African countries' foreign policy C.1

The monograph African Countries' Foreign Policy-in the Foreign Policy of Developing Countries series is the first in-depth fundamen tal study of the way newly independent African countries act on the international scene, carried out jointly by scholars from the Soviet Union, the GDR, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The team of authors approached this complex subject aware that the available material, sources and facts relating to the foreign policy initiatives, programs and domestic problems of newly liberated Afri can cour ries made it possible to scientifically study the current state and prospects of these countries' international relations. At the same time, the authors did not intend to trace the foreign policy history of each African country. The book deals mostly with current issues, and the several historical flashbacks it offers are necessary for the analysis which follows. Methodologically, the monograph is based on a funda mental precept of Marxism-Leninism today-the one stressing the con siderable increase of developing countries' influence and their notice ably more active foreign policy in the contemporary world.

In their examination of what is common and what is distinctive in different aspects of newly free African countries' international relations among themselves, with the socialist community, with the developing countries of other continents, with imperialist powers, with the smaller capitalist nations, in international organizations-the authors were aware that the foreign policy programs proclaimed by African countries were quite close as far as their shape was concerned. At the same time, many governments interpret the generally held principles and doctrines-of anticolonialism, nonalignment, unity, etc. in their own way. The way they approach these issues depends on the social essence of government in each country, on the align ment of domestic political forces and the direction in which the public is oriented: all this gives rise to different concepts of one's vital national interests.