Readings in Soviet foreign policy

This book represents an effort to provide the college student or intelligent lay man with a coherent introduction to Soviet foreign policy since late 1917. The readings included are roughly of three types-narrative, documentary, and analytical.

Narrative analyses of significant events in Soviet foreign relations are arranged chronologically through fifteen chapters. These narratives have been painstakingly culled from the writings of the West's most authoritative scholars, journalists, and statesmen. The accounts used here are of particular value because they combine de tailed description with their authors' considered judgments concerning the purposes and methods of Soviet foreign policy.

In order to set forth the Soviet point of view with as much authenticity as possible, the narrative sections of nine chapters are supplemented by pertinent Soviet-Communist documents. Whether the individual selections stem from Lenin or Khrushchev, or from the Statutes of the Communist International, they have been chosen because they are significant policy statements or because they present important Communist analyses of world affairs. These materials provide deep insight into the Soviets' interpretation of their relations with the outside world.

Finally, several chapters are illuminated by the efforts of competent specialists to construct a theory of Soviet foreign policy or to discern the pattern of recent develop ments. These essays, attempting as they do to explain the motives and processes that determine Soviet policy, complement similar efforts embedded in the narratives and documents. Altogether, these materials present the major theories used to explain the conduct of the USSR in its relations with other powers. Thus, it is believed, the atten tive reader of the following pages may acquire not only a substantial fund of factual information about the evolution of Soviet foreign policy, but also an understanding of the analytical techniques and conceptual tools which will help him to make his own analyses of Soviet intentions and actions valid.