ABSTRACT
Soviet strategic thinking reflects a consistent code of international conduct designed to advance the interests of the Soviet Union worldwide. Specific international moves depend upon the assessment made by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the time of the evolving world situation called the "correlation of forces." Soviet authoritative statements for the past seven decades have carefully restricted the meaning of peaceful coexistence to fit the classical Marxist-Leninist theory of social conflict. Soviet leaders have consistently espoused the right to fight a "just war" of "national liberation," that is, to assist a country to shake off external domination, as they would say they were doing in Vietnam. The Sino-Soviet rift, visible to ail since 1960, is based on cultural antagonisms and historic border conflicts. At a crucial point in Sino-Soviet relations, the Soviet Communist Party expressed deep annoyance with the conciliatory approach the Chinese had been using in describing socialist and bourgeois ideologies.
