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p The new role which the ideological struggle began to play in international relations is linked mainly with the world’s division into two socio-political systems. This historic event determined the substance of the principal conflict in international relations for our entire epoch, giving it the nature of a clash between two classes—the bourgeoisie (chiefly the monopoly bourgeoisie) and the working class.

p On the international scene, collisions not simply between nations and peoples but between states are not something new, of course. In some cases states were able to defend national interests, while in others they acted against these interests, depending on the interests and aims of the ruling class. International relations have always been class relations. But the distinguishing feature here was that whereas in a society split into hostile classes the specific determining social relations had always been the struggle between opposing, antagonistic classes, on the international scene the relations between states were in past epochs usually determined by the struggle between socially similar classes. Naturally, this rule was not without its exceptions. Take, for example, the relations between bourgeois- revolutionary France and her feudal-absolutist neighbours: to a certain extent the spread of the class struggle between the two main classes of that epoch beyond national frontiers to the international arena had consequences similar to those which confront the world today.  [33•*  But instead of nullifying the general rule, exceptions of this kind only confirm it.

p The evolution of the contradiction between the principal classes—between the antagonists of contemporary society—into the main contradiction of international relations is 34 a feature characterising precisely our epoch. Moreover, it has no precedent in history because the international relations in the transitional periods (i.e., in the periods of transition from one socio-economic formation to another) of the past had always developed under conditions in which world-wide social systems comparable with those in existence today did not and could not take shape.

p But even today international relations cannot be reduced to the contradiction between the capitalist and the socialist system. There are other contradictions as well, namely, between the imperialist powers and the peoples who have won deliverance from colonial tyranny or are fighting for national liberation, between the leading imperialist powers and the less powerful capitalist states and, lastly, between the imperialist vultures themselves.

p In international relations growing importance is being acquired by a new type of relations, namely, co-operation in the socialist community, and between socialist countries and the new national states that have won freedom from colonial exploitation. Experience has shown that some contradictions can spring up at the early stages even in the socialist system and that these contradictions can assume considerable proportions if the leadership of the countries concerned departs from the principles of socialist internationalism.

p However, the main contradiction determining the foundations of present-day international relations remains between the two social systems.  [34•* 

p Lenin had pointed this out when the first socialist state, Soviet Russia, appeared on the world scene and the socialist system, which opposes imperialism, was only in its formative stage. He wrote: "...in the present world situation following the imperialist war, reciprocal relations between peoples and the world political system as a whole are 35 determined by the struggle waged by a small group of imperialist nations against the Soviet movement and the Soviet states headed by Soviet Russia. Unless we bear that in mind, we shall not be able to pose a single national or colonial problem correctly, even if it concerns a most outlying part of the world. The Communist parties, in civilised and backward countries alike, can pose and solve political problems correctly only if they make this postulate their starting-point."  [35•* 

p The fact that the pivot of the struggle in international relations has become the contradiction between the two world systems representing the two principal antagonistic classes of contemporary society also determines the content of that struggle. Here the crucial point is that essentially it is an antagonistic struggle which leads not to any reciprocal drawing together or even fusion of the two systems, as is maintained by the exponents of the “convergence” theory, but to the victory of the most advanced system, socialism, and to the subsequent reorganisation of all international relations in accordance with the laws of life and the development of the new society.

p The nature of the main contradiction of present-day international relations by no means predetermines the forms in which it manifests itself and is resolved. The classantagonistic character of this contradiction does not in any way make international conflicts inevitably sharper than before or involve the broader use of coercive methods of struggle.

p The forms of the struggle between states, including extreme means of violence such as war, occupation, annexation and colonisation, were engendered and, in effect, legalised by the social system founded on private ownership and exploitation. This is vividly borne out by the entire history of international relations, including the history of the two world wars. With the appearance of socialism the possibility of averting world wars and opposing aggression and colonialism has been immeasurably widened.

