consistent
with its security requirements.”®
Thus a right-wing French government pleaded with the leader of the world
Communist movement to sanction its internal policies and thereby make them
acceptable to a number of its own citizens!
Even when the growing fascist threat made the Soviet Union anxious for
allies abroad, its government refused to play down its role as the directing
force of the world Communist movement. The farce that Foreign Commissar
Litvinov chose to enact before the American ambassador in 1935 speaks for
itself: William C. Bullitt expostulated with Litvinov that the approaching
Seventh Congress of the Comintern would, in view of the participation of
American Communists, constitute a violation of the Roosevelt-Litvinov
agreement of 1933.
Litvinov said: “What, is there to be one?” I answered, “yes, on the

twentieth of this month.” Litvinov replied with a broad grin, “You know
more about the Third International than I do. The other day when I was
talking with Stalin I said I had heard there was to be a meeting of the
Third International on the tenth of this month. Stalin replied, ‘Is there?’
He knew about it no more than I do.”'''
The Laval and Bullitt incidents do not require a comment, but we might
pause to enquire the reasons that made the Western powers accept such an
unprecedented state of affairs. They are to be sought first of all in the destruc¬
tion of the European state system wrought by World War 1. The cornerstone
of this system was the principle of state sovereignty.
The Treaty of Versailles failed to restore the old system. In fact, by impos¬
ing severe restrictions upon the sovereignty of the defeated powers, notably
Germany, Versailles helped establish the notion that state sovereignty was not
the basic foundation of the international order. The Western powers’ interven¬
tion in the Russian civil war, sporadic and ineffective though it was, further
weakened legally, and even more psychologically, the case for holding the
Soviet Union accountable to normal rules of international intercourse. If capi¬
talist powers had tried to overthrow the infant Soviet state, could one by any
logic deny this state the right to have special friends and partisans abroad?
More basically, after 1918 the democratic ethos became a powerful force
in international relations. This sounds and is paradoxical, for this date marks
the opening of the intense challenge to democratic and liberal institutions
throughout the world. But it is precisely in the name of democratic principle
that the forces inimical to democracy were to score their greatest gains: The
doctrine of national sovereignty became unavailing in the face of the demo¬
cratic one. Public opinion in democratic countries found it difficult to resist
the argument that the feelings of the majority of the Germans in Austria and
Sudetenland possessed a higher validity than the legal rights of the Austrian
and Czech states. And it was equally difficult for the French or British gov¬
ernments to suppress political organizations or opinions in their own countries
merely because they reflected the wishes and served the interests of a foreign
power.
By the same logic the Soviet Union could not be blamed for the fact that a
number of British or American citizens shared the ideology and political
premises of its rulers. In fact, acquiescence in the Soviet Union’s unusual role
in international relations preceded the toleration of local Communist parties
by the democracies.
Persecution and chicanery against those parties by many democratic gov¬
ernments could be traced to the parties’ ostentatious hostility to democratic
institutions, especially in the twenties and early thirties, rather than to their link
with the USSR. Weimar Germany found no incompatibility between its virtual
alliance with the USSR and political and legal measures directed against the
German Communists. And Fascist Italy, which relatively early established
diplomatic ties with Moscow, was not inhibited by this fact from suppressing
the Communist party and imprisoning its leaders.
The challenge the Soviet Union represented to the world order was thus
unique in its nature. The response, or rather the lack of response, of other
powers to this challenge contributed to the final demise of the world order in
the thirties. For it was then that the ideological principle finally prevailed over
state sovereignty as the strongest element in international relations.
The initial and very considerable successes of Hitler could be traced to his
masterly exploitation of the changed rules of the game that were signaled by
the Versailles Treaty but brought into full prominence by the existence of the
new type of state, the USSR. Anti-communism was more than Hitler s propa-
ganda stock in trade; it was a technique that enabled weak and isolated
Germany to obtain allies and, most important, time for rearmament.
It is often alleged that Hitler “got away” with his trampling over Germany’s
treaty obligations and his aggressive posturings from 1933 through 1938 be¬
cause of fears of communism in the West. This is true enough. But a large part
of his success must be traced to the breakdown of the general principle of inter¬
national obligation and the norms of international comity, which had occurred
before and largely because of the USSR. It would have been an international
scandal and quite possibly causus belli for the Tsar of All Russias to publicly
express Russian territori^ claim to Eastern Galicia on the ground that the
majority of its inhabitants were Little Russians (as the Ukrainians were called
in tsarist Russia).
But Hitler’s public claims to foreign territories, whether rationalized on the
grounds that the German race needed Lebensraum or that the territories in
question were inhabited by Germans, did not automatically brand him as the
enemy of the European order in the eyes of the other powers, as Louis XIV
and Napoleon had been branded for advancing similar expansionist claims.
Hitler’s claims were no more shocking than those advanced by the Soviet
Union by virtue of its role as the Fatherland of Socialism; in fact, to some
conservative circles in the West, even to people who had little sympathy for
fascism as such, Hitlerism appeared a welcome counterforce to communism.
A world order, even a rudimentary one such as prevailed prior to 1914,
must be based on the assumption that some legal norms such as national
sovereignty are superior to considerations of nationalism and ideology (the
distinction itself is awkward, integral nationalism and racism as in Hitler’s
creed being a species of ideology). However ridiculous or immoral the “little
wars” of the nineteenth century may appear to us, they were limited and of
brief duration because none of the contestants sought the overthrow of its
enemies in the name of a “higher” principle.
What kept the Crimean War “small,” for example, was not its limited
scope—it involved, after all, three of Europe’s five major powers of the
time—but the limited objectives of the contestants. One can readily envisage
that had this war taken place some fifty years later it would have turned into a
total war, not so much because of changes in the nature of warfare but
because it could not have failed to assume an ideological character. The
French and British would have proclaimed it a war against tsarist autocracy;
the Russians would have invoked—as a matter of fact, they tried intermittently
and ineffectually throughout the century—the principle of natural self-deter¬
mination, to be applied, to be sure, not to their own but to the Turkish
empire. World War I already bore a quasi-ideological character (“Prussian
militarism,” the espousal by the Central Powers of a variant of national self-
determination as evidenced in their abortive moves on the Polish question, the
Wilsonian rhetoric).
Paradoxically, the legalistic and conservative order established by the Con-
gress of Vienna enabled liberal and eventually demoeratic institutions to take

root in a number of countries. The result of World War I, fought in the name
of lofty principles, was to make the world very unsafe indeed for democracy.
The Soviet Union adapted very skillfully to the drastically changed nature
of international relations. After 1933 its position appeared to be the acme of
paradox. Here was a state that proclaimed itself opposed to every other
existing form of government and yet claimed to be a firm supporter of the
international order threatened by fascism. Lenin had branded the League of
Nations a “league of imperialist brigands,” yet in 1934 the USSR entered the
League.
Hitler’s dramatic successes in the 1930s should not make one overlook the
fact that he failed in his first and most basic diplomatic objective: to isolate
the USSR and to be acknowledged as a defender of the European order
against communism. His anti-Communist posturings gained adherents among
some groups and politicians in the West and contributed, although not nearly
as much as is commonly believed, to French and British toleration of his early
treaty violations and aggressions.
But the British and French governments did not turn to Hitler to help save
them from international communism. Once their hopes of appeasing Hitler
were exposed as illusory, they went to Stalin to help save them from war and,
if that was impossible, to help them in a war against resurgent Germany.
The official myth sedulously propagated by Soviet propaganda and still
believed by many in the West-—-that the USSR patiently tried to collaborate
with the democracies and only when repulsed by them turned regretfully to a
treaty with Germany—cannot obscure the brilliant achievement of Soviet
diplomacy. Alone among the great powers in 1939, the Soviet Union achieved
its aim: to gain territorial aggrandizement while remaining at peace.
The Franco-British hopes of drawing Russia into an alliance and thus
preserving peace turned to ashes; so did Hitler’s dream that the French and
British, dazzled by the Soviet-German pact, would let him have his will with
Poland. To be sure, Stalin’s brilliant gambit was to bring him close to an
irretrievable disaster within two years, but then, who in I939> including the
German general staff, could have realized the full extent of the French Army s
weakness?
But it was not merely Stalin’s diplomatic skill (and unscrupulousness) that
enabled him to first pose as a defender of democracy and then, in the name of
the interests of the Fatherland of Socialism, to forge an alliance with Hitler.
There was an ample warrant in the ideology for both courses of action. It was
Hitler who compromised what little ideological content there was in his hide¬
ous doctrine by signing with Stalin.
Stalin could revert to the traditional Communist tenet in international rela¬
tions: Differences between capitalist states were those of degree rather than of
substance. A major and prolonged war between the main capitalist powers
would create a favorable climate for the spread of revolution. Thus, cjuite
apart from personal and nationalist reasons, Stalin could claim that the course
he took in 1939 was in full accordance with the Communist doctrine. It was
not his fault that some people in Britain and France thought that around
1934-1935 the character of the Soviet state had changed drastically, that the
Popular Front period represented more than just a phase in the foreign policy
of his country, and that he would obligingly pull British and French chestnuts
out of the fire, risking in the process the destruetion of his own regime, if not
indeed of the whole Communist experiment.
The Grand Alliance of the USSR with the United States and Britain dem¬
onstrated once again the incongruous character of the Soviet state and its
position in the community of nations. The Western allies could not accept the
simple fact that the USSR became their partner in the war because and only
because Russia had been attacked by Hitler. If for the Germans the Japanese
became “honorary Aryans,” then for the British and Americans, and espe¬
cially the latter, for the duration of the war Stalin became an “honorary
demoerat.”
Pretense notoriously leads to self-deception. Even if the most humane type
of Communist rather than Stalin had disposed of Russia’s policies during the
war, he still could not have fulfilled the hopes that Western public opinion and
official American (if not British) circles had entertained about the Soviet
Union’s postwar behavior in international relations. Unfounded illusions dur¬
ing the war, an unfounded disillusionment following it—here in a nutshell is
the main source of America’s unhappy experience with the USSR and the
world.
The tragedy (for such it is) is compounded by the fact that, while the basic
ideological incompatibility between the two superpowers could not have been
wished away, some of its disastrous consequences could have been avoided by
greater realism on the part of the West. Stalin could not have been trans¬
formed into a Jeffersonian democrat recognizing the sanctity of popular elec¬
tions. But he did entertain the possibility of the Soviet Union becoming an
imperial power in the traditional sense of the word. In the very beginning of
the Grand Alliance he formulated his proposals in a rather crass way. The
Anglo-Soviet treaty of alliance was to be supplemented by a secret protocol
that would provide for the Soviet Union to retain its 1941 frontiers (i.e., its
territorial gains from the period of Soviet-Nazi collaboration) in return for
the British right to bases in France, the Low Countries, Norway, and Den¬
mark. But apart from the crudity of such proposals they testify to Stalin’s
readiness to consider the postwar world in terms of spheres of influence.®
Any and all such attempts broke down because of American refusals even
to consider the sinful idea of spheres of influence. Russia was, in Washing¬
ton’s view, to be integrated into the world system with peace guaranteed
through the United Nations. The result was predictable; The Soviet Union got
its sphere of influence but the Western Allies did not get theirs. Eastern
Europe was firmly in the Soviet grip by 1946, while much of American policy
during the next two decades would consist of devising stratagems and policies
to protect Western Europe from the Soviet and/or Communist danger.
Furthermore there is much to suggest that hard, businesslike bargaining
could have enabled Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other nations to preserve
their internal autonomy while remaining within the Soviet sphere, that is, to
have the status of today’s Finland rather than to undergo the brutal process of
Communist Gleichschaltung. Not only the United States but also the alleged
objects of its solicitude were thus destined to pay a high price for American
virtue and repugnance for power politics.
It is not here suggested that with a different attitude by the West the Soviet
Union would have washed its hands of the international Communist move¬
ment at the end of the war. But there is a great deal of evidence to support the
contention that for a considerable period of time the USSR might have de-
emphasized the use of foreign Communists as an auxiliary arm of foreign
policy.
The Comintern was dissolved in 1943. The great Communist parties of the
West—the Italian and French—were, and with more than just a hint from
Moscow, pursuing moderate policies within the context of parliamentary
government. The Sino-Soviet treaty of August 1945 showed that the USSR
expected Chiang’s regime to remain the main political force on the Chinese
mainland for a long time. All such maneuvers suggest that Stalin was leaving
himself an option of observing certain rules of the international game, pro¬
vided that those rules were spelled out clearly by his Western partners. But
they were not.
Washington, which after 1945 charted the direction of Western policies, no
longer sought to bargain with the Soviet Union. The United States had ex¬
pected the USSR to behave in a manner consonant with the United Nations
Charter; since the USSR did not, the American policy-makers concluded that
the usual tools of diplomacy were unavailing when dealing with this mysteri¬
ous power.
Absurd expectations succeeded grotesque apprehensions. If the Soviet
Union violated its wartime pledges and the U.N. Charter, this meant it might
at any point launch its armies in a drive to the English Channel. In April
1946 the ambassador of the country that had a monopoly on the atom bomb
and at the time produced half of the world’s industrial output asked the leader
of a state whose economy still lay shattered by the war after losing more than
twenty million men, “What does Russia want and how far is Russia going to
go?” And Stalin not very reassuringly answered, “We are not going much
farther.”®
American naivete could not be reassuring to Stalin—quite the opposite. If
the United States at the height of its power failed to realize its strength and
bargaining assets, this meant that the Soviet Union should cash in on its
opportunities before the Americans woke up and tried to mount a basic
challenge to the new Soviet position both in Europe and elsewhere.
It was therefore easy for Stalin to see the Marshall Plan not merely as the
means to put Western Europe on its feet but as a sinister scheme to use the
rearmed West as America’s cat’s-paw to reverse Russia’s postwar expansion
and deny it the fruits of victory. If so, East European countries had to be
more firmly bound to the USSR, their governments and societies shaped by
the Communist mold.
There was likewise no reason for Moscow to press the Chinese Communists
to moderate their ambitions and content themselves with just Manchuria. A
Communist China, or even a China torn by civil war, was bound to distract
American attention and resources from Europe. This is yet another and more
startling paradox: It was the weakness of America’s original reaction to the
Soviet usurpations that fed Stalin’s fears and apprehensions for the future and
set the stage for the Cold War. The West’s confused and contradictory poli¬
cies led the Soviets to fear an eventual war; Russia’s ominous and self-
imposed isolation moves, such as the Berlin blockade and the 1948 Commu¬
nist coup in Czechoslovakia, made the West fear imminent Soviet aggression.
Here then was a tragedy of errors, or rather of mutual misperceptions, that
largely shaped the postwar world.
The Cominform born in 1947 was a ponderous Soviet response to what
was perceived as the long-range American threat. The Communist Informa¬
tion Bureau of nine parties might well have been called the “Anti-Marshall
Plan Bureau.” Its second function was to exercise control over the Commu¬
nist parties that now ruled as the Kremlin’s deputies in their own countries.
The whole effort was transparently clumsy: The Soviet Union did not need
the Cominform to keep the French or Bulgarian Communists in line. But it
was obviously hoped that this would be a more decorous way of synchronizing
the policies of foreign Communists and making sure that they would combat
the nefarious designs in the West. Once it failed in its first test, when the
Yugoslav Communists refused to submit their dispute with Moscow to the
“imported” arbitration of the Cominform, the latter obviously became a fifth
wheel, and its dissolution in 1956 was hardly noticed.
Stalin’s obsession with the Marshall Plan and its alleged military implica¬
tions and his personal pique at a Balkan upstart whom he suspected, also
falsely, of harboring ambitions to become completely independent from the
USSR were to have fateful and irreversible historical consequences. The per¬
iod of the Berlin blockade, which began in the early summer of 1948 and
ended in May 1949, coincided with the time when the Chinese Communists
scored their greatest and decisive successes in the civil war. With a confronta¬
tion with the United States, with real war not inconceivable (even though
Stalin did not believe the risk was great), the USSR obviously was not going
to put a brake on the Chinese Communists’ progress and their welcome
diversion of Washington’s attention from its European schemes.
This was not the time to negotiate with the Americans about what had
obviously been the original Soviet aim in China—a Communist state but
confined to northeast China and Manchuria (which would have given the
Soviet Union a Chinese satellite rather than a rival Communist power). And
after the Berlin confrontation ended in the summer of 1949 even Stalin could
not have stopped Mao’s forces, in view of their dazzling victories and the
complete collapse of Chiang’s regime.
The rise of Communist China transformed many of the basic perspectives

of Soviet foreign policy. Between 1933 and 1950 the Soviet Union was ac¬
cepted as a normal member of the community of nations; at the same time
the Soviet state claimed and received the loyalty of a worldwide movement
on account of its ideological character. The Soviet Union had been the
sole “exporter” of revolution, the sole arbiter of tactics of Communist move¬
ments everywhere. After World War II the USSR became one of two super¬
powers and yet, like the weak and backward Russia of the twenties, it still
basked in the protective feeling and affection of millions of supporters and
sympathizers throughout the world.
Now this enviable situation was gone forever. No longer would the USSR
be able to enjoy complete freedom of maneuvering, confident that no matter
how drastic or unexpected its policies—say, the Nazi-Soviet pact—they
would be met with a chorus of approval from every Communist party in the
world.
How did Stalin propose to deal with the new problem? We have only scraps
of information about his dealings with the Chinese leadership, but they throw
some fascinating light on Sino-Soviet relations during that phase. It is clear
that Stalin counted first of all on his unmatched prestige to secure at least
outward deference and obedience from Peking. But even the megalomaniac
despot realized that China could not be treated in the way he dealt with
Bulgaria. The Sino-Soviet treaty of 1950 envisaged the Chinese repossessing
Port Arthur and the Manchurian Railway. Stalin now hastened to offer Soviet
military help for Mao’s consolidation of his power over the mainland. We are
indebted to a recent Soviet source for an interesting piece of information:
“Soviet aviation units took part in the concluding phase of the [civil] war,
having been sent there in accordance with the Sino-Soviet Treaty of February
14, 1950.”^®
But it is clear that Stalin did not confine himself to soothing Mao’s pride
and providing him with belated help. The Manchurian port of the Chinese
Communist empire at first enjoyed an autonomous position, being ruled by
people with special ties to Moscow, headed by Kao Kang. It was only follow¬
ing Stalin’s death in December 1953 that Mao moved “to remove or to push
aside those leaders of the Party, who were known as partisans of increased
proletarian influence in the Party and of friendships with the Soviet Union.’’^^
In 1955 Kao Kang died in jail.
The story of the Korean War suggests strongly that it was exploited by the
USSR, if not indeed instigated for the purpose of preserving Soviet leverage
over Peking. After China’s involvement, Soviet air units moved into Man¬
churia, ostensibly to protect China from American air raids.But it is at
least reasonable to conjecture that this was the means of establishing Soviet
presence in that rich province should Chiang’s forces with American support
descend on other parts of China and rekindle the civil war.
Stalin’s death was bound to put an end to such games, at least for some
time to come. His successors were conscious of how the awe and imperturba¬
bility the late despot had exuded masked various internal and external weak¬
nesses of the Soviet Union. They could not and would not conduct foreign
policy in the same way. Above all they realized that their position might be
weakened, perhaps fatally, by any realization, whether in the West or even in
their own country, of the precarious nature of Sino-Soviet relations.
It is revealing to note that the announcement of Malenkov’s assumption of
leadership was accompanied by a picture showing him with Stalin and Mao,
as if in addition to the late dictator’s blessing he also had the approval of the
head of the nation that for the next seven years would be officially referred to
as the Great People’s Republic of China.For both internal and external
reasons the Kremlin needed the “unshakable friendship of the Soviet and
Chinese people,” and it had to pay a price.
For some twenty years the relationship between the Soviet Union and
foreign Communists had been fairly one-sided: To the USSR accrued most of
the advantages of this relationship, to foreign comrades most of the dangers
and costs. Now the Soviet leaders hastened to appease Peking. Economic and
technological help was extended to China on a much more generous scale
than originally planned in Stalin’s time. The special position of the USSR in
Manchuria and Sinkiang was liquidated with no resistance by Moscow.
In 1954 Khrushchev headed a delegation to China and it fell to him to
negotiate the final stage of the liquidation of the Soviet presence on Chinese
soil: Port Arthur and the East Chinese Railway were turned over to Peking;
the joint companies (Stalin’s favorite method of exploiting fellow Communist
states) were liquidated, their total assets going over to the Chinese. For Mao
this was evidently only a beginning: Mongolia should be returned to Chinese
suzerainty, he told his visitors!
Developments in the international field during the next five years left the
Kremlin no option but to continue what was in fact a policy of appeasement
of Peking. The years 1956-1957 were a time of crisis in the Soviet Union’s
relations with the satellites and also a time when the leadership of the CPSU
was shaken by serious internal dissensions. It was imperative for the Kremlin
to receive public support from China, and that support did not come free. In
October 1957 the Soviets took a step that would have been unimaginable in
Stalin’s time: They promised to help China develop its nuclear technology
and, as the Chinese were later to reveal, the agreement included the promise
that the USSR would deliver to its ally a sample atom bomb.^^
Both sides were under no illusion as to the nature and reasons for their
collaboration. Peking was aware that time was growing short for its exploita¬
tion of the Soviet predicament. A detente with the United States would enable
the Kremlin to face a public rupture with China with greater equanimity.
Understandably Mao had every reason to press the Soviet Union toward a
more militant posture vis-a-vis America, to constrain Moscow to support anti-
Western revolutionary movements all over the world. The Soviets chafed
under these constraints. As a semi-official source says,
In August-September 1958 in an attempt to intensify the “Big Leap”

through the means of creating a center of tension close to China, Mao
and his partisans embarked, without any consultation with the USSR . . .
upon provocative artillery shelling of islands in the Taiwan Straits. . . .
As it became known later, the Maoists had counted on the possibility of
starting there a “local war with the US and of involving eventually the
USSR in it.”i5
History thus caught up with the USSR. What had been the source of
additional strength, of a privileged position with respect to other states, now
also became a burden, a source of entanglements and dangers. Communist
China’s declaration of independence vis-a-vis the Soviet Union was to affect
much more than just Sino-Soviet relations; it was bound to change the Soviet
position within the whole Communist movement. No longer would the USSR
enjoy a completely free hand in foreign affairs, able to perform the most
breathtaking maneuvers and shifts in its policies, confident that no matter how
much they might hurt the interests of foreign Communists the latter would
obediently follow Moscow’s wishes.
Some foreign parties, notably Albania’s, went completely over to Peking’s
camp. Others, such as North Vietnam’s, saw the conflict between the Commu¬
nist giants as an opportunity for maneuvering between the two and asserting a
degree of independence of both. The Sino-Soviet break, which became public
knowledge in i960, meant that any conflict between the interests of a given
Communist party and that of the USSR could no longer be resolved by
Moscow automatically and without fear of unfavorable repercussions. Peking
became a fervant advocate of what might be called the underprivileged mem¬
bers of the Communist family: of those parties whose revolutionary strivings
were either ignored or restrained by Russia out of concern to avoid a danger¬
ous confrontation with the United States.
Much as they saw through the Chinese game, and in fact by the early 1960s
came to believe that Mao wanted nothing less than to force them into a war
with America, the Soviet leaders were still vulnerable to such pressures. The
loyalty of foreign Communists could no longer be taken for granted, it had to
be fought for in competition with China.
Thus the Soviet regime was forced to offer repeated proofs of its “interna¬
tionalism” and its solicitude for anti-Western revolutionary movements
throughout the world, even though by doing so it was frustrating or at least
delaying thoroughgoing detente with the United States and definitive settle¬
ment of the German problem, which have been cardinal objectives of Soviet
policy since the middle fifties.
An outside observer, when first confronted with the evidence of the Sino-
Soviet split, might well have concluded that its logical outcome would have to
be a basic change in the Soviet Union’s foreign outlook and policy. The USSR
would become explicitly what it already was in fact: a status quo power. The
umbilical cord linking the Soviet state to the international Communist move¬
ment, if not severed, would become attenuated. It obviously made no sense to
export revolution if—and here China offered a constant and irrefutable proof
—each new state entering the “camp of socialism” brought with it new head¬
aches for the USSR: entanglements, expense, danger.
Even within its special preserve—Eastern Europe—the USSR had to toler¬
ate a semi-independent posture by Romania. Other and loyal East European
Communist regimes still had to be watched carefully—in 1968 Brezhnev
might well have borrowed the American policy-makers’ domino simile about
Southeast Asia to justify the Kremlin’s intervention in Czechoslovakia. A few
more months of the Czechoslovak liberalization and the Warsaw and East
German regimes would have had to follow suit or collapse in the face of
popular pressure.
The maintenance of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe could no longer
be assumed to bring economic profits to their protector. The pattern of Soviet
exploitation that prevailed in Stalin’s time could not be maintained following
his death. And in the sixties the satellite empire was to become an occasional
economic burden. Following the 1968 invasion Soviet economic help was
extended to Czechoslovakia to keep that country’s economy from crumbling.
And in the winter of 1970-1971, to prevent Gomulka’s fall from endanger¬
ing the Warsaw Communist regime, food shipments had to be rushed to
Poland.
As against the costs and dangers of ideological imperialism, the Kremlin
leadership could ruefully contemplate the case of Finland. This small country,
since 1945 as firmly within the Soviet sphere as any of the Communist satel¬
lites, had been allowed for a variety of reasons to preserve its internal au¬
tonomy and democratic institutions. Hence Finland’s internal crises and
dilemmas were of no concern to Moscow, no drain on Soviet resources. The
Finnish government did not have to be watched anxiously for any signs of a
flirtation with Peking; the freedom of the press in Helsinki was unlikely to
lead to untoward impressions and strivings on the part of Warsaw, Sofia, or
Kiev.
But neither the Sino-Soviet conflict nor the recent troubles in Eastern
Europe appear to have persuaded the Kremlin to drastically alter the pattern
of its relations with the world Communist movement or to abstain from
ideological imperialism. In fact, as we have seen, the dispute with China has.
at least until very recently, sharpened the ideological thrust of Soviet foreign
policy.
During the Khruschchev era the Soviet Union sought to outbid Peking in
the appeal to revolutionary movements, especially in the Third World. Mos¬
cow has decided not only to try to remain the directing center of world
communism but also to become the chief sponsor of non-Communist revolu¬
tionary movements and regimes, as evidenced by the support given to practi¬
cally every organized force combating the waning Western influence in the
Third World. In fact fissures within the Communist bloc have apparently
served to strengthen the Soviets’ determination to stake a claim to yet another
area of ideological influence and appeal in world politics.
Amid the official guests at the recent congresses of the Communist party of
the Soviet Union there have been delegations not only from fraternal parties
all over the world but also from the ruling parties of Algeria, Egypt, and Mali.
To be sure, their presence could only partly offset the absence of representa¬
tives of the largest Communist-ruled nation in the world, but the mere fact of
admitting non-Communists to what had traditionally been a closed family
gathering has a significance that goes beyond the symbolic.
The Soviet Union now proclaims itself to be the fatherland not only of
socialism but of anti-imperialism. For a traditionalist thinking in terms of pre-
1914 international law and diplomacy, this would have been an even more
shocking and ominous development than the Soviet link with other Commu¬
nist parties. The latter might be rationalized in terms of a worldwide ideolog¬
ical fraternity, masked by the polite fiction that when Suslov and Ponomarev
talk with their British, French, or Argentinian comrades they do so as fellow
Communists rather than members of the highest ruling body of the USSR. But
this new intimate link between the Soviet Union and a variety of movements
and regimes whose only common denominator is hostility to the West has an
eloquence of its own.
How can one explain the persistence of this anti-Western syndrome and
activity even at times, as at present, when the Soviet Union’s “other” official
policy seeks, and to a degree has achieved, a far-reaching detente with the
United States and other Western powers?
There are several explanations, and we might state them very briefly: (i)
The very momentum, so to speak, of the Soviet Union’s ideological past; (2)
competition with China; and (3) most basically, the very character of the
Soviet regime is predicated upon its international role. Every denial of inter¬
nal freedom, each restriction on the Soviet citizen’s liberties, is ultimately
rationalized by the image of a world divided into two hostile camps in which
the forces of light—communism—are forever struggling with those of dark¬
ness—capitalism and imperialism—in a struggle that never abates even when
relations between the Soviet and Western governments are friendliest.
Furthermore, and equally important, the Soviet regime feels that by now it
has gained a prescriptive right to have what are in fact two foreign policies. It
reacts strongly when the West shows the slightest sign of imitating the Soviet
practice of having a bifurcated foreign policy: an ideological as well as a state
one. (One may recall Khrushchev’s probably not feigned indignation because
the United States “celebrated” the Captive Nations Week.)
We shall presently consider how far the Soviet example has influenced the
American approach to foreign policy. But right here we should just note that
we have grown so used to Soviet unorthodox practices that they hardly arouse
any surprise, not to mention diplomatic protests. It is no longer news when a
secretary of the Central Committee and an American Communist leader sit
down to a “cordial exchange of views.” What would be the reaction in the
USSR . . . and America ... if a presidential assistant were to hold a similar
publicly announced exchange with the head of an anti-Soviet Ukrainian or
Russian emigre organization?*
The foregoing discussion illuminates two melancholy facts. One, a plati¬
tude: The emergence of the Soviet state and then its achievement of super¬
power status have, perhaps irretrievably, changed the nature of international
relations and corroded the rudimentary international order that existed prior
to 1914. The mainstays of that order were national sovereignty and the
principle of noninterference by foreign powers in the affairs of sovereign
states. To be sure, these had often been honored in breach, but still they were
recognized as desirable aspirations and the necessary prerequisites of any real
world order that would banish war.
The Soviet Union was the first state in modern history explicitly to reject
national sovereignty as the basis of political legitimacy. In view of its ideolog¬
ical premises the Soviet state had and has to consider every non-Communist
government as one de facto rather than de jure. That by itself would not have
led to a heightening anarchy of international relations. It has been, after all, a
tenet of the American popular philosophy of international relations that non-
democratic governments are both immoral and, in the long run, doomed by
the forces of history. But in addition the Soviet Union has assumed and
exercised the leadership of a worldwide movement whose stated, even though
long-run, aim has been to replace every other form of government by the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Another and an almost inevitable result of the Soviets changing the rules of
the international game had to be a transformation in the character of the
* We may console ourselves with the reflection that for the time being, at least, Com¬
munist China is willing to tolerate a somewhat similarly abnormal pattern of relations
between Washington and Peking. We have de facto diplomatic relations with the
People’s Republic at the same time that we have a de jure link with and are pledged to
defend another Chinese regime viewed by Peking as a rebel one. To be sure, the Chinese
Communists view this as but a temporary accommodation and realistically as an effica¬
cious way of eroding U.S. protection of Taiwan.
Western powers’ foreign policy, principally, of course, in that of the United

States.
Once committed to an active world role, the United States—and here we
mean not only the government but American public opinion—-found it impos¬
sible to get a handle on the Soviet phenomenon. The United States could and
did deal in a forthright manner with palpable aggression. But following the
war this country became an occasional partner as well as the almost constant
competitor not only of another state but also of a worldwide system.
Who was, then, the United States dealing with—the guardians of Russia’s
national interest or the high priests of an international ideological movement?
In fighting to curb Soviet expansion, was America dealing with an imperial
power, a worldwide conspiracy, or the forces of history? Could the Soviet
threat—communism—be contained by enhancing the virtuousness of Ameri¬
can policies and exacting similarly virtuous policies from its allies, or was the
United States to be “realistic”—to descend into the grubby game of world¬
wide subversion?
Could the Russians be scared off their evil designs by a crushing superiority
of power on the other side, or were they, on the contrary, to be dissuaded
from their real fears by continuous examples of American highmindedness
and solicitude for freedom and democracy throughout the world? At one time
or another American foreign policy during the last twenty-five years has re¬
flected each of these variants.
Almost inevitably, therefore, the ideological component of American policy
was enhanced by the competition with the Soviet Union and by what Amer¬
ica’s rulers and public opinion conceived to be the exigencies of the Cold War.
Without suggesting that this was altogether undesirable, it is clear that this
aspect of the American response to what was conceived as the Soviet-
Communist challenge was to have disruptive consequences both for interna¬
tional politics and for the inner workings of the American democracy.
In announcing the doctrine that bears his name. President Truman pro¬
claimed the basic conflict to be between two ways of life: the Communist one,
spreading “the evil soil of poverty and strife,” and the democratic one, based
upon the will of the majority . . . free elections . . . guarantees of individual
liberty .. . freedom of speech.”^®
This rhetoric, necessary as it may have been to convince the American
taxpayers to assume additional and unaecustomed burdens, still appeared to
suggest that the United States was engaged in an ideological crusade rather
than a sober endeavor to restore a degree of stability to international rela¬
tions. America’s power was enlisted once more in a drive to make the world
safe for democracy, rather than safe from war, and for the right of individual
states to be free from direct or indirect aggression.
Many of the contested areas—Iran, Turkey, certainly Kuomintang China
could not be described as free in the sense the term is employed in the lexicon
of American politics. The time would come when public opinion would de¬
mand evidence of irreproachable democratic virtues from each of the allies
and proteges of the United States, and when it was found wanting many
Americans would conclude that this country had no business protecting those
countries’ independence.
Thus the ideological veneer of the policy of containment was destined to
contribute to the paradoxical situation of recent years when, to many critics at
home and abroad, the United States stands revealed not as defender of inter¬
national security and order but as an enemy of social and political change
throughout the world. Yet what most critics and moralists overlook is the
lesson of one of the most justifiable and rewarding acts of post-World War II
U.S. foreign policy: the decision to extend American help to a regime that by
no stretch of the imagination could be characterized as democratic and in no
sense could be described as opposed to social and economic change, Tito’s
Yugoslavia.
Here was a government that, although utterly lacking in democratic or
capitalist virtues, showed its determination to preserve, or rather to retrieve,
its national independence as well as the capacity to do so barring an invasion
by an overwhelming force. American aid to Communist Yugoslavia could be
seen as an act of sheer power politics. Yet in extending a helping hand to a
Communist dictatorship, the United States stumbled into an acknowledgment
of what must be the basic principle of international morality: the right of any
state, no matter what its ideological complexion, to be free from foreign
domination. Livelihood must come before virtue, proclaimed an ancient phi¬
losopher. And international security must come before democracy or social
progress as the foundation of a viable international order.
The Soviet state, or rather the privileged position this state has assumed in
its foreign relations, has thus deflected even its rivals from perceiving what
must be the guiding principle of an effective endeavor for peace. The ideolog¬
ical virus that has infected the world body politic could not be conjured away
by contrivances like the United Nations.
When the United States, in exasperation over this predicament, sought a
formula for an ideological counteroffensive against what was perceived as the
Soviet drive for world domination, this served only to deepen the crisis the
world had reentered immediately following the war. Both superpowers have
rationalized their ideological imperialism in terms of higher principles that
allegedly transcend national sovereignty. What made matters worse from the
Western point of view was, of course, the fact that America’s was bound to be
ineffective. Unlike the Soviet Union, the United States has not disposed of the
loyalty of a disciplined world movement that would unquestioningly follow its
commands.
Furthermore, a democratic society is badly equipped to sustain a prolonged
ideological crusade. It is expected—by its own people, by its allies—to adhere
rigorously to its professed ideals in international relations and not to dilute
them in the slightest through realpolitik or national interests. The Soviet state
has not, at least until recently, suffered from similar disadvantages. The Mon¬
roe Doctrine has in effect collapsed; the Brezhnev Doctrine (which should
really be called the Stalin Doctrine) has been doing quite well, at least insofar
as Eastern Europe is concerned.
But we are not concerned here primarily with U.S.-Soviet relations. Our
inquiry relates to the problem of how the Soviet Union has affected the
general character of international relations and politics. We have seen that
until 1914 there existed what might be called a rudimentary international
order. It was far from providing for the equality of its member states, still less
for a peaceful resolution of international disputes. Yet in theory this system
expressed certain basic aspirations and stipulated the necessary conditions for
a world order, the cardinal of them being national (or to be more precise,
state) sovereignty.
The rise of the Soviet state and the international Communist movement
inevitably posed a basic challenge to the effort to reconstitute this interna¬
tional order after the catastrophe of the world war. Soviet membership, first in
the League of Nations and then in the United Nations, could not in itself
counteract the disruptive effect of the Soviet Union on normal (again in its
pre-1914 sense) functioning of international politics. Whatever obligations
the USSR assumed by virtue of its membership in the world organizations and
whatever one thinks of the Soviet record in abiding by them, it is clear the
Russian leaders never even pretended that in assuming such obligations they
were abdicating their role as the guides of a worldwide supranational move¬
ment whose legitimacy derived from an ideology (as interpreted by them¬
selves) and not from any international covenant.
The challenge to the Russian leadership of the Communist movement, the
virtual certainty that the monolithic unity of this movement can never again
be restored, has not thus far resulted in what might be called the seculariza¬
tion of the Soviet state. In fact, while Soviet policies toward acknowledged
ideological rivals have become more conciliatory, over the last twenty years
Soviet ideological pretensions have grown more all-embracing. Moscow has
emerged as a sponsor of a revolutionary ecumenism but one that, unlike
Rome’s, does not imply a hberalization of the practices of the true church
itself. *
Influence and power outside their own country are seen by the Soviet
leaders as a necessary condition for the preservation of their regime in its full
autocratic rigor. Stalin could easily afford the collapse of the Greek Commu¬
nist rebellion or Tito’s defection. But the Cuban fiasco contributed to Khru¬
shchev’s fall, and his successors felt that Czechoslovak liberalization posed a
* Perhaps emblematic of the whole current state of relations is the issue of a dialogue
between Catholicism and Marxism as advocated by certain circles within the Church. The
Communists are quite willing to carry out such a dialogue, provided it takes place in the
West. At home they insist on a monologue.
serious threat to their own methods of governing the Soviet people. They are
convinced that they must lead and score successes abroad lest their leadership
be threatened at home.
Accordingly they maintain, even though they may suspect that it is not so,
that the slogans and goals of world communism are as relevant and impo/tant
to the security of the Soviet state today as they were in the twenties and
thirties. They go on proclaiming the inherent contradictions within the capital¬
ist world while turning a blind eye to those within the socialist camp. In many
ways Soviet foreign policies (and, incidentally, domestic ones as well) are
currently in a state of what by analogy with the Fourth French Republic
might be called “immobilisme,” and it would be foolhardy to soon expect a
Soviet DeGaulle who would liquidate Soviet ideological imperialism the way
the French statesman shed his country’s colonial burden.
It is unlikely that the recent detente between the United States and the
Soviet Union, important and desirable as it is, can affect this fundamental
dilemma of international relations. Had it taken place some fifteen years ago
when Russia’s position vis-a-vis China was much stronger and America’s
weight in world affairs as well as the stability and faith in its leadership much
greater, such a detente might have gone quite far in easing international
anarchy. The tragedy of Vietnam might not have taken place, the crisis in the
Middle East, if not completely exorcised by the superpowers’ agreement,
would have remained at a lower level of tension.
The 1973 agreements promise, at most, a continuation of troubled coexis¬
tence. They register the two powers’ determination to avoid a nuclear war and
to restrain the armaments race. They reflect Russia’s current economic
troubles but also America’s reduced power, as shown by the West’s acquies¬
cence in the status quo in Central and Eastern Europe. Nothing in them,
alas, entitles us to hope that they are a decisive step in terminating the state of
“neither peace nor war” that has been the condition of the world since 1945.
The conjunction of Russia’s power and a worldwide dynamic political
movement has destroyed the rules of the international game as they prevailed
in the period of Western supremacy. And although communism, as evidenced
by the Sino-Soviet split, has shown its incapacity to erect an alternative world
order, it persists in challenging and encroaching on what remains of the old. It
is a recognition of these ineluctable facts that must precede any future attempt
to piece together a world community.
NOTES
1. Maxim Gorky, O Ruskom Krestyanstve (Berlin, 1922), p. 22.

2. S. Pestkovsky, “The October Days in Petrograd,” in the Proletarskaya Revolutsya,
no. 10 (October 1922), p. 99.
3. From a speech on May 14, 1918, in Jane Degras, ed., Soviet Documents on Foreign
Policy, Vol. I; i()iy-ig24 (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 78.
4. Leninskiy Sbornik [Collected notes and papers by Lenin], vol. 36 (Moscow: State
Publishing House, 1959), p. 338.
5. Jane Degras, ed., Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, Vol III: 1933-1941 (Lon¬
don: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 36.
6. Ibid., p. 132.
7. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States: Russia 1933—39
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941), pp. 221-222.
8. See Adam B. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: History of Soviet Foreign Policy,
1917-1967 (New York: Praeger, 1968), pp. 331-332.
9. Walter Bedell Smith, My Three Years in Moscow (New York: Lippincott, 1950),
p. 50.
10. V. I. Glunin, A. M. Grigorev, K. V. Kukuskin, and V. N. Nikiforov, Noveyshaya
Istoria Kitaya (Moscow, 1972), p. 246.
11. Ibid., p. 266.
12. Ibid., p. 259.
13. The picture in Pravda of March 10, 1953, was a composograph of a photograph
taken at the signing of the Sino-Soviet alliance on February 14, 1950, when in addition
to the three gentlemen in question, a score of other officials were gathered for the
occasion.
14. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence, p. 599.
15. Glunin et ai, Noveyshaya Istoria Kitaya, p. 319.
16. Harry Truman, Memoirs, Vol. II: Years of Trial and Hope (New York: Double¬
day, 1958), p. 106.
1
i
M
PART II
Regional Case Studies

on the Impact of
Soviet Foreign Policy
3
Eastern Europe
HUGH SETON-WATSON
Hugh Seton-Watson is professor of history at the School
of Slavonic Studies, University of London. His numerous
publications include; Eastern Europe Between the Wars,
The East European Revolution, The Decline of Imperial
Russia, Pattern of Communist Revolution, Neither War
Nor Peace, Nationalism and Communism, and The
Russian Empire iSoi-igij.
The object of this chapter is not to provide a chronological survey of the

relations between the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe but to consider the
impact of Soviet policies on that region (the broad region lying between
the areas of compact German, Italian, and Russian population—including,
for present purposes, the Belorussians and the Ukrainians under the term
“Russian”) at decisive moments since 1917, and to ask the following ques¬
tions; What was specific to the Soviet impact? In what respects did that impact
differ from the impact of previous great powers, such as the Ottoman empire,
the Hapsburg monarchy, or the tsarist empire?
In Stalinian and post-Stalinian mythology, the October Revolution was, for
the peoples of Eastern Europe as for other peoples living farther away from
the borders of Russia, the decisive event making possible the self-determina¬
tion of oppressed nations and marking a new phase in the struggle of the
working class against capitalism. For example, the establishment in 1918 of
an independent state of Czechs and Slovaks was the result not of the activities
of that enemy of the workers, Thomas Masaryk, or of the victory of his
masters, the Western imperialist powers, or of the armed struggle of Czech and
Slovak volunteers in various Allied armies, or even mainly of the Czech and
Slovak peoples in the homeland. It was, instead, the Bolshevik Revolution in
Russia that brought liberty to Czechs and Slovaks; it was Lenin and Stalin
who by their wisdom and heroism created Czechoslovakia.
The truth is less glorious and far more complicated. It is true that the
events of 1917 in Russia made a profound impression all over Eastern Eu¬
rope. However it was the February Revolution that first aroused the hopes of
the German and Magyar workers and of the subject nations of the Hapsburg
monarchy. The May 30 declaration of the South Slav and Czech deputies to
the reassembled Reichsrat in Vienna preceded Lenin’s armed insurrection by
five months but was certainly inspired by the revolutionary situation in Rus-
49
sia. The revolutionary mood among workers, intellectuals, and peasants in

Central Europe grew as the situation in Russia developed, up to and after the
October Revolution.
But the main change brought by the October Revolution was the collapse
of Russian military power, which affected different nations of Eastern Europe
in different ways. From February 1917 onward the non-Russian peoples of the
Russian empire had increased their political demands. As the victorious Ger¬
man and Austrian armies marehed eastward, escape from Russian domination
became a serious prospect for these peoples but it also brought the prospect of
German domination in place of Russian. Poles viewed this change with very
mixed feelings; Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Lithuanians (and perhaps also
Latvians and Estonians) on balance welcomed it. In the Danubian and
Balkan countries, however, there was much less joy.
It is true that the Bolshevik slogans of self-determination and the dema¬
gogic performances of Trotsky and his colleagues at Brest Litovsk aroused
hopes for the non-Magyars and non-Germans of the Hapsburg monarchy, but
it did not take very long to see that revolutionary rhetoric was no match for
German military power. For Serbs and Romanians, both in the two kingdoms
and in Austria-Hungary, Brest Litovsk was a disaster, and this was hardly less
true for Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, and Slovenes. Further south the victory of
Lenin seemed to guarantee to the Bulgarian small-power imperialists their ill-
gotten gains at the expense of Serbs and Greeks.
Fortunately for these disappointed nations, the Western Allies defeated
Germany and they obtained the independence or national unity for which
they had fought. They also obtained a good deal more, abusing their moment
of victory (through association with the victors) to place large numbers of
Hungarians, Germans, Macedonians, and Ukrainians under their rule. For
this, historians are entitled to blame them and their Western patrons. But
historians simply make themselves ridiculous when they deny that these na¬
tions had legitimate national aspirations; that many Western statesmen felt
genuine sympathy for these aspirations; and that a victory of German impe¬
rialism, furthered by Bolshevik surrender, would have destroyed them.
It was after the collapse of Germany in 1918 that a second aspect of the
Bolshevik victory in Russia—less obvious at first than the immediate aspect
of Russian military collapse—became evident. This was the ambition of the
Bolsheviks to promote revolution in Europe. Revolutionary rhetoric from
Moscow and panic fears among Western politicians and capitalists created
hysterical passions for or against Soviet Russia that bore very little relation to
realities in Central and Eastern Europe.
Far from wishing to follow the Russian example, the German workers’
councils (at first sight the equivalent of Russian soviets) were voted out of
existence by their own freely elected delegates in December 1918, in favor of
a bourgeois parliamentary ’ constituent assembly. The Berlin insurrection
Regional Case Studies on the Impact of Soviet Foreign Policy 51
and the Munich “soviet republic” of early 1919 were mere flashes in the pan.
The Soviet Republic lasted longer in Hungary, where it was supported by the
hope of nationalist army officers that Russia would save Hungary’s old fron¬
tiers. In the end, though, the Romanian army sufficed to suppress it. In
Romania and Poland triumphant nationalism and the hope of land reform—
realized in the former but frustrated in the latter—combined with ancient
distrust of aU things Russian to keep Bolshevik influence minimal.
Pilsudski’s defeat of the invading Red Army in 1920 put an end to hopes of
Red revolution in Eastern and Central Europe. The only substantial Commu¬
nist party that was left was the Bulgarian. It in turn quarreled with its poten¬
tial ally, the Peasant party, and in 1923—having failed to help Stamboliisky’s
government in its hour of danger—the Communists made a hopeless rebellion
of their own, which was bloodily suppressed. In all these events the advice of
the Russian revolutionary experts entrenched in the newly founded Comintern
was rather less than helpful.
Nevertheless the possessing classes in Eastern Europe did not lose their
fear of communism or their identification of this deadly threat with the vast
resources of mysterious, malevolent Russia. Hungarian and Polish land-
owners, Romanian and Balkan rising capitalists and their West European
associates, quailed from time to time at the floods of bloodcurdling rhetoric
proceeding from Moscow. Their fears enabled governments to restrict such
liberties as had been gained by earlier political struggles and to resist such
plans for social progress as were put forward by democratic politicians, on the
grounds that these would give openings to Bolshevik subversion. Political
opponents were denounced as Communists or unconscious tools of Commu¬
nists.
It was not only the rich who were frightened by the Communist bogey; as
enemies of peasant property and persecutors of religion, the Soviet rulers
appeared to menace whole peoples. Forced collectivization of agriculture and
the horrors of the First Five-Year Plan, vividly if not always accurately
reported in the world press, strengthened the argument. Czechoslovakia was
the only country in which the upper and middle classes were not much im¬
pressed by the Bolshevik bogey. This was not so much thanks to any innate
superior political wisdom of the Czechs as because the Czechs who had
never had much direct contact with Russians—preserved a sentimental pan-
Slavism, firmly founded on ignorance and wishful thinking.
If obsession with an illusory revolutionary danger was one consequence of
the October Revolution in Eastern Europe, another was a gap in the Euro¬
pean power system, which particularly affected the peoples of the Danube
Valley and the Balkans. Russia had in effect withdrawn from Europe. En¬
trenched behind the Kremlin walls, preoccupied with the task of turning Rus¬
sian society upside down, the Soviet leaders paused from time to time to chant
a few hymns of hate addressed to the eapitalist world.
Meanwhile, with Russia absent and Germany prostrate, the French could
feel they were—or at least ought to be—the masters of Europe; the Italians
could play little games of being a new Austria-Hungary; and the British could
turn their backs and wash their hands of it all, interrupting this ploy occasion¬
ally with a snort of protest at some event they had scorned to anticipate and
become powerless to remedy.
The East European governments aped their protectors. The Little Entente
rulers basked in the rather weak and filtered sunshine of French culture; the
Hungarians and Bulgarians eagerly attached themselves to II Duce and did
their best to adopt his morality; and Pilsudski brooded in angry isolation
(both before and after making himself dictator) on the future of Poland as a
great power.
All this came to an end fairly soon after Adolf Hitler was called to power
by President Hindenburg. The Soviet rulers were at first happy to see in power
a fanatical nationalist under whom their obsessive nightmare, a reconciliation
between Germany and its vanquishers—which must by definition be intended
as preparation for an onslaught by the whole capitalist world on the homeland
of the toilers—seemed most unlikely to be realized. But when Hitler made an
agreement with Poland in January 1934, thus apparently replacing the Prus¬
sian tradition of alliance with Russia against Poles by the Austrian tradition
of encouraging Poles against Russia, the Soviets thought again. By the end of
1934 the Soviet Union was in the League of Nations; in the following year the
Franco-Soviet and Soviet-Czechoslovak pacts were signed. Russia was back in
the European power system.
During this period even conservatives in Britain and France were increas¬
ingly alarmed and repelled by the spectacle of the Third Reich, and it began
to look as if something like the pre-1914 Triple Entente might reemerge to
hem in Germany. At this time Mussolini also was very far from enthusing
over his northern admirer. Hitler’s attempt to annex Austria, his former
homeland, by the putsch of July 25, 1934—which cost Chancellor Dollfuss
his life but did not capture power in Vienna—caused Mussolini to strike one
of his most impressive pseudo-Colleoni attitudes—with jutting jaw, fiery rhe¬
toric, and Italian divisions mobilized on the Brenner.
These trends were reversed partly by the Ethiopian war, which cut off Italy
from the West and made the Duce listen to the Fuhrer’s blandishments, but
still more by the war in Spain.
From 1934 to 1937 the idea had been growing up in the West that the
Soviet Union was now a “respectable” power. The days of that frightening
revolutionary fanatic Lenin were now long past. Stalin was another sort of
man; he was restoring badges of rank in the Red Army and the people he had
shot were revolutionaries.
There was no keener advocate of the Salonsfdhigkeit of Stalin than Central
Europe’s veteran incurable optimist. President Eduard Benes of Czecho¬
slovakia, who believed that he had placed Stalin in his debt by forwarding to
him “evidence” of the “treason” of Tukhachevsky and other Soviet marshals.

But this rosier view of the Soviet Union quickly faded.
In the war in Spain, ideological passion, which had been apparently lan¬
guishing in Russia, burst into bright flame. Spanish anarchists and various
leftists were accused of burning churches, raping nuns, and murdering priests.
The atrocities were doubtless exaggerated, but some of them did take place.
The fact that the Spanish Communists, now implacable champions of bour¬
geois morality and parliamentary democracy, were in no way to blame for the
atrocities did not prevent their identification, in European conservative minds,
with all the old horrors of bolshevism. The international “image”—this useful
word was not current in those times—of the Soviet Union suffered. This
development was in no way Stalin’s fault, but Fascist propagandists aU over
Europe made the best of the situation. The Spanish war was represented as a
new version of religious war. European civilization was being defended
against Red bestiality, or democracy was being defended against Fascist terror,
depending on your point of view.
In such a climate of opinion the prospects for cooperation between the
Western capitalist powers and the Soviet Union rapidly receded. In the West,
many democrats who were far from Communists rallied to the Spanish Re¬
publican cause and many others of a more conservative frame of mind who
were far from Nazis showed a preference for Franco. But Stalin no longer
seemed a likeable fellow, nor did the Soviet Union seem bundnisfdhig.
While all eyes were on Spain, Hitler went ahead with the political penetra¬
tion of Eastern Europe. Western governments lost their will to oppose his
designs. One important point in this process can rightly be regarded as Stalin’s
fault: the mass purge from 1936 to 1939. Information in the West was not
then very good, but it was known that something like half the officers above
the rank of major had been removed. Military attaches and Defense Ministry
officials did not need to have pro-Fascist sympathies to have their doubts
about the value of an ally with an army that had had treatment of this sort.
The colonels and generals who advised their governments were perhaps in¬
clined to be oversensitive to the fate of other colonels and generals. But the
fact remains that, whether it was a matter of professional bias or common
sense, the purges had an impact in the Munich surrender, which in turn
determined the fate of Eastern Europe.
The revival of ideological passion had also been affecting the East Euro¬
peans for some time. Here the Spanish War played its part, but more impor¬
tant were the effects of the economic depression on these mainly agricultural
economies. Poverty, discontent, and political extremism all grew together. It
was the Fascists who were the most successful. Especially in Romania and
Hungary, they were able to produce a mixture of nationalist and social radi¬
calism that proved attractive not only to students, unemployed members of
the intellectual professions, and persons seeking an opening in business but
also to peasants and workers. The enemy against whom the various discon¬
tents were directed was “the Jew,” the sinister author of both capitahsm and
communism, of both liberal and Marxist false doctrine.
In neither country did the Fascist movements achieve power by their own
efforts, but in both they had a powerful influence on public opinion as well as
rulers, pressing the latter to ape the style of Hitler and Mussolini, to go along
with their foreign policies, and to think in terms of war against Soviet Russia.
By contrast, discontent in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece, especially
among the educated members of the younger generation, inclined to anti¬
fascism and at least a certain benevolence toward the Soviet Union and com¬
munism. In all three countries Communists formed fairly small but very active
minorities, enjoying wide public sympathy.
Poland, of all the East European countries, was the least affected by gen¬
uine political extremism. Pilsudski’s successors in power aped Fascist slogans
but did not reflect public opinion, which consisted mainly of peasant democ¬
racy and democratic socialism. Most Poles distrusted communism because it
was associated with Russia. There was widespread anti-Semitism in Poland—
which had three million Jewish citizens—but Hitler’s men failed to mobilize
this feeling on behalf of the Third Reich; fascism and National Socialism were
distrusted for their association with Germany.
Repulsed by his French ally at the time of the Munich surrender, Stalin
took a new look at his foreign policy and ended up with the Molotov-Ribben-
trop pact, or Fifth Partition of Poland, of August 1939. The British and
French governments had little right to moral indignation, considering how
they had behaved a year earlier.
More serious is the argument that Stalin misjudged the military realities of
1939 and paid heavily for this in 1941. Thanks to Russian neutrality the
Germans were able to do to France in 1940 what they had not been able to
do, thanks to the Imperial Russian Army, in 1914. Having handed over the
whole European continent for Hitler to conquer, the Russians had no second
front to help them when Hitler turned east. They feared, not without reason,
that if they had made an alliance with the West in 1939 their Western allies
would have stood by while Hitler attacked Russia. But even if this had hap¬
pened the Russians would have been better off than they turned out to be in
1941. For in 1939 public pressure in the West for action on the western front
would have produced results before Hitler’s armies had reached Moscow. The
Western armies were in existence in 1939; in 1941 they had ceased to exist
and no public clamor could create them until some years had passed and
millions of Russian soldiers had perished.
Be that as it may, the impact of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact on Eastern
Europe was quite unambiguous. The homeland of the toilers of the world,
openly adopting the methods of Empress Catherine II, grabbed a third of
Poland without firing more than a shot or two, and a chunk of Finland after
surprisingly hard fighting. Nine months later the three Baltic republics, east-
ern Moldavia (or Bessarabia), and northwestern Moldavia (or northern
Bukovina) were similarly “liberated.”
Having conquered Western Europe from the North Cape to the Pyrenees,
Hitler paused to consult his Soviet ally before finishing off what remained of
neutral independence in the Balkans. When Molotov came to Berhn in No¬
vember 1940, he was offered a sphere of influence in the Persian Gulf area.
Molotov had no moral objections to accepting this offer; what he did not like
about it was that it was not enough. He also asked for a dominant position in
Bulgaria and a strategic base in the Straits of the Black Sea. This was too much
for Hitler, who decided to put into operation his long-prepared plans for the
invasion of Russia.
War with Russia would of course have come in any case one day, for
Hitler’s hatred was unchanging. But this should not blind us to the fact that
the war with Russia which began in 1941 was sparked by Stalin’s greed for
power in the Balkans and at the Straits.
Looking back at the impact of the Soviet Union on Eastern Europe during
the first quarter-century of the Soviet regime, the main impression is of the
yawning gap in Europe—the absence of Russia. The gap was imperfectly
concealed by a smokescreen from which emerged occasional displays of revo¬
lutionary pyrotechnics—fiery monsters that burst upward and dissolved in
mid-air without a trace.
In the mid-i930s the output of rhetoric diminished as the Soviet govern¬
ment sought to enter into diplomatic combinations with other governments.
Its first efforts were marked by ignorance, dogmatism, and greed; however
these were not unusual features of great power diplomacy at the time and the
two great West European democracies can hardly boast a nobler record. At
the same time it is worth repeating that, although the Soviet effort was not
notably worse than that of Chamberlain or Daladier, it also was not notably
better. And Stalin did do one thing that they did not: He destroyed half his
officer corps and a large part of his administrative and industrial leadership.
The Soviet regime was saved from the disastrous situation of 1941 by the
bravery of the Russian people in arms and the skill of the Russian officers,
many of whom had been only recently recalled to arms from the prisons,
torture chambers, and concentration camps to which Stalin s special security
tribunals had sent them in 1937 and 1938. The comparison of 1941-1944
with 1812, which was the theme of Soviet propaganda at home and abroad,
was about as well justified as any simple historical comparison can be. The
combination of blind obedience and willing self-sacrifice displayed by the
serfs of Alexander I had its parallel in the similar attitudes of the kolkhozniki
and underpaid unskilled factory workers conscripted into Stalin s armies.
It is also fair to point out StaUn’s own great merit as a leader, which was
strikingly similar to that of Alexander I—although both men have been ill
treated hitherto by historians and commentators, who have paid more atten-
tion to such glamorous figures as Kutuzov and Zhukov. It was the tsar alone
who decided in 1812, against the preferences of most of his advisers including
even Kutuzov, to ignore any offer of peace from Napoleon. It was the tsar
who also decided, against still more strongly held opinions among his ad¬
visers, that it was not enough to drive Napoleon out of Russia and that the
Russian army must pursue him into Europe and destroy his power com¬
pletely. It was Stalin who made the same decisions in regard to Hitler.
It is here that the resemblance ends. In 1814 the Russian armies entered
Paris. They had been welcomed in Germany and France along the way, and
they had shown discipline and good behavior that astonished the population.
Even in Poland they had been kept fairly well under control. In 1945 the
Russian soldiers got only as far as Berlin and Vienna, but they left an impres¬
sion of unrestrained savagery in the memories of the civil population—in
countries allied with Hitler but also in countries he had conquered.
Intellectuals living beyond the English Channel or the Atlantic Ocean could
calmly explain this behavior by the atrocities committed by Hitler’s hordes in
Russia and by the fact that many Russian soldiers had had no leave, and no
contact with women, for three years. At the receiving end it was hard to be so
calm. A bitter Hungarian pun spoke of the three catastrophes in Hungarian
history: the Tatar devastation, the Turkish devastation, and the Russian liber¬
ation (tdtdr dulds, torok dulds, felszabadulds). This experience must have its
place in any brief survey of the “Soviet impact” on Eastern Europe.
When the deluge was over, Europe was a different place. The effect of the
Bolshevik Revolution had been, as we have seen, to create a yawning gap in
the system of European great powers. The effect of Hitler’s aggression against
Russia and his defeat by the Red Army was to destroy that system altogether.
Iri 1945 only one of the European continental great powers was left—Soviet
Russia. On the western periphery its military power was matched by that of
the United States, still flanked by Britain, which had not yet embarked on the
process of economic exhaustion and political abdication that were to gather
speed in the 1950s. The dividing line through the middle of Europe was set up
where the Western and Soviet armies met and, with some modifications, has
been maintained since then. *
In Eastern Europe the territorial settlement was dictated by the Soviet
Union. In the Danubian and Balkan lands, essentially the frontiers of 1919—
1920—the “Versailles Diktat” Lenin and his colleagues had so bitterly de¬
nounced—were restored. Some small changes were agreed upon with the
* Western forces were withdrawn from parts of central Germany and western Czecho¬
slovakia that they had entered in the course of military operations, in order to comply
with the boundaries for occupation zones previously agreed to by Churchill, Roosevelt,
and Stalin. In the region of Trieste some territory was later ceded to Yugoslavia. Yugo¬
slavia itself from 1948 onward ceased to be part of the Soviet bloc while remaining out¬
side the Western bloc as well.
other allies, and in fact these changes were in the direction of greater justice
from the point of view of Wilsonian national self-determination: Southern
Dobrudja was left in the possession of Bulgaria (having been ceded in 1940
by Romania at the orders of Hitler and Mussolini with the approval of
Stalin); Yugoslavia acquired from Italy the so-called Venezia Giulia, with a
Slovene or Croatian majority population; and Greece received from Italy the
islands of the Dodecanese.
If Wilsonian principles were observed in the south, in the north the state
interests of Soviet Russian imperialism prevailed. The three Baltic republics
were annexed once more, Finland gave up more territory, and Romania lost
not only northern Bukovina (with a Ukrainian majority population) but also
the whole of Bessarabia, in which Romanians formed a clear majority. In
June 1945 the restored government of Czechoslovakia formally ceded its
former eastern province, Ruthenia, which Soviet authorities had in a practical
sense taken over some months earlier.
Most important of all, the Polish state was shifted massively westward. The
eastern third of prewar Poland was annexed by the Soviet Union, and in
return the Poles were allowed to annex formerly German territory up to the
Oder and western Neisse rivers. Finally, the Soviet Union annexed a chunk of
East Prussia, demonstrating that it was now master by changing the historic
name of Konigsberg to Kaliningrad.
It might be argued that in his combination of high-sounding principles and
territorial greed Stalin was again unconsciously imitating Alexander I. But
there can be no doubt that on the economic side Stalin outdistanced his
predecessor. Heavy reparations were exacted from the defeated states. In
Germany Stalin was able to take wealth only from the region his troops
occupied, although his men did put into practice Lloyd George’s earlier^—-but
then unfulfilled—injunction to squeeze the orange until the pips pop out. In
Romania and Hungary the wealth extracted was far larger than official figures
suggested at first sight, due to manipulation of nominal prices and massive
requisitions by the Soviet Army. In both these countries also, “joint com¬
panies” were set up in important branches of the economy; under such ar¬
rangements the Soviet government, as owner of expropriated former German
properties—including former British, French, and American capital previ¬
ously expropriated by the Germans—was nominally “associated” with the
Romanian or Hungarian government but in practice controlled the whole
enterprise.
In formerly Allied countries, victims and not satellites of Hitler, the situa¬
tion was not much better. The Czechoslovak government was obliged to give
the Soviet government control over its uranium, now particularly valuable in
the post-atomic age; the Polish government had to sell to the Soviet Union, at
an uneconomic price, so large a proportion of its coal output that it was
unable to take advantage of the postwar demand for coal in world markets.
All these developments show the determination of the Soviet leaders to

grab as much as they could, in old-fashioned imperial style. Their justification
was simply that they had suffered more than anyone else, that they had
brought liberation, and that they must be compensated by both the aggressors
and the victims—for the victims owed them their liberty. The reasoning was
not very different from that of Raymond Poincare in the 1920s.
But there was another dimension to the Soviet victory. The Soviet Union
was supposed to stand for socialism—for the promise of a new and better
society for all, an end to the exploitation of man by man, advance into the
sunlit future of communism. In Eastern Europe it was not only the Commu¬
nists who were inspired by such visions and therefore had hopes of Soviet
victory.
Capitalism in Eastern Europe did not seem to have achieved much. It had
led to economic depression and this had brought the Fascists to power. Hit¬
ler’s rule had brought first pitiless oppression and then the devastation of war.
The Western democracies stood for the capitalism that had failed and then
handed Eastern Europe over to Hitler. It was true that the British had paid
their debts since 1940 and that American power had decided the issue on the
world scale. But it was the Russians who had borne the main burden of the
struggle and they had a different vision for the future—one that had not yet
been tried out and found wanting in Eastern Europe.
Terrible periods of destruction always create utopian longings: People feel
that after such horrors there can be no simple return to the old past, that there
must be a brighter future, a new deal, a new commonwealth. Such was the
mood in World War I, in the Russian Revolution, in 1812, in the great
catastrophes of human history far back into the past.
In 1945, of course. Eastern Europe still had embittered champions of the
old order, men who had lost power and wealth and feared for their lives, who
hoped for yet another war—this time between the victors—from which they
might gain. But they were not very many and they kept rather quiet. Among
the intellectual professions, especially among the educated youth, the workers,
and to a large extent also the peasants, Soviet victory was viewed with hope.
Even the horrors of the passage of the Soviet Army did not destroy that hope;
when war was over, many people hoped, the wise men who thought in terms
of world socialism would assert their will.
It is essential to remember that this feeling was widespread. For the essen¬
tial truth is that it was soon made clear that the Soviet leaders had one answer
to all problems. They had a monopoly of Marxist-Leninist “scientific” wis¬
dom. Their institutions, their policies, their methods of coercion and persua¬
sion must be applied everywhere. Soviet ideological enthusiasm, which was as
important a part of the picture as Soviet material and territorial imperialism,
led to the same result. And inevitably the principal victims of the process that
now set in were not so much the defeated reactionaries as the revolutionaries
or reformers who had their own visions of how their nations should achieve
liberty and social justice. The victims were peasant leaders, democratic social¬
ists, and those Communists who wished to use humane methods and who
respected their own national traditions.
The historical facts can hardly be disputed by any one who examines them
rationally. But the facts can be variously interpreted.
It is increasingly argued that the tragic fate of the East Europeans was
brought upon them as much by Western as by Soviet policy. The bitter mood
of Stalin is attributed to the hostility toward him of the Western leaders,
especially after the death of Roosevelt. Already in 1942 the refusal to start a
second front caused Stalin to suspect the Allies’ motives. The Allies gave
material help but it was small in relation to Russia’s needs. When the war
ended the Russian people were on the verge of starvation, their cities and
industries devastated, while the American economy was booming and the
American people had the highest overall standard of living known to history.
As the war ended more and more diatribes against communism were heard
from prominent public figures in the West. Western capitalists, Stalin was
bound to believe, were ganging up to exploit the resources of the world and to
force Soviet Russia into submission. Postwar aid to suffering Russia was cut
off. Stalin probably assumed that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima
not so much to force Japan into surrender as to intimidate Russia. President
Truman decided to use the new atomic threat to promote new tough policies.
The wartime agreements on spheres of influence in Europe were to be
scrapped, to the disadvantage of the Soviet Union. Faced by such hostility,
what could Stalin do but entrench himself in the areas he held, insist on
unreserved obedience, and treat all East Europeans who showed any Western
sympathies as enemy agents?
There is some truth in these arguments. The fact that Stalin was profoundly
suspicious of Western motives was well known at the time. Indeed one may
say that the Western press in 1944 and 1945 was obsessed with the need to
allay suspicion, to explain everything patiently to the Russians, and to do
nothing that might conceivably arouse further suspicion.
It is true that Stalin resented the delay in creating a second front, but it is
also true that there were powerful military arguments in favor of the timing
adopted and that in any case Russia was only in such desperate need of a
second front in 1941, 1942, and 1943 because Stalin had refused the Western
powers a second front in 1939 I940-
It is also true that public figures in the West from time to time made hostile
statements about the Soviet Union, but it is also true that these were far
outnumbered by the friendly statements by still more prominent persons and
that the British and American press and radio poured forth unending paeans
of praise for the Soviet ally. That there should be hostility is not surprising in
view of the unswerving hostility of official Soviet attitudes to Western govern-
6o The Soviet Impact on World Politics
ments since 1917; what is surprising is how little hostility there was.
As for the atom bomb, the fact that it strengthened the Western position in
relation to the Soviet ally and led to a tougher attitude on the part of Presi¬
dent Truman was easily apparent to any newspaper reader in 1945: it hardly
needs to be established by the painstaking researches of revisionist Western
historians, admirable though these may be.
As for the division of spheres of influence, this is a more complex matter.
The truth is that the future of Eastern Europe was a subject of conflict
between the Western governments and the Soviet Union throughout the war¬
time alliance; insofar as the origins of the Cold War are found in Eastern
Europe, they must be traced much further back than 1945.
The most difficult single problem was Poland. British Prime Minister Win¬
ston Churchill, bound by alliance to Poland and eager to cooperate closely
with the Soviet Union, made great efforts to bring about a reconciliation
between the two; in this he was supported by the Polish premier. General
Sikorski. But there were three main difficulties.
The first concerned Poland’s eastern border. The main obstacle to Polish-
Russian agreement ever since the end of the eighteenth century, this border
was more responsible than any other single factor for the breakdown of the
1815 settlement, the revolts of 1831 and 1863, and the Polish-Soviet war of
1920. The frontier proposed by Stalin in 1943 corresponded approximately to
the easternmost boundary of the area of compact Polish population. Beyond
this line there were indeed substantial Polish minorities—and it was true that
Polish culture had been prevalent for many centuries and its traces were still
to be found—but the majority of the population was of Belorussian, Ukrai¬
nian, or Lithuanian nationality. Whether this was a good reason for incorpo¬
rating these non-Polish nations in the Soviet Union was of course by no means
certain, but there was a good case for arguing that they should not be incor¬
porated into Poland.
But the Polish leaders could hardly be expected to see matters in this way.
They passionately felt they could not surrender Polish territory until a sov¬
ereign Polish parliament had considered the issue. Their insistence on this
legal argument was reinforced by their moral abhorrence of the means by
which Stalin had come into possession of eastern Poland: by a robber’s
bargain with Elitler. Nothing would shake them. Churchill tried hard in 1943
and 1944, insisting that acceptance of Soviet territorial claims offered the only
hope—if an increasingly slender hope—of assuring the sovereign indepen¬
dence of a smaller Polish state, and perhaps even of saving the ancient Polish
city of Lwow.
The second difficulty was the mutual ideological hostility of the Polish and
Soviet leaders. The prewar Polish regime had been socially reactionary and
politically repressive, its leaders inclined to ape the style of the Fascists. But
these elements were not predominant in the large Polish emigration after
1939. In the underground state in Poland, which was in regular contact with
Regional Case Studies on the Impact of Soviet Foreign Policy 6i
the exiled government and recognized its authority, the most important politi¬
cal groups were the democratic peasant movement and the social democrats.
These democratic forces were perfectly willing and even eager to cooperate
with the Soviet Union, but only on the basis of equality with the right to
decide their own political future and their own tactics in resisting the Ger¬
mans. But it became increasingly obvious that the Soviet leaders’ aim was to
impose Communist leadership and Soviet domination on them.
The third difficulty concerned the Polish army to be formed on Soviet soil
from the Polish soldiers taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1939. The Polish
government had detailed information on these prisoners and repeatedly asked
the Soviet government for information about them. Gradually an army was
assembled but several thousand Polish officers, whose names were known, did
not reappear. Friction grew between the Polish army and the Soviet author¬
ities, for which the Poles were no doubt partly to blame, and in July 1942 the
force was allowed to leave Russia through Iran to fight against Hitler on other
fronts. Nearly a year later, in April 1943, the German government announced
that it had found a mass grave of more than 2,000 Polish officers in the Katyn
forest in western Russia. The propaganda motives of the Germans were of
course obvious, but the evidence showed that the officers had been massacred
by Soviet executioners and further research in later years confirmed this
view.^ It may be presumed, although it has not been proved, that the rest of
the missing officers suffered a similar fate elsewhere.
No government in wartime can be expected to show indifference to the fate
of thousands of its officers. The Polish leaders, despite frantic efforts by their
British allies to deter them, formally asked the International Red Cross to
investigate the matter. The Soviet government made this the excuse to break
off relations with the Polish government. From this time on Soviet propa¬
ganda denounced the exiled leaders as Nazi accomplices and made no secret of
Soviet intentions of creating a Polish army and a Polish government of their
own, firmly controlled by obedient Communists.
When Soviet troops entered formerly Polish territory, the Polish resistance
units that contacted them were treated not as allies but as enemies. When
Warsaw rose against the Germans in August 1944) Soviet Army stood idly
by. There may have been compelling military reasons for its inaction, al¬
though these were not stressed at the time. It is also arguable that the Polish
resistance command was foolish to start the revolt, for political reasons,
without previously ascertaining the Soviet attitude.^ Nevertheless the Soviet
attitude—noisy demand for action by the Poles until August 1944) then in¬
action combined with denunciation of Polish adventurists who allegedly
wasted Polish lives in vain—had a shattering impression on Poles despite
the efforts of the Western press to play it down, on Allied opinion. But this
was not the end of the story. In March 1945 the surviving leaders of the
Polish resistance were invited to meet the Soviet military authorities so they
might be sent to Moscow to take part in the Allied-sponsored negotiations for
the formation of a new Polish government. They accepted the invitation—and

were arrested, tried in Moscow for crimes against the Red Army, and sen¬
tenced to long terms of imprisonment.^
These developments irremediably poisoned the relations not only of the
Polish exiles with all the Allies but also of the Western governments with the
Soviet Union. From at least 1942 onward the Polish problem was a major
source of disagreement. In retrospect it cannot be doubted that the Soviet
Union’s constant purpose, ruthlessly pursued, was to subject Poland to its will
and to force the Western powers to accept terms that not only clashed with
their interests but also dishonored them as statesmen. Stalin was completely
successful in this endeavor, which had been completed before the atom bomb
was made available (the successive stages need not concern us here).
The question of the agreed spheres of influence in southeast Europe is also
more complicated than it seems. The divisions proposed by Churchill were
intended only for the duration of the war. More important, the concept of
predominance was understood quite differently by the two sides. The Western
leaders were perfectly willing to have the Soviet Union be the dominant power
throughout Eastern Europe (except Greece) in the sense that the foreign
policy of all these countries should in future be subordinated to Soviet foreign
policy. This is in fact what became established practice in regard to one
country only, namely, Finland. What the Western governments had not in¬
tended was that exact copies of the Soviet political and economic power
apparatus should be imposed by force on all these countries, or that any
individual citizen who expressed political sympathy for Western institutions or
policies, or even maintained personal friendships with Westerners, should be
considered guilty of treason. When it became clear that this was to be Soviet
practice, first the Western representatives on the spot, then the Western gov¬
ernments, and finally Western press and public opinion became loudly in¬
dignant.
It is true that Stalin stood by while British troops suppressed by force the
Greek Communist resistance movement in December 1944. Yet the cases are
not exactly parallel. The Greek Communists made war on the Greek govern¬
ment recognized by the British (and by the Americans and Russians), and that
government asked for British armed aid. But there was never any question of
armed insurrection by peasant democrats or socialists against the Soviet-
sponsored governments of Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. This is a real
difference, and one need not approve of the anti-Communist Greek govern¬
ment of George Papandreou in order to recognize it.
It is also true that in Romania and Hungary there were supporters of the
old regime who did their best to intrigue with the British and American
missions, and there may have been individual members of those missions who
were foolish enough to listen to such talk—although listening is not the same
as acting or advising one’s government to act. The truth is that the Soviet
leaders had marked down for destruction the non-Communist democratic
parties and ruthlessly carried out their purpose.
To return to the original question of the difference between the impact of

