ABSTRACT
Eastern European countries, having been provided with the greater opportunity for semi-autonomous foreign policy activity, also acquired the will and the capability to carry out such activity. Developments in the Third World made increased Eastern European involvement there more inviting in the 1970s. The Eastern Europeans avoided the charge of neocolonialism that was often leveled at the Soviet Union in its increased activity in the Third World. As the modernization process continued in Eastern Europe, the rapidly industrializing regimes of the area were placed in the difficult situation of needing at the same time both raw materials and export markets for finished goods. Considerable concern exists in the West to understand the scope and makeup of communist military assistance and arms transfers to the Third World. Bulgaria's military assistance treaty with Mozambique merely formalized relations that had been established long before Mozambican independence.
