Ideology and the Foreign Policy of the Early Soviet State

Thirty years later, at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956, Nikita Khrushchev revitalized the term "peaceful coexistence" within the vocabulary of Soviet foreign relations and made it the centerpiece of a new post-Stalin bundle of socialist doctrines. In his usage "peaceful coexistence" no longer referred to a "peace break" from the imperialist onslaught or even to "a new and lengthy period of development." Instead it became the only alter-

native to the destruction of both socialist and capitalist society in total thermonuclear war. In the Khrushchevian doctrine, a third imperialist war was neither desirable nor necessary to the collapse of capitalism; socialism would triumph through economic and ideological competition.^[47] This doctrine amounted to a significant departure from the doctrine of war—stated by Lenin during World War I and reconfirmed by Stalin in 1928-29—that global imperialist warfare was inevitable and advanced the world revolutionary process. To lend authority to the introduction of this notion, one with which Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party would disagree strongly, Khrushchev stated that "peaceful coexistence" had always been the basic principle of Leninist foreign policy.

For the thirty years after that, the omnipresence of "peaceful coexistence" throughout Soviet history remained the official line of the CPSU and the Soviet Foreign Ministry: Peacefulness was inherent in socialism, and the "struggle for peace, disarmament, and cooperation among nations" was the central feature of the Leninist course that Soviet foreign relations had always followed. Lenin had conceived "the struggle for peace" even before the October Revolution, and he and his successors pursued it unceasingly. "Lenin's concept of peaceful coexistence" and "Leninist principles of Soviet foreign policy" continued to be as valid "in the present-day world" as they were in Lenin's time. "The Leninist policy of peace" had been, was, and always would be the basis of all Soviet foreign relations.^[48]

In the era of "the new political thinking" fostered by perestroika , the meaning of Lenin's legacy for the foreign relations of the Soviet Union was reconstructed. In a work on the history, theory, and politics of "peaceful coexistence" published in 1988, Alexander Bovin, a former speech writer for Khrushchev and Andropov and one of the ideologues of the déente of the 1970s, dramatically rejected the thesis that an elaborate preconceived concept of "peaceful coexistence" guided Lenin's diplomacy. In so doing he attacked the standard work on the topic written during the Brezhnev years by the prominent historian of foreign relations A. O. Chubarian.^[49] Moreover, in publications supported or authorized by the Foreign Ministry of Eduard Shevardnadze, what was esteemed in Lenin's foreign policy was not "meaningless theorizing" but rather Lenin's ability to abandon the theoretical positions assumed by the Bolshevik Party before 1917. An editorial in the May 1990 issue of the official Foreign Ministry journal affirmed "the special value" of the practical experience in "building foreign political relations" that Lenin had acquired as he "simply addressed himself to every problem that arose as the revolution went on." The significance of Lenin's legacy was found not in his theory building but in his method for understanding the problems of foreign relations and in his approach to their

solution. That approach was identified as "political realism." Lenin did not regard himself "as an enunciator of everlasting truths"; "he resolutely revised his own conclusions, especially when theoretical concepts formed earlier clashed with life."^[50] The same year, N. V. Zagladin, professor at the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the CPSU, published a full-scale reexamination of the entire history of the Soviet foreign policy—both its successes and its failures—which began from the premise that Lenin never formulated "a system of Soviet foreign policy."^[51] Thus by 1991 "peaceful coexistence" was regarded no longer as a well-developed feature of a Leninist theory of international relations nor was it a special form of the class struggle; it was something improvised by Lenin and Chicherin in response to the events of the years 1917-1921.

Among Western scholars, Barrington Moore, Jr., writing in the 1950s, put forth the view that a significant change took place in Soviet politics in 1921, once the majority of the leadership of the RCP(B) acknowledged that the socialist revolution that had broken imperialism's weakest link in Russia would not sweep to victory in Central and Western Europe in a unitary movement. Thereafter, according to Moore, thoughts of global proletarian revolution ceased to play a motivating role in Bolshevik foreign relations, and the security of the state became the exclusive goal of their foreign politics. The primary means to that end, Moore added, were traditional power politics and normal diplomatic relations that were conducted with considerable skill.^[52] Although this thesis found considerable support among American and European scholars, it has also been subjected to significant qualification.

One qualification is found in that body of historical scholarship which, questioning how homogeneously ideological Bolshevik foreign relations were prior to 1921, has discovered a diversity of foreign policy opinion among the party leadership. The Bolsheviks disagreed with each other from the day they came to power, and they altered their views, sometimes from week to week, as the vicissitudes of proletarian revolution in Europe encouraged or discouraged them, and as they responded to the requirements of national security under ever-changing international circumstances. By the spring of 1921 the practice of foreign relations had become a synthesis of Leninist realism, power politics, and ideology.^[53]

The second qualification is made by those who have argued that ideology played a more vital and creative role in the politics and foreign policy of the USSR during the twelve years following the October Revolution than the Barrington Moore thesis suggests.^[54] Marxism, they have contended, was central to the worldview of the Bolsheviks; it structured their orientation to social questions; and they made a serious effort to state their most

important operational political beliefs in theoretical form. In the formulation of policy, Leninist Marxism—although it offered no direct answers to political questions—outlined the broad principles from which a diversity of positions on issues under consideration were generated. This was particularly true of the vigorous debates over strategies of economic development and foreign relations that took place during the 1920s. Paradoxically, however, it was this very conflict among the party/state elite over these alternative strategies that, by 1929-30, finally put an end to open discussion of policy and to free ideological development, and installed in its place an orthodoxy of Stalinist Leninism defined by the leader and those who did not disagree with him.^[55]