p This brings us to one of the basic theoretical and political problems of modern international relations—the problem of the content and forms of the inevitable struggle between 36 the two world systems. A sound approach, in fact the only approach that can bear fruit, is provided by the principle of peaceful coexistence as propounded by the socialist countries.

p Although the main contradiction in international relations determines the content of the foreign policy pursued by countries belonging to different social systems, Marxists-Leninists are of the opinion that it cannot be resolved in the sphere of foreign policy (say, by one group of countries forcing other countries to adopt their social system). Here the decisive role is played by the inner processes of the class struggle in society in accordance with the objective laws of its development. This is the substance of the Marxist-Leninist approach to modern international relations. This approach determines the point of departure of socialist foreign policy and elucidates not only the common features but also the specifics that distinguish the class struggle on the world scene from the class struggle within society.

p The conversion of the contradiction between the two principal classes of contemporary society into the main contradiction also in international relations signified a far-reaching change in these relations and gave them many new features. One of these new features is what is known as the “ideologisation” of international relations. As soon as the determining factor in these relations became the struggle between the two classes opposed to each other in modern society, ideological issues quite naturally acquired a new significance. From that moment onwards international relations became the arena of the class struggle in politics, economics and, inevitably, ideology. In foreign policy it is a clash between two classes, which have their own ideology, views and notions about the world, about politics and all major social problems. In other words, with the world’s division into two systems not only every individual society and state but international relations became the arena of the clash between the two opposing class ideologies.

p Properly speaking, it is only after this that the war of ideas in international relations acquires a genuinely ideological character. Formerly, it was sooner a case of utilising definite means for the promotion of ideas and definite methods of influencing people’s minds in times of conflict, 37 which very rarely bore the nature of a clash of opposing ideologies. Propaganda was an auxiliary weapon of foreign policy, which, as a rule, was not directly linked with the basic social and, therefore, ideological conflicts in society. In the centre of international relations today are modern society’s fundamental ideological problems, which have been increasingly penetrating foreign policy since the world’s division into two systems.

p It is important to stress that we are concerned with natural-historic changes in international relations, with changes that take place objectively, regardless of the will of individuals and of governments. By virtue of the laws of the class struggle unfolding in the world, the ideological struggle between states belonging to different systems would have gone on even if these states had “decided” to abandon such a form of the struggle as foreign political propaganda. It will be borne in mind that we are witnessing the internationalisation of the class struggle, when the struggle between the main classes in society is fusing with their struggle on the international scene, when the triumph or defeat of each class in its own country has immediate repercussions in other countries, when each of these classes acts not only as a national but also as an international force.

p These changes in international relations have confronted bourgeois theory with a very specific problem. On the one hand, it could not ignore-the obvious growth of the role played by the ideological struggle in foreign policy, especially as the practical requirements of the imperialist state demanded an account of this new phenomenon in international relations. On the other hand, an objective analysis of the tap-root of this phenomenon inevitably had to lead to the recognition of the law-governed nature of these changes, including the world’s division into two systems and this division’s deep-going link with the class struggle in capitalist society.

That is why in bourgeois literature questions related to the ideological struggle in foreign (and, as a matter of fact, domestic) policy are usually interpreted outside genuinely ideological, class concepts and categories. A favourite and customary method of this interpretation is to supplant the concept of ideology with the concept of "public opinion".

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p The validity of the category "public opinion" in political theory is beyond question. But it is one thing to understand as public opinion real situations in the public mind arising from a whole series of causes (the influence of the conditions of life of the various classes and groups, the ideological and other influences acting on these classes, information, socio-psychological factors and so on), and quite another to take it to mean that elusive, spectral phenomenon, which bourgeois authors try to give out for ideological and class consciousness. Properly speaking, on the lips of bourgeois politicians and, frequently, theorists the concept "public opinion" often sounds as a piece of political banality devoid of real meaning. It is ordinarily used for purely utilitarian purposes in order to justify or reject some idea, measure or demand (Western "public opinion”, we are told for example, does not accept communism; or, on the contrary, " public opinion" supports the policy of a given bourgeois government).