the Soviet Union and that of previous great powers, the specific quality of
Soviet domination in essence is very simple. Stalin was not content to domi¬
nate the external relations of the East European states; he insisted on impos¬
ing his own totalitarian model on each and every one of them.
The chronological stages of this process have often been described and
need not be repeated here. But a few words are needed on three aspects of the
process—political, economic, and cultural.
The political structure, familiar to all students of communism, was imposed
readymade. It is worth noting, however, that this was not the classical model
of Lenin’s day but the more developed model of Stalin’s prime. The essence of
Lenin’s model was that the Communist party should dominate and infiltrate
all other hierarchies of power—armed forces, police, ministerial bureaucracy,
industrial management, and the various “public” (obshchestvennie) organiza¬
tions. Stalin modified this substantially. When he was at the height of his
power, it can hardly be said that the Communist party dominated all the other
apparatuses. Stalin paid lip service to the primacy of the party but in fact the
party was reduced to one of several apparatuses manipulated by the autocrat,
of which security police, army, and industrial management were the most
important.
It was this Stalinist model that was imposed in Eastern Europe. It required
that in each country there should be a pocket-sized Stalin, with direct access
to the Boss. Such were Rakosi in Hungary, Gottwald in Czechoslovakia,
Dimitrov and then Chervenkov in Bulgaria, and to a rather lesser extent
Bierut in Poland and Gheorghiu-Dej in Romania. Of course it is not possible
to be quite sure about the extent of these men’s power. Stalin no doubt
checked up on them from time to time by independent channels, and in any
case a colonial autocrat is a different breed than a metropolitan autocrat. Yet
the general pattern was unmistakable.
Imitation of the Soviet apparatus of economic power began at the end of
the 1940s: nationalization of industry, use of trade unions to recruit an
unskilled labor force, draconian labor discipline, Stakhanovism, “socmhst
competition,” state farms, collective farms, and machine-tractor stations.
Practical implementation was not always so close to Soviet practice as the
similarity of slogans and directives from above would suggest. Policies were
carried out much less brutally than in the Russia of the 1930s which does
not mean that there was not much injustice and resentment. Pressure on all
classes of the population was most intense in 1951 and 1952, and this was
certainly connected with the Soviet Union’s military needs during the Korean
War. After Stalin’s death, pressure was relaxed and collectivization of agricul-
ture was slowed down. After October 1956 collectivization was abolished
altogether in Poland but resumed and carried to its conclusion in the other
countries. In the late 1960s there was much talk of economic reform and
diversification of policies. In Czechoslovakia the experiments were brought to
a halt after the crisis of 1968, but they persisted in Hungary and to a lesser
extent in Bulgaria.
Throughout Eastern Europe from the late 1940s regular ceremonial kow¬
tows had to be made before the superior culture of the Soviet Union. This
soon proved to mean a good deal more than expressions of admiration for
“scientific socialism” as expounded and practiced by the glorious party of
Lenin and Stalin: It also included the duty of paying homage to the culture of
the great Russian people.* This involved a good deal of rewriting of national
history to accord with Russian national prejudices and a good deal of denial
of national cultures. The method was perhaps most striking in the case of
Romania.
The Romanian national revival, from the eighteenth century onward, had
been based on the myth (part truth, part fiction) of the Latin origin of the
Romanian people and on the very real help received from France and to some
extent Italy. Romanian schools and cultural life were dominated by French
influence, while the neighboring peoples of Slavic speech were known only to
Slavonic specialists. In the 1950s a systematic effort was made to reverse this
whole tradition. Cultural links with France and Italy were severed; Russian
was given first place as a foreign language in Romanian schools; national
history was rewritten to show that the Romanians’ best friend had always
been the great Russian people; and there was some attempt to make greater
use of the Slavic words in the rich vocabulary of the Romanian language in
preference to the Latin words, and even to suggest that the Romanians were a
Slavic people and their language a Slavic language. All this was entirely
counterproductive. Romanian children obstinately refused to learn Russian and
continued to learn French, from their parents or their parents’ friends, and the
old Latin mythology grew stronger than ever. The attempt at Russification
embittered Romanians both inside and outside the Communist party.
“Nationalism” became the enemy after the excommunication of Yugoslavia
in 1948. This event was caused not so much by any real opposition to Soviet
foreign policy from Tito’s government as by Stalin’s invincible distrust for a
group of men who had fought their way to power by their own efforts and
could not be handled as simple agents. Once the breach had come, and the
Yugoslav Communists had defied Stalin’s will and gotten away with it, Stalin
was resolved to root out the nationalist heresy in all other parties. The purges
* We must note the difference between Great Russian (velikorusskii), which is a lin¬
guistic category, and “great Russian” (velikii russkii), which introduces an element of
moral admiration. It was the second term, with frequent use of the ritual adjective
“great,” that became mandatory in the reign of Stalin and did not disappear under his
successors.
Regional Case Studies on the Impact oj Soviet Foreign Policy 65
were carried out in the style of Moscow in 1936-1939, but the number of
victims was much smaller. Soon Zionist sympathies, or even Jewish origin,
were added to “nationalism” as objective criteria for arrest.
The impact of the purges varied considerably. It was greatest—with about
half the membership of the central committees removed—in Czechoslovakia
and Hungary, both of which had once had strong social democratic and
bourgeois liberal parties. In Poland, of which the same was true, the purge
was much less drastic; the reason may be that, in a party that had already
been dissolved once by the Comintern (in 1938) and suffered from its identi¬
fication with the national enemy, the built-in opposition to further mass
purges was strong enough to compel moderation on Stalin’s part.
Stalin’s death was followed by a period of relaxation. The result, as so
often when repressive regimes behave more mildly, was an increase of discon¬
tent. First came the riots in Plzen and the East German rising in the summer
of 1953, then the riots in Poznan in June 1956, followed by the Polish
leadership crisis and the Hungarian Revolution of the following autumn.
There followed a period of repression in Hungary, of whittling away of newly
won liberties in Poland, and of anxious tightening of control in the other
countries.
In the 1960s, as the conflict between Russia and China became common
knowledge, the East European Communist leaders found that they had some
room to maneuver in relation to Moscow and used this to increase their
effective sovereignty and—in most cases—to make life more pleasant for
their subjects. On the Adriatic coast the conflict between Moscow and Peking
enabled the Albanian leader Enver Hoxha—who disliked the “liberalizing”
trends in neighboring Yugoslavia and had nationalist motives for hatred of
Serbs—to move into the Chinese camp.
In the late 1960s came the ferment in Czechoslovakia, reaching its climax
in Alexander Dubcek’s attempt to achieve “communism with a human face”
and ending with Soviet military occupation. On this occasion Wtadyslaw
Gomulka had the distinction of presiding over the only occasion when Polish
troops had marched shoulder to shoulder with Prussians and Russians into a
neighboring country. But this triumph did not save him from the wrath of the
Polish shipbuilding workers who took over the harbor cities of Gdansk and
Szczecin at the end of 1970. A change of party leaders in Poland was fol¬
lowed by a milder regime, and in mid-1973^ with the single sad exception of
Czechoslovakia, conditions in the whole region appeared a little better than
before. The peoples of Eastern Europe were still in a cage, but it was more
spacious and comfortable and the bars were wrapped around with thick layers
of felt.
What then is the balance of the Soviet impact on Eastern Europe after fifty
years, and especially after the last twenty-five?
The difficulty of answering this question, formidable in any case, is much
increased by the smokescreen of moralizing rhetoric in which the subject has
long been enveloped. The main fault here lies without doubt with the Soviet
spokesmen. For decades it was an unshaken dogma that all policies bearing
the mark of Stalin’s unique genius must be little if at all short of perfection.
Since his death, the quality of infallibility has been transferred to the collec¬
tive leadership of the CPSU.
The events of October 25, 1917, established once and for all, in Soviet
eyes, the monopoly of Marxist wisdom in the minds of Lenin and his close
collaborators and their ability to represent the interests of the workers of the
world. Since then, by a process that can only be compared with the apostolic
succession in the Catholic Church, this wisdom has been transmitted to later
generations.
There have been some regrettable “mistakes” along the way. About half of
those who were elected to the Central Committee proved between 1917 and
1934 to be agents of the German, British, Japanese, or other intelligence
services, or at least to be enemies of the people—or else they were innocent
victims of a bloodthirsty maniac who was able to hold control over the
Communist party, despite its wisdom, for more than a quarter-century. But
these “mistakes” are of small account; The infallible wisdom remained and
remains a matter of dogma.
Possession of a monopoly of Marxist-Leninist science allegedly enables the
Central Committee precisely and exhaustively to understand the past, pres¬
ent, and future of human society. Consequently Soviet foreign policy—includ¬
ing, of course, policy toward Eastern Europe—differs from the foreign policy
of all other states in that it is “scientifically” based. But this is not all.
Other states pursue what their rulers claim are the state’s interests, al¬
though of course they are the interests of the ruling class; the Soviet Union
claims not to pursue class or state interests but to be wholly devoted to the
cause of peace and human happiness. Conversely, whatever aim the Soviet
government pursues at any particular moment is the cause of peace and
human happiness. The relations of the Soviet Union with the states of the
socialist camp are said to be determined by pure disinterested generosity. For
example, all commercial dealings between the Soviet Union and these states
are considered acts of self-sacrificing aid on the part of the Soviet Union.
And the most striking recent example of brotherly aid, outside the com¬
mercial field, was the action of August 1968, when the Soviet Army, assisted
by units from other brotherly socialist armies, liberated the workers of
Czechoslovakia from a government chosen by the ruling Communist party—a
government that, according to the lies circulated by the Western press, en¬
joyed the support of the Czech and Slovak peoples but that in reality was
betraying the cause of socialism and was despised by all truly Marxist-Lenin¬
ist Czech and Slovak workers.
This is essentially what the publicity machine of the Soviet Union has been
asserting for decades and is still asserting, ably seconded by the publicity
machines of the other states of the socialist camp. The doctrine has not
varied, although the volume and the crudity of the language have varied a
good deal according to time and place.
It is almost impossible for observers who do not accept, or who are not
coerced into echoing, this doctrine not to be exasperated by this hypocrisy.
Westerners who are not professional academic observers of the East Euro¬
pean scene but who are from time to time concerned with it—in particular,
journalists and professional politicians—react and overreact.
In the Dulles era a moralizing counter-rhetoric grew up: “The Communists”
were seen as the very incarnation of evil. As long as a real “Iron Curtain”
almost completely prevented mutual contact, the myth of the utter wickedness
of the Communist East persisted, increasing the confusion still further. In the
1960s when Western travelers were able to go to Communist lands and found
that the people they met were normal, decent, and friendly, not only did the
myth of Communist wickedness dissolve (which was entirely to be wel¬
comed) but it began to be assumed that aU previous observations on the
hostility of the Soviet government and its conquest and domination of Eastern
Europe also were untrue. Later still, as opposition to the Vietnam War rose in
the United States, it came to be assumed not only that the anti-Communist
rhetoric of the Dulles era was unjustifiable but that the United States was at
least mainly, and perhaps even exclusively, responsible for all that had gone
wrong in world politics since I945-
The Western mind, and above all the Anglo-Saxon Protestant journalistic
mind, stiU seems incapable of appreciating that political conflicts are not
between absolute good and absolute evil and that one’s enemies may be
upright and admirable people but they remain enemies. Those in the mass
media seem condemned forever to oscillate between self-righteousness and
self-flagellation.
Let us then try, difficult though it may be, to escape from this climate and
to see the balance of the last quarter-century.
Throughout Eastern Europe there has been massive industrial progress.
This was much needed. Before 1941 whole region except the Czech lands
suffered from massive agricultural overpopulation, underemployment, and
low productivity. It was clear to all serious observers at that time that there
must be a vast transfer of labor from the fields to the factories. This has
happened under Communist leadership, with strong support from the Soviet
leaders. One may therefore argue that the impact of the Soviet Union has
been constructive, insofar as it has accelerated industrialization. Against this
it may be argued that the types of industry chosen have distorted the national
economiesj that in one of the most advanced areas, the Czech lands, indus¬
trial management is less efficient and far more wasteful of manpower than
before 1938; and that agricultural output has been little improved. Whether
East European economic development would have been more successful with¬
out Soviet domination certainly cannot be proved or disproved. But it seems
fair to give some share of credit, for what has been achieved, to the Commu¬
nists and their Soviet patrons.
It is equally true that there has been a massive development of schools and
colleges and that this too has had strong Soviet support. It is certain that the
schools have been used as instruments of crude political indoctrination, but
this has not prevented the emergence of first-class professional and scientific
ability. The new intellectual elite has been recruited, certainly to a much
greater extent than previously, although perhaps not quite to the extent that is
asserted, from among children of workers and poor peasants who would have
had little chance of higher education before 1945. This is one of the proudest
achievements of the era of Soviet domination. But characteristically the Soviet
leaders, like other imperial rulers of the past, have earned little gratitude from
those they benefited. It was precisely the young generation of educated people
from plebeian homes who provided the driving force in the movements of
1956 in Poland and Hungary and 1968 in Czechoslovakia.
If the creation of new intellectual elites has been all too successful, indoc¬
trination with Soviet mythology through the schools has been a failure. Tink¬
ering with national mythologies to the advantage of Soviet or pre-Soviet
Russian nationalism has only strengthened the devotion of the East European
peoples to their old myths. This is particularly true of Romania, Hungary, and
Poland. Denunciation of the decadent West seems only to have increased the
appetite of the East Europeans for Western culture. One of the sadder and
more ridiculous features of the East European scene before 1941 was the
determination of all intellectually ambitious young people to rush to the
fountains of wisdom in Paris or Vienna, London or Berlin, combined with
complete indifference or contempt toward the languages, cultures, or history
of neighboring peoples. This remains little changed (and perhaps slightly
increased) in the Eastern Europe of the 1970s.
During the last twenty-five years there has been completed in all Eastern
Europe a process familiar from the history of other European nations: the
diffusion of national consciousness from the political elite downward into the
whole population. Already by the 1930s, if not earlier, this process had been
completed among the Czechs and the Slovenes—both economically efficient
and well-educated modern nations—and to a lesser extent among the Serbs,
Bulgarians, and Greeks, who were economically and culturally less advanced
but had a strong equalitarian feeling and a very well-developed political sense.
In the rest of the region, in each state—quite apart from the existence of
national minority groups—there were two separate nations: a Europeanized
upper nation and a lower nation of poor and unskilled peasants. The relative
percentages of population between the two nations, their attitudes toward
each other, and the opportunities to rise from the lower nation to the upper
nation, varied. For example, in Romania the Europeanized section was pro¬
portionately smaller, and the lower nation was probably on the whole more
backward, than in Hungary; but in Hungary class hatred against the upper
nation was more bitter, and the opportunity of rising from below was smaller,
than in Romania.
By the 1970s this situation had changed. Economic development, urbaniza¬
tion, and mass education had molded Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, and
Croats into single nations—although of course within each nation great differ¬
ences in power, wealth, and prestige remained. The common ethos that
welded them together was an amalgam of socialism and nationalism, but of
the two ingredients the second was the stronger. The socialist nationalism of
the Romanians of 1970, for example, owed at least as much to the Latin
mythology of the nineteenth-century Romanian nationalists as to the influence
of Marx or Lenin.
Since 1945 the peoples of Eastern Europe have had “socialism” imposed
on them and have come to accept it as a fact of life; for those under forty
years of age, it is difficult to imagine that society could be other than “social¬
ist.” Since 1945 the peoples of Eastern Europe also have become modern
European nations, and this transformation has taken place under the leader¬
ship of Communist governments. Of these two major developments, the
second is the more important.
It must also be said that in Yugoslavia, after a period in which it looked as
if reconciliation between the Yugoslav peoples, and especially between Serbs
and Croats, was making progress, there was a revival of bitter nationalism in
the 1970s. This was caused not by external influences but by the very process
of the formation of modern nations (especially among the Croats) discussed
above.
Between the wars bitter nationalist conflicts existed within several and
between all of the East European states. It was widely believed that Commu¬
nists, having a supra-national ideology, might be able to bring new solutions
to these conflicts. Even opponents of Soviet domination entertained such
hopes. They were disappointed. Soviet domination did, it is true, “freeze
certain conflicts of this sort. There is still bitter latent hostility between
Romania and Hungary about Transylvania, but this question has been suc¬
cessfully kept out of international politics since 1945- Oii the other hand the
conflict between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria about Macedonia has been manipu¬
lated by the Soviet government since 1945 iri quite old-fashioned imperialist
style. The conflict between Yugoslavia and Albania, and between Serbs and
Albanians inside Yugoslavia, escaped Soviet control in the 1960s since both
Yugoslavia and Albania became quite independent of the Soviet Union.
The greatest Soviet success in the manipulation of nationalism was the
exploitation of the “German danger,” especially in Poland. In the period of
Gomulka’s rule in particular, Germany served the regime as an all-purpose
scapegoat. As Gomulka’s rule became more and more distasteful to one sec¬
tion after another of the population, all that he could do was to maximize anti-
German propaganda, arguing that only his government and its Soviet patrons
could protect Poland from German revenge. All the while, Poles were becom-
ing less anti-German as the years went by, while in the Federal Republic
Konrad Adenauer’s rigid stance was gradually replaced by a much more
flexible and conciliatory attitude in Bonn.
However, when the formal reconciliation between Poland and the Federal
Republic came, it was only in small part due to a change of heart among
politicians or people in either country; the main reason was that the Soviet
government had decided a reconciliation was to its immediate economic ad¬
vantage and that coming to terms with Bonn would benefit overall Soviet
international diplomacy. Having made up their minds on this new course, the
Soviet leaders simply ordered the Polish Communists to toe the line.
In general it is probably true that national antagonisms between East Euro¬
pean nations are now milder than in the 1930s, but this should not be exag¬
gerated. Insofar as this is true, it can be explained more easily by the passage
of time than by any scientific Marxist-Leninist wisdom learned from Moscow.
It can also be explained in large part by the fact that in all the East European
states of the socialist camp frustrated national resentment is directed above all
against a single object—the Soviet Union.
There are well-informed people in the West who maintain, whether with
indignation or satisfaction, that a balance of power has been established in
Europe, maintained not by European great powers, as in the past, but by two
extra-European superpowers; Western Europe is the American sphere of in¬
fluence, Eastern Europe the Soviet. There is some obvious truth in this, but
reality is not quite so simple.
The essence of spheres of influence, in the classical sense, was that the
dominating power controlled the foreign policy of the lesser states in its
sphere and intervened in their affairs if it believed that its vital interests were
directly and seriously threatened; otherwise it left them to their own devices.
This may be said to be the case in the relationship between the West Euro¬
pean states and the United States today (although it is very much open to
argument), but in the relationship between the East European states and the
Soviet Union it applies to one case only; Finland. Elsewhere the Soviet rulers
have not been content to control the foreign policy of the lesser states and
impose their will in matters of major strategic security. Instead the Soviets
have insisted on imposing copies of their own political institutions, have
insisted that they alone shall decide what modifications of these institutions
are legitimate, and have tried to remold the national cultures and rewrite
national history in accordance with the cultural and historical dogmas of
Soviet Russian imperialism.
The case of Czechoslovakia is perhaps the most revealing. President Benes
was willing unreservedly to adapt his foreign policy to Soviet requirements.
Stalin, however, still found it necessary to destroy Czechoslovak democracy,
to impose Communist party dictatorship of the Soviet type, and to follow this
up by a purge of the party carried out by the Stalinian methods of falsification
and torture. The modern history of Czech and Slovak independence was then
rewritten to suit Soviet legend. The only episode in the eighty-seven years’ life
of the president-liberator, Tomas Masaryk, that mattered to the Soviet cul¬
tural dictators was that for some months in 1918 he had been involved in
conflict with Lenin’s regime (although he himself had done his utmost to
avoid armed conflict between the Czech legions and the Bolsheviks and had
strongly advised the Western allied governments against armed intervention in
the Russian civil war). For this sinful episode Masaryk was ppsthumously
punished by being made a historical un-person, and his long career in the
service of hiS nation became an un-career.
In the mid-1960s, under the comparatively “liberal” regime of Antonin
Novotny, this veto was gradually withdrawn and Czech historians could once
again write the truth (albeit with an understandable Marxist slant) about
their national history. Then came the crisis of 1968: Czechoslovakia was
“liberated” by the Soviet Army; history was refalsified, or liberated from
bourgeois (or human-faced Communist) objectivism; and historians were dis¬
missed on a mass scale—with the lucky ones allowed to take jobs as tramway
conductors, the unlucky ones reduced to unemployment.
The truth is that since 1945 there has not been, and there is unlikely to be
in the near future, a division of spheres of interest in Europe. What there has
been is an extension of the Soviet Russian empire to the Elbe, the Bohemian
forest, and the Drava. Within the empire, domination in the classical sense
has not been enough. Domination has been supplemented by national humilia¬
tion. The degree of humiliation has varied: For some years it has virtually
disappeared in Romania, and it is rather mild in Hungary. But the principle
has been maintained. The result has been to maintain Central and Eastern
Europe as one of the most politically explosive regions in the world. Ameri¬
cans and Englishmen may be indifferent to their own history: Nobody has tried
to deprive them of it. In Central and Eastern Europe, it is not only professors
of history who care about their nation’s past or national mythology, workers
and peasants too feel passionately about it, as has been shown again and
again in the last century and a half. To a Western intellectual imbued with
conventional liberal wisdom, this may seem deplorable; it is nonetheless true.
In summary, the essential and peculiar impact of the Soviet Union on
Eastern Europe, the one aspect that distinguishes it from the impact of the
many despotisms, native and foreign, that preceded it, is just this, the insis¬
tence on national humilation.
It is of course arguable—and I think this is an important point that the
official Soviet perception of the Soviet Union’s security requires national
humiliation of conquered peoples. But then this too is unique. Religious per¬
secutions, or the megalomania of conquering tyrants who humiUated their
subjects, were frequent in the past, but they were something different. HumUi-
ation of nations as nations is new, and it is the original contribution of the
Soviet rulers.
NOTES
1. See J. K. Zawodny, Death in the Forest (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1962).
2. For a well-informed discussion of this question, see Jan Ciechanowski, Powstanie
warszawskie (London, 1971).
3. It is interesting that the distinguished revisionist historian Gar Alperovitz, in his
Atomic Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965) emphasizes the rigidity of the
Western governments in the Polish question in the period of preparation for the San
Francisco conference on the United Nations (where Poland was without representation
owing to Allied inability to agree on a united Polish government) without once men¬
tioning the arrests of the resistance leaders, whose fate was the object of frantic if in¬
effective Allied diplomatic activity at the time.
4
Western Europe
ALFRED GROSSER
Alfred Grosser is director of the graduate program,
Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques and professor
of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris. His main pub¬
lications are: La Quatrieme Republique et sa politique
exterieure, French Foreign Policy under de Gaulle, Au
nom de quoi? Fondements d’une morale politique, La
Politique en France (with F. Goguel), Germany in Our
Time, and L’Explication politique.
Before we can determine the effects of Moscow’s foreign policy on the be¬
havior of the Western European countries we must deal with certain theoret¬
ical difficulties.
The “foreign policy of the Soviet Union” comprises at least three different
subjects that should not be confused even if they do overlap from time to
time. These are;
1. The policy which is deliberately pursued by those in power in accord¬
ance with the objectives they have set. A distinction should be made between
(a) a deUberate and coherent policy conforming to compatible objectives and
(b) a deliberate but incoherent policy designed to tally generally with the
simultaneous pursuit of incompatible objectives.
2. The policy that is in fact pursued though not necessarily deliberately.
To speak with the sociologists, these would be the latent functions of the
policy, the manifest functions being related to (i).
3. The image of this policy to outside interlocutors—whether they be those
who govern, various internal political forces, or public opinion in the widest
sense of the term. .
The distance between the reality of a policy and its perception contributes
to making (i) different from (2) since this perception is, in its turn, an
important reality—both as a consequence of the policy pursued and as a
factor in the pohcies pursued in reply to it. It is by no means certain that t e
Prague coup in 1948 was the expression of greater Soviet aggressiveness or a
bigger threat to Great Britain and France than was the invasion of the same
uihfortunate Czechoslovakia in 1968. But the perception in 1948 was one of a
danger and the results were the Western European Union and NATO, whereas
twenty years later the intervention of Soviet troops, which had remained
73
inactive in 1948, provoked not even a shadow of apprehension m Western

Europe. (And we here oversimplify the explanation: Can the “ultra-leftist”
policy imposed in 1928 by Stalin on the foreign Communist parties—a policy
that helped Hitler’s rise to power—actually be separated from Stahn’s action
in home affairs? Can the 1968 invasion of Prague be explained without the
fear of the Soviet leaders that the new liberal socialism might contaminate the
Soviet elite?)
There is a second difficulty: Even if we leave aside the internal factors of
Soviet foreign policy, other countries’ behavior must under no circumstances
be reduced to the international action of their governments. The foreign
policy of the USSR undoubtedly affects the foreign policies of other nations
and does so in highly differentiated areas: the individual policies of states
toward the USSR and the other Eastern European countries; the individual
policies of states toward other countries, particularly toward the United
States; the individual policies of the European states toward each other; and
the policies that, if not common, are at least collective, in particular concern¬
ing the unification of Western Europe.
But Soviet foreign policy also affects internal politics. Some of these effects,
however important they may have been, are not our concern here: for in¬
stance, the consequences of the Cold War on the global ideology of the
Labour party after 1947- Others cannot be divorced from our subject, partic¬
ularly where they affect the large Communist parties in Italy and France or
modify the German political scene. Domestic policies in Western Europe are
not only influenced by Soviet foreign policy; modified by the latter, they weigh
differently upon the respective foreign policies and may even affect the foreign
and domestic policy of the USSR, and so on. In 1934-1935 there was a
subtle interactional game between the Comintern policy, which was going in
the direction of popular fronts, and the evolution of the relationship between
left-wing jx)litical and labor forces in France. In 1970-1972 there were
numerous interactions between Brezhnev’s foreign policy, Brandt’s foreign
policy, the German elections in November 1972, and Shelest’s elimination
from the Politburo of the Soviet Communist party in April 1973.
Third difficulty: How to limit the topic in time and place? Western Europe
is not a unit. Some collective behavior may of course be charted, particularly
after 1950, within the European Economic Community. But this behavior
was important only at certain times and fell far short of influencing the global
foreign policy of the different states. Does this therefore suggest the need to
study all these states, one by one? No.
This study will focus on two of them, France and the Federal Republic of
Germany, as a means of casting some light on the larger question of Mos¬
cow’s impact on Western Europe.
Soviet foreign policy has been one of the major reasons for the very exis¬
tence of the Federal Republic. The latter’s domestic policy has evolved mainly
as a result of the evolution of the “German problem,” to which the USSR held
and still holds one of the keys. The Federal Republic’s foreign policy from the
outset has been focused on security vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.
The case of France is, for different reasons, more interesting than those of
Great Britain and Italy. The foreign policies of France and Great Britain
since 1945 have been aiming at the same basic thing, that is, to find the
answer to a question that perhaps has no reply: How does one keep or
recover world influence when one knows very well one is no longer a world
power? No other Western European state has had this aim; Some because
they felt they were too small; others (Italy, West Germany) because their
situation as humiliated, defeated enemies made equality with other middle
powers appear sufficiently satisfactory and because, through lack of ambition
—and in the case of the Federal Republic, through obsession with the prob¬
lem of a Germany—they had no desire to exercise responsibilities at a global
level.
Great Britain tried to achieve its aim by attempting to exercise privileged
influence on one of the true Great Powers, the United States. Consequently
Great Britain’s policy was less directly correlated to that of the USSR than
was France’s policy. France, under the Fourth as well as the Fifth Republic,
tried to use the idea of a “united” Europe to give greater weight to French
objectives outside Western Europe, particularly in sparring with both Moscow
and Washington.
Moreover the presence of a Communist party representing somewhere be¬
tween a quarter and a fifth of the electoral body has made relations with the
Soviet Union a central problem of French political life, whereas Anglo-Soviet
relations have certainly not contributed to enlivening British electoral cam¬
paigns. The domestic importance of the Italian Communist party is obviously
even greater but, precisely because of the more unobtrusive international role
played by Italy, the Italian case is less important for our subject than the
French one.
The demarcation of time is in theory set out by the general conception of
this volume, which begins with a hypothesis of radical changes in interna¬
tional relations since the USSR’s birth as a world power after World War IT
But this periodization does not necessarily mean absolute discontinuity wit
the past. Even the rupture in 1917 was not a radical one; How many ques¬
tions could be asked about a possible continuity between Tsarist Russia and
Soviet Russia, particularly in the field of foreign affairs! The end of Wor d
War II in 1945 marks even less of a fundamental change if the USSR s policy
on Western Europe is examined.
The principal events and currents of the interwar period should be gone
over to find out whether there are episodes in European international life, and
in the domestic life of countries like Germany and France where the Soviet
Union—through its activity or the image the actors had of the USSR has
not played a considerable part. Diplomatic examples certainly ate not rare
from the RapaUo agreement, concluded in 1922 by the two pariahs of the
European system (Russia and Germany), up to the German-Soviet treaty in

1939, passing by the 1935 Laval-Stalin agreement and the 1938 Munich
agreement, concluded in the absence of the USSR.
Yet perhaps they do not touch on the main point. How can Hitler’s acces¬
sion to power, with all its horrible consequences, be explained without the
great fear of Soviet Communism shared not only by milhons of voters but also
by many leaders of the political center who wished to block Hitler’s path?
Reading the memoirs of Chancellor Heinrich Briining is quite enlightening.
Franco in power: How can this be explained without mentioning that French
help to the Republicans was blocked because Soviet support roused a large
number of French people against the full assistance that, had it materialized,
could have put France into a civil war situation?
And has the nature of the relationship between the Western Communist
parties and Moscow changed to such an extent as to banish interwar events to
obsolescence? The struggle against “social-fascism,” against “social-traitors”
at one time; the common left-wing struggle against the right and extreme right
at another 1930 ^nd 1948 resemble each other, as do 1936, 1944, and
1973- Maurice Thorez, general secretary of the French Communist party,
deliberately laid claim to the continuity before the Central Committee on
November 3, 1959, a short time after the party had rallied to the policy of self-
determination in Algeria as defined by General DeGaulle on the previous
September 16:
It is true that, from time to time, rather sudden changes may occur,
and the Party has to alter its battle orders; it does so resolutely and often
victoriously. You recall how the Laval-Stalin declaration in 1935 posed
indeed a new problem for the Party. Well, within forty-eight hours, we
had reacted: the leadership had taken up a position, the posters were
stuck to the walls of Paris, the briefing meeting had been held. The Party
said—you remember the poster—“Stalin is right.”
I am not talking about the 1939 experience where we really had to face
up to the new situation under particularly difficult circumstances. . . . The
war that was being launched was not the one we had been able to imagine
in October 1938- It was an imperialist war. . .
At present, however, we are not in such a situation. . . . We are dealing
with a precise and foreseen change in our policy which is in line with
our analyses.
While ready to ask ourselves more questions about the evolution of the
relationship between the French Communist party and Moscow during the
course of the last quarter-century, we will nevertheless admit, for the purposes
of this study and because the facts of 1946-1947 lie in this direction, that the
discontinuity of 1943 is highly significant. This is because of the dissolution
of the Comintern, announced on May 22 by a resolution of the executive
committee, signed in particular by Wilhelm Pieck, Andre Marty, Maurice
Thorez, and Ercoli (Togliatti), wherein it was proposed to “relieve the Sec¬
tions [national parties] of the obligations derived from the statutes and the
congresses.”
One obvious effect of Soviet policy on Western European poUcies is that of

having greatly contributed to the drawing of territorial demarcations. The
international system constituted by the “Grand Alliance” transformed Euro¬
pean reality, even though the alliance itself did not last very long—except, it
will be argued, in the case of Germany. The system ended with the failure of
the Moscow conference in April 1947.
Stalin obtained an important decision on principle from Roosevelt and
Churchill at Teheran: The frontier with Poland, no longer that of 1921,
followed the “Curzon Line,” which had been proposed in 1920 by the British
minister. At Teheran the creation of a European Advisory Committee with its
seat in London was also decided upon. Its principal task was to draw up a
protocol delimiting the future zones of occupation in Germany. Its funda¬
mental achievements were the documents signed on September 12 and No¬
vember 14, 1944- These documents, as a matter of fact, determined the
outline of the future dividing line between the two Germanys, the most sensi¬
tive section of the “Iron Curtain.”
In accordance with the London protocol, on July i, I945> American
troops withdrew from those parts of Saxony and Thuringia in the Soviet zone
of occupation to which their advance had carried them. British and American
units took over their respective sectors of Berlin, which had been taken by the
Red Army. The London agreement provided that the area of Greater Berlin
was to be occupied jointly by the three powers.
These moves were of utmost importance. The East German state would be
a great deal smaller than it is today if Germany had been partitioned along the
line of junction of the victorious troops on the day of German surrender.
Questions should obviously be asked about the share of Soviet diplomacy in
the Anglo-American strategic decisions not to advance on Berlin and not to
be first in Prague.
Was the Soviet zone meant to include the territories destined to become
Polish? The quadripartite Berlin statement of June 5, 1945? on occupied
Germany had referred to the frontiers of December 31? 1937 (those deter¬
mined by the Treaty of Versailles, including the Saar restored to Germany
after the plebiscite organized in 1935 in accordance with that treaty). But at
Potsdam, at the end of July, the British and Americans learned that on April
21 the Russians had signed an agreement with the “friendly” government of
Warsaw entrusting Poland with the administration of the whole territory east
of the Oder and the western Neisse. ChurchiU and Roosevelt had previously
agreed only on the eastern Neisse; now at stake were Breslau and Upper
The final Potsdam agreement ratified the fait accompli but put off the final
delimitation of the western frontier of Poland until the future peace settle¬
ment. But already on December 6, 1945, the Soviet member of the Control
Commission in Berlin obtained an agreement on the transfer of populations
that accepted the Soviet interpretation of the Potsdam agreement—namely,
that the Polish territory, with the entire German population expelled, included
German areas under Polish administration.
However it is by no means certain that the USSR initially desired the
division of Germany. The Soviet Union was firmly opposed to the American
projection and the French desire of creating several German states. Perhaps
the USSR would not have opposed an “Austrian” solution, namely, the crea¬
tion of an autonomous central authority with jurisdiction in the four occupied
zones. In any event this hypothesis was made impossible by the French veto
against the creation of any kind of German central administration. In retro¬
spect such a hypothesis is conceivable only for the very early period of the
occupation. Afterward the Soviet Union practiced a policy of sovietization in
its zone, which made it a fundamentally different entity from the three other
zones long before the rupture became official in 1947.
Indeed 1947 was the most decisive year of the entire post-1945 period,
both for the international system and for the situation of most of the Euro¬
pean states (Great Britain excluded). To be sure, Britain’s foreign policy was
also modified, but the principal cause of the fundamental transformation of
Britain s role in I946~i947 was neither Soviet policy nor the nascent Cold
War; It was the financial crisis, due above all to the brutal halt of American
aid to an ally that had carried the burden of the war on its own for a long time
and had sacrificed the main part of its international wealth for the common
cause. This constrained the Labour government to give way to the United
States in Greece and in Germany with the birth of Bizonia and to give up
Britain’s world power status and accept a privileged partnership, albeit a
very submissive one, with the United States.
For Germany these events consecrated the partition, symbolized by the
failure of the meeting at Munich of the minister-presidents of the Lander,
those from the Soviet zone leaving the city even before the opening session.
For Italy and France the exclusion of the Communists from government after
approximately three years of effective participation took place in May 1947_
but without the two Communist parties having understood the meaning of the
event. It was revealed to them at the end of September at the secret con¬
ference of Sklyaraka Poremba, where they had to make their self-criticism
and accept the birth of the Cominform. The initial declaration of the Comin-
form on October 5 characterized the international scene two years after the
end of the war in this way;
Two camps have been formed in the world; on the one hand, the
imperialist, antidemocratic camp whose main aim is to establish the
world domination of American imperialism and to crush democracy,
and on the other hand, the anti-imperialist, democratic camp. . . .
Amongst the tactical means of the imperialists a special place is given
to utilize the policy of betrayal of the right wing socialists, of the kind
like Blum in France, Attlee and Bevin in England, Schumacher in Ger¬
many, Renner and Scharf in Austria, Saragat in Italy, etc. They endeavor
to disguise the brigand nature of imperialist policy behind the mask of
democracy and socialist phraseology, whereas in fact they are only the
faithful auxiliaries of the imperialists.^
The rupture transformed French governmental policy as well as that of the

Communist party, for both internal and external reasons. The conception
expressed by General DeGaulle in November 1944—that “the fate of Ger¬
many is the central problem of the universe”—was based not only on a
traditional vision dominating French policy at least since 1918. It also per¬
mitted the continuation of the unity between the parties and groupings that
had fought together in the Resistance. “Tripartism,” the coalition between
Communists, Socialists, and Christian Democrats of the MRP (Mouveinent
Republicain Populaire), ran the risk of exploding as soon as world politics
changed to different constellations.
Moreover—and this is a central point that will be developed later as
long as Germany was the chief target in 1944-1945 sense, that is, com¬
mon property of the victors, the cornerstones of international life in Europe
were the Councils of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the four occupying
powers—Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and France. As one of
the Four Powers, France felt itself powerful indeed-
The destruction of the 1944-1945 system did not merely constrain France
to revise its German policy; It also made France a second-class state at a time
when the Western world was seeking economic and military power in the face
of what was perceived as a major Communist threat. Of course the condition
of being a supported beggar country, which was France’s lot and that of other
European states in their common postwar destitution, was not due primarily
to the Cold War. But the bipolar world did greatly limit the French freedom
of action and did contribute to making France dependent on the United States
yet angry at being pushed into this position. That the Marshall Plan, salvation
of France’s economic development, gave rise to more rancor than gratitude is
in part due to the fact that aid came at the same time as the forced renuncia¬
tion of France’s German policy and the passage from quadripartism to con¬
frontations between the only two genuine powers.
The financial and economic aid received by West Germany was not wholly
determined by the international situation. The GARIOA program (Govern¬
ment Aid and Relief in Occupied Areas) functioned irrespective of these
developments. But the central aim changed. Directives JCS 1779 to the U.S.
commander-in-chief on July ii, I947, replaced the previous Morgenthau-
Plan-inspired document JCS 1067 by stating that “an orderly and prosperous
Europe requires the economic contribution of a stable and productive Ger-
many.” The next day the representatives of the sixteen countries ready to
receive Marshall aid declared in Paris that “the German economy should be
integrated into the economy of Europe in such a way as to contribute to a
raising of the general standard of living.” Thus the idea of Germany as a
partner (a Germany that was only a part of total Germany, which made the
partnership easier to accept) was a consequence of the new international
system, largely created by the new Soviet policy.
A retrospective question must be asked: Would a different Soviet policy
have changed things profoundly in the West? What would have happened if
Stalin, to the great embarrassment of the American government, had accepted
Marshall aid? Or if he had taken the risk of not preventing the participation of
Czechoslovakia?
In reality, sundry processes are inextricably tangled up from 1947 to 1949:
an increasingly clearcut demarcation of Western Europe (birth of the two
German states, the Prague coup in 1948); return of a Germany with its three
Western zones of occupation on the road back to sovereignty, which in 1951
resulted in the authorization to have a minister of foreign affairs; preoccupa¬
tion with collective defense against the Soviet Union (the Treaty of Brussels
in 1948, the Atlantic Alliance in 1949); increased political dependence on
the United States resulting from military dependency in addition to economic
dependency; the development of European ideas through a twofold pressure
from fear of the Soviet Union, which inspired solidarity, and from the
United States’ insistence on a minimum of organization for the allocation of
Marshall aid in Europe.
But the factors of European reconstruction that did not depend on reac¬
tions to Soviet policy, real or imagined, should not be underestimated. For
instance, the decisive Schuman proposal of May 9? I950> undoubtedly would
not have taken place had there not been the Cold War with its repercussions
on the international situation of France. But the proposal’s originality lay
precisely in surmounting constraints by integrating them into a new pohcy and
m no longer fighting useless diplomatic battles to prevent inescapable evolu¬
tions.
Until then French policy had aimed at trying to maintain Germany, albeit a
small piece of Germany, under France’s ruling authority. The price that had
to be paid to obtain American military backing was the acceptance of the
birth of a German state and the renunciation of the special situation of the
French zone of occupation. The Schuman plan was based on the idea that, in
the new circumstances created by the Cold War, France could only go on
controlling German power if France itself accepted being controlled. The
main advantage of reciprocal control was the future birth of a new political
unit that would make the notion of control obsolete.
This policy underwent a decisive slowdown a few weeks after having been
launched. The Korean War engendered new fears in Europe, and above all led
the United States to insist on German participation in European defense. The
Regional Case Studies on the Impact of Soviet Foreign Policy 8i
result of these events was the draft of the treaty creating a European Defense
Community. Despite hostile reactions against the military priority created in
both France and Germany, the treaty was signed in May 1952 and blocked
moves toward political integration.
The rejection of the EDC treaty by the French National Assembly on
August 30, 1954, did not prevent German rearmament within the twin frame¬
work of a Western European Union (which was legally binding but without
real political importance) and the Atlantic Organization (based on an al¬
liance without any strict military obligations). The latter took away by its
organization all genuine autonomy from German military power for the bene¬
fit of a supreme command directly subordinate to the President of the United
States.
How far this outcome was wanted or not by Soviet policy is perhaps a moot
point. In any event it was largely determined by Soviet policy. Had another
attitude been envisaged in Moscow? How much sincerity was there in the
famous Beria note of March 10, 1952, on reunification of a rearmed, neutral¬
ized Germany or in Molotov’s proposals at the quadripartite Berlin con¬
ference in January 1954?
This writer contends that the only moment when a revision of the German
policy of Moscow was genuinely envisaged occurred in the spring of I953»
but such consideration was brutally brought to an end on June 17 when the
revolt against the regime, repressed by Soviet tanks, forced the Soviet Union
to maintain and fortify its stance. The revolt, showing up Walter Ulbricht’s
weakness, made Ulbricht indispensable.
In the European leaders’ perception of Soviet policy, Moscow’s credibility
peaked in the first week of September 1954- In March 1952 the apparent aim
had only been the prevention of the signing of the EDC treaty. After Stalin s
death the West feared disorder and adventurism by his successors. In January
1954 the Americans feared that Georges Bidault might yield to eventual
“planetary bargaining,” that is, sacrificing the EDC for Soviet support m
order to get out from Indochina honorably. But on the morrow of August 30
the table was bare. It is no exaggeration to say that the Quai d’Orsay was
impatiently awaiting a message from Moscow that would have contained a
proposal permitting the transformation of the German question, thereby
avoiding German rearmament. Nothing came because the USSR had nothing
to offer. The Soviet Union’s silence put a definitive seal on the Federal Re¬
public’s entry into NATO and its accession to the quasisovereignty it had
enjoyed since the ratification of the Paris agreements in May 1955-
By this time Soviet policy and its image were already considerably trans¬
formed. Indeed, contrary to all the pessimistic prophecies of an intensification
of the Cold War in the event of German rearmament, the ratification of the
treaties was followed by the Geneva summit conference and by Konrad
Adenauer’s journey to Moscow, which ended in the establishment of normal
relations between the USSR and the Federal Republic. During the Geneva
conference, in June-July 1954, Anthony Eden and Pierre Mendes-France

had already witnessed the Soviet intent to facilitate negotiations in Indochina.
Now the image of an aggressive, expansionist USSR was being considerably
attenuated in Europe, except in the Federal Republic, partly because the last
Western position Moscow wanted to conquer was West Berlin.
On the whole, however, it was 1955 when interstate policy in Western
Europe began to develop, if not entirely independent of Soviet policy then
without being compelled to consider the latter as the central constraint.
But one country is in a special situation, namely, the Federal Republic. It is

indeed the only state in Western Europe to be simultaneously integrated into
two theoretically consecutive international systems, one of which hardly exists
any more—except for the Federal Republic.
Indeed, the I970~i972 treaties and agreements (the Treaty of Moscow of
August 12, 1970; the Treaty of Warsaw of December 7, 1971; the quadripar¬
tite agreement on Berlin of September 3, 1971; the treaty between the two
German states of Deeember 21, 1972) create a twofold paradoxical situation.
First, these treaties put an end to postwar uncertainties and marked the return
to international power of formerly crushed and annihilated Germany.
Here the second and more fundamental paradox can be seen. Nowhere else
in the present world did the 1944-1945 and 1947-1949 systems survive
simultaneously. The system of 1944-1945 is that of the Russian-American
alliance. It still exists for Germany, as confirmed by the text of the Berlin
agreement of the Four Powers in 1971. The system of 1947-1949 is that of
the beginning Cold War, and this is accepted today, in spite of the detente, as
having permanent effect on Germany. The acknowledgment of the existence
of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) indicates that the Federal Repub¬
lic has at last accepted the main consequence of the 1947 rupture. The GDR
for its part, has reluctantly renounced one of its dearest and most strongly
asserted claims: It accepts the maintenance of the Big Four’s rights and
responsibilities vis-a-vis the whole of Germany, that is, the permanent limita¬
tion of sovereignty of the two states.
Another acceptation is linked to the preceding ones. West Berlin definitely
lost the possibility of becoming a fully established Land of the Federal Repub¬
lic (a logical concession of the latter, whose wish was the permanent presence
of the Western troops in their status of 1945); at the same time. West Berlin
IS internationally represented by Bonn, its territory being juridically con-
sidered not on the soil of the GDR, but outside the occupation zones as
defined by the London agreement of 1944.
To fully understand the evolution of West Germany’s policy during the last
quarter-century, and the place held in it by the USSR, it is useful to look
backward from the treaties of 1970-1972. The Berlin crisis of 1948-1949
appears in retrospect as both a point of reference and a symbol. Indeed it
predetermined the foreign policy and virtually the nature of the state in gesta¬
tion.
On the one hand, the Soviet blockade transformed the moral status of the
Germans. Within a few days Berlin—rightly or wrongly the symbol of Prus-
sianism and nazism—became the incarnation of freedom. And West Germany
ceased to be a defeated, punished country and became a partner, no longer
treated abruptly and even openly courted. The Atlantic pact and the Federal
Republic were twins born of the Cold War; furthermore the Federal Republic
retained beyond her birth a prime interest in the maintenance and reinforce¬
ment of international tension, since this constantly improved her position
within the Western world. Bonn and Moscow at the beginning of the 1950s
were in some ways in the situation of the Communist party and of Gaullism
under the Fifth Republic: enemies whose very enmity is mutually self-serving.
The Federal Republic’s interest was thus the opposite of French interest as
defined above.
On the other hand, the 1948 crisis gave the future state a central imperative
for foreign policy: For about twelve years this imperative was neither reunifi¬
cation nor European unity but security. The protection of West Berlin and the
Federal Republic constituted a priority task that could only be assured with
the help of the United States. Nothing, therefore, must ever be done that
could undermine American confidence, lest American protection diminish.
The overwhelming majority of the population sought almost unconditional
alignment with the United States, so the Social Democratic party could only
resume its forward march after abandoning its non-Atlantic Deutschland-Plan
and aligning itself with American policy.
But it must be clearly stated that German dependence on America was
originally and has largely remained a consequence of Soviet policy, real or
imagined, whereas what was fundamental for General DeGaulle was the
policy toward the United States, with the policy toward the USSR often
representing only one of its elements.
When German foreign policy in 1973 is compared with that of 1955,
certain elements of continuity and discontinuity are evident. But where are the
main discontinuities located? And to what extent have the significant changes
been caused by the internal evolution of the Federal Republic, to what extent
by Soviet policy and the general state of East-West relations?
In the German political debate, both sides underline above all the arrival of
Willy Brandt at the Chancellery in 1969- The Christian Democrats do not
want to recognize their share in the continuity of a policy against which they
are fighting, and the majority parties are overrating the elements of innovation
which have had a good effect on the electorate. The central date actually was
August 13, 1961, that is, the erection of the Berlin wall. Until then one could
question the stability of the GDR and the efficiency of a policy that consisted
of calling for progress on the German question as a preliminary condition for
detente. The wall not only permitted the rapid economic development of the
GDR but also destroyed the last uncertainties of its population about the
stability and continuance of their state. Above all it showed the Christian
Democrat leaders the complete impotence of the West when confronted by a
brutal act that did not bring into question the demarcation line between the
two blocs. Gerhardt Schroder’s arrival in Bonn at the Koblenzerstrasse in
November 1961 marked the passage of an overture toward the East based on
the idea of desirable simultaneity between detente and progress on the Ger¬
man problem. Under the Erhard government, from 1963 to 1966, with Schro¬
der remaining minister of foreign affairs, the CDU/CSU was divided in a
rather paradoxical fashion; On one side were the “Gaullists” (Franz Josef
Strauss, Baron Guttenberg) who wished to pursue with the French president a
policy entirely different from his own; on the other hand were the “anti-
Gaullists” (for example, Schroder—from whom the Social Democrats in the
opposition were not very far removed) wanting to pursue a policy toward the
East quite similar to that of Paris but without DeGaulle—and to a certain
extent against him.
fn December 1966 the coalition government, with Kurt-Georg Kiesinger at
the Chancellery and Willy Brandt at Foreign Affairs, regained a coherent
policy, like Paris and with Paris, that is, in a highly courageous way because
the price was to be paid only by the Federal Republic, with priority to be
given to detente albeit by unilateral concessions. In his program declaration
the chancellor showed himself to be more flexible than his predecessors on the
Oder-Neisse line, and in 1967 he opened up correspondence with the head of
the government of the other Germany, after having established, contrary to
the previous doctrine, diplomatic relations with Romania. However the de¬
cisive steps toward the recognition of the Polish frontier and acceptance of the
other German state were accomplished afterward by the Brandt government.
For Brandt to be able to act in such a way, two conditions had to be
fulfilled. The first was independent of Soviet policy: the acceptance of the
harsh reality need not mean political suicide; in other words, German opinion
had to have evolved. Ten years earlier no government would have been able
to sign the Warsaw treaty even if it had wanted to (and the Socialists were no
less demagogic facing expellees’ organizations than the Christian Democrats)
When Brandt abolished the Ministry for Refugees in 1969, he did not create a
new trend but marked the end of an evolution that had begun in 1950 when
the Adenauer government resolved to do its utmost to bring about the eco¬
nomic and social integration of the millions of expellees, refusing to act as the
Arab governments continue to act toward the Palestinian refugees. The
Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt presupposed a psychological appeasement—which.
It must be added, was also due to the simple time factor of passing genera-
But this policy was not possible without a global detente and a correspond¬
ing Soviet attitude. Who could have thought of an “open” policy in November
1958 on the morrow of Khrushchev’s Berlin ultimatum? The ultimatum fin¬

ally failed, but in a less spectacular way than the attempt to make Kennedy
draw back in October 1962 with regard to the Cuban launching pads. The
burial of the 1958 threat took place only in 1964, and in an unspectacular
way. Instead of being a separate peace treaty, the April 12 Soviet treaty with
the GDR was a simple “treaty of friendship” specifying in its Article 9 the
perpetuation of quadripartite responsibility for the whole of Germany.
But already in 1961 the will not to envenom things was obvious in spite of,
or rather because of, the Berlin wall. Indeed Khrushchev could not let the
GDR collapse, undermined by the massive departures to the West that were
made possible by the politico-juridical peculiarity of the situation in Berlin.
An inhabitant of the GDR could go to East Berlin since it was the same state,
then cross into West Berlin since it was the same city, and finally take a plane
to the Federal Republic since West Berlin was included in the Western world.
There were only two ways of stopping the hemorrhage: to isolate West Berlin
from the West by interrupting or controlling railway and air traffic, or else to
split the two parts of the city. Although profoundly inhumane, it was the latter
that least endangered peace and the chances of detente.
Khrushchev’s successors went much further: They put pressure on the
GDR leaders to show themselves more conciliatory toward Chancellor
Brandt. It is not certain but it seems probable that the fall of Walter Ulbricht
on May 3, 1971, was due to the Soviet will to have a more flexible East
German interlocutor, one more disposed to make concessions permitting
Soviet foreign policy to achieve one of its principal objectives: general accep¬
tance of the situation created in Europe on the morrow of the war.
At the same time the Soviets helped Chancellor Brandt carry off his 1972
electoral triumph. But here again prudence is called for in analysis. Detente
has certainly been more favorable to the Sozial-Demokratische Partei Deutsch-
lands (SPD) than Cold War tension. But it must not be forgotten that the
initial prestige of Willy Brandt was born out of his capacity as mayor of
Berlin and that the harshness of the Social Democrats’ anti-communism had
been all the more assured since they had had to submit to being completely
shut off or eliminated in the Soviet zone of occupation from April 1946 on,
three years before eminent Christian Democratic leaders crossed to the West.
Moreover the reintegration of the SPD into political respectability, as con¬
ceived by a good part of the middle classes, was determined less by the
international situation than by Herbert Wehner’s skillful strategy, based on
the moderate Godesberg program of 1959 and resulting in the Grand Coali¬
tion. In any case, Brandt’s exceptional stature as a Nobel Prize laureate could
only be built up with the detente policy the two major powers, and specifically
the USSR, were practicing in Europe. And this detente made possible the
reappearance in the Federal Republic of a Communist party a party that
was promptly discredited just a few weeks after its birth in 1968 because of
Soviet policy, since the first position it adopted was approval of the interven-
tion in Czechoslovakia. This intervention contributed to making Soviet com¬

munism appear conservative if not reactionary to a whole new extreme left,
although from 1971 the progress of orthodox communism, favorable to the
USSR and the GDR, was perceptible not at the electoral level but in the
minority of organized youth, as shown by the successes of the student group-
ing Spartakus and the passage to the GDR’s Communist party of the most left-
wing faction of the Young Socialists.
In the 1972 elections the Ostpolitik proved a strong element in the success
of the governmental coalition, to such an extent that the Christian Democrat
opposition found itself in the same situation as the Socialists in the 1950s:
Disaster came because the opposition’s fire was aimed at the precise aspect of
policy that made the chancellor popular—Europe for Adenauer and overtures
toward the East for Brandt. The Christian Democrats’ luck is that Ostpolitik
has reached a particularly difficult stage. The treaty with the GDR represents
less of a beginning than an end; the East made concessions so that Brandt’s
victory should stabilize a trend, not in order to involve itself in an evolutive
process.
The Ostpolitik rests on the hypothesis that acceptance of the present reality
will permit modification of the status quo. For the East, as well as for the
United States, it must contribute to detente, signifying immobility without
confrontation, and not change. It is on this decisive point that Soviet foreign
policy creates correlated difficulties for German and French foreign policy.
We have pointed out the extent to which French policy considered detente
as positive. One comparison to illustrate this fact is the French isolation at the
Washington conference in September 1950 where German rearmament was
decided upon, as opposed to the satisfaction given by the photograph of
Edgar Faure side-by-side with Bulganin and Eisenhower at the Geneva sum¬
mit conference m 1955. Quadripartism seemed such a good way of being
present among the Big Powers that it was to be regularly advanced as an ideal
solution to international conflicts, in particular at the time of the Near East
crisis in 1967.
But there is not really a continuity because, independently of Soviet policy
and East/West relations, French policy from 1945 to 1962 was constantly
subordinated to the harsh constraints of the business of decolonization.
France was then the only country in the world to have been torn apart
internally by the two major conflicts of the mid-twentieth century: Great
Britain does not have an important Communist party and Italy had no colo¬
nies. Now the interaction between the two conflicts was highly changeable_in
reality as well as in the image the actors had of reality.
Thus, as Ho Chi Minh was the only leader of independence struggles who
was at the same time a national hero and a Communist leader with a quarter
century of militancy behind him, so the views on the Indochina war varied
greatly. A colonial war as far as it concerned the United States in 1947, it be-
came an anti-Communist war from 1950, at a time when the French leaders
(while seeking to extract a maximum amount of aid from America’s anti¬
communism) rallied progressively to the conviction that colonial war should be
wound up—so much so that in 1954 the United States tried to impose on
France the continuation of a war it had asked the French to halt a few years
before. Was it Soviet policy then that was in question?
The answer is not clear: From 1953 on, and actually until after the end of
the second Vietnam war in 1973, the French leaders asserted that the Viet¬
namese problem had to be separated from considerations relating to Soviet
policy, but the American leaders were perhaps not wrong in thinking that this
was a special way of escaping world responsibilities.
Scarcely had the Indochina war d la frangaise ended than the Algerian war
began. From 1954 to 1958 all foreign and domestic policy was concentrated
on the Algerian problem—to an extent that brought the death of the Fourth
Republic. Soviet policy stood accused—but less than that of the United States.
The men who were to overthrow the Fourth Republic said, without believing
it very much, that the Algerian National Liberation Front was being manipu¬
lated by Moscow; but they really believed that the government in Washington
(and not only the government, for the AFL/CIO stood accused as well) was
strenuously contributing to the elimination of France from the whole of North
Africa.
Once DeGaulle was in power, there was a serious hiatus between (i) the
declared policy (as formulated in particular by the prime minister, Michel
Debre) that Algeria had to be kept French in the interests of the Atlantic
world, in order to protect Western Europe from encirclement from the south
and (2) the policy pursued, at least from September 1959) which was very
close to American wishes and tended to consider that prolongation of the war
risked making a future Algeria swing toward the USSR.
After 1962, once the Algerian Republic had been born, there was constant
Franco-American disagreement over Soviet policy in the Mediterranean.
Washington was more sensitive to a danger of penetration in North Africa;
France declared this danger to be a lesser one or else explained its pro-Arab
policy, particularly during and after the 1967 crisis, by its intention to main¬
tain a French presence in the Middle East at all costs—including the furnish¬
ing of arms—to prevent the Arab states from appealing to the USSR.*
But for General DeGaulle the Algerian problem was above aU an impedi¬
ment to be moved aside as quickly as possible to the field of true foreign policy
so as to focus on questions considered much more vital, particularly the
pursuit of the central goal: to assure France the best possible position as a
Western power in international politics. “Western” must be emphasized be-
* Editor’s note: France’s pro-Arab policy has not changed, as demonstrated by the
French attitude during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war. However, France has not
succeeded in preventing Arab states from requesting and receiving Soviet arms.
cause, in our opinion, it has been the key to an interpretation of DeGaulle’s
attitudes toward the Big Two.
When a direct, physical threat from the East was perceived, France had to
be the solid, faithful ally of its Western partners, above all the United States.
In 1947 the Rally of the French People (RPF)—created by DeGaulle, who
was convinced that World War III was near—was distinctly more anti-
Communist and anti-Soviet than the parties in power. In 1958, having again
become head of government, he showed absolute firmness in the Berlin crisis.
In October 1962, during the Cuban crisis, John Kennedy received total sup¬
port from Paris, while London, Rome, and Bonn were more frightened by the
poker game that was beginning.
When the threat was perceived as absent or decreased, France—because of
its economic, intellectual, and technological interdependence with the United
States—had to conquer its dependence on its transatlantic partner. Already in
December 1944 the journey to Moscow and the signing of the Franco-Soviet
treaty had been conceived to a large extent as a means of counterbalancing
the Americans on whom France materially depended.
The year 1962 marked a twofold turning point. First, the end of the Alge¬
rian war gave General DeGaulle a free hand in world affairs and let Kennedy
feel able to be tougher with DeGaulle after the latter had freed the West from
the Algerian turmoil. Second, the end of the Cuban crisis was wrongly inter¬
preted by the French president. For him, Khrushchev’s backtracking demon¬
strated that only one genuine Big Power existed in the world, that the USSR
had recognized and accepted this fact and so could no longer threaten Europe,
and that France consequently had the possibility of drawing aloof from the
United States.
In reality it was geography more than power that gave the victory to John
Kennedy: To the threat of intervention in Cuba by the U.S. Navy and Air
Force, the Soviet Union could respond with neither a conventional counter¬
threat (since the USSR did not have forces available in the Caribbean) nor a
nuclear counterthreat. The credibility of a suicidal risk for such a faraway
objective was really too small.
In Berlin the situation has always been the reverse because of the massive
presence of conventional Soviet forces in the proximity and lack of credibility
in an American nuclear counterthreat. But all the same, the presence of
Western troops has always created sufficient doubt about the risk of escalation
to ensure the security of Berlin. In contradiction to his asserted overall strategic
concept, DeGaulle never ceased to share the interpretation that the security of
Berlin was based on the presence of Western, mainly American, troops. His
firmness on this point was greater than that of the British.
In fact DeGaulle also espoused this notion for the whole of Western Eu¬
rope, but at the same time he took advantage of a basic geographical fact:
With the Federal Republic fortunately situated between France and the
USSR, American troops could be expelled from French territory without
changing the basic principles of deterrence so long as the troops remained on

German territory. DeGaulle’s journey to the USSR in September 1966 was
that of a head of state who had just taken his country out of NATO. This
increased his prestige and freedom of diplomatic action, even though France
remained under the shade of the American nuclear umbrella.
One might discuss whether the French nuclear force contributed to this
security. In any case it permitted France a more independent role inside the
alliance and gave her some political advantages to balance the economically
more powerful Federal Republic. But at the same time, mainly because finan¬
cial constraints virtually reduced French military strength to atomic arma¬
ment, the central goal of the force de frappe policy, namely the possibility of
interfering in world affairs, was more remote than ever.
During the 1967 Middle East crisis, in which the American and Soviet
navies played a considerable role, it was clear that Franee was impotent—its
nuclear armament was too weak to be used diplomatically with credibility
against one of the Big Powers and too strong to be used as a means of
intervention in a conflict between small states. The crisis revealed the existence
of a condition that General DeGaulle had wished to prevent by his journey to
the USSR; Detente was assured, despite the Six Day War, on the basis of a
direct agreement reached by the two superpowers—without France playing
any role.
However the overtures toward the East, pursued in a period of detente,
affected another aspect of French policy, namely, a kind of Paris-Bonn-
Moscow triangle. The good relations with the Soviet Union permitted either
the exertion of pressure on the German government when it wanted to move
away from French policy (the Erhard period) or the playing of the advanta¬
geous role of intermediary between Bonn and Moscow or Warsaw, by
vouchsafing German good faith to the East and insisting in Bonn that the
German leaders make concessions.
This favorable position was shaken for three cumulative reasons. Eirst, the
international financial crisis in the autumn of 1968, together with the Freneh
enfeeblement following the May crisis, made the Federal Republic appear
terribly powerful. This resulted in advances toward Great Britain, and hence a
change in the very structure of the Franco—German-based Western Europe.
Second, the departure of General DeGaulle in April 1969 took away from
Erench diplomacy the considerable advantage of the prestige of an outstand¬
ing personality. Einally, Chancellor Brandt’s action in 1970 did not only give
birth to a new international reputation. By pursuing his policy toward the
East (which Paris had been recommending for years), Willy Brandt, in an
apparently paradoxical way, diminished French influence. The role of inter¬
mediary became useless.
The Soviet Union had no need to seek conflict between Paris and Bonn; the
situation itself generated difficulties. The USSR attempted to create economic
rivalry among the Western Europeans (Italy, Great Britain, France, the Fed-
eral Republic) by holding out bright prospects of important markets. But
until now the rivalry has remained limited for two reasons. First, the guar¬
antees olfered, particularly to investors—for example, with regard to the
nonexportation to the European market of objects produced cheaply in fac¬
tories built thanks to European investments—have remained insufficient.
Above all, the possibilities of Western European industries have been revealed
as limited, either because they have sufficient Western outlets (the case of the
Federal Republic) or because they do not manage to satisfy the Soviet de¬
mand. Such was the case with France, particularly in the color television
affair—the USSR had adopted the French system in the certainty (which was
disappointed) that France would thereafter be able to deliver the necessary
tubes. When Kosygin came to France in 1967, it seemed there would be a
kind of alliance of the “technologically underdeveloped,” industrialized Euro¬
pean countries in the face of American superiority. Since then each of them
has finally preferred to profit directly from the American lead; France, how¬
ever, is still trying to demonstrate her aloofness from the United States.
It would be useful to study with some detail the influence that Soviet policy
or its image has exerted on French domestic politics—particularly with re¬
spect to foreign policy. Only a few remarks can be made here. As early as the
last months of 1944, after the liberation of France, the interplay is very
similar to that during the Fifth Republic, especially after the 1973 elections.
The journey to Moscow in December 1944 helped DeGaulle to annihilate a
potential Communist opposition to his power and to ensure the role of the
Communist leaders as minor partners in his cabinet. But it must be added
that, as the Italian case showed at the time, Stalin wanted to go on with the
anti-Fascist national front strategy and had no desire to see revolutionary
situations develop in the countries liberated by the American army.
Under the Fifth Republic the foreign policy of General DeGaulle always
appeared to the French Communist party as more “positive” than the “At¬
lanticism” of his “European-minded” opponents. In 1968 the invasion of
Czechoslovakia forced the French Communist party to disavow, for the first
time, an action by the USSR so it would not lose all chance of an alliance with
the Socialists. But the weakening of the French Communist party was none
the less certain, as its stagnation in 1973 has shown, and the results of the
parliamentary elections must have been welcomed in Moscow with the same
relief as that of the 1969 presidential election when Georges Pompidou de¬
feated Alain Poher. The worst for the USSR would have been a less distinct
victory for the outgoing majority, meaning a key position for Jean Lecanuet
and his supporters, who favor European and Atlantic integration. Moreover it
is not at all certain that Brezhnev would have been happy about a victory of
the Communist and Socialist Left. If the balance of forces can be modified in
the West, it would mean that the European situation is not immobilized, and
therefore things might also move in the East.
In any case Brezhnev’s advances allowed Pompidou a relatively easy share
as soon as the unity of candidatures was assured among the parties of his
majority—that is, as soon as his move for good relations with the USSR
would not risk making the voters uneasy about a policy that might be seen as
weak toward Moscow. The game consisted of constantly harping on the dif¬
ferences between the two big opposition parties, the Communists and the
Socialists, and doing this in a rather contradictory way: How can they unite
when the Communists are viscerally linked with the USSR while the Socialists
consider the invasion of Czechloslovakia a major crime, when Georges
Marchais admires the USSR and Francois Mitterrand considers it a totalitarian
state? How can both of them oppose a government that is on much better
terms with the USSR than is Mitterrand, who received a severe open letter
from the USSR ambassador in Paris in the middle of the electoral campaign?
The difficulty created for the Communist party by the French govern¬
ment’s attitude and by the dual policy of the USSR (crushing the “Prague
Spring” and smiling first for DeGaulle and then for Pompidou) is very real.
Indeed it has been obliged to discard a major aspect of Marxism. It declares
that the economic and social organization of the Eastern European countries,
beginning with the USSR, is exemplary, but that of course if the Communist
party came to power the political organization of Socialist France would be
radically different. As if the political “superstructure” were in no way de¬
termined by the econonuc “infrastructure!” This doctrinal infidelity is of
course denounced by the more orthodox Marxists on the left of the Com¬
munist party. The occupation of Prague in August 1968, added to the way
the Communists accepted the legitimacy of the “Western” electoral procedure
in May-June and thus “betrayed” the revolution, has considerably weakened
their prestige inside the French radical left.
Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik was made possible by the same Soviet attitude
that previously gave General DeGaulle the possibility of practicing his policy
of “detente, understanding and cooperation.”
In the two Western countries, approval of a rather friendly policy is dis¬
tinctly in the majority. But the results are difficult to appreciate.
For the Federal Republic and for France, detente is not an end in itself—
or, more exactly, the goal of rapprochement must not be a mere stabilization
of the status quo. On the one side, the will to reduce the gulf between the
inhabitants of the two German states; on the other, the wish to give France
(alone or with an organized Western Europe) the possibility of playing an
influential role between the Big Two; The central aim is not the same in Bonn
and in Paris, but the refusal of immobility is.
Now both are practicing a policy that may be the only one that could create
changes but that also, at the same time, contributes to immobilizing the
situation, particularly with regard to the fate of the countries dominated by
the USSR. Brandt has given up the idea of granting privileges to Romania,
which DeGaulle carefully avoided doing. To be on good terms with the USSR,
one must renounce the slightest inclination to nonalignment in the East; one
must abandon Czechoslovakia in 1968 as completely as in 1938/1939.
The only sector of the division in Eastern Europe where Brandt’s policy
makes possible a true mobility is the frontier between the Federal Republic
and the GDR. By putting pressure on Honecker, Brezhnev started a process
of contacts between people who speak the same language and belong to the
same nation, and this may have consequences affecting the evolution of the
regime. But as the East German leaders are keenly fighting this danger,
the process can only be very slow.
In reality the Franco-German policy, which the other European countries
pursue to some extent, comes up against a fundamental difficulty due to what
could be called the dual nature of the Soviet Union. This difficulty is sym¬
bolized by the impossibility of conceiving of a European security system.
Either it is indeed European, in which case it does not assure security, or else
it assures security and then it is no longer European. The Soviet Union is at
the same time a European country and one of the Big Two world powers; a
European system of security is inconceivable without her. But if the USSR is
the only one of the two Big Powers to belong to Europe, she would dominate
Europe and then there would be no security for the West. The presence of the
United States is therefore required—which transforms the pretended Euro¬
pean security system into a subordinated subsystem of the world security
system on an American-Soviet basis.
There is no possibility for the West European countries to have a produc¬
tive policy toward the East without an international detente—without relaxa¬
tion of tensions between Moscow and Washington. But when a detente has
been achieved, the relations between the two Europes become a secondary
factor of the international field.
Can one then imagine that a united Western Europe could play a suffi¬
ciently important independent role to change this disappointing reality? Cer¬
tainly not in the domain of security, at least not in the foreseeable future.
Even supposing that Western Europe had the necessary resources, a funda¬
mental obstacle would still prevent the birth of a European defense; the
problem of German participation in nuclear defense. Such participation would
mean the end of detente; moreover it is undoubtedly unacceptable to the
French. But while the German government quite easily accepts dependence on
America, no German government could accept a system in which the Federal
Republic would be kept in nuclear tutelage by powers of the same rank, such
as Great Britain and France.
In the economic domain, if one supposes that the intra-European obstacles
can be surmounted, in particular the French contradictions on the matter of
structured organization of Europe, the road to independence passes through a
severe confrontation with the United States, a confrontation outside the scope
of the present analysis.
However, the very existence of transatlantic tension shows well the advan-
tage the USSR extracts from her conciliatory attitude. Stalin was the true
father of European unification trends in 1948-1950. In 1973 European unity
might progress through reaction against Nixon. The best political result for
the Soviet Union would then be achieved by a policy of amiability without
much content. In other words, the less substance it has, the stronger the
impact of Soviet policy.
This statement holds good not only for West European foreign policies.
Inside the various states, the shortcomings of society are all the more flagrant,
all the more shocking, since the liberties that constitute the most distinct
advantage over the Eastern countries no longer appear as threatened by Soviet
policy as before. Abstention is the best policy the USSR could pursue to
hasten the internal crises of Western societies.
If, as it seems, the USSR understands this situation, it will exercise a
decisive but indirect influence on West European policies to find new lines of
action. It compels the rulers—facing the crisis of the international monetary
system, the rebellion against social injustice, the questioning of the values on
which the Western societies are built—to find new ways of action, to demon¬
strate a minimum of creative thought. In 1950 the idea of a Soviet threat gave
birth to the European construction. Today the internal problems of the West
cannot be hidden because there is no Soviet menace that would permit giving
high priority to defense. But this constraint is less visible, less obvious than
that of the Cold War. This is the reason Western leaders are terribly late in
understanding it and complying with it.
NOTE
I. “For Lasting Peace, for a People’s Democracy,” Belgrade, October 5, i947-

5
The Middle East
MALCOLM MACKINTOSH
Malcolm Mackintosh, for many years the head of the
Bulgarian and Albanian sections of the BBC’s East Euro¬
pean Services, in 1959 became a founder-member of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies in London
and is the Institute’s consultant on Soviet affairs. His pub¬
lications include: Strategy and Tactics of Soviet Foreign
Policy, Juggernaut: A History of the Soviet Army, The
Evolution of the Warsaw Pact, and Moscow’s View of the
Balance of Power.
This chapter aims to analyze the impact that Soviet foreign policy, as a
relatively new element in postwar international affairs, has had on the inter¬
state relations of the countries of the Middle East. Soviet influence in this
sphere is not always easy to identify or to isolate from other political factors
bound up with the development and evolution of international relations in the
area concerned, and this is particularly true of the highly complex situation in
the Middle East. Perhaps, therefore, some preliminary definitions may be in
order.
By the Middle East we mean the countries between Morocco in the West
and Iran and the Persian Gulf states in the East; we do not include Turkey,
Greece, Malta, or Cyprus, but we do include the Sudan, the People’s Demo¬
cratic Republic of Yemen, and North Yemen in South Arabia. For the pur¬
poses of this analysis, we do not propose to deal in any detail with the period
before the activization of Soviet foreign policy in the Middle East, that is,
before Stalins death in 1953j most of the study will refer to the twenty years
between 1953 and 1973.
Before we begin our analysis, two aspects of the subject should be clarified:
the Soviet background against which Soviet foreign policy toward the Middle
East was being formulated during these years, and the Middle Eastern back¬
ground to which the Soviet Union ultimately had to adapt its policies—which
in their turn had an effect on the region’s interstate relations. An essential
ingredient of the impact of Soviet foreign policy on interstate relations in the
area is the process by which the Soviet Union, which entered the area with
many misconceptions about the Middle East, gradually learned from its mis¬
takes mistakes that owed their origins partly to lack of practical experience
94
of the area and partly to the influence of political ideology during the formula¬
tion of external policies in Moscow.
THE SOVIET BACKGROUND
The Soviet Union’s policy toward the Middle East before 1953 was not
calculated to extend Soviet influence there, concentrating as it did on attempts
to build up local Communist parties and to oppose all regional governments,
many of which were under Western influence. Two more dramatic interven¬
tions took the form of attempts to set up a Communist government in North¬
ern Iran in 1945 and the extension of territorial claims against Turkey in the
same year.^ These attempts bore very much the character of nineteenth-cen¬
tury policies designed to annex territory or establish sympathetic or client
regimes in neighboring states. Both attempts failed, and from 1946 to 1953
Soviet Middle East policy relapsed into the more traditional propaganda cam¬
paigns against the West and indigenous regimes and verbal support for leaders
of official Middle Eastern Communist parties.^
It was left to the government of Georgi Malenkov, who succeeded Stalin in
1953, to register the first significant change in Soviet policy toward the Middle
East in his speech on foreign policy on August 8, 1953-^ Malenkov made
favorable references to established Middle Eastern governments as potential
friends of the Soviet Union. Within a year trade and economic links were
being discussed between the Soviet Union and Egypt, the most promisingly
anti-Western country in the region.
This early Soviet interest in offering economic aid and propaganda support
for a nationalist and potentially anti-Western Arab state suggests first of all
that the Russians had begun to appreciate the possibilities of exploiting Arab
and Middle East nationalism against the West. It also indicates two other
lines of future Soviet policies: the use of the economic weapon to influence
regional governments to the advantage of the Soviet Union, including its use
in interstate relations, and the final decision to side with the more numerous
and potentially anti-Western Arabs against the Israelis, among whom Ameri¬
can influence was paramount.
Of lasting effect on Soviet policies toward the Middle East was the fact
that, early on in their new economic and political drive, strategic factors also
began to loom large in Soviet thinking on the area. What the Russians thought
they saw in the Middle East was a deliberate attempt by the West (particu¬
larly inspired by the then American secretary of state, John Foster Dulles) to
build an anti-Soviet military alliance along the Soviet Unions southern
border. This was the Baghdad Pact of 1954-1955, linking Turkey, Iraq,
Iran, and Pakistan to Britain, and in the secondary sense to the United States
and NATO. (Although the United States did not join the Baghdad Pact or its
successor, the Central Treaty Organization, it has been closely associated, and
the chief of staff of the military organization is at present an American gen¬

eral.)
The Soviet Union’s reaction to the negotiations leading to the creation of
the Baghdad Pact was characteristic and illustrative of the USSR’s general
outlook on the area. The pact, although weak in military forces, brought
Western military potential up to a hitherto unaffected Soviet border and was
seen psychologically as an “insult” to Soviet national pride and a potential
strategic threat.
In politico-military and strategic terms the logical reply was to outflank the
pact by seeking to weaken it from the south, and if possible to establish some
kind of Soviet military influence in a rival part of the Middle East. Israel was
of course out of the question for this purpose, but traditional interstate rival¬
ries between Egypt and Iraq for supremacy in the Arab world were already
causing a breakdown in other Western plans for a Middle Eastern defense
organization covering the region as a whole. When Iraq joined the Baghdad
Pact and became its headquarters, Egypt angrily moved into opposition; Jor¬
dan, under Egyptian pressure, declined to join, and interstate relations in the
Middle East polarized into increased mutual hostility.
In these circumstances, which also coincided with a refusal by certain
Western governments to supply Egypt with arms without political conditions
relating to war against Israel, it was not difficult for the Soviet Union to seize
an opportunity to offer military aid to the Egyptians and thus effect a Soviet
military presence in an area hitherto dominated by the West in the military
field.
The first arms deal with Egypt was concluded, nominally by Czechoslova¬
kia, on September 27, 1955. Although not the first time that the Soviet Union
had used military aid in its policies in the area, it was significant for two
reasons relevant to our topic: First, it not only brought the Soviet Union
militarily into the Middle East but also began the process of raising the
military potential of the countries of the region and thus affected their inter¬
state relations; second, it was an early example of Soviet readiness to
arm a non-Communist country in which the local Communist party was
actually outlawed. This set a pattern that Middle Eastern states were quick to
recognize as part of a Soviet policy according higher priority to successes for
Soviet foreign policy than to the prospects for local Communist parties.
By the mid-fifties Middle Eastern governments saw the main outline of
Soviet intentions in their area: A general desire to weaken the West’s hold on
the region was to be pursued through economic and military aid, supported
by propaganda, with strong strategic overtones.
Moreover a policy was being developed in which countries prepared to
accept Soviet help and be responsive to Soviet advice would be assisted by the
Soviet presence in their relations with other states in the area that still re¬
tained close links with the West. For the time being this meant Egypt, with
Syria a possible alternate area of influence, but after the Soviet succks in
exploiting the Suez crisis of 1956 and the Iraqi revolution of 1958 which
caused the withdrawal of Iraq from the Baghdad Pact, the number of coun¬
tries in the Middle East that were ready to accept Soviet aid and influence
continued to grow.
Meanwhile the two tactical weapons adopted by the Soviet leaders to
achieve their goals neatly dovetailed. Economic aid created a favorable at¬
mosphere toward Soviet policies in the anti-Western group of countries,
strengthened their economies, and went some way to bind them commercially
to the Soviet Union; while military aid was a visible means of Soviet
support that, in Soviet eyes, could influence the armed forces and bring some
degree of political influence to bear on these anti-Western governments.
After the Suez crisis the Soviet Union strengthened its stand on the Arab
side in the Arab-Israeli dispute, partly because the Russians always like to be
on the side of those with numerical superiority in any quarrel and partly
because of the United States’ effective commitment to Israel.* What is partic¬
ularly interesting is that at this stage the Soviet leaders apparently believed
that their support for the more revolutionary Arab regimes, their anti-Israel
stand, and their very appearance in Middle East politics would cause Arab
public opinion to swing around behind all Soviet policies, domestic and for¬
eign, and would cause the isolation and rapid overthrow of the remaining pro-
Western regimes in the area. There seems to have been little Soviet effort to
back up economic and military aid with serious attempts to build up pro-
Soviet political groupings within the ruling elites of the revolutionary states or
even, at the early stage, to consider the possibilities of exploiting Middle
Eastern oil against the West or the West’s friends in the region.
Even as late as 1967, when the Soviet Union appeared to encourage Egypt
and its allies to try military means against Israel, the hallmark of the Soviet
effort was the application of European power politics to the Middle East
situation without their adaptation to local and regional conditions. The di¬
saster that overtook the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armed forces in the
Six Day War forced the Russians to study the Middle East in its own right
and to learn lessons that have had their effect on Soviet policies and on
interstate relations in the area.
THE MIDDLE EASTERN BACKGROUND
The Middle East, toward which these Soviet policies were being directed,
has been in a state of transition since the end of World War II and required a
much more intense effort to understand it and its interstate relations than the
* Originally the Soviet Union had been favorably disposed toward the creation of the
state of Israel, believing that the Israelis had struck the first successful blow against
British hegemony in the Middle East and accelerated the British withdrawal from the
area. Israel’s subsequent turn to the United States for aid and support caused the Rus¬
sians to lose interest in Israel as a potential client state in the Middle East.
Russians were originally prepared to make. After some sixty years of British
and French political domination and the division of much of the area into
Anglo-French mandated territories under the League of Nations and earlier
protectorates, Middle East nationalism was emerging as the main political
force in the area. But this nationalism was not automatically pro-Soviet or pro-
Communist.
In Iran, for example, by the mid-1950s nationalism was expressing itself as
an anti-Communist force, based on the experience of Soviet penetration in
1945-1946 and the Mossadeq government of 1951-1953. In the states of
the Persian Gulf the British retained a military presence until 1971, in Saudi
Arabia the rule of the pro-Western monarchy was absolute, and Pakistan
was a member of the Baghdad Pact and later of CENTO; so this entrance to
the Middle East was closed to the Soviet Union. Kuwait was slowly develop¬
ing its oil resources with Western assistance. Aden was a British colony, and
Yemen was completely cut off from the mainstream of political life. The
Sudan had not yet achieved its political independence and its rulers were
suspicious of Egypt.
To the north, in Turkey, fear of Russian aims and capabilities drove the
Turks to seek membership in both NATO and CENTO. In Syria and Lebanon
the results of the French withdrawal after the war expressed themselves in
moderate nationalism and internal political instability; Syria produced a Com¬
munist leader, Khalid Bakdash, whom the Russians tried hard but without
much success to build up into a world Marxist figure. Iraq remained within
the Western camp until 1958 and then its revolutionary leaders, although
withdrawing from the Baghdad Pact and accepting Soviet economic and mili¬
tary aid, allowed their nationalism to drift into traditional isolationist and anti-
Egyptian paths; more than one coup d’etat in Baghdad faced the unprepared
Russians with awkward dilemmas on the correct target for their support.
Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in North Africa emerged from French rule,
but Algeria s long guerrilla war with France produced a violently xenophobic
leadership not amenable to Soviet requirements. In Libya, poverty-stricken
before the discovery of oil, the pro-British ruling family of the Senussi was
trying to build a new state with Western assistance.
In Egypt the regime of Colonel Nasser was absorbed in its internal policies
and domestic leadership rivalries; as far as international relations were con¬
cerned, Egypt concentrated on the confrontation with Israel, on its rivalry
with Iraq, and on attempts to make a union with Syria work. Jordan, which
had annexed Palestinian territory in the war against Israel in 1948, had lost
its farsighted and able King Abdullah by assassination, but his grandson, King
Hussein, maintained his pro-British alignment and his close military links
with the United Kingdom.
Almost all these Arab countries were economically backward and many
were desperately poor; some, like Egypt, depended on one or two vital crops.
In theory, any outside power that was prepared to aid the economy by “politi-
cal” purchases could expect a significant increase in its political influence in

the country concerned. But it is doubtful that the Soviet Union had made a
careful enough study of the economies of the Middle East countries to exploit
this situation to the full; the USSR often found itself in the role of a creditor
unable to take any counter-action when debtor governments simply cancelled
their debts to the Soviet Union or its allies because they reafized that the
Soviet Union needed to protect its investment largely for political reasons.
Finally, there was Israel. The state of Israel eame into existence dn 1948,
and even before Israel’s great military successes of 1956 and 1967 it was
clear that much American and French aid to Israel was being channeled into
defense. (The first serious indication of the efficiency of the regular Israeli
armed forces after the war of 1948-1949 came with the Gaza raid in 1954,
which was much criticized in the United Nations.) At the same time the
Israelis’ main effort was directed toward the intensification and expansion of
the work of turning desert areas into productive land and of laying the foun¬
dations for a sound national economy.
Fully-fledged parliamentary democracy was a feature of the Knesset, but
the most notable feature of the state of Israel was the dedication of the Israeli
people toward national security, and in foreign policy toward achieving recog¬
nition from their Arab neighbors. The Soviet Union seemed unable to under¬
stand the strength of Israel or the real position of the Arab states, or to
formulate policies toward the Arab-Israeli dispute that could lead to a lasting
settlement.
Tike most countries involved in the Middle East, the Soviet Union seemed
to have drawn the conclusion from the 1948, 1956, and 1967 Arab-Israeli
wars that the Israeli effort put into national defense had produced a state of
military security that could not be breached by the military means available to
the Arab states. Of course the Soviet Union continued to supply arms to the
Arab states up to and during the war of October 1973? had an ultimate
hope that Arab numerical superiority, long-term internal population problems
in Israel, and possibly the use of the oil weapon against Israel’s allies would
wear down and neutralize Israel’s strengths. But until these factors came into
play, the Soviet attitude to Israel was, in part at least, dominated by the use
the USSR could make of the Arab-Israeli dispute (the no-peace, no-war
concept) to further Soviet aims in the area.
THE SOVIET ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MIDDLE EAST
As seen from Moscow, the period from 1955 to the present day witnessed a
fairly cautious but forward policy by the Soviet Union in the wake of the
withdrawal of British and French power from the region. By the mid-1960s,
and particularly after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, the Soviet Union had
succeeded in establishing a strong economic and a significant political and
military presence in the area.
The Soviet Union today provides economic aid to almost every country of
the Middle East and North Africa from Morocco to South Yemen, from
Turkey to Sudan, and has an enormous economic and financial investment in
the region, involving a network of trade agreements, training programs, and
barter arrangements.
Politically, although only Iraq appears to fulfill the Soviet Union’s major
foreign policy requirements (and had two Communist ministers in the govern¬
ment in 1973), Syria, Egypt, South Yemen, Somalia, and Algeria publicly at
least give some measure of support to Soviet foreign policy; and Libya, al¬
though anti-Communist, is strongly against the West.
In military terms almost all countries of the area were receiving Soviet
military aid in 1973, and some had Soviet military personnel on their territory
fulfilling a training role. Syria and Iraq had over 1,000 such advisers each,
and their armed forces—together with those of Egypt, Algeria, and Somalia
—were almost entirely dependent on Soviet weapons and equipment. Libya,
Morocco, and Iran took some quantities of Soviet weapons, and although the
Russians lost their anti-NATO military facilities in Egypt in July 1972,
Soviet supplies of equipment to Egypt still continued.
At the same time the permanent Soviet naval squadron in the Mediter¬
ranean, among its other tasks, provides a link between the Soviet military
presence in the Middle East and Soviet military power in Europe. The Rus¬
sians see this link as outflanking and isolating CENTO, and they may even
believe that one of the tasks of their permanent naval squadron in the Indian
Ocean is to provide a further link eastward to Soviet power in the Ear East. If
so, this would be an important motive for Soviet support for the reopening of
the Suez Canal.
To understand the kind of impact Soviet foreign policy has had on inter¬
state relations in the Middle East, it may be helpful to look briefly at one or
two characteristics of the Soviet attitude and presence in the region. Soviet
decision-making is based on a combination of national, superpower, and ideo¬
logical factors in which a sense of political mission provides much of the
justification for doing things the Soviet Union wants to do for other reasons.
This sense of mission leads the Soviet Union to believe that its presence
and its initiatives have a headstart on those of other countries simply because
they come from the Soviet Union. This is a combination of extreme national
pride and exclusiveness, coupled with a conviction of the fundamental righ¬
teousness of the Soviet political cause. It enables Moscow to justify sharp
changes in policy, opportunistic decisions, and tactical inconsistencies in
carrying out Soviet policies; indeed, opportunism is one of the main features
of the day-to-day operations of Soviet foreign policy in the Middle East. This
opportunism appears, of course, within the broad framework of Soviet world¬
wide policies and Soviet aims in the Middle East.
The Russians are believers in the cyclical interpretation of history. They
are convinced that history is inevitably on their side and that in the Middle
Regional Case Studies on the Impact of Soviet Foreign Policy lOI
East, as elsewhere, their influence will replace that of the West. Basically they
believe that events are going their way and that the movement of history is
broadly favorable to the Soviet Union.
When the Soviet Union adds up the totals of successes and failures in the
Middle East in the last twenty years, it is convinced that Soviet successes are
the fundamental and irreversible ones: the revolutions in many countries of
the area and the removal of Western influence from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and
Aden, for example, and the growth and stability of Soviet investment in the
Middle East.
Soviet failures have been temporary (so runs the Soviet explanation); they
have been based on short-term or transient factors dependent on one leader,
one political elite, or external factors that can easily change. A good ex¬
ample is the failure of the Soviets’ attempt to use their military presence in
Egypt for purely anti-NATO purposes—the aerial surveillance of NATO
forces in the Mediterranean, with a potential strike capabihty—in July 1972.
But to the Soviet leaders this was due to temporary factors: an unreliable
Arab politician taking his revenge on the Soviet Union in order to cover his
own failures.
The point to note is that the Soviet Union, in pursuing its national aims in
the Middle East, is acting from deep historical, geopolitical, and ideological
motives and is now prepared to exploit interstate relations within the area to
achieve its goals. The Soviets are operating against a background of growing
practical experience and a view of history that they believe will make their
long-term success inevitable.
Of course they realize that their tactics—economic aid, military assistance
and involvement, pohtical penetration, and the exploitation of the West’s
dependence on Middle East oil—are liable to vary in their success or failure.
But the important point is that the Russians believe that they are so strong in
the Middle East that neither Western nor Chinese policies can force them out
and that they are improving their control over unwanted crises (partly in
conjunction with the United States) and reducing their vulnerability to the
blackmail of regional countries, such as Egypt might have exercised when the
Russians had a full-scale military presence in that country.
Soviet aims in the Middle East have passed through a number of phases
since 1955. They appear to have settled down to a desire to see governments
in each country whose ruling elites wiU be responsive to Soviet requirements
in foreign policy in the first instance; in military, strategic, and trade policy m
the second; and will allow some official pro-Soviet Communist party partici¬
pation in governments or national fronts.
But the important point is that the Russians probably believe that their
position in the Middle East, even after the setback that some aspects of the
October 1973 war created for them (for example, the remarkable Israeli mili¬
tary recovery and the greater diplomatic successes achieved by the United
States), is still fundamentally a strong one. They still appear to believe that
no Western or Chinese policies can force them out; that their cooperation
with the United States during the crisis and in the U.N. Security Council
shows that their involvement in the Middle East is politically acceptable to the
United States; and that their vulnerability to blackmail by countries like Egypt
(which forced the Russians to withdraw their military presence in 1972) may
well have been reduced by practical diplomatic collaboration with the United
States. The Soviet leaders also may feel that prospects for strengthening their
political and strategic position in Egypt, Syria, or Iraq might improve if no
peace settlement emerged in 1974 from the Geneva negotiations.
Great obstacles exist between the Soviet Union’s present oil policies—
encouraging the oil producers to nationalize Western oil fields and raise their
demands for participation and increased royalties, accompanied by Soviet
purchase of limited quantities of Middle East oil, for example, from Iraq—
and the full-scale control of a producer’s oil policies or the involvement of the
Soviet Union in the international oil business. For this the Soviet Union would
have to acquire a much greater tanker fleet and also the expertise of the
Western oil companies and their capabilities in refining, distributing, and
selling; the USSR would also have to provide the hard currency needed to pay
the producing countries at the rate now paid by the Western companies. While
in the long term perhaps this is not beyond the reach of the Soviet Union, it is
very unlikely to appear in the foreseeable future.
THE IMPACT OF SOVIET POLICY ON INTERSTATE RELATIONS

IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The impact of Soviet foreign policy on the relations among the Middle East
countries includes both practical and intangible elements in which political,
military, and economic factors are present. Perhaps the best way to analyze it
is to move from the general to the particular, and look first at some of the
broad results of Soviet involvement on the relations within the region and then
tackle specific interstate contacts and the political, military, and economic
issues involved.
The first general effect seems to arise from the fact that the USSR has
pursued an active policy in the Middle East and has built up Soviet economic
and military investment in the area to enormous proportions. Together with
the wealth created by the exploitation of the region’s oil resources, some of
which goes to pro-Western countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia and some to
states in receipt of Soviet aid, the level of prosperity available to decision¬
makers in the Middle East is relatively high. And this means that even quite
small countries are able to deal with each other backed by considerable
economic, financial, and military resources; in a number of cases the govern¬
ments conduct their interstate relations in the manner of powers conscious of
great military strength.
For example, Iran, a country of 29 million people, has used its oil revenues
to build up its army, including an order for 800 tanks of the Chieftain model
from Britain. This means not only that Iran has more up-to-date tanks than
the British Army in Germany but also more tanks than the Soviet ground
forces on its borders and considerably more than its main rival, Iraq. (This
imbalance was perhaps the reason Iraq was visited by the head of the Soviet
Army’s armored forces. Marshal Babadzhanyan, in September 1972—the
marshal’s only known duty visit abroad.) Similarly Egypt has been able to
equip armed forces of over 300,000 men thanks to Soviet aid, both military
and economic.^
The influx of material, money, and resources from outside the Middle East,
part of which has come from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, can have
both a stabilizing and a destabilizing effect. The latter might arise from the
conviction on the part of some Middle Eastern politicians that increased
wealth should be channeled into grandiose domestic or foreign policies, per¬
haps with military backing; the former may be produced by other politicians’
awareness that, the better off a country is, the more it may have to lose by
“adventurist” policies.
Middle East countries receiving Soviet political approaches or offers of
economic and military aid have acted on their awareness that they can exploit
the Russians’ need for political access, and in some cases military facilities,
for their own purposes. They have tried to piny the Soviet Union off against
the West: After the expulsion of Soviet military personnel from Egypt in
1972, the Egyptians applied to several Western countries for advanced
weapons and equipment—although the military confrontation with Israel in¬
hibited the West from satisfying the Egyptians’ requests. The Middle East
countries also try to win Soviet support for their case in regional disputes, of
which more later.
Most Middle Eastern countries have learned to be suspicious of powerful
states outside the region that pursue forward policies in their area. But the
Soviet Union has had the benefit of the doubt in its policies toward the
Middle East beeause it was not one of the colonial powers that dominated
the area in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The ability of the
Soviet propaganda machine to exploit the mass ownership of radio sets in the
Arab world to put over this point and other aspects of Soviet policy has
proved a great advantage to successive Soviet governments. The degree to
which the Soviet Union has lived up to or failed to retain its self-proclaimed
reputation as a disinterested and loyal ally of friends in the Middle East has
also affected the attitudes of the individual countries and their relationships
within the region.
In this respect Egypt has held the center of the other countries’ attention.
For military reasons Egypt has needed the Soviet Union more than any other
country of the area and, under President Nasser, went further than any of its
neighbors in acceding to Soviet demands—especially military demands. The

effect on Egypt of a very elose Soviet involvement has in fact provided one of
the yardsticks by which other states have judged their relationships with the
Soviet Union and their readiness to aceede to Soviet requests.
Although Soviet economic aid and training programs have been on gener¬
ous terms, they have not overcome the nationalism of the region or led to
the kind of political penetration of the ruling elite that successive Soviet
leaderships have hoped for. The 1971 collapse of the Ali Sabry group, which
was believed to be politically pro-Soviet, showed the Soviet Union’s inability
to influence the political elite even in Egypt, where there were some 17,000
Soviet troops and military advisers, headed by a three-star general who was
also a member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist party
(Colonel General V. V. Okunev was elected to be a eandidate member of the
Central Committee of the CPSU at the Twenty-fourth Party Congress in April
1971 )• But it also showed other Middle Eastern governments and parties that
what the Soviet Union really sought as an important result of its economic
and military aid programs was the presence of pro-Soviet elements within the
ruling elites in each Middle East country.
There can be little doubt that this realization has had its effect not only on
these countries’ attitude to the Soviet Union but on their attitude to those of
their neighbors who appear to be close to the Soviet Union, such as Iraq. If
we add to this realization the nationalist feelings against any large outside
power, the Soviet Union’s sometimes undeserved reputation for responsibihty
for every subversive or revolutionary movement, doubts about the Soviet
attitude toward the Moslem faith, and fears of the ideological content of
Soviet foreign poliey, we can see why no Middle Eastern country is anxious to
be labeled a “client” of the Soviet Union.
Indeed it is almost true to say that most Middle Eastern states in their
dealings with each other make a point of claiming that they are not under
Soviet influence and offer some evidence of their independence of the Soviet
Union. Egypt’s reputation with its neighbors rose after it expelled Soviet
military personnel in 1972, although the combat effectiveness of the Egyptian
armed forces appeared to have declined.
The Soviet Union sometimes finds that its practical and propaganda sup¬
port for a Middle Eastern country’s case against a neighbor leads to the
expectation that the Soviet Union will lend its weight to that country’s actions,
even to the point of military assistance. The most obvious case here was in
Egypt in 1967, when President Nasser realized too late that the Russians
would not join in a war against Israel. But it also arises in the relationship
between Iran and Iraq; both countries base part of their policies on the
expected degree of support from the Soviet Union—and both are usually
disappointed. The need to try to avoid taking sides in regional disputes and
unnecessary alignments is one of the Soviet Union’s most pressing problems in
formulating its Middle Eastern policies.
The Arab-1 sraeli Confrontation
The impact of Soviet foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli confrontation was

radically altered by the outbreak of the fourth round of the Arab-Israeli war
on October 6, 1973.
At the height of the Soviet military involvement in Egypt, when the air
defense of the Suez Canal zone was partly controlled by the Soviet headquar¬
ters in Cairo, the fact that a major outbreak of hostilities on the Canal front
would have led to Soviet involvement and Soviet casualties enabled the Rus¬
sians to control the level of Egyptian military activity against Israel. Similarly,
the slowness with which the Russians were building up Syria’s air defenses to
some extent controlled the level of Syrian military involvement with Israel.
With Egypt and Syria under some kind of control through the Soviet military
presence, most observers assumed that military initiatives on their part and on
the part of Jordan and Iraq could only be taken on Soviet advice.
The expulsion of Soviet military personnel from Egypt radically altered the
situation. Although the Russians lost their valuable anti-NATO naval-air
facilities, they were no longer committed to the defense of Egypt in practical
terms and no longer had to fear casualties in the event of war on the Canal or
a virtually inevitable escalation of the struggle to a Soviet-American military
confrontation or clash. The Soviet Union was therefore less afraid of a new
round of Arab-Israeli hostilities before October 6, I973) ^îd also less inter¬
ested in a lasting political settlement.
But the significant point here is that an important change in the Soviet
Union’s position and vulnerability in the Middle East came about not as a
result of the impact of Soviet policy but because of an act of independence by
Egypt, partly brought on by dissatisfaction with Soviet policies, aid, and
support. In this area at least. Middle Eastern reactions to Soviet policy appear
to be as important as the Soviet policies themselves.
Equally interesting was the Soviet counteraction to the July 1972 decision.
The Russians switched their attention to Syria, returned most of the Syrian air
defense officers then under training in the Soviet Union, and speeded up the
supply of SA-3 air defense missiles, thus giving the Syrians an air defense
capability they had hitherto lacked. There were many reports, so far uncon¬
firmed, that the Soviet Union asked the Syrians to sign a treaty along the lines
of the Soviet-Egyptian or Soviet-Iraqi treaties, and to provide alternative air
or naval-air facilities against NATO to replace those lost in Egypt.
The Syrians’ reaction was to try to get the best of both worlds. They
accepted the increased Soviet military aid, reportedly turned down the Soviet
requests for a treaty and military facilities, and took a turn away from the
Soviet line diplomatically by reopening the Syrian-Jordanian frontier and later
reestablishing diplomatic relations with Britain. At the same time the Syrians
became more active and militant in the struggle against Israel.
The net effect of the Soviet-Egyptian-Syrian triangular relationship in the
io6 The Soviet Impact on World Politics
pre-October 1973 period was that both Egyptians and Syrians exploited their
relations with the Soviet Union without paying adequate attention to Soviet
interests. If we are right in assuming that a major reopening of the war such
as occurred on October 6 by Egypt and Syria was not planned by the Soviet
Union—and all the available evidence seems to suggest that the Russians
were only aware of Arab intentions two or three days before the outbreak of
the war—then we have another example of Arab decision-making without
reliance on Soviet approval. The Soviet Union was not, of course, directly
involved in the fighting (as Soviet combat units and advisers had been with¬
drawn), but the Russians did encourage other Arab states to join in the
struggle or give valuable aid to the belligerents, and began almost at once (on
October 10) a massive airlift of arms to Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. When the tide
of battle turned against the Arabs, the Russians quickly realized the need for
a cease-fire, primarily in order to save the Egyptian Army from a catastrophic
defeat, and were active diplomatically in Cairo and Damascus, as well as in
bilateral negotiations with the United States.
Soviet behavior during and after the war indicated that the Russians ex¬
ploited their new position vis-a-vis their Arab clients and with the United
States. Without the dangers of direct military involvement, the Russians
used their state power first to encourage the Arabs in the early period of the
war by a massive delivery of arms, then to help save them through diplomacy
from the consequences of defeat. The Soviet leaders may hope that they have
in this way done enough to prolong their earlier indispensability to Egypt and
Syria and, through this relationship, continue to exercise influence in these
countries and in the Middle East as a whole. Certainly they will go on provid¬
ing economic and military aid and trying to expand political influence, al¬
though with the growing political influence of the United States in Cairo, for
example, the Soviet task may not be an easy one. But the Soviets will not give
up, and we may expect to see an intensive Soviet drive to increase the USSR’s
influence throughout the region. Perhaps the least favorable situation for the
Soviet Union would be a peace settlement between Israel and at least one of
its neighbors, for this would reduce the indispensability of the Soviet Union
for the Arab states.
The Soviet Union also gained the advantage that its newly forged bilateral
relationship with the United States was seen in action in bringing about a
cease-fire, thus giving an element of “joint crisis control” to the relationship.
On the other hand, the Russians were forced to alter their policy—or at least
their apparent intention to intervene unilaterally in Egypt—by a U.S. politico-
military initiative: the strategic alert of October 25, 1973. And they have also
been dismayed by the lead taken by the United States in diplomacy to settle
the crisis. On balance, however, the Soviet Union probably believes that, as
long as a full-scale peace agreement between Israel and the Arab countries is
not achieved, the Soviet position in the confrontation area is still strong and
might be improved.
Egypt and Libya had, before the October war with Israel, been planning yet
another attempt to form a unified state or some form of federation (with Syria
also involved)—mainly under Libyan pressure. But Egyptian-Libyan rela¬
tions deteriorated as a result of the war, and a genuine merger in 1974 seems
very unlikely.
Syria and Iraq
Although Syria and Iraq are both ruled by leaders from the Ba’ath party of
the Arab political community, their relations have never been friendly, largely
because of the difference in their background and traditions and the political
rivalries of the two branches of the Ba’ath party. The military collaboration
between the two countries during the October 1973 war may have tempo¬
rarily improved their relations, but Iraq’s precipitate withdrawal of forces
and independent policy on oil may subsequently have aroused many of the old
suspicions.
The Soviet objective has been to minimize the differences between the two
states and coordinate their hostility to the West, without taking sides in the
disputes that divide them. And although the Soviet Union has given extensive
and valuable economic aid, military assistance, and cooperation in the two
countries’ oil industries separately, it has not been able to effectively influence
their interstate relations so that they can coordinate their anti-Western atti¬
tudes.*
Both remain anti-Western, but while Iraq appeared to move rather too close
to the Soviet Union when it signed the treaty in 1972 and further developed its
oil production and marketing and its military relations with the Russians, the
Syrians, as already mentioned, improved their relations with the pro-Western
Jordanians and with West European countries—both moves the Soviet Union
would oppose.
Iraq and Iran

