View source for Foreign relations of the Soviet Union

{{Short description|Diplomatic and military policies of the Eurasian country}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2023}} 
{{Soviet Union sidebar}}
After the [[Russian Revolution]], in which the Bolsheviks took over parts of the collapsing [[Russian Empire]] in 1918, they faced enormous odds against the [[German Empire]] and eventually negotiated terms to pull out of [[World War I]]. They then went to war against the [[White movement]], [[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War|pro-independence movements]], [[Tambov rebellion|rebellious peasants]], [[Kronstadt rebellion|former supporters]], [[Makhnovshchina|anarchists]] and [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|foreign interventionists]] in the [[Russian Civil War|bitter civil war]]. They set up the [[Soviet Union]] in 1922, with [[Vladimir Lenin]] in charge. At first, it was treated as an unrecognized [[pariah state]] because of its [[Repudiation of debt at the Russian Revolution|repudiating of tsarist debts]] and threats to destroy capitalism at home and around the world. By 1922, Moscow had repudiated the goal of world revolution, and sought diplomatic recognition and friendly trade relations with the capitalist world, starting with Britain and Germany. Finally, in 1933, the United States gave recognition. Trade and technical help from Germany and the United States arrived in the late 1920s. After Lenin died in 1924, [[Joseph Stalin]], became leader. He transformed the country in the 1930s into an industrial and military power. Publicly, it strongly opposed Nazi Germany until August 1939, when it came to temporary peaceful terms with Berlin in the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]]. Moscow and Berlin by agreement invaded and partitioned Poland and the Baltic States. The [[non-aggression pact]] was broken in June 1941 when [[Operation Barbarossa|Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union]]. The Soviet forces nearly collapsed as the Germans reached the outskirts of Leningrad and Moscow. However, the Soviet Union proved strong enough to defeat Nazi Germany, with help from its key World War II allies, Britain and the United States. The Soviet army occupied most of Eastern Europe (except Yugoslavia) and increasingly controlled the governments.

In 1945, the USSR became one of the five permanent members of the [[United Nations Security Council]] along with the United States, Britain, France, and China, giving it the right to [[United Nations Security Council veto power|veto]] any Security Council resolutions (''see'' [[Soviet Union and the United Nations]]). By 1947, American and European anger at Soviet [[Eastern Bloc|military occupation]] of the Eastern European states led to a Cold War, with Western Europe rebuilt economically with the help of the [[Marshall Plan]] from Washington. Opposition to the danger of Soviet expansion formed the basis of the [[NATO]] military alliance in 1949. There was no hot war, but the [[Cold War]] was fought diplomatically and politically across the world by the Soviet and NATO blocks.

The Kremlin controlled the [[satellite state]]s that it established in the parts of Eastern Europe its army occupied in 1945. After eliminating all opposition and purging the leadership, it linked them to the USSR in terms of economics through [[Comecon]] and later the military through the [[Warsaw Pact]]. In 1948, relations with [[SFR Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] [[Tito–Stalin split|disintegrated]] over mutual distrust between Stalin and [[Josip Broz Tito|Tito]]. A similar [[Soviet–Albanian split|split]] happened with [[People's Republic of Albania|Albania]] in 1955. Like Yugoslavia and Albania, China was never controlled by the [[Soviet Army]]. The Kremlin wavered between the two factions fighting the Chinese Civil War, but ultimately supported the winner, [[Mao Zedong]]. Stalin and Mao both supported North Korea in its invasion of South Korea in 1950. But the United States and the United Nations mobilized the counterforce in the [[Korean War]] (1950–1953). Moscow provided air support but no ground troops; China sent in its large army that eventually stalemated the war. By 1960, disagreements between Beijing and Moscow had escalated out of control, and the two nations became bitter enemies in the contest for control of worldwide communist activities.

Tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States reached an all-time high during the 1962 [[Cuban Missile Crisis]], in which Soviet missiles were placed on the island of Cuba well within range of US territory. This was retrospectively viewed as the closest the world ever came to a nuclear war. After the crisis was resolved, relations with the United States gradually eased into the 1970s, reaching a degree of détente as both Moscow and Beijing sought American favor.