p The war of ideas on the international scene is not, of course, always expressed in a direct, frontal clash between the proletarian and the bourgeois philosophies. Very frequently it goes on round more specific and, therefore, more local issues—a crisis in international relations, the problem of disarmament, the recognition of a new country or regime, and so forth. But today such issues range beyond the local framework and are inevitably regarded as part of the world pattern.

p However, the significance of the ideological struggle in international relations does not boil down to this, so to speak, passive aspect—to the fact that international phenomena and developments are increasingly regarded by the people in the context of existing and contending ideologies. Ideas and ideologies are growing into a powerful force that is influencing politics and is being used in the political struggle.

p This circumstance could not escape the notice of many bourgeois researchers, who endeavour to give it their own interpretation. One of these attempts has been made by Professor Hans J. Morgenthau, founder of the "political realism" school. "Men in politics,” he says, "seek power and they come into conflict with others engaged in the same truest. They use moral justifications to cover their 39 aspirations and thus heighten and intensify the struggle."  [39•*  This quite accurately mirrors a key feature of present-day bourgeois ideology—the desire to conceal and disguise the real aims of its class. But if we are to speak of the theoretical meaning of this concept, it will become obvious that we have before us an attempt to transfer the ideological struggle to the individual (or group) sphere of a “free” struggle of individuals and groups for power, an attempt to divorce this struggle from classes and class relations.

p Morgenthau sees the link between ideology and politics, although he divorces both ideology and politics from class relations. Many other bourgeois researchers are unable to achieve this degree of theoretical generalisation, failing to rise above banalities.

p One of them is the Austrian historian Alfred Sturminger. Here is the pertinent passage from his book on the history of propaganda: "It is the inborn property of human nature that various, frequently contradictory views and ideas inescapably arise when general situations in life are assessed. The more human thought has developed and the more differentiated have the components of a state union become, the more differences of opinion have there been. Hence the desire and need to convey to other people one’s own ideas and convictions, to influence them and repulse contradictory influences. Political propaganda has thus been in existence ever since the rise of society in general."  [39•** 

p Arguments of this kind are not worth a serious analysis because they explain nothing, and are far removed from life and from the ideological struggle, which has nothing in common with the picture of peaceful and truly academic discussion drawn by Sturminger.

p Both the problem of the ideological struggle as a form of the class struggle and the problem of the relation between the ideological and the political struggle have been convincingly resolved in Marxist-Leninist theory. The point of departure in this solution is of fundamental importance also for understanding the entire range of issues linked with 40 the present-day war of ideas, including the struggle on the international scene.

p As has been shown by Marxism-Leninism, the ideological struggle between opposing classes arises just as naturally (not spontaneously, of course) as each class develops its own understanding and explanation of the world, and. perceives its position in society, its interests and aims and the ways of fighting for these interests and aims. Antagonistic classes have different, antipodal and incompatible systems of ideas, and once these ideas are shaped the only relations they can have between them are those of struggle. There is no connection here with the psychological factor, with ideological intolerance, which, some bourgeois ideologists contend, is inherent in human nature and compels man to strive to mould the thinking of others. In effect, such intolerance is not a psychological but a class-political phenomenon. The heart of the matter is that ideas and the ideological struggle are not solely the product of class relations but a powerful weapon of the class struggle.

p Having established the secondary nature of social consciousness, of the world of ideas in respect to social being and the world of things, Marxism-Leninism has thereby in no way belittled the role of ideas in social life. It has only given a scientific explanation of their origin. As regards the role of ideas and, generally, of people’s conscious activity, Marxism-Leninism has always accorded them an important place in social life and in politics.

p It is precisely through ideas and the ideological struggle that each class becomes conscious of itself as a special class in society, as a class with its own aims and interests, to say nothing of its attitude to economic, political and other problems. This is the starting-point of the class struggle, regardless of the class or political system concerned.

