ABSTRACT
It is worth taking a pause from the analysis of realism as it developed in the West. A chapter on Soviet theories of imperialism is, of course, not essential for looking at the evolution of realist thought within the discipline of International Relations as it developed in the US. Hence, readers might immediately turn to the interlude. There are, however, three reasons, why such a chapter might be useful for the argument of this book. First, it can serve as a comparative epilogue to realist theories in the US, because it shows in a more extreme manner how superpower competition during the Cold War affected scholarly thought. It scrutinizes how Soviet theorizing adjusted analytical tools, initially Marxist, to the new global interests of the USSR. Second, it stands for the remarkable fact that Soviet theories of imperialism, increasingly divorced from their Marxist origins, display a sometimes astonishing conceptual convergence with realism. 1 Finally, it serves to make the reader at least superficially acquainted with concepts that, redefined in later Western neo-Marxist writings, have spurred the interest of some realist writers in International Political Economy (see Chapter 11).