In 1979, a communist government was installed by the USSR in Afghanistan, but was hard-pressed and requested military help from Moscow. The [[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet army intervened]] to support the regime, but found itself in a major confrontation. The presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States was marked by [[Anti-Sovietism|opposition to the Soviet Union]], and mobilized its allies to support the guerrilla war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The goal was to create something akin to the Vietnam War, which would drain Soviet forces and morale. When [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, he sought to [[Perestroika|restructure]] the Soviet Union to resemble the [[Nordic model|Scandinavian model]] of western [[social democracy]] and thus create a private sector economy. He withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 and began a hands-off approach in the USSR's relations with its Eastern European satellites. This was well received by the United States, but it led to the breakaway of the Eastern European satellites in 1989, and the final collapse and [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|dissolution of the USSR in 1991]]. The new Russia, under [[Boris Yeltsin]], [[Russia and the United Nations|succeeded the Soviet Union]].

The [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union)|Ministry of Foreign Affairs]] implemented the foreign policies set by Stalin and after his death by the Politburo. [[Andrei Gromyko]] served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for nearly thirty years (1957–1985), being the longest-serving foreign minister in the world.

==Ideology and objectives of Soviet foreign policy==
{{Main|Marxism–Leninism|Proletarian internationalism|Peaceful coexistence}}
[[File:Moscow July 2011-38a.jpg|thumb|[[Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia main building|Ministry of Foreign Affairs main building]], completed in 1953]]

According to Soviet [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] theorists, the basic character of Soviet foreign policy was set forth in Vladimir Lenin's ''[[Decree on Peace]]'', adopted by the [[Second Congress of Soviets]] in November 1917. It set forth the dual nature of Soviet foreign policy, which encompasses both [[proletarian internationalism]] and [[peaceful coexistence]]. On the one hand, proletarian internationalism refers to the common cause of the [[working class]] (or the [[proletariat]]) of all countries in struggling to overthrow the [[bourgeoisie]] and to start a [[communist revolution]]. Peaceful coexistence, on the other hand, refers to measures to ensure relatively peaceful government-to-government relations with capitalist states. Both policies can be pursued simultaneously: "Peaceful coexistence does not rule out but presupposes determined opposition to imperialist aggression and support for peoples defending their revolutionary gains or fighting foreign oppression."<ref name="LOCCSussr">Text used in this cited section originally came from: [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html Chapter 10 of the Soviet Union Country Study] from the [[Library of Congress Country Studies]] project.</ref>

The Soviet commitment in practice to proletarian internationalism declined since the founding of the Soviet state, although this component of ideology still had some effect on later formulation and execution of Soviet foreign policy. Although pragmatic ''raisons d'état'' undoubtedly accounted for much of more recent Soviet foreign policy, the ideology of [[class struggle]] still played a role in providing a worldview and certain loose guidelines for action in the 1980s. Marxist–Leninist ideology reinforces other characteristics of political culture that create an attitude of competition and conflict with other states.<ref name="LOCCSussr" />

The general foreign policy goals of the Soviet Union were formalized in a party program ratified by delegates to the [[27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Twenty-Seventh Party Congress]] in February–March 1986. According to the programme, "the main goals and guidelines of the CPSU's international policy" included ensuring favorable external conditions conducive to building [[communism]] in the Soviet Union; eliminating the threat of world war; [[disarmament]]; strengthening the [[World revolution|world socialist system]]; developing equal and friendly relations with liberated ([[third world]]) countries; peaceful coexistence with the capitalist countries; and solidarity with communist and revolutionary-democratic parties, the international workers' movement, and [[National liberation (Marxism)|national liberation struggles]].<ref name="LOCCSussr" />

Although these general foreign policy goals were apparently conceived in terms of priorities, the emphasis and ranking of the priorities have changed over time in response to domestic and international stimuli. After [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] became [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|General Secretary of the Communist Party]] in 1985, for instance, some Western analysts discerned in the ranking of priorities a possible de-emphasis of Soviet support for [[Wars of national liberation|national liberation movements]]. Although the emphasis and ranking of priorities were subject to change, two basic goals of Soviet foreign policy remained constant: national security (safeguarding [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] rule through internal control and the maintenance of adequate military forces) and, since the late 1940s, [[Iron Curtain|influence over Eastern Europe]].<ref name="LOCCSussr" />

