The Soviet State

The Domestic Roots Of Soviet Foreign Policy

Sir Curtis Keeble, Curtis Keeble

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367296056
• eBook ISBN: 9781000305760
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book, examining the influence of international trade, considers some of the broader trends in the changing structure of Soviet society, before turning to two specific sources of potential internal strain, both with implications for foreign policy, nationalism and religion.

1 Introduction

Curtis Keeble

The conduct of relations with the Soviet Union has caused difficulty to successive Western governments from the time of the October Revolution to the present day. The experience of Soviet diplomacy over two-thirds of a century leaves us with the essentials of the problem unchanged, its significance sharpened by the rise of the Soviet Union to a nuclear superpower. Is Chernenko's Soviet Union Lenin's state writ large, with its policies firmly rooted in the political philosophy of 1917? Does it really see the world order in terms of a struggle between socialism and capitalism, in which socialism will inevitably triumph and in which the task of Soviet foreign policy is to ensure that the transition is accomplished tidily and safely? Has the old imperial Russian drive been absorbed into the new philosophy to create a force, uniquely malign in character, whose relationship with the West is, by its own choice, one of hostility, modified only by expediency? Or is this major power now guided more by its practical interest than by its ideology and so beset with its internal and imperial problems that it has more to gain from stability than from conflict? Has it now become a power with which the West can create a relationship necessarily characterized by ideological confrontation, but, for all that, safe, stable and on occasion, mutually beneficial? To pose the problem in these terms is, of course, to over-simplify it at the outset. There is in reality no simple choice among all-embracing policy concepts, in the real world, policy is the product of a multitude of separate acts, often with no clear linkage to an underlying philosophical concept, often uncoordinated and not infrequently conflicting. Yet, ultimately, in all their facets, the policies of Western governments towards the Soviet Union turn upon certain assessments, conscious or instinctive, about the nature and objectives of the Soviet state. It may, of course, be argued that there is nothing very remarkable about Soviet policy; that, in its essence, it is merely the policy which is to be expected from a continental imperial power, newly risen to superpower status and faced with the need to consolidate the areas under its control, to sap the strength of its opponents and to develop the means for world-wide projection of its power. This it is. But it is more. Our objective in this set of studies has been to look beneath the external manifestation of Soviet policies to the roots from which they spring.

Through their history, their political structure, their economic resources, their geographical location, their beliefs, through a whole range of mutually interlinking factors, states develop the characteristics which make each of them unique as an international personality and unique in reaction to any given set of external circumstances at any given time. It is only too easy to judge international problems in terms of their observable elements and to underrate the psychology of the protagonists. 'What kind of people do they think we are?' said Churchill. We paid heavily for failure to understand in time what sort of state Nazi Germany was. We are still paying for the failure of successive British governments to understand in time the mood of post-war Europe and the psychology of the founders of the European Community. Lord Franks' report on the events which led to the Falklands war offers yet another illustration. Officials and ministers recognized a situation which was moving towards armed confrontation, studied it with care and reached a reasonable conclusion on the basis of the observable evidence. Their conclusion, as Lord Franks observed, 'proved to be a misjudgement' and prominent among the reasons was the fact that 'sufficient allowance was not made for the possibility of Argentina's military government, subject to internal political and economic pressures, acting unpredictably'. It is only too easy to overlook the fact that those who form policy in any country, no matter how great their political power, are constrained to an extent which they themselves may not realize by the political, social and ideological climate in which their own ideas have developed; by the geopolitical situation of their country; by the military and economic resources they can deploy; and by the individuals and institutions through whom they must operate. Dearly though we have paid for past misjudgements, the price of error in relations with the Soviet Union is of another order of magnitude.

It was with these considerations in mind that our group gathered in the autumn of 1983, under the auspices of Chatham House, to examine not so much the nature of Soviet foreign policy as the nature of the state and the society from which it stems.

There is a substantial volume of authoritative literature on most aspects of the Soviet Union and it is constantly being added to. Within the compass of the studies we envisaged, it would not be feasible to deal comprehensively and in depth with any individual aspect. There are also many excellent personal accounts by journalists, politicians, diplomats and others who have grappled in this century with the reality of the Soviet Union as their predecessors over the centuries grappled with imperial Russia. Yet, for all this wealth of study, the essence of Soviet international behaviour is by no means clear. It seemed to us that we might best help to bring some of the main aspects into view by a group of studies which are in no sense exhaustive treatments, but rather selective illustrations of some of the main features of the Soviet state as it is today. Each contribution represents the personal view of a contributor on an aspect of the life of the Soviet Union in which he has specialized and each of which is relevant, in one way or other, to the kind of foreign policy which we may expect the Soviet state to deploy. Each reflects a different personal experience and professional discipline. Our studies fall into three broad groups, each of which was made the subject of a separate Chatham House conference, the first on history, ideology and society, the second on the economy and the third on the policy-making institutions. The individual papers have been revised in the light of these conferences and on most of the essentials they reflect the very broad measure of agreement among the members of the group. There are, however, still some differences of opinion and of emphasis and it is inevitable that there should be. Certainly, on a subject as complex as the Soviet state, none of us would venture to lay claim to a full and definitive understanding. The reader will find not so much a posed portrait as a series of views from different angles. We hope they will add to the understanding of the whole. We may have raised more questions than we can answer. If, in so doing, we have inspired others to fill the gaps and seek the answers, we shall be content.

