ABSTRACT
An enormous body of Western research and analysis focuses on Marxist-Leninist ideology as a clue to an understanding of Kremlin policy. This extensive and intensive preoccupation with matters doctrinal is, at least in part, the result of a rather widely circulated belief that the democratic world was guilty of neglect when it refused to take seriously the “theoretical” writings and pronouncements of Adolf Hitler. Whenever the suggestion is made that the concept of national interest be applied as an explanation of Soviet behavior on the international scene, objections are raised in many quarters. The most vigorous protests come, of course, from Soviet sources. Some objections to the interpretation of Soviet policies in terms of national interest are rooted in the aforementioned line of analysis, which conjures up the ghost of Adolf Hitler. Stalin’s successors began by pressing the same claims of ideological obeisance from the satellites.