Iraq and Iran are two of the most persistent rivals in the Middle East. The
one an Arab country and the other non-Arab, they are divided by almost
every kind of issue: racial and nationalist questions, political systems, foreign
policy alignments, the struggle for influence in the Persian Gulf, oil, and the
problem of the Kurdish minority.
Iran is a rapidly developing economic and military power whose wealth
from oil is being intelligently used by the Shah to develop the country s
* This is a good example of Soviet disabilities due to the Soviet Union’s general (and
often undeserved) reputation as a “revolutionary” power responsible for all Communist
acts all over the world. In fact there is little evidence connecting Moscow directly wdh
the short-lived revolution in Khartoum, although Iraqi subversion may have been in¬
volved.
io8 The Soviet Impact on World Politics
economy, agriculture, and military strength. Iraq is a largely isolated, eco¬

nomically misdirected country, greatly dependent on Soviet aid. Iran, a mem¬
ber of CENTO, has growing political and military influence in the Persian
Gulf. Iraq aspires to political supremacy in the Persian Gulf but has never
been able to develop policies or capabilities to carry out its ambitions; such
actions as Iraq has undertaken—for example, the threats to Kuwait in 1961
and 1973—have been inept and have aroused widespread suspicion in the
region. Iraq and Iran both have Kurdish minorities, but Iran’s has generally
accepted Iranian rule while the Iraqi Kurds have normally been up in arms
against the Baghdad government.
It has been the thankless task of the Soviet Union to try to persuade each of
these countries that its future prosperity and security lies in collaboration with
the Soviet Union. Economic and military aid have gone to both, visits of
heads of state have been exchanged with Moscow, and efforts have been made
to persuade Iran to leave CENTO and Iraq to settle the Kurdish problem (the
Iraqi-Kurdish agreement of March 1970 won the approval of the Russians,
who probably had a hand in the preliminary contacts and have tried to keep it
alive ever since).
But the interstate effort has hardly got off the ground. The Iranians are
determined to stay in CENTO and to build up their military forces against
Iraq; they remain very suspicious of the Soviet-Iraqi treaty and of the extent
of Soviet influence in Baghdad in politics and in the oil industry; they are also
very distrustful of possible Soviet connections with subversive activities in
Iran, fears they share with their opposite numbers in Turkey and Pakistan.
(The arms cache found in the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan on February 10,
1973) was widely believed in Pakistan and Iran to have been placed there
with the knowledge of the Soviet Union; the incident probably increased the
interest of Pakistan and Iran in the CENTO alliance.)
All in all, this seems to be one of the least hopeful areas of interstate
relations for the Soviet Union. The Russians have been forced to put their
main effort into Iraq, where there now are two Communists in the govern¬
ment, and in growing involvement in the Iraqi oil industry. But for all their
influence the Soviets have not been able to change the character of Iranian-
Iraqi interstate relations or to obtain any advantages for the Soviet Union
from them.
The Persian Gulf States
The British military withdrawal might have been expected to open up

opportunities for the Soviet Union to increase its influence in the Persian
Gulf, both directly and through Iraq. Certainly the tremendous riches of the
oil resources and the needs of Western Europe and Japan helped to increase
the attractiveness of the Persian Gulf as a target.
Undoubtedly the potential is still there. But a number of factors have
worked against a success for the Soviet Union, at least in the short term. First,
in the diplomatic field, Soviet attempts to establish embassies in the Union of
Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain have proved unsuccessful, although the
Soviet proposal to the UAE was accepted in principle. Second, Western in¬
fluence has by no means been eliminated from the gulf, and the Western oil
companies have been able to conclude satisfactory deals with the various
rulers. Third, the Soviet Union’s potential proxy, Iraq, is generally feared and
widely unpopular. And perhaps most important of all, Iran’s political and
military power has greatly increased in the Persian Gulf, including its exit to
the Indian Ocean. The Iranians, although not necessarily popular among the
Arabs, are also assisting established Arab governments in their operations
against insurgents in Oman and Dhofar on the south side of the gulf.
Therefore the Soviet impact on interstate relations in the area of the Per¬
sian Gulf has not been particularly noticeable so far. The Russians are too
closely identified with Iraq, and potentially with existing subversive move¬
ments, to be popular in the UAE, Bahrain, or Qatar; as the Russians are
anxious not to antagonize the Shah of Iran even further, they have not been
active in opposing Iran’s moves to increase its influence in the gulf. No doubt
the Russians hope to improve this situation in the future, but for the time
being they have been obliged to adopt a fairly passive role.
South Arabia
The Soviet Union had no relations with and little influence in Saudi Arabia
before the October 1973 war. But the Saudis’ attempt to seize the leadership
of the Arab states that began to exploit the oil weapon against the West
during and after the war, and King Faisal’s overtures to the Soviet Union in
November 1973, surprised and gratified the Russians. No doubt they hope to
develop relations with Saudi Arabia along these lines. The Russians have
supplied both South and North Yemen with economic and military aid m the
past, and the former’s armed forces are almost entirely dependent on the
Soviet Union. Some weapons and material have been transferred to the rebels
in Dhofar, giving rise to accusations that the Soviet Union is directing the
subversion in those areas.
There is no doubt that the Russians got off to a good start in South Yemen
after its formation, but a number of problems have arisen to complicate
Soviet plans. The Soviet Union saw some advantages in keeping the countries
of South Arabia apart, and it welcomed the harassment of the Saudi borders
by both South and North Yemen. But the latter showed signs of moving
toward the West in recent years; when, after a 1972 crisis that had t e
Yemens hovering on the brink of war, the Arab League was able to bring the
two sides together and actually foster a union or confederation, the Soviet
Union felt that its interstate influence was weakening m this area as well.
Moreover South Yemen is one of the few countries in the Middle East
no The Soviet Impact on World Politics
where the Soviet Union and China vie for political influence. Until 1972-
1973 the Chinese seemed to be getting the best of it, but lately the Russians
have been improving their position; in particular, they have built up a South
Yemeni air force of some significance in the local military balance. Indeed,
the blockade of the Bab-el-Mandeb straits at the southern end of the Red Sea
opposite Aden during the October 1973 war underlined the importance of
military and strategic factors in this area, a lesson that will not have been lost
on the Russians.
North Africa
Of the three Maghreb countries—Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia—Algeria

is both the strongest and the most indebted to the Soviet Union for economic,
political, and military aid. Morocco and Tunisia, although the objects of
Soviet attention and the recipients of Soviet aid, are basically aligned with the
West, except on the issue of Israel. And Algeria, whose armed forces are
extensively equipped with Soviet weapons and whose economy has been
helped by Soviet aid, is governed by an extremely nationalist regime that is
not at all susceptible to Soviet political blandishments.
The Soviet Union encouraged Algeria during the October war to give all
aid to Egypt and Syria, and singled out President Boumedienne for the dis¬
tinction of a special message from Brezhnev, an indication of Algeria’s impor¬
tance in Soviet eyes. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union opposes Algeria’s concept
of a demilitarized Mediterranean. It is therefore hard to see how the Soviet
Union could substantially influence either Algerian policies or the country’s
relations with its two neighbors, although here again the Russians will seek
out opportunities for improving their influence on an ad hoc basis.
Conclusions
The analysis offered in these pages suggests a number of broad conclusions

on the impact of the Soviet Union on the interstate relations of the Middle
East. First, there is the general effect of growing Soviet interest and activity,
because of which most countries in the region have benefited economically
and in their standards of living—although it should be remembered that the
most spectacular results so far have been achieved in the oil-rich states as¬
sociated with the West. With rising standards of living these countries have
been able to develop and pursue more active policies of their own, and in
some cases Soviet influence has been used to follow even more vigorously the
traditional national rivalries of the area.
This, indeed, may be one of the most significant lessons of the October war.
The evidence so far available makes it unlikely that the Soviet Union planned
or even seriously encouraged Egypt and Syria to attack Israeli-held territory
in October 1973. But Soviet arms deliveries over a period of years (especially
Regional Case Studies on the Impact of Soviet Foreign Policy ill
of air defense missiles), Soviet training, and Soviet advice provided the basis
for the war; The weapons and the training were adapted to the military tasks
facing Egypt and Syria and, once Soviet control had been removed from
Egypt in July 1972, Egypt and Syria were free to use the weapons at the time
of their choice. From the point of view of interstate relations, the Soviet
Union must realize that, unless it improves its political control over these
countries, it may have to continue to react to their initiatives rather than
initiating policy itself. In the short term, one answer to this problem may be to
try to develop closer links in the crisis control field with the United States, most
of whose diplomacy has so far been acceptable to both Israel and the Arab
belligerents.
One aspect of previous Soviet policy that was beginning to influence some
Arab countries against the Soviet Union even before the October war was the
Soviet Union’s readiness to use the vulnerability of one Arab country, Egypt,
to build up a military capability against NATO. This approach had nothing to
do with Arab needs and played a part in making Arab countries aware of the
dangers of close involvement with the Soviet Union and responsiveness to
Soviet requirements. No Arab country is now likely to want to place itself in
the position where President Nasser’s Egypt found itself in 1970—1972.
Moscow must realize that its hopes for improving its influence over inter¬
state relations in the Middle East depend even more on Soviet access to the
political elites in the countries concerned, and on turning this access into
political influence. Thus the real Soviet goals in the region can only be
achieved through the kind of political influence that the Russians have found
hardest to acquire so far.
Perhaps the most interesting conclusion is related to the real contradiction
between the Soviets’ view of their achievements in the Middle East in gaining
influence in a growing number of countries and the sense of political mission
that leads them to believe history is on the side of the Soviet Union, as
opposed to the decreasing level of influence the Russians seem to have on
interstate relations. Only in Iraq do the Russians appear to have made any
progress in gaining access to the ruling political elite; even in Iraq the Soviet
influence over the country’s relations with Syria, Iran, or the Persian Gulf has
so far been small. The Soviet Union does not seem to be able to have a say m
the proposed merger between Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia; m Sudanese-
Egvptian relations; in interstate relations in the Maghreb or between Syria an
Jordan. Interstate moves between the two Yemeni republics have taken p ace
without Soviet approval, and Libya appears even more impervious to Soviet
It is as yet hard to assess whether on balance the Soviet Union has gamed
or lost influence over state-to-state relations in the area as a result of the
October 1973 war. For while possibilities do exist for further arms deliveries
and even for the reintroduction of additional Soviet military advisers for
example, if longer-range surface-to-surface missiles were to be made part of
Egypt’s arsenal—there is no guarantee that more military personnel stationed

in Egypt would increase Soviet political influence in Cairo. If the peace talks
in Geneva should produce results satisfactory to the Arabs, the Russians may
find it difficult to increase their political influence in the confrontation Arab
states.
The essence of the contradiction is this: All the evidence suggests that the
Soviet Union is continuing to protect its great economic, military, and politi¬
cal investment in the Middle East and to pursue an active policy of increasing
its influence and diminishing that of the West. It has had varied success but
seems determined to press ahead wherever possible. But one of the areas
where success has eluded the Soviet Union in recent years is in the field of
interstate relations. The Russians have certainly changed the pattern or inten¬
sified its main elements in some ways. But they have not been able to per¬
suade or force any major state in the area to adapt or conduct its relations
with its neighbors according to Soviet recommendations.
Indeed the evidence suggests that in many cases the Soviet Union has lost
the initiative and has been reacting to events and decisions taken by the
national governments. It can be argued that Moscow’s political “arm” in the
Middle East is the weakest of the four that the Russians deploy: political,
economic, military, and subversive. This tempts us to raise one further ques¬
tion to which no answer can yet be given: If political and diplomatic influence
has been a disappointment, and while recognizing Soviet successes in other
fields, may there not be a greater urge on the part of Soviet planners in the
future to turn with more attention and perhaps hope to the weapon of oil as
an instrument to be used against the West and, at the interstate level, against
the West’s interests in the Middle East?
The Soviet reaction to the use of the oil weapon against the West has been,
so far at least, fairly restrained. Soviet statements have praised the Arabs for
using the weapon and claimed that it is justified in pursuit of Arab policy
toward Israel, and there can be no doubt that the Soviet Union welcomes the
damage it has already done to Western economies, the EEC, and European-
American relations.
On the other hand, the Soviet Union may not be in favor of a situation in
which oil producers turn to the oil weapon to bring pressure against countries
whom they regard as opponents on any issue. A situation could arise in the
future in which an oil producer may try to use the oil weapon against Soviet
interests; the excessive use of the weapon could so damage some Western
economies that other aspects of Soviet foreign policies, such as trade and
access to technology, might be set back; and a major disruption of the interna¬
tional oil business might in the long run affect Soviet oil policies toward
Eastern Europe and the Middle East. On balance, therefore, the Russians are
likely to be fairly cautious about encouraging the long-term, extreme use of
the oil weapon against the West, while reaping what benefits they can from it
in the immediate future.
NOTES
1. For more detailed references to the Soviet attitude to the Middle East before I953>
see J. M. Mackintosh, Strategy and Tactics of Soviet Foreign Policy (Oxford; Oxford
University Press, 1963), pp. 117-119; Walter Z. Laqueur, The Soviet Union and the
Middle East, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, I959). Chapter II.
2. See, for example, the Polish Press Agency’s attack on the Egyptian revolutionaries
on August 20, 1952, and the Soviet Army paper Red Star’s criticism of the Arab League,
April 29, 1950.
3. Pravda, August 9, 1953-
4. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 1972-73,
London, 1973, p. 31-
6
East Asia
HAROLD C. HINTON
Dr. Harold C. Hinton is professor of international affairs
and political science at the Institute for Sino-Soviet
Studies, The George Washington University. His works in¬
clude: Communist China in World Politics, The Bear at
the Gate, China’s Turbulent Quest, and An Introduction
to Chinese Politics.
The Soviet Union’s impact on the international politics of China, Japan, and
Korea since World War II is a complex subject that is best approached by
way of a summary of Soviet policy toward the East Asian region. If the
account stresses China, that is because it has been the most important of the
three countries to Soviet policy-makers, with a qualification allowed for the
always threatening but never unleashed (against the Soviet Union) American
military presence in Japan and Okinawa.
SOVIET INTERESTS AND POLICY IN EAST ASIA
It must be remembered, as it constantly is in Moscow, that the regions of

the Soviet Union bordering on East Asia are thinly populated, contain Asian
minorities of uncertain loyalty, and are poorly developed. Security has there¬
fore inevitably been the major Soviet preoccupation in formulating policy
toward East Asia. This is all the more true because in recent decades the
region has seen the intrusion of three major military powers—Japan, the
United States, and the People’s Republic of China—all more or less hostile to
the Soviet Union. Therefore it is not surprising that Soviet efforts to build up
the industrial and military potential of the Soviet Far East date from as far
back as 1929, with escalation whenever Moscow saw or thought it saw a
particular reason to do so.
Moscow has aspired not only to security but to influence in East Asia,
although less obsessively than in Eastern and Central Europe. Since 1891,
when the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway began, Moscow has sought
advantageous economic relationships with East Asia as a means, among other
things, to promote the economic development of its own Far Eastern territory.
The Soviet Union competed for political influence in the region with other
114
major powers, above all the three already mentioned as perceived threats to
its security.
Ideally Moscow would probably like to exclude the United States from the
region and be in a position to manage China and Japan effectively. In reality
it is far from this point and it actually appears to welcome a certain level of
American military presence in the region as a restraint on China. The Soviet
Union has sought, with varying degrees of energy, to exert a decisive revolu¬
tionary influence on the region since about 1921. This effort has had almost
no success to date in Japan. Soviet policy and military intervention contrib¬
uted critically in Korea, and marginally in China, to the emergence of Com¬
munist regimes after World War II, but in both cases factors to be considered
below have rendered this triumph at best a doubtful blessing in Moscow s
eyes.
Stalin’s East Asian policy in 1945 was remarkably similar to his East and
Central European policy. He wanted an occupation zone in and reparations
from the defeated enemy; he failed to get them (apart from about $2 billion
worth of Japanese equipment removed from Manchuria by Soviet forces)
because his military reach did not extend to Japan. He wanted and got, by
virtue of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements, certain territorial annexations
(the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin) designed mainly to provide additional
security against a possibly resurgent Japan, perhaps supported by the United
States.
Stalin wanted a buffer zone and sphere of influence extending along the
Soviet border from the Pacific to Kazakhstan. In the case of Manchuria,
which his troops occupied for about six months after August 1945, he ac¬
quired important port and railway rights under the Yalta agreement and
greatly helped to tip the balance for the Chinese Communists and against the
Nationalists, but he failed in his further objective of getting the Communists
to establish their main political and military bases in Manchuria under his
protecting and dominating wing. Having failed in this, Stalin was not m a
position to exert decisive influence on the course of the Chinese civil war
south of the Great Wall or (despite temporary appearances to the contrary)
on the policies of the Chinese Communist regime after it came to power in
1949.
Stalin was much more successful in Korea since his forces occupied it down
to the 38th parallel in 1945 and over the next three years turned it progres¬
sively into a Communist-controlled Soviet satellite. He also was successM
with the Mongolian People’s Republic, which had been a de facto Soviet
satellite for two decades and which he managed to have proclaimed indepen¬
dent (of China) in 1945- Through covert support for local anti-Chinese
resistance, he helped to prevent the Chinese Nationalists from estab is mg
their authority over western Sinkiang and succeeded m 1950 m getting he
Chinese Communists to grant him important mineral rights that turned the
area into a Soviet sphere of influence for the next several years.
Ii6 The Soviet Impact on World Politics
The Communist triumph in China presented Stalin with important potential

gains as well as serious risks. It was a major asset to have China as an ally,
and perhaps a satellite, rather than an adversary or a base for pressures aimed
by hostile countries against the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the Commu¬
nist victory was not due primarily to Stalin’s intervention or influence and the
Chinese Communist movement had demonstrated much independence of
mind, especially since Mao Tse-tung’s rise to power in about 1938. It was
important to Stalin not to push Mao into duplicating Tito’s performance, and
through the exercise of uncharacteristic self-restraint he avoided such a catas¬
trophe—by how wide a margin is not clear. In the course of his negotiations
with Mao (December 1949-February 1950) Stalin gave the Chinese a mili¬
tary alliance, economic (and later military) aid, and a sphere of revolutionary
influence in southern Asia; in return he got Chinese recognition of Soviet
preeminence in Korea and Japan and temporary confirmation of his special
position in Manchuria and Sinkiang.
Apart from the North Korean desire for unification, the main cause of the
Korean War was Stalin’s determination to disrupt the American plan for a
peace settlement with Japan and to eliminate a potential springboard (South
Korea) on the Asian mainland for the hypothetical combination of Japan and
the United States, against which he had just given Mao a rather reluctant
guarantee. The Chinese also were involved, but more in a supporting than a
participatory role.
When United Nations forces defeated the North Koreans and invaded their
territory in October 1950, Stalin successfully urged Chinese intervention since
he was unwilling either to see North Korea eliminated as a Communist state
or to intervene himself. After that he gave substantial military aid and other
forms of support to the Chinese struggle against a technically superior adver¬
sary. Stalin consistently avoided a direct confrontation with the United States
over Korea, although at the end of his life he may have contemplated some¬
thing of the sort in an effort to save the Chinese from having to sign an
armistice under conditions that would prevent them from regaining control
over those of their prisoners (70 percent of the total, as it turned out) who
did not want to go home.
Whatever Stalin’s intentions, his successors were much too preoccupied
with internal matters, including jockeying for power, to risk a confrontation
with the United States over Korea or anything else. Their attitude left the
Chinese and North Koreans with no effective choice but to sign an armistice
(July 27, 1953) under whose terms they would not regain their disaffected
prisoners.
So serious was the disunity within the new Soviet leadership that Chinese
support for Nikita Khrushchev—which he actively courted by visiting Peking
in September-October 1954 and promising the Chinese more aid and mili¬
tary protection than his main rival, Malenkov, was willing to extend—played
some role in Khrushchev’s ouster of Malenkov as premier in favor of Bui-
ganin in February 1955. Some of Khrushchev’s opponents tried without suc¬

cess to impress Peking by verbal formulas conceding it coleadership of the
“socialist camp” with the Soviet Union.
Another concession that Khrushchev sought and secured from the Chinese,
in addition to support in his struggle for leadership, was agreement to a fresh
Soviet approach to the Japanese government. Tokyo’s close ties with Taipei,
as well as with Washington, prevented any such approach on Peking’s part,
but Khrushchev evidently wanted to take some initiative that might counteract
the Japanese tendency toward subservience to American foreign policy, then
under the influence of the formidable John Foster Dulles. Accordingly, in
1956 the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with Japan while post¬
poning a solution of the three main problems in Soviet-Japanese relations: a
peace treaty, the territorial issue (arising from Japanese resentment at the
Soviet annexations of 1945 )> and fishing rights.
Khrushchev was unable to see eye to eye with Peking on another issue of
much greater importance to it than to him—Taiwan. Since Peking was deter¬
mined to “liberate” the island from Nationalist control and alleged American
“occupation,” it was outraged by the conclusion of a treaty of alliance be¬
tween the United States and the (Nationalist) Republic of China at the end of
1954. Peking put increased pressure on Khrushchev for military aid and
political and declaratory support.
Khrushchev provided the military aid to a considerable extent but not the
support, at least not in a form likely to be useful to Peking; he had no desire
for a confrontation with the United States over an issue as remote and unim¬
portant (from his point of view) as Taiwan. Next to Mao Tse-tung s seniority
complex, born with the death of Stalin, this was probably the earliest of the
major issues in the Sino-Soviet dispute in its serious (post-Stalin) phase, and
yet it was rarely mentioned in public because it had embarrassing aspects on
both sides.
Khrushehev opened the Twentieth Soviet Party Congress on February 14,
1956, the anniversary of the signing of the Sino—Soviet alliance in I950>
doubt in an effort to signal Peking of the continuing validity of that alliance
despite certain innovations likely to be disturbing to the Chinese. These were
principally Khrushchev’s concepts of the “noninevitability’’ of (general) war
and the “parliamentary path” to power for other Communist parties (that is,
the priority of political struggle over armed revolution). Both these concepts
clearly reflected his fear of a thermonuclear war with the strategically superior
United States, as did his secret speech attacking Stalin, which he must have
known was bound to startle and might undermine the leaders of other Com¬
munist parties, including Mao Tse-tung.
Khrushchev’s apprehensions regarding Peking’s reaction turned out to be
well founded, and he for his part was distressed by a wave of ideological and
political innovations emanating from Mao after the spring of 1956 in large
part in response to the challenge to Mao posed by the secret speech and its
tendency to encourage some of Mao’s colleagues to prune back his political

role. Khrushchev no doubt felt some satisfaction at the fiasco that overtook
Mao’s Hundred Flowers campaign (for free public discussion) in June 1957,
especially since it coincided approximately with his own resounding triumph
over the “antiparty group” led by Malenkov and Molotov. In the autumn of
1957) however, Khrushchev began to come under powerful and embarrassing
pressure from Mao. Peking intoned the slogan that the “East wind [the
socialist camp] has prevailed over the West wind [the imperialist camp].”
The Chinese assumption was apparently that Khrushchev—having shed his
more conservative (in foreign policy) colleagues by purging the “antiparty
group” and in October 1957 Marshal Zhukov, and having impressed the
world and especially the United States by his first ICBM test and first Sputnik
—should now be in a mood to live up to the Soviet Union’s responsibilities as
“head of the socialist camp.” In Mao’s eyes these consisted essentially of a
political campaign, with overtones of military pressure but short of actual
war, against the United States, with Taiwan as one of the main objectives.
In reality Khrushchev was in no mood or position for any such campaign.
However he felt sufficiently embarrassed by Mao’s pressures, and sufficiently
interested in purchasing Chinese support for his idea (announced at the
Twentieth Congress) of a nuclear test ban, to make a massive concession to
Peking in October-November 1957 in the form of a commitment to give
China extensive technical aid with a nuclear warhead program and appropri¬
ate dehvery systems (MRBMs). But in 1958 Khrushchev refused a Chinese
request for a direct transfer of operational nuclear weapons (probably tacti¬
cal), and in June 1959 he effectively terminated the nuclear assistance pro¬
gram because of his growing objections to Chinese behavior, in particular
Chinese resentment at his moves toward detente with the United States.
It was Khrushchev’s decision, in the aftermath of the death of the redoubt¬
able John Foster Dulles in April 1959, to seek accommodation with the
United States rather than increase his pressures on it that, more than anything
else, pushed his relations with the Chinese beyond the point of no return.
There were other issues as well. Khrushchev felt the gravest ideological and
political reservations about the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960), the most
dramatic of Mao’s innovations of that period, and over the increased Chinese
militancy in foreign policy that paralleled it. The most spectacular manifesta¬
tion of this militancy, and the one that disturbed Khrushchev the most, was
Mao’s decision to reinforce the impact of the Great Leap Forward at home
and abroad and compensate for Khrushchev’s passivity (in Mao’s eyes) by
exerting politico-military pressures on Nationalist positions in the Taiwan
Strait.
Khrushchev flew secretly to Peking at the end of July 1958 to dissuade
Mao from such an adventure, but to no avail. During the ensuing crisis (late
August to early October), which created at least some risk of a Sino-Ameri¬
can war, Khrushchev made some loud declarations of support for Peking but
carefully timed them so as to minimize the actual risk of Soviet involvement.

He waited until November, when the Taiwan Strait crisis was safely over,
before launching a short-lived period of pressures on West Berlin.
During 1959 Khrushchev clearly came to regard the Chinese as the main
threat to the desired detente with the United States. When he visited Peking at
the end of September 1959, he lectured the Chinese severely, and partly in
public, for their tendency to “test by force the stability of the capitalist
system,” their roughness with the Indians over the Sino-Indian border dispute,
their doctrinaire insistence on “armed struggle” as the primary means for
revolutionizing the Third World, and the like. Understandably, he got a very
cool reception.
Chinese objections to Khrushchev’s dealings with the United States were
probably a major reason Khrushchev used the shooting down of Francis Gary
Power’s U-2 as a pretext for cancelling the Paris summit conference of May
i960. But when Peking, unappeased, continued to attack Khrushchev’s al¬
leged passivity toward “imperialism” and revolution, he cut o2 all economic
aid to China in the summer of i960, at a time when the Chinese economy was
already reeling under the impact of bad weather and the stresses of the Great
Leap Forward. Khrushchev explained his position fully, as did the Chinese, to
the astounded delegates to a major conference of Communist parties con¬
vened in Moscow in November-December i960. He tried but failed to maneu¬
ver a majority vote against the Chinese, who successfully insisted on a rule of
unanimity. The outcome was an ambiguous statement embodying much of
both positions, with the result that each side subsequently claimed that its
views and behavior accorded with the statement.
In 1961 Khrushchev became further infuriated by Chinese insistence on
supporting Albania, with which he had developed a dispute rather similar,
except in scale, to his controversy with Peking. But not all his colleagues were
as anti-Chinese as he, and it was probably under pressure from them that he
made some remarkably conciliatory gestures toward Peking in 1962. In the
summer, in response to Chinese protests, he broke off talks with the United
States on a nuclear test ban agreement. He secretly urged the Indian govern¬
ment to avoid a border war with China, at the cost of no matter what conces¬
sions. Most important of all, he apparently hoped to use the missiles he
emplaced in Cuba to exert pressure on the United States not only for a Berlin
and German settlement but for the removal of American protection from
Taiwan.
This plan came unstuck when Khrushchev, under a virtual American ulti¬
matum, agreed to withdraw his missiles from Cuba. The Chinese denounced
him for allegedly having agreed to “another Munich” at the expense of Castro
and the Cuban people, and he transferred his support from Peking to New
Delhi in connection with the Sino-Indian border war of October-November
1962. After that Sino-Soviet relations rapidly worsened. The Chinese de¬
nounced Khrushchev even more vigorously after he concluded the nuclear test
ban treaty (July 1963), and they began to form “Marxist-Leninist” splinter
parties where possible in opposition to the pro-Soviet Communist parties.
Khrushchev retaliated by trying, but without success, to convene another
major conference at which the Chinese would be disciplined or condemned in
some way or other.
Still more serious was the emergence of a territorial dispute and the begin¬
nings of a mihtary confrontation between Peking and Moscow. Since i960
small-scale crossings of the Sino-Soviet border by parties of Chinese military
personnel had been occurring. Over the next two years Moscow began to
strengthen its forces near the border to a limited extent. In the spring of
1962, according to a credible Chinese account,^ Soviet consular personnel in
Sinkiang incited some 60,000 dissident Kazakhs and Uighurs to flee across
the border to Soviet Central Asia, and in retaliation all Soviet consulates in
China were closed.
Over the next two years Peking publicly reminded the world that tsarist and
Soviet Russia had taken territory (including the Mongolian People’s Repub¬
lic) from China and implied a desire to recover at least some of it. Technical
talks in Peking during 1964 on the border issue failed to resolve the broader
question of the old boundary treaties, which the Chinese regard as “unequal”
and therefore in some sense invalid; in any case the talks were suspended with
Khrushchev’s fall. By the summer of 1964, as the detonation of Peking’s first
nuclear device approached, Khrushchev may actually have been contemplat¬
ing some sort of military action against China. In any case the clumsiness of
his China policy almost certainly contributed to his overthrow in mid-October
1964.
His successors were anxious to improve relations with Peking, and in par¬
ticular to secure Chinese cooperation in the transshipment of increased mili¬
tary aid to North Vietnam, which from November 1964 seemed likely to
come, and after February 1965 did come, under American air attack. Accord¬
ingly, during a visit to Peking in February 1965, Kosygin proposed “united
action” over Vietnam, a normalization of Sino-Soviet state relations (includ¬
ing an increase of trade and a resumption of Soviet economic aid), and a
suspension of ideological polemics.
Mao personally vetoed all of this, except that an unpubUshed agreement
was concluded (on April 30) to permit transit by rail—but not by air, as
Moscow also wished—of Soviet military equipment bound for North Viet¬
nam. The Vietnamese crisis became a further source of Sino-Soviet disunity
rather than a bridge across which relations with Peking could be improved as
the Brezhnev-Kosygin leadership had initially hoped. Sino-Soviet relations
worsened early in 1965 when Suslov insisted on reviving Khrushchev’s plan
for another international conference of Communist parties, an idea Mao
strongly opposed.
In 1965-1966 Moscow began to perceive Peking as a serious potential
military threat. It was in 1965 that Peking began to construct an ICBM
testing range, an undeniable indication that it intended to become a major

nuclear power. It was also in 1965 that the Japanese government launched a
campaign for the recovery of civil jurisdiction over Okinawa, an outcome
that seemed likely to eventually weaken the ability of the United States to
contain possible Chinese expansion into non-Communist Asia.
Both of these eventualities were—and are—very unwelcome in Moscow.
Accordingly the Soviet Union began a further military buildup near the Sino-
Soviet border, and in the spring of 1966 it introduced significant forces into
the Mongolian People’s Republic, where they could play an offensive as well
as a defensive role, for the first time. It is probably not a coincidence that in
1966 the Soviet Union began to show an interest in Japanese cooperation in
the economic development of Siberia and the Soviet Far East, as a means
(among other things) of strengthening Moscow’s hold on these vast regions in
the face of possible Chinese claims or pressures.
Already immersed in the preliminaries to the Cultural Revolution, Maoists
in Peking did not pay much attention to these ominous developments. During
1966 Moscow watched with anger and dismay the unfolding of the Cultural
Revolution, a process that involved the virtual elimination of the Communist
party apparatus as a functioning, let alone leading, entity in the Chinese
political system. This struck at the heart of orthodox, or at any rate Soviet-
style, Leninism in China and was particularly unwelcome to Brezhnev as the
head of the Soviet party apparatus. Furthermore the frenzy of anti-“revision-
ism” that accompanied the Cultural Revolution led to more flagrant violations
of, and provocations along, the Sino-Soviet border from the Chinese side than
ever before, with irritating effects on Soviet nerves.
There is some evidence that the Soviet leadership contemplated military
intervention of one kind or another in the spring of 1966 and again at the end
of the year but refrained because the whirlwind speed of the Cultural Revolu¬
tion did not permit the emergence of any coherent anti-Maoist group that
might have been willing to collaborate with the Soviet Union. Another prob¬
able restraining factor was Moscow’s fear, as a result of the milder official
American tone toward China and some evidence of a Sino-American under¬
standing on mutually tolerable limits on action with respect to Vietnam, that
further pressure on China might drive it irrevocably into the arms of the
United States, despite the anti-“imperialist” rhetoric that accompanied the
Cultural Revolution. Moscow’s unhappiness was not alleviated by the Chinese
People’s Liberation Army’s assumption of the leading role in the Cultural
Revolution in 1967; Soviet propaganda began to picture China as dominated
by a fiercely nationalist, anti-Leninist coalition of Maoists, bureaucrats, and
military figures that was involved in some sort of collaboration with the West
German “revanchists” against the Soviet Union.
The frustration that Moscow felt in its relations with China, as well as in
other aspects of its foreign policy (notably the Middle East), helps to account
for its decision to assert its machismo by invading Czechoslovakia. That
action in turn alarmed Peking more than anything that Moscow had done to
date and led the Chinese to coin a new term for Soviet behavior, one very
objectionable to Moscow: “social imperialism.”
Tension rose along the Sino-Soviet border and was reflected on the Soviet
side in an increased level of patrolling along the Far Eastern frontier in
February 1969. A Chinese ambush of a Soviet patrol on the frozen Ussuri
River on March 2 outraged Moscow but also gave it an evidently welcome
pretext for disengaging itself from a crisis then in progress over West Berlin
and also an issue on which to rally the Warsaw Pact states around the Soviet
political standard. Soviet forces executed a devastating retaliation at the same
spot on March 15.
During the next several months, to Peking’s dismay, the Soviet Union
greatly increased its forces near the Sino-Soviet border, staged a number of
incidents along that border, uttered various threats of nuclear and conven¬
tional attack on China, and gave Peking a virtual ultimatum to begin negotiat¬
ing on the border issue by September 13 at the latest. Under this pressure, and
with the good offices of Romanian, North Korean, and North Vietnamese
parties at work, Peking yielded to the extent that Chou En-lai talked with
Kosygin on September 11. By October 7 it had been agreed that negotiations
would be held at the deputy foreign minister level, and these have been going
on in Peking at intervals since October 20, 1969.
Peking has been demanding an agreement on a cease-fire and mutual troop
withdrawal and a new boundary treaty that would label the old ones as
“unequal” without changing the actual border except in limited areas in the
Far East and Central Asia, where Peking claims that the Soviet Union oc¬
cupies territory not conceded under the “unequal” treaties and has rebuffed as
meaningless a Soviet offer of a nonaggression pact. The Soviet Union has
rejected the Chinese demands and insisted on a settlement that in effect would
confirm the old treaties without branding them as “unequal,” because to
admit that would constitute a dangerous precedent for other sectors of the
Soviet frontier. Under these conditions the talks have become basically dead¬
locked.
Meanwhile the Soviet military buildup in the regions near the Chinese
border has continued, to a level (in mid-1973) of about fifty divisions, includ¬
ing an estimated eight in the Mongolian People’s Republic. There appear to
be three main reasons for this extraordinary performance.
First, the Soviet leadership is genuinely uncertain and apprehensive, partly
for emotional and racial reasons, about future Chinese policy-making, espe¬
cially as Peking’s nuclear strength increases and the United States disengages
militarily from Asia; Moscow wishes to deter possible Chinese adventures or
expansionist tendencies in any direction by means of pressures exerted along
its inland borders.
Second, Moscow probably wants to be in a position, if possible, to influ¬
ence the composition of the Chinese leadership and the direction of its
policies after Mao Tse-tung’s death in ways favorable to its own interests.
However Chinese charges that former Defense Minister Lin Piao, purged in
September 1971, collaborated with the Soviet Union appear to have no
foundation.
Third, the Chinese demon has largely replaced the West German bogey,
and to some extent the American bogey, in Soviet domestic and foreign
propaganda, and it is necessary to maintain the demon’s credibility by show¬
ing that he is taken seriously. In the ideological and international Communist
fields, Suslov in particular appears to find an anti-Chinese posture (which is
no doubt sincere on his part) useful as a basis on which to seek the support of
foreign Communist parties.
One of the most intriguing and elusive aspects of recent Soviet China policy
involves Moscow’s contacts with Taiwan. These have consisted mainly of a
visit by the Soviet “journalist” Victor Louis to Taiwan in October 1968, a
few visits to the Soviet Union by Chinese with Nationalist connections, and
the passage of some units of the Soviet Far Eastern fleet through the Taiwan
Strait on May 12, 1973, apparently without prior notification to Taipei. The
main purpose on both sides is probably to put psychological pressure on
Peking, an effort that appears to have had some success, rather than some¬
thing more substantial.
Meanwhile Moscow has been making some progress in involving Japanese,
and possibly some American, firms in development projects in the Soviet Far
East and Siberia, of which the best known and probably the most important is
the plan for exploitation of the Tiumen oil and gas reserves (in Western
Siberia) by means of a pipeline to the Soviet Pacific port of Nakhodka.
Moscow has been largely successful in separating this economic question from
the difficult political issues of a peace treaty and the northern territories, as
they are known in Japan (that is, the southern Kuriles and in particular the
islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Habomai, and Shikotan, the last two of which
Moscow has occasionally promised to return as part of a peace settlement).
There is no clear indication at present when, or even whether, agreement
will be reached on these questions. It might be thought that Tokyo’s success
in improving its relations with the People’s Republic of China has made
Moscow somewhat more conciliatory toward Japan. To some extent this has
happened, but on the other hand Peking and Moscow are each pressuring
Japan by indicating that Tokyo will pay a price for any undue improvement of
relations with the other.
In a series of recent speeches (June 7, 1969; March 20, 1972; December
21, 1972) Brezhnev has sketched out a rather vague proposal for a “collec¬
tive security” system in Asia, by analogy with similar Soviet proposals for
Europe. He has defined the concept to include renunciation of force, “respect
for sovereignty and the inviolability of frontiers” (a proviso obviously de¬
signed to counter Chinese and Japanese territorial claims), noninterference in
other countries’ internal affairs, and economic cooperation. He has denied.
but not very convincingly, that the proposal is aimed at containing or compet¬
ing with China and has even said that he would like Peking to be included.
Soviet propaganda points to the Soviet—Indian treaty of friendship of August
9, 1971, as the main achievement to date of the “collective security” proposal.
THE SINO-SOVIET ALLIANCE IN CHINESE PERSPECTIVE
In mid-1949 Mao Tse-tung made his famous announcement that China

would “lean to one side,” the Soviet side, in the Cold War. This decision had
probably never been in serious doubt, despite some tentative and fruitless
overtures to the United States by Mao in 1945, and it had been made clear as
early as 1948 in connection with the pro-Soviet Chinese Communist stand on
the Stalin-Tito controversy. Some serious past differences with Stalin were
more than outweighed by ideological ties, the interlinked histories of the
Chinese and Soviet parties, a felt need for Soviet economic and military aid
and protection, and a desire to shield Manchuria and China’s Inner Asian
territories from possible Soviet pressures through a good relationship with
Stalin.
In December 1949 Mao went to Moscow for a two-month visit and negoti¬
ated with Stalin on a variety of important subjects. It was agreed, in effect and
informally, that northeast Asia (Korea and Japan) should be an area of
primarily Soviet initiative and that Mao would be free to exert what influence
he could on the Communist revolutionary movements in southern Asia—of
which only one. Ho Chi Minh’s in Vietnam, was making any real progress.
Accordingly Peking supported the Cominform’s (meaning Stalin’s) insistence
that the Japanese Communist party stop being “lovable” and begin to struggle
against the American occupation regime; Stalin in effect ordered the Indian
Communist leadership to apologize to Mao for some rude remarks that some
of its members had made about him, and the Soviet press conceded that the
Chinese Communist revolutionary “model” had some peculiar applicability to
non-Communist Asia.
Mao and Stalin evidently discussed the Korean situation in the light of the
obvious American intention to conclude a peace treaty with Japan and the
possible American intention (in their view) to rearm Japan. They decided
that the restless Kim II Song should be given the green light and the necessary
(Soviet) military equipment to invade South Korea some time in the summer
of 1950, since at least for the time being the United States was giving convinc¬
ing signs of being determined not to defend South Korea if it were attacked.
In this way a possible springboard for future military action on the continent
of Asia by a hypothetical Japanese-American alliance would be eliminated
while the opportunity was ripe.
It was against this combination that Mao persuaded the evidently some¬
what reluctant Stalin to give him the Sino-Soviet treaty of alliance signed on
February 14, 1950. At the same time Mao confirmed for the time being the
special access to the main Manchurian railways and ports that Stalin had
gained under the Yalta agreement and following his intervention in the war
against Japan. Mao also got a $300 million industrial credit from Stalin. In
March a series of Sino-Soviet joint stock companies (actually Soviet-con-
trolled) were created in Sinkiang and Manchuria, and the Soviet Union
agreed to a substantial program of industrial aid to China. Late in 1950, after
Chinese intervention in the Korean War, Soviet military aid to China got
under way.
The emergence of this close relationship with Moscow was accompanied in
China by a massive pro-Soviet propaganda campaign that saturated virtually
every aspect of public life. For this there appear to have been three main
reasons. First, Stalin was known not to care for halfhearted collaborators and
Mao probably wanted to ensure a continuation of Soviet aid and protection by
making it abundantly clear that he was no Tito. Second, one of the Chinese
Communists’ drawbacks in the eyes of many Chinese was their Soviet connec¬
tion and Mao probably wanted to silence these fears by demonstrating, or at
least asserting, that a Soviet connection was an excellent thing because the
Soviet Union was the source of virtually all wisdom. Third, the Chinese
Communist leadership, including Mao, does appear to have been genuinely
impressed with the achievements of the Soviet Union under Stalin and to have
considered it a model worth imitating.
The first serious test of the new Sino-Soviet relationship occurred when the
North Korean forces were driven back onto their own soil in the autumn of
1950 and United Nations forces under General MacArthur approached the
Manchurian border. Although the Chinese intervention in the war was prob¬
ably not motivated mainly by Soviet urging, it is almost certain that Stalin
wanted the Chinese to intervene so that he would not have to confront the
United States himself. It is also very likely that before deciding to intervene
Mao extracted a promise of substantial Soviet military aid, and Soviet protec¬
tion if it should be needed. Chinese intervention in Korea in effect cancelled
the earlier agreement on Soviet preeminence in northeast Asia, and it is
probably not a coincidence that in late I95i> after a series of Chinese defeats
in Korea, Stalin withdrew his support for the idea that the Chinese revolution¬
ary “model” possessed a special relevance to southern Asia.
Toward the end of 1952 serious problems arose between Peking and Mos¬
cow as a result of Peking’s unwillingness to yield on the prisoner issue in the
face of American pressures and as a result of long and evidently inconclusive
negotiations over the types and amount of Soviet aid to be extended to
China’s forthcoming First Five-Year Plan (1953-1957)- Whatever Stalin’s
exact attitude on these questions may have been, it appears that he was at
least more sympathetic to Peking on the first one than his successors turned
out to be. In retrospect at least, Peking, and the historian as well, can look
back on Stalin’s last years as the golden age of the Sino-Soviet alliance.
THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE IN CHINESE PERSPECTIVE
The death of the respected, if not necessarily loved, Stalin removed the
stopper from the bottle in which Chinese anti-Soviet attitudes, actual or poten¬
tial, had been contained. Mao Tse-tung considered himself senior and supe¬
rior to the new Soviet leadership, whose internal quarrels and unwillingness to
confront American “imperialism” he evidently despised. More and more the
Chinese leadership came to feel, rightly or wrongly, that the Soviet Union was
trying to use the special Sino-Soviet relationship, and the aid program in
particular, to influence China’s development along Soviet lines and even per¬
haps to make China into a glorifled Soviet satellite. There may also have been
a perception that the pro-Soviet propaganda campaign had failed to make
much of an impression on the essentially anti-foreign Chinese people and that
the Chinese Communist regime could improve its standing at home by taking
a line that was more independent, if not actually anti-Soviet.
These general trends were reinforced in the mid-1950s by specific political
issues, some of which have already been mentioned. Having supported Khru¬
shchev as a more acceptable candidate than Malenkov, Peking soon came to
feel deceived. It seems to have come to regard Khrushchev, correctly, as less
geopolitically oriented than Stalin and disposed to give a lower priority to the
interests of contiguous China than to Soviet activities in far-flung non-
Communist states such as India and Egypt.
Peking regarded the Soviet Union as obligated by its status as “head of the
socialist camp” to give more active aid and support in connection with the
“liberation” of Taiwan, especially after the signing of the United States-
Nationalist treaty of alliance at the end of 1954, than Moscow was willing to
provide. The Chinese were unfavorably impressed by the fear of American
thermonuclear power that permeated the Soviet Twentieth Party Congress,
and Mao in particular objected to the implications and the effects that Khru¬
shchev’s attack on Stalin had on Mao’s own position. Peking felt that this
performance contributed to the crisis in Eastern Europe in late 1956, the
Chinese reaction to which was to insist forcefully on the principle of Soviet
“leadership” over the “socialist camp” and the international Communist
movement. As already noted, Mao’s insistence on this principle, his version of
which actually combined minimal Soviet authority with maximum Soviet re¬
sponsibility for promoting the interests of other Communist parties, became
particularly loud after Khrushchev’s political and space successes in 1957.
Mao was correspondingly and increasingly disappointed when Khrushchev
failed to respond with a coordinated political offensive against American
“imperialism” that might have helped Peking to “liberate” Taiwan.
Meanwhile Mao had reacted to the pressures on him from certain of his
colleagues, for which he must have considered Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin
to be at least partly responsible, with a series of supposedly creative ideologi¬
cal and political initiatives, of which the most important were the Hundred
Flowers Campaign (1956-1957) and the Great Leap Forward (1958-

1960). These initiatives clearly indicated that China was repudiating Mos¬
cow’s guidance (whatever Mao might say about Soviet “leadership”),
rejecting the Soviet developmental model, and even claiming to be passing the
Soviet Union (ideologically and poUtically if not economically) on the road
to “communism.”
About the end of 1958 Mao began to apply the highly pejorative term
“modern revisionism,” which he had coined a year earlier and had first ap¬
plied to Tito, to Khrushchev as well. The last straws for Mao included not
only Khrushchev’s performance during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958,
which Peking was to ridicule publicly five years later, but his caution in
waiting until it was over to launch his Berlin campaign. As already indicated,
the year 1959 saw abundant additional cause for Chinese outrage, especially
Soviet policy toward the United States and India.
About the end of 1959 Peking adopted what may be termed a dual adver¬
sary strategy. In other words, it determined to conduct simultaneous ideologi¬
cal and political struggles against both American “imperialism” and Soviet
“revisionism” (or “modern revisionism”). One of the first signs of this was an
anti-Soviet propaganda offensive, stopping only just short of naming Khru¬
shchev as the target of its wrath, that Peking launched in April i960. It
was probably to proclaim defiance of Soviet “revisionism” that the highly
ideological Lin Piao, who was to become the classic exponent of the dual
adversary strategy in 1965 (in his Long Live the Victory of People’s War!),
organized violations of the Soviet frontier by Chinese military personnel be¬
ginning shortly after he became defense minister in 1959.
A fairly frequent feature of Peking’s anti-Soviet propaganda was the charge
that the United States and the Soviet Union were “colluding” against China,
in addition to “contending” against each other in some other respects. In
addition to appeasing “imperialism,” Soviet “revisionism” was alleged to be
remiss in supporting the cause of world revolution. Peking seems to have been
surprised, and was certainly infuriated, when Khrushchev retaliated by cutting
off economic aid in the summer of i960.
Peking soon came to perceive Albania as a useful ally and a point of
leverage in the intensifying struggle. The trend of 1962 toward an improve¬
ment in Sino-Soviet relations was more than wiped out by Khrushchev’s per¬
formance in the Cuban missile crisis. For nearly two years after that, until his
fall, Peking vigorously opposed his efforts to convene another international
conference of Communist parties and did its best to create anti-Soviet Marx-
ist-Leninist” splinter parties. It was outraged by the nuclear test ban treaty
not only as an outstanding case of Soviet “collusion” with the United States
but as a device to make it more embarrassing for China to develop nuclear
weapons. Peking’s raising of the Sino-Soviet territorial issue began in March
1963 following a taunting inquiry by Khrushchev as to why China, which had
been so rough with India, tolerated enclaves of Chinese territory under the
control of Western powers (Britain in Hong Kong, Portugal in Macao). This

was a serious Chinese mistake, one that introduced a grave risk of war into
the Sino-Soviet dispute.
Mao’s campaign against Soviet “revisionism” had evidently come to seem
indispensable to him not only as an aspect of his foreign policy but in his
domestic struggle against his more moderate colleagues. It was therefore al¬
most inevitable that he should reject Kosygin’s offer of a pragmatic accom¬
modation and the Soviet request for “united action” on Vietnam, as well as a
Japanese Communist proposal of March 1966 along similar lines, and that he
should use the term “Khrushchev revisionism” to describe the stand of Khru¬
shchev’s successors once they had resurrected (in March 1965) his project
for another international conference of Communist parties. Some of Mao’s
colleagues, notably Liu Shao-ch’i, appear to have been considerably less hos¬
tile to the post-Khrushchev Soviet leadership than Mao was, and this differ¬
ence was evidently one issue in the first stage of the Cultural Revolution.
There is no doubt that even before Khrushchev’s fall Mao had come to regard
Soviet “revisionism” as the inspiration for at least some of his domestic
opponents and a possible source of ideological infection for China’s youth;
these were the problems that the Cultural Revolution was mainly designed to
solve.
Peking, or at least the Maoists, was evidently not much impressed by the
Soviet military gestures of 1966. But it probably was concerned by a series of
powerful anti-Chinese articles in the Soviet theoretical journal Kommunist,
which began in the spring of 1968 and were probably intended by Suslov to
give his colleagues an alternate target for their frustrations about Czechoslo¬
vakia, the invasion of which he evidently opposed. The invasion, followed by
the proclamation of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which suggested that the Soviet
Union might try to do to China what it had just done to Czechoslovakia,
aroused much greater concern and created in Peking for the first time a
serious perception of an imminent Soviet military threat. Chou En-lai began
in November 1968 to try to improve relations with the United States as the
best available strategy, but in January-February 1969 Mao, probably at Lin
Piao’s urging, vetoed this approach for the time being and cancelled an am¬
bassadorial conversation with the United States scheduled for February 20 at
Warsaw.
Consistent with his simpleminded adherence to the dual adversary strategy,
Lin then appears to have planned a blow at the Soviet “social imperialists”
that would also create an atmosphere of manageable crisis that might be
helpful to him at the forthcoming Ninth Party Congress, where he was sched¬
uled to be proclaimed Mao’s heir. He probably reasoned that the Soviet
Union would be inhibited—both by its paper bear nature and by the crisis
over West Berlin in which it appeared to be involved—from retaliating at a
level genuinely dangerous to China. But the Soviet response soon assumed
massive proportions, and Lin was unable to prevent Chou En-lai from step-
ping forward and entering into negotiations with the Soviet Union, as well as
showing some receptivity to the private overtures from the Nixon administra¬
tion that began to be made through intermediaries in March 1969. There is no
question that coping with the Soviet threat has become Peking’s most impor¬
tant single foreign policy objective.
Since Lin Piao’s fall in September 1971, Peking has alleged that he was pro-
Soviet and indeed was killed in an airplane crash in the Mongolian People’s
Republic (on the night of September 12-13) while trying to defect to the
Soviet Union. The charge appears to be false and part of an extensive “disin¬
formation” campaign designed to blacken Lin’s reputation. It is much more
probable that he interpreted Brezhnev’s private offer of a nonaggression pact
in February 1971 as evidence that the Soviet threat was diminishing, that
there was therefore no need to “tilt” toward the United States, and that the
dual adversary strategy could and should remain in effect. Chou En-lai, on the
other hand, insisted successfully that Moscow was still dangerous and untrust¬
worthy and that there was no acceptable alternative to an opening to the
United States. This issue was almost certainly a major factor in Lin’s fall.
Peking has held the Soviet Union in play at the border talks while proceed¬
ing with great skill to construct a network of international relationships de¬
signed mainly to restrain possible Soviet pressures on China. The most impor¬
tant of these obviously is the relationship with the United States, and in
particular the Nixon visit to China in February 1972. Other major achieve¬
ments are the establishment of diplomatic relations with Japan (September
1972) and West Germany (October 1972). In addition to restraint, Peking is
trying to exercise deterrence. Chou En-lai is doing his best to modernize
China’s conventional forces and create a nuclear force that will be large
enough to be effective and yet not so large as to be startling and provocative
to Moscow; it appears that he is having considerable success in both respects.
While Peking and Moscow remain basically in a state of confrontation and
are competing for influence in virtually every part of the world (including
Western Europe, where Peking fears the Soviet Union is practicing a dênte
policy in order to be better able to turn against China), there have been some
limited practical improvements in bilateral relations. Ambassadors were ex¬
changed in October-November 1970 (they had been withdrawn in 1966),
and a trade agreement was signed in November 1970. These modest achieve¬
ments are much less significant than the negative features of the Sino—Soviet
relationship, but they are not negligible.
japan and the soviet union
The Soviet Union is regarded in Japan as a traditional enemy and a current

threat, and it regularly ranks in Japanese public opinion polls as the most
disliked of foreign countries. This situation obviously limits very seriously
Moscow’s capability to acquire influence in and on Japan via conciliation.
Moscow’s capability for acquiring influence via pressure and coercion is dras¬
tically restricted by the American defensive commitment to Japan and by fear
of pushing Japan into massive, and perhaps nuclear, rearmament. The situa¬
tion is worsened by the usual, or more than usual, Soviet heavyhanded-
ness, which in turn reflects Moscow’s sense of frustration over its relationship
with Japan: Soviet ships seize Japanese fishing boats and Soviet aircraft some¬
times strafe them; provocative Soviet reconnaissance flights are conducted in
the immediate vicinity of the Japanese home islands.
The political clumsiness of the Soviet Union’s approach to Japan is well
illustrated in the history of its contacts with the Japanese Communist party,
one of the oldest in Asia (it was established in 1922). For obvious geographic
and cultural reasons, Chinese Communist influence on the party became signi¬
ficant at an early date. As the Sino-Soviet dispute came into the open about
i960 the JCP, like other Communist parties, had to choose sides or at least
make a conscious effort to avoid doing so. The effects of the Sino-Soviet
dispute, combined with the JCP’s own political maturation, have made the
party increasingly and outspokenly independent of both Moscow and Peking
over the long run. This in turn has contributed—together with the JCP’s good
organization and vigorous taking up of the issues most important to the urban
population (inflation and pollution)—to making the JCP the most dynamic
and rapidly growing party (in terms of electoral appeal) in Japan.
In 1963 the JCP, like the other major Asian Communist parties, tilted
noticeably although not completely toward Peking. The main reasons were
Khrushchev’s anti-Chinese obsession and his seeming weakness in the face of
American “imperialism.” After his fall, Mao’s rejection of a major effort by
the JCP to bring about a Sino-Soviet compromise on the issue of “united
aetion” over Vietnam in March 1966, together with Red Guard attacks
on the JCP as “revisionist” during the Cultural Revolution, largely alienated
the JCP from Peking but without pushing it much closer to Moscow.
The CPSU had angered the JCP by supporting a pro-Soviet splinter group,
the Voice of Japan. Early in 1968, however, Suslov went to Japan prepared
to stop this support in exchange for the JCP’s participation in his plan for
another international conference of Communist parties. But while he agreed
to stop supporting the Voiee of Japan (although this commitment was not
fully kept), he was compelled to acquiesce in the JCP’s refusal to take part in
his proposed conference, which Peking was vigorously denouncing. The JCP
was outraged by the invasion of Czechoslovakia and loudly attacked Moscow
for it. In 1969 the JCP began to send the CPSU a series of quasidiplomatic
messages taking a strongly nationalist stand on the question of the northern
territories, criticizing the continuing Soviet contacts with the Voice of Japan,
and the like.
The rapid improvement of Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations in
1972 startled Moscow into a somewhat more political approach to Japan, one
aspect of which has been a renewed effort to improve relations with the
JCP—for example, by something close to an actual break with the Voice of

Japan.
The Japan Socialist party has never been as anti-Soviet, or as anti-Chinese,
as the JCP has tended to become, although it too demands the return of all
four of the disputed islands. But the JSP is not of much current interest to
Moscow, except as a member of a hypothetical Popular Front, since it lacks
both the “fraternal” status of the JCP and the hold on power of the ruling
Liberal Democratic party.
In Moscow’s eyes, if the Sato government (1964-1972) was too pro-
American, the successor Tanaka government has been too pro-Chinese. Ap¬
parently it was precisely because of the moves by both Washington and Tokyo
toward Peking that Foreign Minister Gromyko went to Japan in January 1972.
He agreed with his Japanese opposite numbers that negotiations on a peace
treaty should start in September (the Soviet Union had not signed the San
Francisco peace treaty in 1951) but made no concessions on the territorial
issue, which the Japanese at that time were trying to link with the proposal to
develop the Tinmen oil field.
The negotiations did not actually begin in September because Premier
Tanaka, encouraged no doubt by the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese con¬
trol the previous May, began shortly after his installation in July to make it
clear that the return of the four disputed islands, or at least a promise to
return them, was a prerequisite for starting the negotiations—even though the
northern territories issue was far from possessing the importance in the eyes
of the Japanese public that the Okinawa question had had.
Foreign Minister Ohira went to Moscow in October to discuss the problems
of the peace treaty negotiations and the northern territories; he and the Soviet
press subsequently disagreed as to whether Moscow had promised once more,
at that time, to return Habomai and Shikotan as part of a peace settlement. It
was agreed, however, that talks on these questions should continue in 1973-
Meanwhile Peking was loudly supporting Tokyo on the northern territories
question, as it had done since a famous interview by Mao Tse-tung with a
Japanese Socialist delegation in July 1964- addition Peking was showing
greater tolerance than before the United States-Japanese security treaty
and had committed itself (in the Chou-Tanaka communique of September
29, 1972) to negotiating a peace treaty of its own with Japan. These and
other developments in Sino-Japanese relations were bound to have some
effect on Moscow.
Tanaka, for his part, was looking for a way to improve his standing and
that of his party after the setback suffered in the December 1972 election.
Accordingly, in early March 19735 he wrote a letter to Brezhnev proposing
resumption of talks on a peace treaty and the Tiumen oil project. Brezhnev
gave this proposal a cordial reception and invited Tanaka to Moscow; he
accepted, even though Brezhnev is not known to have promised any conces¬
sions on the northern territories. At present the Japanese government is some-
what divided on whether to link the two questions in the hope of getting
concessions on the northern territories through Soviet eagerness for Japanese
cooperation in the Tiumen project; Foreign Minister Ohira appears to favor
separating the two issues, and in a formal sense they are being treated sepa¬
rately.
Since 1966 the Soviet Union has been expressing interest in Japanese co¬
operation in the economic development of Siberia and the Soviet Far East,
and the most important of the projects it has in mind involves the Tiumen oil
and gas reserves in Western Siberia. Japan for its part is enormously inter¬
ested in the fossil fuels and mineral resources of Soviet Asia. Apart from the
obvious drawback of distance, Japanese industry is greatly interested in the
Tiumen project because the petroleum is known to be very low in sulfur.
Also, the time and cost of transporting it from the Soviet Pacific port of
Nakhodka (assuming the prior construction of a 4,400-mile pipeline, of
course) would be far less than to ship oil from the Middle East, where in any
case political conditions are notoriously unstable and the governments in¬
creasingly greedy in the matter of oil royalties.
Moscow has asked for Japanese financing, on the order of $i billion, for
the project and has given the Japanese to understand that they can expect 40
to 50 million tons of oil a year from the Tiumen fields (only a small fraction
of total Japanese consumption, which was 200 million tons in 1970 and
growing rapidly). Moscow has also shown some interest in American cooper¬
ation in this project, and two American firms have tentatively involved them¬
selves in it.
Attractive though the Tiumen project is, it presents several serious difficul¬
ties from the Japanese point of view. Not only are the economic philosophies
and organization of the two countries entirely different but so are their senses
of priorities; the Japanese would prefer more emphasis on Eastern Siberia and
the Far East, and less on Western Siberia. The Tiumen project obviously
poses formidable problems of distance, climate, and so on, which are likely to
eat into its profitability. The Japanese firms interested in the project want
more technical data, access to the site, and guarantees on quantities and
prices than Moscow has so far been willing to provide.
Soviet demands for large credits on easy terms, ideally with the participa¬
tion of the Japanese government, have not gone down very well in Japan,
where there are many alternate demands for capital. Tokyo is also concerned
because Peking, although not necessarily opposed to Japan'ese activity in
Soviet Asia, has qualms about the Tiumen project on the ground that some
of the oil would go to the Soviet Pacific fleet (which is also regarded as a
threat by many Japanese) and to Soviet forces along the Chinese border.
Finally, some Japanese vaguely fear that Japan might become “dependent” in
some sense on Tiumen oil and thereby place dangerous leverage in Moscow’s
hands.
Despite these problems it seems likely that some agreement will be reached
on the Tinmen project. Even though the Japanese Foreign Ministry is not very
enthusiastic about it, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the
business community in general are. Soviet-Japanese trade has been increas¬
ing for some time, as of course has Sino-Japanese trade, and the economies
of the two countries will probably become increasingly important to one
another.
It is clear, however, that progress in this direction will be slow and difficult
for some time to come, if only because Moscow is annoyed at the Tanaka
government’s pro-Chinese attitude. Premier Tanaka’s visit to Moscow in Oc¬
tober 1973 produced no discernible progress on the territorial issue and al¬
most none on the Tiumen and other related projects.
KOREA AND THE SOVIET UNION
North Korea was a Soviet satellite from its creation in 1948 (or in reality
from the beginning of the Soviet occupation in 1945) to 1950, to the point
where it is inconceivable that the invasion of South Korea was undertaken
without Stalin’s approval, except that Kim II Song may have moved the time
up from midsummer to late June on his own initiative. In any case Moscow,
like the other Communist regimes involved, seems to have drawn from this
episode and its aftermath the conclusion that it would be most unwise to
resort to large-scale violence in the Korean peninsula again.
Chinese intervention in the war, to which Stalin had evidently given his
approval, obviously created the possibility that North Korea would become a
Chinese instead of a Soviet satellite. That this did not actually happen was
ensured by Chinese defeats suffered after December 1950, which opened the
way to a steady process whereby Kim II Song achieved his own unchallenged
power over his colleagues—or in some cases ex-colleagues, since a number
were purged at intervals—as well as his independence from Soviet or Chinese
control. This happy situation both resulted from and contributed to Kim’s
ability to play Peking and Moscow against each other, especially as the Smo-
Soviet dispute worsened. This was true even though he attempted, rather
paradoxically and especially in the tense year 1969? to mediate the dispute.
As he grew in stature and independence, Kim created a towering “cult of
personality” for himself, not only at home but abroad; he even held North
Korea up as a model for Third World countries. Much as they disliked this,
Peking and Moscow had no choice but to keep on as good terms with him as
possible (except for a brief period of strain in Sino-North Korean relations
caused by the Cultural Revolution); this involved, among other things, ex¬
tending him economic and military aid in a more or less competitive fashion,
beginning in 1953- .. . . •
Kim evidently felt threatened by the military seizure of power m Sout
Korea in May 1961 and was happy to be able to extract defensive alliances
first from Moscow and then from Peking within the next several weeks. His
growing objections after 1962 to Soviet “revisionism,” and in particular to

Khrushchev’s vacillating policy toward the United States, moved him some¬
what closer to Peking for a time after 1963, but he never went so far as to
break with Moscow, as Peking in effect did.
Unlike the Chinese but like the North Vietnamese, for example, Kim con¬
tinued to send delegates to Soviet Party Congresses, although all three boy¬
cotted the international conference of Communist parties held at Moscow in
June 1969. Indeed a kind of tacit alliance emerged between Pyongyang and
Hanoi with the aim of coping not only with American hostility but with
allegedly inadequate Soviet and Chinese support. It is almost certainly not a
coincidence that a period of strenuous although unsuccessful North Korean
efforts to start a “people’s war” in South Korea through armed infiltration
coincided very closely with the most intense phase of the Vietnam war
(1965-1969). Nevertheless Kim II Song’s domestic and foreign policies
claimed to be, and to a considerable extent were, based on the principle of
chuch’e (self-identity, or self-reliance), or in other words on an effort to go it
alone as much as possible.
There is some reason to believe that Moscow was involved in the seizure by
the North Korean navy of the American “spy” ship Pueblo in January 1968;,
certainly it was Moscow more than Pyongyang that benefited from the oppor¬
tunity to examine the ship’s equipment. On the other hand the shooting down
of the American EC-121 (a reconnaissance aircraft) over the Sea of Japan in
mid-April 1969 appears to have been a unilateral North Korean act. Soviet
ships took part in the search for survivors, and Moscow gave signs of being
perturbed by the immense buildup of American naval power in the region that
ensued.
President Podgorny’s visit to North Korea the following month was prob¬
ably designed to discourage Pyongyang from further performances of that
kind, as well as to give it at least moral support in a border dispute that it was
having with Peking at the time (and that Peking dropped in 1970, no doubt
mainly in order to prevent Moscow from benefiting from it). In the spring of
1970 Peking had a windfall when Pyongyang withdrew from an international
oceanographic project for the Sea of Japan in protest against Soviet insistence
on including Japanese scientists; the next several months witnessed some very
energetic cultivation of the North Koreans by the Chinese, which Moscow was
unable or unwilling to match.
Moscow had no reason to be surprised when the atmosphere of detente
created by the improvement in relations between the United States and both
the Soviet Union and China found a reflection in Korea. But much as Moscow
prefers political to military approaches to Korean reunification, it must have
been perturbed by the fervor with which Kim II Song threw himself into the
commencement of a political relationship with South Korea, and in particular
by the extraordinary (for a Communist state) reference in the joint com¬
munique issued by Seoul and Pyongyang on July 4, 1972, to a “great national
unity . . . transcending differences in ideas, ideologies, and systems.” For the

record, of course, Moscow had no choice but to approve this dramatic de¬
velopment.
The Soviet Union is hkely to make some sort of response in the near future
to South Korea’s recently expressed interest in relations, mainly commercial,
with “nonhostile” Communist states, a term that includes the Soviet Union
since it was not formally involved in the Korean War. As in the case of other
countries such as Thailand, South Korea’s motivation appears to be both to
seek a counterweight to Japanese commercial influence and to help ensure
against possible Chinese domination in the aftermath of American military
withdrawal from the region.
Peking’s presence in the United Nations is likely to prove very valuable to
Pyongyang in its struggle to terminate the United Nations’ role in Korea and
thus undermine the American military position in South Korea. Moscow can¬
not afford to let itself be too greatly outdone in this regard, as it showed when
it gave crucial support to North Korea’s admission to the World Health
Organization on May 17, 1973, by successfully proposing that the vote be
conducted by secret ballot.
CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK
On account of obvious geographic and geopolitical factors, notably the

powerful military presence of the United States since 1945? East Asia has
generally been an area of high risk and, except perhaps in the economic field,
relatively little potential gain—except the avoidance of setbacks or disaster
for the Soviet Union. For a time the risks seemed to be greatly lessened, and
the potential for gain enhanced, through China’s “leaning to one side after
1949. But this promise was soon wiped out and reversed by the rapid escala¬
tion of the Sino-Soviet dispute after 1959.
Except for the heyday of the Sino-Soviet alliance (I950-I953)» the Soviet
Union has not had much political influence on the countries of East Asia
since 1945, political influence being normally derived for the most part from
common interests; the Soviet Union’s influence has come mainly from its
economic and military strength—which it, like the United States, has found
difficult to translate into political gains. • t i v
For the Soviet Union continues to be in East Asia but not of it. It lacks
positive cultural and historic ties, as well as empathy, with the true regiona
states. It has a tradition of aggression in the region and a reputation for
having been even more aggressive than it has been in fact; this was offset but
only for a time, by its good record against Germany and Japan during World
Wsr II.
The USSR also has a poor reputation for fair dealing with the states of the
region, including the Communist ones. By its heavyhandedness, no matter
how justified in its own eyes, it has helped to keep Japan more closely tied to
the United States than would otherwise have been the case and has virtually
driven China into the arms of the United States and Japan. The Sino-Soviet
dispute, to whose emergence Moscow certainly made a massive contribution,
has created valuable opportunities for the United States, and to a lesser extent
for Japan. If the Soviet Union was once welcomed in China as a counter¬
weight to and shield against the United States, its treatment of the Chinese has
ensured, at least for a time, that it will not be equally welcome again any¬
where else in the region.
Chinese opposition to the Soviet “collective security” proposal has not been
balanced by strong support from any of the other Asian states, most of which
in fact are distinctly cool toward it, in part on account of the Chinese objec¬
tions. The Japanese are particularly put off by the reference to the “inviola¬
bility of frontiers,” which clearly suggests an invitation to them to abandon
their claim to the northern territories. Only if—in the context of an American
withdrawal—China came to be perceived as more of a threat to the region
than it is at present, would the Soviet Union stand much of a chance of
gaining acceptance for proposals such as this or for itself as a counterweight
to Peking. In the meantime the Asian states are likely to seek better relations
with both Moscow and Peking, thus in effect playing them against each other.
The Sino-Soviet conflict has compelled each of the adversaries to
strengthen its position, militarily in particular. While most of this increment is
of course currently absorbed in the management of the conflict, it could
become available for other purposes, especially if American military strength
in the region continues to decline and if some sort of accommodation is
reached between Peking and Moscow. The Soviet Union has attained strategic
parity with the United States in recent years, and since 1969 its regional
buildup has put it in a position, probably for the first time since 1945, to fight
a major war in East Asia. This fact, plus for Japan the pull of Soviet Asia’s
resources, makes the Soviet Union a factor that must be taken more seriously
in the region than ever before, whether as a threat or as a prospective partner.
There is an obvious possibility that American disengagement will open the
way for Soviet advances in East Asia. This Peking is particularly anxious to
avoid, it prefers as an alternative the retention of a substantial American
military presence in Japan and Korea as well as elsewhere in Asia, for the
time being at least, and it has recently indicated a tolerant attitude toward a
somewhat increased Japanese defense establishment as long as it does not
become a genuine threat to China. The latter eventuality is most improbable;
if anything, both the United States and Japan are trying to stabilize China so
as to increase its powers of resistance to possible Soviet pressures, which
would most likely come after the death of Mao Tse-tung.
The range of possibilities for the future relationship between the Soviet
Union and China is obviously rather wide, but that of the probabilities is
considerably less so. A Sino-Soviet war, in which the Soviet Union would
presumably be the aggressor and the victor, is not very likely for a number of
reasons; two of the most important reasons are the relationship of both coun¬
tries with the United States and the nuclear deterrent that Peking is in the
process of creating.
For the time being, meaning as long as Mao and Brezhnev remain in
charge, the outlook seems to be for a continuation of roughly the current
neither—war—nor—peace relationship. Thereafter, provided the Soviet Union
does not apply military pressures in an effort to exploit Mao’s passing, a trend
toward accommodation seems likely since it is desirable on both sides on a
number of practical grounds. It would presumably involve a defusing of the
territorial issue, with or without a formal agreement, and would almost cer¬
tainly require a substantial Soviet military withdrawal from the border region,
just as the achievement of a positive political relationship between China and
the United States was impossible as long as Peking felt threatened by the
American containment policy. A restoration of the spirit of 1950 Sino-
Soviet relations, however, is highly improbable.
If this scenario materializes, and if the present trend toward a loosening of
Japanese-American ties without a sharp break continues, a multilateral bal¬
ance among the four major regional powers seems likely to emerge. If so, the
effects on the stabihty of East Asia will presumably be beneficial, since
neither the Soviet Union nor any other power will be able to dominate the
region, even if it should feel inclined to try.
NOTE
“The Origin and Development of the Differences Between the Leadership of the
I.
CPSU and Ourselves,” People’s Daily and Red Flag, September 6, 1963.
7
Southeast Asia
GUY J. AND EWA T. PAUKER
Dr. Guy J. Pauker, former chairman of the Center of
Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California,
Berkeley, is a senior staff member of the Rand Corpora¬
tion. His publications comprise some sixty articles and
studies on Southeast Asia. Dr. Pauker wrote this chapter
in collaboration with Ewa Toczylowska Pauker, an Asian
specialist, formerly a political analyst at the Rand Cor¬
poration.
Before World War II aU of Southeast Asia, with the exception of Thailand,

had colonial status. The Soviet Union did not have state-to-state relations and
diplomatic representation anywhere in the area. Through the Comintern it
had a subversive presence, directing and guiding local Communist organiza¬
tions, often with disastrous results, as in the case of the abortive Communist
uprising in the Netherlands East Indies in 1926-1927.
The strategy of the revolution in Asian colonial territories was a major
preoccupation of Soviet and other international Communist leaders. The key
question was how to utilize the nationalist aspirations and anti-imperiahst
sentiments of the emerging national bourgeoisie without jeopardizing the po¬
tential for class struggle of the equally weak urban proletariat.
Interlaced with genuine sociological questions, deriving from the almost
total absence of economic and especially industrial development in the terri¬
tories of Southeast Asia and other parts of the Third World, were factional
struggles among the leaders of the international Communist movement, epito¬
mized in the polemics between Stalin and Trotsky on the strategy of the
revolution. The Maoist solution to this revolutionary puzzle, namely, to rely
neither on the national bourgeoisie nor on the indigenous proletariat but on
the peasantry, had not yet been grasped by the Southeast Asian Communist
underground, and Moscow’s monopoly of global revolutionary leadership was
unchallenged, though ineffective.
The Soviet Union emerged from World War II with a drastically altered
status. It had established itself as a formidable military power, although it still
lacked the means to project that might outside its immediate orbit. As a
138
member of the victorious coalition that had defeated Germany and Japan and
as cofounder of the United Nations it had considerable political influence in
world affairs as a state rather than as the exponent of an ideology.
At the same time, having been desperately weakened economically by Ger¬
man acts of war, it had to rehabilitate itself by any means. This resulted in
exploitative economic relations with other countries, especially in Eastern
Europe where the newly established Communist regimes were forced by the
Soviet Union to accept very unfavorable terms of trade. Its economic weak¬
ness prevented the Soviet Union from competing for political influence in the
Third World with the United States which, through President Truman’s 1949
Point Four Program and through mutual security agreements, was beginning
to dispense substantial amounts of foreign aid.
In Southeast Asia, as elsewhere, the Soviet Union was still bedeviled by the
dilemma of how to establish relations with the national bourgeoisie while
maintaining the leadership of the indigenous proletariat engaged in a bitter
class struggle with that bourgeoisie. Now, after the capitulation of Japan,
which during the war years had released the formidable nationalist energies
previously bottled up by colonial rule, the old dilemma that had preoccupied
the Comintern was even more complicated than before.
In rapid succession, in country after country within a few years after the
end of World War II, the leaders of the national bourgeoisies in Southeast
Asia had become the ruling elites of independent countries. The indigenous
proletariat, led in some instances by aging Communists who had returned to
their native lands after long years in exile and training in Moscow, was now a
threat not to colonial regimes but to the political stability of extremely frail
new sovereign states.
The new governments of Southeast Asia perceived, correctly, the accep¬
tance of Soviet diplomatic missions in their capitals as a dangerous exposure
to overt and covert Communist contamination. Probably encouraged in this
belief by American entreaties, communicated with all the sincere fervor elic¬
ited by a growing obsession with the Cold War, the governments of Southeast
Asia were understandably reluctant to establish diplomatic relations with the
Soviet Union.
Thailand, which had sided with Japan in World War II after failing to
obtain British or American help, had been treated leniently by the victorious
Allies. But the Soviet Union was able to take advantage of Thailand s pre¬
carious situation to gain acceptance for its embassy in Bangkok in exchange
for not vetoing Thailand’s admission to the United Nations.
The Soviet presence in Bangkok, which apparently was indeed used in t e
1950s as a channel for subversive manipulations, may explain the rather
superfluous activist anti-Communist policies pursued during that period y
American ambassadors to Thailand, such as Bill Donovan and Jack Peunfoy
even though the Thai masses were politically dormant. The elites, frightened
by Mao Tse-tung’s victory in China and by Communist insurgencies m the
neighboring countries of Burma and Malaya, were anti-Communist without

external prompting.
The complexities and perplexities of Soviet policies toward Southeast Asia
in the first years after World War II are best illustrated by the case of
Indonesia. The former Netherlands East Indies had proclaimed their indepen¬
dence on August 17, 1945, while the country was still under Japanese control.
A few weeks later British troops arrived to take the defeated Japanese into
custody and to provide initial cover for the returning Dutch forces.
The clash of interests between Dutch and Indonesians culminated on July
20, 1947, in an all-out attack by the Dutch forces against the Indonesian
authorities. Ten days later Australia requested United Nations intervention
under Article 39 of the Charter, contending that there had been a breach of
the peace.
The United States, seeking to balance its support for anti-colonial causes
and its relations with the colonial powers on the Security Council (Britain,
France, and Belgium), felt compelled to water down the Australian proposal
before supporting it. But the Soviet Union, represented by Gromyko, went
beyond the initial Australian proposal and consistently demanded the with¬
drawal of Dutch troops from the territories they had occupied, prior to any
negotiations. Although defeated decisively in the Security Council, the Soviet
resolution was of course duly noted in Indonesian nationalist circles.
When the ensuing truce was again broken by the Dutch on December 18,
1948, the Soviet Union rejected the resolution introduced by the United States
in the Security Council two days later and offered a more strongly worded
alternative in support of the Indonesian government. Throughout the follow¬
ing months, until Indonesian sovereignty was finally secured in December
1949, the Soviet Union consistently supported the Indonesian government in
the Security Council.
What made this fact remarkable was that during the preceding months the
Indonesian government had crushed an insurrection initiated by the Indo¬
nesian Communist party in Madiun, on the island of Java, and had captured
and killed several top Communist leaders, including the new party chief
Musso, who had only returned in early August 1948 from Moscow where he
had lived in exile since 1926. The Soviet Union was obviously unwilling to
sacrifice opportunities to extend its influence overseas for the sake of gratui¬
tous expressions of support to unsuccessful local Communists.
Despite consistent Soviet backing of the Indonesian struggle for indepen¬
dence during 1945-1949, the Indonesian political elites remained unwilling
to accept a Soviet embassy in Jakarta until 1954, although the People’s
Republic of China was recognized as early as 1950. The establishment of
diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union occasioned acrimonious parlia¬
mentary debates in which the Soviet role in the Madiun rebellion was amply
discussed.
What occasioned these discussions was not only the fact that the leader of
the Madiun rebellion, Musso, had barely returned from Moscow before the
fighting started but another chain of circumstances that had occurred during
the preceding year.
The Comintern had been dissolved in May 19435 when the Soviet Union
desperately needed American assistance; the Cominform had been established
in its place in September 1947 as one of the Soviet Union’s instruments in the
Cold War, linking the Communist parties in Eastern and Western Europe. No
comparable institution had been publicly established for the coordination of
Communist activities in Asia, but it was widely assumed that orders from
Moscow for the initiation of insurrections were transmitted in Calcutta in
February 1948 during the Conference of Youth and Students of Southeast
Asia Fighting for Freedom and Independence.
Besides the PKI (Communist party of Indonesia) armed clash with the
forces of the Indonesian government in September 1948, insurrections had
also broken out in Burma in March of that year and in Malaya in June.
Unlike the rapidly crushed Indonesian rebellion, the Malayan Communist
insurgency engaged the forces of the British Commonwealth in massive opera¬
tions that lasted twelve years; the Burmese Communists, who are being fought
by the Burmese Army without significant external assistance, are still on the
warpath to this day.
Furthermore, in August 1948 there also developed an exacerbation of the
Communist Huk rebellion in the Philippines, quashing previous hopes for a
settlement and prolonging the turmoil in Luzon until after the election of
President Magsaysay in I953' Regardless of how closely these Communist
insurgencies were or were not directed from Moscow, the remembrance of
those events precluded for two decades the establishment of diplomatic rela¬
tions between the Philippines and the Soviet Union, while Malaysia took that
step only in 1968, eleven years after achieving independence.
Whereas the Soviet Union had difficulty reconciling its interests as a great
power and as the alleged leader of world revolution, the governments of ffie
Third World in turn faced the problem of sorting out their fears and deciding
whether Moscow represented a greater threat to them as fountainhead of
Communist subversion or as one of the world’s two nuclear superpowers.
How real the fear of nuclear war was among Third World countries, which
viewed themselves as innocent and helpless bystanders, was graphically illus¬
trated by the Conference of Asian and African Nations in April 1955 in
Bandung, Indonesia. The twenty-nine participating nations included non-
aligned, Communist, and pro-Western states. But whereas the People’s Re¬
public of China played a leading role in the proceedings and Premier Chou
En-lai scored major diplomatic successes, Moscow found itself isolated and
excluded.
Despite its immense territorial presence in Asia, the Soviet Union was not
invited by the five organizing countries—India, Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon, and
Indonesia. Indeed the mood of the conference tended to equate the Soviet
Union and the United States as the two nuclear superpowers, which by the
selfish pursuit of their respective national interests, jeopardized the survial of
all mankind.
It is likely that this “plague on both your houses” attitude of the Bandung
Conference toward the United States and the Soviet Union prompted the
latter to review its policies toward the Third World and to attempt to overcome
the isolation from which it suffered outside the Communist orbit.
The first tangible manifestation of this new departure may have been the
military assistance offered to Egypt, directly and through Eastern European
countries, in 1955. Indonesia became the focus of special Soviet efforts in
Southeast Asia. In the summer of 1956 President Sukarno visited Moscow
and agreed on an initial line of credit of $100 million, but a hostile and
suspicious Indonesian Parliament delayed ratification of that agreement until
February 1958. Then Premier Khrushchev spent ten days in Indonesia in
February i960, added $250 million to the Soviet economic aid program, and
concluded arrangements for massive military assistance to the Indonesian
armed forces. By then the opposition to President Sukarno’s foreign policy
had been muzzled and no further questions were raised publicly.
Before Indonesia became the first Southeast Asian country to receive mas¬
sive Soviet economic and military assistance, Soviet efforts had been concen¬
trated on countries in South Asia and the Middle East such as India, Ceylon,
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, and Egypt.
Now Khrushchev personally undertook to develop relations with India,
Burma, and Indonesia. During a visit to India, the implementation of a Soviet
loan of 1.5 billion rubles for major construction projects under the Third
Indian Five-Year Plan was reviewed, but Nehru, deeply devoted to the idea of
Indian neutralism, did not accept the military aid offered to his country.
Continuing his journey to Jakarta, Khrushchev also stopped in Rangoon for a
couple of days, but the Burmese, who had just signed a treaty of friendship
and nonaggression with the People’s Republic of China, were not interested in
establishing closer relations with the Soviet Union. But the Indonesians were
receptive.
By the time their relations with the Soviet Union and its Eastern European
allies were frozen in the aftermath of the aborted Communist coup in Jakarta
on September 30, 1965, and the subsequent destruction of the Communist
party of Indonesia, those countries had extended economic and military
credits to Indonesia totaling just over $i billion.
More than half of that amount was used for acquisition of military equip¬
ment, which became useless after 1965 when the Soviet Union, hostile to the
new government of President Suharto, refused Indonesia further credits for
maintenance and spare parts. Moscow’s position mellowed five years later,
but by then the Indonesian armed forces had learned the lesson that equip-
merit without assured maintenanee is for all practical purposes useless. They
decided to scrap much of the Soviet materiel and adopted a different force
posture, based on what they could obtain or maintain with Western assis¬
tance.
Economic aid was not more successful. It took three years until the initial
offer of a $ioo million credit led to the discussion of specific projects. The
additional $250 million offered by Khrushchev in i960 did not do much for
Indonesia either. When all Soviet aid was stopped in 1966 and the Soviet
technicians went home, Indonesia was left in Tjilegon, West Java, with an
unfinished steel mill; work on the steel mill was to resume only in 1973, with¬
out Soviet help.
A road-building program in sparsely settled Borneo became the target of
international ridicule, and a fertilizer plant in Tjilatjap was located in a spot
without raw materials or sources of energy on the Indian Ocean coast of Java.
An oceanographic research institute in Ambon was also not finished, but it
aroused widespread suspicion that it was actually intended to become a Soviet
submarine base. The only completed project was the Jakarta stadium, which
indeed became an important addition to the life of the Indonesian capital.
In retrospect it is interesting to speculate why the Soviet Union engaged in
massive aid efforts in Indonesia and a few other countries if the main purpose
was only to overcome the isolation in which the Soviet Union found itself in
the Third World at the time of the 1955 Bandung Conference. To overcome
Soviet isolation it would have made better sense to spread the limited re¬
sources that the Soviet Union could spare for foreign aid programs among as
many countries as possible. Recipients of even moderate amounts of aid
become sensitive to the interests of donors, especially if not much more is
involved as quid pro quo than votes at international gatherings or a certain
amount of resistance to pressure from the opposite side.
The fact that in the early 1960s the Soviet Union concentrated its aid on a
limited number of countries suggests that the purpose of these efforts may
have been different. At the very moment that Khrushchev went to India and
Indonesia in February i960, Mikoyan was in Cuba (with which the Sovmt
Union did not then have diplomatic relations) offering to buy a substanUa
amount of its sugar crop and to extend a $100 million loan and promising
technical assistance.
In the cases of both Indonesia and Cuba economic aid was soon followed
by military assistance, and in Cuba by the temporary establishment of Soviet
missile bases on Cuban soil. India did not accept military assistance for
another decade, until external circumstances and its own regional ambitions
moved it toward entering security arrangements with the Soviet Union.
Whereas by the mid-1960s over thirty countries m Asia, Africa, and La m
America were receiving some Soviet economic aid in amounts varying from a
few million to over one billion rubles, only a handful of non-Communist
countries were receiving Soviet military assistance. In addition to Cuba and