In looking to the domestic roots of foreign policy, we may seem to be at one with Soviet theorists on at least one point. The official history of Soviet foreign policy, edited by Gromyko and Ponomarev, states squarely on page one, 'The policy of any state is determined in the final analysis by its economic and social system.' But even in relation to the domestic roots of policy this Marxist analysis is scarcely adequate. It is therefore, as a Soviet writer might put it, 'not by chance' that our first section begins with an analysis of both the historical and the ideological roots of Soviet policy, followed by a consideration of some of the problems of contemporary society. In a single-party state, where those who rule seek to base their legitimacy on their role as heirs to the revolution, with no more than the post facto justification of an alleged popular mandate, ideology has a special force. Whether one agrees with those who see it as the dominant factor in Soviet foreign policy or with those who assign to it a lesser role, there can be no doubt that in the view of Soviet theorists, it is the ideology which makes Soviet foreign policy different in character from that of the Western democracies. The ideology must, however, be seen in a historical perspective, both Soviet and Russian, and this, within the limitations of space, is what we have sought to do. We have not dealt separately with the geopolitical background to Soviet policy. The unique geography of the Soviet Union, its vast size, its open land frontiers, its few warm water ports, its terrain and its resources have powerfully influenced its policies, as they did those of Tsarist Russia. They were an essential background to our studies rather than material for separate and specific treatment. In the later chapters of the first section we consider some of the broader trends in the changing structure of Soviet society, before turning to two specific sources of potential internal strain, both with implications for foreign policy, nationalism and religion. To our regret we were not able to include a separate study of the cultural scene, an area where the cross-currents of Marxist-Leninist ideology, national temperament and artistic independence produce a pattern of peculiar complexity in relation to domestic and external policy.

it is probably the case that, in so far as any order of priorities can be established, economic policy has come second only to the security of the Soviet state as a factor in Soviet foreign policy. The natural resources of the Soviet Union give it the potential to be uniquely independent. It has been the dream of Soviet leaders to realize that potential and exploit the resultant power. Lenin, for instance: Once we solve this problem [the economy], we shall have certainly and finally won on an international scale. ' Yet, despite all the achievements in this field, the inefficiency of the Soviet economy and the need for structural reform were still unresolved problems when Chernenko came to power. In foreign policy terms, it is remarkable how little the economic considerations have changed since the need for trade links with the capitalist world was debated in the 1920s, and it is in this area that the West still finds one of its major unresolved policy problems. In a world of nuclear arms, where war between the major powers has become unrealistic as the ultimate arbitrament for disputes, the search for means by which a nuclear power may be constrained to honour its obligations has led to renewed consideration of the use of economic sanctions. At the time of the Afghan and Polish crises there was no clear Western view about their appropriateness or effectiveness as a means of influencing Soviet policy. In the longer term, it is far from clear whether the dominant influence upon Soviet foreign policy will be the potential for autarky, or the benefit to be derived from closer cooperation with technologically sophisticated economies. We examine separately the problems of Soviet industry, agriculture and international trade, before turning to two specific questions, the relationship between Soviet economic capabilities and defence needs and the special influence on Soviet policy of Siberia, its main reserve of natural resources.

State policy is in the last resort a matter of practical application and that, in any country, must reflect the character, power and interrelationship of the individuals and organizations responsible for its formulation and implementation. The Soviet Union is, above all, institutionalized bureaucracy on a superpower scale. In any bureaucracy, institutions and those who staff them become factors in their own right in the formation of policy. In the Soviet Union they are more than normally difficult to study, for, in proportion as it is zealous in proclaiming its doctrine to the world, the Soviet leadership is secretive about the internal processes by which that doctrine is put into effect. The roles of the party organizations, the military, the KGB, the institutes and the media, even of the Foreign Ministry itself, are not easy to disentangle. Nor is it easy to draw a clear line between those organizations where policy may be said to be rooted and those which are concerned only with its implementation. Together they determine the manner in which the Soviet Union projects its power beyond its boundaries and they form the subject matter of the third main section of our study. Throughout it we have been forced to rely heavily upon reasonable inference from scanty published Soviet material, but the picture which emerges, of effective control by the tight central core of the party machine, is an unsurprising one. Much is said in the West about the influence of the army on Soviet policy and we devote a chapter largely to this question. There can be no denying the massive burden which military requirements place upon the Soviet economy or the absolute priority given to the defence of the Soviet state, but we see no sign that the army is challenging or is likely to challenge the top party leadership. It has no need to do so.

The outcome of this set of studies cannot be a set of predictions about the likely evolution of Soviet foreign policy. For that, not only would the internal factors themselves need to be more clearly observable than is frequently the case, but, more important, they would need to be matched against the external factors with which the Soviet leaders are likely to find themselves confronted. Policy is the product of their interaction. To complete the study in this way would take us far beyond the reasonable confines of this book. We have, however, thought it right to attempt, in a final chapter, to bring together the separate studies into a sketch of the characteristic features of the Soviet Union as it is toda...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Editor's Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• Index