ABSTRACT
The assertion that the Soviet leadership changed its outlook in 1949–1952 rests in large measure upon aprioristic reasoning, but it is not without some confirmation from an authoritative Soviet source. A course of study on Soviet foreign policy, prepared in 1957 at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, emphasizes a distinction between the strategic character of the period from 1945 to 1949 and the period from 1950 to 1953. Indeed, the head of the Department of International Relations and Soviet Foreign Policy of the institute took strong exception to a “periodization” of Soviet foreign policy which combined the years from the end of the war to 1953, on the grounds that it ignored the significance of the change which had taken place in 1949–1950. 1