Many Western analysts have examined the way Soviet behavior in various regions and countries supported the general goals of Soviet foreign policy. These analysts have assessed Soviet behavior in the 1970s and 1980s as placing primary emphasis on relations with the United States, which was considered the foremost threat to the national security of the Soviet Union. Second priority was given to relations with [[Eastern Europe]] (the other members of the [[Warsaw Pact]]) and [[Western Europe]] (the European members of the [[NATO|North Atlantic Treaty Organization]]). Third priority was given to the littoral or propinquitous states along the southern border of the Soviet Union: [[Turkey]] (a NATO member), [[Iran]], [[Afghanistan]], [[China]], [[Mongolia]], [[North Korea]], and [[Japan]]. Regions near to, but not bordering, the Soviet Union were assigned fourth priority. These included the [[Middle East]], [[South Asia]], and [[Southeast Asia]]. Last priority was given to [[Africa]], [[Oceania]], and [[Latin America]], except insofar as these regions either provided opportunities for strategic basing or bordered on strategic naval straits or sea lanes. In general, Soviet foreign policy was most concerned with superpower relations (and, more broadly, relations between the members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact), but during the 1980s Soviet leaders pursued improved relations with all regions of the world as part of its foreign policy objectives.<ref name="LOCCSussr" />

==Commissars and ministers==
The [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union)|Ministry of Foreign Affairs]]—called "Narkomindel" until 1949—drafted policy papers for the approval of Stalin and the Politburo, and then sent their orders out to the Soviet embassies. The following persons headed the Commissariat/Ministry as commissars (narkoms), ministers, and deputy ministers during the Soviet era:
{| class="wikitable" width=100%
! Name !! Portrait !! Took office !! Left office !! Tenure !! Cabinet
|-
!colspan="6"|People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR
|-
| {{sortname|Leon|Trotsky}} || [[File:Trotsky Portrait.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1917|11|8}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1918|04|9}} || {{age in years and days|1917|11|8|1918|04|9}} || [[Lenin's first government|Lenin I]]
|-
| {{sortname|Georgy|Chicherin}} || [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-12859A, Georgi Wassiljewitsch Tschitscherin.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1918|04|9}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1923|07|6}} || {{age in years and days|1918|4|9|1923|7|6}} || [[Lenin's first government|Lenin I]]
|-
!colspan="6"|People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR
|-
| {{sortname|Georgy|Chicherin}} || [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-12859A, Georgi Wassiljewitsch Tschitscherin.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1923|07|6}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1930|07|21}} || {{age in years and days|1923|7|6|1930|7|21}} || [[Lenin's second government|Lenin II]]–Rykov I
|-
| {{sortname|Maxim|Litvinov}} || [[File:Litvinoff Profile.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1930|07|21}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1939|05|03}} || {{age in years and days|1930|7|21|1939|5|3}} || Molotov I
|-
| {{sortname|Vyacheslav|Molotov}} || [[File:Molotov.bra.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1939|05|03}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1946|03|15}} || {{age in years and days|1939|5|3|1946|3|4}} || Molotov I–[[Stalin's first government|Stalin I]]
|-
!colspan="6"|Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR
|-
| {{sortname|Vyacheslav|Molotov}} || [[File:Molotov.bra.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1946|03|19}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1949|03|04}} || {{age in years and days|1946|3|19|1949|3|4}} || [[Stalin's second government|Stalin II]]
|-
| {{sortname|Andrey|Vyshinsky}} || [[File:RIAN archive 7781 Vyshinsky.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1949|03|04}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1953|03|05}} || {{age in years and days|1949|3|4|1953|3|5}} || [[Stalin's second government|Stalin II]]–[[Malenkov's second government|Malenkov I]]
|-
| {{sortname|Vyacheslav|Molotov}} || [[File:Molotov.bra.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1953|03|05}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1956|06|01}} || {{age in years and days|1953|3|5|1956|6|1}} || [[Malenkov's first government|Malenkov I]]–[[Bulganin's first government|Bulganin I]]
|-
| {{sortname|Dmitri|Shepilov}} || [[File:Dmitri Shepilov 1955b.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1956|06|01}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1957|02|15}} || {{age in years and days|1956|6|1|1957|2|15}} || Bulganin I
|-
| {{sortname|Andrei|Gromyko}} || [[File:Andrei_Gromyko_1972.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1957|02|15}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1985|07|02}} || {{age in years and days|1957|2|15|1985|7|2}} || [[Bulganin's government|Bulganin I]]–[[Tikhonov's second government|Tikhonov II]]
|-
| {{sortname|Eduard|Shevardnadze}} || [[File:Eduard shevardnadze (cropped).jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1985|07|02}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1991|01|15}} || {{age in years and days|1985|7|2|1991|1|15}} || [[Tikhonov's second government|Tikhonov II]]–Pavlov I
|-
| {{sortname|Alexander|Bessmertnykh|Alexander Bessmertnykh (politician)}} || [[File:Alexander Bessmertnykh.jpg|93x93px]]|| {{dts|format=dmy|1991|01|15}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1991|08|23}} || {{age in years and days|1991|1|15|1991|8|23}} || Pavlov I
|-
| {{sortname|Boris|Pankin}} || [[File:Boris Pankin.jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1991|08|28}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1991|11|14}} || {{age in years and days|1991|8|28|1991|11|14}} || [[Silayev's government|Silayev I]]
|-
!colspan="6"|Minister of External Relations of the USSR
|-
| {{sortname|Eduard|Shevardnadze}} || [[File:Eduard shevardnadze (cropped).jpg|60px]] || {{dts|format=dmy|1991|11|19}} || {{dts|format=dmy|1991|12|25}} || {{age in years and days|1991|11|19|1991|12|25}} || [[Silayev's government|Silayev I]]
|}

