Stalinist Theory and Soviet Foreign Policy

Arguments about Soviet foreign policy usually include a lively debate about whether the Politburo is made up of Marxists or Machiavellians. The defenders of the Machiavellian interpretation of Soviet behaviour insist that the Communists are just “power politicians” carrying out the historic Russian program of expansion under a new guise. Until recently this view has been by far the most popular with American scholars and laymen. Few people here even now would take the position diat the Soviet Union's actions are a blind fulfillment of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist theory. Some would, however, insist that an understanding of this theory will facilitate interpretation of Soviet behaviour. Indeed, some Soviet policies and actions make much more sense when placed within a Stalinist frame of reference than as “power politics.”

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Soviet Ideology and Soviet Foreign Policy

World Politics ◽

10.2307/2009526 ◽

1959 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 153-172 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Adam B. Ulam

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

International Affairs ◽

Power Politics ◽

Communist Ideology ◽

Soviet Foreign Policy ◽

Soviet Ideology ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

None of the perplexing problems of contemporary international affairs has given rise to more confusing discussion than the relationship of Soviet ideology to the foreign policy of the USSR. The very vagueness of the term “Soviet ideology,” or “Communist ideology” (and are they synonymous?), the uncertainty to what extent this uncertain force motivates the makers of Soviet policies, have compounded our difficulties in understanding the behavior of one of the world's two superpowers. Are Russia's rulers motivated by cynical power politics? Are they ideological fanatics? Is tlie content of their ideology the gospel of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, or something else? Questions can be compounded ad infinitum.

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A Model for Study of Soviet Foreign Policy

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1953013 ◽

1958 ◽

Vol 52 (1) ◽

pp. 64-83 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jan F. Triska

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Subject Matter ◽

Policy Making ◽

Frame Of Reference ◽

Intensive Study ◽

Soviet State ◽

Soviet Foreign Policy ◽

The Subject ◽

Available Information ◽

Observed Behavior

Soviet foreign policy has been a subject of extensive and intensive study ever since the painful birth of the Soviet state. All the writings and investigations, except for the purely descriptive, are based in some degree on one or several key premises and assumptions of authors who used them to explain and interpret Soviet foreign policy. This is understandable and probably inevitable in view of the enormous significance of the subject matter, the vastness of observed behavior in time and in space, and the lack of available information on policy making. Consequently, scientific, intuitive, and even merely hopeful thinking has been applied to the evidences of Soviet foreign policy in an effort to find a method of analysis, a frame of reference, a tool of orientation which might permit some systematization of the whole subject.Clearly, a single seemingly well-constructed theory of Soviet foreign policy which purports to offer a key to broad analysis is too attractive for an analyst to ignore. But however plausible it may seem, it cannot possibly offer the whole answer. Some elements of Soviet foreign policy may be isolated, focalized, dissected, and examined, but others cannot be subject to even speculative, crude estimates.

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