That those who made the October Revolution did not eradicate ideology from their concept of international relations as Soviet Russia entered world politics is evident in their post-1921 conception of foreign relations.^[56] They continued to believe that the entire system of imperialist interstate relations would inevitably disappear, to be replaced by a global community of socialist proletarians, probably within their lifetimes. The violence, the conflict, and the disequilibrium of the postwar order indicated its eventual collapse. Until then, socialist Russia and capitalist Europe would remain antagonistic. Relations between them were a zero-sum game; any benefit to one side disadvantaged the other; there could be no permanent compromises with imperialist states. Because capitalism sought profits, the imperialists could be enticed into a mutually beneficial cooperation with Soviet Russia. However, this peaceful interrelationship was possible only during a defined historical period. Capitalism was innately aggressive; in its imperialist phase it was inevitably warlike; "peaceful coexistence" would end with the resumption of interimperialist warfare. The imperialist oligarchy strove to dominate the world; capitalist governments were presumptively hostile; the paramount objective of bourgeois statesmanship was to defeat proletarian revolution by defeating the first socialist republic. Proletarian movements and worker organizations could play a decisive role in international politics, and in particular, the world proletariat could and should protect the first socialist republic from the aggressions of its enemies. Because the interests of Soviet national security were identical with those of world revolution, the resources of foreign communist parties could be expended as the survival and consolidation of the regime in Russia required it. All politics were connected and were determined by social relations. Changes in the terms of international relations could take place only as a result of a shift in class relations; diplomacy and decision making had a limited capability to change international conditions.

Thus, ideology played a demonstrably significant role in the conception

of Soviet foreign policy during the 1920s, and the influence of the ideological formations of the early Soviet period was lasting. As was the case with the American republic, which also took on a project of creating a new world order in 1917, the foreign relations doctrine of the Soviet regime was expressed in terms of a global mission. The idea of "the anti-imperialist struggle" as the most fundamental doctrine of Soviet foreign relations was born in the Civil War and came of age in the crucial years of relative isolation during the 1920s. It remained fundamental to the conception of Soviet foreign policy until 1986, when, for the first time, the influence of "the world revolutionary process" on international relations went unaffirmed at a party congress. Until then the terminology of "the anti-imperialist struggle" was the language in which foreign policy was promulgated, even during efforts at détente with the West. The doctrine served as the means by which "the exploited proletariat" of Europe, "the oppressed nations" of Asia, and "the peoples of the USSR" were identified with the revolution in Russia, the Soviet regime, and the leadership of the RCP(B)/ CPSU. It was the regime's primary measure of political integration, of "solidarity" in Leninist terms, and it gave purpose to policy and justified the regime itself. At the same time, "the anti-imperialist struggle" limited accommodation with the capitalist camp to the ideological and diplomatic stalemate termed "peaceful coexistence."

Ideology also complicated policy making significantly during the 1920s. The Bolshevik doctrine of war introduced one such complication.^[57] In various works written between the outbreak of World War I and the February Revolution, Lenin catalogued three types of warfare, each an inevitable feature of international relations during the imperialist phase of capitalist development: interimperialist military conflict over the distribution and redistribution of colonies; wars of national liberation occurring as colonies resisted imperialism; and wars between capitalism and socialism. The latter might take two forms, Lenin thought, although he did not elaborate on either of them. One form was wars of revolution occurring as the proletariat, victorious in one state, rose up, attracted to itself the oppressed of other countries, and employed armed force against the exploiters on an international scale. The other was counterrevolutionary attacks by the capitalist states on the socialist republic(s) taking place as the international bourgeoisie attempted to crush the proletarian revolution. The Civil War and the intervention of the Allies only confirmed Lenin and other Bolsheviks in their belief in the inevitability of socialist-capitalist warfare. And even after 1921, while Narkomindel proclaimed the doctrine of "peaceful coexistence" and pledged Soviet Russia to "the struggle for peace," statements about the inevitability of war continued to occupy a place of impor-

tance in resolutions on the international situation adopted by congresses of the RCP(B) and the Communist International.

In doctrinal terms, the contradictory relationship between peaceful coexistence and inevitable war could be resolved: Capitalism was inherently aggressive; in its imperialist phase it was inevitably warlike. "Peaceful coexistence" defined the international situation during a specific historical period distinguished by an impermanent peace among the imperialist powers and by unfavorable prospects both for proletarian revolution and for counterrevolutionary wars of intervention. "The struggle for peace and disarmament" guided Soviet policy toward Europe and America during that period. In the actual conduct of foreign relations, however, "the inevitability of war," "peaceful coexistence," and "the struggle for peace and disarmament" created significant problems for the presentation and reception of foreign policy. How could representatives of the capitalist powers respect the integrity of Soviet policy, and of those who formulated and conducted it, when the latter stated simultaneously that peaceful coexistence was possible but that war was inevitable? This contradiction between the ideological foundations of foreign relations and the conduct of diplomacy continually complicated Soviet foreign affairs during the 1920s. At the same time, the creation of a permanent institution for perpetuating and internationalizing the Bolshevik Revolution and extending it to Asia frustrated the efforts of the NKID to normalize relations with the capitalist powers. Why and how that happened is discussed in the next two chapters.