Indonesia, these were Egypt, Iraq, and Syria in the Middle East, and Ghana,
Guinea, and Mali in West Africa.
It seems plausible that the decision to overcome Soviet isolation outside the
Communist orbit was followed, once the Soviet authorities gained some ex¬
perience with foreign aid operations, by a bolder decision, namely, to use aid
as a vehicle for quickly acquiring allies and possibly positions of strength
outside the Communist orbit. Such a decision would have been perfectly
compatible with Khrushchev’s style and would have served a number of major
Soviet objectives.
First, by late 1959, when such a decision may have been taken, the Soviet
leaders, stimulated by the success of their space program and by expressed
American fears about a missile gap, may have believed that the strategic
balance was really shifting in their favor and that it was their duty to make the
most of that opportunity before the United States had time to reestablish the
balance.
From the end of World War II the Soviet Union had pursued, albeit very
aggressively at times, a defensive strategy against the vastly superior might of
the United States and its allies. This consisted of the consolidation of the
Soviet hold on Eastern Europe as a Communist buffer zone between the
Soviet Union and the West, an alliance with the People’s Republic of China,
and a vocal peace movement aimed at paralyzing the political will of the
United States to use nuclear weapons in pursuit of its national objectives.
After Sputnik a leader like Khrushchev, who was not noted for his cau¬
tiousness, may have concluded that the Soviet Union could afford to reach out
beyond its immediate confines and project its power globally by establishing
its presence in areas strategically selected from targets of opportunity offered
by international circumstances.
Cuba, only miles away from the United States, allowed the most daring
gambit and could become a position of strength of incalculable value in the
Western Hemisphere. Indeed, if the Cuban gamble paid off and the United
States accepted the emplacement of Soviet missiles so close to its territory, it
would have been hard to imagine that serious American opposition would be
encountered against similar arrangements in more remote places.
Furthermore, governments that might have been reluctant to accept a Soviet
military presence on their territory for fear of American reprisals could be
expected to become much more responsive to Soviet demands if the Cuban
operation were successful. Seen in this context, simultaneous military assis¬
tance programs in the Caribbean, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and West
Africa were a daring but rational strategic move.
Second, by successfully reaching outside its ideological and geographic
orbit and thus establishing itself as a true global power, the Soviet Union
could hope to increase its chances for a wide-ranging detente with the United
States, after being accepted by the latter as an equal.
Regional Case Studies on the Impact of Soviet Foreign Policy I45
Whatever more sober minds would have had to say about the real compara¬
tive strength of the two superpowers at that time, Khrushchev could have felt
that if, in addition to long-range missiles and monstrously big warheads
openly tested in 1961, the Soviet Union could also match the United States
with a global system of bases, this was bound to foster the much-sought
detente.
Third, a bold policy of expansion, establishing Soviet bases deep inside
what had previously been an unchallenged American sphere of influence was
one way of countering the nagging Chinese accusations that the Soviet Union
was turning revisionist and had abandoned the goal of world revolution.
Communists everywhere, torn and confused by the bitter polemic between
Moscow and Peking, would at last have some tangible facts on which to base
their judgment.
Perhaps even the Chinese leaders themselves could be made to see the light.
If, instead of remaining the controversial leader of a besieged Communist
camp surrounded by the forces of American-led imperialists, Khrushchev
could turn the globe into a checkerboard of interspersed Soviet and American
positions of strength, the Chinese might still recognize the superior skill of
the Russians, again accept their leadership in foreign policy, and rely on
their nuclear protection rather than develop their own strategic weapon
systems.
Finally, the decision to develop state-to-state relations with governments m
the Third World, even at the cost of local Communist movements opposed to
these governments, may have been the logical conclusion of the accumulating
evidence that many Communists in the Third World seemed to be more
attracted by the revolutionary appeal of Maoism than by the ‘ peaceful road
to socialism” advocated by the Soviet Union since the Twentieth Party Con¬
gress of the CPSU in 1956-
As the Sino-Soviet conflict gained in intensity, the Soviet leaders may have
decided pragmatically to rely on non-Communist radical nationalists, such as
the Arab or Indonesian officer corps, rather than attempt to recapture the
allegiance of local Communists who had defected to the Chinese camp.
The combination of circumstances—that the United States did not flinch in
the October 1962 confrontation over Cuba, that the $i billion investment m
Sukarno and the PKI did not pay off, and that the small West African states
with radical leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah did not prove very useful
beachheads on the African continent, added to Khrushchev’s domestic troubles
and his irascible personality, can explain his fall in October 1964. It would e
misleading to equate that event with an abandonment of the global Soviet
ambitions initiated by the fallen leader.
The policy of the Soviet Union toward Southeast Asia in the decade since
Brezhnev and Kosygin took over from Khrushchev is perhaps best explained
by assuming that the new leaders did not abandon the major national objec-
tives developed during the previous period but are proceeding more skillfully
and cautiously to attain them.
To use an analogy from the business world, Khrushchev was the bold
entrepreneur seeking new opportunities and coming up with new ideas, but in
so doing he was courting disaster, whereas Brezhnev is the sober manager
who accepts the goals set by others but knows better how to implement them
while avoiding excessive risks.
The thesis suggested here is that in Southeast Asia after 1965 Indochina
replaced Indonesia as the major Soviet target while Moscow continued relent¬
lessly and efficiently to pursue its objectives in the Arab world and on the
Indian subcontinent, as may have been initially decided around 1959. If
successful, this strategy would eventually make the Soviet Union the leader of
a formidable coalition. In another decade the Arab world, with its enormous
fossil fuel resources, may be united under radical nationalist leadership; India
may overcome its present difficulties; and Indochina, led by Hanoi, may have
established itself as the strongest military factor in Southeast Asia. Although
in the future the interests of these three political entities may not coincide
with those of the Soviet Union, the attempt to create such a coalition is
certainly a gamble worthy of Soviet efforts.
In giving Sukarno in i960 MIG-21 interceptors, TU-16 bombers, SA-2
missiles, W-class submarines, Komar-class missile boats, and other military
hardware that required the presence of a large military mission in Indonesia,
the Soviets were able to familiarize themselves with operational problems in
an area that since the end of World War II had been the closed game preserve
of the Seventh Fleet and the Commonwealth. The Soviets were also able to
test their equipment under tropical conditions, which may have come in
handy after 1965 when they gave North Vietnam its formidable air defense
system and also when they entered the Indian Ocean in 1968.
Had they been luckier in Cuba, Indonesia might have given the Soviets air
and naval bases in the Western Pacific from which they could have attempted
to neutralize the American presence in the area. But the Cuban failure alien¬
ated Sukarno and the PKI from the Soviet Union and induced a rapproche¬
ment with the People’s Republic of China, which led within less than three
years to intimate political and military cooperation epitomized by such epi¬
thets as “the Jakarta-Peking axis” and “comrades-in-arms.”
Then Sukarno fell from power and the PKI was destroyed. The fact that
the Chinese loss of influence was even more drastic than theirs may have been
of some comfort to the Soviets, but nevertheless the situation left them with¬
out a presence in the Western Pacific and in Southeast Asia, after long years
of maneuvers and heavy expenditures.
In 1965 no other country of Southeast Asia looked promising as a substi¬
tute for Indonesia. Burma, the other nonaligned country in the area, had
established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1951 and had ac¬
cepted in the past a very modest amount of Soviet economic aid. But after
General Ne Win assumed power for the second time in 1962, Burma, which
had been one of the sponsors of the Bandung Conference and had pursued an
active neutralist policy, withdrew into a policy of isolation from the outside
world.
Thailand, which had diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union since 1950,
and the Philippines, which did not, were both obsessively anti-Communist,
relying on SEATO and security arrangements with the United States.
Malaysia and Singapore were equally frightened by communism; they had
lived through the twelve painful years of “The Emergency,” relying on Com¬
monwealth rather than American protection, and were still being harassed by
a certain amount of Communist subversion.
The only countries worthy of the attention of Soviet policy planners were
those of Indochina, although each had its own peculiar problems. Cambodia’s
ruler. Prince Sihanouk, was close to Peking, fiercely determined to safeguard
his country as a separate national and political entity, distinct from Vietnam,
even if the price to be paid involved acceptance of Maoist communism.
Sihanouk believed that Cambodia would be better off as a Chinese satellite
than under the control of the land-hungry, expansionist Vietnamese, who had
grabbed substantial portions of Cambodian territory in the nineteenth century.
Sihanouk’s Cambodia was not a promising target for the Soviets, due to his
pro-Chinese orientation, nor was it by itself a very interesting one, because of
its geographic location and small size. In the Soviet scheme of things Cam¬
bodia could only be of interest as part of an Indochinese federation controlled
by Hanoi.
Even less desirable by itself was Laos, a small country not only underpopu¬
lated and completely landlocked but also the objeet of intensive American
covert operations and some Chinese Communist activities. Furthermore Laos
was operationally essential to the strategy pursued by Hanoi for the reunifica¬
tion of Vietnam, as all the important lines of communieation of the North
Vietnamese forces ran through Laotian territory.
In late i960 and in 1961, to counter American support to the right-wing
political forces that had displaced the neutralist government of Prince Sou-
vanna Phouma, the Soviets had airlifted supplies to the Communist Pathet
Lao and the neutralist Kong Le. For a while it had seemed possible that Laos
would become an arena of direct Soviet-American armed confrontation. But
the dispute was taken to Geneva and a settlement was reached in July 1962.
Afterward, for a number of years, although hostilities never ceased com¬
pletely, the Soviet ambassador in Vientiane seemed eager to join his American
colleague in support of the reestablished neutralist government of Prince Sou-
vanna Phouma whenever it was threatened from the right or left. One can
surmise that the Soviets viewed a right-wing alternative to the status quo as
favoring only the Americans and a left-wing one as of primary benefit to the
Chinese. .
Vietnam was bound to be much more attractive in every way to the Soviet
Union than either Laos or Cambodia, with its long coast on the South China
Sea, its harbors, the size and human qualities of its population, its waterways
and territorial characteristies. Vietnam was of obvious interest to any great
power seeking positions of strength in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific.
Furthermore, the Vietnamese had an amazingly cohesive, historically well-
established, and powerfully led Communist party with leaders of global rev¬
olutionary stature like Ho Chi Minh, with decades of experience.
Yet, for reasons that are still obscure, the Soviet Union initially remained
relatively aloof from the Vietnamese revolutionary movement. Possibly, when
the armed struggle against the French started on December 19, 1946, Stalin
was anxious to avoid creating difficulties for the French Communist party,
which was at that time participating in the government of Leon Blum.
It is also conceivable that when the People’s Republic of China was estab¬
lished in October I949> ^nd Ho Chi Minh consequently acquired a Commu¬
nist neighbor, the Soviet Union, perhaps sobered by Tito’s defection the
previous year, sought to leave to the Chinese a dominant role in their part of
the world, so as to avoid tensions within the Communist orbit.
But Moscow’s lukewarm support for Ho Chi Minh must have had other,
deeper reasons. The Soviet Union did not recognize the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam at the time it was first proclaimed on September 2, 1945. Recog¬
nition came only after Ho Chi Minh asked on January 14, 1950, that all
countries exchange ambassadors with his government. Peking responded
within two days; Moscow responded only on January 30.
There is also no evidence of Soviet aid to the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam during the first Indochina war, which was terminated by the Geneva
cease-fire of July 21, 1954. On the contrary, as late as May 1953 Pravda
denied that an aid agreement had been concluded between Moscow, Peking,
and Hanoi.
By contrast, Chinese aid is credited with having decisively contributed to
the Vietnamese victory against the French at Dien Bien Phu. It would appear
that the Soviet Union was not particularly interested in Vietnam and/or
assumed that Ho Chi Minh was too independent-minded to be useful to Soviet
interests.
We know from the Pentagon Papers that as late as December 1964, while
U.S. policy-makers were debating whether to bomb North Vietnam, the
American intelligence community believed that Soviet reaction to systematic
bombing was “likely to remain a minor one,” even with regard to military
assistance. In fact it turned out that after 1965 the Soviets did send large
amounts of air defense equipment to North Vietnam. Obviously new consid¬
erations had entered Soviet policy.
One possible explanation is that, as Indonesia moved closer toward the
People’s Republic of China in the early months of 1965, the Soviet Union
became interested in North Vietnam as an alternative partner in Southeast
Asia. Although Indonesia seemed on the verge of becoming a Communist
state, the maneuvers of Sukarno and the PKI were turning it into an ally of
the People’s Republic of China. The way the Indonesian Communist leaders
were treating the Soviet Union, Moscow could expect no future favors from
Jakarta.
It was therefore natural that the Soviet planners would have become inter¬
ested in helping North Vietnam when in February 1965 the American bomb¬
ing created the need for more military assistance to Hanoi than China could
provide. For the Soviet Union a pro-Chinese Indonesia or a pro-Western one
were both troublesome. The value of Vietnam as a wedge between China and
Indonesia was obvious. This could explain the decision to extend massive
military aid to Hanoi even before the collapse of the Sukarno regime. Further¬
more the decision to support North Vietnam may have been facilitated by the
fact that no further Soviet funds had to be earmarked for Indonesia after
1965.
Before North Vietnam was attacked by the U.S. Air Force and while the
fighting in South Vietnam did not involve American ground forces. North
Vietnam did not need large amounts of Soviet military aid. Chinese aid was
adequate for the level of operations prevailing before 1965. The American
decision to escalate the war created a new situation and gave the Soviet Union
an opportunity to establish its influence in Hanoi.
It can therefore be argued that, contrary to a thesis popular in Washington
in 1966, it was not the expansion of the war in Vietnam that helped the
Indonesian military in their struggle against the PKI but the anti-Soviet orien¬
tation of the new regime in Jakarta that increased Soviet interest in Viet¬
nam, prolonged the war, and defeated American objectives.
Of course, besides pursuing its long-term goal of establishing a presence in
Southeast Asia and creating a counterpoise to the growing power of the
People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union also registered substantial short¬
term gains from the aid provided to North Vietnam. In cost-benefit terms its
expenditures were extremely profitable: The equipment furnished to the
North Vietnamese caused much greater losses to the United States than it cost
the Soviet Union.
During more than eight years of warfare in Indochina the defense budget of
the United States had to carry the burden of heavy losses of airplanes and
other equipment caused by Soviet weapons. This reduced the funds available
for modernizing and augmenting the American force posture and thus directly
benefited the Soviet Union in its efforts to overtake and surpass the United
States militarily. Furthermore this was achieved without the loss of Soviet
lives or serious danger of direct Soviet-American military confrontation.
A secondary benefit of the Soviet military assistance program to North
Vietnam was the opportunity it provided to test Soviet against American
equipment and to study in detail the latter’s operational characteristics. As the
United States had given repeated assurances that it would not invade North
Vietnam, the Soviets could also count on the fact that their equipment was
not likely to be captured and examined by U.S. forces, a distinct if minor

additional advantage enjoyed by the Soviets in the war in Vietnam.
Despite these tangible and immediate benefits to the Soviet Union, its miU-
tary aid to North Vietnam should be viewed primarily as part of Soviet global
strategy. Whatever the rhetoric, the primary objective was not to foster the
spread of communism, as may be assumed by those who are still the captives
of an outlook shaped in the days of the Comintern. Even at the height of the
Cold War, two decades earlier, spreading communism had become a means
and not an end of the Soviet state. Today, when Moscow seeks to acquire
allies and positions of strength in various parts of the world, the purpose is
not to proselytize communism but to enhance the global power and infiuence
of the Soviet Union.
This of course involves both competition with the United States and the
creation of a coalition of Asian nations against China. Even under different
historical circumstances—if, for instance, the United States were isolationist
and China were too weak and disorganized to matter—the Soviet Union would
probably still attempt, at this stage in its development, to expand its influence,
driven by the sense of manifest destiny that is the essence of imperialism.
Seen in this perspective, the logical Soviet strategy in Southeast Asia is to
favor the eventual control of all of Indochina by Hanoi. This could take the
form of a federation, with North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos, and Cam¬
bodia remaining in form autonomous entities but directed from Hanoi. For
Moscow’s ultimate purposes the achievement of this objective need not be
rushed. Indeed the Soviet Union might prefer to see the scheme unfold slowly,
over a decade or more, to avoid premature claims by the Indochinese states
on Soviet resources.
The planners in Moscow may even still hope that initially the countries
of Indochina will be rehabilitated with American aid so that only later the
Soviet economy will have to carry the burden of financing the further develop¬
ment of Indochina. To draw a parallel, the Soviet Union would have had
much to gain and nothing to lose by avoiding the expenditure of $i million a
day in the last decade to support Castro’s Cuba, if in any case that island
would eventually become available to the Soviets as a base of operations in
the Caribbean.
If an alliance with a Communist Indochina is viewed principally as part of
the Soviet Union’s security arrangements against the People’s Republic of
China, then a rational timetable would also avoid haste. Eventually China may
become strong enough to require a vigorous Soviet policy of containment. But
it is hardly necessary to spend excessive resources on such a containment pol¬
icy today, when China is too weak for anything but a carefully defensive mili¬
tary posture.
One cannot yet score Soviet policy in Indochina. American bombing defi¬
nitely played into Soviet hands by making Hanoi more dependent on Moscow,
which could provide air defense, than on Peking, which could not. Peking
retained some leverage, as it could control the transit of supplies by land from
the Soviet Union to North Vietnam. But much Soviet aid reached North
Vietnam by sea through Haiphong and other harbors, until these were mined
by the United States in May 1972.
Other things being equal, American mining of North Vietnamese territorial
waters should have played into Chinese hands and been detrimental to Soviet
interests. Yet, at the time of the cease-fire agreement signed in Paris in Jan¬
uary 1973, Soviet influence in Hanoi seemed to prevail over Chinese influ¬
ence and seems firmly established at present.
A plausible explanation would be that the Soviet Union favors Hanoi’s
aspirations of hegemony in Indochina or perhaps even in all of Southeast
Asia, whereas the People’s Republic of China seems hostile to the emergence
of a strong political and military entity on its southern border.
The best indicator of diverging Soviet and Chinese interests in Indochina
lies in their respective policies toward Cambodia. When Prince Sihanouk was
overthrown by General Lon Nol in March 1970, the news of the coup in
Phnom Penh reached the prince in Moscow. The Soviets were obviously not
interested in offering him a base of operations on their territory; Sihanouk left
for Peking, where he has lived with his entourage ever since, treated with
extreme courtesy by the Chinese government, which helped him to establish a
government-in-exile.
The Soviet Union did not recognize Sihanouk’s government-in-exile, set up
in May 1970, although the latter was recognized by the People’s Republic of
China, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Albania,
Syria, and Iraq within a week after its proclamation. Following the invasion
of Cambodia by American forces in May 19705 the Soviet leaders made some
speeches and gave some press conferences condemning the attacks. But this is
all that Sihanouk got from Moscow.
In June 1973 he told the Italian reporter Oriana Fallacci that Moscow had
always been against him and that he had not received “a single rifle from the
Russians, nor a single word of sympathy.”^
The Soviet Union has maintained an embassy in Phnom Penh all along. It
is unlikely that the purpose of this awkward diplomatie presence is to lend
support to the anti-Communist and pro-American government of General Lon
Nol. By not supporting Sihanouk, Moscow avoids making a commitment to
an independent, pro-Chinese Cambodia. The Soviets probably assume that the
Lon Nol regime will eventually collapse and that the United States will be
unable to maintain a non-Communist Cambodia.
Although the various factors at work are hard to disentangle, there must be
elements in the Cambodian situation that the Soviets may see as a promising
alternative to both Lon Nol and Sihanouk. These political forces may emerge
at the appropriate time with the backing of both Hanoi and Moscow.
Similarly, the cease-fire in Laos negotiated in the summer of 19735 leading
to the withdrawal of American support from the opponents of the Pathet Lao,
may in time lead to an extension of Hanoi’s influence and eventually to a
strengthened Soviet position in that country.
The major prize for all these Soviet efforts may not yet be in sight, but as
stated above the Soviets need not seek instant political gratification. It will
probably take several years before the future of South Vietnam will be deter¬
mined. There is not much that the Soviets can do to affect the course of events
directly, but their intentions and the intensity of their commitment will be
reflected in the scope and nature of their assistance to North Vietnam.
Meanwhile Moscow is patiently seeking to normalize relations with the
other countries of Southeast Asia. In August 1970, after lengthy negotiations,
an agreement was signed with the Indonesian government rescheduling the
repayment of the debts incurred during the Sukarno era. A year later the
Soviets offered to complete the economic projects discontinued in late 1965
and to seU military spare parts on credit to the Indonesian armed forces, but
the Suharto government was not interested. Even exports to the Soviet Union
on purely commercial terms are still only a small fraction of Indonesia’s
rapidly rising total volume.
After twenty years of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, the first
delegation of Thai businessmen went to Moscow in 1969. A trade agreement
was signed by the two countries at the end of 1970 and an air transport
agreement, for the first time establishing direct air services between the Soviet
Union and Thailand, in May 1971. During the same month modest trade
exchanges were also discussed and received a certain amount of Soviet public¬
ity, but the amount involved was only a few million dollars. No further sig¬
nificant developments have taken place in the Thai-Soviet relationship except
for a statement by the new Thai government in late 1973 urging the Soviet
Union to play a more active role in the establishment of peace in Indochina.
Burma has a 1,200-mile common border with the People’s Republic of
China. Although there is more evidence of Chinese support to the Communist
party of Burma than to similar movements elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the
Ne Win government has good reasons to lean over backward and maintain
normal relations with Peking. This in itself complicates the task of Soviet
diplomacy in Rangoon.
Soviet sources occasionally praise Ne Win’s “Burmese way to socialism” or
denounce the harassment of his Revolutionary Council government by Mao¬
ists. Ne Win’s Lanzin or Burmese Socialist Program party, founded in 1962,
held its first congress nine years later. At that time the Central Committee of
the CPSU sent it warm greetings and Soviet commentators explained that
Burma is one of the countries that fit the characterization used by Brezhnev at
the Twenty-fourth Party Congress of the CPSU, having taken the noncapital¬
ist path of development—the path of building a socialist society in the long
term. But beyond such mild professions of sympathy the Soviet Union cannot
do much for a government that has repeatedly rebuffed its aid offers, despite
the fact that the Communist party of Burma, armed and trained by Peking,
has stepped up its operations in the last few years.
The Philippines had no diplomatic or trade relations with any Communist
country until 1967 when the Philippines House of Representatives approved
trading with Communist countries “in times of emergency and critical short¬
age,” a concept later extended to trade on an “experimental, country-to-
country, case-by-case basis.” Trade delegations from the Soviet Union, the
People’s Republic of China, and various East European states visited the
Philippines following this decision, and in October 1968 the first Philippine
commercial mission toured the Soviet Union.
A Soviet cultural delegation visited Manila in July 1968 and was told by
President Marcos that he would soon make a decision concerning diplomatic
relations. Campaigning for reelection in November 1969, Marcos promised a
cautious open-door policy on trade and cultural relations with the Soviet
Union and the People’s Republic of China. In his state-of-the-nation ad¬
dresses of January 1971 and 1972 Marcos announced that the establishment
of diplomatic and commercial relations between Manila and Moscow was
only a matter of time and that he hoped to exchange ambassadors with the
Soviet Union before the end of his second term of office in December 1973.
But there is obvious reluctance in Manila to accept Soviet and Chinese em¬
bassies. Although Mrs. Imelda Marcos visited Moscow in April 1972, no
further steps toward diplomatic exchanges had been taken by August 1973-
As for trade relations, the first contract for Philippine exports to the Soviet
Union—5,000 tons of copra worth less than $750,000—was signed in May
1972.
Soviet efforts to establish diplomatic relations with Malaysia and Singapore

have been more successful. In September 1963, when the Federation of
Malaya was expanded to include the Borneo territories of Sarawak and
Sabah, the Soviet Union denounced the birth of Malaysia as a “neocolonialist
trick,” seeking to please Sukarno, who had tried to prevent that development
with his policy of confrontation.
In September 1966 trade talks between Malaysia and the USSR were initi¬
ated and a trade agreement was concluded in April 1967- The Soviet Union
became a major importer of Malaysian rubber and tin. At the same time it
was decided in principle to establish diplomatic relations, and ambassadors
were exchanged the following year. Then Malaysia-USSR friendship societies
were established in the two capitals. Finally, in October 1972, the Malaysian
prime minister. Tun Abdul Razak, visited Moscow and signed a new bilateral
agreement on economic and technical cooperation.
The Soviets were particularly pleased by the support given by the Malay¬
sian government to the cryptic proposal made by Brezhnev on June 7, 1969)
“to create a collective security system in Asia,” which was repeated by
Gromyko three months later in the September 1969 annual debate of the
United Nations General Assembly. The Soviet foreign minister asserted that
all states in Asia, “irrespective of differences in their social systems,” should
work toward the creation of a system of collective security. The Malaysian
government was the only one in Asia that reacted positively to the Soviet
proposal. Somewhat paradoxically, Malaysia finds collective security com¬
patible with its own proposals for the neutralization of Southeast Asia.
One issue on which the Soviet Union and Malaysia find themselves on
opposite sides concerns freedom of transit through the Strait of Malacca. The
Soviet Union, the United States, and Japan firmly insist on freedom of transit
through that most important body of water. Malaysia and Indonesia claim it
to be part of their territorial waters and thus subject to their police powers.
The People’s Republic of China has announced that it will support the Indo-
nesian-Malaysian position at the United Nations World Conference on the
Law of the Sea.
The Soviet Union also opened diplomatic relations with Singapore, in June
1968. Like Malaysia, Singapore is strongly anti-Communist and security¬
conscious in its internal policy, but that fear is primarily concentrated on
Chinese subversive activities. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and other mem¬
bers of the Singapore government have visited the Soviet Union repeatedly
and a direct air link has been established between Singapore and Moscow.
The new relationship with Moscow seems to have been determined in both
instances primarily by commercial interests. Malaysia finds it profitable to
export raw materials to the Soviet Union; Singapore is interested in bunkering
by Soviet merchant shipping. Currently more than 500 Soviet merchant ships
call annually at Singapore. The Soviet naval squadron, which since 1968 has
maintained a modest though permanent presence in the Indian Ocean, oc¬
casionally uses the facihties of the former British naval base at Sembawang
for repair and refitting.
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew has stated that the presence of the Soviet
fleet in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea could be a useful counter¬
weight to Japan’s naval expansion, a statement that was not well received in
London and Canberra.
Over the last three decades the Soviet Union has made undeniable progress
in establishing itself as a great power with which the countries of Southeast
Asia will want to have diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations. It has
also succeeded in overcoming its image as a center of world revolution, which,
as the legacy of Comintern days, equated a Soviet presence with the imminent
danger of subversion.
The most spectacular Soviet effort—the attempt to establish an intimate
relationship with Indonesia in the early 1960s—failed, and the outcome of
the subsequent attempt to create special bonds with North Vietnam is yet to
be seen. At present there are no Soviet bases or other facilities in North
Vietnam or anywhere else in Southeast Asia.
The Soviet Union is probably still hoping to weaken the ties between var¬
ious Southeast Asian nations and the United States or the Commonwealth.
But there is no evidence that whatever retrenchment in American or British
commitments has taken place in recent years was in any substantial way
determined by Soviet actions.
In view of the precarious state of the Soviet economy, which needs Western
and Japanese capital and technology, it is doubtful that the Soviet Union will
be capable of playing a major role in the development of Southeast Asia in the
years ahead. If the United States and Great Britain are displaced from their
dominant economic role of recent decades, this is much more likely to be the
result of Japanese and Western European rather than Soviet competition.
But beyond the horizon looms the prospect of an increasingly dynamic
People’s Republic of China, which will undoubtedly be of much greater con¬
cern to the Soviet Union in the 1980s than it is at present. To the extent that
their long-range strategic planning is rational, the Soviets will forego costly
short-term gains in Southeast Asia and concentrate their efforts on the crea¬
tion of favorable conditions to counter the growing strength of China. How to
do that in as complex a region as Southeast Asia will fully tax the ingenuity of
Soviet diplomacy.
NOTE
I. New York Times Magazine, August 12, 1973.

8
South Asia
WILLIAM J. BARNDS
William J. Barnds, a former U.S. government official, is
now a senior research fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations in New York. He is the author of India, Pakis¬
tan and the Great Powers and other works.
The Indian subcontinent, by virtue of its location and population, has been a
central arena of the great power struggle for influence that has characterized
Asia in the wake of decolonization. Both the United States and the Soviet
Union have used aU the tools of contemporary statecraft to gain and hold a
foothold in an area each regarded as crucial to its interests.
This struggle continued in spite of the decline of bipolarity and the
decay of the Communist and Western alliance systems in Asia, although it is
questionable if it will endure as the full implications of the looser constellation
of power now evolving become apparent to political leaders everywhere.
While any objective observer would be compelled to rate the USSR as the
victor in this contest, it is also clear that Moscow’s “victory” has so far
provided it with little in the way of spoils.
Soviet success in the area is all the more remarkable in that its gains have
come about entirely during the past twenty years. Before 1955 the USSR
largely ignored the subcontinent and its few ventures there came to naught or
even backfired. Moscow made good use of its opportunities during the past
twenty years by giving top priority to the establisWent of a firm and broadly
based relationship with India as the key power in the area. The Soviets
benefited from the widespread Indian conviction of the importance of good
relations with the USSR. New Delhi views the Soviet Union as an essential
counterweight to the United States when Indo-American relations are
strained, while good relations with Moscow are seen as proof that India is
retaining its nonaligned stance when relations with the United States are
harmonious. Moscow’s involvement with Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal
has been managed in a manner acceptable to New Delhi as well as to the
countries themselves.
None of this is to suggest that Soviet gains have come easily or without
cost. The intense nationalism of the newly independent countries, and their
political, economic, and cultural links with the West, have presented continu¬
ing barriers to Soviet ambitions. Moreover the deeply rooted antagonism
156
between Hindus and Muslims, which was transformed into Indo-Pakistani

hostility at partition, has presented obstacles as well as opportunities to Soviet
leaders.
Nor should the striking continuity of Soviet policy since the mid-1950s be
allowed to obscure periodic strains between New Delhi and Moscow, particu¬
larly in the late 1950s when Khrushchev was struggling to prevent the Sino-
Soviet alliance from unraveling and in the latter half of the 1960s when his
successors attempted to improve relations with Pakistan. Nonetheless, when
forced to make a choice, the USSR accepted the cost its support of India
entailed in terms of its relations with China, Pakistan, and certain Middle
Eastern countries friendly toward Pakistan.
During the past twenty years the USSR has been forced to respond to a
series of critical situations in South Asia and its decisions have determined its
relations with and impact on the subcontinent. These situations have some¬
times involved a combination of domestic trends in the South Asian countries,
their relations with each other, and the area’s evolving position in world
affairs—as well as changing conditions within the USSR and in its general
foreign policy stance.
The Soviets’ position and prospects today are closely linked to their re¬
sponse to four different developments: (i) the U.S. involvement in the affairs
of the subcontinent in the early 1950s, particularly the American alliance with
Pakistan; (2) the emergence of the Sino-Indian conflict in the late 1950s; (3)
the development of close Sino-Pakistani relations in the mid-1960s, which
coincided with a time of political and economic disarray in India; and (4) the
1971 upheaval in Bangladesh and the reemergence of a strong Indian govern¬
ment under Mrs. Indira Gandhi.
Analysis of Soviet maneuvers in the varying circumstances involved will lay
the groundwork for appraising the lessons the Soviet leaders have drawn from
their experiences and the possible lines of future policy. This analytical
scheme does not mean that Soviet policy has been purely reactive. But the
uncertainty Moscow has demonstrated since the emergence of an India pre¬
eminent in a subcontinent that is no longer a focal point of American concern
suggests that past Soviet policy has been geared as much to the moves of
others as to positive goals of its own. But, before discussing past Soviet
policies, a few comments on Soviet perceptions of South Asia and its position
in Soviet strategy generally are necessary.
SOUTH ASIA IN SOVIET PERSPECTIVE
The USSR has always ranked the Indian subcontinent below Europe and
East Asia in terms of its interests and concerns.* The West has been the
* There is little point in any extended examination of the perennial question of the
relationship between national interest and ideology in Soviet foreign policy. Most scholars
principal source of modern Russian culture under the tsars as well as their
Communist suecessors. At least since the time of Napoleon the principal
threats to the security of the Russian state—especially its European heartland
—have originated in the West, although the rise of first Japan and then China
in the twentieth century has inereased Soviet apprehensions about the security
of the Russian position in Siberia.^
South Asia and the Middle East occupy an intermediate position in the
hierarchy of Soviet foreign policy priorities, considerably below Europe and
East Asia but well above Southeast Asia, Africa, or Latin America. No South
Asian or Middle Eastern nation possesses the indigenous power to threaten
the Soviet Union. However the ability of certain countries (either out of fear
of the USSR or their neighbors) to ally themselves with a major power hostile
to Moscow creates continual apprehension among Soviet leaders. In the early
Cold War period the principal source of such a danger was the United States,
but more recently Soviet concern over China has made Moscow particularly
apprehensive about Peking’s aetivities in the area. Quite apart from these
specific concerns, Soviet leaders are aware that they cannot achieve their
cherished ambition of being recognized as a global power without a strong
position in the areas along their southern border from the eastern Mediter¬
ranean through the Indian subcontinent. Moreover the Soviet leaders attach
considerable importance to population in picking their friends.^ This rein¬
forces their tendency to accord top priority to relations with the largest power
in a region—Indonesia in Southeast Asia, India in South Asia, and Egypt
among the Arab states.
The Soviet Union also has a record of historical interest and cultural links
with South Asia and the Middle East, although it is easy to overestimate the
importance of such considerations today. Russia vied with Britain off and on
during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Central Asia, although
Russia’s spasmodic efforts in South Asia were partly directed toward influenc¬
ing the British posture in areas in Eastern Europe that were more central to
Russian interests. Sueh experiences kept the subcontinent on the agenda of
Russian concerns, even if there was little the Soviet leaders could do in view
of their pressing problems at home, in Europe, and in East Asia during their
first two decades in power.^
Similar ethnic groups live on both sides of the Soviet border, and histori¬
cally many of these peoples shared a common Islamic culture. But the links
across the borders were sundered by the Soviet practice of sealing its citizens
have concluded that considerations of national interest take precedence whenever there
is a conflict, but such a formulation of the issue is too simple. If a country’s national
interests were a discernible objective reality, readily apparent to its leaders and people,
foreign policy would rarely be the source of domestic disagreements. Moreover “ideology”
and “national interest” are not held in separate compartments of men’s minds. Rather,
men’s concepts of the national interest are shaped to some degree by their ideology or
values.
in and keeping foreigners of all varieties out, and the role of Islam has been
steadily and sharply curtailed in the life of the Central Asian republics of the
USSR. This isolation, as well as the obvious dominance of Russians within
the USSR, has limited the impact of the rapid material advances made in
Central Asia on other Asians. Moreover Moscow’s strongest links in recent
decades, excepting Afghanistan, have been with Indians and Arabs rather
than with peoples closer to the Soviet Union. Finally, the prominence of
religion and caste in the politics and social structures of the subcontinent have
been difficult for Soviet officials and scholars to understand and fit into a
Marxist framework of analysis.
CHECKING THE AMERICAN THRUST
The Cold War, which raged across Europe and the Far East following the
defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, reached an uneasy stalemate in
these areas after the Korean and Indochinese agreements in 1953 and 1954-
But neither side thought a stalemate could long endure, and the competition
shifted to a new arena. The new Republican administration (particularly
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles) was convinced that the lands between
Turkey and the South China Sea were too weak and inexperienced to deal
with the Soviets and Chinese on their own and that they presented too tempt¬
ing a target for the Communists to ignore. In Washington’s eyes the with¬
drawal of the former colonial powers had created a vacuum, despite the
insistence of Stalin and his underlings that the leaders of the newly indepen¬
dent nations were bourgeois “lackeys of the imperialists”—a charge echoed
by Peking.
In the years before nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles, American
strategists wanted military facilities in areas around the periphery of the Com¬
munist world to check Soviet and Chinese power. Thus the United States
extended its containment policy by establishing anti-Communist alliances—
SEATO and the Baghdad Pact. American leaders saw Pakistan, deeply fearful
of India and casting about for a major power protector, as the country that
could provide the link between the Asian alliance systems.^
The Soviet leaders who succeeded Stalin first had to overcome the legacy of
his policy toward the subcontinent. The failure of the Soviet policy in China
in the 1920s, after local Nationalists turned on their Communist collabora¬
tors, left Stalin skeptical about the bona fides of Asian nationalists, although
Soviet national interests required tactical accommodations at times. Therefore
the 1920S and 1930s were devoted to building local Communist parties in the
subcontinent, especially India. This was slow and frustrating, and by 1939 the
Communist Party of India (CPI) had only about 5,000 members. The CPI
grew rapidly during World War II, reaching over 50,000 members by 1946-
The party’s gains, which also involved winning control of several mass move¬
ments, were made possible by two developments: (i) British legalization of
i6o The Soviet Impact on World Politics
the CPI as a result of the party’s support of the Allied war effort after the
German attack on the USSR in 1941 and (2) British repression of the Con¬
gress party and incarceration of its leaders for their unwillingness to support
the war effort unless India’s independence was assured.
These impressive gains came at a high cost. Indians now recognized that
the CPI gave priority to Soviet needs rather than to nationalistic aspirations.
Awareness of CPI subordination to foreign control was heightened when the
party responded to Moscow’s militant policy at the onset of the Cold War by
launching a revolutionary struggle, which in various forms lasted from 1948
to 1951. The party’s exaggeration of the potential for revolution and its
underestimation of New Delhi’s ability to take forceful action to maintain its
control led to a drastic decline in CPI strength—from 90,000 in 1948 to
20-30,000 in 1951.^ Soviet attacks on Gandhi and Nehru further embittered
many Indians.
The new Soviet leaders saw that the CPI was more a hindrance than a help
in influencing events. They also gradually recognized that Stalin had mis¬
judged Asian nationalist leaders.® The opposition of Nehru to American ef¬
forts to create military alliances in his part of the world convinced the Soviet
leaders, particularly Khrushchev, that the Soviet Union and India shared a
common interest in preventing the United States from establishing itself firmly
in South Asia. But any effort to exploit India’s nonalignment policy required
accepting it for the short term. The rapid postwar recovery of the Soviet
economy made it possible to offer some economic assistance, more attractive
trade arrangements, and military equipment that was becoming obsolescent
by Soviet standards. Moscow could also offer political support to one or the
other party in regional quarrels—to India and Afghanistan in the Kashmir
and Pushtunistan disputes with Pakistan—which would help it gain a foothold
in the area.
Nehru searched for a means to counter the U.S.-Pakistani alliance, but his
continued suspicion of the USSR made it apparent to Moscow that a sharp
break with the past was essential. This would involve not only support for
Indian nationalism, whatever the consequences for the CPI, but an attempt to
move the party in a direction that would make its existence less of a concern
to New Delhi by urging it to adopt a policy of “constitutional communism.”
This meshed with Nehru’s approach of trying to draw the more moderate
elements of the CPI into Indian political life while isolating, and when neces¬
sary repressing, its more radical elements.
It is a tribute to the imagination and flexibility of Khrushchev and his
colleagues that, despite their long years of subservience to Stalin, they were
able to cast aside his approach within a short time after his demise. The
change in Indo-Soviet relations was only one element in a much broader shift
in Soviet foreip policy, as Stalin’s successors concluded that his harsh and
inflexible policies were uniting rather than dividing the non-Communist world.
Indo-Soviet relations expanded rapidly as Moscow provided aid for India’s
Regional Case Studies on the Impact of Soviet Foreign Policy i6i
industrialization program, especially state-owned projects, and support for its

stand on Kashmir. Leaders of both countries exchanged visits and compli¬
ments, although a note of caution was evident in Nehru’s comments stressing
the dangers of any country interfering in the affairs of another. His uncer¬
tainty about the depth and duration of the changes in Soviet policy was one
reason India continued to purchase its arms from the West, thereby limiting
its links with the USSR. Such restraint was not possible for Afghanistan, for
no Western power was willing to provide the arms its leaders felt were essen¬
tial to enable the central government to control the country’s restive tribes
and to stand up to Pakistan.
It is easy to overstate the extent to which the Soviets were following a well-
conceived and integrated strategy. They had no blueprint; there was uncer¬
tainty and experimentation. The new approach probably was abhorrent to
orthodox Communists and questionable to others, particularly those who re¬
membered how Asian nationalists had turned on local Communists in the
past. But however good an argument the skeptics may have made, they suf-
ered from one fatal weakness—the lack of a plausible alternative. Soviet
failure to support those governments opposed to Western influence in the area
would have made such opposition less effective and could have led some to
conclude that they had no real option but to cooperate closely with the West.
Moreover the advocates of the new approach were not without an ideological
justification, for they could argue that the bourgeois-nationalist leaders would
be unable to satisfy local aspirations for reforms and economic development
without becoming increasingly radical. In such an environment, Soviet influ¬
ence and the demonstrated success of the Soviet model would lead the Asian
countries to adopt the socialist course.
The initial responsiveness of India, Afghanistan, and (after the Bandar-
anaike victory in 1956) Ceylon to the Soviet overtures, and the growing
emphasis on socialism in many Asian countries, raised Moscow’s hopes that
events were moving rapidly along anticipated lines and that the United States
had been effectively checked. But history moves in cycles as well as trends,
and in time the Soviets recognized that their gains would not come as quickly
or easily as once seemed possible.
An important obstacle to Soviet aspirations was that the United States
never pushed its alliance with Pakistan to its logical—or illogical—conclu¬
sion. The United States stood behind Pakistan vis-a-vis the Communist
powers but gave Pakistan only qualified support in its quarrels with India and
Afghanistan. The Americans’ insistence that their obligations to Pakistan did
not include support against its non-Communist neighbors was a source of
disappointment, but the lack of an alternate source of external backing at this
time left Pakistan no choice but to accept the American stance. The United
States recognized that it had a stake in the stability and progress of India—as
well as of the small South Asian states—and that if nonalignment prevented
close Indo-American cooperation it could also set a limit on Indo-Soviet
i62 The Soviet Impact on World Politics
links. Therefore America took care not to alienate India completely and,
beginning in 1957, greatly expanded its economic aid program.
Nor were Indo-Soviet relations without friction. Soviet actions in Eastern
Europe (especially Hungary) in the mid-1950s made clear to South Asian
leaders that there were limits to Moscow’s respect for national independence,
and Nehru’s outspoken criticism of dogmatic ideologies annoyed the USSR
and prompted a strong Soviet reply.
But such differences were kept in check, for Moscow and New Delhi real¬
ized their need for each other. India’s willingness to expand relations with the
Communist countries enhanced their international stature and made other
Asian countries more receptive to Soviet overtures. Soviet backing of India vis-
a-vis Pakistan strengthened New Delhi’s resolve to stand firm on Kashmir
rather than seek a compromise, just as the alliance with the United States
encouraged Pakistan to think it might succeed in pressuring India to be more
accommodating.
Thus within a decade of independence the two principal nations of the
subcontinent were caught up in the Cold War and in great power politics.
Although their involvement enabled them to extract material benefits from the
Cold War antagonists, it solidified their hostility toward each other.
THE CHINESE CHALLENGE
The USSR’s close relationship with China created no obstacles to its court¬
ing of India during the mid-1950s. While India reacted negatively to Peking’s
absorption of Tibet by force in 1950, Nehru accepted Chinese sovereignty
there—a position formalized in the 1954 Sino-Indian treaty. He directed
India’s efforts toward securing Chinese acceptance of New Delhi’s special
interests in the Himalayan border states of Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim and to
India’s version of the alignment of the Sino-Indian border. But Nehru’s
method of doing so—by publicly proclaiming his belief in China’s good faith
and intentions while slowly and quietly building up India’s border defenses—
was unsuccessful, and when it failed he lost his hitherto unchallenged control
of Indian foreign policy.
The growing divergence of Soviet and Chinese policies after 1957—with
Peking becoming more militant toward the non-Communist world and Mos¬
cow more determined to emphasize peaceful coexistence—created strain and
then hostility in Sino—Soviet relations. Part of the problem was simple misin¬
terpretation. Mao imputed a passivity to Khrushchev’s policy that the latter
never intended it to have; Khrushchev saw it as a less dangerous way to
advance Soviet aims in a nuclear age. Similarly, the Soviets saw Mao as more
belligerent and reckless than he actually was.
But even perfect understanding would not have held the two powers to¬
gether in the face of their disputes about the locus of authority in the world
Communist movement, Soviet unwillingness to support Chinese territorial and
nuclear aspirations, and the different policy imperatives that sprang from their
vastly different stages of development.
These differences were exacerbated by a sharp deterioration of Sino-
Indian relations. Widespread Indian criticism over the harsh measures taken
by Peking against the Tibetans when they revolted in March 1959, and India’s
hospitality to the refugees who poured across the border, prompted increas¬
ingly strident Chinese accusations that India had had a hand in the uprising.
On May 16 the Chinese ambassador to New Delhi delivered a strong protest
that ended with an ominous warning that “you . . . cannot have two fronts.”®
Nehru attempted to limit the damage to Sino-Indian relations but he was
caught between rising anti-Chinese feelings in India and Chinese attacks on
his policies.® He soon concluded that he could no longer leave the Indian
public in the dark about the existence of a more serious Sino-Indian dispute.
Therefore in August 1959 he publicly acknowledged that China contested
some 50,000 square miles of Indian territory in the Himalayas, that China
had built a road across the Aksai Chin section of Ladakh, and that Indian and
Chinese patrols had clashed in the summer of i959-^° Such revelations in¬
flamed Indian public opinion, intensified the divisions within the CPI, and
posed a serious threat to the Soviet position in India.
Moscow supported Peking’s suppression of the Tibetan rebels in March,
but without echoing Chinese critieism of India. New Delhi’s removal of the
Communist ministry from the Indian state of Kerala in July evoked only weak
protests in Soviet media even though Moscow had just extended a large loan
to India. India’s growing dependence on the West for aid led the Chinese to
be more critical of India, but the Soviets decided they had to be even more
forthcoming to maintain their position. The Sino-Indian border dispute
forced Moscow to raise the ante onee more lest India turn to the West for
support against a united Communist world, however difficult it was not to
support a Communist state involved in a quarrel with a bourgeois govern¬
ment; Moscow probably was also worried that automatic support of its Com¬
munist ally would have an unfavorable impact on other nonaligned states it
was courting. Therefore the USSR adopted what was essentially a neutral
position early in September, and one implicitly critical of China.
Certain political circles and the press in Western countries recently opened
up a noisy campaign about an incident that occurred not long ago on the
Chinese-Indian border, in the region of the Himalayas. This campaign
was obviously directed at driving a wedge between the two largest states
in Asia, the Chinese People’s Republic and the Republic of India, whose
friendship has great importance in ensuring peace and international co¬
operation in Asia and in the whole world. Those who inspired it are trying
to discredit the idea of peaceful coexistence of states with different social
systems and to prevent the strengthening of the Asian people’s solidarity
in the fight to consolidate national independence. . . .
It would be wrong not to express regret that the incident on the
Chinese-Indian boundary took place. The Soviet Union enjoys friendly

relations with both the Chinese People’s Republic and the Republic of
India. The Chinese and Soviet peoples are tied together by indestructible
bonds of fraternal friendship based on the great principles of socialist
internationalism. Friendly cooperation between the U.S.S.R. and India
according to the ideas of peaceful coexistence is developing successfully.
Soviet actions at a crucial moment thus enhanced India’s ability to main¬

tain its nonalignment. Nehru, with Soviet neutrality and Western sympathy,
could stand firm against China and parry Pakistani President Ayub’s condi¬
tional offer of joint defense of the subcontinent. Nehru next sought to turn
Soviet neutrality into support; soon India was purchasing Soviet transport
aircraft and helicopters for use along the frontier, and later MIG fighters—
which Nehru hoped would serve as a warning to Peking.
There apparently was a price involved, although evidence is only circum¬
stantial. The USSR, at least in i960, still hoped to prevent Sino-Soviet
relations from completely unraveling and urged Nehru to seek a negotiated
settlement of the Sino-Indian dispute.The most Nehru would agree to was
a visit by Chou En-lai in April i960. But his willingness to talk to the
Chinese premier was, in historical perspective, much less significant than his
refusal to accede to Chou’s suggested compromise—Chinese retention of the
Aksai Chin in return for Peking’s recognition of India’s claims in the north¬
east (the MacMahon Line). Moscow probably was unhappy, but the con¬
tinued deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations and the improvement of Indo-
American relations in the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years led the
Soviets to accept the Indian stance.
The challenges posed by the Sino-Indian conflict became acute once again
with the outbreak of war in the Himalayas late in 1962.1® Moscow, ensnarled
in the Cuban missile crisis and uncertain whether or not it faced a major war,
was reluctant to antagonize China further. A Pravda editorial of October 25
not only attacked the MacMahon Line but called upon India to accept the
Chinese terms for a halt in the fighting.It briefly looked as though nearly
ten years of Soviet effort would be undone in a few weeks, as stunned Indians
compared the Soviet desertion with the immediate Western response to India’s
plea for arms and support. Once the Cuban crisis subsided, however, Soviet
policy reverted to its earlier stance, and in a Pravda editorial on November 5
Moscow retreated from its support of Peking.
Soviet leaders worked hard to rehabilitate their country’s position in India,
and they soon became increasingly critical of Chinese policy toward India.1®
Their efforts were aided once again by Western ties to Pakistan, for Nehru
calculated that the Western desire to retain its position in a Pakistan already
furious over Western arms to India would limit British and American willing¬
ness to aid India’s military buildup. He also saw that Western strategy for
dealing with the USSR and China would lead Britain and the United States to
press India to compromise on Kashmir so as to make joint defense of the

subcontinent possible.
When Nehru’s judgments were proven correct, the value of India’s links to
Moscow again became evident to his domestic critics. Soviet willingness to
meet India’s arms requests—even after Nehru died in May 1964—made it
clear that Moscow saw a close relationship with India as essential in checking
China as well as the West.
BROADENING OPTIONS OR DEEPENING TIES?
Once relations with India were again solidified, Khrushchev’s stolid succes¬
sors took a new look at their position in the subcontinent and the world. Their
efforts to effect a rapprochement with Peking were unsuccessful in the face of
Chinese intransigence. Their position in Eastern Europe was again coming
under challenge and would in time lead to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslo¬
vakia and the enunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine.^® The Western alliance
systems were weakening under the impact of DeGaulle’s search for grandeur
and American preoccupation with Vietnam, but Moscow found it difficult to
turn such troubles to its advantage. Continued Western—and looming
Chinese—involvement created barriers to further Soviet progress in Asia and
Africa.
It was about this time that Moscow came to realize that conditions in the
Third World countries posed obstacles to its ambitions as serious as those
stemming from the efforts of other major powers. The overthrow of such
leaders as Nkrumah and Sukarno, the periodic troubles with Nasser and his
stunning defeat by the Israelis in 1967, were painful lessons in the fragility of
the Soviet position. The strength of nationalism in Asia and Africa and the
intractability of the economic and social problems in these countries were
increasingly seen by the Soviets as persisting facts of life that the USSR could
affect only slowly and marginally.Indeed there was considerable concern
that continued Soviet support for India was not preventing it from moving to
the right in domestic affairs and toward the West in its foreign policy
stance.^®
India was in the midst of a wide variety of troubles. Its international stature
declined after its military defeat at the hands of China. Poor monsoon rams
sharply curtailed agricultural production and led to industrial slowdowns.
More ominously, a serious weakening of the Congress party after its setback
in the 1967 national elections raised questions about its basic stability. The
Communist party of India, whose tenuous unity had been heavily dependent
upon the external authority of a unified international Communist movement,
fragmented as a result of internal disputes over the proper position to take on
the Sino-Indian dispute and in Indian politics generally.
The CPI formally split in 1964, and while the “rightist” CPI remained
oriented toward Moscow, the more radical CPI (Marxist) looked to Peking
for inspiration.^® Indian Communists were thus unable to take advantage of

the Congress party’s troubles. While India’s troubles did not lead Moscow to
reduce its involvement there, Soviet leaders were forced to lower their ideolog¬
ical sights. Thus Moscow decided to consolidate its position in India rather
than try to deepen Indo-Soviet ties.
Soviet leaders also saw that the declining intensity of the Cold War, com¬
bined with sharpening regional conflicts involving Turkey, Iran, and
Pakistan (in which these countries were able to secure only limited
backing from their Western allies) offered an opportunity to establish a posi¬
tion in these hitherto hostile nations.
Moscow knew that overtures to Pakistan would be resented by India but
hoped New Delhi’s need for Soviet support would temper its reaction. Indeed
a demonstration that the Soviet position in the subcontinent did not rest
entirely on India might actually increase Soviet leverage in New Delhi. In any
case, Pakistan’s fury at the United States over the sending of American arms
to India was not only weakening U.S.-Pakistani ties but also leading Ayub to
look to Peking for assistance. China’s response led to a rapid expansion of
Sino-Pakistani relations. In such circumstances Moscow could no longer
depend entirely upon India to counter China in the subcontinent.
But it must be emphasized that the Soviet leaders had no intention of
shifting their backing from India to Pakistan; they were only trying to work
out supplementary links with Pakistan lest it move from the Western to the
Chinese orbit. Soviet support for the Indian position on Kashmir disappeared
from Indo-Soviet communiques, and Moscow proclaimed its neutrality in the
armed clash between India and Pakistan over the Rann of Kutch in April
1965. Moscow took a similar position during the war between India and
Pakistan that began in August 1965, with Pravda asserting:
We would like Soviet-Pakistani relations, like our traditional friendship

with India, to be a stabilizing factor in the situation in Asia and to con¬
tribute to the normalization of relations between India and Pakistan.20
But neutrality was feasible in the face of inflamed public sentiment in India
and Pakistan only if their disputes could be kept in check. Moscow’s efforts in
the United Nations to promote a cease-flre lest China enter the fray, and the
invitation to President Ayub and Prime Minister Shastri to avail themselves of
Soviet good offices at Tashkent to work out a broader settlement, revealed a
growing Soviet awareness of this fact. Premier Kosygin’s success at Tashkent,
limited though it was to achieving a disengagement of Indian and Pakistani
forces and a statement of their intention to normalize relations, had a dra¬
matic if ironic impact. As a British observer reported:
Mr. Kosygin, whose ideology demands the fostering of chaos and dis¬
ruption in non-Communist lands, finds himself doing his level best to
calm down a Hindu under direct threat from China and a Muslim sup¬
posed to be on friendly terms with Peking, embroiled in a quarrel over the
possessions of the mountain playground of the late British Raj.
And, except for China, nobody minds.
Ayub next tried to turn Soviet neutrality into support, but with only partial
success. Between 1966 and 1968 he was able to secure Soviet agreement to
provide military vehicles, helicopters, and finally a wider variety of arms. This
was particularly important to his military-based regime, for the United States
had ended its arms aid to Pakistan and India during the 1965 war and Ayub
did not want to replace his previous dependence upon the United States with
complete dependence on China. He failed completely, however, to persuade
the Soviet Union to halt or even reduce its arms deliveries to India.
Prime Minister Gandhi’s cautious criticism of the new Soviet policy was
irritating but tolerable to Soviet leaders. Fearful that an abatement of the
Cold War was leading to Soviet-American collusion, Mrs. Gandhi hinted that
Indian hostility toward China might be replaced by efforts to normalize rela¬
tions. Although China continued to pour scorn on India, New Delhi’s actions
were a warning to Moscow that in time India might have some options of its
own. New Delhi also refused to heed Soviet appeals that all nations sign the
nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and India continued to expand its nuclear
capabilities while maintaining it had no plans to create a nuclear weapons
arsenal. New Delhi rebuffed Kosygin’s offer to mediate the Indo-Pakistani
dispute over the sharing of the waters of the Ganges River, and in effect
rejected Brezhnev’s call for an Asian collective security system.
But in some cases New Delhi felt it had to accept Soviet proposals, and
Mrs. Gandhi made only a pro forma protest over the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia. She also either ignored the activity of the Soviet Navy in the
Indian Ocean or, when that was not possible, passed it off as a response to
Western naval activity. Nonetheless the Soviets treated India brusquely in the
late 1960s and relations, while formally correct, cooled considerably.
MOSCOW AND NEW DELHI: FRIENDS IN NEED
Beginning in 1969 trends in India, and more dramatically in Pakismn,

called into question the Soviet attempt to move toward a balanced policy.
Mrs. Gandhi’s move to the left created a split within the Congress party. If
her gamble paid off, a more promising political milieu in India would be
created, especially if her minority government became dependent on the
Moscow-oriented CPI. If her right-wing opponents came out on top, there
was a danger India would adopt a more conservative, pro-Western orientation.
Thus Soviet hopes and fears led Moscow to support Mrs. Gandhi and attack
her antagonists as representatives of “reaction and imperialism.”^^ Her
smashing victory in the national elections in March 1971 ended any need or
her new Congress party to rely on the CPI at the national level, but her
utilization of Indian politicians friendly to the USSR in senior positions was
encouraging to Moscow.
A more fundamental factor was the series of political upheavals Pakistan
experienced following the overthrow of the Ayub regime early in 1969. Na¬
tionwide demands for representative government and a fairer distribution of
Pakistan’s economic growth were soon overshadowed by Bengali insistence
on a new deal for East Pakistan. The Bengalis argued that their exclusion
from political power and their exploitation by West Pakistan could only be
remedied by a constitutional arrangement that guaranteed them complete
provincial autonomy, a move West Pakistanis felt would threaten the unity of
the nation. The inability of Ayub’s military successors to reach a compromise
with the politicians who emerged victorious in the December 1970 elections
—especially East Pakistan’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—led to the outbreak of
civil war in March 1971.
The Soviet leaders quickly moved to adjust their policy. President Pod-
gorny’s April 3 letter to President Yahya (which was immediately published)
lashed out at the army’s policy of “repression.Moscow’s criticism was
made easier by growing Soviet disappointment about the difficulties it had
encountered in its relations with Pakistan. In 1969 Pakistan had closed the
American intelligence facilities in Peshawar directed against the USSR, but
Moscow had been unable to curtail Sino-Pakistani ties. Pakistan continued
to rely on China for arms; it rejected Brezhnev’s call for an Asian collective
security system (with its anti-Chinese overtones); and it turned down
Kosygin’s proposal for regional economic cooperation by India, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Iran.
Such recalcitrance soured the Soviet leaders on Pakistan.^^ The 1968
Soviet-Pakistani arms agreement had called for three shipments of arms, but
Moscow’s displeasure led it to hold back on the third shipment.^s Nonethe¬
less the Soviets did not want to give up on Pakistan, and when Yahya visited
Moscow in 1970 they agreed to build a one-million-ton steel mill.
Moscow’s fear of Chinese involvement if a new Indo-Pakistani war broke
out, and its concern for its position in the Muslim world—which generally
supported Yahya’s attempt to hold the country together—also led it to call for
a settlement acceptable to “the entire people” of Pakistan. Such phraseology
created apprehension in India about Soviet unwillingness to alienate West
Pakistan completely. But then the Kissinger visit to Peking by way of Paki¬
stan raised the specter of a U.S.-Chinese-Pakistani alignment. Soviet and
Indian leaders alike were shaken, but their shared fears pushed them together
and they soon responded with a dramatic move of their own—the signing of a
twenty-year friendship and cooperation treaty on August 9. Soviet arms ship¬
ments to India rose dramatically.
When the third Indo-Pakistani war broke out in November 1971, Soviet
vetoes neutralized the United Nations Security Council, and the massive Soviet
military forces on China’s northern border served as a clear warning to Peking

not to render more than verbal assistance to Pakistan. By the end of 1971
India’s military victory had won independence for Bangladesh, Chinese and
American ineptness left them with only a foothold in a truncated and embit¬
tered Pakistan, and the Soviet Union stood unchallenged as the ranking exter¬
nal power in South Asia.
THE SOVIET IMPACT ON SOUTH ASIA
Before turning to the likely course of Soviet relations with South Asia, it is
useful to assess the Soviet position in the area today, the impact of its past
policies, and the lessons the Soviet leaders have drawn from the past two
decades.
The Soviet Union won its present position by working out an approach that
combines strategic consistency with tactical flexibility. Its efforts have been
centered on India but not confined to it; New Delhi has felt confident enough
of Soviet support to make close relations with Moscow the touchstone of its
foreign policy, but the occasional wavering of Moscow’s stance has convinced
New Delhi it must cultivate Soviet ties rather than take them for granted. The
Soviet approach has naturally been less successful in Pakistan, but that coun¬
try’s determination to stand up to an India many times its size has, in recent
years at least, led Pakistan to take Soviet interests into account when it makes
important decisions.
Moscow is now the major external source of arms for South Asia; its
commitments to India and Afghanistan through 1971 amount to $1.1 billion
and $450 million, respectively.^® (It has also occasionally sent arms to other
South Asian countries—as when it provided military equipment to Sri Lanka
to put down a leftist insurgency in 1971, demonstrating it has little stomach
for the uncertain outcomes of revolutionary upheavals.) Such arms have been
essential to Indian and Afghan efforts to build up their military forces. How¬
ever, India’s expanding defense industry and its improved strategic position
with a friendly Bangladesh on its eastern flank now limit New Delhi’s depen¬
dence on Moscow.
The great expansion of Soviet economic relations with South Asia since the
mid-1950s has also played an important part in enlarging the Soviet role in
the area, as shown in Table i.
Moscow’s $1.6 billion in aid commitments to India from I954-I97I on
relatively easy terms (supplemented by $382 million from Eastern Europe)
have been directed overwhelmingly to the construction of large state-owned
industrial enterprises, such as steel mills, machinery factories, and oil explora¬
tion Although such aid is but a fraction of the more than $15 billion ex¬
tended by Western nations to India—and Soviet disbursements are normally
slower than Western deliveries—its concentration in the fields Indians regard
as essential to their eventual economic independence gives it a political impact
TABLE 1
Communist Economic Assistance Extended to South Asia,
1954-1971
(Millions of U.S. $)
East
Country Total USSR Europe China
Afghanistan 745 705 12 28

Sri Lanka 175 38 52 85
India L975 1,593 382 —
Nepal 82 20 — 62
Pakistan 857 474 74 309
Total 3,834 2,830 520 484
Source: Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State, Communist States and
Developing Countries: Aid and Trade in 1971, RECS-3 (Washington, D.C.: May 15, 1972).
much greater than such comparisons suggest. (Soviet aid to Afghanistan has
been larger than that supplied by the West.) Soviet technicians and training
programs have increased the capabilities of the recipient countries.
As Table i shows, however, China as well as the West has been an impor¬
tant competitor. Peking’s aid exceeds that of the USSR in Sri Lanka and
Nepal, and its aid to Pakistan is two-thirds as much as Soviet aid.
Nor should the expansion of Soviet trade with the South Asian countries be
overlooked. As Table 2 shows, Soviet trade expanded dramatically between
1955 and 1970 in both absolute and relative terms. If the Communist coun¬
tries still occupy a secondary place in the trading patterns of countries of the
subcontinent, it is no longer (except with Nepal) an insignificant place. The
South Asian countries have benefited in a number of ways from economic ties
with the Communist countries. New industries have been established, existing
ones expanded, and new markets for a variety of South Asian products ob¬
tained. These markets were initially for traditional products but in recent
years have included manufactured goods as well; nearly half of India’s exports
to the USSR now consist of finished or semifinished products.^’^
But problems arise periodically and lead to complaints by the South
Asians. The Eastern European practice of reexporting some commodities (at
discount prices) cuts into the direct sales of South Asian countries and thus
limits the value they derive from these trade links; Moscow often drives
a hard bargain Over the prices of the goods it buys and sells. More gener-
aUy, strictly bilateral trading arrangements (dubbed “taking in each other’s
dirty laundry” by economists) discourage the most efficient international divi¬
sion of labor, for one partner is sometimes forced to take unneeded products
in order to balance its accounts with the other. A former high Indian official
once told me his country’s economic relationship with the USSR was particu¬
larly beneficial because it required little marketing effort; the Soviets had the
South Asia; Foreign Trade (Imports and Exports),
1955 and 1970
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Sources: United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Direction of International
Trade—Statistical Papers, Series T, vol. 10, no. 8 (New York, 1959), annual data for the years 1938, ^948, 1955-1958; Bure^ of Intelligence and
Research, Department of State, Communist States and Developing Countries: Trade and Aid in 1971, RECS-3 (Washington, D.C.: May 15, 197 ),
responsibility of finding Indian products to import in order to be repaid for

past loans. While such a procedure has its short-run attractions, it ultimately
works against the developing countries’ interests by causing them to neglect
the effort necessary to penetrate world markets generally. But, despite these
drawbacks, the developing countries’ chronic shortage of capital and lack of
assured access to the markets of Western nations make their economic rela¬
tions with the Communist countries an important benefit in an imperfect
world.
One other point warrants mention. Soviet emphasis on aid for state-owned
projects and on government-to-government trade agreements has (with a
minor assist from Soviet propaganda extolling the virtues of socialism) made
it easier for the governments of many developing countries to move toward
greater control over their economies. Many of them desired this on their own,
and it has been necessary in some cases. None of them have yet adopted
anything resembling Soviet-style socialism.^® But this trend, given the dem¬
onstrated inefficiency of most state-operated industries in countries such as
India, has probably been something of a handicap to their economic develop¬
ment efforts.*
The impact of Soviet military aid and diplomatic activities on the South
Asian scene is, in the first instance, rather easy to assess. It has substantially
enhanced Indian military strength and international stature and enabled India
to maintain firm positions in its disputes with Pakistan and China. The effects
on Pakistan have been quite different. The primary responsibility for that
country’s destruction in 1971 rests with the shortsightedness and greed of its
West Pakistani rulers over a period of many years. Once the civil war erupted,
the Bengalis probably would have eventually worn down and expelled the
Pakistani army, but Soviet support of India sealed Pakistan’s fate as a nation.
One final issue remains. Would India have been more flexible in dealing
with its two major neighbors if it had lacked such extensive Soviet support?
Would its future as a nation be more promising if it had reached compromise
settlements with Pakistan and China and thus been able to direct more of its
resources and energies to economic development? Or did the ability to stand
fast against external enemies, whatever the cost in terms of development,
provide a crucial element of cohesion to a nation beset by many serious
internal divisions? (Moscow’s policies, it should be noted, have been directed
toward amelioration of regional disputes at times—such as before 1962 as
regards the Sino-Indian conflict and most of the period after 1965 in the
* To illustrate the complexities involved in any evaluation of Soviet economic activi¬

ties, petroleum imports from the Communist countries probably improved India’s bar¬
gaining position with Western oil companies over prices. But the availability of Soviet
exploration teams (which have had only modest success) probably was one reason New
Delhi insisted on terms unacceptable to Western exploration firms for the important
offshore areas and thus was deprived of modern technology in a crucial area.
Indo-Pakistani dispute—just as it encouraged India to take a hard line toward
Pakistan between 1955 and 1965 and toward China since 1962.)
Unfortunately, historical alternatives cannot be programmed and played
out in a computerized politico-military war game. Thus such questions are
essentially unanswerable, but the very fact that they can be asked raises some
doubts about the ultimate impact of Soviet support on India’s prospects as a
nation.
SOVIET OPTIONS AND DILEMMAS
Soviet leaders display considerable satisfaction with their achievements in

the subcontinent. They have not experienced the dramatic setbacks in South
Asia that have been their lot in certain Asian and African countries. Their
relationship with India has deepened over the years. Officials of both coun¬
tries are convinced that a broad commonality of interests, combined with their
experience in dealing with each other over the years, will enable them to keep
whatever differences they have under control. *
Chinese support of Pakistan is less worrisome to Moscow than in the past,
given Pakistan’s reduced size and status, and Peking’s continued hostility to
India and Bangladesh prevents it from playing an active diplomatic role in
either nation. Equally important, America’s lessened interest in the subcon¬
tinent makes it less of a competitor and gives the USSR a wider range of
policy choices.
The Soviet leaders have also learned and accepted that events will move
more slowly than they once expected within the developing countries and that
their ability to influence relations between South Asian countries is very
limited. Nonetheless they take consolation from the obvious fact that events
have moved in a direction favorable to them. While they experience and
occasionally give vent to—a sense of frustration at the intractability of some
of the issues they must deal with, they are patient men who are accustomed
to thinking in long-range terms.
But neither their general sense of satisfaction nor their increased knowledge
of local conditions provides much help in deciding what policies to adopt
toward South Asia today. Should the USSR, now that the subcontinent has
been accorded a much lower priority in American policy, move boldly for¬
ward in an attempt to expand its role and influence? Or would it be more
appropriate to act with restraint, consolidating past gains while appraising the
new order in South Asia—and perhaps attempting to extract greater benefits
* For example, New Delhi’s disapproval of the Soviet Union’s unilateral attempts in
the late 1960s to expand its cultural activities was handled in a quiet and cautious
manner, and New Delhi’s current moves to reduce its cultural links with outside powers
are tolerable to Moscow because such an effort falls more heavily upon the Western
powers in view of their more extensive activities in India.
from present levels of support? Moscow has not made any major moves since
1971, but it is not clear whether this represents a decision to stand pat or only
uncertainty about what course to adopt.
Since the subcontinent is a secondary rather than a primary area of Soviet
concern, Moscow’s policy there will depend heavily on the Soviet leaders’
general assessment of their country’s position in world affairs. They take great
pride in having achieved—and codified—strategic parity with the United
States, in having gained acceptance of the status quo in Eastern Europe, and
in having developed a navy that can show the Soviet flag in distant lands. But
the confidence engendered by these achievements has not robbed the Soviet
leaders of their caution and their sense of the unpredictability and hazards
inherent in world politics. Soviet economic troubles at home, which have led
the leadership to seek Western trade and technology in a more substantial
manner than at any time in forty years—perhaps seeing this as less dangerous
than domestic liberalization—also argue against dramatic Soviet moves.
Moreover Moscow’s bitter struggle with Peking has limited the impact of its
gains elsewhere in the world. Indeed, few aspects of Soviet policy toward Asia
can be separated from the Soviet preoccupation with China. Soviet hostility to
the Nixon administration’s balance of power approach—whether pentagonal
for the world or quadrilateral for East Asia—reflects not only a Soviet prefer¬
ence for the greater predictability of a bipolar world (although a competitive
one) but a recognition that it would be in a distinct minority in a four- or five-
power world.29 Indeed, faced with continued Chinese hostility and Japanese
suspicion, Moscow would be largely isolated in Asia if it did not maintain
close relations with India.
In these eireumstances, Soviet strategy toward the subcontinent will con¬
tinue to be oriented toward—but not dominated by—the USSR’s need to be
the external power whose voice carries the greatest weight in New Delhi.
Moscow would like to promote a settlement of the disputes still separating
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, for such quarrels not only limit Soviet
choices in the area but carry the risk of leading to new conflicts that could
force dangerous decisions upon the USSR. The USSR has demonstrated its
tactical flexibility by going along with India’s insistence that it handle these
matters bilaterally. However, if the continued failure of these countries to sort
out their relations made a new upheaval appear likely, the Soviet leaders
probably would feel compelled to play a more active role.
The evolution of the Soviet Union s relations with India will depend heavily
upon the relations of each of these countries with China. Moscow clearly
hopes for a more normal relationship with Peking after Mao departs; this
would lessen but not eliminate the value of its links with India. Similarly, Mrs.
Gandhi has tried to interest Peking in moving toward a normalization of
relations. So far the Chinese leaders have not responded, apparently continu¬
ing to see India as too closely tied to the USSR to warrant a more flexible
policy on their part. Even if their policy shifts in the future, New Delhi will
have to proceed cautiously lest Soviet annoyance over improved Sino-Indian
relations costs India more than is gained by inducing Peking to adopt a more
conciliatory policy.Nonetheless, the awareness in Moscow and New Delhi
that the present pattern of relationships with China is not immutable leads
each side to be wary about tying itself too closely to the other.
There are several other reasons for India’s determination not to become too
heavily dependent on the Soviet Union. Indian suspicions of U.S.-Soviet
collusion, which were prominent in the late 1960s, revived with the Nixon-
Brezhnev summit in 1972, and Mrs. Gandhi spoke bitterly of great powers
deciding matters over the heads of other nations. Indian leaders apparently
were annoyed by the June 1972 joint statement of the CPI and the CPSU that
they “attach great importance to the ideological struggle that the Communist
Party of India is waging on the basis of scientific socialism.”^*^ And India’s
stature in the Afro-Asian world, already damaged by its role in dismember¬
ing Pakistan, would decline further if Indian foreign policy even appeared to
be no more than an echo of Soviet policy.
Quite apart from these specific concerns, Indians in aU walks of life are
determined to pursue their own interests as the only course that befits a large
and proud nation. They appreciate past Soviet support precisely because they
are convinced it has enabled them to realize their own objectives. New Delhi
will do its utmost to avoid public disputes with Moscow. It will give sym¬
pathetic consideration to Soviet needs and will support as many aspects of
Soviet foreign policy as it deems feasible—but no more. If, for example,
Moscow were to press hard for naval bases in India, New Delhi would quietly
but firmly refuse. (There is no firm evidence that the USSR has made such a
request. The Soviet fleet in the Indian Ocean has not expanded much in recent
years, although it is not clear whether this stems from limited capabilities or
limited aims or is merely a pause to allow Moscow time to evaluate its
experiences in an unfamiliar area.)
Nor has New Delhi been eager to embrace the Brezhnev proposal for a
collective security system in Asia, a scheme that received heavy Soviet propa¬
ganda emphasis in 1972 and 19735 Brezhnev unsuccessfully urged
India to support during his November I973 visit. India, already involved in a
treaty relationship with the USSR, sees few advantages and many potential
drawbacks in any additional formal ties to Moscow outside the economic
sphere: To cite only one liability, Indian participation would hamper its
efforts to work out a better relationship with the United States. New Delhi’s
ability to fend off the Soviet Union on this issue is made easier by the vague
and shifting nature of the Soviet proposal, which sometimes appears to be a
scheme to contain China and at other times is represented as nothing more
than a call for greater economic cooperation among Asian states.^^ Even au¬
thoritative Soviet statements on Asian affairs do not dispel this confusion,
which suggests that the Soviet leaders are basically casting about for some
means of institutionalizing their presence in Asia.^^
Speculation that the Indo-Soviet treaty was to be the cornerstone of the

Soviet collective security edifice has diminished since mid-1972, and some
Soviet officials now claim these are to be two separate affairs.This suggests
that Soviet officials—despite their propaganda about growing support for the
proposal throughout Asia—are uncertain of its appeal and recognize the im¬
possibility of using India as a proxy in Southeast Asia.®®
The general inclination of Soviet leaders to consolidate rather than try to
expand the USSR’s position in South Asia probably is strengthened by their
view of conditions within the various countries there. India, Pakistan, Ban¬
gladesh, and Sri Lanka are all beset by serious domestic problems, and the
record of the local governments in dealing with them does not inspire Soviet
confidence. (Nepal has always been peripheral to Soviet concerns; while Af¬
ghanistan’s development performance is frustrating to Moscow, it apparently
feels continued support is necessary because of Afghanistan’s location.) The
considerable American disengagement from South Asia has both permitted
and necessitated a new Soviet look at the area. Moscow’s cautious approach
since the beginning of 1972 suggests that it is reluctant to assume much
responsibility for the economic development of such large and poor countries.
This reluctance has been most obvious as regards Bangladesh. Moscow,
along with India, was the beneficiary of widespread Bengali gratitude at the
time of independence. The Soviet leaders quickly moved to secure Bangla¬
desh’s support for Soviet foreign policy objectives—a support rather naively
extended by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman when he visited Moscow early in 1972.
The USSR also established trade relations and provided some economic aid,
but so far it has avoided any long-term aid commitments. Lack of the items
most needed by Bangladesh—foodstuffs and spare parts for damaged equip-
nient—probably was one reason, along with the long-standing Soviet prefer¬
ence for aiding specific projects rather than the more diffuse program aid that,
however essential at times, has little visibility or direct impact.
Yet one cannot escape the impression that more is involved—that the costs
appear too large and the gains too uncertain. Better to let others assume
responsibility for this unpromising situation. This stance—one hesitates to
call it a policy so soon—has already caused resentment in Bangladesh, as has
the persistent Soviet attempt to pressure the newly independent government
into giving the local Moscow-oriented Communists a greater role in public
affairs. But Moscow appears content to hold back until Bangladesh proves it
is a going concern.
Pakistan’s location endows it with greater importance than Bangladesh. Its
links with China and the United States, while annoying to Soviet leaders, also
give it a higher place on the Soviet agenda—a condition reinforced by its more
hopeful economic prospects. Moscow alternates between a hard and soft line
toward Pakistan in a manner that is more suggestive of careful calculation
than confusion or irresolution. Kosygin was openly critical of Pakistan during
President Bhuttos visit in March 1972, and the Soviet government has been
sharply critical of Bhutto’s domestic actions as well as his foreign policies on
more recent occasions.^® Some Pakistani officials appear convinced that
Moscow has even attempted to build secessionist movements in outlying areas
of the country as a means of influencing Pakistan.®^
On other occasions Moscow is quite conciliatory, seeing Bhutto’s reforming
stance and Pakistan’s departure from SEATO as offering better prospects for
Soviet-Pakistani relations.®® The most striking effort along these lines was
the Soviet decision in 1972 to move ahead with the construction of a one-
million-ton steel mill, although other projects have been approved and new
trade arrangements established. The Soviet Union’s efforts to rebuild its posi¬
tion in Pakistan by such moves are obviously attractive to Pakistanis; even
with the support obtained from oil-rich Middle Eastern countries, Pakistan
must take help wherever it can find it. But Pakistan is not so weak that it must
heed Soviet calls to normalize relations with India or bow to Soviet warnings
about continued close relations with China. Thus Moscow finds itself in
roughly the same position it was in between 1965 and 1971—hut with
fewer illusions about its ability to influence Pakistan’s basic foreign policy
orientation.
But India remains the key concern of Soviet leaders when they look at the
subcontinent, and they probably find it as difficult as Westerners to understand
a country so different from their own. They are aware of India’s virtually
unique political stability, but they wonder if it will last. They welcome the
growing popular demands on the government to pursue a more radical course,
but they wonder if New Delhi can satisfy rising aspirations without instilling a
stronger sense of discipline in the Indian people—and in the Indian govern¬
ment’s own councils. They recognize that their economic assistance has been
a major reason for their gains in India, but they wonder how much they would
gain from any major increase in their support.
Perhaps all that is necessary, at least for the next several years while
everything is so uncertain, is for the Soviet Union to maintain the position it
has already won. Even this would require occasional new economic aid agree¬
ments despite Indian talk of self-reliance—talk that diminished steadUy in
1972 and 1973 as India’s troubles multiplied—and perhaps a rescheduling of
India’s debt repayment obligations.®® (Such episodes as the loan of two
million tons of wheat in 1973 or the economic agreements signed durmg
Brezhnev’s November 1973 visit fit into a basic Soviet strategy of maintaining
rather than expanding the Soviet economic role.) Moscow would rely pri¬
marily on military and diplomatic support—proven instruments m past years
—to protect its interests.
This general approach, which is the most likely Soviet course, would not
preclude specific initiatives if the prospects for success were bright. It would
simply reflect a recognition that the South Asian countnes are intent upon
maintaining some measure of balance between the Soviet Union and the West,
and a Soviet awareness of the extensive costs of assuming greater responsi
ity for the progress of such large and poor countries. Thus the USSR will see
certain advantages in continued Western assistance for the nations of the
subcontinent, even while it regards the West as a competitor rather than a
partner. For however much Moscow would like to see the South Asian coun¬
tries adopt more radical domestic policies and a more pro-Soviet international
orientation, its gains over the past twenty years have given it a stake in the
stability of the subcontinent.
To be sure, a concern for the stability of bourgeois governments poses
ideological difficulties for a professedly revolutionary regime and the Soviets
will continue to speak of their aims more in terms of “peace” than of “sta¬
bility.” But the Soviet leaders are political realists, and the essence of such
realism is a recognition that world politics creates imperatives of its own and
that nations must cast their policies more in terms of their proximate aims
than on the basis of ultimate goals.
NOTES
1. For an excellent discussion of Soviet views of the different parts of Asia, see
Thomas P. Thornton, “The U.S.S.R. in Asia,” in Wayne Wilcox, et al., eds., Asia and the
International System (Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop, 1972).
2. Malcolm Mackintosh, “Some Aspects of Soviet Policy in Asia,” in Medley Bull, ed.,
Asia and the Western Pacific: Internal Changes and External Influences (Sydney: Angus
and Robertson for the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1974).
3. Soviet leaders focused briefly on South Asia in their negotiations with Nazi Ger¬
many over spheres of influence in the wake of the Soviet-Nazi pact in 1939, but the
negotiations centered on the future of Eastern Europe. Soviet efforts to seize a’share of
the spoils of the British Empire by gaining Nazi agreement that Soviet aspirations in¬
cluded the Persian Gulf as well as the Indian Ocean came to naught when the course of
war went differently than anticipated. See John C. Campbell, ‘The Soviet Union and the
Middle East: In the General Direction of the Persian Gulf,” Parts I and II, The Russian
Review, 29, nos. 2, 3 (April and July 1970).
4. See William J. Barnds, India, Pakistan and the Great Powers (New York: Praeger,
1972) for an analysis of the motivations of the American leaders at that time.
5- The CPI also suffered many serious internal weaknesses, which continue to hamper
the Indian Communist movement to this day. Its strength was confined to a few scattered
areas, its lack of nationalist appeal led it to rely on the grievances of particular castes
and linguistic groups, and it suffered from acute factional disputes. Its supporters were
drawn heavily from the more politically aware and active Hindu community, which
made it of little consequence in the areas that comprised Pakistan after partition. For a
^rvey of the history of the CPI and its relations with the Soviet Union, see Gene D.
Overstreet and Marshal Windmiller, Communism in India (Berkeley: University of Cali¬
fornia Press, 1959).
6. Stalin himself showed a few signs of recognizing this in his last year or so India’s
criticism of the West at certain stages of the Korean War and its unwillingness to sign
e Japanese peace treaty probably made some impression in Moscow. See Marshall
Shulman, Stalin’s Foreign Policy Reappraised (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1963). ^
7. Jawaharlal Nehru, “The Basic Approach,” AICC Economic Review 10, nos. 8 and
9 (New Delhi, August 15, 1958), pp. 3-6; P. Yudin, “Can We Accept Pandit Nehru’s
Approach?” World Marxist Review i, no. 4 (Toronto, December 1958), pp. 42-54-
8. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, Notes, Memoranda and Letters
Exchanged and Agreements Signed Between the Governments of India and China (White
Paper; September 8, 1959), pp. 13-1^-
9. Peking was uncertain and vacillating in its appraisal of Nehru at this time. On
May 6 the People’s Daily published a long article on India that referred to Nehru in a
friendly manner while criticizing him for certain aspects of his policy toward Tibet. See
“The Revolution in Tibet and Nehru’s Philosophy,” in Peking Review 2, no. 19 (May 12,
1959), PP- 73-76. - T U TJ,
10. Two excellent short studies of the Sino-Indian dispute are: Alastair Lamb, ihe
China-Indian Border: The Origins of the Disputed Boundaries (London: Oxford Univer¬
sity Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1964); W. F. Van Eekelen,
Indian Foreign Policy and the Border Dispute with China (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1964).
11. Pravda, September 10, 1959; in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press ii, no. 36
(October 7, 1959), P- M- .
12. This is discussed in Harish Kapur, The Soviet Union and the Emerging Nations
(London: Michael Joseph, 1972), pp. lo-'ji.
13. The most detailed treatment of the events leading up to the war is in Neville
Maxwell, India’s China War (New York: Pantheon, 1970). But Maxwell’s account must
be treated with some caution in view of his tendency to give China the benefit of every
doubt as far as responsibility for the conflict is concerned.
14. Pravda, October 25, 1962; in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press 14. no. 43
(November 21, 1962), p. 17. , -
15. Koslov referred to Chinese “adventurism” at the Italian Party Congress held in
December 1962: London Times, December 4, 1962. Similarly, Pravda lashed out at China
on August 10, 1963 (p. 4-)- ^ „
16. Robert F. Byrnes, “Russia in Eastern Europe: Hegemony Without Security,
Foreign Affairs 49. no. 4 (July 1971). PP- 682-697.
17. For a series of Western appraisals of the shifting Soviet viewpoint, see W. Ray¬
mond Duncan, ed., Soviet Policy in Developing Countries (Waltham, Mass.: Ginn Blais-
dell, 1970); the essay by R. A. Yellon, “Shifts in Soviet Policies Toward Developing
Areas: 1964-1968,” is particularly useful.
18. See, for example, G. Adhikari, “The Problem of the Non-Capitalist Path in India
and the State of National Democracy,” World Marxist Review 7, no. ii (Toronto, Nov¬
ember 1964), P- 39; V. Yakunin, “Problems of India’s Congress Party, New Times
(Moscow), March 2, 1966; and P. Nikolsky, “Nehru’s Pary Without Nehru, New Times
(Moscow), August II, 1966. _ r .U T
TO Tho TQ6a snlit was onlv the beginning of the fragmentation of the Indian Com-
22. Pravda, November 14, 1969; in The Curren

