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p Foreign policy differs from home policy in that it is conducted in quite a different, complex, more varied and far less controllable social environment. The fight here is not directly between the exploiters and the exploited, the oppressors and the oppressed, rather it is primarily between the ruling classes of the various countries. Furthermore, in the sphere of foreign policy the ruling class has no monopoly of power or of means of coercion and in that sense finds itself, at least formally, on a par with its partners in international relations (although this, of course, does not exclude the various degrees and variations of actual dependence and subordination in the relations of imperialist powers with the weaker and economically backward countries).

p The class nature of foreign political interests is not as acute and readily apparent as in domestic politics, in relations between opposing classes of the same society. At the same time, the direct active participants in international relations, those who conduct foreign policy, are principally the ruling classes. These ruling classes have real opportunities and material means—the state and its agencies—for attaining their ends internationally.

p It is difficult for oppressed classes and opposition class forces to exert a direct influence on international political relations. The ruling exploiting classes, even though they are forced to take into account, in forming their foreign policy, the pressure of oppressed classes, always try to remove them from active participation in it and carefully preserve their own rights and privileges. Lenin frequently referred to this. "Popular ignorance of foreign policy is incomparably greater than of home policy,” he wrote in 1917. "The ’ secrecy’ of diplomatic relations is sacredly observed in the freest of capitalist countries, in the most democratic republics.

p “Popular deception has become a real art in foreign 56 affairs. . . .”  [56•*  Marx and Engels too referred to the duty of the working class to master the secrets of international politics.”  [56•** 

p True, in recent years questions of foreign policy have come to occupy an increasingly important place in the activity of political parties and other social organisations of both ruling and opposition classes, yet their actual opportunities in implementing foreign policy are restricted by comparison with the state which expresses the interests and the will of the ruling class as a whole.

p However, in foreign policy the state, expressing the interests of the ruling class, has to take consideration in one way or another of the mood of other classes. Exploiting classes, as a rule, endeavour to conceal their own purely class interests (as happened, for example, during the First World War) by the pretence that what they are doing is in the interests of society and the whole nation. Yet, it is precisely in the sphere of foreign policy and international relations that the objective interests of various classes in society can partially coincide (as happened, for instance, in the bourgeois countries of the anti-Hitler coalition during the last war). The position of the working people sometimes leaves a very noticeable imprint on the elaboration and implementation of foreign policy by the ruling circles of bourgeois countries.

p The support extended by the people to their government very much determines the effectiveness of the foreign policy of the state, expressing above all the interests of the ruling class. In that respect, socialist foreign policy, which corresponds to the interests of all social classes and has been worked out with their participation and enjoys popular support, has a fundamental advantage over the foreign policy of capitalist states.

p Nonetheless, statesmen in bourgeois countries are more and more taking consideration of popular support for their foreign policy. The former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Anthony Eden, recognises in this one of the 57 advantages of relatively Left-wing governments by comparison with overtly Right-wing governments.”  [57•* 

p Issues concerning popular influence on foreign policy arc claiming increasing attention among bourgeois politicians and ideologists. The former President of Columbia University, Grayson Kirk, in a special lecture entitled “Mass Aspirations and International Relations” concludes that the wide popular demand directly to have a hand in foreign policy is “one of the most striking phenomena of our time" and that the people’s “attitudes and aspirations can no longer be ignored with impunity by their leaders”.  [57•** 

p A similar conclusion was reached by the authors of the report “Ideology and Foreign Affairs”, prepared in 1960 for the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Senate; the report stated that foreign policy must take into consideration mass hopes and misgivings.

p The French sociologist Raymond Aron writes of “the common trait which ultimately decides the form that most conflicts in our time take: it is the people and not simply the governments which fight for their Gods, their ideologies or their existence”.  [57•*** 

p As distinct from the former historical periods when the masses created foreign policy spontaneously and unconsciously (as, for example, during wars in the form of “cannon fodder”), although they were in fact completely cut off from taking part in its formulation and implementation, today the active and purposive influence of the popular masses in resolving questions of foreign policy is rapidly growing.

