Foreign relations of the Soviet Union
Both policies can be pursued simultaneously: "Peaceful coexistence does not rule out but presupposes determined opposition to imperialist aggression and support for peoples defending their revolutionary gains or fighting foreign oppression.
Although the emphasis and ranking of priorities were subject to change, two basic goals of Soviet foreign policy remained constant: national security (safeguarding Communist Party rule through internal control and the maintenance of adequate military forces) and, since the late 1940s, influence over Eastern Europe.
Moscow lost control of the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine, and other areas that before the war produced much of Russia's food supply, industrial base, coal, and communication links with Western Europe.
However, the Bolsheviks, operating a unified command from a central location, defeated all the opposition one by one and took full control of Russia, as well as conquering newly independent countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
In 1921, to ease the devastating famine in Russia that was triggered by the Soviet government's war communism policies, the ARA's director in Europe, Walter Lyman Brown, began negotiating with the Russian People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maxim Litvinov, in Riga, Latvia (at that time not yet annexed by the USSR).
The United Front policy in China effectively crashed to ruin in 1927, when Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek massacred the native Communists and expelled all of his Soviet advisors, notably Mikhail Borodin.
The United States refused recognition until 1933; however, Henry Ford, alongside other American entrepreneurs and corporations, invested heavily in the Soviet Union, importing modern management-techniques and new industrial technology.
[41] A. J. P. Taylor argued that the most important impact was on the psychology of Labourites, who for years afterward blamed their defeat on foul play, thereby misunderstanding the political forces at work and postponing necessary reforms[citation needed] in the Labour Party.
"[52] In KPD and Soviet usage, fascism was primarily viewed as the final stage of capitalism rather than a specific group or movement such as the Italian Fascists or the German Nazis and, based on this theory, the term was applied quite broadly.
[63] In the usage of the Soviet Union, and of the Comintern and its affiliated parties in this period, including the KPD, the epithet fascist was used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually any anti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion.
[75] Hand-in-hand with the promotion of Popular Fronts, Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs between 1930 and 1939, aimed at closer alliances with Western governments, and placed ever greater emphasis on collective security.
[81] The Soviet Union was not invited to the critical Munich conference in late September 1938, where Britain, France, and Italy appeased Hitler by giving in to his demands to take over the Sudetenland, a largely German-speaking area of Western Czechoslovakia.
Leaders in London and Paris felt that Stalin wanted to see a major war between the capitalist nations Germany on the one hand, and Britain and France on the other, in order to advance the prospects of a working-class revolution in Europe.
Militarily it was one of the two major world powers, a position maintained for four decades through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military strength, involvement in many countries through local communist parties, and scientific research especially into arms, weaponry and space technology.
Historian Mark Kramer concludes: Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders and ensured its control of the region by transforming the East European countries into subservient allies.
Both countries were members of the Warsaw Pact: In addition to military occupation and intervention, the Soviet Union controlled Eastern European states through its ability to supply or withhold vital natural resources.
[108] In December 1955, Secretary Dulles announced that the United States, together with Great Britain, was providing nearly $75 million in foreign aid to Egypt to help in the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River.
[108] In response to Nasser's increasing attacks on Western colonialism and imperialism and Egypt's continued alliance with the Soviet Union,[108] Britain and the United States withdrew funds for the Aswan Dam in July 1956.
By 1969, Nasser had formed an alliance with Jordan's King Hussein and started to move towards cementing peace with Israel in exchange for the return of the Sinai Peninsula and the formation of a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
In 1971, Sadat, hoping to help the nation's economy recover from its losses in the Six-Day War, officially changed the UAR's name back to Egypt and signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union.
[114] In March 1968, Yasser Arafat and his Fatah organization gained international attention and popularity in the Arab region when it engaged in a full-scale battle with the Israel Defense Force at the city of Karameh in Jordan, in which 150 Palestinians and 29 Israelis were killed.
[115] Under Arafat's leadership, favoritism towards the USSR was firmly established within the ranks of the PLO and the organization would frequently buy Eastern Bloc military equipment to carry out sporadic terrorist attacks against Israel.
Their relationship, which had been lukewarm at best since 1963, started to change in a dramatic fashion when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, was overthrown in February 1979 and replaced with the pro-Islamist regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
[134] On July 16, 1979, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who had ruled Iraq following a coup in 1968, stepped down from power and appointed his cousin Saddam Hussein, a strongly anti-Shiite Sunni, to be his successor and the Syrian government officially closed its embassy in Baghdad soon afterwards.
[137] In 1982, when it became clear that Iran would not align with the USSR after the Khomeini regime gained the upper hand in the Iran–Iraq War and invaded Iraqi territory,[125] the Soviets resumed regular arm shipments to Iraq,[125] but relations between the two nations were still politically strained and would not become strong in public again until early 1988.
[146] India's pro-Soviet stance was professed when the government of Indira Gandhi broke with the rest of the non-communist world to embrace and support the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the UN General Assembly, despite earlier comments criticizing the operation.
[147] The former ambassador, Inder Kumar Gujral, commented that the deep involvement of Pakistan in mobilizing the Afghan mujahideen was a concern for Indian security and stability, while also expressing India's "friendship" with the Soviets.
[54] The Sino-Soviet split (1956–1966) was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the USSR, caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Leninism, as influenced by their respective geopolitics during the Cold War.
[151] In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sino-Soviet debates about the interpretation of Orthodox Marxism became specific disputes about the Soviet Union's policies of national de-Stalinization and international peaceful coexistence with the Western world.
Against that political background, the international relations of the PRC featured official belligerence towards the West, and an initial, public rejection of the Soviet Union's policy of peaceful coexistence between the Eastern and Western blocs, which Mao Zedong said was Marxist revisionism by the Russian Communists.
