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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Arguments about Soviet foreign policy usually include a lively debate about whether the Politburo is made up of Marxists or Machiavellians. The defenders of the Machiavellian interpretation of Soviet behaviour insist that the Communists are just “power politicians” carrying out the historic Russian program of expansion under a new guise. Until recently this view has been by far the most popular with American scholars and laymen. Few people here even now would take the position diat the Soviet Union's actions are a blind fulfillment of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist theory. Some would, however, insist that an understanding of this theory will facilitate interpretation of Soviet behaviour. Indeed, some Soviet policies and actions make much more sense when placed within a Stalinist frame of reference than as “power politics.”
1 History of the CPSU (b), Short Course, p. 355Google Scholar. (English edition published by International Publishers, New York.)
2 Quoted in Stalin, , Problems of Leninism, p. 26. (Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1947Google Scholar. English translation of eleventh Russian edition.)
3 Ibid., p. 26.
4 For a Lasting Peace for a People's Democracy, No. 1, 11 10, 1947.Google Scholar
5 See Historicus, , “Stalin on Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, 01, 1949.Google Scholar
6 Stalin, , Problems of Leninism, pp. 29–30.Google Scholar
7 Ibid., p. 202. (Stalin's italics)
8 “Interview With the First American Labour Delegation in Russia,” Stalin, , Leninism, Vol. 2, p. 71. (New York, International Publishers, 1933.)Google Scholar
9 For a Lasting Peace for a People's Democracy, No. 1, 11 10, 1947.Google Scholar
10 Stalin, , Problems of Leninism, p. 70.Google Scholar
11 Ibid., p. 70.
12 For a Lasting Peace for a People's Democracy, No. 1, 11 10, 1947.Google Scholar
13 Ibid. (Author's italics)
14 Stalin, , Problems of Leninism, p. 68.Google Scholar
15 Ibid., p. 69.
16 “The Programme of the Communist International,” International Press Correspondence, Vol. VIII, No. 92, 12 31, 1928Google Scholar. (Reprinted in Blueprint for World Conquest, Chicago, Human Events, 1946.)Google Scholar
17 One should read in this regard “The Character of a ‘Peoples Democracy’,” the translation of an article by Joszef Revai in a Hungarian periodical, in the October, 1949, Foreign Affairs.
18 Problems of Leninism, p. 69.Google Scholar
19 For an excellent analysis of this phase of Chinese Communist history, read Schwartz, Benjamin I., Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1951.)Google Scholar
20 Tse-Toung, Mao, La Nouvelle Democratie, p. 78. (Paris, Editions Sociales, 1951.)Google Scholar
21 Ibid., p. 72.
22 Ibid., p. 73.
23 Ibid., p. 73.
24 Ibid., p. 74.
25 Ibid., p. 74.
26 There are many other principles, similar to the four that apply to the employment of reserves, which affect the actual manner in which a given plan of action is implemented. In this regard, the reader is referred to Leites, Nathan, The Operational Code of the Politburo. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951.)Google Scholar
27 Stalin, , Problems of Leninism, p. 70.Google Scholar
28 Ibid., pp. 74–77.
29 “The Programme of the Communist International,” International Press Correspondence, 12 31, 1928, p. 1767.Google Scholar
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