p This is a result of the entry of socialist states into international affairs, the growth in importance of foreign-policy issues in the class struggle within capitalist countries, and the awakening and involvement in world politics of millions of people in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The exploiting classes today, at a time of deep-going social changes in the 58 world, are no longer able completely to remove the masses from the resolution of international political issues.

p The mounting popular pressure on foreign policy is conditioned not simply by the people’s decisive role in history overall, since they arc the principal productive force in society, but by the increase in importance today of the subjective factor; the conscious activity of people, classes, states and parties, including international activity, their organisation and their insistence on resolving certain historical tasks.

p Progressive states, classes and other social forces and organisations, and conservative or reactionary states, classes and other social forces and organisations act as a subjective factor in international relations. Leninist principles of analysing foreign policy demand the strictest account of the class nature of the state that implements foreign policy. The crucial difference between the foreign policies of socialist and capitalist states stems from the crucial difference in the objective position and interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

p One must especially stress this point, for the forms which foreign policy takes have relative stability, and the proletariat utilises them perhaps to the greatest degree. This provides a certain basis for external and superficial analogies by bourgeois scholars writing about international relations. At the same time, it would be wrong to suppose that the very fact of the establishment of socialist relations of production in a country and the corresponding objective class interests automatically give a socialist nature to foreign policy. Suffice it to cite merely the example of the Chinese People’s Republic, whose leaders for a number of years have adhered to a foreign policy that goes against the grain of the objective national and internationalist interests of the working classes of China and of the requirements of the country’s development.

p The classes, class interests and the class struggle which determine the home and foreign policy of individual states and the development of world politics as a whole are examined by Leninism as objective categories. Class and other social interests are formed and exist objectively, irrespective of whether they are subjectively realised or not. But an 59 awareness of these interests plays an important part in the battle for their implementation.

p To elucidate, scientifically, the complex web of class struggle both at home and internationally, one must first get a clear picture of the objective interests of classes and their subjective reflection in the mind and activity of the masses, parties and political leaders. Lenin taught that in analysing foreign policy it is necessary carefully to weigh up the real interests of classes, the extent to which they are understood by various parties or leaders and can be realised in a given situation.

p The propositions of historical materialism elaborated by Lenin concerning the role of objective conditions and the subjective factor in the development of society have exceptional importance for contemporary international relations. Nevertheless, the manifestation of the role of the subjective factor in foreign policy has its own characteristics as distinct from internal policy.

p The foreign policy activity of a state, organisation or leader is objectively conditioned to a greater degree than internal policy, not only by the internal conditions of the country (the level and state of the economy, the correlation of social and political forces, the military potential, etc.), but by external conditions, the overall international situation, especially the struggle between socialism and capitalism, and the existence of diverse classes and nations and the interlacing of their interests, which are often contradictory and sometimes coincide.

p The part played by individuals in international relations is also important. Of course, here too the organic connection and nature of foreign and home policy are important. An individual who plays an outstanding role in a country objectively plays a similar role in foreign policy too. Politics, however, as Lenin reflected, has its “own objective logic, irrespective of what persons or parties plan in advance”.  [59•*  No matter what their subjective views, politicians are bound to consider objective reality; only in that case can they enjoy any success. In the mid-1920s, for example, Lloyd George 60 played an important part in British foreign policy; he saw the objective requirements for normalising relations with Soviet Russia, while men like Churchill and Lord Curzon stubbornly clung to a policy of armed struggle against socialism and refused to take account of objective reality, and were therefore politically bankrupt.

p The example of the French statesman Jean Louis Barthou is particularly instructive: in the 1930s he was obliged, without, of course, altering his political sympathies, to bow to the pressure of objective circumstances and co-operate with the Soviet Union. The important role played in international relations during the last war by Winston Churchill was not least of all influenced by his ability properly to evaluate the objective situation and the immense importance for Britain of working together with the Soviet Union.

p At the same time, one can scarcely consider the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945 as a cause of the serious worsening of Soviet-American relations after the war. The development of these relations was above all conditioned by objective factors, by the contradiction in the foreign-policy interests and aims of the Soviet Union and the United States of America, which caused the confrontation between their foreign policies. There can be no doubt, however, that President Truman and other American officials of the time had a lot to do with the shape of American foreign policy and the ensuing cold war.