(December 10, 1969), p. i5i P- Kretsobin, Th
(Moscow), no. 47 (November 26, 1969). PP- 6-8
i8o The Soviet Impact on World Politics
23. Pravda, April 4, 1971; in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press 23, no. 14
(May 4, 1971), PP. 35-36.
24. G. W. Choudhury, “The Emergence of Bangladesh and the South Asian Triangle,”
The Yearbook of World Affairs: 1973 (London: London Institute of World Affairs-
Stevens, 1973), pp. 66-68.
25. I am indebted to Ian Clark of the Australian National University for pointing this
out to me. See his letter in Problems of Communism, November—December 1972, pp.
91—92, in response to my article, “Moscow and SJouth Asia,” Problems of Communism,
May-June 1972, pp. 12-31.
26. Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State, Communist States and
Developing Countries: Aid and Trade in 1971, RECS-3 (Washington, D.C., May 15,
1972), p. 18.
27. L. N. Raina, “India-U.S.S.R.: Widening Areas of Cooperation,” Indian and
Foreign Review (New Delhi), September i, 1971, pp. 9-10; Lev. L. Klochkovsky,
U.S.S.R. s Trade Patterns,’ International Trade Forum (Geneva), December 1970, pp.
17-29.
28. Although many Westerners have looked askance at this trend, Soviet leaders have
been disappointed by the modest pace of such developments. Leonid Brezhnev, at the
Twenty-fourth CPSU Congress in 1971, referred to such nations as Syria, Algeria, and
Burma as oriented toward socialism; India was only described as having undergone “pro¬
gressive social crfenges.” Soviet leaders can hardly justify their support for India by
claiming that it amounts to sponsoring revolution “from above” rather than “from
below”; the most it does is support radicalism from above. See Twenty-fourth Congress
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, March 30—April 9, 1971, Documents
(Moscow: Novosti Press, 1971), pp. 24-25.
29. For an appraisal of Soviet views, see Malcolm Mackintosh, “Moscow’s View of
the Balance of Power,” The World Today, March 1973, pp. 108-118.
30. Despite its support of India against China, the Soviet Union continued until re¬
cently to publish maps supporting Chinese border claims. These stirred up Indian
animosity on occasion, particularly since India had given some support to the Soviet
position in the Sino-Soviet border dispute. But an article published late in 1972 suggests
Moscow may be taking a more favorable attitude toward India’s position, which most
Indians would welcome but which would also make it more difficult for any Indian
government to obtain parliamentary approval of a compromise border settlement. See
G. V. Matveyev, “Political Machinations of Peking on the Indian Subcontinent,” Prob¬
lems of the Far East, December 1972; in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press 25 no
It (April II, 1973).
31- Pravda, June 30, 1972; in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press 24, no. 26
(July 26, 1972), pp. 18-19. Soviet leaders probably made such a statement in an effort
to keep the CPI oriented toward Moscow as part of their struggle with the Chinese in
the world Communist movement rather than on the basis of any hopes they have that
the CPI will play a major role in Indian political life.
32. For an appraisal, see Ian Clark, “The Indian Subcontinent and Collective Security
—Soviet Style,” The Australian Outlook 26, no. 3 (December 1972), pp. 315-325.
33- Georgi A. Arbatov, “Soviet-U.S. Relations and Japan,” The Mainichi Daily News,
November 2, 1972.
34. J. D. B Miller, “Summing Up of Discussion,” in Medley Bull, ed., Asia and the
Western Pacific: Towards a New International Order (Sydney: Angus and Robertson for
the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1973).
35. Even if India were willing, it has little power available to project beyond the sub-
contment, at least as long as it is at odds with China and Pakistan. Moreover the
Southeast Asian countries have shown little interest in close ties with India. See Stanley J.
Regional Case Studies on the Impact of Soviet Foreign Policy i8i
Heginbotham, “In the Wake of Bangladesh: A New Role for India in Asia?” Pacific
Affairs 45, no. 3 (fall 1972), pp. 372-386.
36. Izvestia, February 20, 1973; in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press 25, no. 8
(March 21, 1973), PP- 21-22. „ ^ -
37. See Anwar H. Syed, “Pakistan’s Security Problem: A Bill of Constraints, Orbis
16, no.4 (winter 1973), pp. 952-974-
38. Pravda, March 23, 1973—broadcast by Radio Moscow, Foreign Broadcast Infor¬
mation Service (Soviet Union), March 29, 1973; Izvestia, May i, 1973—broadcast by
Radio Moscow, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (Soviet Union), May 4, I973-
39. India’s trade with the USSR was roughly in balance until the early 1970s, when
payments for Soviet military and economic aid necessitated a substantial excess of Indian
exports over imports. Moreover India’s ability to produce much of its capital equipment
makes it harder for the Soviets to provide aid of the type they prefer-—project assis¬
tance—for India now needs foodstuffs and raw materials. These are items Moscow
periodically either lacks or does not like to provide as aid, although it will do so m a
limited way if necessary in an emergency such as the one India faced early in 1974-
9
Latin America
LEON GOURE
Dr. Leon Goure is professor of international studies and
director of Soviet studies at the Center for Advanced
International Studies, University of Miami, Coral Gables.
His publications include: The Siege of Leningrad, Soviet
Military Strategy (co-editor). Military Indoctrination of
Soviet Youth, Science and Technology as an Instrument
of Soviet Policy, Convergence of Communism and Cap¬
italism: The Soviet View, and Soviet Strategy in the
Seventies: From Cold War to Peaceful Coexistence.
The scope of Soviet relations with Latin America has been shaped by the
geographic remoteness of that region from the USSR, by the East-West bal¬
ance of power, and by the extent of the United States’ influence over its
southern neighbors.
Prior to the 1960s Latin America was of only marginal interest to Moscow.
The Soviet Union lacked the means to support an active policy in an area so
distant and seemingly under firm U.S. control, a condition that gave rise to the
concept of geographic fatahsm”—belief in the impossibility of successful
revolutions in close proximity to the United States. This perception was fueled
by the failure of various Communist-led revolts and U.S. reaction to Mos¬
cow’s support of the Arbenz regime in Guatemala in 1954, which led to the
latter’s overthrow.
Throughout this time, however, Soviet leaders showed an interest—albeit
not a very active one in the potential of Latin America as an arena where
growing nationalism and political ferment might weaken U.S. capitalism and
divert Washington’s attention from policies threatening the Soviet Union. For
example, a recent Soviet assessment asserts that “from the beginning of the
twentieth century, Latin America has become an active front in the struggle
against imperialism, especially North American imperialism.”^
But Soviet activities to exploit this struggle yielded little practical success.
Until the late 1930s the Comintern’s efforts to use the Latin American Com¬
munist parties for political subversion and abortive revolutions left a residue
of suspicion and hostility toward native Communist parties as well as the
Soviet Union. These activities undermined Moscow’s efforts to establish dip¬
lomatic and trade relations in Latin America. With the dissolution of the
182
Comintern and the shift of native Communist parties to a policy of coopera¬
tion with their respective governments, the Soviet Union did succeed in estab¬
lishing diplomatic relations with thirteen Latin American countries. But most
of these World War II gains did not survive the onset of the Cold War.
Nevertheless by the early 1960s this picture had changed significantly. The
Cuban Revolution, notably the unexpected survival of Castro’s regime in the
face of U.S. hostility, loomed—in Moscow’s view—as a momentous break in
U.S. dominance of Latin America and appeared to open the way for an
upsurge of pressures for political, social, and economic change on the con¬
tinent. Events in Cuba were said to demonstrate that the United States was no
longer able to slow down the revolutionary process in the Western Hemi¬
sphere, which it had long regarded as its own backyard. Soviet commentators
ascribed to the Cuban Revolution a “tremendous role ... in the development
of the subsequent revolutionary process in Latin America. ^ The Cuban ex¬
ample was used to show that the United States had become more constrained
in its responses to challenges to its interests in Latin America and con¬
sequently that there was no longer any need to exclude the possibility of
successful revolutions in the Western Hemisphere on grounds of “geographic
fatalism.” But Cuba’s impact on the “revolutionary process” in Latin
America proved far less than originally predicted.
Although the fortuitous events in Cuba provided the Soviet Union with a
much-needed political and psychological windfall in its competition with the
United States and its claims to leadership of the global national liberation
struggle, they also confronted Moscow with a variety of unanticipated diffi¬
culties. From the Soviet point of view Cuba proved an important experiment
in the problems of controlling, sustaining, and protecting a self-proclaimed
Communist regime in a country geographically remote from the USSR, as
well as a test of Soviet theories concerning the feasibility of rapid transforma¬
tion of an essentially agrarian society into an industrial one.
During the Cuban missile crisis Khrushchev discovered that, whUe Wash¬
ington was reluctant to resort to overt military intervention against Castro, it
was determined to exclude Soviet military presence from the region and to
impose severe limits on Soviet activities. Furthermore, while ffie Cuban ex¬
ample gave an impetus to the rise of a new radical left in Latin America—a
situation hardly welcomed by the orthodox Communist parties there—
Moscow considered it inexpedient to follow Castro’s lead in calling for violent
revolution and guerrilla warfare on the continent.
Instead the Soviet Union found itself not only with a growing commitment
to support the Cuban economy (which proved unsuited to rapid mdustnahza-
tion) but also, until 1968, in the position of competing with Castro’s claim to
leadership of the Latin American revolution. In the words of Cuba s
minister, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, Cuban-Soviet relations were marked by
“inevitable differences which on some occasions became acute.”^
But by 1968 the failure of the Cuba-supported guerrilla movements on the
continent, culminating in Che Guevara’s death in Bolivia in 1967, proved the

general validity of Moscow’s policy line of seeking relations with the existing
regimes in Latin America and urging a united front and a “peaceful road to
power” strategy on the left for most countries in that region. With the evi¬
dence of the inability of Castroism to repeat the Cuban success, and with
increasing Soviet economic leverage on Havana, Castro was left no other
option but to accept increasing alignment with Moscow and integration with
the Soviet bloc.
No doubt Cuba provided the Soviet Union with a hard lesson in the diffi¬
culties of maintaining a client state in Latin America. Nevertheless Moscow
succeeded—albeit at considerable cost—in upholding in Cuba the validity of
the Communist dictum concerning the “irreversibility” of successful revolu¬
tions. Above all Cuba marked the beginning of a new stage in Soviet interest
and involvement in Latin America.
SOVIET PERCEPTION OF LATIN AMERICA
If the decade following the Cuban Revolution was marked by a succession

of defeats for the “revolutionary process,” including the fall of the Joao
Goulart regime in Brazil in 1964 and the U.S. intervention in the Dominican
Republic in 1965, it nevertheless revealed a continuing upsurge of nationalist
and reformist movements in Latin America. In the late 1960s developments
in the region, notably the emergence of “revolutionary” military regimes in
Peru and Bolivia, followed in 1970 by the election in Chile of a Marxist
president, Salvador Allende, and his Popular Unity government, headed by a
coalition of the Socialist and Communist parties, led Soviet analysts to speak
once again of an “intensification of the revolutionary process” in Latin Amer¬
ica. By then the Soviet capability to play a more active role in the region had
also increased markedly.
The current Soviet interest in Latin America appears to be conditioned by
two basic perceptions. The first is the Kremlin’s belief that Latin America is
becoming an especially successful arena for the anti-imperialist and national
liberation struggle—a struggle that, in its view, remains the most active form
of Soviet competition with the West, and especially the United States, even
under conditions of “peaceful coexistence,” i.e., detente in East-West rela¬
tions.^ Thus the resolution of the World Peace Congress that met in Moscow
in October-November 1973 asserts that “the national liberation forces are
one of the main elements of the world anti-imperialist movement,” while
Soviet commentators speak of the “joint offensive” by “world socialism” and
the national liberation movement against imperialism and capitalism. The
second is the Soviet view of the strategic importance of Latin America for the
United States and, consequently, as a factor in influencing the East-West
balance of power.
The challenges to U.S. interests in the 1960s and 1970s on the part of
Peru, Panama, Ecuador, and for a time, Bolivia and Chile, and also the
possibility that such other states as Venezuela and Argentina might pursue
policies damaging to the United States, have generated within the Soviet
leadership an increasing interest in and, by and large, an optimistic view of
trends in Latin America.
Thus in April 1971 the resolution of the Twenty-fourth CPSU Congress
stated that “the anti-imperialist struggle of the people in Latin America is
growing even stronger.”® This was followed by an all-union conference of
Soviet Latin Americanists that concluded that “in Latin America, there exist
objective and subjective conditions for the flowering of Lenin’s theory of the
transition of democratic agrarian revolution to socialist revolution, as it hap¬
pened in Cuba and in other areas of the world.”® Finally, the most detailed
and authoritative overview of the Soviet perceptions of developments in Latin
America in 1971 was given by Boris Ponomarev, CPSU Central Committee
secretary and now candidate-member of the Politburo, who wrote in the
October 1971 issue of the CPSU journal Kommunist:
The victory of the Popular Unity bloc in Chile, the progressive changes in
Peru, and the serious successes achieved by the revolutionary struggle in
Uruguay and several other countries lead us to believe that the revolu¬
tionary process there [i.e., in Latin America] is continuing to develop at
a faster pace than in other parts of the non-socialist world. This is truly
a “continent in upheaval.”'^
Ponomarev justified this view on the grounds of the deepening social-

economic contradictions in and political polarization of Latin American
society, which were said to generate a growing anti-imperialist and anti¬
capitalist mass movement; the presence of a relatively strong working class
led by the Communist parties in some of the countries; and the region’s
traditions of “revolutionary liberation struggle.” (This view has been consis¬
tently reaffirmed in Soviet public pronouncements, not only up to the military
coup that overthrew the Allende regime in Chile in September 1973 but even
after that setback.)
These developments were perceived as a mounting assault on the U.S.
presence and interests in Latin America, and thus as politically able to alter
the global balance of power in favor of the Soviet Union. Thus, Ponomarev
asserted that the upsurge of the revolutionary movement in Latin America
was of “tremendous importance to the world revolutionary process and that
the changes taking place in that region “are having and undoubtedly will
continue to have a strong impact on the further changes in the correlation of
world forces in favor of the international working class and socialism.”
According to Soviet analysts, Latin America bears the unique distinction of
being characterized as the “strategic rear” of the United States—and thus
presumably the point at which significant damage can be done to U.S. power
and prestige. For example, an article in Kommunist asserted:
The U.S. ruling circles regard this region as their strategic rear, a sphere
of vitally important interests. U.S. industry draws from there a consider¬
able share of the raw materials it needs, including 40 to 100 per cent of its
imports of various strategic materials.®
Similarly, Boris Ponomarev wrote about the transformation of this “quite

reliable rear” of the United States into a “tremendous hotbed of anti-imperial¬
ist revolution” whose particular significance is that it is “developing alongside
the main citadel of imperialism, the United States.” Other commentators go
so far as to describe Latin America as “one of the most vulnerable sectors of
U.S. imperialism’s rear.”^
As a result of the transformation of a secure U.S. sphere of influence into a
leading area of anti-U.S. struggle, the United States presumably risks not only
losing access to its sources of strategic materials in Latin America but also
suffering other damage to its interests. This has been further underscored by
the U.S. energy crisis, which is said to have led the United States to intensify
its “oil offensive” in Latin America, and by growing United States concern
over access to and competition with other industrial powers for essential raw
materials.
Thus it is claimed that the United States assigns a major role in its global
strategy to Latin America, that it wishes to preserve and even expand its
military bases there, and that U.S. business interests seek to protect their large
investments in this “special preserve” from which they reap “enormous prof¬
its.” Furthermore, the United States is said to stand to lose its “voting bloc”
in the international organizations, and the other forms of united political sup¬
port Latin America used to provide Washington, and instead see the gov¬
ernments in that region increasingly lend their support to Soviet policies
on various global and hemispheric issues.
Moscow, of course, takes notes of the change in U.S. attitudes and policies
since the mid 1960s, that is, Washington’s unwillingness to resort to open
intervention or strong sanctions in Latin America. The United States is said to
no longer be in a position to “send the Marines,” and not even to “dare to use
the Hickenlooper Amendment.” Instead, it is said, the United States is being
“compelled to go on the defensive with increasing frequency.”^®
As is their wont, Soviet commentators ascribe this change first of all to the
shift in the balance of power in Moscow’s favor, which increases the Soviets’
ability to frustrate U.S. attempts to “export counterrevolution,” and to the
growing unity of Latin American and global anti-imperialist forces. While
some recognition is given to the possibility that this situation reflects a decline
in the attention the United States pays to Latin America, Soviet analysts
hasten to add that this show of indifference on Washington’s part is more
apparent than real. “In reality,” it is argued, “since Latin America remains
one of the chief areas of concentration of U.S. imperialist interests, the U.S.A.
has kept a watchful eye on it.”^^
In fact the United States is also accused of attempting more indirect,
subtle, and sophisticated methods of preserving its position and interest, in¬
cluding the instigation of plots to overthrow various regimes and an intensifi¬
cation of psychological and economic warfare. Soviet analysts warn that “the
stakes of the U.S. monopolies in Latin America are too high for the U.S. to
retreat without a fight,”^- thus suggesting that Soviet leaders remain uncer¬
tain about the true extent of U.S. sensitivities to developments in that region.
Although a characteristic feature of the current Latin American national
liberation struggle is said to be that it is directed “against the main imperialist
aggressor—the U.S.A.,” it is asserted that this struggle tends to broaden into
a general anti-capitalist struggle—which in turn will lead the countries to
seek a Communist path of development. Beyond this, however, the Soviet
assessment of the revolutionary process in Latin America has met with a
number of problems.
Although a general claim is made that a revolutionary situation already
exists in the region, it is also recognized that conditions vary greatly from
country to country, causing an uneven rate of development of the process. In
particular Soviet analysts note that the mix of modern capitalistic and feudal-
istic social and economic conditions and relationships give rise to an unusual
and “unexpected” constellation of forces and political and class alliances.
While denying the claims of some Latin American radicals and reformists that
this region is a “special world” where the revolutionary process and socialism
will assume unique forms, and asserting that the same Marxist-Leninist laws
of historical development apply there just as in all regions of the world, Soviet
analysts nevertheless admit that “the continent demonstrates to the world
interesting examples of new variations of developments, traces new paths in
revolution.”i3 poj- this reason Ponomarev drew the attention of the “Marxist
scientists” to the study of the revolutionary experience in Latin America.
This interest does not appear to be merely academic. At issue are various
important questions such as the feasibility of a direct transition to a socialist
revolution, the matter of a violent versus nonviolent form of revolutionary
struggle, and the problem of how to assess the “progressive” military regimes
and whether the local Communist parties should oppose or collaborate with
them. On all these issues the Soviet Union and the orthodox Communist parties
must decide whether to accept or reject the views of the radical left or the
reformist right, and thus whether or not to risk open criticism from one side
or the other.
Although a “revolutionary situation of a general character” is said to exist,
it is recognized that this does not mean that a concrete revolutionary situation
is present in every country or that conditions are ripe for a direct transition to
a socialist revolution, as is advocated by the radical left. In the Soviet judg-
ment, preconditions for the “socialist” transformation of society have existed
in reality in only a small number of countries—among them Argentina,
Brazil, Chile under Allende, Mexico, and Uruguay—but even there the social-
political conditions, including the weakness of the Communist parties,
indicate that the local parties are not ready to take power by themselves.
Therefore Moscow does not call for the Communists to seize power. Instead
it takes the view that the social, economic, and political conditions in Latin
America are such that these countries must first pass through a “people’s
democratic revolution” that will clear the way and lay the foundations for
a socialist revolution at some future time. V. Vol’skii, the director of the
Institute for Latin America of the USSR Academy of Sciences, flatly asserted:
Social-economic backwardness in these countries, plus the domination by

latifundism and the presence of strong, pre-capitalist relations in the
countryside, oppression by foreign monopolies—all this testifies to the
fact that the road to socialism on the continent lies basically through a
people’s democratic revolution.
While the specific forms of the people’s democratic revolution are expected
to vary from country to country, their main common feature is said to be the
struggle against U.S. influence and presence which, in the Soviet view, remains
the most urgent task.
From a practical viewpoint this position allows Moscow a great deal of
flexibility in its policies in Latin America. Not only can it simultaneously
reject the demands of the radical left for immediate socialist revolution and
those of the “reformists” for limited change but it can deal with the existing
regimes as well as promote united fronts—which, in addition to the Commu¬
nists, can include diverse petty bourgeois democratic and leftist parties. This
flexibility has been reflected in the public Soviet endorsement of such diverse
regimes as Castro’s self-proclaimed Communist rule, the elected Popular Unity
government of Salvador Allende in Chile, and the “progressive” military juntas
in Peru, Panama, and Ecuador.
Reduced to its lowest common denominator, the Soviet policy position is
that the Communist parties of Latin America “collaborate with and support
representatives of other parties and social strata “if they are in power and
carry out anti-imperiahst reforms.This leaves the Soviet Union as well as
the local Communist parties free to try to exploit the region’s growing nation¬
alism, which they realize is the dominant force for change in Latin America.
Although the anti-imperialist struggle is said to take diverse forms, it is
recognized that, despite the Cuban example, only two have “proved to be the
most effective” on the continent: the broad popular coalitions and the nation¬
alistic military regimes that carry out “progressive” policies and impose re¬
strictions on U.S. capital and the local oligarchies.
In 1970 the united front strategy received its greatest boost and apparent
vindication from the electoral victory in Chile of the Popular Unity coalition
led by Allende, which Soviet commentators hastened to describe as “second
only to the victory of the Cuban Revolution in the magnitude of its signifi¬
cance as a revolutionary blow to the imperialist system in Latin America.”^®
Moscow was quick to assert that the lessons of Chile were of great signifi¬
cance for the rest of the continent and called on all “progressive” forces
throughout Latin America to support the Allende regime and to follow the
Chilean example.
Obedient to the call, the Communist parties in a number of countries—
notably in Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Ecuador, El Salvador, Colombia,
Panama, Peru, and Venezuela—set out to organize united fronts, but none of
these attained any significant political strength or gained power.
Significantly, despite early Soviet optimism, Soviet comments underscored
the uniqueness of the Chilean case. Thus Brezhnev noted in his speech at the
Twenty-fourth CPSU Congress that this was “the first time in the history of
the continent” that such a government had come to power by constitutional
means,while a specialist on Latin America quoted Lenin’s sayings concern¬
ing the “extremely rare” and “extremely valuable” opportunities for revolu¬
tion without armed struggle. Even so, Soviet commentators also recognized
the precariousness of Allende’s regime as it sought to consolidate its position
and carry through the “revolutionary transformation of Chile” within the
framework of the constitution and largely by legal means. Both the Chilean
Communist leaders and the Soviet spokesmen warned that the revolution still
needed to be made irreversible. However, when the Chilean armed forces
overthrew the Allende regime, the Soviet Union could do little about it except
offer sympathy.
The Chilean case has brought to the fore a number of questions concerning
revolutionary violence and its correct use, as well as the manner in which the
“democratic” revolution can overcome the resistance of the opposition and
move toward the socialist phase. While no definitive post mortem on the
Chilean experience was published in iqVS? Teitelboim, a prominent mem¬
ber of the Central Committee of the Chilean Communist party who succeeded
in escaping, reaffirmed in the November 1973 issue of World Marxist Review
the validity of the united front strategy but acknowledged its failure to gain
the support of the Chilean middle class.
On the issue of violence, the Soviet line—while expressing a general pref¬
erence for the “peaceful road,” and also calling the radical left s insistence on
revolutionary violence as the only reliable way of seizing power adventur¬
istic” and “petty bourgeois romanticism”—does not repudiate a resort to
violence in principle either as a means of bringing leftist regimes to power or
in order to establish the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Nor does it exclude
a resort to iUegal forms of struggle alongside legal ones, even in countries
where the popular regimes have come to power by legal and peacefol
methods. An article in Izvestia of September ii, I973, asserts that, while
war between states must be banned, “we must not ‘ban’ civil or national
liberation wars, we must not ‘ban’ uprisings, and we by no means ‘ban’
revolutionary mass movements aimed at changing the political and social
status quo.”
Even while Moscow was promoting the Chilean example, most Latin
American Communist parties, although working to organize united fronts,
appeared to remain skeptical of the possibility of attaining power by peaceful
means and were inclined to view the armed struggle as “the most probable
one,” especially where the domestic or foreign opposition is seen as deter¬
mined to bar the way to a peaceful “people’s democratic revolution.While
this situation is said to apply to such countries as Guatemala, Haiti, Hon¬
duras, Nicaragua, and now Chile, it is noteworthy that Moscow does not
openly advocate armed struggle in Brazil and Paraguay.In the case of the
latter two countries, the Soviet leadership and the local Communists are well
aware that an armed uprising has little hope of success, and furthermore there
is an obvious Soviet foreign policy interest in developing relations with the
current regimes. Similarly, the overthrow of the “progressive” regime of Gen¬
eral Torres in Bolivia in August 1971 has not precluded the Soviet Union
from dealing with its conservative successor.
In the case of Chile, however, Soviet commitment to the support of the
Allende regime, and the violence of the military coup that overthrew it—
including the suppression of the Communist party and the arrest of some of
its leaders, notably the general secretary, Luis Corvalan, who is threatened
with execution—made such an accommodation with the junta impossible.
Instead the Soviet Union has sought to exploit as well as promote worldwide
condemnation of this overthrow of a constitutionally elected government and
to use this to conduct anti-U.S. propaganda by claiming that the United States
directed and supported the coup. Furthermore, the Soviet Union is openly
calling for the overthrow of the new military regime and has pledged its
support to that end.^^
As for the question of the duration of the transition period from the stage
of the people’s democratic revolution to a socialist revolution, the discussions
in Soviet publications indicate that the Cuban example of a highly compressed
transition period is not viewed as the norm and that generally the process is
expected to be a protracted one. As noted, in the Soviet view only a few Latin
American countries are sufficiently developed economically to provide a base
for such a transition, and even there the democratic revolution must first lay
the groundwork and create favorable economic, political, and social precondi¬
tions before such a transition can be successfully attempted. Furthermore, as
Soviet comments indicate, the prospects of either form of revolution depend
to a great extent on the attitude of the armed forces. Ponomarev stressed that
the form of a revolutionary development—as has been confirmed by the
entire historical experience—largely depends on the position adopted by the
army.”2i Writing in 1971, he noted that the neutrality of the Chilean armed
forces had assured Allende’s coming to power and contrasted this with the
cases of Brazil and Bolivia, where the military had helped the “counterrev¬
olution” to gain the upper hand. Therefore, Ponomarev concluded, “a great
deal depends on the position of the army,” and he prophetically warned that
the “progressive” forces in Chile were struggling to prevent a “repetition of
the Bolivian events.”
Prior to the coup that overthrew the Allende regime, Soviet analysts took a
generally optimistic view of the attitude of the Chilean armed forces toward
the regime. Much to their delight, the armed forces appeared willing to co¬
operate with Allende (to the point that senior officers joined his government
and took ministerial posts) and to protect the regime against violence on the
part of rightists as well as extreme leftist elements. Some experts came to the
conclusion that the majority of the Chilean soldiers, like Chile’s youth in
general, supported the government and were unhkely to obey orders aimed at
its overthrow. Nevertheless, by late August 1973 Soviet commentators noted
the efforts of rightist elements to “split the Chilean armed forces” and to
encourage their “reactionary” officers to carry out a coup d’etat. The coup
made it all too obvious that the Allende regime had failed to radicalize the
armed forces or establish effective controls over them. In the aftermath, one
of the most important lessons learned from this experience is said to be that
the “revolution must know how to defend itself,” but how this is to be
accomplished is not spelled out.
The issue of the role of the military in general, and in particular the
military regimes in the so-called anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America,
has raised some ideological as well as policy problems for the Soviet Union.
Initially, Moscow dismissed the military takeover in Peru and BoUvia as just
another few reactionary coups. But when these regimes nationalized U.S. oil
interests and entered into direct conflict with Washington, Moscow changed
its mind and somewhat gingerly proclaimed them to be “progressive and
worthy of support. Thereafter this “new phenomenon,” as Ponomarev termed
it, underwent extensive scrutiny. “Simplistic anti-militarism perceiving the
military as merely an instrument of the ruling class—is condemned and it is
recognized that the military is a part of society and consequently responsive to
social-political developments.
Thus, as the officer corps of various armed forces comes to be recruited
from the middle class and petty bourgeoisie, it identifies with their aspirations
and becomes imbued with their nationalism and desire for change. When the
officers have been taught at military institutions by instructors “who held
progressive views,” as in Peru, and there occurs a sharpening of the class
struggle, the military men who take power may pursue truly “progressive
domestic and foreign policies.^^
But the progressive character of these regimes has its limits. For instance,
analysts note that the military regimes “have no direct links with any party,
follow an indefinite program,” and claim to make “unnecessary the existence
of revolutionary Communist parties.At the same time, however, they

clear the way for development, carry out social and economic reforms at the
expense of the ohgarchies, and protect the national interest and wealth against
foreign imperialists. It is argued, of course, that their reformist policies can
only succeed if they have the support of the popular masses and of their
vanguard, the Communist parties. In return the military leaders are assured
that “the united anti-imperialist popular fronts formulated under the leader¬
ship of the Communists are a reliable support for the progressive military
governments” and that they can remain in power if they “understand the
requirements of objective development and are able to move from ‘super
social’ positions to the positions of the revolutionary class.
The ambiguity of the Communist parties’ position under such regimes is
reflected in a statement by the general secretary of the Peruvian Communist
party:
As we see it, in Peru we are witnessing an anti-imperialist and anti-

oligarchic revolution with anti-capitalist overtones. It is part of the Latin
American revolutionary process, even though of a different level and
with a different balance of class forces dissimilar to that of Cuba and
Chile. The Communists are actively involved and working to deepen the
revolution. Supporting the military government’s progressive measures,
we strive to impart to the masses an outlook favoring socialism.
Even so, Moscow s mistrust of the military leaders and its uneasiness as to
their future course is evident in repeated warnings that these regimes are not a
substitute for revolution and that their role in the national liberation move¬
ment in Latin America ‘ should not be overrated, all the more so as one still
must expect reactionary military coups to occur.’’ê It is also stressed that in
the light of the Chilean experience there is “new urgency” in reexamining the
role of the armed forces in Latin America.
Moscow is well aware that the Latin American military leaders have before
them two basic models to chose from: Brazil and Peru. Soviet propaganda is
naturally anxious to stress the significance of the latter as well as that of other
regimes where the military plays a “progressive” role, as in Panama, Ecuador,
and formerly Chile. While it is acknowledged that the Peruvian model cannot
be “textually transplanted” to other countries where conditions are quite dis¬
similar, it is argued that because these countries “are faced with identical social
and economic problems and are confronted with a common enemy—Yankee
imperialism the military throughout the continent follow developments in
Peru with special attention.
Moscow also claims to see signs of restlessness and of “important changes”
taking place in the political attitudes of various elements of the military in
Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, and “even in the armies as depen¬
dent on the Pentagon as those of Paraguay, Brazil, and Haiti.”28 It is alleged
that there is a growing trend among the Latin American armed forces to
refuse to take directions from the Pentagon or continue to defend the interests
of the United States or its allies, the local oligarchies.
Essentially, however, Soviet policies in Latin America appear to be prag¬
matic and unencumbered by heavy ideological baggage, except to the extent
that Soviet perceptions and analyses of developments and opportunities in
Latin America are largely in terms of the constellation and balance of
strength of social-economic classes. Moscow seems content to try to ride the
wave of nationalism sweeping that continent, especially insofar as it erodes
U.S. positions and influence. Consequently, at the present stage at least, any
regime can qualify for Soviet support if its policies conflict with those of the
United States, especially if it establishes diplomatic and trade relations with
Moscow, nationalizes or restricts U.S. business interests and investments,
demands the withdrawal of U.S. military bases or installations from its terri¬
tory, supports Soviet positions on various international issues, and gives in¬
dications of willingness to reestablish relations with Cuba. This last point is
perceived primarily as a gesture of defiance of the United States and its
control over the Organization of American States and as proof of a country’s
determination to conduct its foreign policy independent of Washington. Since
1969 the unilateral reestablishment of relations with Cuba by Chile under
Allende, Peru, Guyana, the English-speaking Caribbean islands, and Argen¬
tina, in May 1973, has been hailed by Moscow as further evidence of the
decline of U.S. influence in Latin America and as another indication of a
trend toward unity in opposition to the United States.^®
Soviet leaders have repeatedly and publicly assured all countries struggling
for independence from “imperialist domination” that they can rely on un¬
selfish” Soviet assistance. This policy remains unchanged by the East-West
detente, especially since Soviet competition with the United States in less
developed regions of the world, including Latin America, has been consis¬
tently and unequivocally excluded by the Soviet leadership from all restrictions
imposed by the principles of “peaceful coexistence” on relations among the
great powers. No doubt the Soviet Union would like to exploit opportunities
that present themselves in Latin America at the least cost and with a mini¬
mum of risk of confrontation with the United States. However, by trying to
give the impression of offering Latin American countries an alternative to de¬
pendence on the United States and by encouraging them to nationalize U.S.
business or restrict U.S. investments, the Soviet Union unavoidably acquires
clients and commitments for continued support. Furthermore criticism from
the radical left and competition with the growing Chinese economic and dip¬
lomatic activities in the region also put pressure on Moscow to expand its
involvement and, in particular, to help assure the survival of the regimes it
endorses.
The Soviet leaders are aware, of course, that such involvement is not
without political and economic risks. Despite these uncertainties, the Soviet
view of developments in the Southern Hemisphere is optimistic. Ponomarev

had predicted that, “despite individual failures and declines, the revolutionary
movement on the continent has far from reached its peak, and will continue
its ascending movement,”^® This view was echoed by the Uruguayan Com¬
munist party leader, R. Arismendi, in an article in Pravda on February 20,
1973. Similarly Brezhnev, in a speech on December 21, 1972, spoke of
ongoing “far-reaching anti-imperialist and democratic changes” in Latin
America.
Another Soviet analysis published in May 1973 listed a succession of gains
during 1972 by the Latin American national liberation struggle and, while
acknowledging the possibility of “temporary reverses in some countries,”
went on to claim that the “revolutionary process” is “irreversible on a con¬
tinent-wide scale.From this the author drew the conclusion that de¬
velopments in Latin America “will undoubtedly continue to exert a most
profound influence on the changing world relationship of forces in favor of
the international working class, and of socialism”—that is, the Soviet Union.
Soviet public pronouncements assert that the military coups in Chile and
Uruguay are only “temporary” setbacks and not indicative of a general ebb of
the liberation struggle in Latin America, and they continue to insist that the
“liberation movement” in Latin America as a whole is constantly expanding
as new social and political forces join the “anti-imperialist” struggle.
SOVIET POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH LATIN AMERICA
In recent years Soviet efforts to expand relations with Latin America have
benefited from the progressive detente in East-West relations, the region’s
increasing self-assertion and search for new markets, and the improved Soviet
economic and scientific-technological capabilities to develop trade and aid
contacts with distant countries. As a result, after the mid-1960s the Soviet
Union was largely successful in its efforts to establish or renew diplomatic
relations with the countries of Latin America. At the height of the Cold War
in the late 1950s and early 1960s Moscow enjoyed diplomatic relations only
with Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, and Uruguay, which were joined in
1964 by Chile. After 1967? however, the political chmate became more propi¬
tious. Despite their continuing distrust of Soviet motivations and intentions,
and some persistent fear of Communist subversion, the majority of the South
American countries established relations with the Soviet Union; Colombia in
1968; Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia in 1969; Venezuela and Guyana in 1970;
and Costa Rica in 1971.^3 Guatemala and Nicaragua have not exchanged
diplomatic missions with Moscow, while Guyana, which had only accredited a
roving Soviet ambassador, agreed to exchange missions in March 1973. In
response to the overthrow of the Allende regime, the Soviet Union broke
diplomatic relations with Chile on September 21, 1973. Chile thus joined
Paraguay as the only two countries in South America without diplomatic
relations with the Soviet Union.
Soviet commentators have chosen to interpret these developments as an
indication of the Latin American drive for independence from U.S. tutelage
and a gesture of defiance of Washington’s efforts to isolate them from contacts
with the Communist bloc. Brezhnev has acknowledged that the question of
establishing relations with the Soviet Union is a politically sensitive issue for
many less developed countries, but he argued that they learn from experience
that “friendship with the Soviet Union facilitates their successful struggle
against imperialism and for genuine independence,” and he further noted that
“our cooperation with many Latin American countries has been making con¬
siderable headway of late.”^^
Soviet propaganda in Latin America sought to exploit the May 1972 Mos¬
cow summit agreements and to assert that the principles of “peaceful coexis¬
tence” stand in direct contradiction to “the policy of blocs” organized against
the “so-called danger of communism or the threat from the Soviet Union.”
The governments of the region have been urged to further expand their rela¬
tions with the Communist countries in that light. Indeed there has been a
marked increase in recent years in the visits by Latin American officials to the
Soviet Union.
No doubt Latin American willingness to establish relations with the Soviet
Union has been motivated in part by the general nationalistic and, at times,
leftist trends in that region. The continent has also taken its cue from shifts in
Western and especially U.S. policies and attitudes vis-a-vis the Soviet Union,
and from Washington’s apparent lower sensitivity to Soviet diplomatic and
trade activities in that region. Not only has Latin America’s fear of the Soviet
Union declined but its attitude toward the native Communist parties also has
changed. By comparison with the radical left and the Castro-inspired guerrilla
movements, the pro-Soviet Communist parties—with their peaceful road to
power programs and united front strategy—appear ‘ conservative and non¬
revolutionary. However, the Communist parties remain either banned or in a
semilegal status in many countries of South and Central America.
Above all, however, the principal motivation has been economic, as many
of the countries in the region search for new markets for their agricultural
surpluses and manufactured goods and for new sources of technology and
development investments. In some cases, such as Chile and Peru, disputes
with the United States over nationalization policies have encouraged a look to
Moscow as a possible alternative for losses in U.S. investments, especially
since the Soviet Union has supported their position against Washington.
But various incidents indicate that Latin American suspicions of Soviet
intentions and activities are easily aroused and have led to repeated charges of
Soviet interference in the internal affairs of various countries as well as the
expulsion of a number of Soviet diplomats. Expulsions have occurred in

Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, where Soviet representa¬
tives were accused of engaging in various subversive activities. A number of
Latin American countries have also shown sensitivity to the considerable size
of the Soviet missions on their territory, which appear disproportionately
large for the actual level of Soviet diplomatic and trade activities.^® But it is
noteworthy that, in contrast to the past, the various incidents have not re¬
sulted in a rupture in relations with the Soviet Union.
Insofar as Soviet political activities are concerned, Moscow has cham¬
pioned Latin America’s sovereignty and independence and the countries’ right
to control their own natural resources—which allegedly are being “plun¬
dered” by the United States. Thus Yakov Malik, the Soviet representative at
the U.N. Security Council meeting in Panama City in March 1973, assured
the Latin Americans that “the USSR supports the demands of the Latin
American countries in regard to their sovereignty and natural resources.” He
also said that the Soviet government “is opposed to every attempt to exercise
direct or indirect pressure” on them, obviously referring to Washington’s
threat of economic sanctions against countries that nationalized U.S. busi¬
nesses without compensation.^®
Moscow’s propaganda has been loud in its support of the nationalization
policies of Chile under Allende as well as Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, and
of Panama’s demands for sovereignty and control over the Canal Zone. But
Soviet support has been less emphatic in the dispute of Ecuador and Peru
with the United States over tuna fishing and their claims—as well as those of
several other Latin American countries—to 200 miles of territorial waters, a
claim Moscow itself does not recognize, although Peking does. While asserting
that the might of the Soviet Union is an important factor in deterring the
United States from attempts to reimpose its dominance in Latin America by
force, Moscow also has been careful not to commit itself explieitly to any
action, political or military, in the event that the United States were to try to
reimpose itself. Even Cuba, which became a full member of Comecon in July
1972, does not have a formal defense treaty with the Soviet Union.
Soviet support of the Latin American Communist parties generally appears
to be routine. The Kremlin is undoubtedly well aware of the fact that for the
most part these parties are small, split by internal dissent and purges, and
have only limited popular support. Except in Argentina, they have relatively
little control over local labor unions, although they have some influence among
the intellectuals and students. However, at times their influence exceeds their
size because the parties are more disciplined and have a more experienced
leadership than other groups on the left and because they can count on some
financial assistance from the Soviet Union. The USSR has underscored its
interest by sending various high-ranking CPSU members to attend some of the
Latin Ameriean Communist party congresses, notably those of the Chilean
party, prior to the 1973 coup, and has to some extent attempted to woo actual
or potential allies of these parties, such as the Chilean Socialist party. Beyond
this, however, Soviet policy gives indications of not being overly concerned
with the interests of the local Communist parties, while giving priority to
efforts to develop relations with and influence among the existing regimes.
A special target of Soviet and Communist party propaganda is the Latin
American military whose role, as noted above, is believed critical to the
national liberation and anti-U.S. struggle. The Communist parties have been
trying to reassure the military groups that they do not advocate their dissolu¬
tion, as happened in Cuba, but on the contrary are in favor of maintaining the
regular armed forces and, far from being anti-military, defend the professional
interests and welfare of these forces. Thus, it is asserted that
. . . the Communists of the countries of the continent pay special atten¬

tion to the defense of the professional interests of the military, and
demand improvements in their material conditions, which acquires
great significance in circumstances where the reactionaries seek to place
the military in opposition to the working class and other strata of the
toilers.
While in power, Allende sought to neutralize the Chilean armed forces and
prevent a military coup by raising military pay and providing other benefits.
But the main Communist line, as described in Soviet sources, is to exploit the
dissatisfaction of Latin America’s military with U.S. restrictions on the sale of
sophisticated arms and U.S. insistence on making internal security and coun¬
terinsurgency their primary mission. This U.S. policy is said to come increas¬
ingly into conflict with the professional interests of the armed forces on the
continent,” which reportedly wish to acquire modern weapons and develop
their own armaments industry.^® The Communists therefore pay increasing
attention to propagandizing Marxist ideas concerning the army [i.e., the
organization role and mission of the armed forces] among the military and
even go so far as to translate Soviet military texts in an effort to show that
they are in favor of military professionalism and against U.S. restrictive pol-
icics.^^
Presumably this Communist strategy is based on the idea that it is “ex¬
tremely important to radicalize the attitudes in the military ranks m order to
deepen the liberating anti-imperialist process.’’^^" The military coup m Chfle
has given added emphasis to the “vital necessity” to “democratize”—that is,
radicalize—the armed forces. As for practical measures to that end, some
Soviet analysts suggest more intensive propaganda among the military, re¬
cruiting a larger portion of the officers and soldiers from the lower social
strata so as to neutralize those with a bourgeois social background, and
reducing the dependence of the armed forces on the impenalist powers for
their armaments and training by obtaining these from the Soviet Union. How¬
ever, nothing is said about how a “progressive” regime—as, for example, that
of Allende in Chile—should go about accomplishing this “democratization”
in the face of the armed forces’ opposition to such measures.
The Soviet Union in turn has used the low-key approach of encouraging—
when the military has been amenable—visits of various military delegations to
the Soviet Union and Cuba where they can inspect Soviet arms and equipment
and, in the latter case, see evidence of Soviet generosity in providing in excess
of $2 billion worth of military assistance to its Cuban client. Since 1970 such
visits have become increasingly frequent, involving not only delegations from
Chile and Peru but also from a number of other countries. Side by side with
this, Soviet and Communist propaganda has been campaigning for the
closing of all U.S. military bases and facilities in Latin America, charging
that they constitute an infringement of sovereignty and a form of U.S.
domination.
So far Moscow has not scored any significant breakthrough, although it is
reported to have offered the Allende government a $50 million credit on very
favorable terms for the purchase of arms and equipment—which, however,
the Chilean armed forces refused to take advantage of—and it has sold a
limited number of helicopters and tanks to Peru.^^ Latin America’s military
leaders have proved themselves suspicious of Soviet blandishments and have
shown a marked preference for U.S. and Western European arms and equip¬
ment, which do not pose the same f)olitical and technical problems as similar
purchases from the Soviet Union. Nevertheless Moscow keeps trying and its
arms sale to Peru may provide it with an opening for larger sales to that and
other countries in the region in the future.
The possibility of such a development has been viewed with some uneasi¬
ness, if not alarm, by the more conservative regimes, notably those of Brazil,
Bolivia, and now Chile. One may also note in this connection that, although
the increased Soviet naval activities in the Caribbean and the Soviet efforts to
develop a submarine base at Cienfuegos in Cuba evoked little reaction in Latin
America, suspicions concerning Soviet military intentions are reflected in the
persistent rumors and occasional press reports (despite emphatic denials by the
respective governments) that several fishing ports being built with Soviet
assistance in Peru, and earlier also in Chile, were intended to serve as Soviet
naval bases.
Finally, Soviet propaganda after the Moscow summit meeting has con¬
tinued its practice of criticizing and denouncing Latin American tours and
fact-finding trips by high-ranking U.S. officials as weU as all of Washington’s
proposals for developing new kinds of relationships with the countries of the
region. Thus Secretary of State William P. Rogers’ tour of Latin America in
May 1973, and his proposal to place U.S. relations with the countries of that
region on a more bilateral basis tailored to their individual wishes and needs,
were described in the Soviet media as a U.S. attempt to divide the united anti-
Regional Case Studies on the Impact of Soviet Foreign Policy I99
U.S. front of the countries “even before it has gained strength” in order to
benefit Washington.
SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
The Soviet diplomatic and political drive in Latin America has been paral¬
leled by an expansion of Soviet economic relations with the countries of the
region. These activities became especially notable after 1969? when develop¬
ments in Latin America not only offered Moscow opportunities for such an
expansion but also generated pressures on it to assist the new “progressive”
regimes.
While Cuba remains the predominant recipient of Soviet aid and trade,
this expensive experience has not deterred Moscow from extending substantial
offers of aid to other Latin American nations wherever it deemed this to be in
the Soviet political interest. Until recent years the modest level and slow
growth of Soviet aid and trade in Latin America appeared to support Ae
thesis that the “lesson of Cuba” had convinced the Soviets to avoid making
large economic commitments to countries in that region.
But more recent experience indicates that, given the importance Moscow
attributes to the anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America, it is aware that
political endorsement of this struggle and of emerging “progressive” regimes
unavoidably entails providing them with economic support. Therefore the
earlier low level of Soviet economic activities in the region was more indica¬
tive of a lack of opportunity than a fundamental unwillingness to assume the
burden. It would appear, however, that the Soviet leadership has learned from
its earlier foreign aid programs to be more cautious about supporting the
rapid industrialization of developing countries, to be more selective in its
choices of assistance, to avoid overcommitments, and to pay more attention
to the cost effectiveness of projects it is asked to support. At the same time it
should be recognized that the case of Cuba is probably unique since fi is
highly unlikely—given the resources of the continental South American
countries—that any one of them would become “another Cuba” m terms of
similar dependence on the Soviet Union for aid and as a market.
From the Soviet viewpoint economic relations with the Third World are o
political more than economic significance and are perceived as an instrument
in the East-West competition to gain influence among less developed coun¬
tries. Thus a candid statement in Izvestia made it clear that
The Soviet Union does not conceal the fact that foreign economic rela¬
tions with the developing countries are one of the components of the
struggle of the two world systems—the socialist and the capitalist. Such
relations undermine the imperialist powers’ monopoly of economic and
trade links with the developing countries and force the capitalist states
to make concessions.^^
In the aftermath of the May 1972 Moscow summit, Soviet broadcasts to

Latin America pointed up the political significance of expanded trade rela¬
tions with the Soviet Union by arguing:
As can be judged from the Soviet-U.S. agreements, the policy of peaceful

coexistence inevitably requires that it be confirmed by normal trade and
economic relations. . . . Liquidation of . . . artificial restrictions [on such
relations] broadens the possibilities for Latin American countries of
developing trade and economic links with the socialist countries, that is,
it opens up the possibility of multilateral trade. And multilateral trade and
economic links require the weakening of the unilateral dependence of
the Latin American nations on the U.S. monopolies.^®
That Soviet economic aid and trade in Latin America reflect predominantly
Soviet political interests and objectives is evident from the fact that the Soviet
Union buys few of the “strategic” materials produced there and maintains a
substantial deficit in its trade with the region, importing mainly goods that are
not of major significance for the Soviet economy at the present stage.
Moscow is careful to avoid any indication that it is prepared to completely
replace the capitalist countries as a source of investments, aid, and technol¬
ogy. But it persistently asserts that, by expanding economic relations with the
Soviet bloc, the less developed countries (including those in Latin America)
can escape from economic and political domination by the Western mon¬
opolies, and thus from a neocolonial status, and attain independence. Of
course it is argued that Soviet aid, in contrast to that of the United States, is
disinterested, has no political strings, and is designed to benefit all parties.
Prior to 1967 the Soviet Union had granted significant commercial credits
for the purchase of Soviet machinery and equipment only to Argentina ($45
million) and Brazil ($85 million). The other East European countries had
provided $231 million in credits, also predominantly to Brazil. Soviet aid
policies thereafter reflected both the expansion of relations with Latin Amer¬
ica and Moscow s response to the political changes taking place in the various
countries. Thus in 1967 the “reformist” Christian Democratic government of
President Eduardo Frei of Chile was granted $55 million in Soviet credits. In
1968 Moscow gave $2 million in credits to Colombia, and in 1969 a total of
$20 million to Uruguay. In the same time period the other Communist coun¬
tries provided a total of $36 million in credits to Argentina, Chile, Ecuador,
and Uruguay. By the end of 1969 the Soviet Union had issued a total of $207
million in credits and loans to five Latin American nations (aside from Cuba),
and other members of the bloc had provided a total of $267 million to six
countJs, representing increases over 1967 of 12 and 9 percent, respec-
The next two years saw a sharp increase in Communist credits and loans,
primarily in response to political developments in Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. In
1970 the Soviet Union granted the Torres regime in Bolivia $28 million for
the purchase of Soviet equipment, and a similar amount to Peru, while Costa
Rica received $10 million. That same year Eastern Europe provided a total of
$51 million, of which Peru received $25 million.In 1971 the Soviet bloc
began a policy of support of the Allende regime in Chile. The Soviet Union
renewed the $55 million credit it had granted the previous government, which
had remained unused, and provided an additional credit for the purchase of
Soviet equipment to the amount of some $36 million. At the same time the
other members of the bloc increased their credits and loans to Chile from $5
million in 1970 to $100 million in 1971. Communist China also began to
provide development credits to Latin America with a grant of $2 million to
Chile in 1971.^®
In 1972 Soviet credits to Chile increased by $168 million to a cumulative
total of $259 million for the purchase of complete plants as well as machinery
and equipment. In addition it appears that in the course of the year Moscow
granted Chile some $100 million in short-term credits, possibly in convertible
currency, to finance imports of food and critical raw materials.^® The other East
European countries increased their credits to Chile by some $20 million to
$120 million; Peking expanded its credits and loans to $65 million; and
North Korea granted Chile a credit of $5 million. Thus the cumulative total of
all Communist credits and loans to Chile rose to $549 million by the end of
1972, which represented an increase of 915 percent in two years. Moscow was
also reported to have offered the Chilean state foreign trade agency Corfo $40
million for Communist credits to private enterprises.
In that same period Communist credits to Peru also increased. Starting with
only $6 million in East European credits in 1969, Peru received a total of $53
million in Communist credits in 1970, a further $86 million in 1971, and
some $100 million in 1972 for a cumulative total of some $245 million.
In the case of Peru, however, Soviet credits increased by only $8 million
during that two-year period, apparently reflecting Lima’s hesitations as to how
to spend these credits and Moscow’s uneasiness about the political character
of the ruling junta. Nevertheless Soviet credits in 1972 included an agreement
to finance a preliminary survey of the Olmos irrigation and hydroelectric
power project—which the Soviet Union had refused to assist in 1969 despite
the urging of the Peruvian Communist party and whose total cost has been
estimated at $375 million.^*’
Communist aid to Peru includes a $42 million credit from China, granted
in 1971; a total of $36 million from the Soviet Union; some $167 million
from East European countries. China is also reported to have agreed in 1972
to provide a credit of some $26 million to Guyana for the purchase of
machinery for a textile plant and a paper mill.®^ Additional small credits
were provided in 1970—1972 by the East European countries to Bolivia ($26
million) and Ecuador and Colombia ($5 million each).
Cumulative Soviet credits and loans to Latin America (exclusive of Cuba)
therefore increased from $207 million in 1969 to $301 million in 1971 and
approximately $565 million in 1972. At the same time cumulative Commu¬
nist credits and loans to Latin America (exclusive of Cuba), which stood at
$431 million in 1967 and $474 million in 1969, reached approximately $1.3
billion by the end of 1972. (Some additional Soviet and East European
credits and loans were reported to have been granted during the first half of
1973-) The Soviet Union is also reported to have shown interest in participat¬
ing in major hydroelectric projects associated with the development of the
Plate River basin, which involve Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The possibility of Soviet participation in other large-scale projects has also
been rumored from time to time.
Most Soviet and other Communist credits and loans are repayable in goods
rather than hard currency, including manufactured goods, which Latin Amer¬
ican countries are eager to sell. The long-term credits provide for low interest
rates and long repayment periods, usually ten to twelve years. In the case of
Soviet credits the interest rates are usually 3 percent for the state sector and
3.5 percent for the private sector; in the case of Chile under Allende, how¬
ever, the interest rates were 2 to 2.5 percent for the state sector, reflecting the
country’s special status as a “progressive” state. The intrusion of China as a
lender into Latin America has brought pressure on Moscow to increase its aid
and provide favorable terms, especially as Chinese credits are for the most
part interest-free and repayable over twenty years.
The granting of Soviet and other Communist credits does not necessarily
mean that the recipient countries are willing to utilize them. This was partic¬
ularly true prior to 1969 and Moscow blamed it on the “opposition of reac¬
tionary circles.” The utilization of Soviet credits was prevented not only by
the opposition of such circles but also by Latin American suspicions about the
suitability of Soviet equipment and the availability of spare parts, as well as
reluctance to send technicians to be trained in the Soviet Union or to accept
large numbers of Soviet technicians at home.
But in recent years Latin America has shown an increasing disposition to
make use of Communist credits. This has been the case not only among
“progressive” regimes like those of Chile under Allende and Peru but also
among conservative ones like Brazil and Bolivia. The Communist credits are
used primarily to strengthen the state economic sector and in projects for
which Western financing is difficult to obtain, such as the construction of
fishing ports in Chile and Peru. The aid includes the purchase of complete
plants as well as machinery and equipment for various projects and technical
assistance in electrification, mining, transportation, health and education,
prospecting for oil and minerals, fisheries, and so on.
There is no reason to assume that Soviet bloc credits reflect a coordinated
policy or effort in all areas. Unlike the Soviet Union, the other Communist
countries appear to have a genuine need for imports of various minerals and
raw materials from Latin America. Chile under Allende, however, appears to
have been an instance of a joint effort by the Soviet bloc under Moscow’s
leadership to assist industrial development and make available technical assis¬
tance to replace that previously provided from U.S. sources. Thus, a Soviet
report in June 1971 states that “the Soviet Union and other socialist countries
in Europe will help Chile build more than twenty large industrial enterprises
for a total value of over 100 million dollars.”®^ Although the Allende regime
was faced with a sharp decline in Western aid and investments, Soviet bloc
aid to Chile did not bear the character of an economic “rescue” effort as it
had in the Cuban case v,?hen the United States severed relations with Havana.
In fact, Moscow appears to have been either reluctant or unable to fully
satisfy Allende’s urgent need to overcome Chile’s serious shortages in food
and consumer goods, although it did provide some short-term credits for this
purpose and shipped a certain amount of wheat to Chile (124,600 tons in
1971)-
At the same time, however, the Soviet bloc did show its willingness to assist
Chile’s economic development in an effort to strengthen the position of the
Allende regime. Central Committee Secretary Ponomarev asserted that “the
CPSU, as always, is giving practical support to the revolutionary struggle of
the Chilean people” with the aim of accelerating that country’s economic
development.®^ It was further specified that “Soviet-Chilean trade and eco¬
nomic links have the task of giving all possible support in this respect to the
anti-imperialist policy of Allende’s government.” This being the case. Presi¬
dent Allende was assured in December 1972 that the Soviet Union was “pre¬
pared to give further political and economic support” to Chile.Chile also
was given special signs of Soviet favor, such as the sending of Soviet volunteer
youth brigades to work on construction projects and the provision of fishing
boats and crews to augment Chile’s catch—distinctions Chile shared with
Cuba. Another distinction was the institution in 1972 of a Soviet passenger
air service to Chile and of regular maritime shipping service with ports of call
in Chile and Peru. In practice, however, few of the Soviet bloc credits were
used prior to the fall of the Allende regime and Communist bloc aid had no
significant impact on solving the problems of Chile’s economy.
The Soviet Union and the other Communist countries have made a con¬
siderable effort to conclude various trade and most favored nation agreements
with Latin American countries. But, despite the existence of a substantial
network of such agreements, the total volume of Soviet trade with the region,
exclusive of Cuba, remained relatively small through 19715 both in absolute
amounts and in comparison with the size of Soviet credits. This appears to
reflect, among other factors, the hesitation of the countries to make use of
these credits, their suspicions concerning the poor quality of Soviet goods,
the slowness of Soviet deliveries, and Moscow’s disinclination to buy substan¬
tial amounts of such traditional Latin American exports as bauxite, copper,
and tin. In 1967 total Soviet trade with the region amounted to $93 million; it
rose to $130.3 million in 1969 but declined in 1970 to $87.2 million, to rise
to $132 million in 1971 and to over $220 million in 1972.®® It is noteworthy

that, in contrast to its trade with the less developed countries as a whole, the
Soviet Union has incurred a significant deficit with Latin America (exclusive
of Cuba) every year.®®
The volume of Soviet trade has been dominated by and has fluctuated
primarily in response to Moscow’s trade with the two largest countries in the
region: Argentina and Brazil. Trade with the “progressive” countries through
1970 was negligible; the volume of Soviet trade with Chile never exceeded $i
million, and that with Peru $1.5 million. In 1971, however, the volume of
trade with Chile rose to some $9 million, mainly as a result of Soviet deliv¬
eries of machinery and wheat.
In 1972 large Soviet purchases of sugar and other agricultural produce
from Brazil and expanded trade with Chile were primarily responsible for the
rise in the total Soviet volume of trade with Latin America.
Although the volume of Soviet trade with Latin America has remained
relatively modest, Moscow has derived some political benefits from it. Many
countries in the region see the Soviet bloc and China as an enormous potential
market for their surplus agricultural products and for manufactured goods
they are unable to sell to the West.
Large numbers of official and private Latin American trade delegations
have been traveling to the Communist countries seeking to arrange such sales,
and Moscow has taken advantage of this situation. By buying surplus coffee,
bananas, and other produce, it has won some good will for itself in a number
of countries. Thus the purchase of surplus coffee from Costa Rica in 1969-
1970 led that country to establish diplomatic and trade relations with Mos¬
cow and also led to public expressions of gratitude by its president, which
Soviet propaganda was quick to exploit.®^
Because of some countries’ serious problems in disposing of their surpluses,
such Soviet purchases generated some competition among them. For example,
when Guatemala sold some coffee to the Soviet Union in 1971, Costa Rica
expressed concern that this might adversely affect its own sales to Moscow,
and an editorial in an Ecuadorian newspaper warned that “competition from
other countries which can offer Eastern Europe the same agricultural products
that we are able to sell is very strong, and these countries have a flexible
system of negotiation, which we do not have in our country.”®® Obviously
such competition provides Moscow with some opportunities to exploit its
political advantage. The changing attitude toward China also resulted in a
rush by Latin American governments in 1971-1972 to establish diplomatic
and trade relations in the hope of opening up another market.
East European trade with Latin America has been consistently larger than
that of the Soviet Union, but it too has on the whole been operating at a
deficit. The volume of such trade amounted to $337.7 million in 1969,
$388.7 in 1970, and $421.6 million in 1971. In this case also, the main
trading partners have been Argentina and Brazil but they also include Colom-
bia, Mexico, and Peru. China’s volume of trade with Latin America increased
from $7.8 million in 1970 to $56.5 million in 1971. China has been buying
large amounts of fishmeal in Peru and copper in Chile. Overall the Commu¬
nist countries’ trade with Latin America, while smaller than their trade with
other less developed regions, has grown steadily.
While Communist trade is said to reduce the dependence of Latin Ameri¬
can countries on the Western powers, it is highly unlikely that either the
Soviet Union or the bloc as a whole will become a major trading partner of
that region or, for that matter, that they will become the sole economic
support of select countries—i.e., “other Cubas.”
Even so, Soviet and Communist economic activities are having some im¬
pact; They serve to strengthen the state sectors of the economies of the
recipient countries, to provide to some extent for their industrial growth, and
to help various projects, such as the construction of fishing ports, for which
these countries may not be able to obtain support from other sources. To
some degree they help buttress the “progressive” regimes and give some credi¬
bility to Moscow’s assertions that governments that defy the United States are
not without friends and supporters. Fundamentally, of course, trade and aid
are an indispensable part of the USSR’s total effort to expand its presence and
influence in Latin America.
That same purpose is also served by cultural, scientific, and technical coop¬
eration agreements that the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries
have negotiated with a number of Latin American governments. These have
generated an ever increasing flow of exchanges of visits by all sorts of official
and private delegations and groups, Soviet scientific and technical exhibits,
tours by theatrical and dance troops, increased availability of Soviet publica¬
tions in Latin America, and various joint scientific undertakings such as the
use of Soviet oceanographic ships to survey the coasts of Chile and Peru and
the use of Chilean observatories by Soviet astronomers.
The cultural exchange agreements also provide for scholarships for Latin
American students and specialists to study and train in the academic and
technical institutions of the USSR and Eastern Europe. Such scholarships also
are offered unofficially to students in countries that lack formal agreements
with the Soviet bloc. The number of students from Latin America attending
academic institutions in the Soviet bloc countries has been steadily increasing.
There were 2,425 such students in 1970, 2,650 in 1971, and 3,005 in
1972.®® In 1970 Latin American students formed the largest group at the
Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow (964 out of a total of 3,029), and in
addition some 600 specialists were trained in Soviet institutions Aside
from Cuba, the largest groups of students in 1971 came from Chile, Peru,
Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.
But it must be noted that a Soviet education does not necessarily open
many doors to Latin American students, even in the “progressive” countries.
For example, in a speech during his tour of the Soviet Union in 1972, Allende
2o6 The Soviet Impact on World Politics
complained that Chilean academic institutions did not recognize Soviet de¬
grees.®^ On the other hand, such graduates are less likely to seek employment
in the United States and Western Europe than those who receive their training
in the West.
SOME IMPLICATIONS OF CURRENT TRENDS
For the present, at least, the Soviet intrusion into Latin America, aside
from the Caribbean, has been on too small a scale and in too low a profile to
significantly affect relations among the countries of the region. Moscow has
been careful to avoid becoming involved in taking sides in intra-Latin Ameri¬
can disputes such as those between Honduras and El Salvador or Chile and
Bolivia.
Although old fears and distrust of communism and the Soviet Union per¬
sist, expansion of relations with Communist countries is now the order of the
day for most of Latin America. Of course conservative forces oppose such a
development and warn that Latin America is becoming open to Soviet “politi¬
cal infiltration.” Thus the president of the Guatemalan Congress described the
establishment of diplomatic relations between Costa Rica and the Soviet
Union as “a mistake which will affect all of Central America and will provide
a source of regional penetration” by the Soviet Union.®^ Similar disapproval
was expressed in Salvadorean newspapers. Some uneasiness had been mani¬
fested in Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia concerning the possibility that Chile,
under Allende’s leadership, would replace Cuba as the main center for Com¬
munist-supported guerrilla operations on the continent.
There is some cleavage between the “progressive” and “conservative” re¬
gimes, but on the whole it is the Brazilian model of development rather than
Peru’s that is proving the more appealing in Latin America, as for example in
the cases of the new ruling juntas in Chile and Uruguay. Even so, there is some
concern that Brazil, being the most powerful state in the region and having a
close relationship with the United States, may attempt to prevent the rise of
new leftist regimes in Latin America, a development that could drive the
smaller “progressive” countries to look to the Soviet Union for support.
An important disruptive factor is likely to be introduced into Latin Amer¬
ica if the Soviet Union succeeds in becoming a major supplier of armaments
to one or more countries on the continent. Such a situation could result in
intensifying the fears of the more conservative regimes and could lead to an
arms competition in the region—and possibly even to military confrontation.
Although the upsurge in Latin America of militant nationalism, with its
anti-U.S. expression, has provided the Soviet Union with the opportunity to
expand its relations in the region, the same nationalism is likely to prove a
major obstacle to Soviet efforts to gain real political influence in Latin Amer¬
ica, as has also been demonstrated in other Third World areas. For the time
being, however, the keynote of Moscow’s policy is “anti-imperialism,” and in
this respect the trend in Latin America is favorable to Soviet objectives. The
Soviet assumption appears to be that the struggle for the erosion of U.S.
influence and presence, which inevitably will also entail profound “progres¬
sive” socio-economic changes in the region, will in turn lead to a growth of
Soviet influence.
When viewed as a whole, the evidence of major Soviet interest and invest¬
ment in its Latin American policy is quite impressive. In that respect Cuba
must be included in the total picture, especially since it is a major cause of
Soviet interest in Latin America and gives evidence of Moscow’s determina¬
tion to maintain “friendly” regimes in the region. It should therefore be noted
that Soviet economic aid to Latin America, including Cuba, for the period
1959—1972 considerably exceeds the volume of such aid to the Arab coun¬
tries, including Egypt, for the period 1954-1972. Furthermore, the rapid
increase since 1969 in Soviet credits to Latin America, exclusive of Cuba, is
also indicative of Moscow’s willingness to accept new economic burdens and
even to establish client relationships where opportunities arise for significant
political gains.
As a relative newcomer to the Latin American continent—where it must
overcome suspicion as to its motives and intentions, fear of domination by
great powers, and active opposition by conservative forces and to some degree
by the United States—the Soviet Union has scored some impressive gains in a
short time.
The foreseeable trends in Latin America make it highly likely that Moscow
will continue its active policy in that region and that the scope and size of
Soviet activities and involvement will further expand. Naturally Soviet policies
in Latin America will be influenced by the state of U.S.-Soviet relations, as
well as U.S.-Latin American relations, and there is no doubt that for the time
being U.S. policies in Latin America will carry far more weight than those of
Moscow.
NOTES
I. V. V. Zagladin, Mezhdunarodnoye Kommunisticheskoe Dvizhenie: Ocherk Strategii

i Taktiki, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Politizdat, I972)> cited in Joint Publications Research
Service (JPRS), The International Communist Movement: Sketch of Strategy and Tac¬
tics, vol. II (Washington, D.C.i U.S. Department of Commerce, September 18, 1972),
P 239
’ 2. Boris Ponomarev, secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, “Topical Problems of
the Theory of the Revolutionary Process,” Kommunist, no. 15 (October 1971). P- 59-
3. Speech at the Moscow Conference of the World Communist and Workers Parties,
June 1969, reported in Prensa Latina (Havana), June 12, 1969-
4. For a general Soviet view, see F. D. Kohler, et al, Soviet Strategy for the Seventies:
From Cold War to Peaceful Coexistence. (Center for Advanced International Stu les.
University of Miami, Coral Gables, 1973)- The Soviet principles of peaceful coexistence
apply only to state-to-state relations between the Soviet bloc and the West and do no
extend to the inevitable class struggle or the struggle for national liberation by the
2o8 The Soviet Impact on World Politics
nations of the Third World. The Soviet Union is publicly committed to support these
struggles.
5. Pravda, April 10, 1971.
6. A. F. Shul’govskii, “Urgent Problems of Latin American Studies,” Vestnik Akademii
Nauk [Herald of the Academy of Science of the USSR], no. 8 (August 1971), p. 108.
7. Ponomarev, “Topical Problems,” p. 59 (emphasis added). See also speech by
Politburo member V. Grishin on the occasion of the fifty-fourth anniversary of the
October Revolution, Radio Moscow, November 6, 1971.
8. A. Aleksin, “The ‘Quiet Intervention,’” Kommunist, no. 10 (July 1970), p. 93.
9. V. Vasilyev, “The United States’ ‘New Approach’ to Latin America,” International
Affairs (Moscow), no. 6 (June 1971), p. 43.
10. S. Gonionsky, “Latin America: The Struggle for ‘Second Liberation,”’ Inter¬
national Affairs (Moscow), no. ii (November 1972), p. 43. See also V. G. Spirin, “U.S.A.
Imperialism and Latin American Reality,” SShA: Ekonomika, Politika, Ideologiia, no. 8
(August 1971)1 PP- 33. 35; B. Antonov, “Latin America Versus U.S. Domination,” Inter¬
national Affairs (Moscow), no. 8 (August 1971), p. 52; V. Gantman, “A Policy That
Is Transforming the World,” Kommunist, no. 7 (May 1973), p. 34.
11. Gonionsky, “Latin America,” p. 38.
12. Antonov, “Latin America Versus U.S. Domination,” p. 52.
13. S. Mikoian, “The Changing Appearance of the Continent,” Za Rubezhom [Abroad],
no. 20 (May 14-20, 1971), p. 15; G. Kartsag, “Concerning the Development of the
Revolutionary Process in Latin America,” Latinskaia Amerika, no. i (January-February
1972), p. 7-
14. V. Vol’skii, “Problems of the Liberation Struggle,” Pravda, June 27, 1970. For a
discussion of this Soviet position, see Wayne S. Smith, “Soviet Policy and Ideological
Formulations for Latin America,” Orbis 25 (Winter 1972), pp. 1129—1133.
15- M. F. Kudachkin, “Communist Parties in the Vanguard of the Anti-Imperialist
Struggle,” Novoia i Noveishaia Istoriia [Modern and Current History], no. 5 (May 1972),
p. 6. See also Seminar of Fourteen Latin American Communist and Workers’ Parties,
Latin America: The Ideological Front,” World Marxist Review, no. 4 (April 1972),
PP- 45~62; Jorge del Prado, “The Revolution Continues,” World Marxist Review, no. i
(January 1973). P- 65.
16. Spirin, “U.S. Imperialism and Latin American Reality,” p. 33.
17. Pravda, March 31, 1972.
18. Ponomarev, ‘Topical Problems,” p. 61; 1. N. Zorina, “Popular Unity and Bourgeois
Democracy,” Latinskaia Amerika, no. 2 (March-April 1972), pp. 43-44; 1. Rybalkin,
The Chilean Experience: General Laws and Peculiarities of the Revolutionary Process,”
Kommunist, no. 8 (May 1972), p. 121.
19. Seminar of Fourteen Latin American Communist and Workers’ Parties, pp. 48-
49, 58.
20. Statement by the CPSU Central Committees, Pravda, September 14, 1973;
V. Chernyshev, “Chile, How It Was,” Pravda, October 13, 1973; “The Banner of October
Over the World” (editorial), Pravda, November 5, 1973; L. Brezhnev, Speech at the
World Peace Congress, Pravda, October 27, 1973; V. Teitelboim, “For a Victorious
Revolution,” World Marxist Review, no. ii (November 1973), pp. 5-16. On November
22, 1973, Radio Moscow began a special broadcast program beamed to “Chilean patriots.”
The organization of a Soviet Committee for Solidarity with the Chilean Democrats was
announced on November 30, 1973, for the purpose of coordinating Soviet public support
for Chile’s democratic forces and assisting in the global struggle to isolate the Chilean
ruling junta.
21. Ponomarev, ‘Topical Problems,” p. 62.
22. Kh. Kobo and G. I. Mirskii, “Concerning the Peculiarities of the Evolution of the
Armies on the Latin American Continent,” Latinskaia Amerika, no. 4 (July-August
1971), pp. 49-52; A. F. Shul’govskii, “Latin America: The Army and Politics,” ibid.,
pp. 7-41.
23. Jorge Texier, “General and Distinct Features of the Liberation Process,” World
Marxist Review, April 1972, p. 109; Mikoian, “The Changing Appearance of the Con¬
tinent.”
24. Kartsag, “Concerning the Development,” p. 20.
25. Jorge del Prado, “The Revolution Continues,” p. 65.
26. Antonov, “Latin America Versus U.S. Domination,” p. 50; see also Kartsag, “Con¬
cerning the Development,” p. 21.
27. Radio Moscow, March 13, 1973.
28. Radio Moscow, February 16 and April 24, 1973.
29. For example, see Brezhnev’s speech of December 21, 1972, New Times (Moscow),
January 1973, p. 14; Radio Moscow, May 28 and 29, 1973-
30. Ponomarev, “Topical Problems,” p. 60.
31. New Times (Moscow), January 1973, P- I4-
32. V. Bushnyev, “New Horizons in Latin America,” International Affairs (Moscow),
no. 5 (May 1973), p. 41.
33. Particular importance was attributed to the establishment of diplomatic relations
with Venezuela, where it was believed large investments gave the United States special
leverage to try to prevent such a development. A. I. Sizonenko, “The Year 1970
Achievements and Prospects for Soviet—Latin American Relations,” Latinskaia Amerika,
no. I (January-February 1971), pp. 99-100.
34. New Times (Moscow), January 1973, pp. I4-I5-
35. In 1972 Bolivia asked sixty-nine of a total Soviet mission of ninety-two persons to
leave. The Soviet embassy staff in Colombia has a total of sixty-three persons, as against
five in the Colombian embassy in Moscow.
36. Radio Panama City, March 19, 1973-
37. Shul’govskii, “Latin America: The Army and Politics,” p. 39.
38. Ibid., p. 9. (President Nixon has asked Congress to relax its restrictions on U.S.
arms sales to Latin America and on June 5, 1973) Secretary of State Rogers announced
that the United States would sell F-5E jets to five countries in the region, including
Chile. New York Times, June 6, I973-)
39. Ibid., p. 39.
40. Ibid., p. 40.
41. New York Times, October 13, 1971; Washington Post, December 18, 1973.
42. R. Tuchnin, “A Troubled Trip,” Izvestia, May 18, 1973; Radio Moscow, May 25
and 27, 1973.
43. Soviet aid and credits to Cuba over the past decade appear to be on the order of
$5 to $5.5 billion, while Havana has incurred a debt of some $3 billion. It is estimated
that the Soviet Union supports the Cuban economy at the rate of $1.25 to $1.5 million
per day. Most of these transactions, however, are on a barter basis, rather than currency
exchange, and involve artificially set prices for the value of the goods bartered. Cuba,
under an agreement announced on January 3, I973) will begin repayment on the debt
after 1986, without interest. In 1972 Cuba also became a full member of Comecon, the
first overseas Communist country to do so. See J. Suchlicki, ed., Cuba, Castro and Revolu¬
tion (Miami: University of Miami Press, I973), PP- 144-189; Radio Havana, January
4) 1973-
44. V. Kudriavtsev, “The Reliable Hand of a Friend,” Izvestia, February 15, 1972-
45. Radio Moscow, July 2, 1972. • •j j
46. U.S. Department of State, Communist States and Developing Countries: Aid and
Trade in 1969, RECS-5 (Washington, D.C., July 9, 1970), P-3-
Trade in 1970, RECS-15 (Washington, D.C., September 22, 1971), P- 3-
Trade in 1971, RECS-3 (Washington, D.C., May 15, 1972), p. 3.
49. Luis Corvalan, “Two Years After—What Is Happening in Chile,” World Marxist
Review, no. ii (November 1972), pp. 16, 19; The Economist Intelligence Unit, Quarterly
Economic Review: Chile (London), no. i (1973), p. 19; New York Times, December
22, 1972; Radio Moscow, May 5, 1973.
50. Unidad (Lima), January 4, 1973; V. Listov, “Tunnel Through the Andes,” Pravda,
January ir, 1973; Radio Moscow, February 6, 1973.
51. New York Times, June ii, 1972; Latin America (London), April 28, 1972.
52. Radio Moscow, November 19, 1971.
53. Ponomarev, ‘Topical Problems,” p. 61. See also Soviet-Chilean joint communique
in Pravda, May 30, 1971; Soviet-Chilean joint communique on the occasion of President
Allende’s visit to the USSR, Pravda, December 10, 1972.
54. Pravda, December 10, 1972. The Soviet-Chilean joint communique of December
9. 1972, provided for Soviet assistance in a wide range of industrial, mining, power,
chemical, agricultural, fishing, and other activities.
55. U.S. Department of State, RECS-io (June 15, 1973); Vneshniaia Torgovlia SSSR
for 1966-1971, “Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniia” (Moscow, 1967-1972); Radio Moscow,
June 15, 1973; V. Kochek, “Soviet Foreign Trade in 1972,” Foreign Trade (Moscow),
no. 5 (May 1973), p. 4.
56. For example, in 1968 the Soviet trade deficit with Latin America amounted to
$59.9 million; in 1969 to $79.3 million; in 1970 to $68.4 million; and in 1971 to $101.6
million.
57. For example. Radio Moscow, February 6, September 24, and October i, 1971. In
1973 President Figueres was reported to have expressed his gratitude for Soviet purchases
of Costa Rican surplus coffee. Izvestia, February 6, 1971.
58. El Tiempo (Quito), April 22, 1971.
59- U.S. Department of State, RECS-3, P- 15; RECS-io, Table 8.
60. Sizonenko, ‘The Year 1970,” p. 108.
61. Radio Moscow, December 7, 1972.
62. San Jose radio relay network, December 7, 1971.
lO
The United States

CHARLES BURTON MARSHALL
Dr. Charles Burton Marshall, formerly staff consultant to
the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Repre¬
sentatives and a member of the Policy Planning Staff of
the Department of State, has been a research associate
of the Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research
since 1957 and the Paul H. Nitze Professor of Interna¬
tional Politics at the School of Advanced International
Studies of The Johns Hopkins University since 1967. His
books include: The Limits of Foreign Policy, The Cold
War: A Concise History, The Exercise of Sovereignty, and
Crisis over Rhodesia: A Skeptical View.
In the physical realm, impact—denoting force communicated between collid¬

ing objects—can be computed theoretically by factors of mass, velocity, and
angle of incidence, or one can take its practical measure by comparing the
state of an object to what it was before the collision. Here the term is figura¬
tive for effects on an organized society’s awareness and conduct attributable
to the circumstance of a particular other organized society’s contemporaneous
existence on the same planet. The phenomena are in history’s realm where, in
James Gould Cozzens’ phrase, “The Nature of Things abhors a drawn line
and loves a hodgepodge, resists consistency, and despises drama.”^ Causation
is obdurately multiple, complex, and equivocal; events are convoluted; results
are diffuse and ambiguous.
How different would the U.S. situation have been in recent times, and be
now, with the Soviet Union’s existence expunged? Legend—which is history
untangled and compressed for quick comprehension—readily volunteers an¬
swers to questions like that, even as it puts tabs on causes, catalogs results,
and explains epochs in catchwords. History would not tell even under torture,
such an inquiry would only lead into endless surmise. What if an integrated
Germany had not materialized to upset Europe’s traditional strategic balance
and precipitate World War I? What if an overreaching German general staff
had not improvidently contrived Lenin’s return from exile to engineer a
Bolshevik takeover of distraught Russia? What if the once defeated Germans,
hypothetically wise enough to have resisted Hitler’s charisma and foregone a
second try, had avoided the second defeat, which drew the Soviet Union s
forces into Central Europe? What if invention had not produced guided mis¬
siles and unlocked the atom?
211
The first sixteen years of coexistence between the United States and the
Soviet Union were marked by distant animosity. The two governments were
not in official communication and not very much in each other’s way after a
brief U.S. involvement in a hapless military intervention ending in 1919. The
eight years from 1933 were little different save that the two governments were
formally in touch. Thereupon for four years, 1941-1945, the two were allies
—not very close or mutually confiding, but awarely and actively inter¬
dependent—in history’s most pervasive war. Then a multiplicity of circum¬
stances, some long in unfolding and others immediately connected with the
upshot of that war, converged to place the two in the uppermost rankings in a
scale of nations rated according to considerations of scope, material re¬
sources, and psychic energy for attempting large policies in international rela¬
tions.
Whatever history’s hidden alternatives might have been, the configuration
of power in the sequel to World War II was not surprising. The world had
long been put on notice. In 1790 Melchior Grimm had foreseen Russia’s and
America’s joint emergence as superpowers; he added, “and we, the people in
between, shall be too degraded, we shall have sunk too low, to know, except
through vague and incoherent tradition, what we have been.”^ Similar mus-
ings were reported from Napoleon in his last exile. Heinrich Heine, Alexis de
Tocqueville, Adolphe Thiers, Henri Martin, and Henry Adams, among others,
pondered the prospect from various vantage points.
The Soviet Union’s emergence into a position of enormous importance in
world affairs became an assured prospect upon the rout of the German Sixth
Army at Stalingrad in late 1942. U.S. policy-makers during World War II
clearly anticipated the development and gave considerable thought, although
not equal percipience, to management of relationships with an aggrandized
Soviet Union in the sequel to victory. Such policy-makers, in the main, were
scarcely prepared psychologically for the effects as materialized and were
impelled into a broad revision of expectations and intentions. To that extent,
and in terms of consequences as distinguished from the new configuration of
power itself, the development did prove surprising.
Lines from Jean Giraudoux’s drama. Tiger at the Gates, about an ancient
rivalry between Greece and Troy, are appropriate to the ensuing diplomatic
epoch:
. . . when destiny has brought up two nations, as for years it has brought
up yours and mine, to a future of similar invention and authority, and
given to each a different scale of values, the universe knows that destiny
wasn’t preparing alternative ways for civilization to flower
In a miscellany of decisions not necessary to recount here, the United