==1917–1939==
{{Further|International relations (1919–1939)|Germany–Soviet Union relations before 1941}}

There were three distinct phases in Soviet foreign policy between the conclusion of the [[Russian Civil War]] and the [[Nazi-Soviet Pact]] in 1939, determined in part by political struggles within the USSR, and in part by dynamic developments in international relations and the effect these had on Soviet security.

[[File:Trotzki Deutsche Brest-Litowsk1917.jpg|thumb|Soviet delegation with [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] greeted by German officers at [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|Brest-Litovsk]], 8 January 1918]]
Lenin, once in power, believed the [[October Revolution]] would ignite the world's socialists and lead to a "World Revolution."  Lenin set up the [[Communist International]] (Comintern) to [[Exporting the revolution|export revolution]] to the rest of Europe and Asia. Indeed, Lenin set out to "liberate" all of Asia from imperialist and capitalist control. The first stage not only was  defeated in key attempts, but angered the other powers by its promise to overthrow capitalism.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Stanley W. | last=Page | title=Lenin: Prophet of World Revolution from the East | journal=Russian Review | volume=11 | issue=2 | date=1952 | pages=67–77 | doi=10.2307/125656 | jstor=125656 | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/125656}}</ref>

===World revolution===
{{See also|World revolution|Revolutions of 1917–1923}}[[File:Скоро весь мир будет наш.jpg|thumb|Soon all the World will be ours, 1920]]
[[File:Dyadya lenin.jpg|thumb|Lenin wipes out kings, priests, and capitalists off the globe.]]