p A realistic appreciation of the international situation is an important condition for the effectiveness of certain foreign actions of such statesmen in the West as General de Gaulle or Chancellor Willy Brandt. Even important personalities, however, are quite unable to change the historical trends in international relations at will. Arbitrary, voluntaristic and subjective actions in politics, which ignore objective laws, are quite alien to Marxism-Leninism.

p Being guided by the Marxist-Leninist theory of the role of the people, the party and individuals, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union condemned the personality cult, which, as Leonid Brezhnev has pointed out, led "to violations of Leninist norms of Party and state life, of socialist legality and democracy”. The CPSU, he said, “emphatically rejected 61 subjectivism, which expounds unfounded improvisation in place of a scientific approach to phenomena of social life”.  [61•*  The decisions of the October 1964 Plenary Meeting of the CPSU Central Committee were of immense importance.

p In any analysis of the principal trends in contemporary international relations one cannot but conclude that, simultaneously with the enhanced role of the people and of the subjective factor as a whole, the role of individuals in making and implementing foreign policy is limited primarily by the objective conditions of contemporary international relations, by the difficulty of one person evaluating the extremely complex international situation and, even more so, the possibility of a single person influencing it.

p To be effective, foreign policy activity must, above all, correctly reflect the requirements of social development and correspond to objective circumstances. The international activity of progressive forces, therefore, since it expresses the mature requirements of social development, is, other things being equal, more effective than the activity of reactionary forces, which as a rule contradicts progressive historical trends. There lies the most important objective basis for the success of socialist foreign policy.

p The growing role of socialist foreign policy in the world places a special responsibility to the Marxist-Leninist parties that are in power; it confronts them with special demands. In foreign policy the acuteness of class contradictions and the class struggle, in conditions of the existence and struggle of the two systems, does not essentially diminish, it only changes its forms. The parties that head socialist states have to be concerned with both allied and neutral states and with hostile class forces, with strong and experienced opponents and with a close and complex intertwining, in the policy of foreign states, of class, national, state and sometimes group interests, many of which cannot be controlled and cannot even always be observed, analysed or considered.

p Rapid and striking changes are taking place today in foreign policy, despite its certain conservatism in forms. The tempestuous social processes and the scientific and 62 technological revolution are directly and indirectly reilected in it; account for these changes, an all-round analysis of the objective international situation and a certain adaptation to this situation, with, at the same time, maximum active influence on this situation, are acquiring increasing importance.

p The creative and scientific approach is a necessary prerequisite for an effective socialist foreign policy. Dogmatism and subjectivism can only have dangerous consequences that are hard to undo. “No,” Lenin urged, “let us face the truth squarely. In politics that is always the best and the only correct attitude.”  [62•* 

p Marxism-Leninism, a knowledge of the laws of social development, an understanding of the class nature of international relations and foreign policy, all give the Communist and Workers’ Parties which make the foreign policy of socialist states an immense advantage over bourgeois parties and governments. A theoretical comprehension of the phenomena of social life and its major trends enable MarxistLeninist parties to foresee the course of events, to work out a correct political course, and to obviate mistakes and subjective decisions. In recent years, the theoretical work of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has been enriched by fresh conclusions and propositions on a host of important problems. Together with fraternal parties it has elaborated fundamental questions of the world socialist system and has studied new phenomena in contemporary capitalism.

p The 24th Congress of the CPSU noted the importance of theoretical work as part of the overall internationalist and revolutionary commitment at a time when capitalism and socialism stand opposed to each other in the world. “ Repetition of old formulas where they have become outworn and an inability or reluctance to adopt a new approach to new problems,” the Report of the CPSU Central Committee says, “harm the cause and create additional possibilities for the spread of revisionist counterfeits of Marxism-Leninism.”  [62•**  The Congress underlined the importance of the creative 63 development and propaganda of Marxist-Leninist teaching, of the Party’s views on the basic issues of the day.

Loyalty to the creative spirit of Leninism and a genuinely scientific approach, which characterise the international activity of the CPSU and Soviet state, are an earnest of new successes for socialist foreign policy and the enhancement of its contribution to international relations in the interests of peace and progress.