ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to identify certain major phases in the evolution of Soviet foreign policy. The successive phases reflect important shifts in Soviet perceptions of the international situation and the world ‘correlation of forces’, in the requirements of the domestic economy or in the power position of various groups in the domestic political struggle-or some combination of these factors. The discussion seeks to provide selective historical illustrations and interpretations of the complex links, noted in chapter 1, between ideology, realpolitik and domestic policy issues in Soviet foreign-policy decision-making up to the Gorbachev era. It is evident that the policies associated so far with Gorbachev’s ‘new political thinking’ represent just such an important shift, perhaps a sea change, in the direction and substance of Soviet foreign policy. Nevertheless, for Western policy-makers and concerned citizens alike, a number of vital questions remain-no less vital for being so obvious. Among them are just how much of a change is involved and how stable the new line is likely to be. To what extent are the shifts contingent on the current shortcomings of the Soviet socio-economic system and the apparent relative strength of the Western capitalist adversary, and how much do they reflect genuine changes in the basic worldview of the Soviet leadership? How much do they depend on the personal perspectives of one person, Mikhail S.Gorbachev, and how much are they dictated by the ‘objective’ circumstances, by ‘life itself’, as the Soviets like to say? These questions are, of course, impossible to answer with any degree of certainty at this historical juncture. We shall have to wait and see. But in the meantime an awareness of Soviet behaviour in past periods
of external and domestic stress will help us at least to pose the right questions and look for the relevant evidence.