States undertook to apply its resources for purposes, including strategic deter¬
rence, countering what were perceived to be the Soviet Union’s purposes.
Strategic concerns became a settled and continuing element of national
awareness and practice for the first time in U.S. experience. The shift in
outlook and habit was promptly reflected in a revival of military conscription,
which had lapsed with the end of hostilities, and in a proliferation of bureau¬
cratic acronyms symbolizing institutions therefore unknown in peacetime,
presumably for giving strength and coherence to multifarious undertakings
to affect the vast realm external to national jurisdiction. No one can say which
of these new institutions—NSC, DOD, JCS, CIA, NSA, AEC—would have
been created if the Soviet Union had not existed. Ever since, and this is a
point both certain and pertinent to our theme, the principal exterior factor in
strategic calculations underlying U.S. approaches to the external realm has
been the Soviet Union.
The new epoch has been chronicled and theorized about in profusion to
match, if not to excel, any other era in diplomatic history. A voluminous liter¬
ature affords no end of answers concerning the epoch’s nature, the causes, the
moment of origin, determinations of culpability and justification, questions of
whether and when the epoch ever ended, and even the souree of its figurative
name—the Cold War. Retelling the multifarious events and rehearsing the
issues would be impracticable and supererogatory, but something may be
gained by pondering the interplay of hopes and perceptions at three stages in
relationships between the United States and the Soviet Union: as allies against
the Axis in World War II, as adversaries at the apogee of the Cold War, and
at the present juncture.
A reminiscence in Werner Heisenberg’s The Physicist’s Conception of Na¬

ture, concerning a discussion among German students caught up in civil tur¬
moil in the sequel to World War I, is pertinent. One student said simplistically
that “only force could lead to a real settlement of our conflict with the
others.” A theological student retorted that “in the final analysis even the
question of what was meant by ‘we’ and ‘the others,’ and what distinguishes
the two, would obviously lead to a purely spiritual decision”—no simple
matter at all.^ That distinction—basic to and an endless concern of all
politics—lies at the root of every problem of order and conflict. “We” and
“they”—collaboration and adversariness—are mutually contingent, almost
symbiotic.
The process of distinguishing is integral to devising strategies, to conduct¬
ing wars, and to every undertaking to establish conditions of peace. Those
who count in large concurrences may be rich in information or overburdened
with illusion, and their performance may be wise or improvident. Nations and
states subsist or fail according to which it may be. Whether wisely or improv-
idently conceived, policy hinges on determining—stage by stage, according to
circumstance—who are we and who are they.
The question of who are we and who are they seems to have lain lightly on
national awareness and concern in early epochs. Such a generaUzation is
offered with diffidence, for most Americans in times long past probably did
not ponder international politics, and some among the ponderers undoubtedly
shared Alexander Hamilton’s pessimistic thought that, having achieved inde¬
pendence, the United States was fated to share in the vicissitudes that were
the common lot of nations. In the prevailing appreciation, however, the nation
was a special creation—and one aspect of its specialness was an inherent
prerogative to choose sides in the world as a matter of sentimental preference
only, with no thought to strategic entailments.
In self-image Americans were a nonstrategic nation. In its sense of a larger
pattern for matching means and ends in conducting war, strategy was a mode
of thought and action only intermittently relevant for occasions when outright
war interrupted normality. The concept of peace and war as correlated varia¬
tions across a continuum, with strategy as pertinent to maintaining one as to
waging the other, was no part of the national outlook. The war business was
for other countries far away.
A desire to live outside the ambit of European military rivalries was one of
the considerations that prompted settlement in Britain’s North American col¬
onies. The experience of being drawn into international hostilities as a conse¬
quence of British involvement in the Third Silesian War contributed to the
urge for independence. The withdrawal of European powers from the Amer¬
ican environs in the Napoleonic epoch increased the sense of apartness and
exemption.
George Washington articulated that sense in his farewell address. The
young Abraham Lincoln embellished it in a boast about national invulnera¬
bility; “All the Armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the
treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a
Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or
make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.”® Strategic
security was bestowed. A nation so situated—needing a navy only to suppress
piracy and foster trade in remote regions and an army with tactical pro¬
ficiency only for tribal pacification and frontier order and contingently for
ensuring domestic tranquility—had no intelligence apparatus, war colleges,
general staffs, and the like.
Attitudes characteristic of that time persisted long after the United States,
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, at last produced a strategic
theorist in Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, began to develop a more formid¬
able navy, and established armed services institutions for strategic study and
direction.
In the persistent outlook, lack of strategic concern was interpreted as a
virtue. Circumstances enabling Americans to afford that virtue were over¬
looked. Attributed to goodness rather than to mere good luck, the virtue was
to be exemplified to the world from which the United States stood stra¬
tegically apart. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in The Irony of American History of
a national past marked by “the innocence of irresponsibility” when “we had a
religious version of our national destiny which interpreted the meaning of our
nationhood as God’s effort to make a new beginning in the history of man¬
kind.”® The virtue of being nonstrategic was an essential element in that
aspiration.
The idea was summoned up by Woodrow Wilson on being called upon to
give a lead in establishing conditions of peace to follow World War I. In
Wilson’s conception, the cause of World War I lay in the failure of a strategic
concept, the balance of power. Hence the necessary goal was to provide a
drastically different arrangement on which to rely.
Wilson’s project for a nonstrategic world of nonstrategic nations—all free
of the need to differentiate among friendly, indifferent, and hostile elements in
contemplating the vast external realm—was to be achieved by faith and con¬
version. Every nation-state was to be pledged to honor and to defend every
other state’s autonomy, and every state made secure by the power of promises
to restrain even would-be promise-breakers. In Wilson’s somewhat circular
logic, “When all unite to act in the same sense and with the same purpose all
act in the common interest and are free to live their own lives under a
common protection.”^
World War II renewed the urge to arrange preventive measures. In Frank¬
lin D. Roosevelt’s conception, which was widely shared among Americans,
World War II was an aberration attributable to general default on Woodrow
Wilson’s aspiration as institutionalized in the League of Nations. The United
States’ own rejection of League membership was taken as a principal and
probably even decisive factor in that failure. This time a default on creating a
world organization would be impermissible. The winning coaUtion must be
perpetuated as that organization’s nucleus.
A motif in the American nonstrategic tradition was emphasized anew. Sec¬
retary of State Cordell Hull prophesied to Congress in I943» “There will no
longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, for balances of power,
or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past,
the nations strove to safeguard their interests or to promote their security.
In identical terms President Roosevelt depicted the prospective postwar world
to a joint session of Congress in early 1945® following the Yalta conference,
where, among other matters, structural principles for the new world organiza¬
tion and a decision to go ahead with it had been affirmed by the U.S., British,
and Soviet leaderships.
Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s confidant and sometime surrogate, would re¬
call about the height of collaboration at Yalta, “We really believed in our
hearts that this was the dawn of the new day we had all been praying for and
talking about for so many years.”^®
The dream was plausible from the standpoint of power. Times when the
prospect of defeat had confronted the three aUies represented at Yalta were
long past. The common purpose of overcoming the Axis was prospering.
President Roosevelt and Marshal Josef Stalin, with British Prime Minister
2I6 The Soviet Impact on World Politics
Winston Churchill in auxiliary attendance, epitomized a global condominium

—an unprecedented combination with sway over military factors, production
and supply, and the future of polities in most of the world. If durable—a large
and imaginative “if”—such a collaboration might indeed have banished stra¬
tegic issues and anxieties to what Roosevelt and Hull called the unhappy
past.
American perceptions in that phase of making common cause are pertinent.
War, on vast scale and for immeasurable stakes, was the paramount circum¬
stance. Edmund Burke’s thought that “refined policy has ever been the parent
of confusion” applies especially in times of such wars.“ Issues must be sim¬
plified into good versus evil. Billboard language, not fine print, must be
the idiom. Hitler’s evil genius provided a standard by which to make gross
moral judgments easy: Whoever was against that side was on the right side.
The Soviet Union’s losses in havoc sustained and casualties suffered—
twenty million killed—were awesome and disproportionate. That such huge
attrition was due to factors of time and space and enemy strategic plans rather
than to voluntary sacrifice was immaterial. The magnitudes were heroic. Time
for the Western allies was purchased at a price in Russian lives and territory.
Awareness of this fact impelled psychological amends and, as Charles Bohlen
observes, “led to a guilt complex in our relations.
Fighting for dear life, the Soviet leadership, besides dissolving institutional
connections and controls affecting Communist parties in other countries,
played down Communist characteristics and watchwords domestically and
appealed instead to Russian national traditions. These gestures made it easier
for outsiders, if not to expunge then at least to temporarily forget the closed
society, the Communist party monopoly of public life. Stalinist purges in the
1930s, the 1939-1941 collaboration with Hitler, and so on.
The war entailed huge marshaling of resources, expenditure of energy, and
focusing of effort—a sharp contrast to the ambiguous, nagging, marginal
conflict experienced in a later American generation. For many people the
phenomena encouraged tendencies to think big, to believe in a future tran¬
scending the past. Minds stimulated in that direction reached for a precept
and raised America’s allies to a pinnacle of perfection. This approach—I
wonder whether it is peculiar to the American psyche—was readily humored.
Hollywood, the press, and radio rallied to depict the Soviet Union as a stout
companion for the dawn of a new day. In general the reigning euphoria varied
inversely to knowledge of the Soviet Union. Doubt was disproportionate
among those in official life with a background of service in the U.S. embassy
in Moscow.
Attitudes at the apex of authority counted most. President Roosevelt, sec¬
onded by Hopkins, was the central policy-making figure. Roosevelt and his
surrogate, as Bohlen’s memoir recalls, were preoccupied with present tasks,
not recollections. The paramount purposes were to get the war won rapidly
and then to enter a secure new era of peaceful trust. Soviet collaboration all
the way was indispensable to both aims. Any issues involving strategic dis¬
positions must be subordinated to that overriding consideration. The orga¬
nized peace ahead would afford time to rectify imperfection. The approach
put a premium on placating the Soviet ally.
The insights of Roosevelt and Hopkins into the Soviet Union were scant.
Roosevelt’s friend, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, recalls his recurring
remark about Russians; “I just don’t know what makes them tick.”^® Roose¬
velt assigned his similarly unknowledgeable friend to gather and digest in¬
structive information about the Russians. Bohlen’s memoir includes a telling
detail from the conference at Teheran fourteen months before Yalta. At a
mention of India, Roosevelt volunteered an opinion favoring reform there
“from the ‘bottom,’ somewhat on the Soviet line.” Bohlen comments: “He
undoubtedly viewed the Bolshevik coup d’etat as a genuine revolution. He did
not realize that the Bolsheviks were a minority who seized power during a
period of anarchy.
Without much background in Russian history, Marxist-Leninist dogma, or
Soviet practice, Roosevelt, as the intuitive sort of politician he was, saw
relations with the Soviet ally in a personal equation. Achieving rapport with
Stalin seemed to require playing down the British connection, despite the
patent scope and importance of U.S.-British collaboration. Bohlen, who was
there, comments disdainfully in his memoir on Roosevelt’s endeavor to that
purpose at Teheran. Roosevelt’s own detailed recollection, relayed by Frances
Perkins, is unintentionally ironical: Stalin was “correct, stiff, solemn, not
smiling, nothing human to get hold of,” even though “I had done everything
he asked me to do. I had stayed at his embassy, gone to his dinners, been
introduced to his generals. ... I had come there to accommodate Stalin. ... I
had to cut through this icy surface.” In a wakeful night, Roosevelt planned a
maneuver.
At the next meeting, taking pains to appear “chummy and confidential,
Roosevelt whispered a remark about Churchill’s matutinal crankiness, saw
Stalin smile vaguely, felt himself to be on the right track, and, according to his
own account, “began to tease Churchill about his Britishness, about John
Bull, about his cigars, about his habits. . . . Winston got red and scowled, and
the more he did so, the more Stalin smiled.” A Stalin guffaw encouraged
perseverance. Roosevelt’s account continues: I kept it up until Stalin was
laughing with me, and it was then that I called him Uncle Joe. He would
have thought me fresh the day before, but that day he laughed and came over
and shook my hand.” The ice broken, they “talked like men and brothers.”i5
Roosevelt virtually spiritualized his image of Stalin, according to the Per¬
kins account. He was intrigued by Stalin s student years in a theological
seminary before becoming a revolutionary. “Roosevelt wondered about that,
Miss Perkins wrote. “Two or three times he asked me, ‘Don’t you suppose
that made some kind of a difference in Stalin? Doesn’t that explain part of the
sympathetic quality in his nature which we all feel?
2I8 The Soviet Impact on World Politics
After a depiction of Marshal Stalin as combining “a tremendous relentless

determination with a stalwart good humor” and being “representative of the
heart and soul of Russia,” Roosevelt added a prophesy in a 1943 Christmas
broadcast; “I believe that we are going to get along very well with him and
the Russian people—very well indeed.
Roosevelt’s reported reply to a warning from William C. Bullitt, former
U.S. ambassador to Moscow, for vigilance against the Soviet dictator’s crafti¬
ness invoked “a hunch that Stalin isn’t that kind of a man” and an assurance
that “if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing in return, he
won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of peace and
democracy.”^® Similarly, Roosevelt said to Frances Perkins, “You know, I
really think the Russians will go along with me about having no spheres of
influence.”^®
Roosevelt misjudged the man who to him personified the Soviet state. In a
manner not peculiar to him among statesmen, Roosevelt also romanced about
his personal capacity to work great changes in general affairs. Whether he
ever pondered how basic and how disorganizing a change in Soviet character
and conduct would be entailed to fulfill his image of the future is question¬
able.
Roosevelt postulated “that by patience, proofs of good will and fair pur¬
pose, the mistrust of the Soviet authorities could be subdued, and they could
be converted into good partners for the benefit of all mankind.” In this regard
Herbert Feis concludes in Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin:
To this purpose he held to the last breath. It could not have been easy
in the face of the negative answers he had been getting from Stalin on so
many questions. Nor, toward the end, could it have been wholly un¬
affected by the opinions being pressed upon him that the Soviet govern¬
ment was not to be led along the proper path merely by friendship or
generosity, but that it had to be opposed, and dealt with on the basis of
punishments and rewards.^®
Roosevelt, as David Rees observes in The Age of Containment, “failed to

discern the deep ideological content of Soviet foreign policy and also deliber¬
ately divorced United States political and military objectives,” whereas Stalin,
in contrast, “saw war as an extension of politics.”^^
In shifting from Roosevelt’s postulates and seeking to apply strategic con¬
siderations reciprocally in dealing with the Soviet Union, did U.S. policy¬
makers overlook the Soviet Union’s inherent defensiveness and fancy an ag¬
gressive bent where there was none, even persuading themselves of the exis¬
tence of a Soviet timetable for global conquest? Did they further err by unduly
stressing Soviet capabihties as distinguished from intentions, discounting the
Soviet ruling group’s preoccupation with national interests as distinguished
from revolutionary goals, and taking at face value the leadership’s ceremonial
professions of believing in Marxist-Leninist dogma? The short answer is no.
although such propositions, often put forward as scholarly or journalistic

hindsights, are not disprovable. Sound grounds for discounting them do exist
and should be briefly indicated.
A double answer is appropriate for the postulate that U.S. policy was based
on erroneous ascriptions of an aggressive potential to an inherently defensive
regime. First, as a generality, to disjoin defensiveness from a disposition to
aggression is questionable in analysis of international affairs just as it is in the
field of individual behavior, for insecurity is a trait likely to give rise to
pushiness. Second, Soviet defensiveness was recognized as a heritage from
Russia’s long experience of vulnerability. The urge underlying processes by
which the ancient Duchy of Moscow had expanded to imperial dimensions
reflected chronic fearfulness about perimeters. The old apprehension, joined
to Communist distrust of differentiated societies, had been made acute by
recent experience of invasion on a vastly destructive scale.
Circumspection is called for in applying definitional distinctions between
intentions and capabilities in social and political analysis. Intentions are not
fixed abstractions. They are mutable. They are lines of action susceptible of
being affected by variables of opportunity and resources—a point true of the
United States, true in human affairs in general, and applicable to the Soviet
Union. Arguments citing Soviet intentions as given and immutable—and as
revealed to the addueer—are not impressive. Probably no one in a responsible
position in U.S. policy ever surmised the existence of any such thing as a
Soviet timetable for conquest of the world’s troubled eountries, but U.S.
policy-makers did form intentions of halting a drift of events into directions
likely to redound to Soviet advantage and to open political opportunities for
the Soviet Union in areas beyond its span of dominance.
The premised paramountey of national interest over revolutionary purposes
has merit, but only relative merit. No one I ever knew or heard of in the U.S.
policy nexus was ever inclined to reverse that order, assuming that the Soviet
ruling group would be inclined to sacrifice national interests in deference to
revolutionary purposes elevated to absolute supremacy. Here are the prevail¬
ing assumptions as I reeall them. The Soviet Union in a general way, as a
Communist regime, abided by a preeept in the Communist Manifesto: “The
Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the
existing social order.” Where feasible, national interests and revolutionary
purposes were pursued concurrently as mutually reinforcing objects. In
pinches requiring choice, the ruling group would give precedence to national
considerations, and in particular to the regime’s continuity.
I regard as a more significant point for analytic comment the perceived
relevance to Soviet policy of Marxist-Leninist theories—I purposely avoid
that frayed word, “ideology”—regarding historic laws and human motiva¬
tions. This matter is sensitive because it is intellectually de rigueur now to
deny linkage between belief systems and intentions in a Soviet context.
Scholars and publicists who would not question such links elsewhere will
shake their heads at any suggested connection between creed and deed in
Moscow. That inhibition and its source are immaterial here. What is pertinent
is that the belief system prescribed and enforced in the Soviet Union was in
the main taken seriously by U.S. policy-makers—although not necessarily at
face value.
The distinction between taking seriously and taking at face value may be
clarified by examining the words “believe in.” That phrase denotes a mind’s
function in ascribing a quality to a corporeal or abstract object. The quality in
a particular case can be inferred from context. To believe in angels is to
ascribe reality; in judgment day, inevitability; in drawing to an inside straight,
prudence; in astrology, predictability; in papal infallibility, truth; in women’s
liberation, justice; in the doctrine of executive privilege, authority; and so on.
That the Soviet rulers believed in Marxism-Leninism strikes me as indisput¬
able. Whether they ascribed historic inevitability to its triumphs, and whether
they accepted the tenets as devoutly, say, as a practicing Christian Scientist
subscribes to his faith, are immaterial considerations.
The ruling group believed in Marxism-Leninism in the sense that it pro¬
vided them, to use Nathan Leites’ expression, an operational code—a frame
of rationalization by which to justify every deed or misdeed.-^ However
credulously or cynically the ruling group may have regarded the utopian
promise of eventual deliverance from diversity in a harmonized world of
classless societies, the creed provided a rationale for a closed system of domi¬
nance set off against differentiated societies regarded as inherently hostile.
Recounting facts of the time is easy enough a generation later. Correlation
of facts—that is, truth—is less easy. To call up cogently the spirit of that
juncture now is most difficult, in part because ambivalence—a mixture of
trepidation and self-confidence—characterized the major adversaries.
The Soviet regime’s inherent anxieties undoubtedly were increased by the
sudden disclosure of atomic capability, a strategically momentous achieve¬
ment worked out by the United States in secret collaboration with Britain and
Canada. U.S. policy conceivably missed fortune’s tide by not willingly sharing
the new technology with its Soviet ally without insisting on elaborate institu¬
tional safeguards—a point ably although not conclusively argued in Lisle A.
Rose’s After Yalta.-^ We shall never know. The systematically, compulsively
secretive regime felt itself pressed to choose among submitting to conditions
antithetic to its domestic tenure, acquiescing to indefinite strategic subordina¬
tion, or striving to become an atomic rival to the United States at whatever
cost to be exacted from a populace that had suffered ruin, privation, and
enormous casualties.
At the same time the Soviet Union, as a major agent of victory, enjoyed
enhanced prestige in the war’s aftermath. Multiple outright annexations had
aggrandized its strategic base. Beyond what it had annexed, the Soviet ruler-
ship was imposing its image over a sphere of influence comprising a diversity
of Eastern European countries and part of Germany brought under its mili-
tary sway by the tides of victory. Its forces stood in Austria, Manchuria, and
a major portion of Korea. Soviet auxiliaries in Communist parties in a multi¬
plicity of countries beyond Soviet control were comporting themselves as
prospective heirs to power.
Impoverishment and faltering confidence pervaded Europe. Germany,
divided into mutually exclusive and unfriendly zones of victor occupation,
was in political eclipse. Defeated Japan, then under U.S. occupation and
tutelage, was an economic ruin. China, its chronic demoralization acutely
intensified, was under a government deficient for coping with a threat imposed
by indigenous Communist forces. Southeast Asia was in civil turbulence.
While not identifying the Soviet Union as a ubiquitous malefactor, the
United States did find itself in a conflict relationship with the USSR over
what to do about such unsatisfactory circumstances. U.S. policy makers
formed intentions of halting a drift of events into directions likely to redound
to Soviet advantage and to open political opportunities for the Soviet Union
in areas beyond its span of dominance.
The shift from Roosevelt’s postulates to strategic confrontation under what
came to be known as the containment policy, far from being a sudden shift,
was a gradual process involving changes of perception, stage by stage, within
many minds. I once discussed with Bohlen the question of fixing the point of
departure. He felt the turn had occurred at Secretary of State James F.
Byrnes’ staff conference on a day in late February of 19465 focusing on then
current Soviet initiatives to partition Iran. Previously a persistent exemplifier
of the Roosevelt approach. Byrnes now took a different direction and
disavowed placation as futile. He attributed Soviet suspiciousness, obduracy,
and truculence to deliberate design rather than misunderstanding. He con¬
cluded on a need for recognizing the Soviet Union as an opponent to
countervail rather than a partner to woo. Bohlen recalled that as the first
occasion of hearing such views from someone so high in authority a junc¬
ture as appropriate as any for marking conscious entry into the Cold War.
Four and a quarter more years would pass and many events transpire
notably establishment of Communist rule over mainland China and the Soviet
Union’s first nuclear explosion—before the U.S. government, in a National
Security Council study known as NSC-68, systematically attempted to corre¬
late means and purposes in a comprehensive strategic policy.
As an underlying assumption in the strategy undertaken, no combina¬

tion of nations without U.S. participation could marshal factors of strength
sufficient to alleviate anxiety and provide a cogent basis for msistance to
Soviet pressures—and alleviation of anxiety was a psychic requisite for eco¬
nomic recovery and political recuperation.
The United States was at that time unchallengeable in naval power and
military aviation and had the advantage of a considerable headstart in nuclear
technology. Singular among nations of considerable magnitude, the United
States’ capital plant was hugely expanded and improved, rather than im¬
paired, in consequence of the war. The United States was the world’s sole
large source of supply and credit in international commerce and commanded
huge preponderance in maritime shipping.
Essentially what the United States undertook was, by applying such ele¬
ments of strength, to bolster needy countries and pari passu to foreclose
political opportunities exploitable for Communist purposes. The undertaking
entailed altering perceptions of probabilities pertinent to contingencies of war
in the minds of those affecting policy-making within the Soviet realm and in
diverse lands beyond.
Such perceptions—for lack of a better generic term let us call them stra¬
tegic images-—merit a moment’s elucidation. They consist of composite esti¬
mates of what would happen in respect of interacting dimensions of warfare if
hypothetical war should become actual. What countries would be drawn into
hostilities? Which ones, while standing aside, might tilt to one side or the
other—and to which? What would be the theater of hostilities? What sort of
weapons would be used—in what environments, over what duration, at what
intensity, to what consequence in material havoc wrought, with what result
measured in damage to ability to persevere or in dissipation of civil will on the
respective sides, and to what final outcome? Strategic images also include
counterpart estimates in putative enemies’ minds and their perceptions of how
they are being perceived—and so on in a notional pattern akin to a con¬
ceptual hall of mirrors.
From such strategic images, potential enemies derive their assumptions
concerning thresholds of hostilities, their sense as to when in prudence to
temporize or to accommodate on differences, and their grasp of how far it is
safe to press a particular issue. Security for one side is calculable in terms of
perceived risk on the other. Strategic calculation, however, affords only relative
certainties, never perfect ones, and its equations always rest on postulates of
having opponents capable of perceiving and calculating rationally. A moder¬
ately adept theorizer could easily think up dozens of permutations in pon¬
dering effects of interacting strategic images in international relationships
involving some degree of opposition and tension. Three situations suffice
here:
Situation A: Both sides make similar assumptions of the accrual of a clear
advantage to one and the same side in the hypothetical event of war. Each
side correctly perceives the other’s estimate. One side is in a position to press
its preferences, and the other side is constrained to accommodate. The prob¬
ability of war is slight.
Situation B: In both sides’ estimates, clear advantage in the hypothetical
event of war would accrue to neither side. Each side correctly perceives the
other’s estimate. Neither side is in a position to press its preferences far or
under constraint to accommodate all the way. The probability of war is
slight.
Situation C: Both sides feel sure of having an advantage, or one side feels
thus assured and the other perceives a standoff, in the hypothetical event of
war. Their estimates are discrepant but each side assumes the other side’s esti¬
mate to be like its own. The danger of bringing on war unintended by either
side is appreciable.
As an assumption basic to strategy worked out in support of the containment
policy, the relationship between the strategic images held respectively by the
United States and the Soviet Union corresponded to Situation A, weighted to
the U.S. advantage. That advantage was mitigated by an inclination to avoid
risks of precipitating showdowns. Assurance of being able to prevail in the
extremity of war was offset by rational calculations of costs of fighting over,
and risks of rigorously pursuing, many desiderata that were attractive in
abstract. These considerations did not gainsay the inherent advantage once
accruing to the United States.
U.S. policy sought to preserve that situation as an end, while at the same
time employing it as a means. Both as means and as end, the advantages of
that situation related to efforts under the containment policy to bring within
the scope of assurance provided by the situation certain other countries, which
without U.S. support, would find themselves in Situation A weighted to their
disadvantage.
The pertinent measures, focused at the outset on the Soviet Union and
designed to provide security for the part of Europe lying beyond Soviet domi¬
nance, also were applied vis-a-vis continental China after the Nationalist
regime’s retreat to insular Taiwan and the 1950 attack on the portion of Korea
beyond Communist control. The instrumentalities have included an array of
bilateral and multilateral alliances contracted from the late 1940s through the
mid-1950s and encompassing most non-Communist European and Asian
countries and all of the Americas; tendering of military equipment and train¬
ing; and deployment of U.S. forces abroad where considered necessary to
make guarantees sufficiently dissuasive to adversaries and persuasive to allies.
In the Korean and Southeast Asian instances, direct engagement of U.S. forees
against indigenous Communist forces in wars of large scope and great duration
have been considered necessary because—to those in charge of U.S. policy
confidence in U.S. guarantees in general hinged upon making containment
work even in peripheral situations where Communist forces bore presumptive
vicarious relationships to the Soviet Union or China.
In a typical expression of the mood John F. Kennedy, while a senator,
said: “I believe the central task of American and Western military policy is to
make all forms of Communist aggression irrational and unattractive.”^^ In
that spirit, and in a twinkling of history, the United States entered into stra¬
tegic commitments of a scope and variety unprecedented in its own or any
other nation’s experience.
The epoch in U.S.-Soviet relations that thus began involved international
politics as conceptual warfare, a contest of will and purpose bearing on mili-
tary factors but not spilling over into direct hostile military operations. This
eoncept would fit in with Karl von Clausewitz’s oft-quoted aphorism about
war as a eontinuation of politics by other means, and with Oswald Spengler’s
logieal corollary identifying politics as a continuation of war by other
means.According to a similar idea expressed in Sir Keith Haneock’s Four
Studies of War and Peace in This Century, “We make a mistake by thinking in
ehronological slabs, here a slab of peaee, there a slab of war, so many years
of peace, so many years of war. Defenee and opulence, war and peace, are
with us all the time as alternative ends of policy, alternative activities of
government, alternative postures of society.”^® In this view peace and war
are complementary variables oceurring across a continuum. Conducting
policy under eonditions of rigorous strategic competition in keeping with such
a view would prove a vexatious as well as novel experienee.
Launehing into an incalculable term of conceptual warfare, a departure
from norms familiar to the Ameriean past, was a highly speeulative venture.
Observations from an excellent book about an earlier strategic confrontation,
namely, E. L. Woodward’s Great Britain and the German Navy, are appropri¬
ate to the juneture eoncerned:
The limits of human capacity . . . are too often ignored by those who
possess after-knowledge of events. The force of circumstance is noticed
in tragedy, and is a general theme of play-acting; yet it is forgotten or
underestimated in the popular verdict upon the actors in public affairs.
We, who do not know to-morrow, assume that the men of yesterday knew
to-day and that every sower can forsee every harvest.^"!^
According to a myth of recent origin—and a myth it definitely is—those

involved in shaping U.S. policy undertook the course in a mood of pugnacity
and unmitigated presumption. In After Yalta Rose provides a proper correc¬
tive to that idea. The mood, as he says, was mixed.Essentially it was one
of reluctance, even of apprehension.
An illustrative recollection from a night session in the State Department
Policy Planning Staff after months of work on NSC/68 comes to mind. One
member asked whether the envisaged course was soundly based in premising
greater inherent resiliency and stamina for a contract society, with an ac¬
countable government and free flow of information, over a long haul in stra¬
tegic competition with a totally administered society under a despotic regime
exercising a monopoly on general information. It was sentimental, not sen¬
sible, to bet on Athens against Sparta, he added. Benefits to flow from stra¬
tegic deterrence would be negative. What evils might be prevented—at great
expense and with many unforeseeable vicissitudes—would never be demon¬
strable. The American society, as a whole alien to strategic considerations,
would tire before the adversary, he ventured to conclude—and none present
challenged the thought.
I recall, in contrast, instances of assurance that, in retrospect, seem utterly

romantic. When, for example, someone at a National Security Council staff
session raised a query about hypothetical monetary effects, a State Depart¬
ment economist answered—with a Treasury man unequivocally concurring—
to the effect that, for as far ahead as one could rationally calculate, in a
prospect as nearly absolute as a mind could venture to conceive in general
affairs, the dollar rated at thirty-five to an ounce of gold would remain the
universal yardstick in international commerce.
Self-doubt and self-assurance were then, as ever since, dialectical com¬
ponents of U.S. policy. The optimistic strain was perhaps linked to the cir¬
cumstance of following so closely after World War II, which had occasioned
tremendous proofs of national efficacy in concentrating on external goals.
Moreover, as Paul Seabury has observed in The Rise and Decline of the Cold
War, of all the belligerents “only the United States had devised a program¬
matic set of universal goals to guide its aspirations and to undergird its own
wartime actions.
The war had left the United States with huge inventories of unconfirmed
slogans and unfulfilled aspirations about transforming international relations.
The concept of the Free World—as a partly real, partly impalpable com¬
munity opposing the Axis version of the future in World War II had been
called—was renovated and given embodiment in a miscellany of more or less
organized societies regarded as more or less disposed not to be run from
Moscow. A multiplicity of common civic aspirations concerning the good life,
prosperity, and development of personality was psychologically imputed to
that aggregate.
So again, in Seabury’s words, “as in all major previous conflicts in Ameri¬
can history, populist idealism quickly invested this spacious yet limited con¬
flict with universal messianic justification.”^® Once again, also, statesmanship
professed to discern transformation ahead. Strategic aims plausible in them¬
selves were rationalized as elements of a program by which to vindicate
universal aspirations professed as purposes of the war last in memory.
Such an end would require not only that the Soviet Union be strategically
deterred but also that the adversary undergo conversion and be brought to a
reordering of values, expectations, and purposes. By being foreclosed from
opportunities conducive to a Marxist-Leninist triumph, the Soviet Union sup¬
posedly would be impelled rationally to alter its preferences—its image of the
future—and guided toward moderation, tractability, and cooperation.
As a counterpart goal on the Soviet side, non-Communist states, including
emphatically the United States, must be dissuaded from policies offering resis¬
tance to revolutionary purposes. States as states. Communist and non-
Communist alike, must enter into universal concord, with those Communist m
orientation, including preeminently the Soviet Union, left free in their Com¬
munist embodiment to prosecute their enmities against differentiated social
orders.
Professing abhorrence for the Cold War, both sides would persevere in it
because of diametric opposition between their respective conditions for resolv¬
ing it. Both prescriptions amounted to versions of restoring the grand condo¬
minium envisioned by Roosevelt in the Yalta phase. The U.S. version
contemplated a Soviet Union chastened into becoming at last a faithful part¬
ner in seeking “a world of peace and democracy,” whereas the Soviet version
pictured a United States restored to the Roosevelt disposition to woo by
giving in. Eventually each side would settle on a term to denote abatement of
the Cold War along lines to suit its preferred version of settlement. On the
Soviet side the phrase is peaceful coexistence. On the U.S. side the word is
detente—a French term for release of tension adapted to denote reconcilia¬
tion with a Soviet Union rendered content to perform as a country instead of
as a universal cause. The terms have added to the confusion because they are
used in general parlance as if virtually interchangeable. They are not; rather,
they represent opposed versions of getting the Cold War over with.
In the past two or three years the practice of using a past tense in referring
to the Cold War has taken a broad hold among statesmanly, scholarly, and
journalistic pronouncers on international affairs. The practice is no novelty.
The earliest clipping in my own file on lapse of the epoch of conflict dates
back to 1953? fhe year of Stalin’s death and a cease-fire in Korea. Every year
in the intervening two decades has produced at least a few asseverations and
analyses putting an end to the Cold War. According to evidence marshaled,
the Cold War appears to have been concluded at some seven or eight junc¬
tures in the 1950s and 1960s.
Recent signs, however, are not to be dismissed with a shrug of dejd vu. Cir¬
cumstances have indisputably altered in basic ways. General states of mind are
politically significant in themselves, and the simple fact of wide concurrence
on the reality of a shift in conditions of international politics is self-validating
evidence. Here it is relevant to examine cursorily two aspects of change—the
national mood and the U.S.-Soviet strategic equation.
Mutations in national mood are indubitable. The United States has
shrugged off notions about being the guardian of global security, the exemplar
and nurturer of innumerable other societies’ livelihoods and civil morale, and
the preceptor to an array of fatalistic peoples on how to shape their destinies.
A shift of generations—bringing into adulthood many people who have no
experience of the events that gave rise to the containment policy and are
therefore disposed to apathy and disbelief regarding the reasons for strategic
concern—is also pertinent. However caused, contemporary phenomena in¬
clude, as noted by Samuel Huntington, “fundamental changes in American
culture and opinion in an antimilitary direction” coupled with disintegration
of “the domestic basis for American foreign policy” and “trends toward
demilitarization and withdrawal which now dominate the American scene.”^’^
By many indexes the United States is in a time of troubles. It is hard to

resist Bohlen’s glum summing-up:
Unhappily, the United States is not ready for the continuous struggle of
wills and never-ending diplomatic crises that we face with the Soviet
Union. ... It is therefore pertinent to ask whether the United States is
capable of leading the free world. . . . There is doubt that as a people we
possess the discipline and patience to prevail.^^
The Policy Planning Staff member whose dour prognosis at the time of
NSC/68 was recalled above would now have reason to feel vindicated.
Misadventures of policy in trying to apply the containment concept in
Southeast Asia have been an aggravating circumstance. The nexus between
means and ends in terms of U.S. national security has proved too subtle to
command sufficient and enduring public affirmation. The Vietnam War
dragged along too long. Successive high-level strategic pronouncements were
too consistently unprophetic. Just as the Truman administration was undercut
by waging war for the containment precept in Korea, so the Johnson adminis¬
tration was irreparably damaged by trying to make the principle stick amid
Indochina’s complexities and ambiguities. The Nixon administration has like¬
wise incurred damage—although how to appraise that hurt in comparison to
the effects of self-inflicted wounds is problematic. In any case two administra¬
tions badly hurt and a third scathed add up to an appreciable political price.
The waging of war in Vietnam was constrained by anxieties lest hostil¬
ities become magnified by drawing in the Communist metropoles—affording a
plain lesson that a war that had to be fought under such trammels probably
should not have been undertaken in the first place. By default of other
methods the war became a contest of attrition, the worst sort for troops.
Having precipitated its forces into the conflict, the American society then
proceeded to put in doubt the legitimacy of the mission—a demoralizing thing
to do to military forces. The outcome there could not plausibly be presented
as a success for American arms and strategy—but here I must desist lest I go
on too long cataloging errors.
The point is that huge damage has been done to the American military
profession, and to the strategic component in American consciousness, by an
unwon war. The fact of the Soviet Union’s existence in the background was
surely an essential consideration in precipitating the U.S. interposition m
Southeast Asia. That same circumstance also was an essential constraint
on American military methods in prosecuting the intervention. In that indirect
sense misadventures in Southeast Asia are part of the Soviet impact on the
United States.
In competition for allocation of stringent funds, strategic endeavors—justly
or not—have been placed at a disadvantage by what Senator John Stennis, for
one, has described as “general apprehensions” of improvidence in the military

services’ quest for perfection of design, which may cause exorbitant costs and
wasteful rates of obsolescence.^^ Moreover a large political consensus ac¬
cepts as maximal present rates of diversion of wealth into the public sector by
taxation. Widening varieties of social goals have come to be interpreted as
rights that government must fulfill. Accordingly the general welfare in a
hugely expanded version has become a claimant against the common defense
for the first time in the national experience.
The United States’ one-time palpable strategic preeminence has been dis¬
sipated by many developments, some long in gestation. The once vast nuclear
superiority began to diminish significantly some ten years ago. Thereupon the
accompanying doctrine of massive retaliation, formerly relied on as a uni¬
versal deterrent of Soviet military initiatives, lost cogency. According to the
most recent among the rationales to follow that doctrine, no degree of nuclear
superiority is worth having, short of capability to disarm an enemy with a first
strike, and strategic nuclear weapons are useful only for canceling out what
usefulness might, in their absence, redound to the rival side.
Taken at face value, engagements to limit strategic arms reached by the
United States and the Soviet Union in 1972 appear to register that premise,
although the Soviet leaders’ interpretation of what they have agreed to is
conjectural. As expressed in President Nixon’s Annual Report on Foreign
Policy of May 3, 1973, “Approximate nuclear parity between the United
States and the Soviet Union is now a strategic reality.As the report
further notes, under conditions of strategic parity “nuclear weapons are less
likely to deter the full range of possible conflicts,” and thus the fact of having
negotiated the 1972 strategic arms agreements imposes a necessity of greater
reliance on non-nuclear forces.
Yet with respect to such forces the indexes, except for costs, are downward.
Within a four-year span the United States has reduced the size of its military
forces by almost one and a quarter million men, halved its overseas military
deployments, shrunk its capacity for simultaneously handling regional wars
from a conceptual 2.5 to 1.5, and lowered strategic expenditure from 9.5 to
6.4 percent as a portion of gross national product. Most recently the United
States has rescinded military conscription—a change of great potential signifi¬
cance qualitatively and quantitatively. Army qualification standards have al¬
ready been forced lower in an effort to get sufficient enlistments. Manpower
costs, which according to the 1973 presidential report “now absorb more
than 56 per cent of our entire defense budget, compared to 42 per cent a
decade ago, presumably must go higher yet. Moreover, according to the
same source, “costs of increasingly complex modern weapons are also spiral¬
ing, further constraining our ability to maintain conventional force levels.”^®
In contrast, according to the same presidential report, “The Soviet Union is
strengthening its armed forces in every major category, including those in
which the United States traditionally has had a substantial margin of superi-
ority.”^^ The annual posture statement for fiscal year 1974 by the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff notes that the Soviet Navy, besides sustaining a
formidable presence in the Mediterranean, “has maintained a continuous de¬
ployment in the Indian Ocean since 1968, and a periodic presence off the
coast of Guinea and in the Caribbean since 1970.” As indexes to the Soviet
Union’s intentions “to expand its global reach,” the same document notes
“revitalization of the naval infantry” and an early prospect for remedying
inadequacies in Soviet logistic support forces.^®
In sum the Soviet Union has overtaken the United States on one and
become a serious challenger on the other of the two components of U.S.
strategic advantage in the 1950s and 1960s—namely, nuclear capabilities and
ability to project forces intercontinentally.
For all the evidences of a loosening-up, the strategic equation between the
United States and the Soviet Union remains of paramount importance in
international politics: first, because of the infeasibility of any combination of
states capable of offsetting the Soviet Union’s intimidatory potential without
U.S. participation; second, because of the infeasibility of any combination
able to muster a formidable strategic threat to the United States without
Soviet participation.
Having relinquished the strategic advantages expressed above as Situation

A weighted in U.S. favor, American policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union is
disposed to settle for Situation B—a mutually perceived equilibrium allaying
antagonisms because both parties feel foreclosed from pressing their prefer¬
ences and neither feels compelled to knuckle under in controverted matters. It
is a snug concept.
The phrase “balance of power” has been widely invoked to denote that
hoped-for configuration of affairs. Like a great many stock terms in interna¬
tional relations, the phrase is highly imprecise. One authority or another has
used it to denote virtually every known or conceptualized distribution of
efficacy in international affairs. Nevertheless the balance-of-power abstraction
is of some help in appraising prospects in U.S.-Soviet relations.
Broadly considered the phrase indicates flexibility of alignments among
states, reflected in eschewal of fixed animosities, willingness to combine ex¬
pediently on behalf of transient common interests, and deemphasis on recruit¬
ment of clients—conditions obtaining in decades long past when Britain
undertook a role as a self-guiding variable, shifting pressure and influence in
one direction or another to offset preponderance in alignments among the
continental European states.
One classic contingency for prosecuting a balance-of-power strategy, as
pointed out by Stanley Hoffmann, was the existence of a frontier permitting
major power units figuring as factors within the balance to engage in marginal
clashes without inherent danger of spreading hostilities to their domestic
bases. Another was a degree of stability in technology, especially for military
uses. A third comprised the existence, within those units, of domestic regimes
with less than exclusive control over political allegiances and economic activi¬
ties among their nationals. A fourth condition was some basis for a common
conception of legitimacy among those units. A fifth was approximate equilib¬
rium of war-making capabilities among major power units concerned.^®
The conditions enumerated provide a useful checklist for evaluating the
relevance of the balance-of-power concept. The first condition, which may be
less significant than the others anyway, is dubious. Reestablishment of any
frontiers permitting expansion for the strategic principals on occasion and
affording opportunity even for relatively safe marginal clashes between them
on occasion is hardly practicable in a world as strategically interdigitated as
the present. As for the second condition, continuing Soviet inhibitions about
submission to inspection as a means of verification, as well as formidable
technical impediments, make the bridfing of technological competition in
means of warfare highly problematic.
As for the third contingency, no relaxation of control over political alle¬
giances and economic activities among their nationals on the part of Commu¬
nist regimes is apparent or as yet in prospect. Rampant public debate—or any
considerable debate whatever—about political ends, alternative strategic
futures, and allocation of resources is a phenomenon within the United States
and among its allies but emphatically not within the Soviet Union’s still closed
realm. The fourth contingency, concerning a basis for a common outlook on
legitimacy, involves a question of the Soviet Union’s continuing sponsorship
of revolutionary causes in world affairs. That question is linked to the fifth
contingency, equilibrium of war-making capabilities—a matter for fuller dis¬
cussion.
In deciding a decade or so ago to desist from efforts to maintain a lead in
strategic capability—that is to say, from the conditions of Situation A
weighted to U.S. advantage—U.S. policy-makers assumed a counterpart dis¬
position by the Soviet Union. The assumption was not empirically based.
Rather, it was a rationalistic postulate. It was a truth, as it were, held to be self-
evident. It was perceived as a position the Soviet Union’s rulers would surely
opt for if in their right minds and if given the opportunity. That policy
decision was an instance of self-projection—the exercise of a gift to see others
as we see ourselves. Empirical evidence for that postulate is still as lacking as
was factual basis for Roosevelt’s spiritualized image of Stalin.
Soviet reciprocation of the U.S. willingness to settle for strategic equilib¬
rium would amount to substantiation of detente—that is to say, a sure sign of
a winding down of the Cold War on terms upholding basic purposes of U.S.
foreign policy from the onset of the troubled epoch. Such a resolution would
confirm President Nixon’s recurring hopeful statements that the United
States and the Soviet Union have jointly moved from an era of confrontation
to one of negotiation with promise of providing a generation of peace. On the
other hand Soviet perseverance in quest of strategic preeminence—that is, of
Situation A weighted to Soviet advantage—would be essentially in keeping

with the Soviet Union’s preferred version, as heretofore expressed, concerning
configurations of power and politics in succession to the Cold War.
In Samuel Huntington’s words, “As American hegemony recedes, it seems
clear that the United States would feel insecure and would hence be insecure
if any other power or combination of powers acquired global preeminence
comparable to that which the United States is now losing.”^® The point is
valid. The central question is how to avoid that configuration of power. Doing
so will be difficult, for the drift of the times is strongly against any case based
on strategic considerations. A considerable reversion to nonstrategic outlooks
prevalent in the long past has occurred. The foreign policy of the past quarter-
century has substantially lost its constituency. Pressures for taking Soviet
proffers of peaceful coexistence at face value—Senator J. William Fulbright’s
persistent advice—are powerful.
Arguments for taking peaceful coexistence at face value beg a question;
What face?
Foy Kohler, former American ambassador to Moscow, reminds us of the
“clear and straightforward” aim the ruling figures in the Soviet Union “assert
in every forum in which they talk to each other about the future,” namely:
to achieve conditions in relationships with the capitalist states, par¬

ticularly the United States, which will, on the one hand, maximize the
opportunities and capabilities of the Soviet Union to prosecute a relentless
struggle against the capitalist states by all means short of war; and, on the
other hand, minimize the chances that the capitalist states will make
effective use of their resources and power in defense of their interests,
and ultimately of their existence, in the face of relentless and ever-
broadening and intensifying Soviet pressures and advances. . . . The
leaders openly reject any notion that respect for the Western powers
vital interests, or anything in the way of “live and let live,” is implicit in
the policy of peaceful coexistence.^^
Peaceful coexistence, in Kohler’s summing up, amounts to Cold War with

resistance neutralized—a point always to be kept in mind.
In contrast, Jacob Beam, another former American ambassador to Mos¬
cow, has said of the same leaders;
. they are not revolutionaries any more. They are hard-headed practi¬
cal people and know that total Communist victory is not going to happen
—ever. ... . .
A Communist world—they recognize that as impractical as an im¬
mediate and realistic goal. As a political instrument, yes, it’s important.
But as a way ... of world conquest, no."*-
In international relations, however, purposes are affected by opportunity. I

should not venture to say what purposes the Soviet leaders, once in strategic
preeminence, might choose to activate. For such a shift in strategic circum¬

stances to make no difference in their conduct would indeed be surprising.
They would, I should guess, seek to accomplish many things that strategic
constraints have heretofore blocked.
I do not mean to imply that the Soviet Union would gear up for attacking
the United States or any other particular target. Soviet goals would, in high
probability, be projected as aggregated results to be realized through multiple
small ineremental modifications—with none to be regarded by a disadvan¬
taged opponent as worth precipitating a showdown involving the risk of war,
and perhaps none even susceptible of being made an occasion for challenge.
Policy-makers in many other capitals would perceive the trend and make
adaptations accordingly. Little by little the array of alliances contracted and
maintained by the United States would lose cogency and relevance—a process
already under way to some extent. National poliey would at last be put in the
position—to paraphrase Machiavelli—of having kept no friends and lost no
enemies.
On the other hand those determining poliey for the United States might be
loath to reconcile themselves to the consequences of being put in a strategi¬
cally disadvantaged position. Their refusal might take the form of holding
onto—and acting on the basis of—presumptions of strategic parity no longer
evident to others, especially the Soviet Union. Alternatively the United States
might find itself constrained at some juncture to stem the momentum of
adversity by invoking audacity—deliberately attempting an ostentatious dis¬
play of willingness to propel issues toward war in a situation of high conten¬
tion, ineiting crisis in expectation of impelling an advantaged opponent to shy
away from risks. Such courses would be eharged with the dangers of precipi¬
tating unintended wars in the pattern previously depicted as Situation C.
The question is not whether a balance-of-power situation—to quote one
recent analysis—“ean furnish the minimum requisites for American secu¬
rity.states the matter incorrectly. Rather, it must fall to policy
to maintain the situation. That result is hardly to be expected on the basis of
attributing inherently benign intentions to the Soviet Union or overlooking
Dean Acheson’s admonition:
There is no divine command that spares the United States from the seeds
of destruction which have operated in other great states. There is no
instruction to that one of the Fates who holds the shears that she shall
withhold them from the thread of life of the United States.
NOTES
1. James Gould Cozzens, Guard of Honor (London: Longmans, 1949), p. 572.

2. Denis de Rougemont, The Meaning of Europe (New York: Stein and Day, 1968),
pp. 103-104.
3. Jean Giraudoux, Tiger at the Gates (New York: Samuel French, 1956), P- 66.
4. Werner Heisenberg, The Physicist’s Conception of Nature (New York: Harcourt,
Brace, 1958), p. 54-
5. Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809—1838, vol. I (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1928), pp. 227-228.
6. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (New York: Scribner’s, 1952),
p. 4.
7. James Brown Scott, ed.. President Wilson’s Foreign Policy: Messages, Addresses, and
Papers (New York: Oxford, 1918), p. 254.
8. Cordell Hull, “Address by the Secretary of State Before Congress Regarding the
Moscow Conference,” Department of State Bulletin 9, no. 230 (November 18, 1943).
pp. 341, 347-
9. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Report on the Crimea Conference,” Department of State
Bulletin 12, no. 297 (March 4, 1945). P- 36i.
10. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York:
Harper and Row, 1948), p. 870.
11. W. J. Bate, ed., Edmund Burke: Selected Works (New York: Random House,
i960), p. III.
12. Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929-1969 (New York: Norton, 1973),
p. 123.
13. Erances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York: Viking, 1946), p. 86.
14. Bohlen, Witness to History, pp. 140, 146.
15. Perkins, The Roosevelt 1 Knew, pp. 83-85.
16. Ibid., p. 142.
17. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address by the President on Christmas Eve,” State De¬
partment Bulletin 10, no. 236 (January i, 1944). PP- i) 5-
18. William C. Bullitt, “How We Won the War and Lost the Peace,” Life, August 30,
1948, pp. 83, 92.
19. Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 382.
20. Herbert Feis, Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin: The War They Fought and the Peace They
Sought (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957). P- 586.
21. David Rees, The Age of Containment: The Cold War, 1945-1965 (London: Mac¬
millan, 1967), p. 12.
22. Nathan Leites, The Operational Code of the Politburo (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1951)-
23. Lisle A. Rose, After Yalta (New York: Scribner’s, 1973), PP- 83-85-
24. John F. Kennedy, untitled review of B. H. Liddell Hart’s Deterrence of Defense, in
Saturday Review, September 3, i960, p. 17.
25. Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, vol. II (New York: Knopf, 1950),
p. 474.
26. W. K. Hancock, Four Studies of War and Peace in This Century (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1961), PP- 22-23.
27. E. L. Woodward, Great Britain and the German Navy (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1935), P- 17-
28. Rose, After Yalta, pp. 86-112, 183.
29. Paul Seabury, The Rise and Decline of the Cold War (New York: Basic Books,
1967), P- 38.
30. Ibid., p. 87. T- u
31. Samuel P. Huntington, “After Containment: The Function of the Military Estab¬
lishment,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 406
(March 1973), PP- L 4-
32. Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 540.
33. The New York Times, February 4, 1972. See also Robert S. Benson, “The Military
on Capitol Hill: Prospects in the Quest for Funds,” The Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science 406 (March 1973)) P- 18.
34. House Document No. 93-96, 93d Cong., ist Sess.; Message from the President of
the United States Transmitting His Annual Report on Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.:
GPO, 1973), P- 150.
35. Ibid., p. 153.
36. Ibid., p. 149.
37. Ibid., p. 148.
38. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, “Report: United States Military Posture for FY
1974,” by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before the Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, March 26, 1973. See also De¬
partment of Defense Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1974: Hearings Before a Subcom¬
mittee of the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, 93rd Cong., ist Sess.
(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1973), part i, pp. 85-89.
39. Stanley Hoffmann, “Balance of Power,” International Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, vol. i (Macmillan and Free Press, 1968,) pp. 506-507.
40. Huntington, “After Containment," p. 6.
41. Foy D. Kohler, “Peaceful Coexistence as Currently Seen from Moscow: An Over¬
view,” manuscript report prepared for the Center for Advanced International Studies,
University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, 1972, pp. 2-2a; quoted with author’s per¬
mission.
42. “What Brezhnev Wants from U.S.: Interview with Jacob D. Beam, Former Ambas¬
sador to Moscow,” U.S. News and World Report, May 28, 1973, pp. 40, 43.
43. Huntington, “After Containment,” p. 6.
44. Dean Acheson, “An Estimate of the Present World Situation,” Department of State
Bulletin 25, no. 630 (July 23, 1951), pp. 123, 128.
PART III
Soviet Global Strategy

Soviet Military Strategy
and Policy
THOMAS W. WOLFE
Dr. Thomas W. Wolfe is a senior staff member of the
Rand Corporation and a member of the faculty of the
Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies, George Washington Uni¬
versity. During his earlier career as a professional mili¬
tary officer, he served as air attache at the U.S. embassy
in Moscow in 1956-1958. He is the author of Soviet
Strategy at the Cross Roads and Soviet Power and
Europe: 1945-1970 and the coauthor of seven other
books dealing with the Soviet Union.
The military dimensions of Soviet policy, it goes without saying, are but one
aspect of a seamless web of political, economic, strategic, and other consider¬
ations that help to shape the conduct of the Soviet Union in the world arena.
This being so, it may be useful to begin this discussion of worldwide Soviet
military policy by sketching briefly some of the salient features of the interna¬
tional and internal setting in which the Soviet Union’s leaders find themselves
operating today. In effect this setting provides the boundary conditions within
which Soviet military strategy and policy can be expected to evolve in the
decade of the seventies.
SOVIET MILITARY POLICY IN THE I97OS
Perhaps the first point to be recognized is that the whole pattern of interna¬
tional politics today is in a state of flux. Although there is little consensus as
to what kind of a new international order may be emerging, in a fundamental
sense we do seem to be in transition from a postwar period of bipolar con¬
frontation and rather unsubtle Cold War to a more complex and diverse
pattern of international alignments.
In this situation the familiar lines of rivalry between the two superpowers
of the nuclear age are being replaced by as yet unclarified conditions of global
competition and adjustment. To put it another way, the period of attempted
postwar containment of the Soviet Union has come to an end but the rules of
engagement under which the USSR and the United States will try to handle
237
their overlapping global interests and conflicts in an increasingly multipolar
world environment are still in the process of being defined.
The wide-ranging negotiations in which the United States and the Soviet
Union find themselves engaged, particularly the Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks (SALT), can be regarded as an integral part of this process of redefin¬
ing the overall power relationship. Before SALT is finally wrapped up, one
may suspect that others, most notably China, also may be drawn into the
process.
A second phenomenon worthy of note concerns the increasingly global
outlook of the Soviet Union itself. There has been a broad trend over time
toward what is generally termed globalism in Soviet foreign policy, accompa¬
nied by a tendency to generate a military posture to support a widening range
of Soviet interests abroad. During the first half of its history, despite an
ideology professing universalist goals, the Soviet Union under Stalin pursued a
foreign policy of essentially continental scope and its military posture re¬
mained largely oriented in a regional or peripheral direction. The Khrushchev
era, by contrast, marked the beginning of the Soviet Union’s transformation
into a global power, in both a political and military sense. This process has
continued at an accelerated pace under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime, which
ousted Khrushchev in 1964.
A third and related phenomenon bearing upon the Soviet global outlook is
what might be called the great power dynamism exhibited by the Soviet state
at this juncture of its history. Although it may be argued that the ideological
and revolutionary fervor of the Soviet elite (or at least some segments of it
among the scientific intelligentsia and industrial managers) is running down,
despite the lip service paid to the Marxist-Leninist verities, it is nevertheless
clearly evident that an energy and enthusiasm for playing the role of a great
power in world affairs is not wanting in the Soviet case. Indeed the dynamic
and rather markedly self-righteous quality that animates Soviet world outlook
and behavior does not yet appear to have peaked.^ This, of course, stands in
some contrast to the mood observable during the past few years in the United
States, which—as some observers see it—may have had its fling at trying to
police the peace and set the world’s affairs in order during the past quarter-
century.
A fourth general point, which there is no need to labor here, is that to the
extent that one’s options may be broadened by having more of the physical
instruments of policy, the men who will be making the Soviet Union’s foreign
and military policies in the next five to ten years will be able to choose from a
richer menu of alternatives than their predecessors. It does not necessarily
follow that the Soviet leaders will display the will, capacity, and wisdom to
make the most of their opportunities. But it would seem that, if they do only
reasonably well in managing the Soviet Union’s interests, we can expect to see
a steady expansion of Soviet political and military influence on the world
scene in the decade ahead.
Soviet Global Strategy 239
But here one must enter a few important reservations, centering mainly on
internal trends that are not readily squared with the image of the Soviet Union
as a rising force in global affairs in the 1970s. From the Soviet viewpoint the
internal situation is marked by what must seem to be some rather disturbing
contradictions. In brief, while Soviet military technology and the defense
production sectors of the economy have managed to compete quite success¬
fully with the West, it has become increasingly evident—as Soviet authorities
concede—that the Soviet Union is encountering many difficulties in adapting
the civilian sectors of its industrial system to the scientific and technical
revolution of the modern era.
Various reforms undertaken since 1965 to increase productivity and facili¬
tate the introduction of new technology into the civilian sector have not
resolved Soviet economic difficulties, which have been compounded by the
agricultural setback of 1972 and lagging fulfillment of several key goals of the
Ninth Five-Year Plan. Indeed there seems to be a consensus within the Soviet
leadership itself—involving both the Brezhnev and Kosygin sides of the coun¬
try’s governance—that undesirable consequences both at home and in long¬
term competition with the advanced industrial systems of the West and Japan
could flow from failure to meet the country’s economic problems.
There are also constraining external factors that will tend to influence the
conduct of Soviet policy abroad. Two merit particular mention. The first, long
operative in the Soviet case, is awareness of the destructiveness of nuclear
conflict and hence the need to avoid confrontations that might escalate into a
nuclear showdown.
The second grows out of the deep-seated differences between the Soviet
Union and China. In a military sense, the Chinese problem means that an
increasing share of Soviet military resources must be tied down in the Far
East, with Soviet planning obliged to take into account a two-front threat at
the Soviet front door in Europe and at its back door in Asia. Politically,
Moscow’s stakes in the containment of China not only bespeak the need to
cultivate detente in Europe but also give incentives for seeking the coopera¬
tion of Asian states like India and Japan. The movement toward rapproche¬
ment between China and the United States adds a further complicating
dimension to Soviet relations with both of these powers—indeed one some¬
times gets the impression that the Russians are haunted by the possibility that
Peking and Washington might team up at Soviet expense.
How the various internal and external trends at work may affect Soviet
policy in the course of the next decade is by no means clear. Broadly speak¬
ing, one possibility is that the attention of the Soviet leadership may turn
increasingly inward, tending more toward preoccupation with domestic prob¬
lems than toward pursuit of active and potentially destabilizing policies
abroad. In essence the leadership may come to feel that the best hope for
restoring economic momentum and getting on with the modernization of
Soviet society lies in retrenchment in the military sphere and cultivation of the
“quiet life” abroad. Some observers would argue that the Soviet leadership
has already opted for this course, having persuaded itself that the Soviet need
for greater access to Western technology, management know-how, and credits
can best be assured by a climate of detente in Europe, accompanied by
adjustment of Soviet-American relations.
But the grounds for quite a different thrust in Soviet policy are also present.
Economic problems at home and the waning attraction of orthodox Marxist-
Leninist prescriptions, both for the Soviet people and as an exemplary model
for the outside world, happen to coincide with the Soviet Union’s emergence,
for the first time in its history, as a global military power. The rise of Soviet
power also comes at a juncture when the Soviet Union’s principal postwar
rival appears beset with numerous problems at home and disposed to cut back
its own global commitments.
These congruent circumstances could well persuade the Kremlin leadership
to rely increasingly upon more or less classical modes of power politics to
extend Soviet influence abroad and to underwrite the negotiation of a new set
of international arrangements commensurate with Soviet great power inter¬
ests. At the least, one might argue, the asymmetry between the expansion of
Soviet military and naval power and the Soviet system’s declining appeal as an
example of modern societal growth and progress may tend to push the lead¬
ership in this outward direction in the next decade.
To be sure, the present recourse of the Soviet leadership to detente and an
intricate process of negotiation as the modality of Soviet policy, rather than to
the confrontation tactics sometimes practiced in the past, is not precisely what
had been anticipated for a Soviet Union operating from a more favorable
power position than before. However a more subtle Soviet performance may
simply attest to a good learning curve from past experience, in which Soviet
pressure tactics often had the effect of prompting the West to close its ranks.
If there seems to be a mixed and ambivalent pattern of Soviet behavior on
the world stage today, one might suggest that this largely reflects a combina¬
tion of policy initiatives to take advantage of new opportunities arising from a
changing politico-strategic environment (West Germany’s conciliatory Ost-
politik and the growth of Soviet strategic power assets relative to the United
States are but two examples of this changing environment) and of essentially
defensive reflexes aimed at consolidating old Soviet positions and easing do¬
mestic difficulties.
THE LINKAGE BETWEEN FOREIGN POLICY INTERESTS AND MILITARY POWER
So much then for a brief sketch of the general setting in which the Soviet
Union’s global role has been evolving. In a broad sense it can be said that
Soviet military policy under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime has taken over the
unfinished task left behind by Khrushchev—that of reshaping Soviet military
power to support a political strategy of worldwide dimensions. One should

note here that this interpretation impUes a closer and tidier coupling of mili¬
tary power and foreign policy objectives than may actually be the case. In¬
deed, as some analysts would argue, Soviet military forces and policies—like
those of any large, modern state—are probably something less than “opti¬
mally” designed to serve a well-defined set of foreign policy priorities and
national purposes. In this view, Soviet military policy might be better de¬
scribed as the somewhat haphazard product of a great variety of factors:
historical momentum and doctrinal tradition; the organizational habits of
bureaucracies; the interplay among various elite groups and manipulative
personalities; the constraints of resources, technology, and geography; interac¬
tion with allies and adversaries; and so on.
Without exploring the inner mechanism of Soviet policy-making in far
greater depth than is possible here, one can hardly demonstrate which of these
contrasting images of military policy formulation best fits the Soviet case. But
in any event, with due qualification, one may probably say that the general
direction of Soviet military policy under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime has
stemmed in the main from the regime’s attempts to bring the Soviet Union s
military posture into better line with its growing global obligations and in¬
terests.
In a more specific sense one can identify several governing assumptions and
priorities upon which the military policy of the Soviet Union appears to rest:
(i) general nuclear war must be avoided; (2) deterrence based on Soviet
strategic-nuclear power offers the best guarantee against nuclear war; (3) the
possibility that deterrence may fail cannot be ignored and the Soviet Union
must therefore strive for a posture enabling it to wage war and survive; (4)
the Soviet Union must maintain its traditionally strong continental military
position, both to back up its interests in the crucial political arena of Europe
and to cope with the problems created by the rise of a rival seat of Commu¬
nist power in Peking; and (5) the Soviet Union must also continue to develop
more mobile and versatile conventional forces, especially naval and maritime
capabilities, to support its interests in the Third World and to sustain its role
as a global competitor of the United States.
In addition to these basic elements of Soviet military policy, several other
functions fall to the Soviet military establishment. Some of these are, for
understandable reasons, either glossed over or omitted entirely in Soviet liter¬
ature dealing with the role of the armed forces. The latter category includes
the task of keeping an occasional recalcitrant ally in line, as in Hungary in
1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. It also includes dealing with unrest that
may arise among minority nationalities in the Soviet Union itself, although
this task devolves in the first instance upon internal security agencies rather
than the regular armed forces. Among ancillary roles openly ascribed to the
armed forces are: to provide a shield for “national liberation movements”; to
support the cause of “proletarian internationalism”; to act as a “school” for

inculcating Communist ideals in Soviet youth; and to serve as a medium for
binding the multinational Soviet state together.^
Any discussion of the linkage between Soviet foreign and military policies
calls for some comment on the influence of ideology upon Soviet policy¬
makers. Is ideology a potent factor in the picture or does it merely provide the
ritual dressing or post hoc rationale for decisions based essentially on the
perceived “national interests” of the Soviet state? This is a much-debated
issue that we cannot expect to settle here, but several observations seem
warranted.
Perhaps the chief impact of Marxist-Leninist ideology on Soviet policy¬
makers is its contribution to a view of the world in which perpetual conflict is
envisaged between the forces of socialism and those of “imperialism.” This
outlook, rooted in the “class struggle” theory of history, is particularly
marked within the Party apparat—the real center of political power in the
Soviet system.^ On the one hand, this perception of inherent systemic conflict
imparts an activist character to Soviet foreign policy, dictates increasing effort
to strengthen the Soviet Union militarily, and makes for political backing of
“anti-imperialist forces” in their struggles against the “class enemy.” At the
same time, however, the ideological component of Soviet behavior also coun¬
sels that the security of the Soviet Union, as the principal socialist state, must
be preserved at all costs. This makes for a conservative weighing of prospec¬
tive gains versus risks in relations with states of the opposing camp, and
particularly calls for taking care not to provoke a powerful adversary into
dangerous reactions.
These two aspects of ideology may help to endow Soviet policy in the
international arena with what often appears to be an ambivalent mixture of
conflict and cooperation, of pressure tactics alternating with “peaceful coexis¬
tence” and detente. But whichever element happens to be uppermost at any
given time, the common denominator in both instances seems to lie in seeking
to eliminate or reduce potential sources of threat to the Soviet Union. What
might be called, in strategic parlance, a “damage-limiting” philosophy thus
seems to permeate Soviet behavior. As we shall see, this philosophy finds
expression in Soviet military doctrine and policy, as well as in Soviet diplo¬
macy.
Whether at bottom a damage-limiting philosophy owes more to ideological
imperatives than to those of Soviet national interest remains a moot question.
The really relevant point seems to be that, to the extent that negation of
potential threats to the Soviet Union involves measures that other states find
inimical to their own vital interests, such a philosophy tends to promote
neither stability nor a fundamental relaxation of tensions within the interna¬
tional order.
Against this background let us now turn to the main features of Soviet
military policies and programs pursued under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime,

beginning with those affecting the Soviet Union’s strategic posture.
STRATEGIC SOVIET POLICY AND PROGRAMS
In the period of almost a decade since Khrushchev’s ouster in 1964, the

Soviet Union’s strategic posture has changed dramatically as the result of
programs aimed at building up its strategic delivery forces and strengthening
its strategic defenses. Because the Soviet strategic buildup only began to reach
visibly impressive levels in the mid-sixties, there has been a tendency in the
West to assume that the buildup was prompted largely by the Cuban missile
crisis of 1962 and to lose sight of its earlier origins in the postwar strategic
competition with the United States. It may help to put Soviet strategic policy
under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime in better perspective if we first retrace its
antecedents briefly.
Rather arbitrarily one might say that Soviet-U.S. strategic competition
began with the Korean War, which gave stimulus to the first large postwar
expansion of American strategic power and east the Soviet Union in the role
of a ehallenger obliged to take compensatory measures to match its strategi¬
cally stronger competitor.* To condense a great deal of history into a few
words, the period between Khrushchev’s accession to power after Stalin’s
death and the Cuban crisis of 1962 can be viewed as one in which the Soviet
leadership became increasingly aware of the constraints imposed upon Soviet
policy by the USSR’s strategic inferiority. The compensatory measures taken
to remedy this condition had the effect of stimulating fresh American response
to what were perceived as threats to U.S. strategic superiority.
This was the period of the so-called “bomber gap” of 1954-1955 and the
“missile gap” that followed on the heels of the first Soviet ICBM (Interconti¬
nental Ballistic Missile) test and the Sputniks in 1957- Khrushchev’s pre¬
mature boasting that the Soviet Union had achieved a space-age jump on the
United States and his flamboyant efforts in the late fifties and early sixties to
turn his “missile diplomacy” to political account are perhaps better remem¬
bered than some of the other compensatory steps the Soviet Union was taking
at the time to whittle down the strategic margin of its principal adversary.
* The roots of strategic competition go back still further, at least to the temporary
U.S. atomic monopoly and the early Soviet efforts under Stalin to break it. However both
the Soviet Union and the United States appear to have emerged from World War II with¬
out coherent long-term strategies for competing with each other as the dominant military
powers of the postwar era. The first five postwar years produced a good deal of explora¬
tory political maneuver and the gradual jelling of Soviet-Amencan rivalry into the mutual
animosity of the Cold War, but in a military sense the two countries were still essentially
engaged in a process of postwar demobilization and reorganization of their forces; only
with the interactions arising out of the Korean War did new directions for future military
competition in the strategic sphere begin to emerge.
One of those steps was a substantial reorganization of the Soviet military
research and development effort in the late fifties to bring it under more
orderly direction and to lay the developmental basis for the missile programs
of the sixties. Another was the creation in i960 of the Strategic Rocket
Forces—which were to become the chief organizational vehicle for the stra¬
tegic buildup of the sixties. A third step was the resumption in 1961, at the
time of the Berlin crisis, of a nuclear testing program out of which was to
come a new family of very high-yield weapons, some of which were later to be
mated with third-generation missile systems like the SS-9. Still another step
was the carrying out in the early sixties of an intensive debate on the implica¬
tions of the “technological revolution” for Soviet strategic and weapons policy
—a debate whose flavor later became known through such books as Marshal
Sokolovskii’s Military Strategy and the Penkovskiy Papers.'^
This brief catalog of Soviet measures antedating the Cuban crisis sug¬
gests that serious strategic competition with the United States was something
more than a mere product of the Cuban “trauma.” Cuba certainly was impor¬
tant as a catalyst of Soviet resolve to catch up strategically, and it helped to
create the “never again” syndrome exhibited by various Soviet leaders. But it
did not start the process of competition, nor for that matter did it really set
the terms of the competition in the sixties. What had more effect on the size
and composition of the Soviet strategic buildup was U.S. closure of the so-
called missile gap—a process well under way and visible to the Soviets
before Cuba.
In essence the U.S. strategic programs that were stepped up in the
1958-1961 period to close the missile gap and continued in the first years of
the Kennedy administration—primarily the Minuteman and Polaris programs,
together with the earlier Atlas and Titan programs—had the effect of “setting
the ante” to stay in the missile race of the latter sixties at something upward of
1,000 ICBMs. The Soviet Union, in short, might have stretched out its missile
buildup over a longer period of 4ime had there been no Cuba, but if it was to
stay in the competition, the minimum size of its response was pretty well
dictated by the U.S. programs, which leveled out at fixed ceilings by the mid¬
sixties.
Buildup of Strategic Offensive Forces
Turning now to the character of the Soviet strategic buildup in the sixties
and early seventies, the principal emphasis went into expansion and qualita¬
tive improvement of the land-based ICBM force. At the time of Khrushchev’s
removal, this force consisted of about 200 ICBMs, mostly second-generation
SS-7 and SS-8 missiles, many of which were deployed at “soft” or above¬
ground launch sites. The new third-generation missile types added in substan¬
tial numbers during rapid expansion of the force from 1966 to the early
seventies were the SS-9 and SS-ii, both liquid-fueled and emplaced in con¬
crete silos, together with smaller numbers of the SS-13, the Soviet Union’s
first ICBM in the solid-fuel category.®
The SS-9, the largest missile in the Soviet arsenal, estimated to be capable
of delivering a 2 5-megaton warhead with reasonable accuracy, attracted par¬
ticular attention because of its counterforce potential against American
Minuteman launchers and control centers.® This heavy Soviet missile was
produced in four successive versions, the fourth of which was equipped with a
triple MRV warhead.”^ The total deployment of SS-qs came close to 300,
about one-third the number of SS-iis deployed. The latter, a light missile
about half the size of the SS-9, also went through modifications to improve its
accuracy and penetration capability but was not considered to have attained a
counterforce potential against hard targets.
Subsequent to a period of intense speculation in the early seventies as to
Soviet progress in developing a true MIRV (Multiple Independently Targeted
Vehicle) technology, it was announced in August 1973 by the new U.S. sec¬
retary of defense, James R. Schlesinger, that the Soviet Union had finally
flight-tested MIRV-type warheads successfully. These tests involved two new
missiles: the SS-18, a large ICBM believed to be the follow-on to the SS-9,
and the SS-17, considered a probable successor to the SS-i i. The new missiles
were said to be equipped with six and four warheads, respectively. Two other
new ICBMs also were reported under development, although there was no
evidence linking them with MIRV testing.®
Parallel to expansion and qualitative improvement of the land-based ICBM
force, high priority was given to strengthening the SLBM (Submarine Launched
Ballistic Missiles) element of the Soviet strategic delivery capability through
introduction of a new class of nuclear-powered submarines with a ballistic
missile-launching capability roughly comparable to the early U.S. Polaris-type
submarines. The decision to begin the new Y-class pogram apparently came
in 1963 at about the same time the post-Cuba buildup of SS-9 nnd SS-ii
ICBMs commenced. The first unit of this class, equipped with sixteen tubes for
submerged launch of the 1,300-mile SS-N-6 liquid-fueled ballistic missile, was
completed in 1967.® A construction program of about eight boats a year gave
the Soviets twenty-five operational Y-class submarines by early 1972, with
seventeen more in various stages of assembly.^® Together with a few older
ballistic-missile submarines, this represented a force of around 740 SLBM
launchers. In 1973 it was confirmed that a modified version of the Y-class
had been launched, with others under construction. Known as the Delta-class,
this submarine was armed with twelve SLBMs of 3,000-mile range, the
SS-N-8.“
The third element of Soviet strategic striking power that supplemented the
ICBM and SLBM buildup consisted of a holdover force of long-range
bombers equipped with air-to-surface missiles for “stand-off” delivery of
nuclear weapons. Although the size of this force remained fixed at about 150
heavy bombers and fifty tankers,* training flights to northern coastal areas of
the American continent testified to the Soviet Union’s interest in maintaining
a manned-aircraft strategic delivery system, as did the discovery in the fall of
1969 that the Soviet aircraft industry had produced a new supersonic bomber
of advanced variable-wing design, the Backfire
In retrospect, the buildup of Soviet strategic delivery forces passed a not¬
able milestone in late 1969, at about the point that the SALT negotiations
began, when the Soviet Union finally managed to overtake the United States
in ICBM forces for the first time since the earliest days of the missile age.
Although many people in the West expected, or at least hoped, that the Soviet
buildup would taper off at this juncture, it did not. The competitive momen¬
tum of the Soviet strategic programs continued during the two and a half
years of SALT I negotiations, which culminated in May 1972 in a set of
accords that conceded the Soviet Union a substantial numerical lead in both
ICBMs and SLBMs.^^
Strategic Defense and ABM
Although the intensive effort under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime to im¬

prove Soviet strategic offensive capabilities probably made a deeper popular
impression abroad than Soviet activities in the field of strategic defense, it can
hardly be said that the latter aspect of the Soviet Union’s strategic posture
suffered neglect. Indeed the USSR’s long dedication to a strategic defense
effort substantially greater than that of the United States was perpetuated by
the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime, which saw fit—with one notable change of
mind, to which we shall come in a moment—to continue Soviet strategic
defense preparations along lines inherited from the Khrushchev era.
In the active defense category, these preparations included further deploy¬
ment of two new surface-to-air missile systems for air defense purposes, the
SA-3 and the SA-5. The former, designed to provide low altitude protection
against bomber attack, complemented the already dense network of SA-2
missiles for defense against high altitude aircraft.^^ The SA-5, or “Tallin”
system, whose precise function became a matter of debate among Western
intelligence experts, was a long-range system possibly intended to counter
missile-launching aircraft before they could reach their target areas. Other
active air defense programs brought into the Soviet inventory in the latter
sixties and early seventies a series of new interceptor aircraft, while passive
measures included continuation of a nationwide civil defense program in
* The heavy bomber component of the Soviet strategic air arm consisted of M-4
Bison and TU-95 Bear aircraft of approximately the same generation as the aging U.S.
B-52 force. The Soviet strategic bomber inventory also included several hundred medium
jet bombers (TU-16 Badger and the newer TU-22 Blinder), considered more suitable for
striking Eurasian targets than for long-range intercontinental missions.
which added emphasis was placed on preparations for pre-attack dispersal

and evacuation of residents of potential urban target areasd'^
Perhaps the chief policy issue in the strategic defense field on which the
Brezhnev-Kosygin regime appeared to depart significantly from previous
Soviet positions concerns ABM (Antiballistic Missile). The picture here is a
complex one, leading up to the ABM treaty signed in May 1972 at the end of
the SALT I negotiations. During the early years of the Brezhnev-Kosygin
regime the Soviet Union pressed ahead with a program for deployment of
ABM defenses, the so-called Galosh system, around Moscow. By 1967 the
first Galosh launch positions had been installed and it appeared that the
Moscow system, when complete, would have about too launch positions.^®
Having taken the historical first step of deploying an ABM system, and having
laid claim to “solving” the missile defense problem,^® the Soviet Union was
expected to capitalize on its ABM headstart by next extending the system be¬
yond Moscow to other parts of the country.
At this point, however, it began to appear that the Soviet ABM program
had run into difficulties, both of technical and policy nature. In late 1968
work on the anti-missile system around Moscow came to a virtual standstill,
about two-thirds of the way toward completion, and during the next couple of
years there were numerous inklings of an internal policy debate over the pros
and cons of further ABM deployment.^^* Although work on the uncompleted
Moscow sites was resumed in 1971, along with continuing research and de¬
velopment activity,^^ the Soviet leadership evidently felt it expedient to
switch from a long-standing policy of trying to achieve countrywide ABM
defenses to one calling for agreement in SALT on mutual ABM limitations.
What may have lain behind this policy shift is an intriguing question.
According to one rather widespread although by no means universally held
view, the SALT I agreements of May 1972, and especially the ABM treaty,
capped a process of convergence in the strategic philosophies and practices of
the two superpowers—which means in essence that the two sides are now
prepared to pursue strategic policies tuned, so to speak, to the same wave¬
length. According to other views, however, it is still more than a little pre¬
mature to assert that such a convergent phenomenon has already occurred.
Since much speculation about the future evolution of Soviet strategic policy
hinges on the convergence issue, it may be useful to offer a few comments on
this matter here.
The Strategic Convergence Question
Without doubt there have been some notable areas of convergence over the
course of time between American and Soviet strategic conceptions and prac¬
tices, perhaps in part because of certain basic symmetries in the advanced
military technology that has become the common property of both sides. For
example, in addition to treating deterrence as a high-priority function of their

strategic forces, both have moved toward protecting these forces through
hardening on land and mobility at sea. Both sides have chosen to maintain
something akin to a triad of offensive systems in land-based missiles,
bombers, and submarine-launched missiles, and both made starts toward in¬
corporating ABM systems in their strategic defenses.
But such convergent trends also have been offset, if not frequently over¬
shadowed, by persistent divergencies in Soviet thinking and practice. These
are to be seen, for example, in doctrinal resistance to a “deterrence-only”
strategic posture and in the durability of the notion that the Soviet Union
should seek “balanced forces” backed by an extensive civil defense system,
enabling it to wage war and improve the chances of national survival if
deterrence should fail.
If it is possible to pinpoint the issue around which the American and Soviet
approaches to the realities of strategic nuclear power have differed most
fundamentally, it is probably the dilemma of deterrence versus war-fighting
and survival. This is a dilemma almost philosophical in nature but profoundly
practical in its military, political, and economic consequences.
The United States has sought to resolve this dilemma primarily in favor of
deterrence by maintaining a capability to inflict massive punishment on the
society of an attacking opponent and conceding the other side the ability to do
the same. The result is what is known in the American strategic lexicon as the
concept of “mutual assured destruction.” Despite institutional pressures for
forces that exceed the assured destruction criterion, it remained up to early
1974 the central axis of consensus around which major force posture and arms
control decisions in the United States were made. The Soviet Union, on the
other hand, while no less dedicated to deterring a nuclear attack, has proved
reluctant to peg its security to the concept of mutual assured destruction,
dwelling instead on the traditional problems of war-fighting and survival if
deterrence should fail.
The conceptual gulf between these two approaches runs deeper than is
sometimes appreciated. Without taking the position that the mutual assured
destruction concept (described in some quarters by the acronym MAD) is
necessarily the most satisfactory answer to the problem of security in the
nuclear age, one may note that it does happen to be functionally compatible
with both strategic stability and arms control objectives. This is so, essen¬
tially, because it is a far less difficult military task to put the opponent’s
society in jeopardy than to protect one’s own. Such targets as cities and
population are easy to attack and hard to defend. In effect the knee of the
equivalent megatonnage-fatalities curve suggests itself as a posturally “suffi¬
cient” and conceptually convenient point at which two strategic competitors
can come to rest and mutually accommodate—that is, if both accept the idea
of living indefinitely with what is customarily described as “the balance of
terror.”
By contrast, the Soviet strategic philosophy appears functionally incompat¬

ible with finding any clear stopping points and striking such an equilibrium.
Given the dominance of offensive over defensive technology and the woeful
“softness” of populations, a doctrine that seeks substantial survival levels for
one’s own society in addition to assured destruction of the opponent places
before itself seemingly impossible force requirements. So long as this remains
its operational goal, therefore, Soviet doctrine represents a mandate for end¬
less competition without defined standards of what constitutes enough—short
of massive, damage-limiting superiority that is probably unachievable unless
the adversary quits trying altogether.
It would be patently wrong to assert that Soviet strategic policy has been
governed only by this driving doctrinal mandate. Many other considerations
—economic and technological constraints, institutional factors, diplomatic
exigencies—have tempered and shaped the translation of the doctrine into
policy. At the same time, however, despite the demanding character of the
doctrine, it is worth noting that both the Soviet military and political leader¬
ships have cause for not lightly discarding it.
In the military case the reasons are fairly obvious. Psychologically and
institutionally, the military professionals find congenial a doctrine that
stresses the traditional goals of preparing to defend the country in the ultimate
test of war and that seems to assign them a responsible and meaningful role if
such a test should occur. The doctrine is congenial to the military in other
respects also, for it gives them a constant claim on the country’s best man¬
power and material resources. Although it does not solve internal controversy
over the allocation of resources among service claimants, it does ease their
solution through generous defense budgets.
The adherence of the political leadership to what might be called the
strategic nuclear traditionalism of the military is, one must assume, more
ambivalent. Lacking the institutional stakes of the military in the doctrine,
leaders like Brezhnev and others are probably more free to consider the
economic benefits of a less demanding strategic philosophy. But they too have
their own investment in a doctrinal consensus that calls for more than deter¬
rent sufficiency. The strategic buildup of the sixties provides a case in point.
Although one may judge that that buildup fell short of meeting the elusive
requirements for an adequate war-fighting and survival posture, its political
payoff can hardly have failed to impress the Politburo chieftains. For in their
eyes not only did the buildup give the Soviet Union greater room for diplo¬
matic maneuver but, more specifically, it “sobered” the American “imperial¬
ists,” led them to concede that containment of the USSR was a bankrupt
strategy, and impelled them to seek settlement of long-standing issues through
negotiation instead of confrontation. In short, by contrast with the fashion¬
able tendency in the West to deprecate the political utility of strategic power,
Soviet experience would seem to have confirmed it.
Thus, on both the military and political sides of the house, there appears to
be a built-in bias in the Soviet case toward perpetuation of a doctrine that

says in effect that further accretion of strategic power makes policy sense,
even though it may offer no logical endpoint for the strategic competition.
Such an outlook, should it endure, would certainly seem to pose a major
obstacle to the merging of U.S. and Soviet approaches to strategic policy. But
there is SALT to be considered. What, it may be asked, has been the impact
of the SALT experience to date upon this and other roadblocks to conver¬
gence of Soviet and American strategic thinking?
Implications of the SALT Experience for Soviet Strategic Policy
The SALT process clearly has introduced some significant elements into
the Soviet-U.S. strategic relationship that did not exist previously when both
strategic competitors were essentially free to shape their strategic postures as
they saw fit-—within the customary constraints imposed by resources, tech¬
nology, geography, and the like. Besides bringing some measure of “joint”
Soviet-American strategic planning into the picture, SALT promises to politi¬
cize strategic interaction between the two sides to a greater degree than hith¬
erto, for it has created a political imperative to show that strategic policies
are—at the least—not inconsistent with the SALT undertakings.
One important consequence in the Soviet case may be that many strategic
matters that by past Soviet custom were “left to the marshals,” as Kosygin
once remarked, have now been politicized to the point that they will get more
intensive scrutiny from the top political leadership. The long give-and-take of
the negotiating process itself and the preparation of coordinated papers by
backup agencies in Moscow also may have familiarized many middle-echelon
Soviet officials with a body of strategic lore hitherto largely the province of
the military.
All this can be taken to mean that Soviet officialdom from the top down has
been sensitized to previously unperceived subtleties of the strategic relation¬
ship and prompted to think in terms of a stabilization of the arms competition
for which there has been little place in Soviet strategic doctrine and policy
over the past decade. Parenthetically one might add that the Soviet leaders
also could have become more sensitized to the multiplier effect of negotiations
on the political value of strategic forces. In an era of bargaining with one’s
adversary, these forces tend to become the instruments through which gains
are won at the negotiating table—a point not likely to have escaped a leader¬
ship already persuaded that its investment in strategic power should yield
returns beyond deterrence alone.
To return to the question of whether SALT may have accelerated a funda¬
mental convergence of U.S. and Soviet strategic principles, the specific evi¬
dence most often cited in this regard is the ABM treaty, whose preamble
language and supporting provisions bar both sides from building nationwide
defenses against ICBM attack. Soviet commitment to this ban—dramatically
at variance with a long effort to achieve effective strategic defense of the

