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p Lenin flatly rejected the suggestion that the Soviet state should carry on in the well-beated track of bourgeois diplomacy, which relies on brute force and is in the habit of issuing ultimatums and diktats. Lenin showed that there were two views of the strength of states and their policies, the bourgeois and the socialist view. He showed that bourgeois notions of the political strength of states were false and explained where the true power of states lay. “According to the bourgeois conception, there is strength when the people go blindly to the slaughter in obedience to the imperialist governments. The bourgeoisie admit a state to be strong only when it can, by the power of the government apparatus, hurl the people wherever the bourgeois rulers want them hurled. Our idea of strength is different. Our idea is that a state is strong when the people are politically 243 conscious. It is strong when the people know everything, can form an opinion of everything and do everything consciously."  [243•37 

p The bourgeoisie was in the habit of viewing world politics as a sphere in which the state applied its strength. Two main stages stand out in the history of bourgeois doctrines about the principles of world politics propounded in the 19th and 20th centuries. The first is the period of premonopoly development of capitalism marked by the almost undivided domination of the theory which came to be known as the “balance of strength”. According to this theory, world order as a whole rests on a balance of strength, chiefly between the great powers. Anything that tends to upset this balance, any advantage accuring to this or that power is latent with grave consequences. World politics and diplomacy must use every means at their disposal to prevent the balance from being upset. War is also a means of redressing the balance. This theory was called a “Concert of Europe" theory, because Europe was the center of world politics. The “balance of strength" theory in international affairs was closely connected with the positivist sociological doctrines of the early and mid-19th century. I have already mentioned the importance of the theory of “equilibrium” in Spencer’s sociology. Indeed, he applies this to relations between societies and to international relations. The change from militarism to industrialism, according to Spencer, depends on the establishment of equilibrium between nations and races.  [243•38  The epoch of imperialism shows how wrong and artificial this positivist scheme is. “Industrialism” has done nothing to eliminate militarism, but has, on the contrary, pushed it to the limits.

p The uneven development of the capitalist countries, which is much more acute in the period of imperialism, and the fierce fight among the plunderers in the world arena have undermined the prestige of that theory and have produced a new stage in the development of the bourgeois doctrines concerning the principles of world politics. It is expressed in the conception of strength, or in other words, of arbitrary action in international relations. One of the first versions of the “strength” theory was “geopolitics”, which made use of some aspects of geographical determinism to present the political map of the world as an aggregation of “centers of force" and “lines of force”, that is, lines of expansion emanating from these “centers”. Another theory was concocted to show that law and order did exist in the world only if one power had absolute preponderance in strength, for then all the other states were bound to reckon with that absolute superiority. From this angle a review was made of the history of international relations in the 244 nineteenth century, and the conclusion suggested that after the Napoleonic wars peace in Europe rested on the absolute superiority of Britain, so that when Germany undermined that superiority the continent inevitably slid into the chaos of the First World War. This theory was a rehashed version of a theory which had currency in the Roman Empire, and was called “Pax Romana”, under which the Roman legions alone could establish law and order everywhere by putting down all the intransigent by armed force. It will be easily seen that this theory was an ideological expression of imperialist policy aimed to secure world domination. In one form or another it was adopted in all the countries whose bourgeoisie laid claim to world supremacy: Britain, Nazi Germany and then the USA, all of which had many ideologists extolling this theory.

p The emergence and consolidation of the world socialist system dealt a crushing blow at all these imperialist theories of world domination. However, the advocates of plunder and fisticuff law in world politics had no intention of laying down their arms. On the contrary, they declared that the “strength” policy was most convenient for the imperialists in their fight against the Soviet Union and the world socialist system as a whole. That is precisely what John Foster Dulles kept saying. The myth of the “communist threat" helped the architects of the “strength” policy.