The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in the [[October Revolution]] of November 1917 but they could not stop the [[German Army (German Empire)|Imperial German Army]] from advancing rapidly deep into Russia in [[Operation Faustschlag]]. The Bolsheviks saw Russia as only the first step—they planned to incite revolutions against capitalism in every western country. The immediate threat was an unstoppable German attack.  The Germans wanted to knock Russia out of the war so they could move their forces to the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] in spring 1918 before the [[American Expeditionary Forces|American Expeditionary Force]] soldiers fully deployed. In early March 1918, after bitter internal debate, Russia agreed to harsh German peace terms at the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]]. Moscow lost control of the [[Baltic states|Baltic States]], [[Congress Poland|Poland]], [[Ukraine]], and other areas that before the war produced much of Russia's food supply, industrial base, coal, and communication links with Western Europe."<ref>{{cite book|first=Todd|last=Chretien|title=Eyewitnesses to the Russian Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oG4kDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT129|year=2017|page=129|publisher=Haymarket Books |isbn=9781608468805}}</ref> Russia's allies Britain and France felt betrayed: "The treaty was the ultimate betrayal of the Allied cause and sowed the seeds for the Cold War. With Brest-Litovsk the spectre of German domination in Eastern Europe threatened to become reality, and the Allies now began to think seriously about military intervention [in Russia]."<ref>{{cite book|first=Spencer C.|last=Tucker|title=The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mkFdAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA608|year=2013|page=608|publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135506940}}</ref>
In 1918, Britain sent in money and some troops to support the [[White Army|anti-Bolshevik White Army]], as well as [[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War|pro-independence anti-Bolshevik movements]] on the periphery of the former Empire. France, Japan and the United States also sent forces to block German advances. In effect the Allies were assisting the various anti-Bolshevik forces of different nationalities and political leanings. The [[Russian Civil War]] saw the uncoordinated resistance to the Bolsheviks from every direction. However, the Bolsheviks, operating a unified command from a central location, defeated all the opposition one by one and took full control of Russia, as well as conquering newly independent countries such as [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]], [[Democratic Republic of Georgia|Georgia]], [[First Republic of Armenia|Armenia]], and [[Azerbaijan Democratic Republic|Azerbaijan]]. The U.S. and France refused to deal with the Soviet regime because of its promise to support revolutions to overthrow governments everywhere. U.S. Secretary of State [[Bainbridge Colby]] stated:<ref>{{cite journal | first=David W. | last=McFadden | title=After the Colby Note: The Wilson Administration and the Bolsheviks, 1920–21 | journal=Presidential Studies Quarterly | volume=25 | issue=4 | date=1995 | pages=741–750 | jstor=27551509 | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27551509}}</ref>
:It is their [Bolshevik] understanding that the very existence of Bolshevism in Russia, the maintenance of their own rule, depends, and must continue to depend, upon the occurrence of revolutions in all other great civilized nations, including the United States, which will overthrow and destroy their governments and set up Bolshevist rule in their stead. They have made it quite plain that they intend to use every means, including, of course, diplomatic agencies, to promote such revolutionary movements in other countries.<ref>{{cite web  | url=https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//coldwar/documents/episode-1/colby.htm | title=Letter | first=Bainbridge | last=Colby  | date=10 August 1920 | accessdate=30 December 2025 | via=nsarchive2.gwu.edu}}</ref>

After Germany was defeated in November 1918 and Soviet Russia won the Civil War, the first priority for Moscow was instigating revolutions across Western Europe, above all Germany. It was the country that Lenin most admired and assumed to be most ready for revolution.<ref>{{cite book | first=Robert | last=Service | title=Comrades! A history of world communism | date=2007 | pages=85–96}}</ref> Lenin also encouraged revolutions that failed in [[German Revolution of 1918–19|Germany]], [[Bavarian Soviet Republic|Bavaria]] and [[Hungarian Soviet Republic|Hungary]] from 1918 to 1920 – this support was solely political and economic, and the [[Red Army]] did not participate in these revolutions. In 1920, the newly formed state of Poland expanded eastwards into the former Russian territories of Ukraine and Belarus. The Red Army [[Polish–Soviet War|retaliated and invaded Poland]], but was [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)|defeated outside Warsaw]] in August 1920. Shortly afterwards, the Russian SFSR sued for peace, which was signed at the [[Peace of Riga]] on 18 March 1921. Russia recompensed 30 million [[Soviet rouble|roubles]], as well as sizeable territory in Belarus and Ukraine, which would be later re-annexed in 1939 after the [[German-Soviet Pact]] and subsequent [[Invasion of Poland]].<ref>{{cite journal | first=Wojciech | last=Materski | title=The Second Polish Republic in Soviet Foreign Policy (1918–1939) | journal=Polish Review | volume=45 | issue=3 | date=2000 | pages=331–345 | jstor=25779203 | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25779203}}</ref>