p Further, ideas and the ideological struggle play an immense part in resolving a central task of politics such as winning the support of the masses. The masses are, of course, stirred to action under the impact of objective influences underlying the very conditions of their existence. But ideas and the ideological struggle become a vital element of this objective process. This was underscored by Marx, who noted that "theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has 41 gripped the masses".  [41•*  The same point was made by Lenin, who censured the underestimation of ideas and ideals by those who were inclined to reduce Marxism to economic determinism. He wrote:

p "Justice is an empty word, say the intellectuals and those rascals who are inclined to proclaim themselves Marxists on the lofty grounds that they have ’contemplated the hind parts’ of economic materialism.

p "Ideas become a power when they grip the people. And precisely at the present time the Bolsheviks, i.e., the representatives of revolutionary proletarian internationalism, have embodied in their policy the idea that is motivating countless working people all over the world."  [41•** 

p This proposition of Marxist-Leninist theory is the key to understanding the problem of the correlation and interrelation of the ideological and political struggle within society and on an international scale.

p In the ideological struggle the basic aim of any class is to bring the largest number of people under the influence of its ideas and tear them away from the spiritual influence of the class adversary. This task inevitably begins with the ideological conquest of the masses of its own class without which the class cannot be united in the struggle for its interests and aims. A class consists of many thousands and even millions of people scattered about the country, engaged in different affairs and in many cases even unaware of their common condition and interests. This is particularly true of a class which is still only fighting for power. For this class a common ideology becomes the principal, and at a definite stage, the only organising element, the means of uniting and mustering its forces, a means that precedes other, including political, instruments of unity. The decisive stage of the struggle for power both by the bourgeoisie and the proletariat began precisely with ideological unity, with propaganda within the class.

p At the same time, ideological propaganda is used by a class as a means of undermining the spiritual unity of the class adversary and ensuring to itself the broadest possible influence in his ranks. Naturally, in this respect the 42 possibillties of the rising class are limited inasmuch as it has to contend with an enemy who is well aware of his aims and interests and is organised for the defence of these, aims and interests. Here it can only be a matter of influencing individual, foremost elements of the other class who are capable of rising above class interests. Such elements have been won over not only by the revolutionary bourgeoisie (from among the aristocracy) but also by the working class (from among the bourgeoisie). The examples are well known and they are rather the exception than the rule in the class struggle.

p The case is different as regards the ideological influence exercised by the governing class over its class adversaries. The possibilities for exercising such influence are quite considerable and the efforts to ensure this influence comprise an important sphere of the ideological struggle. Marx’s proposition that the ideas of the ruling class are predominant in society remains true to this day. This is vividly illustrated by modern bourgeois society, in which the ideological efforts of the ruling class are directed towards ensuring a spiritual influence on the working class, splitting it and cultivating anti-communism, reformism, religious ideology, nationalism and chauvinism in its ranks.

p Lastly, the purpose of ideological propaganda is to win the support of the mass of the intermediate classes and social strata. Even in developed bourgeois society, where the working class constitutes a huge section of the population (the majority in some countries), the outcome of the struggle depends to a large extent on the support of the intermediate classes and strata—peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie, white collar workers, intellectuals and so on. This is especially true of countries where capitalist relations have not reached a high level of development and the classes contesting the issue of power do not constitute the majority in society.

p Naturally, international relations have their own specifics, which, as we have already noted, spring from the fact that for entire epochs the political struggle on the international scene was, with rare exceptions, waged between socially similar ruling classes. This determined the specifics of the ideological struggle as well.

p The situation is changing fundamentally with the world’s division into two systems. This division is taking place 43 in an epoch witnessing an unprecedented growth of the political activity of the masses and their mounting influence on politics, both internal and external. Also important is the fact that the struggle in international relations is, as we have pointed out earlier, intertwined with the class struggle within society by virtue of its social content. In both cases it is a struggle between two historical types of society—socialism and capitalism—between the two principal classes of the modern epoch, the working class and the bourgeoisie. Moreover, this intertwining has its ideological expression, for in both cases the main conflict acquires an ideological aspect stemming from the collision and struggle between two class philosophies, between the socialist and the bourgeois philosophies.

