ABSTRACT
In his study The Soviet Union and the Middle East, Walter Laqueur divided the Soviet doctrine towards the Arab world up to 1954 into five main periods. During the first period, from November 1917, when the Bolsheviks took over, up to 1921, there was little information on and less interest in what really went on in Asia, despite the fact that much lip service was paid to the revolutionary potentialities of the East. One of the most popular means taken by the Soviets to attract public attention and influence opinion was the conduct of ideological warfare in a variety of media. This ideological activity focused on, and took place mainly in, the so-called ‘bourgeois countries’, and within the colonies and semi-colonial countries which were ruled by capitalist powers. Soviet strategic interests in the Middle East up to the late 1940s concentrated mainly on Iran.