p For decades bourgeois ideologists who were generously paid by finance capital for their lying theories kept saying that imperialism was the keeper of the traditions of bourgeois democracy. That was the false slogan under which preparations for war against the USSR and other socialist countries were being carried on. Indeed, among the terms invented for that purpose was the “free world”. The intention was to take a leaf from the pirates’ book and to sail along under a borrowed flag: they claimed that they were the champions of bourgeois-democratic freedoms. They sought to use a screen of ideas borrowed from others and on every fitting occasion quoted some American ideologist of the 18th century. That was an attempt to forge the birth certificates of the present-day ideologists of imperialism and to present them as being the descendents of progressive political leaders of the past. That was a feint, an attempt to win over some sections of the middle and petty bourgeoisie, and some sections of the working class labouring under bourgeois political and ideological influence. But it is impossible to buy a “decent” family tree for reactionary ideas, because ideas have their own lineage which cannot be forged. Indeed, it can be changed only if all the libraries were burned down and the memory of the peoples obliterated.

p The ideologists of the rising bourgeoisie proclaimed ideas which were antithetical to those now put forward by the imperialists. The 18th century saw the proclamation of the right of the people to revolution, and the leaders of the American revolution said as much in their writings. They stood up for that right. They protested against various attempts by 245 feudal-absolutist reaction to stamp out the revolutionary movement in other countries. Thomas Jefferson, a prominent leader of the liberation movement in North America and US President from 1801 to 1809, wrote that when people suffer from absolute despotism “...it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security”. The forward-looking political leaders of the 18th century recognised the people’s inalienable right “...to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organising its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness".  [245•39  That was what Jefferson wrote, emphasising the principle of the people’s sovereignty and stressing in every way the right of every people to arrange its own affairs and to seek happiness and security. Indeed, security was especially underscored, because no people can be sovereign if it is unable to stand up for its security. Nor can there be any happiness without security. In those distant days, the ideologists of the bourgeoisie were guided by logic and not by sophistry. The present-day spokesmen of imperialist reaction, throwing up a barrage of sophisms, would like to destroy logic and deprive revolutionary peoples of their right to ensure their own security against aggressive moves. Their aim is quite clear: when that happens, the peoples’ sovereignty will become illusory.

p In our day, the feudal lords and the absolutist monarchs, against whom the bourgeoisie once fought in its efforts to secure state power, have now given way to the magnates of financial capital, the central figures in international conflicts. This process has now gone deeper and farther. It is the task of the progressive forces in their political and ideological struggle to expose this process and to show the masses how the murky tide of reaction has carried the magnates of financial capital to positions once held by the wildest feudal lords and spokesmen for absolute monarchies. What were the ideas expressed at the congress of the Holy Alliance at Troppau? The men who met there had respect only for the “law” of the mailed fist, the only “law” which the feudals recognised in international relations. The leaders of reaction wanted to establish the “inevitability” of the use of coercive force. Since then, “hawks” and other reactionaries in the USA have not invented anything new. They have merely borrowed the political views of the feudal lords and the absolute monarchs, the very regimes against which Jefferson so eloquently spoke out. There is a record of a characteristic incident involving the Russian tsar Nicholas I. When told of the February 1848 events in France, he addressed his Guards officers as follows: “To horse, gentlemen! There is a republic in France!" However, the horsemen of Nicholas I were unable to trample the spreading democratic movement in France.

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p It is dangerously insane to revive the reactionary ideas of long past periods in the present situation. Any attempt to revive the doctrines of the Holy Alliance about the “right” to intervene in the affairs of revolutionary peoples is fraught with world conflicts. Feudal and absolutist leaders in the past were not faced with the danger of causing a world war, and that is an important distinction between the present and the past. Moreover, the forward-looking social forces of the past were not united or consolidated in the world arena and the reactionaries succeeded in their attempts to put down revolutionary movements which started here and there, and got off scot free when they violated the sovereign rights of nations.

p Today the situation is quite different. However much imperialist reactionaries may love the old slogans of trampling the sovereignty of other nations, they have to desist. Any attempt to act in the world arena in the spirit of those plunderous slogans, provoking world conflicts, inevitably sets in motion powerful world forces and awakens world opinion.

p Incidentally, even in those days when the Holy Alliance held sway in Europe, the statesmen of Britain still decided not to risk open adoption of the Troppau ideas. The then British Foreign Secretary cautiously declared that “it is inadmissible that the Holy Alliance should undertake a priori the obligation to maintain certain political theories against other theories in all the possible cases and in all the countries".  [246•40  Those were weak reservations but they did give a hint of apprehension in face of public opinion.

