ABSTRACT
The history of the 20th century has made clear that the character and structure of international relations depend to a great extent, if not completely, on the specifics of the social systems and on the level of development in the countries involved. A broad variety of definitions of this "real socialism" could be found in Soviet publications: "initial stage," "primitive," "barracks," "state bureaucratic," "authoritarian," and so on. In the USSR, as in the other socialist countries, the theory of convergence was subject to sharp criticism, being viewed and dismissed as "an attempt to falsify the facts and discredit socialism in the eyes of millions of people." One of the paradoxes of Soviet-type socialism was that this social system, alien to the fundamentals of European civilization, grew out of the greatest achievements of European thinking. The modern European social system is very resilient. Its self-regulating mechanisms have developed over many years and have acquired sufficient flexibility.