p As a result, many of the partitions that have for centuries separated foreign policy from internal policy are disappearing and giving place to a more profound and closer interlacing of the class struggle within society with the class struggle on a global scale.

p Even bourgeois scholars cannot deny these changes. The West German historian Erwin Holzle, who devoted one of his books to the problems arising from the world’s division into two systems, says that an "age of world-wide ideology"  [43•*  has commenced in which the boundary between internal arid external policy has melted, while "internal political ideas and forms such as democracy (as Holzle prefers to call capitalism.—G.A.) and communism have become the foreign political ideologies of the whole world".  [43•**  The American scholar John S. Gibson unequivocally stresses that the war of ideas owes its sharpness to the world’s division into two systems, to the fact that "two ways of life oppose each other. Two diametrically different ways of government compete with each other, along with two different economic systems".  [43•*** 

p But not all bourgeois theorists are prepared to attribute this change directly to the world’s division into capitalism 44 and socialism.  [44•*  But the fact that the role of the ideological struggle in the world has undergone a change is no longer denied by anybody.

p While the fact that ideology and the war of ideas have penetrated international relations is generally recognised, there are diverse opinions regarding the depth and significance of this new factor’s influence on foreign policy. Farther down in this book we shall deal in some detail with the views of individual bourgeois theorists, who contend that in our epoch ideology and ideological differences have been the basic cause of the main contradictions and conflicts in the world. We cannot agree with this view. And not only because it nurtures the harmful illusion that in international relations there will be peace and universal concord as soon as the ideological struggle gives way to a "peaceful coexistence of ideas”. This view is essentially misconceived, for whatever role they play ideological differences and the war of ideas are not the cause but the effect of basic sociopolitical contradictions and conflicts, including contradictions in international relations.

p Today, more than in the past, we encounter attempts to give various political actions and conflicts an ideological twist despite the fact that underlying them are economic or military-political motives. This is a typical method employed by imperialist policy, which disguises its real aims with arguments about defending freedom and democracy, countering "communist intrigues" and so forth.

p This practice, unquestionably, creates a favourable atmosphere for opposite views, according to which ideology and the war of ideas in themselves play no role in international affairs and are sooner a facade screening the same political motivations and realities as hundreds and even thousands of years ago.

p For a long time these were the views propounded by the “realist” school in United States political science. It holds that the struggle for power, above all for military power, is the immutable substance of all international relations. 45

p “Statesmen and peoples,” writes Hans J. Morgenthau, "may ultimately seek freedom, security, prosperity, or power itself. They may define their goals in terms of a religious, philosophic, economic, or social ideal.... But whenever they strive to realise their goal by means of international politics, they do so by striving for power.... In international politics, in particular, armed strength as a threat or a potentiality is the most important material factor making for the political power of a nation.... The struggle for power is universal in time and space."  [45•* 

p It goes without saying that Morgenthau has fpithfully characterised the substance of imperialist policy, which had relied on military strength for a long time and is still trying to do so. But the crux of the problem is that in our day the factors of strength in international politics, one of which is ideology, have grown more complex and broader.

p There are ideas and ideas (the American propaganda experts Gordon, Falk and Hodapp rightly note in this connection that "ideas can be inert thoughts, speculations, dreams; they can be spurs to action, fuses for dynamite"  [45•** ). It is a feature of our epoch that with the world’s division into two systems ideological strength, the ability to ensure the influence of one’s own ideas, has become a new and important source of the strength and influence of states on the international scene.

p Today this cannot be denied even by the most ardent admirers of the unconditional priority of military power and other “material” sources of strength. This is seen also in the most recent works by representatives of the “realist” school. They are far from linking this new factor of strength with the fundamental social processes taking place in the world, above all with the aggravation of the struggle between the two principal classes in individual countries and on the world scene. They are sooner prepared to regard the war of ideas as a new effective instrument of strength in the struggle between states.

