ABSTRACT
Soviet policy towards the Third World has a politico-strategic, an economic, and an ideological dimension. The main objective of Moscow's foreign policy, and thus also the chief determinant of its policy in developing regions, has been "its claim to act as a superpower equal to the United States". The Soviet foreign trade statistics offer the following three sets of data: total exports and imports, exports and imports specified by country, and exports and imports identified by country and commodity. In general, capital aid from the USSR and other socialist countries is characterized by the fact that, due to the predominance of payments and services in kind, it is almost entirely tied to deliveries. Analysis of political and economic relations between Soviet Union and developing countries encounters fairly serious difficulties. The former Soviet party leader, Yu. V. Andropov, in his speech to the Central Committee of the CPSU in November 1982, particularly stressed continuity with past Soviet foreign policy.
