ABSTRACT
Soviet writers see Marxism-Leninism as the ideological foundation on which is erected a 'principled' Soviet foreign policy, different in character from that of non-socialist states. There is a certain qualitative difference between international conduct of those states that regard a codified ideology as basis of foreign policy and those that follow a more empirical line. The potential strength and practical problems of the economy are linked at every point to the power and the doctrine of the Soviet state. The safe prediction is probably that the slowing down of the momentum of the Soviet Union will continue and that social and economic pressures will produce a progressive weakening of the ideology. But those who in the past have underestimated the resilience of the individual Russian and of the Soviet state have paid dearly for their error.