Soviet homeland—has naturally been interpreted to mean that the Soviet side
has finally seen the light and adopted the American doctrine of mutual
assured destruction.
While it is undeniable that the ABM treaty opens a significant chink in the
edifice of traditional Soviet strategic thought and represents at least semantic
convergence in the ABM field, it does not necessarily follow that the Soviets
have come around to full-fledged embrace of the American strategic philoso¬
phy. The renunciation of countrywide ABM, for that matter, goes only part
way toward acceptance of the mutual assured destruction concept. The other
key element is a delicate concern for the mutual survivability of offensive
deterrent forces. Although the Soviets have for some time taken measures to
improve the survivability of their own forces, neither in SALT nor outside of
it have they seemed disposed to eschew measures that threaten the opponent s
forces, such as guidance improvements and deployment of counterforce sys¬
tems. (For example, the Soviets have seen no need to pledge themselves to a
design goal of restricting delivery aecuracy, as the Lfnited States has done, in
order to avoid posing a counterforce threat to the other side.)
Conceptually, the Soviets have continued to reject the idea of security
based on the “balance of terror,” a notion inherent in the doctrine of assured
destruction.22 SALT I, moreover, American negotiators apparently could
not persuade their Soviet counterparts to agree that mutual survivability of
offensive forces is a good thing for the security of both parties and a subject
that should receive priority attention in the present follow-up round of negoti¬
ations.^^
But if SALT has not proved to be the crucible in which important differ¬
ences between Soviet and American strategic conceptions have been finally
melted away, should this be taken to mean that future Soviet strategic policy
will remain unaffected by the SALT experience? One can hardly make such a
categorical assertion. Rather, there would seem to be room for at least two
differing hypotheses as to the direction in which Soviet strategic policy may
move under the impact of SALT and other developments affecting the Soviet-
U.S. relationship.
The first hypothesis would tend to credit the ABM treaty as a genuine
conceptual departure from previous Soviet dedication to active defense and as
a real, even though not unequivocal, step away from the traditional strategic
thinking that encouraged an endless search for comprehensive war-fighting
and survival capabilities. In this view the apparent continued adherence of the
Soviet Union to strong air defense, to counterforce retrofit options,* and to a
large civil defense effort may all merely reflect uneven erosion of the old
doctrinal legacy. By the same token it might be argued that institutionalized
* “Retrofit” refers to modification of existing systems to improve their capabilities, for

example, installing a more accurate guidance mechanism on a previously deployed missile.
expression of a new rationale along the lines of assured destruction—and

embodying explicit concern for the mutual survivability of offensive forces—
simply has not had time to catch up.
Furthermore, the point can be made that, within the top Soviet leadership
itself, adherence to the perceived dictates of traditional strategic doctrine may
prove more controversial now that “equality” has been achieved and the
overriding consensus to overtake the United States has been satisfied. Given
the political, ideological, and institutional disparities still existing between the
two sides, this hypothesis—which might be labeled “creeping convergence by
erosion”—does not necessarily foresee a complete shift in the Soviet strategic
outlook that would make it convergent in all respects with American thinking.
But it does imply that one can expect further significant Soviet movement in
SALT and in future postural decisions toward the U.S. position on strategic
issues of cardinal concern—foremost, mutual survivability of offensive forces.
By contrast, the second hypothesis would tend to doubt that the ABM
treaty marked a fundamental watershed in Soviet strategic policy, holding
instead that it probably represents a practieal compromise that still allows
Soviet strategie theorists and planners to seek alternative ways of meeting the
traditional premises of Soviet doctrine. In this view the reversal of past Soviet
positions on ABM, which made the ABM treaty possible, was dictated in the
main by concern over a superior U.S. Safeguard technology^^ and had little
to do with agreement in principle that the “balance of terror”—holding popu¬
lations hostage—should become the keystone of Soviet security. By a twist of
reverse logic, indeed, it can be argued that the Soviets simply demonstrated
the high value they still place on ABM, for in order to block U.S. develop¬
ment in this field they were willing to accept constraints on their own.
Under this hypothesis a deemphasis upon the ABM aspect of strategic
defense could have the effect of shifting the damage-limitation mission, which
is traditionally close to the hearts of Soviet planners, in the further direction
of counterforce systems. Even the ABM treaty in this case might be construed
as a useful means for enhancing the counterforce potential of Soviet strategic
systems, insofar as it places striet limits on U.S. protection of ICBM launch
sites and control centers.
This second hypothesis basically holds that the Soviets continue to be
dominated primarily by coneern for their own security and for means to
eliminate perceived or potential threats to it, rather than thinking about ensur¬
ing the security of their competitors as well. It might therefore be inferred that
the Soviets would be prepared to take such steps as jettisoning the ABM
treaty if technology permits and new threats to their security seem to arise, as
from China. At the least, this hypothesis implies that Soviet movement toward
U.S. conceptions of strategic stability is no more likely than stubborn adher¬
ence to a strategic doctrine that preaches the importance of being able to
knock out the forces of the opponent and limit the damage that could be
inflieted on one’s own society.
Needless to say, which of these hypotheses about the future thrust of Soviet
strategic policy comes closer to the mark is not something to be settled by
discussions of the subject like this one. The persuasive arguments will be
those that emerge from further stages of SALT and from actual developments
in the Soviet strategic posture.
SOVIET NAVAL POLICY AND PROGRAMS
Like the strategic buildup of the past decade, the growth of Soviet naval
power during the same period has often been regarded as a direct response to
the embarrassment suffered by the Soviet Union during the Cuban crisis.
Again, however, this explanation alone appears inadequate to account for the
development of Soviet naval capabilities that has taken place under the
Brezhnev-Kosygin regime. In a broad sense it can be said that the present
Soviet leaders have simply carried further a process of transforming the Soviet
navy into an instrument for the support of Soviet global interests that was
already well under way when they took office. More specifically, one finds a
number of salient considerations that appear to have influenced the course of
Soviet naval development during both Khrushchev’s tenure and that of his
successors.
Among these was the Soviet Union’s perception of a seaborne strategic
threat against the Soviet homeland, posed first in the latter fifties by U.S.
carrier strike forces with nuclear delivery aircraft like the A-3D and in the
early sixties by the growing Polaris SLBM force. Some observers argue that
since the mid-fifties an imperative to counter these seaborne threats as far
offshore as possible has been the main if not virtually the sole driving force
behind the technical evolution and gradual forward deployment of a “blue-
water” Soviet navy.^®
Up to a point, judging both from treatment of the seaborne strategic threat
in Soviet military literature and from programs taken to counter it,^® one can
certainly find this “defensive reaction” thesis credible, but it does seem some¬
what overdrawn. It can hardly be stretched, for example, to account for the
priority also given by the Soviet Union to acquiring an offensive SLBM capa¬
bility against strategic targets in the United States or for the increasing num¬
ber of “naval presence” missions undertaken in support of Soviet “state
interests” but not related to defense of the Soviet homeland against
strategic attack.
Whatever the merits of the argument that Soviet naval policy since the mid-
fifties has been dictated by Soviet perception of a strategic threat from the sea,
it would appear, as asserted retrospectively by the man who has headed the
Soviet Navy for the past eighteen years, that decisions made in the mid-fifties
did indeed mark “a new stage in the development of the Navy.”^'^ According
to Admiral Gorshkov, one of the important policy choices made at that time
was to create “an ocean-going Navy” capable of “conducting combat opera-
tions” in either nuclear or non-nuclear wars, and also of “supporting state

interests at sea in peacetime.”^® Another major choice, predicated upon a
“radical change in the technical base” of the navy,^® involved a notably
innovative concept. This amounted essentially to opting for a variety of offen¬
sive and defensive missile systems that did not require large capital ships but
could be packaged aboard smaller surface ships, submarines, and long-range,
land-based aircraft. A third important choice was a negative decision to
forego the building of large attack carriers^® but to keep open the option of
later recourse to smaller, specialized types of carriers.
Although the basic Soviet decisions that led to a new path of naval de¬
velopment can be traced to the mid-fifties, the West was slow to perceive the
changing character of Soviet naval power throughout the late fifties and early
sixties. This was due in part to the continued confinement of most Soviet
naval activity, with the exception of submarine training, to home waters of the
four territorial fleets and to the fact that Soviet naval forces played little role
in various international crises of the period. This situation changed rather
dramatically after the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime took office, however, and by
the early seventies the United States had become keenly aware of a growing
Soviet naval challenge. Indeed it was felt in some quarters that an overreac¬
tion to the perceived Soviet naval threat had set in.^^
Several factors seem to account for the shift in Western perception of the
Soviet Union from an unimpressive naval power to a serious competitor. One
was the increased visibility of Soviet naval forces through out-of-area deploy¬
ments and exercises, especially the establishment of a permanent naval pres¬
ence in the Mediterranean as an outgrowth of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The
sinking of an Israeli destroyer by a missile-armed patrol boat furnished to
Egypt by the USSR had particularly notable effects, for it sensitized the West
to the threat implicit in the Soviet Navy’s adoption of anti-ship missiles.^^
An increasing frequency of harassment encounters between Soviet and
U.S. naval units, which led to an agreement in early 1972 designed-to reduce
incidents at sea,^^ was another phenomenon that contributed to greater
awareness of Soviet naval power. But perhaps the most cogent factor was
simply belated recognition that the Soviet Navy had been surprisingly innova¬
tive in seeking to optimize its capabilities against superior Western naval
forces by a combination of surface, subsurface, and air-launched missile arm¬
aments. A brief look at some of the naval construction programs by which the
capabilities of the Soviet Navy were improved under the Brezhnev-Kosygin
regime may be appropriate at this point.
Submarine Programs
In the submarine field the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime inherited an active

postwar building program for both diesel and nuclear-powered submarines:
In the postwar years up to 1970 the Soviet Union produced fourteen new
classes of submarines, some of which had several distinct variants, and most
of these were built or authorized during the period Khrushchev was in power.
The major technical problem on the agenda was to develop a ballistic missile
submarine technology roughly comparable to that of the U.S. Polaris, an
effort that received high priority during the first years of the new regime and
resulted in the Y-class program already discussed. Otherwise the submarine
construction programs of the sixties were directed toward maintaining the
Soviet Union’s already wide lead in attack submarines for anti-shipping pur¬
poses and advancing the submarine’s potential as a counter-naval instrument,
chiefly through incorporation of cruise-missile technology.
Two new nuclear-powered classes in these categories were laid down in the
latter sixties. These were (i) the V-class, a torpedo attack submarine prob¬
ably intended to replace older diesel and nuclear classes in an ASW and anti¬
shipping role, and (2) the C-class, armed with a new generation of cruise
missiles, the SS-N-7, which could be fired from underwater.
Altogether the submarine building programs of the past decade, together
with retirement of older classes and some sales abroad, have given the Soviet
Union a modernized but somewhat smaller submarine fleet than it possessed
at the beginning of the decade. As of mid-1972 approximately 30 percent of
the 345 submarines in active service were nuclear-powered types. Categorized
by roles, about 20 percent of the force consisted of cruise-missile submarines
primarily for anti-ship use; about 15 percent were ballistic-missile launching
types for strategic delivery purposes; and 65 percent were attack submarines
for anti-ship, ASW, and mining roles.®^
Surface Ship Programs

Continuing the trend toward guided-missile ships established in the late
fifties, surface ship construction in the Brezhnev-Kosygin period has pro¬
vided new units of this kind in both cruiser and destroyer categories. In the
cruiser category, in addition to the Kynda-class guided-missile cruiser combin¬
ing surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missile armament, which first became
operational in 1962, the similarly armed but slightly larger Kresta-class came
into service in 1967. (A Kresta II modification of 7,500 tons displacement—
the Kresta I was 6,500 tons—appeared in 1969)- By 1972 there were thir¬
teen units of these two classes operational and a program for a third missile
cruiser class, the Kara, somewhat larger than the Kresta, was reportedly
under way.^® The latter marked a continuing trend toward progressively
larger guided-missile cruisers, suggesting that greater range and endurance
may have become a criterion for future surface force development.^® In the
guided-missile destroyer category, new programs included the SAM-equipped
Kashin-class, which became operational in 1964, and the multipurpose
Krivak-class with SSM, SAM, and ASW armament. The latter, which entered
service in 1971, was expected to be built in substantial numbers.®^
Perhaps the principal new direction taken by Soviet surface ship programs
in the sixties was the introduction at long last of platforms for shipborne
aviation to provide a capability hitherto lacking to the land-based Soviet naval
air arm. The initial step in this direction was the building of the Moskva-class
helicopter carrier, a 20,ooo-ton vessel primarily equipped for an ASW role
with an on-board complement of some twenty helicopters and sophisticated
electronics. The Moskva became operational in 1967, followed about two years
later by another unit of this class, the Leningrad. The second Soviet step in
the development of a seaborne air capability came with the launching in early
1973 of a new hull at Nikolayev on the Black Sea. This ship, displacing about
40,000 tons and with an angled flight deck of 600 feet, was believed to be
designed to carry V/STOL aircraft (vertical or short takeoff and landing),
rather than conventional aircraft requiring a longer flight deck.-^®
What the next step in the carrier field may be is hardly clear at the time of
writing. The Soviet Union still has not begun to build large carrier strike
forces on the American pattern, and it would take a long time to catch up
even if such a decision were made.^® Soviet policy perhaps remains unde¬
cided on this question, but at least it can be said that the USSR is gradually
moving away from its past position of relying solely on land-based naval air
support.
To sum up the main thrust of Soviet naval policy, it would appear that the
Soviet Navy is still in transition from a force optimized to exact a high toll
from U.S. nuclear-armed naval units at the outset of a nuclear war, and thus
to hmit damage to the Soviet homeland, to one possessing a better worldwide
general purpose naval capability. In this process it can be said that the Soviet
Union has not yet developed general purpose naval forces that can match U.S.
capabilities to control sea Unes of communication and to project sea power on
a worldwide basis. However it has acquired a growing capacity to disrupt sea
lines of communieation and to prevent unhindered access to critical maritime
regions.^®
In short, if the Soviet Union is still far from being able to establish long¬
term control of the sea for itself, it is becoming increasingly capable of deny¬
ing such control to others. Needless to say, this has potentially unwelcome
connotations for the United States, which is more dependent on overseas
sources of supply and more closely linked with transoceanic allies than the
Soviet Union. Finally, with regard to the strategic delivery capability em¬
bodied in the STEM component of naval forces, the Soviet Union today finds
itself in a position where it has gained its adversary’s assent to Soviet numeri¬
cal superiority in SLBMs. This would appear to mean that Soviet policy¬
makers must next decide how far to pursue further competition centering on
qualitative improvement of such forces.
SOVIET POLICY AFFECTING GROUND-AIR THEATER FORCES
The vast geographic expanse of the Soviet Union, stretching from Europe
to the Pacific, has traditionally meant that a large share of Soviet military
resources has gone into ground-air combined forces committed primarily to
support of Soviet security interests at both ends of the Eurasian continent.
Although the bulk of these forces during the past decade has remained ori¬
ented toward Europe, which each generation of Soviet leaders has regarded as
the central and decisive arena of world politics, nevertheless one of the more
striking military policy shifts to emerge under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime
has been the massive strengthening of the Soviet theater forces in the Asian
regions facing the People’s Republic of China.
The Buildup Against China
Measures to bolster the Soviet posture in Asia through deployment of

additional ground troops and supporting air and missile units began gradually
in 1965—1966 but were stepped up markedly after the much-publicized
Ussuri River and Sinkiang border clashes with the Chinese in 1969. By 1970
Soviet divisions in the Sino-Soviet border area had increased from fifteen to
seventeen stationed there in 1965 to almost double that number, while three
years later the total reportedly came to more than forty.This buildup, it
appears, was not accomplished by transfer of forces from the European front
but rather by mobilization, which raised the overall number of active Soviet
divisions from about 140 to 160. As matters stood in early 1973, of the total
Soviet theater forces strength of some 160 divisions and 45600 tactical air¬
craft, about one-fourth was deployed against China, more than one-half re¬
mained poised toward Europe, and the remainder appeared to constitute a
strategic reserve.
What motivation may lie behind the Soviet buildup against China is neces¬
sarily a matter of conjecture. Some speculation has held that the Soviet Union
is seriously preparing for a military showdown with Peking, possibly to in¬
clude “surgical” strikes to destroy China’s nuclear capabilities before they
reach a level deemed intolerable to Soviet security.^® A less ominous inter¬
pretation, but one also consistent with the dimensions of the Soviet buildup in
Asia, is that the Soviet leaders have come to the conclusion that mere poUtical
pressure against Peking promises to have very little payoff unless backed up
by a real flexing of military muscle. In this view, which the present writer
finds the more persuasive, the built-in constraints on both sides against ac¬
tually going to war with each other are such that neither is likely to seek an
outright military solution of their differences. One of the more powerful con¬
straints is the possibility that a major Sino-Soviet mifitary conflict might ex-
haust both combatants and allow third parties, so to speak, to pick up the
pieces. In addition to this hazard, and the material strains of a military
showdown, the unpredictable political and ideological costs of a war between
the two leading Communist states also seem to argue against carrying things
beyond the stage of high-powered bluff and intimidation.
The Continuing European Orientation of Theater Forces
Whatever may account for the Soviet military buildup in Asia, the fact
remains, as noted above, that most of the Soviet Union’s theater forces are
still oriented primarily toward Europe. This orientation shows up in numerous
ways. Since the intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, for example, the
Soviet theater forces deployment in Eastern Europe has been maintained at a
level of thirty-one divisions, compared with twenty-six prior to the interven¬
tion.'*^ Although the withdrawal of some of the Soviet intervention forces
served to allay NATO’s concern that the long-standing military balance in
Europe had been grossly upset,*^ Soviet policy has continued to call for the
forward deployment of the best-equipped Soviet theater forces units in East¬
ern Europe and the westernmost military districts of the USSR.
Modernization of these forces to place them on a better footing for either
nuclear or conventional operations in the European theater has gone forward
steadily under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime, as has the practice of holding
periodic combined exercises with other Warsaw Pact forces.*® Measures to
improve the organizational and command structure of the Warsaw Pact also
have been instituted under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime, partly in response
to internal alliance pressures for reform following the Czechoslovak
episode.*'^
Although the current NATO-Warsaw Pact military balance is a compli¬
cated equation involving both tactical nuclear weapons, of which NATO has
the greater number at its disposal,* and conventional forces, which favor the
Warsaw Pact side,*® the Soviet Union clearly has not been disposed to give
up the military advantages conferred by the forward positioning of its forces
in Eastern Europe. If all of this testifies to a continuing strong European
orientation in Soviet theater forces policy, much the same is true in the
doctrinal realm, where most Soviet military writers dealing with problems of
theater operations still tend to concentrate on the European arena. Con¬
versely, despite the obvious stepping up of military preparations in Asia,
* The number of tactical nuclear weapons at NATO’s disposal, although under Ameri¬
can control, is said to be upward of 7,000. No figures for comparable tactical weapons
available on the Warsaw Pact side have been disclosed, but the number is generally
thought to be about half. But this smaller tactical nuclear inventory is somewhat offset by
some 600 medium-range Soviet strategic missiles targeted against the NATO area.
surprisingly little attention—at least in published Soviet military literature—

has been devoted to elucidating the military aspects of the China problem.
Effects of Detente on Soviet Theater Forces Policy
Although Soviet policy affecting theater forces in Europe seems to have

undergone little basic change under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime, there is
some expectation that the growth of a detente atmosphere in Europe over the
past three years may be gradually leading the Soviet Union to contemplate a
more than superficial alteration of its past security arrangements in Europe.
The underlying reasons for Soviet return to detente politics in Europe cannot
be explored here,^® but a detente environment has meant, among other
things, the opening in early 1973 of East-West negotiations on European
security and cooperation (CSCE) and the related issue of mutual and bal¬
anced force reductions (MBFR).
Whether these negotiations, still largely in an exploratory stage, will pro¬
duce any substantial change in the long postwar standoff between alliance
systems and their respective theater force dispositions in Europe remains to
be seen. So far as Soviet policy declarations are concerned, the Soviet Union
has indicated that it is prepared to negotiate a new pattern of security and
economic cooperation arrangements in Europe that would, inter alia, be ex¬
pected to involve eventually “the simultaneous dissolution of the North Atlan¬
tic alliance and the Warsaw Treaty, or, as a first step, the abolition of their
military organizations.”®® A similar proposal for annulment of the NATO
and Warsaw treaties was made at the Twenty-fourth Party Congress in April
1971. The Soviet Union can and does claim consistency for its advocacy of a
collective security system in Europe,®^ and of course Article ii of the War¬
saw treaty itself has always called for dissolution of the treaty if and when an
all-European system of collective security should be set up.
On the face of it, therefore, the Soviet Union appears to stand for doing
away with the two-bloc system of military coalitions in Europe and for adopt¬
ing measures that would replace the existing “legacy” of Cold War division
between the two halves of the continent. To do so, however, would entail
Soviet acceptance of integrative concepts of the East-West relationship in
Europe that not only are at sharp variance with past Soviet practice but also
are out of keeping with the treaties and agreements thus far negotiated under
detente—including the German Federal Republic’s treaties with the USSR
and Poland, and the quadripartite Berlin agreement—for these are carefully
calculated to perpetuate the dividing line between East and West rather than
to erase it. Indeed the Soviets have stressed at every turn the central signifi¬
cance of “final recognition” by the West of “territorial changes resulting from
the Second World War”®^ and of the “inviolability of the existing borders in
Europe,”®^ which is tantamount to saying that the principle of a divided

Europe still underlies Soviet policy.
In one notable respect the Soviets have not deigned to pay even lip service
to the idea that detente could bring about a lowering of the barriers to freer
East-West intercourse that have been erected in a divided Europe. This is to
be seen in Soviet treatment of the limits that apply to the principle of “peace¬
ful coexistence” between states with different social-political systems. As
Brezhnev has put it, peaceful coexistence “in no way implies the possibility of
relaxing the ideological struggle. On the contrary, we must be prepared for
this struggle to become more intense and an ever sharper form of confronta¬
tion between the two social systems.”®^ In the same vein Soviet commenta¬
tors have declared, in connection with the present CSCE negotiations, that no
“ideological thaw” and freer East-West communications should be expected
to emerge from these negotiations.®^
Although Soviet insistence upon the territorial inviolability and ideological
impermeability of the East-West dividing line in Europe does not necessarily
mean that changes affecting the Warsaw Pact are to be ruled out, a strong
presumptive case can certainly be made that the Soviet Union will think long
and hard before it seriously entertains steps that would involve dismantling
the Warsaw Pact or impairing the functions it has hitherto served. This case
looks the more convincing if—as some students of Soviet behavior believe—a
generally conservative calculus underlies Soviet decision-making; that is, if the
notion that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush tends to make the
Soviet leaders hold onto what they have rather than reach for bigger stakes
with unpredictable risks.
Perhaps the key test of how far the Soviet Union is prepared to move from
past policy and practice will lie in its willingness to accept a major cutback in
the large theater force deployment maintained in Eastern Europe for a quarter-
century. Various advantages would accrue to the Soviet Union from mutual
Soviet and U.S. force reductions in Europe, sueh as their “ungluing” effects
on NATO, the greater proximity of home-based Soviet forces to Europe, and
the release of Soviet theater forces for deployment against China. Further, if
the Soviet economy is now facing a troublesome manpower pinch, as some
analysts believe,®® a reduction in the overall level of the manpower-intensive
theater forces might offer at least marginal benefits in this direction. At the
same time, however, the liabilities of giving up a strong forward military
lodgement in Europe also would have to be considered by the Soviet leader¬
ship. The policing functions of the Soviet military presence have been espe¬
cially critical to the preservation of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe, while
with regard to Western Europe, Soviet political “clout” without the backing of
that same forward presence might suffer seriously as well.
No one can predict with confidence how the Soviet leaders will weigh these
choices. On past performance one might expect them to prove reluctant to
accept more than a token withdrawal of their forces, but they might be
prepared to go a good deal further, particularly if they should conclude that a

detente environment in Europe promises to unravel the NATO alliance with¬
out seriously endangering their own hold over Eastern Europe.
SOVIET MILITARY AID DIPLOMACY
Finally, to round out this survey of worldwide Soviet military policy, the
part played by Soviet military aid diplomacy merits some attention. Apart
from the extensive provision of Soviet arms and expertise to members of the
Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union also utilizes military aid as an instrument of
Soviet policy toward the so-called less developed, and largely non-Commu-
nist, countries of the Third World, where the USSR competes for influence
with the United States and to some extent with Communist China.
Although military aid to other countries and political movements has a long
history in the annals of Soviet foreign policy,®^ the contemporary phase of
interest began with military assistance programs extended to Egypt in 1955
and shortly thereafter to Afghanistan and Syria. This mid-fifties venture into
military aid diplomacy coincided both with the emerging globalism of Soviet
foreign policy under Khrushchev and with Soviet efforts to offset the postwar
system of Western defensive alliances that had been forged to contain Soviet
expansionism. In a sense the first selective Soviet military aid programs in the
Middle East were aimed at extending Soviet influence in key anti-Baghdad
Pact states and could be said to represent an attempt to leapfrog the CENTO
alliance, which was intended to encircle the Soviet Union from the south.
Since that beginning the pattern of military aid under both Khrushchev and
his successors has continued to be selectively concentrated in regions of stra¬
tegic and political interest to the Soviet Union. From the mid-fifties to the
early seventies, some twenty-eight countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa,
and Latin America became recipients of Soviet arms and training pro¬
grams.®® Estimates of the monetary value of Soviet military aid programs in
this period vary somewhat, but generally come to around $7 billion, repre¬
senting about 40 percent of the combined total of economic and military
assistance extended to Third World countries by the USSR.®®
By far the largest share of Soviet military aid, upward of half, has gone into
the Middle East, where it has proved to be a primary instrument for establish¬
ing a significant Soviet politico-military foothold in the region. Following the
1967 Arab-Israeli war, Soviet aid to Egypt alone rose dramatically, especially
after Moscow undertook a major program to build a modern air defense
system for Egypt in early 1970 (estimates of Soviet military aid to Egypt in
the 1967-1970 period vary from about $1.7 to $4.5 billion, depending on
the exchange rates used and other cost factors). A large influx of Soviet
military personnel into Egypt also occurred at this time, reaching a high point
of 15—20,000 before President Sadat called for removal of most of the Soviet
contingent in mid-1972. Other recipients of large-scale military aid have been

Indonesia, Cuba, Iraq, and India, with the amounts extended running from
about $i billion in the case of Indonesia to about $500 million for India.
The criteria by which Soviet military aid has been disbursed include some
preference for aiding left-oriented regimes, but this has not been a binding
principle. For example, there have been oecasional rightist or semifeudal
recipients, like Afghanistan, Syria at certain periods, Morocco, Yemen under
the Imamate, and Indonesia after the overthrow of Sukarno, although aid was
much reduced in the latter instance.
Support for “national liberation” movements is also a professed principle
behind Soviet military aid, but again it appears to be subject to expediency. In
Khrushchev’s time, concrete help was sometimes withheld when there ap¬
peared to be a danger of confrontation with the West—Cuba in 1962 and
Cyprus in 1964 are cases in point. Under the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime an on-
and-off attitude toward the Palestinian fedayeen—defined by Moscow as a
“national liberation” movement—is another example of ambivalent Soviet
support. So far as there is any consistent political criterion for military aid, it
would appear to be that “national bourgeoisie” governments and even radical
regimes that suppress their own internal Communist parties can be considered
acceptable if they display a generally anti-Western orientation.
The open and direct involvement of Soviet forces in local conflicts involv¬
ing recipients of arms and training is a situation the Soviets usually have
sought to avoid. True, there has been a twilight zone in which this constraint
has not always operated, such as the covert involvement of Soviet military
personnel in Indonesia, Egypt, Yemen, Cuba, and Vietnam. However, until
the temporary operational entry of Soviet pilots and missile crews into the air
defense of Egypt in 1970? the Soviet Union did not openly cross the line
between covert and direct involvement of its own personnel.
From the Soviet point of view the military aid diplomacy of the past
eighteen years probably seems well worth the price, which can be reckoned in
resource terms at something under one percent of Soviet GNP for the period.
On the plus side, military aid has helped to open the door for Soviet influence
in many parts of the world from which the USSR was previously excluded—
the Middle East and Mediterranean, Cuba, sub-Sahara Africa, and the Indian
Ocean littoral being among the more conspicuous examples.
Military aid programs also have given Soviet military and administrative
personnel wide experience in overseas areas beyond the continental confines
of the USSR itself, a factor of no little consequence if the Soviet Union aspires
to play the role of a great power in world affairs, as seems to be the case.
Furthermore, it can be said that opportunities to exercise Soviet airlift and
seaborne logistics capabilities in support of clients abroad, including Cuba,
Nonh Vietnam, and countries in the Middle East, have made a useful contri¬
bution to extending the Soviet Union’s military “reach.”
At the same time, of course, there have been some failures and potential
problems for the Soviet Union growing out of the military aid effort. Indo¬
nesia is an example of a big investment that seems largely to have gone down
the drain since the Suharto regime took over. Aid to some clients in West
Africa, notably Ghana and Guinea, and to the Sudan, also produced what
must look like poor results from Moscow.
The expulsion of Soviet advisory personnel from Egypt in mid-1972 prob¬
ably gave Moscow some concern about possible deterioration of its position in
the Middle East, although the subsequent chapter of Arab-Israeli conflict
in October 1973 may have again persuaded the Soviet Union that its heavy
military aid investment on behalf of the Arab states was a worthwhile propo¬
sition in terms of enhanced Soviet influence.*
Aid programs have at times threatened to involve the Soviet Union in
ticklish situations; Cuba in 1962 is a prime example; the Arab-Israeli war is
another; the Syria-Jordan crisis still another.
A further byproduct of aid programs and improved Soviet access to the
Third World that may on occasion create problems for Moscow is a higher
level of client expectation that the Soviet Union will render backing in local
conflicts, whereas previously the USSR was in a sense excused from involve¬
ment because its capacity to intervene was more limited. This may sometimes
have the effect of engaging Soviet prestige and calling for riskier policy com¬
mitments than the Soviet leaders might prefer.
What then is the future perspective for Soviet military aid diplomacy?
On the one hand it can be argued that Soviet military aid programs have
already peaked and that the period of major buildup of clients like Egypt,
Syria, Cuba, Indonesia, and North Vietnam lies in the past. In this view the
Soviet Union has in effect run out of important military aid recipients, with
the possible exception of India, and the future pattern is therefore likely to
involve smaller and more selective aid deliveries to various clients.
On the other hand it can be argued that the combination of wider Soviet
global interests and a U.S. tendency toward retrenchment of worldwide com¬
mitments may have the effect of stimulating more ambitious Soviet use of
military aid diplomacy. The Soviet competition with Peking which already
has prompted Moscow to hint at building an Asian collective security system
to contain China—can be seen as another likely spur to greatly increased
Soviet military aid to India and other countries in Asia. In this view other
regions that also hold a potential for expansion of Soviet mihtary aid diplo¬
macy include the Persian Gulf and Red Sea littorals, where access to oil is
* Note: No extended analysis of the impact of the crisis on the Soviet position has been
attempted here. However, it seems fair to say that the Soviet Union thus far has emerged
with an enhanced position in the region both through its contribution to the initial suc¬
cesses of Arab arms and its direct participation in the shaping of negotiations for a
settlement.
becoming an increasingly important international issue, and Latin America,

where new regimes seeking to diminish U.S. influence may offer opportunities
for Soviet entry into military aid competition with the United States.
Which of these two prognoses will come closer to the mark remains to be
seen. For what it may be worth, however, the present writer ventures to say
that the more likely prospect is an enlargement, rather than a retraction, of
military aid activity as an instrument of Soviet diplomacy.
NOTES
1. In this connection one may advert to the rather somber reminder offered by Peter
Wiles: ... an imperialist power must feel a great historic righteousness about what
it does, and citizens of its core nationality must share much of this feeling.” These
words appeared in an article entitled “The Declining Self-Confidence of the Superpowers”
but despite use of the plural in the title, Wiles’ article made it plain that the descrip¬
tion tends to fit one of the superpowers rather more than the other. International Affairs
(London), April 1971, p. 289.
2. For examples of recent Soviet military literature that discuss the various roles of
the armed forces, see: Colonel M. Menshov, “The Armed Forces of the USSR in the
Postwar Period, Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil [Communist of the Armed Forces], no.
14 Uuly 1972), pp. 68-75; Lt. General G. Zavizion and Lt. Colonel Yu. Kirshin, “Soviet
Military Science: Social Role and Functions,” ibid., no. 17 (September 1972), pp. 9—16;
Colonel T. Kondratkov, “Social Character of Modern War,” ibid.. No. 21 (November
1972), pp. 9-16; General of the Army A. Epishev, “Led by the Party,” Voenno-Istoriche-
skii Zhurnal [Military Historical Journal], no. 9 (September 1972), pp. 3—13.
3. See Vladimir Petrov, Soviet Foreign Policy Formulation: Formal and Informal
Inputs, External Research Study XR/RESS-6 (Washington, D.C.: Department of State,
March 30, 1973), pp. 10-12.
4. V. D. Sokolovskii, Soviet Military Strategy (English translation; Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.. Prentice Hall, 1963); Oleg Penkovskiy, The Penkovskiy Papers (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965).
5. For further details on the Soviet strategic buildup, see Thomas W. Wolfe, Soviet
Power and Europe: ig45—igyo (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), pp. 431-441.
6. In March 1969, for example, the SS-9 was singled out by U.S. Secretary of Defense
Melvin R. Laird, during congressional hearings on the U.S. Safeguard missile defense
system, as a weapon that posed a potential threat to the American landbased Minuteman
deterrent force. New York Times, March 21 and 22, 1969.
7. The four versions or “Mods” of the SS-9 were described in a 1973 report by Admiral
Thomas H. Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as follows: Mods i and 2
carried a single warhead with yield and accuracy suitable for attacking hard targets.
Mod 3 was a fractional orbiting (EOBs) and depressed trajectory version only accurate
enough to be a soft-target weapon. Mod 4, with three warheads, had been tested in a
MRV mode, but had not demonstrated a true MIRV capability. Admiral Moorer’s state¬
ment, incidentally, noted that the number of Mods i and 2 with a hard-target capability
was not enough to “constitute a significant threat” to the U.S. Minuteman force. See
“United States Military Posture for FY 1974,” statement by Admiral Thomas H. Moorer,
USN, before the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Ap¬
propriations, March 26, 1973, p. n. (Hereafter cited as Moorer Statement, March 1973.)
8. See “MIRV Warhead Seen Successful in Soviet Tests,” Washington Post, August
9. For a fuller discussion of the Y-class program, see Thomas W. Wolfe, “Soviet Naval
Interaction with the United States and Its Influence on Soviet Naval Development,”
P-4913 (The Rand Corporation, October 1972), pp. 27-31.
10. National Security Strategy of Realistic Deterrence, Secretary of Defense Melvin R.
Laird’s annual Defense Department report, FY 1973, (Washington, D.C., February 22,
1972), p. 39.
11. Moorer Statement, March 1973, p. 8.
12. Uncertainty as to whether the primary mission of the Backfire is intercontinental or
peripheral has persisted since this new bomber first appeared. Adequate range for inter¬
continental missions would require air-to-air refueling. See Moorer Statement, March
1973, p. 17-
13. The Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms set maximum ceilings of
1,618 ICBMs for the Soviet Union to 1,054 for the United States, and 62 modern nuclear
submarines with 950 SLBMs for the Soviet side compared with 44 submarines and 710
SLBMs for the United States. Within the ICBM category, “heavy” missiles of types de¬
ployed after 1964 were limited to 313 for the USSR and 54 for the United States. Under
a complicated tradeoff formula, the maximum number of SLBMs could be attained only
if a prescribed number of old ICBMs were turned in—210 and 54 respectively in the
Soviet and U.S. cases. The net outcome in combined numbers of ICBMs and SLBMs
accruing to each side if all options were exercised would be 2,358 for the Soviet Union
and 1,710 for the United States.
14. The combined total of Soviet surface-to-air missiles for defense against aircraft at
various altitudes came to about 10,000 by the early seventies. See Moorer Statement,
March 1973, p. 25.
15. See Wolfe, Soviet Power and Europe, p. 438.
16. These interceptors included the YAK-28 Firebar, the TU-128 Fiddler, the Flagon-A,
and the MIG-25 Foxbat. Other advanced fighter designs, some with STOL (short take-off
and landing) characteristics, also were under development. See Moorer Statement, March
1973, p. 24.
17. See Leon Goure, Soviet Civil Defense ig6g—i970 (Coral Gables, Fla.: Center for
Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, 1972).
18. See Wolfe, Soviet Power and Europe, p. 438.
19. In the early phase of the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime there were frequent assertions
that the Soviet Union had “solved” the missile defense problem, but as time went on more
guarded statements began to appear, such as Marshall Malinovskii’s observation at the
Twenty-third Party Congress that Soviet defenses could cope with some but not all enemy
missiles. Pravda, April 3, 1966.
20. For more detail on this debate, see Wolfe, Soviet Power and Europe, pp. 439-441.
21. “Statement of Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird Before the Senate Armed
Services Committee on the FY 1972-1976 Defense Program and the 1972 Defense
Budget,” March 15, 1971, p. 47.
22. See, for example, N. N. Inozemtzev in Pravda, June 9, 1972. In disparaging the
notion that security can be ensured by a “balance of terror,” Inozemtzev declared that
this conception “has always been alien to our state.”
23. This point emerged in one of the unilateral statements put into the record by the
U.S. delegation, noting that “an objective of the follow-on negotiations should be to
constrain and reduce on a long-term basis threats to the survivability of our respective
strategic retaliatory forces.” See “The ABM Treaty and Interim Agreement and Associated
Protocol,” message of transmittal from President Nixon to the U.S. Senate, June 3,
1972, p. 13.
24. Apropos this view, some American participants in SALT have indicated that their
Soviet counterparts seemed concerned about the U.S. advantage in ABM technology and
that this was apparently one of their reasons for wanting an ABM treaty. See Charles
J. V. Murphy, “What We Gave Away in the Moscow Arms Agreements,” Fortune,

September 1972, p. no.
25. For background discussion of this thesis, whose most articulate exponent has been
Commander Michael MacGwire, a retired British naval officer, see Wolfe, Soviet Naval
Interaction with the United States, pp. 9—12.
26. See Thomas W. Wolfe, Soviet Strategy at the Crossroads (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 185-186.
27. Admiral S. G. Gorshkov, “The Development of the Soviet Naval Art,” Morskoi
Sbornik [Naval Collection], no. 2 (February 1967), p. 20.
28. Ibid., p. 20. It may be noted that Soviet naval development sometimes has been
interpreted in terms of historic internal rivalry between adherents of an “old school
strategy” and a “new school strategy.” The former favored a high-seas navy to serve
political-economic as well as military interests, while the latter argued for a specialized
navy designed essentially to repel seaborne invasion. Admiral Gorshkov’s singular con¬
tribution may have been to merge these two schools of thought. The best discussion of the
old and new school approaches may be found in Robert W. Herrick, Soviet Naval
Strategy (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute, 1968).
29. Morskoi Sbornik [Naval Collection], no. 2 (February 1967), p. 20.
30. The question of attempting to compete with the West in carrier strike forces
periodically arose in the Soviet Union both before and after World War II. At several
points, carrier construction projects were suspended for one reason or another after
having been initially approved. For further details, see Herrick, Soviet Naval Strategy,
p. 64; Commander T. G. Martin, “A Soviet Carrier on the Horizon?” United States Naval
Institute Proceedings (Annapolis, Md.) December 1970, pp. 49-50.
31. See, for example, Michael Getler, “Proxmire Claims Pentagon Exaggerates Russian
Navy,” Washington Post, May 26, 1972. A full exchange of letters on the subject of
Soviet naval strength between Senator William Proxmire and Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt
may be found in the Congressional Record, June 12, 1972, pp. D-9179-9195.
32. See David Eairhall, Russian Sea Power (Boston: Gambit, 1971), pp. 229-230.
33. Talks leading to the May 1972 naval agreement began in Moscow in October 1971.
Up to that time more than 100 near-collisions and other potentially hazardous incidents
at sea reportedly had occurred. New York Times, October 23, 1971.
34- Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Comparison of U.S. and USSR Naval
Combatants (Washington, D.C., April i, 1972). The breakdown by numbers was as
follows:
Cruise-missile subs Number Classes

nuclear 37 E, C
diesel 28 J, W
Ballistic-missile subs
nuclear 35 H, Y
diesel 20 G, Z
Attack subs
nuclear 28 N, V
diesel 197 F,G,W,Q,R,B
35. According to reports in the spring of 1972 three new missile cruisers of about
12,000 to 15,000 tons were under construction; later the size of these ships was estimated
to be slightly under 10,000 tons. In early 1973 it was confirmed that the first unit of the
new class, designated the Kara, had joined the fleet. See William Beecher, “Soviet Re¬
ported Building Missile Cruisers Twice Previous Size, New York Times, April 30, 1972;
Moorer Statement, March 1973, p. 37.
36. It may be noted that up to this point the new surface combatants built by the
Soviet Union in the sixties had been optimized for strong initial striking power with
relatively little reload capacity and fuel endurance. By contrast, larger U.S. ships stressed
range, endurance, and habitability. See Moorer Statement, March 1973, p. 42.
37. See John French, “The Soviet Replacement Program,” Navy, May 1971, p. ii7-
38. Moorer Statement, March 1973, p. 37.
39. According to some estimates, the period required to attain even a modest opera¬
tional number of large modern attack carriers would vary from five to thirteen years,
depending on how soon the first such carrier was completed. See Wolfe, Soviet Naval
Interaction with the United States, p. 13.
40. See Moorer Statement, March 1973, pp. 43-44.
41. See The Military Balance, 1972-1973 (London; International Institute for Strategic
Studies, September 1972), p. 7.
42. See Moorer Statement, March 1973, p. 52.
43. Such speculation has arisen against the background of earlier veiled hints from
Soviet sources in 1969 that nuclear attacks against China’s atomic installations were being
considered. See Wolfe, Soviet Power and Europe, p. 259.
44. The Military Balance, 1972-1973, p. 7.
45. See Wolfe, Soviet Power and Europe, pp. 476-477.
46. Ibid., pp. 471-473, 477-482.
47. Ibid., pp. 496-498.
48. Categories of conventional arms in which the Warsaw Pact has retained a distinct
edge in Central Europe include numbers of tanks, artillery pieces, and tactical aircraft.
See Moorer Statement, March 1973, pp. 56-57.
49. A Soviet desire to keep the European front quiet in order to deal with the China
problem is probably one of the factors involved. For fuller discussion of this and other
considerations that may account for Soviet pursuit of detente in Europe, see Thomas W.
Wolfe, “Role of the Warsaw Pact in Soviet Policy,” P-4973 (The Rand Corporation,
March 1973), pp. i-ii.
50. Sh. Sanakoyev, “Peace in Europe and the Confrontation of the Two Systems,”
International Affairs (Moscow), no. ii (November 1972), p. 7. See also Yu. Kostko,
“Military Confrontation and the Problem of Security in Europe,” Mirovaia Ekonomika i
Mezhdunarodnie Otnosheniye [World Economics and International Relations], no. 9
(September 1972), p. 20.
51. See N. Kapchenko, “Realistic Path to Ensuring Peace in Europe,” Mezhdunarodnaia
Zhizn, no. i (January 1973), p. 23.
52. A. Gromyko, “The Leninist Revolutionary Course of Eoreign Policy,” Kommunist,
no. I (January 1973), p. 46.
53. Yevgeniy Belov commentary, Moscow radio, Eebruary 15, 1973-
54. Pravda, June 28, 1972.
55. Yuri Zhukov, “The Dreams and Disappointments of the ‘Hawks,’ ” Pravda, January
5, 1973- . . OATT-
56. For discussion of this question, see Thomas W. Wolfe, “Soviet Interests m SALT;
Political, Economic, Bureaucratic and Strategic Contributions and Impediments To Arms
Control,” P-4702 (Santa Monica, Calif.; The Rand Corporation, September 1971), PP-
lO-II.
57. Some of the more notable examples range from military aid to Mongolia, Tannu
Tuva and the Turkish rebels under Kemal in 1921, to aid rendered the Kuomintang in
the mid-twenties and the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War in the mid-thirties. Eor
discussion of these and other early instances of Soviet military aid, see Raymond L.
Garthoff, “Military Influences and Instruments,” in Ivo J. Lederer, ed., Russian Foreign
Policy: Essays in Historical Perspective (New Haven; Yale University Press, 1962),
pp. 253-262.
58. See Communist States and Developing Countries: Aid and Trade in 1970, Re-
search Study RECS-15 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, September 1971).
59. Ibid., pp. 2-4, 18-19. See also: Wynfred Joshua and Stephen P. Gibert, Arms for
the Third World: Soviet Military Aid Diplomacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press,
1969), p. 102; Gur Offer, ‘The Economic Burden of Soviet Involvement in the Middle
East,” Soviet Studies, no. 3 (University of Glasgow, January 1973), p. 330.
PART IV
The Soviet Foreign

Policy Network
12
Summary and Conclusions

KURT LONDON
Dr. Kurt London is professor emeritus of George Wash¬
ington University and the founder of its Institute for
Sino-Soviet Studies. Among his books are: The Seven
Soviet Arts, Backgrounds of Conflict: Ideas and Forms of
World Politics, How Foreign Policy Is Made, The Per¬
manent Crisis, The Making of Foreign Policy—East and
West, Unity and Contradiction: Major Aspects of Sino-
Soviet Relations (Ed.), New Nations in a Divided World
(Ed.), Eastern Europe in Transition (Ed.), and The
Soviet Union: A Half Century of Communism (Ed.).
When the great powers met at Vienna in 1815 to pull a new order out of the
post-Napoleonic shambles, they agreed upon a code of international behavior.
These regulations remained in force, more or less, for a hundred years; in¬
deed, the “fin de siecle” saw the International Court of Law established at The
Hague. Not long thereafter World War I broke out, jolting traditions and
producing two types of government basically inimical to the Law of Nations:
the Marxist-Leninist state that became the Soviet Union and, just a few years
later, the Nazi-Fascist states of Germany and Italy. World War II wiped out
the latter but elevated the former to a world power.
As a result of these events there developed a chasm between “traditional”
and “revolutionary” states:
Traditional nations consider policy problems within the ethical frame¬

work of established principles. . . . Contrariwise, revolutionary states
recognize no such limitations. They reject the principles of international
relations deveolped by traditionalists, claiming that such principles are
established in the interest of the “ruling classes” and do not, therefore,
constitute the legitimate aspirations of the people. They tend to become
ideological empires and like the medieval church, acknowledge no limit
to their aims.^
With evangelical zeal for reaching ideological objectives, revolutionary na¬

tions tend to expect that they will be victorious, like virtue over sin, in the
end. Soviet leaders, seeking to control all aspects of life in their country,
concentrated all power upon themselves and appointed themselves saviors of
271
the downtrodden masses everywhere. In short they became totalitarians.

It is of major importance to recognize the basically totalitarian aspects of
Soviet foreign policy, as Professor Schapiro so penetratingly demonstrates in
Chapter I. The Soviet leaders who best personify the totalitarian aspects of an
ideological empire make full use of their dictatorial advantages: They formu¬
late policy as they see fit and order its implementation. That there is now
more of a collective leadership makes little difference. Always one man
among them is, as George Orwell put it, more equal than the others.
The guiding principle of Soviet foreign policy is the contention of legality,
based not on Western international law, but as Bernard Ramundo points out,
on a “new” international law, that of peaceful coexistence.^ If it is true that
consent is the theoretical basis of the validity of international law, how is it
then that Moscow has succeeded in achieving consent from the West in var¬
ious treaties?
Does this mean that Soviet intentions have radically changed? Has the
Soviet Union become a “traditional” nation-state and relinquished its revolu¬
tionary aspirations? Is it true, as so many Western optimists declare, that a
new era has begun?
The optimists, I fear, fail to understand the difference between Communist
strategy and tactics. Strategy, from the Soviet point of view, means funda¬
mental, long-range planning toward the achievement of the ultimate goal. It
has never perceptibly changed. Tactics are the ways and means, however un-
Marxist, employed to achieve this goal.
The Soviet leaders, unwilling to provoke a war that could destroy their
country and their system, must have come to the conclusion during the post-
Stalin years that they could not achieve their goal by military means but
rather by political warfare. When by the end of the sixties no progress had
been achieved, their tactical measures became a far more important element
of action than ever before. Moreover the conflict with Peking called for ad¬
justment with Western Europe, which Moscow has always regarded as a
matter of primary concern.
Thus began a series of events that appeared to be out of Soviet character
and therefore, in the eyes of many Westerners, indicative of a radical change
in Soviet behavior and possibly the end of the traditional ideological under¬
pinning of the Soviet state. An increasing number of observers in the West,
particularly in the United States, no longer regard the Soviet state as revolu¬
tionary.
To determine whether or not the USSR has actuaUy changed, it is necessary
to look at its domestic conditions: There we find very little difference.
The regime is as harshly Leninist as ever. To be sure, Brezhnev is better than
Stalin, but one need only to look at the Kremlin’s treatment of disaffected
intellectuals or even a giant like Solzhenitsyn to realize that the KGB’s strong-
arm methods still keep the population cowed. The concentration camps still
exist.
The Soviet Foreign Policy Network 273
Is it possible to assume that this Communist-ruled country has mellowed
because of the application of a pragmatic policy abroad? There has been no
evidence that the men in the Kremlin have retreated from their political
philosophy. But they have recognized that few if any “revolutionary situa¬
tions” exist and that they therefore must proceed more slowly and cautiously.
They believe, as Leonard Schapiro put it, that “world socialism is now to be
achieved by subversion, political warfare, and military preponderance.” And
yet, as Adam Ulam points out cogently, here is a state that enjoys all the
appurtenances of “normal” statehood and membership in the community of
nations at the same time that its professed aim and ideology are to subvert all
other existing forms of government. Even more extraordinary; “The USSR
claimed, and what is rather amazing, achieved a special status in international
relations. It was to be treated as a regular member of the community of
nations, yet unlike other states its rulers never made a secret of the fact that
they sought and hoped for an overthrow of other forms of government.”
Although Soviet armed forces are in a high state of readiness, militancy has
been muted since the Soviet leaders have recognized that the outbreak of a
major conflict most likely would entail the use of nuclear weapons. By adopt¬
ing a pragmatic approach, Soviet foreign policy has achieved more, in just a
few years, than it would have with threats. Still, one must agree with Schapiro
that “there is nothing to indicate that the main aim has ever been abandoned.”
I might add that such an abandonment is impossible so long as the Soviet
system continues to dominate the USSR and its satellite nations.
The very soul of Soviet communism is internationalist, and since it is
doubtful that a “socialist” nation can prevail forever in an ocean of nonsocial¬
ist states, Moscow will continue its efforts to save its camp from slipping into
international isolation. The system is self-propelled, a fact that is hidden
behind the benevolent smiles of Soviet leaders while they are visiting other
countries.
I do not mean to imply that we should refuse to deal with the Soviets. But
in so doing it is essential to recognize the nature of their system, which is
irreconcilably hostile to ours. If we understand that and match their strength
with ours, it is conceivable that peaceful coexistence, at least in Soviet-
Western relations, could afford us a fairly secure period of peace provided we
keep our powder dry. It is too early to predict whether such a period of quiet
would mellow the Soviet leaders and their successors both externally and
internally.
II
The Communist leaders never cease to attack imperialism. But following

World War II they became more imperialistic than the old-fashioned empires.
The East European land grabs were undertaken without any respect for ethnic
minorities—or for that matter, majorities. The states of Eastern Europe had
passed through unhappy years before they came under Soviet control; that
they eventually did is not only Stalin’s making. The Western allies, negotiating
with Stalin in Teheran and Yalta, must assume their share of guilt. It is
saddening to read Charles Bohlen’s account of these conferences, in which he
participated as interpreter.^ Be that as it may, Stalin annexed the Baltic states
and gradually extended his control over the states of Eastern Europe from the
Baltic to the Black Sea.
Soviet policy required, as Professor Seton-Watson puts it, “that in each
country there should be a pocket-sized Stalin with direct access to the boss”—
men like Rakosi, Gottwald, Dimitrov and Chervenkov, Bierut, and Gheorghiu-
Dej. But the Soviet system, politically and economically, was hardly appli¬
cable to these small countries. There were deviations in Hungary and
Czechoslovakia but not even the trend to poly centric communism, which
spread after 1956, could break the chains (with one glaring exception: Yugo¬
slavia, which had the good fortune of not being contiguous to Soviet terri¬
tory).
Seton-Watson vividly describes the consequences of the satellite status in
these countries: the abject political and ideological subordination, the injec¬
tion of the Russian language and culture in the educational systems, the
throttling of bonds with Western culture. The Comintern Journal was set up
to provide official guidance on interpretation of Soviet policy and prescribed
attitudes toward the West. There were differences in the treatment of the
individual vassals, but all of them were subjugated to economic exploitation
(through the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance), were forced to be¬
come part of the Soviet eastern defense system (in the Warsaw Pact), and
had to follow Soviet directions in foreign policy (with slight diversions on the
part of Romania). Later, in the sixties, Albania—noncontiguous to the USSR
—dropped out of the Soviet security belt to align itself with Communist
China, whose revolutionary fervor it sought to imitate. Khrushchev, in the
Albanians’ view, had become a “revisionist.”
Soviet interest in Eastern Europe is not new; the tsars had long fixed their
covetous attention on that area. The Soviets came to regard this region as a
vital cordon sanitaire and a strategic sphere of interest (as well as a possible
jumping-off point). Also, they wanted to extend their ideological empire and
bind these countries as closely as possible to their heartland.
The extent to which they were willing to go to prevent any weak links from
loosening the grip was shown in the interference in the Berlin unrest in 1953,
the Hungarian revolution of 1956, and the Czechoslovak invasion of 1968.
Dubcek’s Czechoslovakia, from the Soviet point of view, infiltrated a danger¬
ous element into the Soviet body politic—of which Eastern Europe was a
part.
Berlin and Budapest were sudden violent outbursts, quickly subdued. But
the Prague Spring was the beginning of a new development of a socialism
freed from the ideological strait-jacket of Marxism-Leninism. It was to be
a humane socialism. This could not be tolerated; Czechoslovakia was a vital
part of the Soviet security system and Dubcek’s ideas could filter into the other
satellites and even into part of the USSR. Thus the invading forces consisted
not only of Soviet troops but also of units of the Warsaw Pact nations; the
leaders of the satellite states were afraid of losing such power as they possessed
and thus participated in the invasion.
If anyone had doubts about the Soviet position vis-a-vis Eastern Europe,
the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine dispelled it. It was made clear to the world
that the nations in the socialist camp would not be permitted to pursue their
own road to socialism (as Togliatti had wished). Very minor deviations, such
as in economic matters, were permitted. Romania’s tough internal Communist
rule made possible a somewhat enlarged activity in foreign affairs. But none
of the deviations would be permitted if Soviet interests were hurt. Most East
European states were caught in the net of Soviet dominance, and the Brezhnev
Doctrine made it clear that no further attempts to gain more freedom will be
tolerated.
It would be erroneous, however, to assume that these countries would
adopt Western forms of government or become “capitalist” if they had a
choice. They would remain socialist, albeit in a revisionist manner, and only
gradually free themselves from the fallacies of the Soviet system. Neverthe¬
less, as long as the Soviet version of Marxism-Leninism remains Moscow’s
rationale, no such development can be foreseen. The attempts by certain
Western groups to “liberate” Eastern Europe are ill-advised and damaging to
the captive states.
It is perhaps useful to look back to the negotiations between President
Roosevelt (later Truman), Churchill, and Stalin at Teheran, Yalta, and Pots¬
dam. The Yalta agreement on Poland was not kept by the Soviets. In his
memoirs Charles Bohlen wrote:
Poland was just one of the areas where the Soviet Union was acting
like an enemy and not like an ally. In Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and
elsewhere, the Soviets were showing that the Declaration of Liberated
Europe meant nothing.^
I do not believe that Lenin actually dreamed of a Soviet hegemony over

non-Soviet Communist-ruled states; his writings mention no such ambition.®
But Stalin, once the European part of World War II was won, had no inten¬
tion to let go of Eastern Europe. And Stalin’s successors had no intention of
changing this policy. The hopes expressed during the period of polycentrism
and the apparent loosening of Soviet rule were futile. The USSR persisted in
what Seton-Watson poignantly calls “national humiliation” of its satelhtes.
That is indeed what Soviet rule amounts to, and while it is not consciously
recognized as such in Moscow’s vassal states (their national pride forbids it),
it has not endeared Soviet rule to these countries.
III
Western Europe was the major battlefield of World War II. When the war
was over, it was a shambles. Without U.S. help it would have collapsed
politically and economically and the Communists would have taken over. The
Soviets would have liked that, and the United States knew it. Thus, with an
enormous effort and colossal amounts of money, American reconstruction
and rehabilitation was undertaken.
The Germans were grateful to a degree; the French, as Professor Grosser
reminds us, disliked being on the receiving line, especially when it became
clear that the Federal Republic was not destined to occupy an inferior posi¬
tion, for the French had hoped to become the most influential power in
Western Europe. The Soviets did not help at all, not even in East Germany,
where they dismantled factories and carried away as much as they could.
Among the most important results of the postwar differences between East
and West were the division of Germany; the establishment of the North At¬
lantic Treaty Organization (NATO); the permanent stationing of an Ameri¬
can army in West Germany and the rearmament of that nation; the creation of
the Common Market; and the origin of the Cold War. Moscow violated agree¬
ments signed in Teheran and Yalta and generally did its best to hinder Euro¬
pean reconstruction beyond its Iron Curtain. It prodded the Communist parties
in Italy, and especially in France, to foment strikes, riots, and civil dis¬
obedience.
The Bolsheviks held genuine peace to be inimical to their aims, and the
West, especially the United States, had to establish ways and means to coun¬
ter Soviet policies. During these years the Cold War became a daily fact of
life.
It should be remembered that the Communist parties in Western Europe
experienced two shattering blows that weakened their political charisma. The
first was the slaughter of Budapest (1956) and the development of polycen¬
tric communism whereby the individual parties hoped to achieve a greater
degree of independence from Moscow; heretofore they had followed Soviet
party orders implicitly. The second was the invasion of Czechoslovakia
(1968), which alienated many parties outside the Soviet bloc. Moreover the
outbreak of the Sino-Soviet conflict in i960 had a disturbing influence on these
parties; in the eyes of extreme leftists the images of Khrushchev and Brezhnev
paled next to Mao’s.
In other words, without the impact of Soviet policy, neither the division of
Germany and the Western security measures (clearly directed toward the
USSR) nor the involvement of the United States could have happened. Nor
could the erection of the wall isolating East Germany and cutting Berlin to
pieces have occurred. Thus evolved an awareness in the United States that
Moscow’s reckless policies required counteraction so as to meet the needs of
national and international security.
It was only after the arrival of Willy Brandt in the Bonn chancellery that
gradual changes occurred in German-Soviet relations. In France General De
Gaulle tried to conduct a “normal” foreign policy toward the USSR; he never
put much credence in the role of Marxism-Leninism. While it must not be
forgotten that he stood firmly on the side of the United States during the
Berlin and Cuban crises, on the other hand he expelled American NATO
troops and installations from France and thus, when he visited Moscow in
i960, beUeved that he appeared to be a free agent, vis-a-vis the Kremlin.
Paradoxically he knew, of course, that he could not do without the American
nuclear umbrella, his “force de frappe” notwithstanding.
The attempts of DeGaulle and Pompidou to formulate their foreign policy
regardless of the position of their Western allies failed for the simple reason
that Soviet interest in France is only a negative one—that is, as a thorn in the
side of NATO in general and the United States in particular. From the Soviet
point of view the entire Western camp falls under one category, namely.
Western imperialism. Any disagreements among the Western European na¬
tions or between the United States and Western Europe will be welcomed as a
force serving to weaken NATO.
The European security system was transformed “into a subordinated com¬
plex of the world security system on an American-Soviet basis,” writes Pro¬
fessor Grosser. And he is, of course, absolutely correct. But I cannot agree
with him when he states that a united Western Europe could not play a
sufficiently important role. On the contrary, the creation of a politically and
economically united Western Europe would set up a formidable roadblock
against any Soviet attempt to subvert or attack such a bloc. The combination
of a united Western Europe with the United States would establish a virtually
unbeatable power grid. It is regrettable that this goal could not be reached
mainly due to the narrow nationalism of France.
The Soviets had been hostile toward West Germany ever since it was
established. This is understandable because German-wrought destruction dur¬
ing the war was monstrous. Even the creation of East Germany under Com¬
munist control did not entirely eliminate ill feelings toward the population in
that satellite; after all, these people were Germans, too.
It appears that in the late sixties the Politburo under Brezhnev recognized
that its policies toward Germany had become stale, that Soviet influence in
Western Europe should be enhanced, and that—in view of the Chinese danger
—Moscow’s eastern frontiers should be secured. This meant an opening to¬
ward the West, beginning with West Germany. General DeGaulle once ex¬
pressed the (futile) hope for a “Europe to the Urals.” Brezhnev reversed this
dictum. Thus Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik—conciliation with the USSR and
Eastern Europe—came in handy for the Kremlin. It made sense for the
Soviets to make political peace with Germany, determine definitive frontiers,
and establish a reliable status quo.
Brandt did not invent Ostpolitik. Former Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger
had suggested it, unsuccessfully because he wanted a quid pro quo. Brandt
rather hastily sought to carry out his policy and so his treaties with Moscow
and Warsaw were not really reciprocal; mostly he gave and got very little in
return.
By means of these treaties the Soviets achieved what they wanted: a giant
step toward making friends and influencing people in Western Europe. At the
same time they insisted on a European security conference in which they were
planning to intensify their influence by injecting themselves into the high
councils of the participating countries.
Since they realized that Western Europe was nolens volens tied to the
United States, they serenaded Washington with considerable success. Their
overtures were so successful that President Nixon went to Moscow. (He also
went to Peking, which unquestionably made the Soviets somewhat nervous
and probably even more intent on detente; the thought of an improvement in
Sino-American relations was not desirable.) Thus Brezhnev, when he returned
Nixon’s visit, smiled as he had never smiled before. The treaties signed in
Moscow and Washington were marginal but looked good enough for the
world to take notice. If Moscow wished to acquire greater influence in West¬
ern Europe, it had to have the United States tuned in.
Contrary to the majority opinion, I regard the Ostpolitik as unfortunate
mainly because it makes it too easy for the Soviets to achieve their strategy of
infiltrating Western Europe. Furthermore, the spirit of detente afflicted the
U.S. Congress, many of whose members, especially in the Senate, seem to
believe that real peace with the Soviet Union is right around the corner.
Would that this were true. But a qualitative armaments race continues; Soviet
political and psychological warfare goes on, though perhaps in milder form;
and there is not the slightest indication that Eastern Europe is any better off
than before the detente. The peoples in this area do not even see Brezhnev’s
wide smile, which is reserved for the United States and means very little.
IV
Active Soviet interest in the Middle East (as defined by Malcolm Mackin¬
tosh) dates back only to the early fifties. After the Baghdad Pact and NATO
were established, Moscow concluded an arms agreement with Egypt to
counter what it saw as the growing collective security threat to its southern
frontier.
After the British withdrew from what is now the state of Israel, a political
vacuum developed and the USSR eagerly hoped to fill it. Yet even after years
of interest in the Middle East it is doubtful that the Soviets gained an appreci¬
ation of the Arab mentality. As a result, progress has been slow and Arab
suspicion of communism has remained high.
The Suez crisis—that monument to faulty American policy—accelerated
Moscow’s activities in the area but with minor success. The Arab defeat in
1967 probably prompted the Soviets to realize their mistakes to some extent.
Presumably they realized that they had overvalued Arab numerical superiority
and, as Mackintosh observes, undervalued the strength of the state of Israel.
Anti-Semitism—the Soviets euphemistically call it anti-Zionism—may have
blinded their eyes and led them to conclude that it was safe to persuade Egypt
to provoke war with Israel. The Politburo must have been severely jolted
when Egypt expelled Soviet troops and advisers in 1972.
Soviet military investments in the Middle East, mostly in Egypt, are very
great. So strong is Soviet interest in the area that even the expulsion of Soviet
forces in 1972 did not trigger any visible Soviet reactions or stoppage of
military aid. Soviet propaganda carefully avoided antagonizing the Muslim
Arabs; perhaps the fact that the USSR in the past had made no attempts to
infiltrate the region created a more receptive atmosphere.
One may argue that nowhere else have the Soviets been so cautious in their
diplomacy and propaganda as in the Middle East. Prior to the fourth Arab-
Israeli war in October 1973, the Soviets were careful to avoid major entangle¬
ments such as the Six-Day War with Israel, into which they goaded the
Egyptians. There always had been limits to Soviet involvement, especially
after Egypt expelled the Soviet forces. The expulsion actually served to relieve
Soviet fears of Russian casualties and preserved, to some extent, Moseow’s
freedom of action in the area. Although the Soviets take a dim view of “Arab
socialism” without openly condemning it, they were and are cautious about
mouthing the Communist ideology. They realize perhaps that “Arab soeial-
ism” is really a type of nationalism consisting of elements of pan-Arabism,
Islam, and, in some cases, traditional national feehngs. Moscow also appreci¬
ates that several Arab countries have largely artificial frontiers and are still
struggling to free themselves from colonial subjugation. Their nationalism is
new and to some extent revolutionary.
Having lost all equipment given to Egypt prior to 1967, the USSR never¬
theless inundated the area with weapons to replace materiel Egypt had lost.
Before they were ordered to leave Egypt, some 17,000 Soviets were in the
country; elements of the Soviet Navy had moved into the eastern Mediter¬
ranean to signal Soviet presence to the U.S. Sixth Fleet and to prevent a
possible outflanking by CENTO, which had replaced the Baghdad Pact. Ex¬
pelled by Egypt, the Soviets turned to Syria and, as later became evident, with
more success than could have been suspected. A developing country, Syria is
ruled by a highly volatile party that pretends to be both nationalist and
socialist. The Soviets did not seem to mind.
The outbreak in October 1973 demonstrated the extent to which the
Soviets had provided Egypt and Syria with the most modern weapons and had
successfully instructed the Arabs how to use them. While for centuries the
Arabs have been feuding with each other, this war has brought them together
—Jordan being the only exception. Iraqi, Moroccan, and Algerian units joined
the Syrians. It is probable that Arab air forces were strengthened by Libyan
Mirages—purchased from France under the condition they be used only for
the defense of Libya.
When the initial Egyptian and Syrian surprise successes faded and the
fortunes of war turned favorably to Israel, Moscow continued its arms de¬
liveries begun October lo but, fearful that the Arabs might be defeated,
pressed for a cease-fire with forces in situ. Later the Russians seemed on the
verge of military intervention, which was averted by an energetic U.S. alert.
An armistice was virtually imposed upon the warring armies by United Na¬
tions fiat, supported by the United States and the USSR.
The position of the United States is not determined by Israel exclusively
but also by the military capability of Soviet forces vis-a-vis NATO in the
Mediterranean. A combination of Arab and Soviet forces, permitting Moscow
to establish a permanent foothold in the area, would pose a formidable threat
to NATO forces, especially the U.S. Sixth Fleet now based in Athens, and
constitute a mortal danger to the existence of Israel.
Initially there was some doubt that the Arab states, including Saudi Arabia,
would use oil as a weapon against Israel and its friends. But the (temporary)
unity of the Arabs has produced an oil embargo that, for a while appeared
to have changed the political map. This was exactly what the Soviets wanted;
although there exists no official evidence that Moscow goaded the Arabs into
the embargo, there seems to be agreement among Western observers that the
Soviets welcome some aspects of the Arab decision. The embargo was re¬
scinded in March 1974 by the majority of Arab states despite heavy Soviet
propaganda against lifting the embargo. In view of the disarray the embargo
has created in the West, particularly among the NATO nations, the Soviet
policy has paid off handsomely, for the embargo created economic disruptions
in Western countries and Japan while at the same time the price of oil sky¬
rocketed. There is also the danger that the Arabs might continue to exert
pressure with their “money weapon”; any major withdrawal of the enormous
sums accumulated in the West could cause a financial avalanche. The Soviets
would like to be recipients of these billions, but this is very doubtful.
Thus the impact of Soviet policy on the Middle East is considerable, has
increased since the war of October 1973, and is hardly helpful to the ad¬
vancement of peace. The flow of arms to generally irrational and unreliable
peoples creates potential dangers to world peace, particularly as the Arabs are
having difficulties adapting themselves to new political reaUties. Although the
Soviets, despite their labors, have been unable to really “get through” to the
Arab leaders, we can be sure that they will not give up. They regard this area
as strategically vital to their interests and are loathe to acknowledge successful
American peacemaking efforts. They would rather see the Arab oil embargo
perpetuated.
It is officially stated by Soviet leaders that Europe ranks highest on Mos¬

cow’s list of priorities. This is understandable because Europe has overwhelm¬
ing industrial power, enormous scientific know-how, and a key geopolitical
position. In fact, up to now, the fate of the modern world has been decided on
European battlefields. Whether this situation will hold true in the future is
hard to foresee and to a great extent will depend on the triangular relations
between Moscow, Peking, and Washington. Asia may well play an increas¬
ingly important role in world politics, but for the time being China is still
number two on the Soviet priority list, followed by the Middle East and the
smaller Asian countries.
The history of relations between Moscow and Peking has been amply re¬
searched and written about. The memory of tsarist imperial claims on China
remain fresh in Peking even today. These memories were sharpened after
Mao’s victory when the Soviets did not return the border regions, which the
Chinese claim were taken by Russia through “unequal” treaties. Only some of
these complaints—Manchuria, for example—were adjusted during the few
years of entente cordiale between Mao and Stalin. On China’s northern border
Outer Mongolia remains part of the Soviet camp.
But border questions are basically negotiable. Indeed there have been long
negotiations but no agreement has yet been reached. It is doubtful that all
Chinese claims will ever be adjusted to Peking’s complete satisfaction. Schol¬
ars seem to agree that the border dispute is not the main factor in the war of
words between the two Communist powers that has been under way, with
varying intensity, since i960 when the conflict was made public.
The verbal war has been rough, yet we must remember that Communist
verbiage is less inhibited than that of Western diplomacy, which seeks at least
the appearance of politeness. In the West, invectives such as those used by
Peking and Moscow would have resulted in a complete break of relations. But
among Communists such verbal brawls come and go and are not neces¬
sarily an impediment to eventual conciliation when vital national interests
coincide.
Most Western observers, failing to make a distinction between the dispute
itself and its eventual outcome, regard the Sino-Soviet conflict as incurable.
However, as Ambassador Bohlen put it, “While the dispute is real, it would
be sheer madness for the United States to count on a permanent split between
Moscow and Peking.”®
I could not agree more. In my writings during the past two decades I have
repeatedly pointed out that at some time in the future, perhaps after Mao’s
demise, a sort of rapprochement leading to a working agreement in the
military-economic area may develop. To be sure, “a restoration of the spirit
of 1950 in Sino-Soviet relations is highly improbable,” as Harold C. Hinton
remarks, but he admits that “a trend toward accommodation seems likely,

since it is desirable on both sides on a number of practical grounds.”
True, the revolutionary comradeship of the early fifties cannot be expected.
China has changed and so has the Soviet Union under Stalin’s successors. But
friendship is not necessary for an arrangement of cooperation that might pose
serious problems to the West.
For the short term, however, the war of invectives is being backed by
military forces on both sides. It has been estimated that the USSR has a
million men and plenty of missiles poised along its frontiers; conversely, the
Chinese have strengthened their armies to possibly thirty-five to forty-five
divisions. China also has made considerable progress in developing nuclear
arms and the means for their delivery. Peking unquestionably does not want
war but is taking all necessary precautions nevertheless. Both sides seem to be
trying to avoid major military incidents. Besides, China is waging a strong
diplomatic offensive: It has agreed to a rapprochement with the United States
and Japan. Interestingly, China now supports European unity and NATO
because it does not want the Soviets to decrease their military might in
Europe and thereby be able to strengthen their capabilities along their fron¬
tiers facing China.
Both sides must be aware of the consequences of a Sino-Soviet war. A
Chinese victory is unlikely. But the size of its population, some 800 million
strong, would mean protracted guerrilla warfare. At best the USSR might
succeed in establishing a Peking government with Soviet sympathies. How¬
ever, much speaks against such a war; I doubt that the Soviet Army would
attack. The Chinese would hardly fire the first shot, for China would have too
much to lose. A Sino-Soviet war almost certainly is not in the cards.
Harold C. Hinton writes that the Soviet Union has never had much political
influence on the countries of East Asia because they did not have common
interests. (But didn’t North Koreans fight Stahn’s war?) The Soviet Union,
as Hinton observes, “continues to be in East Asia but not of it.”
Russia’s lack of understanding of these peoples pertains to Japan as well:
A heavyhanded behavior, lacking empathy, “has helped to keep Japan more
closely tied to the United States than would otherwise have been the case and
has virtually driven China into the arms of the United States and Japan.”
Peking does not want to see a complete disengagement by the United States in
Asia until Sino-Soviet relations are stabilized—if that ever happens.
On balance it is obvious that Soviet policy has had an enormous impact on
Asia, mainly on China and North Korea, perhaps less so in Japan because of
that country’s close relations with the United States. East Asia has changed its
political face and the changes are directly or indirectly the result of Soviet
policies and activities. Without the Russian Revolution and the establishment
of a Bolshevik Soviet Union, the Chinese Revolution might not have hap¬
pened or might have taken a very different course—which would have been
affected by the Japanese aggression and the initially close relations with the
United States. As it has turned out, Moscow’s goal of gaining a dominating

position in China and Japan has not been reached.
VI
Next to East Asia, Southeast Asia has been very much in the forefront of
the political and military interests of Washington, Peking, and Moscow (and
formerly also Paris). Guy Pauker, who has been following Southeast Asian
affairs closely for many years, documents ways to establish positions of
strength in what was previously the American sphere of influence. From the
Soviet point of view this included Third World countries ruled by their “na¬
tional bourgeoisies.”
As Pauker sees it, the most daring Soviet attempt in Southeast Asia to es¬
tablish Moscow’s influence in Indonesia failed because the Indonesian Com¬
munist party and then Sukarno turned toward Peking, antagonized by what
they perceived as Soviet betrayal of the world revolution. But the Indonesian
episode provided the Soviets with valuable military experience: testing SA-2
missiles under tropical conditions; adapting Soviet ships to the tropics; and
gaining operational experience far from the home base. Financially the Soviet
move in Indonesia was a catastrophic failure.
In Laos a Soviet presence had been established early in the 1960s with an
airlift from Hanoi into Pathet Lao territory. But after the 1962 Geneva
agreement the Soviets were anxious to maintain a presence in Vientiane,
supporting the neutralist government of Souvanna Phouma in quiet coopera¬
tion with the American ambassador.
On balance, Pauker continues, Soviet policy in Indonesia and Laos had three
different aspects: an attempt to counter American influence; development of
countervailing forces against the Chinese; and development of targets of op¬
portunity for the expansion of Soviet influence—not only “against” other
powers but as an early manifestation of Soviet determination to become a
genuine superpower with global positions of strength.
The fall of Khrushchev does not seem to have altered the basic objectives
of the USSR. While Indonesia had to be written off as a total loss, Indonesia’s
friend, Malaysia, permitted diplomatic relations with the USSR to be estab¬
lished in 1968 and welcomed Brezhnev’s 1969 proposal for an Asian
collective security system. Singapore’s attitude toward Moscow is strictly
businesslike.
By far the most revealing aspect of Soviet intentions in Southeast Asia,
Pauker points out, is Soviet policy toward Indochina. Ever since the escalation
of the American war effort in Vietnam, Moscow has increased imlitary assist¬
ance to North Vietnam, competing with the Chinese. Soviet policy toward
Cambodia diverges sharply from Chinese policy. By supporting Sihanouk, the
Chinese aim at maintaining several weak independent states in Indochina, as
dependent as possible on Chinese help. Soviet policy in turn aims at the
eventual emergence of a militarily strong Indochina under Hanoi’s leadership,

which could play a useful role in a Soviet system of security arrangements di¬
rected against China.
Obviously, if Hanoi controlled not only its own but also South Vietnamese,
Laotian, and Cambodian forces, it could be a valuable potential ally on
China’s southern flank and could provide an invaluable system of bases,
inadvertently inherited from the American war effort of 1965-1972. In my
view it is doubtful that Hanoi, which has its own stubborn way of doing
things, would easily succumb to a Soviet ploy of this kind. Besides, the pos¬
sibility of a Communist takeover in the whole of Vietnam, Laos, and Cam¬
bodia cannot easily be discounted.
In Banker’s opinion, a close association of the USSR with a Hanoi-domi¬
nated Indochina is the single most important Soviet objective and must be
seen in the broader context of Moscow’s patient development of positions of
strength in the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent. This grand design
could give the Soviets an enviable security system iri South Asia, counter¬
balancing China, outclassing the United States in the Indian Ocean-Persian
Gulf area, and establishing solid credentials as a superpower not only in terms
of nuclear capability but also in terms of security arrangements of much
greater import than the reluctant East European partners. (I may be permitted
to comment that Eastern Europe will remain the most crucial priority, out¬
classing all others because, as mentioned above, Europe remains the primary
area of Soviet security considerations.)
The other Southeast Asian countries, such as Burma, Thailand, Indonesia,
and the Philippines, have anti-Communist governments and tend toward
neutralism. The USSR is not viewed as an acceptable ally but Soviet trade is
acceptable. An excessive Soviet presence is held undesirable. Thus Indochina
remains Moscow s most promising target if Hanoi is able to carry out its long-
range policies toward virtual control of a united Vietnam, Laos, and Cam¬
bodia.
VII
South Asia, particularly India, has been an important strategic area in

Soviet thinking even though not a high-priority item on Moscow’s list of
foreign policy objectives. William Barnds points out that, although none of
the countries of South Asia threaten the USSR, Soviet leaders are aware that
they cannot achieve their cherished ambition of being recognized as a global
power without a strong position in the areas along their southern borders from
the eastern Mediterranean through the Indian subcontinent. Thus Moscow is
eager to maintain good relations with Indonesia, India, and Egypt.
Soviet policy toward South Asia has been consistent yet flexible. This ap¬
proach, however, returned little in the case of Pakistan. In the competition for
India’s favor, the Soviets won out over the Americans. There is now a rather
close relationship between Moscow and New Delhi wherein Soviet help is
taken for granted. Indeed, whatever India tried to do in the wars with Paki¬
stan, it did better because of Soviet help; that is, India was able to advance
its interests because of its close relationship with the USSR.
Moscow is now the major external source of arms for South Asia, Barnds
writes, citing State Department sources that claim that during 1971 the
Soviets gave India and Afghanistan arms valued at $1.1 billion and $450
million, respectively. India also received the lion’s share of Soviet economic
aid to South Asian countries. There has been considerable expansion of
Soviet trade with these countries. It is therefore understandable that Western
influence has lost its paramount position in the area.
India, thanks to Soviet aid, has enhanced its military position vis-a-vis
Pakistan and China. This stance makes India the leading power of South
Asia. Moscow must derive considerable satisfaction from this situation; there
have been no setbacks as in some other Asian and African countries. In fact
Soviet relations with New Delhi have deepened. These developments are
slower than the Soviets want, but they seem content nevertheless, particularly
after the signature of the Indo-Soviet treaty of November 1973-
Barnds emphasizes that the Soviet link with India has been viewed as
extremely valuable by New Delhi, largely because it has helped India to
accomplish goals it was seeking in any case. This is not to suggest that New
Delhi has not had to accommodate Moscow; it deals with the Soviet Union
very carefully, especially in its public statements. But during the past twenty
years Moscow has been able to advance its interests by supporting India s
efforts and, broadly speaking, this obviously has played an important role in
keeping the relationship on a generally even keel.
Barnds raises several interesting questions regarding future Soviet policy
toward the subcontinent. Will Moscow, for the time being, remain content
with its successes even though they are slow-moving, or will it try to expand
its role in the future, especially since American policy has given India a lower
priority? But India certainly does not enjoy priority rating on the Soviet list
either. However there is Moscow’s preoccupation with China. Peking s lack of
sympathy for India may have been enhanced by the important role the USSR
plays in the subcontinent.
In order to strengthen the defensive position of South Asia against China,
the USSR will try its best to promote a settlement between India, Pakistan,
and Bangladesh. If a parallel with Europe is permissible, one might suggest
that the American support for a unified Western Europe pursues similar
objectives to guard against possible Soviet encroachment.
Thus Moscow’s future India policy will be influenced by the development
of relations between New Delhi and Peking. But it would be a mistake to
assume that India is putty in Soviet hands. For example, India has rejected
Brezhnev’s proposal, made in 1972 and 1973, for a collective security system
in Asia. Nor would India like to be drawn into the Soviet camp with more
formal treaties than it has already signed.
Pakistan has links with China and the United States, which makes it a
much more important target than, for example, Bangladesh. In its attitude
toward Pakistan, Moscow has used soft and harsh lines, presenting a rather
confused picture. But there can be little doubt that Moscow wants to build a
stronger position in that country, presumably through economic assistance.
India has been a relatively stable nation for some years. Communist ele¬
ments, sympathizing with either the USSR or China, have not had sufficient
strength to attempt an overthrow of the central government now directed by
Indira Gandhi (with remarkable success—although one can disagree with her
policies). It would be very difficult for the Soviets to radicalize the Indian
government, and they have been careful not to try to do so. But this has not
prevented them, from time to time, from issuing rather harsh statements about
India’s so-called “bourgeois” government. However, as Barnds points out,
their avowed aim now is peace rather than the disturbance of India’s
stability.
The impact of Soviet foreign policy on South Asia remains pervasive;
unquestionably the Soviets have sown political seeds in preparation for filling
any future power vacuum in the subcontinent.
VIII
Leon Goure’s discussion of the impact of Soviet foreign policy in Latin

America notes that until recent years the Soviet Union lacked both the capa¬
bility and the opportunities to conduct an active policy in Latin America.
Although a number of Communist parties sprang up there in the 1920s, Latin
America’s geographic remoteness from the USSR, the social-political condi¬
tions, and the weight of U.S. influence precluded any successful Soviet exten¬
sion of influence to that region. Yet precisely because many countries in Latin
America were in the intermediate stages of capitalist industrial development
and because of the area’s economic and strategic importance to the United
States, this region has been and continues to be of particular interest to the
Soviet Union.
The Cuban Revolution opened the door to Soviet penetration into the
Western Hemisphere, although Moscow’s experience with Castro demon¬
strated the high cost and difficulties of sustaining and controlling a Commu¬
nist regime so far from the Soviet Union and showed that such regimes tended
to develop their own autonomous doctrines and policies that at times clashed
with Moscow’s.
The growing trend toward globalism in Soviet foreign policy—which was
made possible by the significant shifts in the East-West balance of power and
an increasing Soviet economic capability—coincided with a sharp upsurge in