p In an article published in 1967 Morgenthau wrote: "The United States and the Soviet Union face each other not only as two great powers which in the traditional ways compete 46 for advantage. They also face each other as the fountainheads of two hostile and incompatible ideologies, systems of government and ways of life, each trying to expand the reach of its respective political values and institutions and to prevent the expansion of the other. Thus the cold war has not only been a conflict between two world powers but also a contest between two secular religions.” Morgenthau sees as highly significant the fact that the means of ideological struggle make it possible to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. This struggle, he declares, is the "dynamic force" behind the policy of intervention "all over the globe, sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes openly, sometimes with the accepted methods of diplomatic pressure and propaganda, sometimes with the frowned-upon instruments of covert subversion and open force".  [46•* 

p The switch towards recognition of a large number of new factors of international politics is in many ways linked with the fact that in recent years many Western politicians and theorists have lost their faith in the potentialities of military power, which had long been regarded as an omnipotent instrument of foreign policy. Today, in the light of the US aggression in Vietnam, conclusions of this kind have become more and more widespread. But some Western scholars arrived at similar conclusions some years ago, long before recent developments had shown the changes in international relations and narrowed down the boundaries for the effective use of military strength. In a book entitled Our Depleted Society, one of these scholars, Seymour Melman, writes: "...most of us have agreed with Voltaire that God is on the side with the heaviest battalions. If it were true that the strongest military power always gets its way, then the United States, possessor of the greatest stock of nuclear military weapons in the world, should be able to exercise its will among other nations with substantial success. But this has not been the case; military power is becoming increasingly ineffective as an instrument of international policy."  [46•** 

p This view was expressed long ago by the US Senator J. William Fulbright. Noting that many old formulas are 47 losing their significance in face of the vast means of destruction developed by science and technology, he writes that there is an absolute disproportion between war as an instrument of politics and its possible aims. "Nuclear weapons,” he stresses, "have deprived force of its utility as an instrument of national policy."  [47•*  In the light of the experience of the Vietnam war, Fulbright expounds this view in greater detail in the book The Arrogance of Power.  [47•** 

p Many United States politicians, who have never had the reputation of being pacifists, are coming round to interesting conclusions. Typical in this respect is the statement by Henry A. Kissinger that "power no longer translates automatically into influence".  [47•*** 

p Indeed, the new factors of power in international politics merit an independent examination. Here we are interested only in the aspect linked with ideology’s conversion into one of these factors. A point we should like to make is that Marxists had seen and assessed this factor long before the appearance of nuclear weapons. During the initial years of Soviet power Lenin said: "A certain unstable equilibrium has been reached. Materially—economically and militarily—we are extremely weak; but morally—by which, of course, I mean not abstract morals, but the alignment of the real forces of all classes in all countries—we are the strongest of all. This has been proved in practice; it has been proved not merely by words but by deeds; it has been proved once and, if history takes a certain turn, it will, perhaps, be proved many times again."  [47•**** 

Lenin’s words that "economically and militarily we are extremely weak" referred, of course, to a certain period in history. The USSR’s present enormous economic and military potential is well known. But this does not reduce the significance of the ideological and moral superiority of socialism, which has developed into a colossal power in the course of sharp class struggles in international relations.

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p The world’s division into two systems is thus the principal reason and chief factor of the enhanced role played by the war of ideas in international relations, which are being increasingly determined by the contradictions and struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie (notably, the imperialist bourgeoisie), the two main classes wielding state power today.

p At the same time, the war of ideas is by no means becoming the initial or even the main cause of the struggle, collisions and conflicts on the world scene. It is only one of the forms of the class struggle in international relations. But it is an important form, which in these relations plays an immense role especially in view of the fact that the class struggle in the world and within society intertwines very closely in the sphere of ideology. This makes the war of ideas a serious factor of strength in international politics.

This factor has to be reckoned with by the imperialist rulers, for with its invasion of the sphere of foreign policy, problems of immense importance linked not only with the struggle for traditional foreign political aims but also with the very direction of historical development began to be resolved in international relations.