p The early predecessors of present-day bourgeois ministers felt themselves forced apprehensively to consider contemporary public opinion. Public opinion today means millions of organised workers in the capitalist countries, the intelligentsia in these countries, many of whose members heed the voice of reason, the petty-bourgeois sections where there is awareness of the possible consequences of war, the millions of people in countries that have thrown off the colonial imperialists, and the states of the mighty world socialist system, whose opinion carries much weight in international affairs.

p The feudal lords and the absolutist monarchs fanned international conflicts without securing victory. These conflicts ultimately undermined and destroyed feudalism and absolutism in the old serf-holding Europe. Present-day imperialist reaction cannot hope to gain more by provoking international conflicts.

p The time came when even a president of the USA, J. F. Kennedy, found himself forced to admit that the strength of imperialism and the strength of the world socialist system were roughly equal. While the 247 monopolies working on war contracts and the militaristic circles keep urging the need to step up the arms drive, the “strength” policy in world affairs and a diplomatic line in accord with that policy keeps coming up against obstacles whose importance has been growing.

p Of course, the reactionary, militaristic imperialist circles are still trying to frustrate in every way the socialist countries’ peaceable development, because they are not sure that capitalism will win in the competition against socialism.

p However, military theorists established back in the 19th century that the crucial thing for a successful war is correspondence of political aims and military means available to achieve these aims. This idea was developed by the German military theorist Clausewitz. Those military circles have not renounced their plunderous and aggressive designs and the most “hawkish” of the military-industrial circles have not abandoned the idea of destroying socialism by means of armed force. The present level of science, technology and the productive forces has made it possible to fabricate an extremely powerful destructive weapon. But its use for aggressive political purposes by imperialism is fraught with contradictions. The imperialists no longer have a monopoly of nuclear weapons. In military-technical terms, the Soviet Union, far from lagging behind, is actually ahead of the imperialists. Thus, the use of this destructive weapon holds no promise for the imperialist bourgeoisie of achieving its political aims and is, on the contrary, fraught with threat to the very existence of the capitalist system.

p This idea has occurred to more and more bourgeois theorists. It was expressed in a talk with Soviet journalists by the prominent British idealist philosopher Bertrand Russell. It is also given in a peculiar version by Professor Walt Rostow in his book, The Stages of Economic Growth, which well illustrates the absurd position in which the imperialists find themselves following the loss of their nuclear-weapons monopoly.

p However, the “military situation" is only one side of the matter. The point is that militarism as the historical phenomenon generated by capitalism and brought to an extreme in the period of imperialism is plunged in deep crisis.

p In 1878, Engels wrote in his Anti-Duhring that “in this competitive struggle between armour-plating and guns, the warship is being developed to a pitch of perfection which is making it both outrageously costly and unusable in war”. Engels saw this development of military technology as expressing the “dialectical laws of motion on the basis of which militarism ... is being brought to its doom in consequence of its own development".  [247•41 

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p That moment is at hand. The weapons of destruction have reacneu a “pitch of perfection" that makes them unfit for aggressive, plunderous purposes. Risk itself turns war, with its plunderous political purposes, into a reckless adventure for imperialism.

p The downfall of militarism, however, is not an instantaneous or automatic act, but a relatively lengthy process. It goes hand in hand with spasmodic attempts by the imperialists to save militarism from destruction and to keep weapons in the arsenal of world politics at all costs. At the same time, there is a growing struggle for the destruction of militarism.

p The so-called cold war was an expression of the contradiction into which imperialism, with its aggressive policies, has been plunged in a situation when these policies could boomerang.

p The imperialists have not abandoned their policy of militarism, which brings great profits to the monopolies working on arms contracts. It is arms contracts that are a highly convenient form for further concentrating vast power in the hands of the biggest monopolies, the prime contractors controlling the fulfilment of government orders. Statemonopoly capital has the most solid positions in the arms business, and this has a great effect on the whole policy of the imperialist powers.

p The cold war policy was called “balancing on the brink of war" for a very good reason. Dulles presented it as being the summit of bourgeois statemanship. Actually, it was an expression of the dead end into which imperialism has run. The aggressive elements of imperialism have been seeking a way out by trying to start a “hot war”, but the most sober-minded statesmen in the imperialist camp have already come to realise that this line is reckless and hopeless. However, the latter do not have a decisive preponderance over the reactionary and aggressive elements, which are closely bound up with the arms business.

