p Dialectics calls for a many-sided investigation into a given social phenomenon in its development, and for the external and the seeming to be reduced to the fundamental motive forces, to the development of the productive forces and to the class struggle.

p V. I. Lenin

p International relations occupy an increasingly important place in today’s complex and contradictory processes. This is an undisputed fact and it is attracting more and more attention from both specialists and non-specialists, from theoreticians and practitioners of all levels; it is exciting the interest of widest groups of people the world over. However, there are serious differences of opinion in determining the nature of international relations and their essence, in approaching their study and in defining their role in society. This stems not simply from a difference in methodology and class standpoint of scientific theories, but from the nature of the very object of investigation: this sphere of life is conspicuous for its extreme complexity.

p Let us look at the question of the participants in international relations. Above all, one cannot but notice their great, and constantly growing number and diversity. They include many nations and countries, unions and associations of states, national and international political parties and organisations, business firms, corporations and enterprises, and, finally, individual persons—heads of state, diplomats and so on.

p The range of international contacts is also extremely wide: political and military, economic (including trade), cultural, 27 scientific and others. These ties and relations become intertwined in a variety of combinations and permutations.

p The forms of international relations are most diverse. They may be either bilateral or multilateral, they may be enforced in law or accepted standards or they may obviate the law and be functional through a special apparatus, like diplomatic channels, or simply bypass it. The United Nations Organisation and other international bodies are constantly expanding their activities.

p The whole technology of international contacts—means of communication and transport, of information, and the mass media—is becoming increasingly diverse.

p The same diversity is typical of the nature of international contacts. They may be relations of domination and subordination or of co-operation on the principles of equality, they may be friendly or unfriendly, peaceful and nonpeaceful, they may include various stages of co-operation, tension, conflict and struggle right up to war of varying scale and character.

p Finally, international relations are conspicuous for their great changeability; they are constantly expanding and becoming more complicated. The picture of contemporary international relations appears at first glance as a motley mosaic where the colours and patterns are constantly changing. If one takes a superficial view of the present-day international situation, where so many diverse forces are at work, where various factors, interests and emotions come into play, it is easy to accept all that as a conglomeration of haphazard, chaotic events and arbitrary actions.

p The above view is typical of bourgeois writers on international relations and foreign policy. The well-known American student of international affairs, Stanley Hoffmann, for example, does not agree with those who see foreign policy not as “a fluid interplay of kaleidoscopic forces and individuals, a continuum of conflicts and crises, but as an activity designed to deter and avert occasional nuisances that might slow down the march. . .”.  [27•*  Thomas L. Hughes of the US State Department thinks that 28 today the world of the traditional foreign policy has evaporated and that it has been turned “upside down”. He writes: “Thus in a sense the facts of foreign policy are not facts, or if they are, they are highly slippery and manipulable.” He goes on to say that “all foreign-policy facts are relative, but some are more relative than others”.  [28•* 

p Many bourgeois politicians and ideologists believe that criteria of scientific investigation cannot be applied to international events, that science and politics do not make good bed-fellows, that politics is more like an art.

p Stanley Hoffmann writes that “in the American case the empirical grounds are usually of the wishful-thinking variety, and the act of faith is a kind of whistling in the dark”.  [28•**  The authors of the book Diplomatic Investigation. Essays in the Theory of International Politics say that the theory of international politics is unsystematic and cannot be understood by the man in the street; further, they write that an international theory does not exist at all, but only certain judgements on the fate of humanity.  [28•*** 

p Indeed, at best bourgeois writers manage merely to classify international affairs somehow and to bring them down to a particular system without penetrating into their essence and without recognising that they have laws of development. Such writings, which are sometimes more or less useful for limited practical purposes, stem, as a rule, from one or another a priori formal scheme that absolutises various aspects of contemporary international relations.

p One may trace two opposite trends in the works of bourgeois writers in this field. At the heart of one of them lies the absolutisation of international relations, their divorce from other aspects of social life, and the counterposing of foreign to home policy which lends this area of life a certain haziness that obscures it from strict scientific cognition. At the basis of the other trend are a denial of the specific nature of international relations, the extension to them of categories 29 of internal social relations, attempts to prove the possibility of resolving international issues by means taken from the arsenal of domestic policy, the advocacy of "a world state" or "a world government”. Both trends give a distorted picture of the real place of international relations among other social processes and do not lead to an exposure of the real nature of international relations, their essence and causal links.

p As distinct from the bourgeois theories, Leninism, having enriched and developed the views of Marx and Engels on social progress, provides the key for studying and understanding the essence of international relations, their real nature, place and role in the life of society. The key is to be found in applying the basic propositions of historical materialism, which holds that the processes of social development are material, natural and understandable.

p The classics of Marxism-Leninism did not set themselves the task of providing an exhaustive definition of international relations; they uncovered the laws of social development as a whole and elaborated the basic principles of a scientific study of all facets of human life. They set an example of how to apply these laws and methods of scientific study to an analysis of their contemporary international affairs. Of special note is the approach of Lenin to international relations. He clearly saw the trend towards their increasing complexity associated with the development of pre- monopoly capitalism into imperialism, with the sharpening international struggle, and the appearance of world conflicts of unprecedented proportions. But no matter how tempestuous the surface of world politics may have seemed, it never concealed from him the basic causes and class essence of phenomena and processes of international affairs.

Lenin, guided by the historical materialism of Marx and Engels, analysed the roots of the international relations of his time, revealed their interconnections with other social phenomena and showed their specific traits. His approach to international relations corresponds to the general methodological requirements of Marxism in studying any social phenomena. It is based on materialist dialectics.