Independent revolutions had failed to overthrow capitalism. Moscow pulled back from military action and set up the [[Communist International|Comintern]], designed to foster local communist parties under Kremlin control.<ref name="Service, 2007">Service, ''Comrades! A history of world communism'' (2007) 107-18.</ref>

====American relief and Russian famine of 1921====
{{Main|American Relief Administration}}
[[File:American Relief Administration in Russia in 1922.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|right|American Relief Administration operations in Russia, 1922]]

Under [[Herbert Hoover]], very large scale food relief was distributed to Europe after the war through the [[American Relief Administration]]. In 1921, to ease the devastating famine in Russia that was triggered by the Soviet government's [[war communism]] policies, the ARA's director in Europe, [[Walter Lyman Brown]], began negotiating with the [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union)|Russian People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs]], [[Maxim Litvinov]]{{inconsistent}}, in [[Riga]], [[Latvia]] (at that time not yet annexed by the USSR). An agreement was reached on 21 August 1921, and an additional implementation agreement was signed by Brown and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade [[Leonid Krasin]] on 30 December 1921. The U.S. Congress appropriated $20,000,000 for relief under the [[Russian Famine Relief Act]] of late 1921. Hoover strongly detested Bolshevism, and felt the American aid would demonstrate the superiority of Western capitalism and thus help contain the spread of communism.<ref>Benjamin M. Weissman, "Herbert Hoover and the famine in Soviet Russia, 1921–23" in Mark Hatfield, ed. ''Herbert Hoover Reassessed'' (1981) pp 390–396.</ref><ref>Bertrand M. Patenaude, "A Race against Anarchy: Even after the Great War ended, famine and chaos threatened Europe. Herbert Hoover rescued the continent, reviving trade, rebuilding infrastructure, and restoring economic order, holding a budding Bolshevism in check." ''Hoover Digest'' 2 (2020): 183–200 [https://www.hoover.org/research/race-against-anarchy online]</ref>

At its peak, the ARA employed 300 Americans, more than 120,000 Russians and fed 10.5 million people daily. Its Russian operations were headed by Col. [[William N. Haskell]]. The Medical Division of the ARA functioned from November 1921 to June 1923 and helped overcome the [[typhus]] epidemic then ravaging Russia. The ARA's famine relief operations ran in parallel with much smaller [[Mennonite]], Jewish and [[Quaker]] famine relief operations in Russia.<ref>See Lance Yoder's "Historical Sketch" in the online [http://www.mcusa-archives.org/MCC/ix-13201(russia%20photos).html Mennonite Central Committee Photograph Collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204033520/http://www.mcusa-archives.org/MCC/ix-13201(russia%20photos).html |date=4 February 2012 }}</ref><ref>See David McFadden et al., ''Constructive Spirit: Quakers in Revolutionary Russia'' (2004).</ref>

[[File:ARA-Hoover.jpg|thumb|left|1921 ARA poster saying "The Gift of the American People" in Russian]]

The ARA's operations in Russia were shut down on 15 June 1923, after it was discovered that Russia under Lenin renewed the export of grain.<ref>Charles M. Edmondson, "An Inquiry into the Termination of Soviet Famine Relief Programmes and the Renewal of Grain Export, 1922–23", ''Soviet Studies,'' Vol. 33, No. 3 (1981), pp. 370–385</ref>

===Success in Central Asia and the Caucasus===
Lenin's plans failed, although Russia did manage to conquer the Central Asian and Caucasian domains that had been part of the [[Russian Empire]].<ref>[[Peter Hopkirk]], ''Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of an Empire in Asia 1984'' (1984)</ref> The revolutionary stage ended after the Soviet defeat in the [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)|Battle of Warsaw]] during the [[Polish–Soviet War|Soviet-Polish War]] of 1920–21.<ref>Adam Zamoyski, ''Lenin's Failed Conquest of Europe'' (2008)</ref> As Europe's revolutions were crushed and revolutionary zeal dwindled, the Bolsheviks shifted their ideological focus from the [[world revolution]] and building socialism around the globe to building socialism inside the Soviet Union, while keeping some of the rhetoric and operations of the Comintern continuing. In the mid-1920s, a policy of peaceful co-existence began to emerge, with Soviet diplomats attempting to end the country's isolation, and concluding bilateral arrangements with capitalist governments. An agreement was reached with Germany, Europe's other pariah, in the [[Treaty of Rapallo, 1922|Treaty of Rapallo]] in 1922.<ref>Aleksandr M. Nekrich, ''Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German–Soviet Relations, 1922–1941'' (1993)</ref> At the same time the Rapallo treaty was signed it set up a secret system for hosting large-scale training and research facilities for the [[Reichswehr|German army]] and air force, despite the strict prohibitions on Germany in the [[Treaty of Versailles]]. These facilities operated until 1933 and then in 1939–1941.<ref>Gordon H. Mueller, "Rapallo Reexamined: a new look at Germany's secret military collaboration with Russia in 1922." ''Military Affairs'' (1976): 109–117. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1986524 online]</ref>

