ABSTRACT
A major theme of this book has been the importance of the doctrinal context of Soviet thinking on international relations and how shifts in ideology have sometimes resulted in radical changes in foreign policy. The Soviet declaration of the cold war, Khrushchev’s competitive coexistence, Brezhnev’s pursuit of détente-all were ideology driven to an important degree. Under Mikhail Gorbachev there was an intellectual revolution in the USSR which transformed Soviet ideology and revolutionised the character of the Soviet Union’s domestic politics and foreign policy. The final, unintended outcome of this revolutionary transformation was the end of communist party rule in the Soviet Union, the abolition of the socialist system, and the
A new way of thinking is not an improvisation, nor a mental exercise. It is a result of serious reflections on the realities of today’s world, of the understanding that a responsible attitude to policy demands scientific substantiation, and that some of the postulates which seemed unshakable before should be given up…. And we draw inspiration from Lenin. Turning to him…one is struck by his ability to get at the root of things, to see the most intricate dialectics of world processes…. More than once he spoke about the priority of interests common to all humanity over class interests. It is only now that we have come to comprehend the entire depth and significance of these ideas. It is they that are feeding our philosophy of international relations, and the new way of thinking.