p The way out of the dead end is, above all, to intensify the influence exerted by the people on the policy of the ruling circles in the capitalist countries. When massive pressure is intensified, the ruling circles are forced to reckon with this and the more peaceable tendencies gain the upper hand. In the present epoch, wars have become a means of artificially maintaining capitalism. The struggle for peace has become a means of weakening capitalism.

p During the First World War, the working class of a number of countries came to realise that capitalism was seeking artificially to maintain the wage-slave system by means of armed force, through wars. A struggle was started for a revolutionary withdrawal from the war, and the whole of mankind was shaken by the Great October Socialist Revolution. Some 25 years later, the truth of Lenin’s words was again driven home to the working people of many countries through the terrible example of the Second World War, after which a number of 249 peoples threw off the imperialist yoke. Today, one-third of.mankind has gone over to socialism and has become the master of its destiny.

p Social thinkers were faced with a highly important question: one-third of mankind had taken control of the laws of social development, eliminating the blind forces of capitalism, scoring great successes, harnessing the forces of nature and producing remarkable machinery and technology, while the imperialists were still able, as in the old days, to drive the peoples to the slaughter whenever they wished. Consequently, was the bloody element to rage over the globe as it did in the old days? This raised the question about the possibility of further limiting the operation of the capitalist system in the sphere of world politics, because capitalism was no longer the one and only master in the international arena.

p The answer to this key question was provided by the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which put forward the idea that in our day there was no fatal inevitability of war and that the possibility to avert war had increased. The conversion of socialism into a world system, the growing might of the Soviet Union and all the socialist countries, the growing consciousness and organisation of all the forces coming out for peace in the capitalist countries, the emergence of “peace zones" and the growth of the national liberation movement—all of this had brought about a fundamental change in the world situation. The CPSU announced this from the rostrum of its 20th Congress, and these ideas were also the basis for the conclusion drawn by the 21st Congress of the CPSU, which said that even before socialism fully won out all over the globe, and while capitalism still remained on a part of it, there would arise a real possibility to eliminate world war from the life of society.

p The proposition that in our day it is possible to prevent war, and to maintain peace, was adopted by the Meetings of the fraternal parties in Moscow in 1957 and 1960.

p The Programme of the CPSU, adopted by the 22nd Congress of the Party, contains a detailed statement about the possibility of averting world war in our day. It starts from the fact that in the new historical epoch masses of people tend ever more actively to intervene in the solution of international issues and tackle the solution of the problems of war and peace, “It is possible to avert a world war by the combined efforts of the mighty socialist camp, the peace-loving non-socialist countries, the international working class and all the forces championing peace. The growing superiority of the socialist forces over the forces of imperialism, of the forces of peace over those of war, will make it actually possible to banish world war from the life of society even before the complete victory of socialism on earth, with capitalism surviving in a part of the world."  [249•42 

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p It is no longer one socialist country in a capitalist encirclement but a world socialist system that now stands in the way of the aggressive schemes of imperialism. The Soviet Union, with its vast economic and military potential, has grown stronger and gained in stature. Imperialism no longer has a hinterland in the form of a colonial system. The first half of the twentieth century saw the collapse of colonialism in Asia, and in the second half the colonial system began to crumble in Africa, the liberation movement in Latin America has also scored considerable successes, while Cuba has taken the socialist way. Within the capitalist countries there is growing organisation and rising awareness in the ranks of the working class that it is capable of rallying sizable peace-loving forces. The number of states which stand for peace in the international arena has been growing.

p The struggle for peace has hit the most aggressive circles of monopoly capital, whose policy of preparing for war has always been connected with the wildest domestic reaction in the capitalist countries and attempts at the implantation of fascist regimes, especially on the periphery of the capitalist world. Today the policy of militarisation is accompanied by the brazen attempts to establish an open dictatorship by the most aggressive and reactionary imperialists, attempts to drive the Communists into the underground, to break up the political organisation of the proletariat, and to narrow down all the possibilities for political struggle which the proletariat has gained in heavy fighting against capital. This policy is connected with interference in the domestic affairs of countries that have thrown off the foreign yoke, with armed intervention and the export of counterrevolution, with attempts to change the political organisation of society in these countries.

p The policy of war preparation provides the reactionary imperialist circles with broad opportunities to resort to violence, relying on armed force, and creates a convenient pretext for eliminating the relicts of bourgeois democracy and narrowing down to the utmost the field in which the democratic forces can operate.