Latin American nationalism and a search for social, economic, and political
changes that carry with them strong anti-U.S. overtones.
In the Soviet view this circumstance has transformed the region into an
active and highly successful “front” of the global “anti-imperialist struggle”
where, in the opinion of Boris Ponomarev, party secretary and alternate
Politburo member, the “revolutionary process is continuing to develop at a
faster pace than in other parts of the non-socialist world.At the same time
Latin America is given the distinction of being identified as the “strategic
rear” where the loss of U.S. economic and political influence could help to
further shift the East-West balance in favor of Moscow.
The present Soviet line rejects the radical left’s call for an immediate social¬
ist revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
arguing that the existing social-economic conditions require most of the Latin
American countries to pass first through a “people’s democratic” stage of
considerable duration where power would be shared by united fronts of “pro¬
gressive” proletarian and petty bourgeois parties.
This flexible approach has allowed Moscow simultaneously to endorse such
diverse regimes as Castro’s self-proclaimed Communist rule, the now defunct
Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende in Chile, and the “progres¬
sive” military juntas in Peru, Panama, and Ecuador. The Soviet Union and
the local Communist parties are in effect ready to collaborate with and sup¬
port representatives of other parties and social strata, including the military—
if they are in power and carry out anti-imperialist reforms, i.e., if they con¬
duct policies hostile to U.S. public and private interests.
In accord with the general current Soviet line promoting united front stra¬
tegies in the non-Communist world, Moscow was quick to endorse Allende’s
Chile as an outstanding success of this strategy and an example for other
Latin American “progressive” parties to emulate. At the same time the critical
role of the armed forces in facilitating or hindering the “revolutionary trans¬
formation” of the continent is fully recognized and, consequently, so is the
importance of the local Communist parties in attempting to radicalize the
military. The fall of Allende was a bitter disappointment to Moscow.
As a relative newcomer to Latin America and still lacking significant politi¬
cal or military influence in the region, the Soviet Union is attempting to
exploit and exacerbate the current wave of nationalism and anti-U.S. senti¬
ment and policies sweeping the continent and to expand its diplomatic, eco¬
nomic, and cultural relations with the countries of the region. This approach
has been facilitated by the growing detente in U.S.-Soviet relations and by
Latin America’s search for new markets, sources of technology, and assis¬
tance in its industrial development. As a result the Soviet Union has been
notably successful in recent years in establishing diplomatic relations with all
South American states except Paraguay.
On the economic side, despite its Cuban experience, the Soviet Union has
shown its readiness to provide considerable development credits and loans to
“progressive” regimes and to encourage similar investments by the other
European Communist states. Thus Soviet credits and loans to Chile, which in
1970 amounted to only $55 million, grew to some $360 million by the end of
1972. (It is doubtful that Moscow will honor unused Chilean credits after
Allende’s demise.) Total Communist credits, including $65 million from China,
came to exceed the half-billion dollar mark by the end of 1972, representing a
900 percent growth in two years. Peru has also received an increasing amount
of Soviet and other Communist credits. Thus cumulative Soviet credits and
loans to Latin America, exclusive of Cuba, have grown from $185 million in
1971 to approximately $565 milhon in 1972, while total Communist credits
stood at $431 million in 1967 and now exceed $i billion according to Goure.
At the same time the Latin American governments have been progressively
overcoming their mistrust and making increasing use of these credits. It may
be noted that total Soviet economic aid to Latin America, including Cuba, for
1959 to 1972 exceeds the total of such Soviet aid to the Middle East for the
period 1954 to 1972, thus giving some indication of the overall Soviet in¬
volvement in the Western Hemisphere. Soviet-Latin American trade also has
been expanding, although more slowly ($220 million in 1972). Soviet politi¬
cal interest in Latin America is evident from the fact that, although imports
from that region are only of marginal importance to the Soviet economy, the
Soviet Union persists in this trade even though it has consistently incurred a
substantial deficit in its balance of trade with the region (exclusive of Cuba).
While Soviet investments and trade in Latin America are relatively modest
in comparison to those of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan, they
exert some influence because they serve to strengthen the state sectors of the
economies of the recipient countries, promote their industrial growth, provide
for technological transfer, and help various projects for which these countries
were unable to obtain credits elsewhere, such as the construction of fishing
ports in Chile and Peru. To varying degrees they help buttress the “progres¬
sive” regimes and give some credibility to Moscow’s assertions that govern¬
ments willing to defy the United States and nationalize U.S. businesses do not
stand alone but have a powerful and allegedly disinterested friend.
Although concern is shown by some conservative elements in Latin Amer¬
ica about the growing Soviet influence in the region, Goure feels that the de¬
gree of influence is still too limited to seriously alarm the countries or affect
their mutual relations. This picture could change if the Soviet Union suc¬
ceeds—as it attempted to do in Chile while Allende was still in power—in
becoming a major supplier of armaments to one or more countries on the
continent. At the same time, however, the Soviet Union and the orthodox
Communist parties benefit from the fact that they appear increasingly “con¬
servative” and “responsible” in comparison with the violent and romantic
radicalism of the many new left parties and groups in Latin America.
The foreseeable trends in Latin America make it highly likely that Moscow
will continue to pursue an active policy in that region and that the scope of its
involvement will expand even further. Yet, as in other Third World regions,
Moscow may find it very difficult to translate its support of essentially nation¬
alistic-reformist regimes into solid and lasting influence and to develop such
regimes into reliable allies of the Soviet Union.
IX
Ever since the United States recognized the Soviet Union de jure, its exis¬
tence has preoccupied Americans. The regimes of the tsars were never popu¬
lar but that of the Bolsheviks was, to the American mind, upsetting and
deeply disturbing. The dualistic policies carried out both officially through the
Soviet embassy and unofficially through Communist channels were not suffi¬
ciently understood by either Washington or the rest of the country.
Though assurances had been given, during the negotiation for recognition,
that the Soviets would not interfere in the domestic affairs of the United
States, this promise was broken almost immediately, a faet that contributed to
the distrust and dislike of the Soviet Union in the United States. Thus the
impact of Soviet foreign policy made itself felt, from the outset, first indirectly
and then directly.
Events since World War I have increased Soviet-American friction. The
Stalin regime, which was essentially responsible for the instigation of the Cold
War in 1945, hardly contributed to an improvement of relations. After the
dictator’s death, hard feelings persisted, relieved from time to time only to
relapse during the many crises in the fifties and sixties. In the early seventies,
for reasons already outlined, a relaxation of tensions was promoted. But this
did not eliminate the basic and deep contradictions between the two countries
that had been destined to become the most powerful superstates in the world.
It is probably fair to say that, without the existence of Soviet power and
ideology, America today would be a very different country with a very dif¬
ferent foreign policy. Tlie impact of Soviet behavior on the United States
after World War II was enormous. It compelled Washington to play a larger
role in world politics—a role it was slow to accept.
Security responsibilities of the highest order were involved. The cost of
security raised the hackles of many men in responsible positions, all the more
so because it took nearly a quarter-century to reach even some understanding
of the Soviet mind—an understanding that still has many gafs. Pragmatic
Americans experienced difficulties in recognizing the importance of the socio¬
political philosophy of the Soviet government and party.
Americans as a whole were reluctant to assume the responsibilities of
Western defense. It was and is a heavy load on the taxpayers, and certain
congressional leaders still appear to believe that the United States should not
have assumed responsibility for the “free world.” I believe that many Ameri-
cans have never reconciled themselves to the need for the United States to bar
the way against a Soviet-led world revolution. Yet without American help
Western Europe might today be a Soviet-dominated area. Americans also felt
that some degree of recognition was due them; they got little from most West
European nations and from France.
As a people, Americans are optimistic and dislike pessimistic estimates.
Thus observers who are familiar with Soviet affairs and take a dim view of
Moscow’s designs are unpopular because they cannot, with the best of inten¬
tions, presage a rosy future.
Charles Burton Marshall skillfully describes how, after seventeen years in
official noncommunication and seven in formal—albeit cool and wary—
diplomatic contact, the United States and the Soviet Union were thrown to¬
gether as allies in 1941.
Then for four years, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s guidance,
U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union was persistently placative. Roosevelt’s
paramount aims were victory first and then preservation of the prevailing
coalition as the foundation for a world security system so preponderant in
scope and power as to be beyond challenge. Both aims entailed wooing the
Soviet Union; believing was seeing. Roosevelt rationalized the approach by
perceiving unmitigated virtue and reservoirs of goodwill in the Soviet ally.
The American nation as a whole concurred.
The Yalta conference in early 1945 marked the apogee of this propitiatory
approach. A year later—with World War II over—the premises were dissi¬
pated. The upshot of the war had placed the United States and the Soviet
Union as the top two in a scale of states ranked according to capacity to
conduct strategies and undertake policies of wide scope. No combination of
states adequate to cope with the Soviet Union strategically was feasible with¬
out the United States; no combination of states capable of posing a serious
threat to U.S. security was possible without Soviet participation.
The two giants had divergent images of the future. Their brief alliance was
superceded by pervasive rivalry over conditions of peace. Strategic considera¬
tions became a regular, exigent, and continuing element of policy for the first
time in U.S. experience. The Soviet Union was the primary adversary factor.
The relationship has persisted for a generation. Thus the principal aspect of
the Soviet Union in American national awareness is its role as strategic rival.
Diverse theories may be invoked to explain what the conflicted relationship
is, when and how it came about, and whether or not it is over. From the onset
both sides have professed regret, and both have undertaken to propound
conditions for getting the adversary relationship over with—each defining the
conditions that befit its own preferences.
“Detente” is the expression generally used in the United States and among
its Cold War associates. On the Soviet side the favored term is “peaceful
coexistence. The first envisages a tamed Soviet Union reconciled to prag¬
matic collaboration and no longer prone to sponsor revolutionary purposes in
world affairs. The second envisages pragmatic collaboration—but subject to

abandonment of opposition to Soviet sponsorship of revolutionary aims. No
error in international affairs is more basic than the common one of equating
these opposed prescriptions for moving beyond the Cold War.
The question of terms on which the conflicted relationship—the Cold War
—is settled is inherently connected with the U.S.-Soviet strategic equation.
U.S. policy is presently intent upon settling for equilibrium in war-making
potential in succession to the inherent advantage in strategic strength that
accrued to the United States in earlier phases of the Cold War. Whether such
an outcome is illusory or in prospect depends on Soviet intentions. So far
there is no empirical indication of Soviet reciprocity. On the contrary, mount¬
ing evidence indicates a Soviet intention to replace the United States in stra¬
tegic ascendancy. U.S. hopes for a protracted strategic standoff, coupled with
detente, may well prove as ephemeral as the concord at Yalta.
More than any other field, military affairs are a matter for specialists. Even
rarer are military specialists who know and understand Soviet intentions and
capabilities. Thomas Wolfe fits this mold perfectly. In wrapping up his discus¬
sion, he points to some salient military policy considerations that ought to be
kept in mind.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Soviet leadership does not regard
detente with the West as a condition permitting either internal liberalization
within the Soviet Union or relaxation of military preparedness to deal with
what are perceived by Moscow as external threats to Soviet security. This
being the case, it seems likely that the military ingredients of Soviet policy
discussed in Chapter ii will continue for the foreseeable future to carry
undiminished weight in the Soviet Union’s behavior in the arena of world
politics.
For example, despite undeniable Soviet interest in obtaining the detente
benefits of greater economic and technological interchange with the West, one
of the guiding principles of Soviet conduct in world affairs appears to remain
that epitomized by a recent commentary on peaceful coexistence and security
in the Soviet military daily. Red Star:
The greater the combat might and readiness of the Soviet armed forces
and the armies of the fraternal socialist countries ... the more secure
is peace on earth . . . and the broader are the opportunities for con¬
solidating the successes of the policy of peaceful coexistence.*
To sum up some of the salient military policy considerations and issues that
loom large on the Politburo’s agenda as the decade of the seventies ap¬
proaches midpoint, one may begin with the question of whether the Soviet
leadership still feels that the primary military threat to Soviet interests is
posed by the Western “imperialist” coalition, led by the United States, or
whether Communist China has moved up to the number one position as a
potential threat to Soviet security.
This is not an easily answered question; perhaps the Soviet leaders them¬
selves are not sure whether priority in the allocation of defense resources and
military planning should continue to be directed in accordance with tradi¬
tional Marxist-Leninist imperatives against the United States and its allies in
the capitalist camp or whether circumstances now dictate shifting priority
attention to military preparations against a rival Communist power in Asia.
Such a shift would doubtless constitute one of the ruder ironies of history.
While the Soviet leaders may hope that when Mao passes from the scene the
opportunity will arise to patch up Soviet relations with China, their expecta¬
tions on this score cannot have been heightened by the recent Tenth Party
Congress in Peking, at which the Soviet Union was again labeled a worse
enemy of China than the United States, and moreover was accused of contem¬
plating a surprise attack against the People’s Republic of China.
Thus, whatever course Sino-Soviet relations may take in a post-Mao en¬
vironment, it seems safe to conclude that the Soviet Union will not find it
expedient to lower the level of military preparations and vigilance it has
mounted in the past few years along its Asian borders.
With regard to Soviet military policy toward the United States, the various
ongoing negotiations affecting the balance of military power between the
Soviet Union and the United States have as yet produced no conclusive evi¬
dence that the Soviet leadership is now prepared to stabilize its military power
relationship with the United States on a lasting basis of “equality” and “no
unilateral advantage” to either side, as implied in joint statements issued at
successive summits in Moscow in May 1972 and Washington in June 1973.
In the case of the SALT II negotiations aimed at converting the interim
agreement on strategic offensive arms into a permanent treaty, the Soviet side
apparently has continued to resist the American claim that the numerical edge
conceded to the USSR in ICBMs and SUBMs under the interim agreement
must be rectified in any permanent treaty—especially in light of Soviet
advances in MIRV technology that in the next few years could wipe out
the U.S. technological lead that “compensated” for acceptance of Soviet
quantitative advantages in the interim agreement. (These advantages lay in
allowing the Soviets about 50 percent more missiles, with about four times as
much throw-weight as the United States, in return for a greater number of
U.S. warheads made possible by MIRVing part of the U.S. force of ICBMs
and SLBMs.)
Although Soviet intentions, as usual, remain murky behind the secretive
approach taken by the USSR to security issues, U.S. defense officials have
expressed concern that the potential marrying of Soviet quantitative missile
advantages permissible under the interim agreement with recent MIRV ad-
vances could permit the Soviet Union to “develop a clear preponderance of

counterforce capabilities.”®
The picture in the strategic area thus is clouded by uncertainty as to
whether the Soviet Union will press ahead with new programs intended either
(i) to yield some permanent margin of strategic power in its favor or (2) to
improve its bargaining position in further negotiations, or both.
In more specific terms, the key strategic policy issue facing the Kremlin
leadership is the extent to which the Soviet Union should attempt to incorpo¬
rate new MIRVed missiles into its strategic arsenal during the next few years,
as against reaching agreement on MIRV limitations and reduction of numbers
of Soviet missiles so as to maintain an overall balance of strategic forces. It
cannot be predicted with confidence what the Soviet decision will be, but if the
first alternative is chosen the prospect of stabilizing the strategic arms com¬
petition through SALT will probably diminish and the ABM treaty concluded
in May 1972 may even become subject to abrogation. In effect, if the issue is
so framed by the United States,* the Soviet leaders must decide whether to
pay in SALT coin for the economic and technological benefits they would like
to extract from detente.
In the case of negotiations on the reduction of theater forces in Europe, the
exploratory phase of which ended on June 28, 1973, the negotiations had not
gone far enough to indicate what moves the Soviets are prepared to make
with regard to cutting back their large military presence in Central and East¬
ern Europe.
In the preliminary sparring the Soviets did succeed in persuading the West¬
ern participants to drop the formula of mutual and balanced force reductions
(MBFR) in favor of simply mutual reductions, a change in terminology that
accommodates Soviet objections to the principle of “balanced” reductions.
Under this principle the Soviet Union would have been expected to take
proportionately greater cuts in its deployments to compensate for the fact that
withdrawn Soviet forces would be in closer proximity to Europe than Amer¬
ican forces withdrawn to the continental United States.
The central consideration for Soviet policy-makers with respect to Euro¬
pean security issues would appear to be how far to go in the direction of a
genuine military detente without endangering Soviet hegemony in the Eastern
half of Europe. To the extent that the continuation of political detente seems
both desirable to the Kremlin leadership and to require some lowering of the
level of military confrontation between the opposing NATO and Warsaw
blocs, the Soviet Union may be prepared eventually to cut back its force levels
in Europe, which would have the additional advantage of freeing some
military assets for buttressing the Soviet position in Asia.
* That is to say, “linkage” between the strategic arms negotiations and other issues
would have to be established. It is not clear, of course, whether U.S. diplomacy is
prepared to insist on linking economic-technological cooperation with a satisfactory out¬
come of the SALT negotiations.
But, given the long-standing importance in Soviet eyes of having a formi¬

dable Soviet military presence in Europe, together with Moscow’s hard-nosed
attitude toward the “balanced” reduction formula, it seems warranted to con¬
clude that any mutual reduction agreements the USSR may sign will be such
as to permit it to preserve a substantial military foothold in the European
arena. In a sense this is simply to say that, whatever fluctuations there may be
in the political climate, the Soviet leadership is likely to operate on the tradi¬
tional assumption that the USSR’s interests as a great continental land power
call for the continued maintenance of strong ground-air theater forces in both
the European and Asian extremities of the Eurasian continent.
But the situation is somewhat reversed in the sphere of naval and maritime
power. Here the Soviet Union has only within the fairly recent past set out to
challenge the dominance of the seas long enjoyed by the Western maritime
states, and in the process the Soviet leadership faces issues for which the
traditional pattern of Soviet military policy provides relatively little precedent.
Perhaps the most basic issue is what share of Soviet resources available to
the military establishment can “rationally” be allocated to the further expan¬
sion of sea power as an instrument for the achievement of Soviet military-
political goals. Given a military structure in which the outlook of army
marshals has long predominated, it might be surmised that the Soviet admirals
have not found it altogether easy to establish a claim to a larger slice of
military resources.
They may, for instance, have had to dispose of arguments like that made
many years ago by the late Marshal Tukachevskii, who wrote that the spend¬
ing of a “significant part” of German military resources on the navy rather
than the army prior to World War I represented an ill-timed and irrational use
of available capital, since the navy could contribute little to Germany’s im¬
mediate strategic goals.
Presumably, today’s Soviet naval leaders would assert that this is an out¬
dated historical example that does not apply in the present case of the Soviet
Union. Indeed the head of the Soviet Navy, Admiral S. G. Gorshkov, has
argued eloquently and apparently successfully for creation of an “ocean-going
navy” capable of fighting either nuclear or non-nuclear wars and of “support¬
ing state interests at sea in peacetime.
In any event the development of Soviet naval and maritime power is pro¬
ceeding, with most Soviet naval programs lying outside the area of negotia¬
tions affecting the U.S.-Soviet military balance. Only the strategic or SLBM
component of naval forces has thus far been dealt with in SALT, with the
interim agreement of May 1972 allowing the Soviets to complete programs
that will give them numerical superiority in SLBMs. The main issue before
the Soviet leaders here has already been mentioned—whether to begin in¬
corporating MIRV technology into the Soviet SLBM force as well as the land-
based missile arsenal.
Perhaps the single most knotty naval policy issue to be threshed out, at
least in terms of the ultimate resource commitments involved, is whether the

Soviet Union should attempt to match the United States in large carrier strike
forces. Expert opinion in the West is divided on this question, although most
students of Soviet naval affairs believe that Soviet carrier construction pro¬
grams will stop short of such an ambitious goal. On the other hand it is not
improbable that the Soviets may at some point seek to reduce the existing
disparity in carrier strength through negotiated restrictions on deployment of
U.S. carriers. Indeed the position already taken by Soviet negotiators in SALT
on withdrawal of forward-based systems (the FBS issue) would seem to point
in this direction.
Whatever course the Soviets may elect to take on the carrier question, it
does seem likely that programs of surface ship construction to improve the
worldwide general purpose capabilities of the Soviet Navy will continue.
Among the factors entering into the rationale for such programs, increasing
importance may be given to the role of sea power in any future international
scramble for access to raw materials, especially oil, and in the control of sea
routes for distribution of oil to Europe and Japan.
Finally one may bring up a question pertinent to the whole sweep of Soviet
military policy at the present juncture of history. For more than a decade the
Soviet Union has poured immense resources into the buildup of its armed
forces. The quantitative buildup of these forces may have reached a peak, at
least for those forces for which levels have been set in negotiated agreements,
although qualitative improvements are still being made. To what use, then,
can the Soviet leaders be expected to put the enormous military power they
have now acquired?
For the most part, responsible opinion would not ascribe to the Soviet
leaders a deliberate intent to launch an attack against major adversaries of the
Soviet Union, either to the west or to the east, given the unpredictable
consequences of such a step in the nuclear age. Deterrence of an attack on the
Soviet Union itself, of course, is doubtless seen by the Soviet leaders as a
prime contribution of their armed forces to Soviet security. But the Soviet
leadership also appears persuaded that its investment in military power should
yield returns beyond deterrence alone.
For example, the Soviet leaders are schooled in the belief that political
adjustments flow from the correlation of forces between the parties con¬
cerned. Hence, in an era of bargaining with the adversary, it seems likely that
they will expect Soviet military power to have a multiplier effect on their
position at the negotiating table. With respect to numbers of their own camp,
the Soviet leaders seem to regard their armed forces as a “cohesive” factor
enabling the USSR to keep its allies in line, a function that promises to
become more important in an international system subject to the play of
multipolar politics and the uncertain effects of East-West detente.
As for fence-sitters and other nonaligned parties, the Soviet Union has not
had conspicuous success in exerting its influence upon them through military
power in the past; this is an area in which the Soviet leadership may tend to
experiment with new ways of making more effective use of the military instru¬
ments at its disposal.
In sum, although one can by no means predict precisely how the Soviet
Union may try to turn its expanded and still growing military assets to ac¬
count beyond the deterrence of nuclear war alone, it seems fair to conclude
that the general thrust of Soviet military policy will be to help create an
international environment favorable to the achievement of Soviet political
aims or—to borrow the previously cited formulation of a Soviet writer in the
military daily Red Star—to insure broader opportunities “for consolidating
the successes of the policy of peaceful coexistence.”
CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS
The impact of Soviet foreign policy on world politics has increased steadily
since the Bolshevik Revolution, climaxing after the end of World War II. In
the postwar era Moscow has succeeded in creating disorientation and discon¬
certion in most areas of the world. Either directly or indirectly, it has com¬
pelled most governments to formulate their policies with a view toward Soviet
reactions.
As a result pro-Western and “neutral” countries formed groupings to pro¬
tect themselves against possible Soviet pressure. Policy decisions became more
or less “collective,” meaning that no country could stand alone without at least
leaning to either one or the other group of nations. France, the exception, was
led back to the nineteenth century by President Charles DeGaulle, who fa¬
vored old-fashioned nationalism; Georges Pompidou, his successor, basically
adheres to this policy. France remains part of the West but in truth remains
outside the Western “collective.”
This troubled condition has deeply affected international behavior and
thought. There is still too little understanding of the Soviet Union’s political
system. Indeed it has become popular in the West and the Third World to
deprecate the body of Communist ideology as no longer pertinent. Those who
seek to get to the center of the Soviet mind are called “cold warriors.” By
contrast, Charles E. Bohlen, a former American ambassador to Moscow who
has studied Soviet affairs for forty years, has written:
It seems fashionable nowadays to conclude the Cold War is over. I do

not see how anybody can reach this conclusion if he takes the trouble to
read the Soviet press or speeches of Soviet leaders and to examine the daily
drumfire of Soviet propaganda that is directed toward the United States.12
Public attacks are also directed toward other Western or neutral states
whenever the Kremlin’s policy decisions need support or when threats or
“explanations” are needed.
I am well aware that changes—such as they are—have taken place as a
result of the so-called detente. These changes began with the treaties signed by
the Federal Republic of Germany with Moscow, Warsaw, and other East
European countries—the outcome of Chancellor Willy Brandt’s dangerous
Ostpolitik.^^ Then came President Nixon’s visit to Moscow and Brezhnev’s
return visit to Washington. (A rapprochement between Washington and
Peking that had been in the making for some years also came to partial
fruition.)
For Soviet purposes detente is required to safeguard the USSR’s western
borders at a time when Soviet and Chinese armies face each other along the
Sino-Soviet frontiers. The Soviet-West German detente favors Soviet pene¬
tration of Western Europe. Soviet detente in the United States will help the
Soviet economy with food imports and technological know-how. Last but not
least, detente could contribute to the creation of a false sense of security,
particularly in America.
In the United States a great many people developed the naive hope, even
the belief, that the troubles with the Soviet Union were over at last. Members
of Congress, ever alert to taxpayers’ complaints, have tried to deplete Amer¬
ican contributions to NATO and to weaken the U.S. military establishment at
home and abroad. Meanwhile the USSR has become militarily stronger in the
nuclear area, and especially in conventional armaments. While a nuclear
parity of sorts has been sought, not very successfully, in the SALT talks, the
United States and NATO are far below the conventional strength needed to
match Soviet armies and, if present trends continue, it will not be long before
this will be true of naval power as well.
To be sure, the continued buildup of the Soviet military does not neces¬
sarily indicate that war with the West is contemplated. It rather serves the
purposes of Soviet foreign policy, a kind of “gunboat diplomacy.” This
strength cannot help but produce a more recalcitrant stance by the USSR in
East-West negotiations, and more particularly it seems to coincide with a
renewal of Stalinism within the Soviet Union.
It is significant that even as detente with the West is greatly publicized,
there has been an extraordinary crackdown against dissenters who were cou¬
rageous enough to condemn the Kremlin’s methods of domestic suppression.
As in Romania, a greater degree of maneuverability in foreign affairs appears
to go hand in hand with totalitarian suppression against those who dare to
differ with the regime. But domestic policy cannot be divorced from foreign
policy; the two are indivisible. The persecution of literary and scientific giants,
without apparent regard for world public opinion, is a clear sign that Moscow
regards maintaining a true Communist regime as more important than im¬
proving its image abroad.
I raise the fundamental question of whether a totalitarian dictatorship can
maintain a reasonably stable relationship with countries whose basic political
beliefs are dichotomously opposed to those of the dictators. Prior to the
world wars, there existed a relatively uniform code of behavior for Western
nations and recognition of a body of international law. With the victory of the
Bolshevik Revolution, the international order based on this law of nations
was virtually ended. But since the Bolsheviks eventually realized that they
lived in this world and not outside of it, they found themselves in a dilemma.
To a degree they had to abide by what they called “capitalist” international
law, but at the same time they tried to create a “socialist” international law.
This led to the duality that has permeated Soviet foreign policy ever since.
In the early days one level of Soviet foreign policy was official and went
through government channels while the other was unofficial. Communist, and
directed over the heads of governments to their peoples. The Commissariat
for Foreign Affairs was the official channel and the Comintern the unofficial
one.
Today the Foreign Ministry implements Soviet decisions which originate in
the Politburo. There is now more consultation among the Soviet leaders than
in Stalin’s time, but it is the general secretary of the party who has the last
word. The party rules and the government organs merely carry out the orders
of the party leaders. The secret police, the KGB, also helps to implement
policy decisions; every Soviet embassy has resident KGB agents on its rolls,
posing as foreign service officers.
Gradually the two levels of Soviet policy have merged, which is to say that
national and Communist-international elements are now combined to form
one whole. This makes it extremely difficult for outsiders to determine which
of the policies are national and which are Communist. Basically these two
aspects reflect strategy and tactics by adjusting tactics to meet long-range
strategic goals. Moscow has learned how to exploit the customs of non-
Communist diplomatic establishments or menial employees.
Another important example of Soviet political dualism is the concept of
peaceful coexistence, as discussed earlier. I point to it again because the
true meaning of the term in Communist eyes cannot be clarified too often
to Western countries that might take it for what it is not. Peaceful coexis¬
tence means a state of nonwar—the term “peace” is not entirely applicable—
during which the Soviet leaders will continue what they call “ideological war¬
fare.”
Earlier in the genesis of this concept, Mikhail Suslov, the CPSU ideologue
and Politburo member, never ceased to advertise this concept. Significantly,
the new detente, much promulgated by Moscow, did not prevent Brezhnev
from highlighting in his significant August 1973 speech at Alma Ata that “we
are confident of the correctness of our Marxist-Leninist ideology” and that
more contacts between East and West would promote “the propagation of the
truth about socialism, thereby winning more and more supporters for the
ideas of “scientific communism.”
Thus a somewhat schizophrenic character of Soviet foreign policy emerges:
harsh rule inside the USSR but conciliatory overtures abroad; national aspir-
ations formulated to achieve Communist strategic objectives; peaceful ap¬

pearance hiding revolutionary policy objectives; and fundamentalist ideology
behind uneonventional tactics.
Soviet leaders know well how to use their dialectieal methods while non-
Communist statesmen are not certain whether or not to take specific gestures
by Moscow at face value. One could argue that, the less familiar non-
Communist leaders are with the baekground, beliefs, and psychology of Soviet
policy, the more vulnerable they are to its intrinsic dangers.
It is therefore not surprising that Soviet ruses more often than not have
been quite successful—in the late sixties and the early seventies perhaps more
than ever before. American emotional fatigue, stemming from the frustrations
of the Vietnam War and domestic socioeconomic difficulties, has played a
large role in bringing about the mueh praised detente. Regrettably there is the
danger that neo-isolationist sentiments in the United States have stymied
greater efforts at preparedness. A strong military establishment need not be
used for warfare. The Soviets, at this time, do not want war (nor do the
Chinese), and yet Soviet armed forces surpass those of the United States and
NATO. The Soviets realize more than most that policy is only as strong as the
power that backs it up. In today’s world an isolationist country is a weak
country.
This volume outlines a condition that many non-Communist states do not

fully acknowledge. Lacking in-depth knowledge of Soviet communism or
socialism, as Moscow calls it—many statesmen, deceived by appearances, fail
to distinguish between tactics and goals. This pertains speeifically to the
younger writers who, unfamiliar with the history of communism and the basic
nature of changes in world politics, do not feel they need to investigate more
thoroughly what lurks beneath the Soviet veneer. Yet this is comparatively
easy to do when one uses primary material from Soviet publications and state¬
ments by Soviet leaders intended for domestic consumption. For example, on
December 21, 1972, Brezhnev, in a “Father Frost” (Christmas) message said:
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has proceeded and still pro¬
ceeds on the basis of the continuing class struggle between the two
systems 0—the capitalist and the socialist—in the sphere of economics,
politics and, of course, ideology. It could not be otherwise since the world
outlook and class aims of socialism and capitalism are opposed and
irreconcilable M
Despite this often announced enmity, no reasonable man can be against

detente. Every opportunity must be seized to prevent another conflagration—
this time nuclear. Full cooperation to that effect with the Soviet Union (and
the People’s Republic of China) is to be encouraged. But at the same time,
the study of all aspects of Soviet affairs must become part of our educational
curriculum, beginning in the high schools. The Soviet Union cannot be under¬
stood without knowledge of the events that led to the Bolshevik Revolution,
its Marxist-Leninist principles, and subsequent developments.
This book seeks to advance this understanding.
NOTES
1. Kurt London, The Permanent Crisis (Waltham, Mass.: Xerox College Publishing,
1968), p. I.
2. Bernard Ramundo, Peaceful Coexistence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967),
p. 2.
3. Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History (New York: Norton, 1973).
4. Ibid., p. 208.
5. See the writer’s “Communism in Eastern Europe,” in Kurt London, ed.. Eastern
Europe in Transition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), pp. i9ff.
6. Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 539.
7. Kommunist, no. 15 (October 1971), p. 59.
8. I. Sidelnikov, “Peaceful Coexistence and the Peoples’ Security,” Krasnaia Zvezda
[Red Star], August 14, 1973.
9. Statement by Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger at a press conference, August
I7> 1973, reported in Washington Post, August 18, 1973.
10. Reference to this appraisal by Tukachevskii appeared in a recent Soviet book on
the economics of force planning by Yu. S. Solnyshkov, Ekonomicheskiye Faktory i
Vooiuzheniye [Economic Factors and Armament] (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1973), pp.
I3~i5- Solnyshkov, incidentally, is a Soviet naval officer. The thrust of his argument, that
rational force planning can be facilitated by careful analysis of goals and missions in the
light of newly expanded capabilities of one service or another, is consonant with the
Soviet Navy’s bid for a larger place in the sun.
11. For comment on Gorshkov’s successful advocacy of an enlarged role for the
Soviet Navy in the face of influential critics who argued that in the nuclear age the navy
“had completely lost its significance as a branch of the armed forces,” see Thomas W.
Wolfe, Soviet Naval Interaction with the United States and Its Influence on Soviet Naval
Development (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Rand Corporation, 1972), pp. 8—12.
12. Bohlen, Ibid., p. 273.
13. A treaty with Czechoslovakia was signed in December 1973, followed by other
East European agreements.
14. For a description of Soviet foreign policy formulation and implementation see
Kurt London, The Making of Foreign Policy—East and West (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin-
cott Co., 1965) pp. 183 ff.; and Vladimir Petrov, “Formation of Soviet Foreign Policy,”
Orbis, Fall 1973, vol. XVII, no. 3; see also John Barron’s KGB—The Secret Work of
Soviet Secret Agents (New York: Reader’s Digest Press, distributed by E. P. Dutton,
1974) on the role of the KGB in foreign affairs.
15- Quoted by Bertram Wolfe in an address on “Some Problems of the Russo-Ameri-
can Detente at Oklahoma State University on November 2, 1973.
Index
A-30 bomber, the, 253 Bahrain, 109

ABM. See Antiballistic missile Bakdash, Kalid, 98
ABM Treaty. See Antiballistic Missile Treaty “Balance of power,” the, 229-30, 232
Abdullah, King, 98 “Balance of terror,” the, 248-49. 251
Acheson, Dean, 8, 232 “Balanced forces,” doctrine of, 248
Adams, Henry, 212 Bandung Conference. See Conference of Asian
Aden, 98, too, no and African Nations
Adenauer, Konrad, 70, 81, 84, 86 Bangladesh, 168-69, 174, 176, 286
Afghanistan Barnds, William, 284, 286
Soviet economic aid to, 160 Beam, Jacob, 231
Soviet foreign policy in, 156, 159-61, 169, Benes, Eduard, 52-53, 70
170, 176 Berlin agreement, the (1971), 82
Soviet military aid to, 161, 162, 169 Berlin blockade, the, 34. 35. 83
Africa Berlin Wall, the, 83, 85
Soviet economic aid to, 143 Bhutan, 162
Soviet military aid to, 263 Bhutto, 177
After Yalta (Rose), 220, 224 Bidault, Georges, 81
Age of Containment, The (Rees), 218 Bierut, B., 274
Aksai Chin, 163, 164 Blum, Leon, 79, 148
Albania, 37, 65, 69, 119, 127 Bohlen, Charles, 216, 221, 274, 275, 281, 296
Alexander I, 55-56, 57 Bolivia
Algeria East European ecnomic aid to, 201
Soviet economic aid to, no “progressive” military regime in, 184, 190,
Soviet foreign policy in, 87, 98, too, no 191
Soviet military aid to, too, no Soviet economic aid to, 200-1, 202
Algerian National Liberation Front, the, 86 Soviet foreign policy in, 184, 190, 191, 192,
Algerian War, the, 87, 88 195-96, 198
Allende, Salvador, 184, 185, 188-89, 190-91, “Bomber gap,” the, 243
193. 195, 201, 202, 287, 288 Boumedienne, no
Annual Report on Foreign Policy (Nixon), 228 Brandt, Willy, 74, 84, 85, 86, 89, 91, 277, 297
Antiballistic missile, the (ABM), 246-47, 248, Brazil, 188, 191, 192, 194, 198, 200, 202, 204
250-52 Brest Litovsk, 24, 50
Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the, 250-52, 293 Brezhnev, Leonid
Arab League, the, 109 on Algeria, no
Arab-Israeli War, the (1948), 98 on Burma, 152
Arab-Israeli War, the (1956), 97 “collective security” system of, 123-24, 136,
Arab-Israeli War, the (1967); 89. 97. 99. 165, 153, 175, 286
254. 261, 263, 279 and the Czechoslovakian invasion, 38
Arab-Israeli War, the (i973). 101-7. 109. on the German Democratic Republic, 13
no-12, 279-80 and French politics, 90
Arbenz, Guzman, 182 on Latin America, 189, 194, 195
Argentina, 188, 192, 194, 196, 200, 202, 204 and Lin Piao, 129
Arismendi, R., 194 and Mao Tse-tung, 137, 276
Atlantic Alliances, the (i949). 80 and Nixon, Richard, 278, 297
Attlee, Clement, 79 on South Asia, 167
Austria, 221 on Southeast Asia, 145-46
Austria-Hungary, 50, 52 and Soviet foreign policy, 4, 8, n, 14-16, 18,
Ayub, Kahn, 164, 166, 167, 168 20, 74, 299
and Soviet military policy, 238-60 passim,
Ba’ath Party, the, 107 262
Babadzhanyan, Marshall, 103 and Tanaka, 131
Backfire bomber, the, 246
Brezhnev Doctrine, the, 43, 128, 165, 275
Baghdad Pact, the (1954-55). 95-96. 97. 98. Briinning, Heinrich, 76
159, 261, 278, 279 Brussells, Treaty of (1948), 80
301
302 Index
Bulganin, Nikolai, 86, 116-17 Churchill, Winston, 60, 62, 77, 216, 217, 275
Bulgaria, 52, 54, 57, 63, 64, 69 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency
Bullitt, William C., 28, 218 Cienfuegos submarine base, 198
Burma, 139-42, 152-53, 284 Clausewitz, Karl von, 9, 224
Byrnes, James F., 221 Cold War, the
Chinese policy in, 123-24
and the Cominform, 141
Cambodia, 147, 148, 151, 283 and detente, 290, 291
Canal Zone, the, 196 in Latin America, 183, 194
Castro, Fidel, 119, 182, 188, 195, 286 legacy of, 259
Catherine II, 54 origins of, 34, 60, 82, 213, 276, 289
CENTO. See Central Treaty Organization in South Asia, 159, 162, 166, 167
Central Intelligence Agency, 213 in Southeast Asia, 139
Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), 95, and the Soviet Union, 150, 158, 183, 194,
98, too, 108, 261 231, 237
Ceylon, 161 and the United States, 41, 226
Chamberlain, Neville, 55 “Collective security” system, 123-24, 136, 153,
Chervenkov, 63, 274 175, 286
Chiang Kai-shek, 33, 35 Colombia, 194, 196, 200, 201
Chile Cominform, the, 34, 78-79, 124, 141
Chinese economic aid to, 201 Comintern, the, 7, 15, 19, 26-28, 33, 51, 65, 74,
and Cuba, 193 76, 138, 139, 141, 150, 154, 182, 274
North Korean economic aid to, 201 Commission of State Security, the (KGB), 6,
“progressive” military regime in, 192 272, 298
scientific cooperation with the Soviet Union, Communist Information Bureau, the. See Com¬
205 inform, the
Soviet economic aid to, 200-1, 202, 203, 238 Communist insurgence in Southeast Asia, 139-
Soviet foreign policy in, 184-85, 188-89, 41
190-91, 193, 194, 195 Communist Party, the
Soviet military aid to, 198 in Bulgaria, 51, 54
Chilean Socialist Party, the, 197 in Chile, 189, 196
China, People’s Republic of in Czechoslovakia, 71-72
and Albania, 119, 127 in France, 28, 74-76, 78, 90, 148
“anti-revisionism” of, 127-28 in the German Federal Republic, 85-86
and Burma, 142 in Great Britain, 86
Chile, economic aid to, 201 in Greece, 54, 62
Cold War policy of, 124-25 in India (CPI), 124, 157-60, 165-66, 168,
at the Conference of Asian and African 175
Nations, 141-42 in Indonesia (PKI), 140-42, 145, 146, 149
Cultural Revolution of, 121, 128, 130, 133 in Italy, 29, 74, 75, 78, 86
and detente, 118, 119 in Japan, 124, 130-31
and the German Federal Republic, 129 in Latin America, 182, 188, 189, 195, 196,
Khrushchev’s policy toward, 116-19 207
Guyana, economic aid to, 201 in the Netherlands East Indies, 138
and Japan, 125 in Peru, 201
and India, 119, 154, 162-64, 174 in Romania, 64
and Indonesia, 146 in the Soviet Union (CPSU), 6, ii, 14, 16,
Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) 36, 104, 117, 128, 130, 174, 185, 189’
range of, 120-21 196, 203, 298
Latin America, economic aid to, 201, 202 in the United States, 28
and North Vietnam, 124, 148 in Yugoslavia, 34, 54, 64
nuclear capability of, 122, 162-63, 257 Conference of Asian and African Nations, the
and Pakistan, 157, 166, 168, 286 (Bandung, 1955), 141-42, 146
and Soviet foreign policy, 4, 114-37, I45, Conference of Youth and Students of South¬
157, 159, 165, 168, 173, 174 east Asia Fighting for Freedom and In¬
See also Sino-Soviet treaty of alliance dependence (1948), 141
Soviet military aid to, 35, 116, 117 Congress of Vienna, the, 30-31
Soviet military policy toward, 119, 120-22, Congress Party, the, 160, 166, 167, 168
127, 257-58, 263 “Constitutional communism,” 160
and Taiwan, 118
Containment policy, U. S., 159, 221-24, 237-38
territorial aspirations of, 162-63 Control Commission, the (Berlin), 78
and Tibet, 162 Corvalon, Luis, 190
Chinese Nationalists. See Taiwan, Republic of Costa Rica, 194, 201, 204, 206
China Council of Ministers, the, 14
Chou En-lai, 122, 128, 129, 164
Council of Mutual Economic Assistance, 274
Christian-Democratic Party, the, 86 Cozzens, James, 211
Chuch’e (self-identity), 134
CPI. See Communist Party of India
Index 303
CPSU. See Communist Party of the Soviet to Colombia, 201

Union to Peru, 201
Crimean War, the, 30 East Germany. See German Democratic Re¬
CSCE. See European security and cooperation public
negotiations East Pakistan. See Pakistan, East
Cuba EC-121 (reconnaissance aircraft) incident
and Chile, 193 (1969), 134
as Comecon member, 196 Ecuador
revolution in, 183, 188, 189, 193, 286 “progressive” military regimes in, 188, 192,
Soviet economic aid to, 183, 199, 203 195, 287
Soviet foreign policy in, 9, 143-45, 150. 183- Soviet economic aid to, 200
84, 188, 189, 193, 194 Soviet foreign policy in, 188, 192, 195, 196
Soviet military aid to, 144, 262 EDC. See European Defense Community
Soviet military policy in, 183-84, 198, 262 Eden, Anthony, 82
Cuban missile crisis, the, 13-14, 45, 47, 88, Egypt
119-20, 127, 143, 145-46, 164, 183-84, Communist party of, ii
243, 245, 263, 277 Czechoslovakian military aid to, 96
Cultural Revolution, the, 121, 128, 130, 133 expulsion of Soviet aides, 103, 105, iii,
“Curzon Line,” the, 77 261-62
Czechoslovakia Soviet economic aid, 103
autonomy of, 33 Soviet foreign policy in, 96, 98, too, 101-7,
liberalization of, 43-44 111-12, 126, 207, 261, 279
military aid to Egypt, 96 Soviet military aid to, 96, 103-4, 105, iii-
purges in, 65 12, 141, 144
Soviet invasion of (1968), 5, 8, 16, 17, 19, and the United States, 106
38, 64, 66, 68, 71, 73, 74, 86, 90, 91, 93, Eisenhower, Dwight, 86
121-22, 128, 130, 165, 167, 241, 258, Energy crisis, the, 186
274-75, 276 Ethiopian War, the, 52
Soviet takeover of, 34, 57, 73, 80 European Advisory Committee, the, 77
Stalinization of, 63, 70 European Defense Community, the, 81
European security and cooperation negotiations
Daladier, Edouard, 55 (CSCE), 259. 260
Debre, Michel, 87
DeGaulle, Charles, 44, 76, 79, 83, 84, 87, 88, Faisal, King, 109
90-91, 165, 277, 296 Fallacci, Orianna, 151
Delta-class submarine, 245 Faure, Edgar, 86
Democratic Republic of Vietnam. See North Fedayeen, Palestinian, 262
Vietnam Feis, Herbert, 218
“Democratization” of Latin American mili¬ Finland, 33, 38, 54, 57, 62, 70
tary, 197-98 Force de frappe, 89
Department of Defense, the, 213 Four Studies of War and Peace in This Cen¬
Detente tury (Hancock), 224
and the Arab-Israeli War (1967), 89 France
Chinese attitude toward, 118-19 and the Algerian National Liberation Front,
and the Cold War, 226 86, 87
and France, 86, 91 and the Arab World, 87
and the German question, 82-85 Communist party of, 19-20, 33, 74-76, 78,
and Korea, 134 90, 148
and Latin America, 193, i94 Fifth Republic, 90
and the Soviet Union, 8, 239-40, 242, 259- First Empire, 22
61, 290-91, 293, 295, 297, 299 First Republic, 22-23
“Deterrence-only” defense posture, 248 Fourth Republic, 44, 86
“Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” 189 and Hitler, 52, 54
Dien Bien Phu, 148 and the Middle East, 98
Dimitrov, 63, 274 nationalism in, 296
Document JCS 1067, 79-80 and Romania, 64
DOD. See Department of Defense and the Soviet Union, 28, 52, 74-76, 83, 86,
Dollfuss, Chancellor, 52 87-92
Dominican Republic, the, 184 United States NATO forces, expulsion of,
Donovan, Bill, 139 277
Dubcek, Alexander, 65, 275 and Vitenam, 86, 87, 148
Dulles, John Foster, 67, 95, ii7, 118, 159 Franco, Francisco, 53, 76
Franco-Soviet Pact, the, 28, 52
East Asia, Soviet foreign policy in, 114-39 Frei, Eduardo, 200
East European economic aid French Communist Party, the, 19-20, 33, 74-
to Bolivia, 201 76, 78, 90, 148

to Brazil, 200 Fulbright, J. William, 231
304 Index
Gandhi, Mrs. Indira, 157, 167, 174, 175, 268 Holy Alliance, the, 22-23
Gandhi, Mahatma, 160 Honduras, 190, 192
GARIOA. See Government Aid and Relief in Hopkins, Harry, 215, 216-17
Occupied Areas Hoxha, Enver, 65
GDR. See German Democratic Republic Hundred Flowers Campaign, the, (1956-57),
Geneva Conference, the (1954), 81-82 118, 126-27
Geneva Peace Talks, the (1974), 102, 112 Hungarian Revolution, the, (1956), 8, 10, 51,
Geneva summit conference (1955), 86 53-54, 65, 68, 126, 162, 241, 274, 276
“Geographic fatalism,” doctrine of, 182 Hungary, 19, 52, 57, 62-65, 68-69
George, Lloyd, 57 Huk rebellion, the, 141
German Democratic Republic (East Ger¬ Hull, Cordell, 215, 216
many), 13, 81, 82, 85, 86, 92, 276, 277 Huntington, Samuf', 226, 231
German Federal Republic (West Germany) Hussein, King, 98
and China, 129
Communist party in, 85-86 ICBM. See Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
and the German Democratic Republic, 92 Ideological thaw, the, 260
Ostpolitik of, 84, 86, 91, 240, 277-78, 297 India
and Poland, 69-70 and China, 119, 154, 157, 162-64, 174
and Romania, 84, 91 Communist Party of (CPI), 124, 157-60,
Soviet foreign policy in, 74-79, 81, 83-86, 165-66, 168, 175
88-92, 277, 279 independence of, 160
Germany, East. See German Democratic Re¬ nonalignment of, 160, 161, 164
public nuclear capability of, 167
Germany, National Socialist, 5, 6, 18, 30-32, Soviet economic aid to, 160-61, 169-70,
52-61 passim, 74, 211, 216 176-78
Germany, Weimar, 29, 50, 51 Soviet foreign policy in, 126, 127, 156-78
Germany, West. See German Federal Republic passim
Ghana, 144, 263 Soviet military aid to, 164-65, 169, 172-73,
Gheorgiu-Dej, 63, 274 262, 263
Gorky, Maxim, 23 Soviet military policy toward, 167, 175
Gomulka, Wladislaw, 38, 65, 69 United States foreign policy in, 156, 157,
Goulart, Joao, 184 161-62
Goure, Leon, 286 United States military aid to, 166, 167
Government Aid and Relief in Occupied Indian Communist Party, the, (CPI), 124,
Areas, 79 157-60, 165-66, 168, 175
Grand Alliance, the, 32 Indonesia
Great Britain, 52, 56, 75, 78, 98, 103 and China, 146
Great Britain and the German Navy (Wood¬ Communist Party of, (PKI), 140-42, 145,
ward), 224 146, 149
Great Leap Forward, the (1958-60), 118-19 Soviet economic aid to, 142-43
127
Soviet foreign policy in, 139-43, 145, 146,
Greece, 54, 57, 62 148-49, 152, 283-84
Grimm, Melchior, 212
Soviet military aid to, 142-43, 146, 262, 263
Gromyko, Andrei, 131, 140, 153 Indonesian Communist Party, the, (PKI),
Grosser, Alfred, 277 140-42, 145, 146, 149
Guatemala, 182, 190, 194 Indo-Pakistani partition, 157
Guerilla warfare, 183-84, 195 Indo-Pakistani War, the, 168, 171, 173, 285
Guevara, Che, 184 Indo-Soviet Treaty, the, (1973), 285
Guinea, 144, 263
Infantile Disease of Leftism in Communism
Guttenberg, Baron, 84 (Lenin), 7
Guyana, 193, 194, 201 Institute for Latin America, the, 188
Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), 118,
Hague, The, 271 120-21, 243, 244-45, 246, 292
Haiphong Harbor, U. S. mining of, 11, 150 International Court of Law, the, 271
Haiti, 190, 192
International monetary system, crisis of, 93
Hamilton, Alexander, 214 Iran, 41-42, 61, 92, 100, 102, 107, 109, iii
Hancock, Keith, 224 Iraq
Hapsburg Monarchy, the, 49, 50 and the Baghdad Pact, 97, 98
Heine, Heinrich, 212
and the Central Treaty Organization
Heisenberg, Werner, 213
(CENTO), 108
“Hickenlooper Amendment,” the, 186 and the Persian Gulf States, 109
Hinton, Harold C., 281-82
Soviet economic aid to, 108
Hiroshima, 59
Soviet foreign policy in, 96, 100, loi, 102,
Hitler, Adolf, 6, 10, 18, 30—32, 52—61 passim, 104-8, III, 114, 262
74, 75, 211, 216
Soviet military aid to, 100, 103, 105, 106
Ho Chi Minh, 86, 124, 148
Irony of American History, The (Niebur)
Hoffmann, Stanley, 229 214
Index 305
Israel, 24, 96-99, 279 and Romania, 69

See also Arab-Israeli wars and Soviet foreign policy, 9, 15, 20, 24,
Italian Communist Party, the, 19-20, 27, 33, 25-27, 64
74, 75, 78, 86 and the Treaty of Versailles, 56
Italy, 5, 19-20, 33, 52, 64, 74, 75, 78, 86, 90,
271, 276 MacArthur, Douglas, 125
Macedonia, 69
Japan, 59, 114, 116, 117, 121-33 passim, 155, Machiavelli, Niccolo, 232
280, 282 Mackintosh, Malcolm, 278, 279
Japanese Communist Party, the, 124, 130-31 MacMahon Line, the, 164
“Jakarta-Peking axis,” the, 146 MAD. See “Mutual assured destruction”
JCS. See Joint Chiefs of Staff Mahon, Alfred Thayer, 214
Joint Chiefs of Staff, the (JCS), 213, 229 Malaya, 139-40, 141, I47, 153-54
Jordan, 96-98, 105 Malenkov, Georgi, 7, 36, 95, 116, 118, 126
Mali, 144
Kang, Kao, 35 Manchuria, 115, 116, 125, 221, 281
Kara-class cruiser, 255 Mao Tse-tung
Kashin-class cruiser, 255, 256 and Brezhnev, 137
Kashmir dispute, the 160-61, 162, 165, 166 cold war policy of, 124-25
Kelly, George, 295, 296 and the Cultural Revolution, 121, 128, 130,
Kennedy, John, 13-14, 88 133
Kerala, 163 and the Great Leap Forward, 118-19, 127
KGB. See Commission of State Security and the Hundred Flowers Campaign, 118,
Khrushchev, Nikita 126-27
Berlin ultimatum of, 85 and Khrushchev, 117-18, 126, 162, 276
and China, 36, 39, 116-19 and Soviet foreign policy, 35-37. 120, 123,
and the Cuban missile crisis, 13-14, 43, ti9, 174, 181
127, 183 on Soviet-Japanese territorial disputes, 131-
fall of, 4, 43, 120, 128, 145, 243, 283 32
and Indonesia, 142 and Stalin, 35, 116, 124-25, 126, 181
and Mao Tse-tung, 126, 162, 276 Marchais, George, 91
and Nehru, Jawaharlal, 160 Marcos, Ferdinand, 153
and the nuclear test ban treaty (1963), ii9- Marcos, Imelda, 153
20 Marshall, Charles Burton, 290
official positions of, 14 Marshall Plan, the, 34, 79, 80
as “revisionist,” 274 Martin, Henri, 212
and the Sino-Soviet alliance, 157 Marty, Andre, 76
and Soviet foreign policy, 4, 15, 18, 20, 26, Marx, Karl, 24, 69
39, 88, 160, 261 Masaryk, Tomas, 49, 71
and Soviet military policy, 238, 243, 245, MBFR. See Mutual and balanced force reduc¬
246, 262 tion
and Stalin, 126 Mendes-France, Pierre, 82
Kiesinger, Kurt-Georg, 84, 277-78 Mexico, 188, 194, 196
Kim II Song, 124, I33, I34 Middle East
Kissinger, Henry, 168 French influence in, 98
Komar-class cruiser, 146 Great Britain’s influence in, 98
Kong Le, the, 147 Soviet economic aid to, 97, too, 102-4, 142
Korean War, the, 35-36, 63, 80, 124, 125, 133 Soviet foreign policy in, 94-112 passim,
Kosygin, Aleksei, 90, 120, 122, 128, 145, 166- 278-80
67, 176, 238-47, 253-55, 257, 258, 262 Soviet military aid to, 96-97, 99, 102-4, 142
Kresta-class cruiser, 255 Soviet military policy in, 95, 97, too
Krivak-class cruiser, 256 Soviet propaganda in, 95, 96, 103
Kuonmintang, the, 41-42 Soviet trade policy in, 95, 97. 101-2, 107-10,
Kurds, the, 107-8 112
Kuwait, 98, 108 MIG-12 interceptor, 146
Kynda-class cruiser, 255 Mikoyan, Anastas, 143
Military Strategy (Solokovskii), 244
League of Nations, the, 31, 43, 52, 215 Ministry for Refugees, the, 84
Lecanuet, Jean, 90 Minuteman program, the 244
Leites, Nathan, 220 MIRV. See Multiple Independently Targeted
Lenin Vehicle
and the League of Nations, 31 “Missile gap,” the, 243
and Tomas Masaryk, 71 Mitterand, Francois, 91
model Communist state of, 63 Molotov, V. M., 55, 81, 118
and propaganda, 12 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 54
and revolution, 7-8, 23, 24, 25, 49, 50, 52, Mongolian People’s Republic, the, 36, 115,
189, 211 121, 122
3o6 Index
Monroe Doctrine, the, 43 OAS. See Organization of American States
Morgenthau Plan, the, 79 October Revolution. See Russian Revolution
Morocco, 94, 98, 100, no, 262 Oder-Neisse line, the, 84
Moscow Treaty (1970), 82 “Oil offensive,” the, 186, 236, 280
Moskva-class carrier, 256 Okinawa, 114, 121, 131
Mossadeq, 98 Okuney, V. V., 104
Mouvement Republicain Populaire, 79 Olmos project, the, 201
Multiple Independently Targeted Vehicle Organization of American States, the, (OAS),
(MIRV), 245, 292, 293, 294 192
Munich, “Soviet Republic” of, 51 Orwell, George, 272
Mussolini, Benito, 5, 52, 54, 57 Ostpolitik, 84, 86, 91, 240, 278, 297
“Mutual assured destruction” (MAD), 248 Ottoman Empire, the, 49
Mutual and balanced force reductions
(MBFR), 293-94
Pakistan
and the Baghdad Pact, 98
Napoleon, 22, 30, 56, 212, 214 and the Central Treaty Organization
Nasser, Gamal, 98, 103, 104, in (CENTO), 98
“National liberation movements,” 241, 262 and China, 157, 166, 168, 286
National Security Council, the, 213, 221 and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organiza¬
National Socialist Germany. See Germany, tion (SEATO), 177
National Socialist Soviet economic aid to, 168, 170
Nationalism Soviet foreign policy in, 157, 160-70 passim,
in Africa, 165 172, 176, 177
in Asia, 165 Soviet military aid to, 167, 168
in Eastern Europe, 68, 69 United States foreign policy in, 157, 159,
in France, 296 160-62, 164, 166, 168, 174, 176
in Latin America, 188, 193, 195 Pakistani-United States alliance, 160
in the Middle East, 95, 98, 279 Palestinian guerrillas. See Fedayeen, Palestin¬
Soviet manipulation of, 69-71 ian
in the Soviet Union, 64 Panama, 188, 192, 196, 287
Nationalist China. See Taiwan, Repubhc of Papandreou, George, 62
China Paraguay, 190, 192, 202, 287
Nationalization, 193, 195, 196 Pathet Lao, the, 147, 151-52
NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organiza¬ Pauker, Guy, 283-84
tion “Peaceful coexistence,” 8, 51, 184, 193, 195,
Nazi-Soviet Pact, the, 37 242, 272
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165 Penkovskiy Papers, the, 244
Netherlands East Indies, 138, 140 Pentagon Papers, the, 148
Nepal, 156, 162, 170, 174 “People’s democratic revolution,” 188, 190
Nicaragua, 190, 194 People’s Republic of China. See China, Peo¬
Nicolas I, 22 ple’s Republic of
Neibuhr, Reinhold, 24 Perkins, Francis, 217, 218
Nixon, Richard, ii, 129, 175, 228, 230, 278, Persian Gulf States, the, 108-9
297 Peru
Nixon-Brezhnev summit meeting (1972), 175 Communist party of, 201
Nkrumah, Kwame, 145, 165 Eastern European economic aid to, 201
“Noninevitability” of war, 117 “progressive” military regime in, 184, 188,
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 191
8, 9, 19, 73, 81, 89, 95, 98, loi, 105, Soviet economic aid to, 200-1, 202, 203
226, 276-78, 280-82, 293, 297, 299 Soviet foreign policy in, 184, 188, 191, 193,
North Korea, 114, 116, 120, 122, 124, 133-35, 195
201, 221 Soviet military aid to, 198, 287
North Vietnam, 37, 120, 122, 124, 147-52, 262, Peurifoy, Jack, 139
263, 283 Pieck, Wilhelm, 76
North Yeman, 109 Pilsudski, 51, 52, 54
Novotny, Antonin, 71 Philippines, the
NSC. See National Security Council Huk rebellion in, 141
NSC-68 (National Security Study), 221, 227 and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
Nuclear capability
147
of China, 122, 257 Soviet foreign policy in, 147, 153
of India, 167 Soviet trade with, 284
Soviet, 26, 221, 254-55, 273 Phouma, Souvanna, 283
of the United States, 60, 62, 220, 273 Physicist's Conception of Nature, The (Hei¬
Nuclear non-proliferation treaty, 167 senberg), 213
Nuclear test-ban treaty, 118, 119-20, 127 PKI. See Communist Party of Indonesia
Nuclear war, 141, 238, 241 Poher, Alain, 74
Index 307
Poincare, Raymond, 58 Schroder, Gerhardt, 84

Point Four Program, the, 139 Schuman Proposal, the, 80
Politburo, the, 4, 5, n, I4, 74, 277, 279, 286, Seabury, Paul, 225
298 SEATO. See Southeast Asia Treaty Organiza¬
Poland tion
anti-semitism in, 54 Self-determination, principle of, 30
army of, 60-61 Seton-Watson, Hugh, 274, 275
Bolshevik influence in, 51 Shah of Iran, 107
Fifth Partition of, 54 Shastri, Prime Minister, 166
frontier of, 77, 78 Shelest, 5, ii, 74
and Hitler, 31, 52 Sihanouk, Prince, 147, 151, 283
independence of, 19 Sikkim, 162
under Pilsudski, 51, 52, 54 Sikorsk, General, 60
and the Soviet Union, 33, 56-57, 60-63, 64, Singapore, 147, 153-54
65 Sinkiang, 115, 116, 257
Yalta agreement on, 275 Sino-Indian Treaty (1954), 162
Polaris program, the, 244, 245, 253 Sino-Soviet territorial disputes, 120, 121-22,
Polish-Soviet War, the, (1920), 60 127
Pompidou, Georges, 296 Sino-Soviet treaty of alliance (1950), 35, 117,
Ponomarev, Boris, 39, 185, i86, 187, 190, 191, 124-25, 135, 157
194, 205, 287 Six Day War. See Arab-Israeli War (1967)
Popular Front, the, 32 SLMB. See Submarine Launched Ballistic
Popular Unity government, Chile, 184, 188-89 Missiles
Potsdam agreement, 77-78, 115, 275 Social-Democrat Party, the, 85
Power, Francis Gary, 119 Sokolovskii, Marshall, 244
Presidium of the Council of Ministers, 4 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 20, 272
“Progressive” military regimes in Latin Amer¬ Somalia, too
ica, 184, 187, 191-92 South Arabia, 109-10
Propaganda, Chinese, 125-27 South Asia
Propaganda, Soviet. See Soviet propaganda and the Cold War, 159, 162, 167
Pueblo incident, the, (1968), 134 Soviet economic aid to, 142
Pushtunistan dispute, the, 160 Soviet foreign policy in, 156-78, 214
Soviet military aid to, 142
South Vietnam, 149, 152
Qatar, 109 Southeast Asia
and the Cold War, 139
Rahmar, Sheikh Mujibur, 168, 176 Comintern presence in, 138, 139
Rakosi, 63, 274 Communist insurgence in, 139-40
Rally of the French People, the, 88 Soviet foreign policy in, 138-54, 283
Ramundo, Bernard, 272 United States foreign policy in, 283-84
Rann of Kutch, the, 166 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO),
Rapallo agreement, the, (1922), 75-76 147, 159, 177
Razok, Tun Abal, 153 Soviet Army, the. See Soviet military forces
Rees, David, 218 and weapons
Republic of China. See Taiwan, Republic of Soviet economic aid
China to Afghanistan, 160
Revolution, Russian. See Russian Revolution to Africa, 143
“Revolutionary process,” the, 183, 184, 194 to Algeria, no
Rise and Decline of the Cold War, The (Sea- to Argentina, 200, 202
bury), 225 to Brazil, 202
Rodriguez, Carlos Rafael, 183 to Bolivia, 200-1, 202
Rogers, William, 198 to Chile, 200-1, 203
Romania, 9, I9, 38, 50-57 passim, 62, 64, 69, to China, 116, 119
91, 122, 274, 275, 297 to Colombia, 200
RPF. See Rally of the French People to Costa Rica, 201
Russian Revolution, the, 7-8, 22-25, 49-52, 56, to Cuba, 183, 199, 203
58, 66, 189, 211, 282, 298 to Eastern Europe, 66
to Ecuador, 200
SA-2 missile, 146, 246, 283 to Egypt, 103
to India, 160-61, 169-70, 176-78
SA-5 missile, 246
to Indonesia, 142-43
Sabry, Ali, 104
Sadat, President, 261 to Iraq, 108
SALT. See Strategic Arms Limitations Talks to Latin America, 143, 199-206, 286-89
to the Middle East, 97, too, 102-4, 142
SAM missile, 255
Saudi Arabia, 102, 280 to Morocco, no
Schapiro, Leonard, 272, 273 to Nepal, 170
Schlesmger, James, 245 to North Korea, 137
3o8 Index
Soviet economic aid (cont.) and detente, 5, 8, ii, 37, 44, 193, 194, 239-
to Pakistan, i68, 170 40, 242, 259-61, 278
to Paraguay, 202 in East Asia, 114-36
to Peru, 200-1, 202, 203 in Eastern Europe, 19, 32-33, 38, 48-71
to South Asia, 142 in Ecuador, 188, 192, 195, 196
to Sri Lanka, 170 in Egypt, ii, 17-18, 39, 96, 98, too, 101-7,
to Tunisia, no 111-12, 126, 279
to Uruguay, 202 and the Egyptian expulsion of Soviet mili¬
to Yemen, 109 tary aides, 103, 105, iii, 261-62
See also Soviet economic policy and Soviet and the energy crisis, 186
military aid in France, 28, 74-75, 76, 79, 83, 86, 87-92
Soviet economic policy and Gandhi, Mrs. Indira, 157, 167
in Bangladesh, 176 and Gandhi, Mahatma, 160
in Japan, 121, 131-32, 155 in the German Democratic Republic, 13,
in the Middle East, 97, loi, 102, 107-10, 81, 82, 85-86, 92, 276-77
II2 in the German Federal Republic, 74-79, 81,
in Western Europe, 89-90 83-86, 88-90, 91-92, 297
See also Soviet economic aid and Soviet and the Geneva Conference (1954), 81-82
trade policy and the Geneva Peace Talks (1974), 102,
Soviet foreign policy 112
in Aden, 98, too and the Great Leap Forward (1958-60),
and Adenauer, Konrad, 81, 84 118-19, 127
in Afghanistan, 156, 159, 160, 161, 169, in Guatemala, 190, 194
170, 176 and “gunboat diplomacy,” 297
in Africa, 5, 17, 165 in Guyana, 193, 194
in Albania, 119, 127 in Haiti, 190, 192
in Algeria, 39, 98, too, no in Honduras, 190, 192
and the Arab-Israeli conflict, 95, 97-99, and the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-
101-7, 159, 165, 250-52, 254, 261, 263, 57), 126-27
279-80, 293 and the Hungarian Revolution (1956), 8,
and the Arab League, 109 i6, 19, 162
in Argentina, 188, 192, 194, 196 and the “ideological thaw,” 260
and Asian nationalism, 165 ideology of, 22, 26, 38-39, 40, 43, 44, 58-59,
and Asian regional conflicts, 166 159, 260, 271-73, 298-99
and the “balance of power,” 229-30, 232 in India, 124, 126, 127, 158-78 passim, 284-
and the Baghdad Pact, 95-98, 159, 261, 278, 85
279 in Indonesia, 139-41, 142-43, I45, 146, 148-
in Bahrain, 109 49, 152, 154, 165, 283-84
in Bangladesh, 157, 168-69, I74, I75 and the Indo-Pakistani partition, 157
and the Berlin blockade, 83 and the international monetary crisis, 93
and the Berlin Wall, 83, 85 in Italy, 90
bifurcated nature of, 39-40 in Iran, 94, 102, iii
in Bolivia, 184, 190, 191, 192, 195, 196, 198 in Iraq, 96, too, loi, 102, 104-8, in
in Brazil, 188, 191, 192, 194, 198 and Islamic culture, 158-59
and Brezhnev, 4, 8, ii, 14-16, 18, 20, 74, in Israel, 19, 96, 98-99
299 and the “Jakarta-Peking” axis, 146
in Burma, 142, 146-47, 152-53 and Japan, 114, 116, 117, 121, 124, 129-33
in Cambodia, 147, 148, 151 in Jordan, 105
in Ceylon, 161 and the Kashmir dispute, 160-61, 162, 165,
in Chile, 184-85, 188-89, 190-91, 193, 194, 166
195 and Khrushchev, 4, 15, 18, 20, 39, 88, 160,
in China, 4, 19, 20, 33, 34-38, 114-37, I45. 161, 261
157, 159, 162-64, 165, 168, 173, 174, and the Korean War, 8, 124, 133
257-58, 292 in Laos, 147, 151-52, 283-84
See also Sino-Soviet treaty of alliance in Latin America, 182-206 passim
and the Cold War, 150, 158, 183, 194, 231, and the League of Nations, 52
237 and Lenin, 9, 15, 20, 24, 25-27, 64
and the “collective security” system, 123-24, in Libya, 100, in
136, 153, 175, 286 in Malaysia, 147, 153-54, 283
in Colombia, 194, 196 in Mali, 39
and the Conference of Asia and African Na¬ in Manchuria, 116, 125
tions (Bandung, 1955), 141-42, 146 in Mexico, 188, 194, 196
and containment. United States policy of, in the Middle East, 94—112 passim
159, 221-24, 237-38 in the Mongolian People’s Republic, 115
in Costa Rica, 194, 206 121, 122 ’
in Cuba, 9, 143-45, 150, 183-84, 188, 193, in Morocco, 94, 98, no
194 and Nasser, 165
Index 309
Soviet foreign policy (cont.) in Thailand, 139, 147, 152

and nationalism, Latin American, 188, 193, totalitarianism in, 3-21 passim
195 in Tunisia, 98, no, in
and nationalization, 193, 195, 196 in Turkey, 98
and Nehru, i6o and the U-2 incident (i960), 119
in Nepal, 156, 162 and the Union of Arab Emirates, 109
in Nicaragua, 190, 194 in the United States, 4, 40-43, 127, 135, 159-
and Nixon, Richard, 174-75 62, 194, 211, 220, 260, 287, 289-96
and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Uruguay, 194
(NATO), 8, 9, 19, 73, 81, 89, 91, 95, in Venezuela, 196
98, loi, 105, 226, 276-78, 280-82, 293, and the Vietnam war, 4, 128
297, 299 in Western Europe, 73-93 passim
in North Korea, 114, 116, 120, 122, 124, in Yemen, 94, 100, 109-10, in
133-34 See also Soviet economic policy and Soviet
in North Vietnam, 147-52, 154 military policy
and nuclear capacity, Soviet, 221, 254-55, Soviet ideology
273 anti-Chinese, 128
and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, 167 and the “class struggle,” 242
and the nuclear test-ban treaty, 118, 119-20, and the “collective security” system, 123-24,
127 136, 153, 175, 286
and the “oil offensive,” 186 “democratization” of the Latin American
and the Organization of American States military, 197-98
(OAS), 193 “dictatorship of the proletariat,” 189
in Panama, 188, 192, 196 and foreign policy, Soviet, 22, 26, 38, 40, 43,
in Paraguay, 190, 192 44, 58-59, 159, 260, 271-73, 298-99
in Pakistan, 157, 160-70 passim, 172, 176, “geographic fatalism,” 182
177 and the “ideological thaw,” 260
and the Pathet Lao, 151-52 and “national liberation movements,” 241,
and “peaceful coexistence,” 8, 51, 184, 193, 262
195, 245, 272, 290-91 “noninevitability” of war, 117
in the Persian Gulf States, 108-9 “peaceful coexistence,” 8, 51, 184, 193, 195,
in Peru, 184, 188, 191, 193, I95 242, 272, 290-91
in the Philippines, 147, i53 “people’s democratic revolution,” 188, 190
in Poland, 10, 19, 61, 69-70 and “progressive” military regimes in Latin
and “progressive” military regimes in Latin America, 184, 187, 188
America, 184, 187, 191-92 “revolutionary process,” 183, 184, 194
and propaganda, Soviet, 7, 12, 13, 15, 17, 25 See also Soviet propaganda
and the Pushtunistan dispute, 160 Soviet military aid
in Qatar, 109 to Afghanistan, 161, 169, 261, 263
in Romania, 19, 57, 62, 69, 91, 122, 274, to Africa, 263
275, 297 to the Arab world, 207, 280
in Saudi Arabia, 102 to Chile, 198
“scientific” basis of, 66 to China, 116, 117
and Sihanouk, Prince, 151 to Cuba, 144, 262
in Singapore, 147, 153-54 to Egypt, 96, 103-4, 105, 111-12, 142, 144,
in Sinkiang, 115, 116 207, 261
and the Sino-Indian border dispute, 119, to Ghana, 144, 263
157, 162-65, 174 to Guinea, 263
and the Sino-Soviet treaty of alliance (1950), to India, 164-65, 169, 172-73, 262, 263
117, 124-25 to Indonesia, 146, 262, 263
and the Sino-Tibetan conflict, 162-63 to Iraq, 100, 103, 105, 106, 144, 262
in Somalia, too to Iran, 100
in South Arabia, 109-10 to Latin America, 197-98, 207
in South Asia, 156-78 to Libya, 100
in Southeast Asia, 138-54, 283 to Mali, 144
in Sri Lanka, 156, 169, 170, 176 to the Middle East, 96-97, 99, 102-4, 142
and Stalin, 54 to Morocco, 100, no, 262
and the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks to “national liberation movements,” 262
(SALT), 238, 246-47, 250-53 to North Vietnam, 120, 146, 148-50, 262,
in the Sudan, 94, 98, iii 263, 283
and the Suez crisis (1956), 97 to North Korea, 124, 133
in Syria, 96, 98, too, 101-2, 105-7, m, 279 to Pakistan, 167, 168
and the Tashkent accords, 166-67 to Palestinian fedayeen, 262
in Taiwan, Republic of China, 115, 118, 119, to Peru, 198
123, 126 to Sri Lanka, 169, 261, 262
and the Taiwan Strait crisis (1958), 127 to Somalia, 100
and territorial waters, Latin American, 196 to the Sudan, 263
310 Index
Soviet military aid (cont.) 88, 119-20, 127, 143, 145-46, 164, 183-
to Syria, loo, 105, 144 84, 243, 245, 263, 277
to Tunisia, no and the Czechoslovakian invasion, 5, 8, 16,
to Yemen, 109, 262 17. 19. 38, 64, 66, 68, 71, 73, 74, 86, 90,
See also Soviet military policy and Soviet 91, 93, 121-22, 128, 130, 165, 167, 241,
economic aid 258, 274-75, 276
Soviet military forces and weapons and the Czechoslovakian takeover, 34, 57,
army, 52, 54-56, 58, 61-62, 66, 71, 273 73, 80
Backfire bomber, 246 and detente, 8, 239-40, 242, 259-61, 290-91,
C-class submarine, 255 293, 295, 297, 299
Delta-class submarine, 245 “deterrence-only” defense posture, 248
Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), and Eastern European annexations, 220-21
118, 243, 244-45, 246, 292 in Egypt, 103, 105, in, 261-62
Kara-class cruiser, 255 and the European security and cooperation
Kashin-class cruiser, 255 negotiations (CSCE), 259, 260
Komar-class cruiser, 146 in Finland, 54
Kresta-class cruiser, 255 and Gorshkov, Admiral, 253
Krivak-class cruiser, 256 and guerrilla warfare in Latin America, 183,
Kynda-class cruiser, 255 195
MIG-12 interceptor, 146 and the Hungarian Revolution, 8, 10, 51, 53-
Multiple Independently Targeted Vehicle 54, 65, 68, 126, 162, 241, 274, 276
(MIRV), 245 and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM),
Navy, 100, 167, 175, 198, 229, 253-56, 295 118, 243, 244-45, 246, 292
nuclear, 26, 221, 254-55, 273 and the “ideological thaw,” 260
SA-series missile, 146, 246, 283 in India, 167, 175
SAM missile, 255, 256 Iranian intervention (1945), 95
SS-series missile, 245 and the Korean War, 35-36, 63, 80, 125,
SS-N-series missile, 245, 255 133, 243
SSM missile, 256 and Khrushchev, 238, 243, 245, 246, 262
submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM), in Manchuria, 115, 221
245, 246, 253, 256, 292, 294 in the Middle East, 95, 97, 100, 279
submarines, nuclear powered, 254-55 and the “missile gap,” 243
surface ship programs, 255-57 in Mongolia, 121, 122
TU-16 bomber, 146 and mutual and balanced force reductions
“Tallin” missile, 246 (MBFR), 259, 293-94
Vertical or short takeoff and landing aircraft and “national liberation movements,” 241
(V/STOL), 256 naval, 154, 229, 253-56
W-class submarine, 146 and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Y-class submarines, 245, 255 (NATO), 8, 9, 19, 73, 81, 89, 95, 98,
See also Soviet military aid and Soviet loi, 105, 226, 276-78, 280-82, 293, 297
military policy 299
Soviet military pohcy in North Korea, 35-36, 63, 80, 125, 133, 221,
and the antiballistic missile (ABM), 246- 243
47, 248, 250-52 and nuclear capability, Soviet, 26, 221, 238,
and the Antiballistic Missile Treaty (1972), 241, 254-55, 273
247, 250-52
and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, 167
and the Arab-Israeli War (1967), 254, 261, and the “oil offensive,” 186, 236, 263-64,
263 280
in Austria, 221
and Ostpolitik, 84i 86, 91* 240, 278, 297
and the Baghdad Pact, 261 and “peaceful coexistence,” 8, 51, 184, 193,
and the “balance of power,” 229-30, 232 195, 242, 272
and the “balance of terror,” 248-49, 251 and the Penkovskiy Papers, 244
and “balanced forces,” 248 and the Sinkiang border dispute, 257
and the Berhn blockade, 34, 35, 83 and Sokolovskii, Marshall, 244
and the Berlin Wall, 83, 85 and Sputnik, 243
and the “bomber gap,” 243
and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
and Brezhnev, 238-60 passim, 262
(SALT), 238, 246-47, 250-53, 292, 294,
and the Central Treaty Organization 295, 297
(CENTO), 100, 261 and strategic convergence, 247-50
and China, 119, 120-22, 127, 257-58, 263
and strategic parity with the United States
and the “class struggle,” 242 136, 174
and the Cold War, 150, 158, 183, 194, 231, and Strategic Rocket Forces, 244-46
237
and submarine launched ballistic missiles
and containment. United States policy of, (SLBM), 245, 246, 253, 256
159, 221-24, 237-38 and the Suez Canal, 100, 105
in Cuba, 183-84, 198 surface ship programs, 255-57
and the Cuban missile crisis, 13-14, 45, 47, united action” in Vietnam, 128
Index 311
Soviet military policy (cont.) and Italy, 90

and the United States, 135, 241, 292-96 and Khrushchev, 126
and the Ussuri River dispute, 256 and Mao Tse-tung, 35, 116, 124-25, 126, 281
and the Vietnamese war, 4, 128, 147-52, 154 and the Mongolian People’s Repubhc, 15
and the Warsaw Pact, 82, 84, 122, 258, 259, purges of, 3, 16, 53, 55, 64-65
260-61, 274, 275 and Roosevelt, F. D., 230
See also Soviet military aid and Soviet mili¬ salonsfdhrigkeit of, 52-53
tary forces and weapons and the Sino-Soviet treaty, 33
Soviet Navy, the. See Soviet military forces at Teheran,
and weapons and Tito, Marshall, 116, 124
Soviet propaganda and Trotsky, 138
and China, 121 and Vietnam, 148
and foreign policy, Soviet, 7, 12, 13, 15, 17, and Western Europe, 93
25 and World War II allies, 31-32, 274, 275
internal, 55 at Yalta, 215, 217-18
in Latin America, 195-98 Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT),
and Lenin, 12 238, 246-47, 250-53, 292, 294, 295, 297
in the Middle East, 95, 96, 103, 279 Strategic convergence, 247-50
See also Soviet ideology Strategic parity, Soviet-United States, 174
Soviet scientific and technical cooperation “Strategic rear” of United States, Latin Amer¬
with Latin America, 205-6 ica, as, 185
Soviet trade policy Strategic Rocket Forces, 244-46
with Argentina, 204 Strauss, Franz Josef, 84
with Brazil, 204 Submarine, C-class, 255
with Burma, 284 Submarine, Delta-class, 245
with China, 129 Submarine, V-class, 255
with Costa Rica, 204 Submarine, Y-class, 245, 255
and grain purchases, foreign, 16 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM),
with Iraq, 102 245, 246, 253, 256, 292, 294
with Japan, 123, 133 Submarines, nuclear-powered, 254-55
in the Middle East, 95 Sudan, the, 94, 98, iii, 263
with the Philippines, 284 Suez Canal, the, too, 105
with Thailand, 284 Suez crisis, the, (1956), 97, 278
with the United States, 123 Suharto, 142, 152, 262
See also Soviet economic policy and Soviet Sukarno, 142, 146, 149, 152, 153, 165, 262
economic aid Suslov, Mikhail, 39, 120, 122, 128, 130, 298
Soviet Union, the (USSR) Syria
anti-Semitism in, 19, 279 and the Arab-Israeli War (1967), 97
foreign intelligence in, 66 and Soviet foreign policy, 96, 98, too, loi,
German invasion of, 54 102, 105-7, III, 279
internal economic situation, 4, 14, 121, 160, Soviet military aid to, too, 105, 144, 261, 262
174
internal politics of, 3-4, 12, 16, 17, 25, 40 Taiwan, Republic of China, 115, 118, 119,
internal propaganda, 55 123, 126
nationalism in, 64 Taiwan Strait crisis (1958), 127
Soviet-Czechoslovakian Pacts, 52 “Tallin” missile, 246
Soviet-Egyptian treaties, 105 Tanaka, 131
Soviet-German Pact (1939), 31-32 Tashkent accords, the, 166-67
Soviet-German Federal Republic treaties, 259 Teheran conference, the, 77, 217, 226, 274,
Soviet-Indian treaty (1971), 124 275
Soviet-Iraqi treaty, 105 Teitelboim, V., 189
Spain, 53 Thailand
SPD. See Christ-Democrat Party and Japan, 139
Spengler, Oswald, 224 non-colonial status of, 138
Sputnik, 118, 243 and Soviet foreign policy, 139, 147, 152
Sri Lanka, 169, 170, 176 Soviet trade with, 284
SS-series missiles, 245 Thiers, Adolph, 212
SSM missile, 256 Thorez, Maurice, 76-77
SS-N-series missiles, 245, 255 Tibet, 162
Stalin Tito, Marshall, 42, 43, 64, 116, 124, 125, 127
and Alexander I, 55-56, 57 Toqueville, Alexis de, 212
and the Balkans, 55 Totalitarianism, Soviet, 3-21 passim
and the Cold War, 289 Trans-Siberian Railway, the, 114
and Eastern Europe, 43, 49, 57, 59, 60-7 Transylvania, 69
passim Triple Entente, the, 52
and foreign Communist parties, 27-28, 74 Trotsky, Leon, 24, 25, 26
and Hitler, 6, to, 18, 56, 74 Truman, Harry, 59, 60, 275
312 Index
Truman Doctrine, the, 41 and the “missile gap,” 243

TU-16 bomber, 146 and Multiple Independently Targeted Ve¬
Tukachevskii, Marshal, 53, 294 hicles (MIRV), 245
Tunisia, 98, no, ill in North Vietnam, 148, 149, 151
Turkey, 41-42, 98 in Okinawa, 114
and the Polaris program, 244, 245, 253
U-2 incident, the, (i960), 119 and the Sixth Fleet, 279-80
Ulam, Adam, 273 and South Vietnam, 149
Ulbricht, Walter, 81, 82 and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
Union of Arab Emirates, 109 (SALT), 238, 246-47, 250-53, 292, 294,
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. See Soviet 295, 297
Union and strategic convergence, 247-50
United Nations World Conference on the Law and strategic parity with the Soviet Union,
of the Sea, 154 136, 174
United States foreign policy and submarine launched ballistic missiles
in China, 121, 129, 174, 278 (SLBM), 245, 246, 253, 256
and containment, policy of, 159, 221-24, Uruguay, 194, 202
237-38 USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).
and detente, 5, 8, ii, 37. 44, I93, I94, 239- See Soviet Union
40, 242, 259-61, 278, 285, 290-91, 293, Ussuri River, the, 257
295, 297, 299
in Egypt, 106 Venezuela, 196
ideology of, 40, 41, 42 Versailles, Treaty of, 29, 56, 77
in India, 156, 157, 161-62 Vertical or short takeoff and landing aircraft
isolationism in, 214-15 (V/STOL), 256
and Israel, 97 Vietnamese War, the, 4. ii, 67, 87, 128, 147-
and Pakistan, 159, 161-62, 164, 166, 168, 52, 165, 199
174, 176 Vol’skii, V., 188
Point Four Program (1949), 139 Voice of Japan, the, 130
in South Asia, 156, 157, 159-62 V/STOL. See Vertical or short takeoff and
in Southeast Asia, ii, 227, 283, 284 landing aircraft
in the Soviet Union, 4, 40-43, 127, 135,
159-62, 194, 211, 220, 260, 287, 289-96 Warsaw Pact, the, 82, 84, 122, 258, 259, 260-
and the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks 61, 274, 275
(SALT), 238, 246-47, 250-53 Warsaw uprising, the, 61
in Taiwan, 119 Washington, George, 214
and the Vietnam War, ii, 227 W-class submarine, 146
in Western Europe, 290 Wehmer, Herbert, 85
in Yugoslavia, 42 Weimar Germany. See Germany, Weimar
United States military policy West Germany. See German Federal Republic
and antiballistic missiles (ABM), 246-47, Western Europe
250-52, 248 Communist parties of, 276
and the Antiballistic Missile Treaty (1972), Soviet foreign policy in, 73-93 passim
247, 250-52 United States foreign policy in, 70, 276
and the “balance of power,” 229-30, 232 Western European Union, the, 73
and the “balance of terror,” 248-49, 251 Wilson, Woodrow, 57, 215
and the “bomber gap,” 243 Wolfe, Thomas W., 291
of containment, 159, 221-24, 237-38 Woodward, E. L., 224
and the Cuban missile crisis, 243, 245, 263 World Peace Congress, the, (1973), 184
Dominican Republic intervention, 184
in East Asia, 135 Yaha, President, 168
Haiphong Harbor, mining of, ii, 150 Y-class submarine, 245
and the “Hickenlooper Amendment,” 186 Yalta conference, the, 115, 125, 215, 217, 226,
in India, 167, 168 274. 275, 276, 290, 291
and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), Yemen, 94, 100, 109-10, in, 262
244-45, 246 Yew, Lee Kwan, 154
and the Korean War, 243 Yugoslavia, 34, 42, 54, 57, 64, 65, 69, 274
in Japan, 114
and the Minuteman program, 244 Zhukov, Marshal, 56, 118
n5
< •' '
hW'^W ,j
i ‘M w.'.y
'ft
■/.iV "i
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'•«*
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{Continued from front flap)
of Technology and the Rand Corporation—South¬
east Asia; Professor Leon Coure, of the Center for
Advanced International Studies, University of
Miami —Latin America; and Professor Charles
Burton Marshall, Acting Director, Washington
Center of Foreign Policy Research, Johns Hopkins
University-the United States.
The regional essays are followed by an appraisal
of Soviet military strategy and policy by Dr.
Thomas Wolfe, senior staff member of the Rand
Corporation, and an overall, worldwide picture of
what Soviet policy has wrought and how inter¬
national relations have changed ^ a direct or
indirect result of Moscow's strategy and tactics,
by Dr. Kurt London.
The sum total of these studies has mind-bog¬
gling implications. Here is a great power, com¬
prising one sixth of the earth's land surface, which
combines its enormous military strength and civil¬
ian regimentation with a political religion: the
Communist ideology. It seeks to impose its will on
other nations by "diplomatic" ruses, backed up by
an armed might that compares only with that of
the United States, plus a global network of Com¬
munist parties more or less loyal to Moscow. Con¬
stant pressure on Communist and non-Communist
states has led to a situation in which nations
cannot formulate their policies without consider¬
ing possible Soviet reactions.
In conclusion, the editor raises "the funda¬
mental question of whether a totalitarian dicta¬
torship can maintain a reasonably stable relation¬
ship with countries whose political beliefs are
diametrically opposed to those of the dictators."
Jacket design by Frances Elfenbein
HAWTHORN BOOKS, INC.

Publishers
260 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10016
Printed in U.S.A.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Dr. Kurt London studied at the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Wurzburg, where
he gained his doctorate in International Law in 1928, He did post-doctoral research at
the universities of Zurich, Paris, and London. From 1938 to 1942 he was on the faculties
of City College of New York, Brooklyn College, and the University of Denver. Subse¬
quently he served with the U.S. Office of War Information, the Department of State, and
the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 1%2 he joined George Washington University as Professor of International Affairs
and established the Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies, which he directed until 1970 when
he became Professor Emeritus. He is the author and editor of ten books on foreign
policy, Soviet-East European affairs, and international relations, including Backgrounds
of Conflict: Ideas and Forms in World Politics; The Making of Foreign Policy—East and
West; The Permanent Crisis; Eastern Europe in Transition (editor); The Soviet Union:
Half a Century of Communism (editor).
★★★
"This book should be required reading for all those who are professionally involved, or
otherwise interested in international affairs. Far-reaching and brilliant analyses of the
Soviet conception and practice of foreign policy and of the Soviet approach to global
strategy are combined with specific regional case studies written by eminent authorities.
This novel and imaginative approach to a vast and complex subject matter has produced
a work that is as stimulating as it is informative."
—William R. Tyler
Director, Dumbarton Oaks
"This exceptional anthology provides important insights into the complex origins and
motivations of Soviet foreign policy. It is a wide-ranging assessment of the projection of
Soviet power and the problems this has created for almost all the world's nations."
— U.S. Senator Henry M. Jackson
"As one who has devoted many years of his life to the observation and study of the
policies and practices of the Soviet Union in the field of foreign affairs, I have read with
interest and admiration The Soviet Impact on World Politics edited by the distinguished
American scholar. Dr. Kurt London. The book consists of a series of essays, each written
by a recognized authority . . . [that] describe the impact made by the Soviet Union over
the last fifty years on various regions of the world. . . . This book . . . should be on the
library shelf of anyone who is seriously interested in foreign affairs. It is stimulating and
challenging as well as instructive."
— Loy W. Henderson
Career Ambassador of the United States
of America (Retired)
"For an up-to-date, in-depth insight into the background of the detente between
Moscow and the West, this global survey by a dozen eminent Sovietologists is unsur¬
passed. It answers scores of questions in the minds of all concerned citizens as they
follow Kissinger's dramatic diplomacy."
— Isaac Don Levine
★ 978 0 8 015 6 9784

2016 02-15 9:50
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Of the many books written about Moscow's for¬

HAWTHORN BOOKS, INC.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-18895

Preface by Kurt London vii

The Nature of Soviet Foreign Policy:

1 Totalitarianism in Foreign Policy Leonard Schapiro 3

2 The Soviet Union and the Rules of the International Game

Regional Case Studies on the Impact

3 Eastern Europe Hugh Seton-Watson 49

6 East Asia Harold C. Hinton ii4

7 Southeast Asia Guy J. and Ewa T. Pauker 13^

9 Latin America Leon Goure 182

10 The United States Charles Burton Marshall 211

Soviet Global Strategy

11 Soviet Military Strategy and Policy Thomas W. Wolfe 237

The Soviet Foreign Policy Network

12 Summary and Conclusions Kurt London 271

t' !'■ ‘■'■r^'A' F'l. ' »V, rt 1;

>:'.i ■*'■ '-■:

and its constitution the Soviet Union claims to be governed by law. In

While pressing for the assertion of the principle of peaceful coexistence,

In essence this view is the logical implementation of Lenin’s policy of

Soviet aggression, Soviet response has bordered on panic surrender—as over

Soviet Union succeeded in extracting virtual recognition of Communist Cuba

Moreover such a militarized policy can only be pursued by a government

gressive, historically determined, and therefore irreversible. By contrast, any

We have so far been concerned with the advantages a totalitarian leader

weapons and equipment supplied to Egypt and failed to attach sufficient

totalitarian foreign policy as exemplified by the Soviet Union would be incom¬

1. Leonard Schapiro, Totalitarianism (New York: Praeger, 1972).

The Soviet Union and

imperialist reaction which appear at any moment to overwhelm the small

... to refrain, and to restrain all persons in Government service and

dient servants of the Soviet Union, foreign Communist parties an extension

Litvinov said: “What, is there to be one?” I answered, “yes, on the

gress of Vienna enabled liberal and eventually demoeratic institutions to take

The rise of Communist China transformed many of the basic perspectives

In August-September 1958 in an attempt to intensify the “Big Leap”

Western powers’ foreign policy, principally, of course, in that of the United

1. Maxim Gorky, O Ruskom Krestyanstve (Berlin, 1922), p. 22.

Regional Case Studies

The object of this chapter is not to provide a chronological survey of the

sia. The revolutionary mood among workers, intellectuals, and peasants in

him “evidence” of the “treason” of Tukhachevsky and other Soviet marshals.

All these developments show the determination of the Soviet leaders to

the formation of a new Polish government. They accepted the invitation—and

To return to the original question of the difference between the impact of

1. See J. K. Zawodny, Death in the Forest (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

inactive in 1948, provoked not even a shadow of apprehension m Western

European system (Russia and Germany), up to the German-Soviet treaty in

One obvious effect of Soviet policy on Western European poUcies is that of

The rupture transformed French governmental policy as well as that of the

conference, in June-July 1954, Anthony Eden and Pierre Mendes-France

But one country is in a special situation, namely, the Federal Republic. It is

1958 on the morrow of Khrushchev’s Berlin ultimatum? The ultimatum fin¬

tion in Czechoslovakia. This intervention contributed to making Soviet com¬

changing the basic principles of deterrence so long as the troops remained on

I. “For Lasting Peace, for a People’s Democracy,” Belgrade, October 5, i947-

THE SOVIET BACKGROUND

the chief of staff of the military organization is at present an American gen¬

THE MIDDLE EASTERN BACKGROUND

cal” purchases could expect a significant increase in its political influence in