ABSTRACT

South Yemen's withdrawal from an active support role for insurgency in neighboring states resulted in a shift to what Aden's leaders regarded as another revolutionary strategy: active membership in a regional pro-Soviet bloc. In 1978 Aden termed this a "massive western scheme" against the pro-Soviet alignment from Afghanistan to Africa. People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) insurgency found little favor with Moscow, which preferred cooperation between the two Yemeni states within a pro-Soviet sphere. The buildup of the Rapid Deployment Force in 1980-81, ostensibly to defend Gulf States mostly against Soviet-inspired incursions, seemed to the PDRY a pretext for US intervention. Cooperation with pro-Soviet states allowed Aden to pursue limited radical revolutionary goals in the Arab world and to maintain a stream of revolutionary rhetoric. The collapse of East European and Soviet-built dams that led to the flooding of 1982 exacerbated the sense of disappointment in Aden.