p Barring the way of the policy of war preparation means creating greater opportunities for the activity of the progressive forces in capitalist society. This purpose is served by the principle of settling outstanding issues through negotiation, which helps to expose the true substance of the various pretexts the imperialists use to create tensions in international relations and to fan armed conflicts. Broad circles all over the world have witnessed the collapse of barriers, which the imperialists claimed to be insuperable, in the way to peaceful coexistence between states with different social systems. This helps to put the most reactionary circles of monopoly capital still clinging to the policy of aggression, into ideological and political isolation.

p The key point at which the bulk of the population in the capitalist countries could now break with the policy of the monopolies is the 251 question of maintaining peace, for on this question the interests of the aggressive monopolies and those of the majority of the population in the capitalist countries can and do run into the sharpest contradiction.

p In present-day conditions, therefore, the struggle for peace affords the opportunity to isolate the most aggressive elements of monopoly capital not only within the capitalist countries, but also in the world arena. This idea of uniting all the democratic elements round the working class for anti-imperialist struggle was clearly expressed in the documents of the world communist movement adopted in 1957 and 1960. In complete accord with these documents, the CPSU Programme formulates this key feature of the present-day struggle between labour and capital in these words: “The working class directs its main blow against the capitalist monopolies. All the main sections of a nation have a vital interest in abolishing the unlimited power of the monopolies. This makes it possible to unite all the democratic movements opposing the oppression of the finance oligarchy in a mighty anti-monopoly torrent."  [251•43 

p In the current struggle against labour and capital, foreign policy and the questions of war and peace are an important sector. The task is to use the policy of peace to promote the breakaway of sizable sections of the population in the capitalist countries from the aggressive policy of the monopolies and to help rally the democratic forces in a single, mighty anti-monopoly tide.

p Militarism is a means used by imperialist reaction to suppress the revolutionary process. Militarism, especially occupation or semioccupation of countries which are weak links in the imperialist chain, a form of militarism that has taken shape since the Second World War, tends to slow down the advance of the liberation movement in these territories. Indeed, it was the stationing of the Anglo-American troops in a number of European countries after the Second World War that helped to slow down and considerably to complicate the democratic development of Western Europe. Let us recall that in the early postwar years there were Communists in the governments of France and Italy. Relying on the Anglo-American troops and then putting through the “Marshallisation” of the West European countries, imperialist reaction slowed down the natural democratisation of European opinion and political life, together with the process of important social and economic change.

p The task now set by history is for the newly rising tide of democratic movement to put an end to militarism and to force the imperialists to disarm. Today, that is one of the key problems before the world’s liberation movement. Militarism means reaction all along the line in the capitalist countries, the introduction of “emergency laws”, attempts to drive the progressive forces from the legal political arena, and the Communists into the underground. It means unceasing attempts to 252 intervene in the newly liberated countries. With sophisticated military techniques, the militarists find it easier to use arms to kill working people than they did in the period of massive armies, whose soldiers ultimately realised the truth and adopted ideas of revolutionary struggle. This is why the importance of disarmament is increasing and is inevitably connected with the triumph of progressive forces over reaction, with democratic renovation of the capitalist countries, with victories for the national liberation movements. The broad and mighty anti-monopoly tide has real possibilities of reaching this goal.

p The battles against fascism showed the vast historical importance of the struggle to influence the middle sections. Let us recall that at the time the monopoly-capital elite had managed, by means of demagogy, to confuse these sections and to isolate them temporarily from the working class. In that period, the world communist movement had already come to realise the importance for the development of the revolutionary process of clear-cut slogans and a clearly formulated programme for working-class struggle to win over the middle sections, its reserves.

p The socialist countries’ foreign policy, especially now that socialism has become a world system, can help to avert external attack at a time of social crisis in this or that country.

p Today, the question of creating favourable conditions for the development of the world liberation process is above all a question of preventing the export of counterrevolution, the struggle against imperialist intervention, support for the peoples fighting for their social emancipation and national liberation, and for their right to decide their own future. That is what determines the key line of Soviet foreign policy.

