Expansion and coexistence : the history of Soviet foreign policy from 1917-1967
- London Secker and Warburg 1968
- 775 p.
Expansion and Coexistence is the first complete analytical history of Soviet foreign policy in the fifty years since the revolution of 1917. It is a major study of the diplomatic, political, and ideological aspects of Russian foreign affairs under the Soviet régime, and also presents a masterly analysis of the crucial issues dividing East and West in the twentieth century.
Professor Ulam is particularly concerned to investigate the ways in which the traditional themes of Tsarist imperial policy-as well as the Marxist and Bolshevik inheritance-shaped Soviet foreign policy and were, in their turn, modified by international events. He takes the reader from the confused days of 1917, through the Civil War, the complex negotiations preceding the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and the transitional stages of Soviet foreign policy in the 1920s to the major diplomatic confrontations of the 1930s. His account of Soviet policy leading to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and then to Russia's entry into World War II is based on new research into the German archives. His interpretation of the tangled web of diplomatic interactions between the Big Three throws new light on the origins of the Cold War and on that mysterious era, the decade before the death of Stalin Professor Ulam sets in perspective the new issues and problems of the Kruschev phase, the intricate divisions within the world Communist movement, and the emergence of the present Soviet leaders. The book concludes with an analysis of the present differences I within the Communist world, and of the current ambiguous state of East-West relations in the several theatres of political conflict.