ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a short description of the Soviet economic policy toward the West, a description of the factual development of the Soviet economic relations with the West since 1970, and discussion of the special problems in economic relations with the West. Consequently, the Soviet economy is less dependent on events occurring in the world economy, and the country's economic security is accordingly higher. At the beginning of the 1970s the USSR's political and economic interests in its relations with the West were nearly identical. In the case of conflicts between its political and economic interests, for whatever reasons, during the 1970s the Soviet Union reacted according to the concrete situation. The balance of the Soviet economic relations with the West in the 1970s shows positive as well as negative aspects. The Soviet economic planners continue to try to retain full control of the influence which foreign trade exerts on the domestic economy.
