ABSTRACT
One reason for the reluctance in American scholarship to attribute a significant role to Soviet ideology in shaping Soviet behavior has something to do with the image in the mind of the analyst associating "ideological" with "irrational," "reckless," "adventurist," but contrasting it with "pragmatic," "opportunist," or "realistic." It was evident in the fact that the Soviet-type system on German soil had been thoroughly discredited and was suffering a worsening political and economic crisis. In reality political leaders are faced with a complex tangle of interests, always changing according to specific social, economic, military, political, and ideological conditions, both of an international and domestic dimension, and making it necessary every time to distinguish between costs, benefits, and risks of a long-term or short-term nature. Rationalization and motivation, for an individual, a political leadership, or a state, can be mutually reinforcing mechanisms.