p The history of Soviet foreign policy in the recent period is a history of struggle against the right, arrogated by the imperialists, to attack peoples fighting for their freedom. It was Soviet foreign policy which succeeded in frustrating the plans of the aggressors, thereby promoting the development of the liberation process. Considering the stages of the Soviet Union’s struggle against imperialist intervention, one must realise that with the growing strength of the Soviet Union and all the forces of socialism and peace, the aggressive imperialist circles find it ever harder to meddle in the domestic affairs of nations for the purpose of suppressing the revolutionary movement.

p The present period marks a turning point in the history of world politics. The power of the foreign-policy influence exerted by the Soviet Union and the whole world socialist system, supported by the progressive, democratic elements all over the globe, has become very much greater, and this is evidence of a real turning point in the development of world politics.

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p Of course, the imperialists still continue to meddle in the domestic affairs of some countries for the purpose of suppressing the progressive forces. Their intervention in the affairs of these countries began long ago, and is now a survival of the earlier period in the development of world politics. Consequently, the struggle is aimed to cut short the imperialist intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries and to prevent it. That is precisely the purpose of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy.

p In foreign-policy terms, the question may be formulated as follows: can the socialist states prevent foreign armed intervention in the domestic affairs of countries where social conflicts have reached a state of great intensity? That is exactly how history has posed the question. Under extreme militarisation, the imperialists, of course, have superior armed force as compared with some countries engaged in national liberation struggle and are able to build up a considerable preponderance of strength in some areas and in some local wars. That is why they keep trying to produce pretexts for their armed intervention in order to suppress the national liberation struggle. The task is to safeguard the victorious revolution from external armed intervention, and it is an extremely important task. One must realise that the colonialists have been trying to push the differences between tribes, parties and organisations in some newly liberated countries into a state of civil war, so as to use their mercenaries for the purpose of putting an end to the successful process of liberation.

p In fact, tactics of this kind were also used by the imperialists after the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, where the overthrown exploiting classes would have been unable to carry on an exhausting civil war without open support of the capitalists of the world. In September 1917, Lenin wrote about the advance of the Soviet revolution: “The peaceful development of any revolution is, generally speaking, extremely rare and difficult, because revolution is the maximum exacerbation of the sharpest class contradictions; but in a peasant country, at a time when a union of the proletariat with the peasantry can give peace to people worn out by a most unjust and criminal war, when that union can give the peasantry all the land, in that country, at that exceptional moment in history, a peaceful development of the revolution is possible and probable if all power is transferred to the Soviets."  [253•44  Let us recall that after the October Revolution the Soviet power advanced triumphantly across the country, and that the Civil War was sparked off by the alliance of the overthrown exploiting classes and the international bourgeoisie.

p When considering the formation of the people’s democratic system in Eastern and Central Europe, one should bear in mind .that its greatest 254 advantage lay in the fact that it had been safeguarded from foreign intervention and civil war, and had the opportunity to consolidate the new democratic people’s system.

p The ceaselessly developing worldwide liberation process has now placed on the order of the day the need to struggle for complete political and economic independence of the countries which have escaped from colonial oppression. Analysing the national liberation movement and its prospects, Lenin wrote in August 1920 that “...the Communist International should advance the proposition, with the appropriate theoretical grounding, that with the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries, backward countries can go over to the Soviet system and, through certain stages of development, to communism, without having to pass through the capitalist stage".  [254•45  He stressed: “If the victorious revolutionary proletariat conducts systematic propaganda among them, and the Soviet governments come to their aid with all the means at their disposal—in that event it will be mistaken to assume that the backward peoples must inevitably go through the capitalist stage of development."  [254•46 

p When the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes international, the influence of the working class on the liberation movement in the peasant countries is intensified. With the assistance of the international proletarian dictatorship, the peasant countries can also advance along the socialist way of development. It is not only a matter of the ideological influence of the international working-class dictatorship, although such influence has now become an important factor in the revolutionary process, but of the material potentialities and prerequisites for the peasant countries’ developing along the socialist way. The foreign policy of the Soviet state is aimed to help these countries to take the path of independent development. This way helps to strengthen the working class and its influence, to consolidate the positions of all the democratic forces, and inevitably carries the people closer to tackling the question of going over to socialist development.

In international economic ties, the Soviet Union’s foreign policy is also aimed to strengthen the national-economic base of the state sovereignty of the developing countries and their political independence.