Abstract
The history of relations between the USSR and other socialist states is relatively short. Nevertheless, definitive patterns of the impact of Soviet political succession on these relations are discernible. These patterns illuminate the problems facing Gorbachev in handling relations with other socialist states. Their review allows us to assess what is different in the current situation, and what can be expected in the near future.
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Donald S. Zagoria, Vietnam Triangl?, New York, Pegasus Press, 1967, pp. 42–3.
Jacques Levesque, The USSR and the Cuban Revolution: Soviet Ideological and Strategical Perspectives, 1959–7?, New York, Praeger/ Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1978, pp. 101–11.
Paul Marantz, ‘From Lenin to Gorbachev: Changing Soviet Perspectives on East-West Relations’, Occasional Paper?, no 4, 1988, Ottawa, Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, pp. 48–58.
See Pierre Hassner, ‘L’ URRSS et l’ Europe occidentale’, Revue Politique et Parlementair?, Paris, December 1987, pp. 67–71.
Pravd?, 5 November 1987.
The latest indication of this was given by Yegor Ligachev himself. Given his very high position, he crystallizes the hopes of the conservative resistance to Gorbachev. A few days after Foreign Minister E. Shevardnadze had echoed Gorbachev’s above-quoted sentence in saying: ‘We are fully justified in refusing to see in it (peaceful coexistence) a particular form of class struggle ... The struggle between two opposing systems is not any more a determining tendency of the present day era’ (Pravd?, 26 July 1988), Ligachev declared: ‘We proceed from the class character of international relations. Any other formulation on this issue only introduces confusion in the minds of Soviet people and our friends abroad’ (Pravd?, 6 August 1988)
Havana Tele-Rebelde Network, 8 February 1986, quoted by McColm, R. Bruce, ‘Castro’s Ambitions amid New Winds from Moscow’, Strategic Revie?, Summer 1986, pp. 48–57.
Pravd?, 6 November 1987.
Conversation between Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and Jorge Dominguez, Havana, April 1988. Interview with Jorge Dominguez, 28 July 1988.
New Time?, no 33, Moscow, August 1987.
New Time?, no 41, Moscow, October 1987.
It is noteworthy that it is only after China’s spectacular rapprochemen? with the USA, in 1971, that Brezhnev could embark on his own détent? policy with the USA which led to the SALT Agreement of 1972 and the Helsinki Conference of 1975.
See Stephen M. Young, ‘Gorbachev’s Asian Policy: Balancing the New and the Old’, Asian Surve?, March 1988, pp. 117–339.
Mongolian People’s Republic’s Government Communiqué, quoted by Kenneth Jarret, ‘Mongolia in 1987; Out From the Cold?’, Asian Surve?, January 1988, pp. 78–85.
Pravd?, 29 July 1986.
See Robert C. Horn, ‘Vietnam and Sino-Soviet Relations: What Price Rapprochement?’, Asian Surve?, July 1987, pp. 729–47.
Vice-Foreign Minister I. A. Rogachev, in Izvesti?, 25 October 1987.
See ‘Soviet Spur Seen in Cambodia Talks’, New York Time?, 27 November 1987.
Gerald Segal, ‘The USSR and Asia in 1987: Signs of a Major Effort’, Asian Surve?, January 1988, pp. 1–9.
Even the most official statements of the Soviet leaders themselves, must be seen both in Hanoi and Havana as irritating forms of pressure. For instance, in a recent speech, Foreign Minister E. Shevardnadze said: ‘The movement toward the reducing of tension and resolving regional conflicts ... has started and is proceeding on a wide front. Afghanistan has generated a “chain reaction” ’, Pravd?, 26 July 1988.
Nayan Chanda, ‘Marriage Made in Moscow: Soviets suggest Talks Between Phnom Penh and Khmer Rouge’, Far Eastern Economic Revie?, 9 June 1988, pp. 17–18. See also, by the same author: ‘Indochina, the Troubled Friendship: Moscow Loses Patience with Hanoi over Economy and Cambodia’, in ibid?, pp. 16–17.
Kenneth Jowitt, ‘Moscow “Centre” ’, Eastern European Politics and Societie?, vol. 1, no 3, Autumn 1987, pp. 296–349.
See Vladimir V. Kusin, ‘Gorbachev and Eastern Europe’, in Problems of Communis?, January-February 1986, pp. 39–53.
See, for instance, the interview of Oleg Bogomolov, Director of the Institute of the Economy of the World Socialist System, who singles out the obstacles to further economic integration in Comecon. Speaking of the socialist countries that have not yet embarked on reforms, he says that they will have to do it ‘sooner or later’, Komsomolskaia Pravd?, 23 July 1988.
Pravd?, 27 May 1987.
See Izvesti?, 11 May 1988, and Pravd?, 11 and 12 May 1988.
See Eva Kulesza, ‘La réforme dans les pays de l’est: le facteur Gorbachev’, Politique Etrangèr?, Autumn 1987, pp. 619–30.
See Barbara Donovan, ‘The GDR and Gorbachev’s reforms’, Radio Free Europe, RAD Background Repor?, no 60 (GDR), 6 April 1988.
Pravd?, 7 May 1988.
See Gorbachev’s speech for the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution, Pravd?, 3 November 1987. See also the terms of the SovietYugoslav joint declaration issued at the end of Gorbachev’s visit to Yugoslavia, Pravd?, 19 March 1988. For Soviet debates concerning the Brezhnev doctrine, see Karen Dawisha, and Jonathan Valdez, ‘Socialist Internationalism in Eastern Europe’, Problems of Communis?, March-April 1987, pp. 1–14.
Seweryn Bialer, The Soviet Parado?, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1986, pp. 255–6.
The Director of the Institute of Far East Affairs, M. Titarenko, wrote in 1987, ‘The Soviet Union is aware of the PRC’s role as a great power pursuing a self-dependent and independent foreign policy’, Izvesti?, 26 September 1987.
See the Soviet-Yugoslav joint declaration, Pravd?, 19 March 1988.
For an illuminating analysis of the depth and significance of that sense of Leninist identity, see Kenneth Jowitt, ‘Moscow “Centre’”.
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© 1989 Carl G. Jacobsen
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Lévesque, J. (1989). The Impact of Gorbachev’s Agenda on Soviet Relations with Other Socialist States. In: Jacobsen, C.G. (eds) Soviet Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11341-5_8
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