The Soviet Union finalized a treaty of friendship with [[Emirate of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]], which had gained full independence following the [[Third Anglo-Afghan War]]. The Afghan king, [[Amanullah Khan]], wrote to Moscow stressing his desire for permanent friendly relations; Lenin replied congratulating him and the Afghans for their defense. The Soviets saw possibilities in an alliance with Afghanistan against the United Kingdom, such as using it as a base for a revolutionary advance towards [[British India|British-controlled India]]. The treaty of friendship was finalized in 1921.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Borer |first1=Douglas A. |title=Soviet for viet foreign policy t eign policy toward Afghanistan 1919-1988 ghanistan 1919-1988 |url=https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6233&context=etd |publisher=University of Montana |date=1988}}</ref>

===Communist International===
{{Main|Communist International}}

The Communist International (Comintern), (1919–1943), was an international organization of [[Communist party|communist parties]].<ref name="Service, 2007"/> Ostensibly a new group to replace the former [[Second International]] after it had collapsed because of World War I, it served as an extension of Soviet foreign policy.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Steiner|first=Zara|title=The lights that failed : European international history, 1919–1933|date=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-151881-2|location=Oxford|oclc=86068902}}</ref> It was headed by [[Grigory Zinoviev]] (1919–26) and based in the [[Moscow Kremlin|Kremlin]]; it reported to Lenin and later Stalin. Lenin envisioned the national branches not as political parties, but "as a centralized quasi-religious, and quasi-military movement devoted to the revolution and to service of the Soviet state."<ref>{{cite book|author=Adam B. Ulam|title=Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–73|publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston|url=https://archive.org/details/expansioncoexist00adam|url-access=registration|year=1974|page=[https://archive.org/details/expansioncoexist00adam/page/17 17]|isbn=9780275886301}}</ref> Commentators compared it to the [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit order]], with its [[vow of obedience]]. It coordinated the different parties internationally and issued orders that they obeyed. The Comintern resolved at its [[2nd World Congress of the Comintern|Second Congress]] to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state".<ref>{{cite book|author=Harold Henry Fisher|title=The Communist Revolution: An Outline of Strategy and Tactics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b2umAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA13|year=1955|publisher=Stanford UP|page=13}}</ref> That policy was soon dropped by 1921 because it interfered with the decision to seek friendly relations with capitalistic nations. The new economic policy at home required trade with the West and bank credits if possible. The main obstacle was Moscow's refusal to honor Tsarist-era debts. The Comintern was officially dissolved by Stalin in 1943 to avoid antagonizing its new allies against Germany, the United States and Great Britain.<ref>Duncan Hallas, ''The Comintern: The History of the Third International'' (1985).</ref><ref>Kevin McDermott, and Jeremy Agnew, ''The Comintern: a history of international communism from Lenin to Stalin'' (1996).</ref>

===Stalin: Socialism in one country===
{{Main|Socialism in one country|United front}}

Trotsky argued for the continuation of the revolutionary process, in terms of his theory of [[permanent revolution]]. After Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky lost the power struggle to Stalin and [[Nikolai Bukharin]]. Trotsky was sent into exile in 1929 and in 1940 was assassinated on Stalin's orders.<ref>John Roberts, ''Lenin, Trotsky and the Theory of the Permanent Revolution'' (2014).</ref>

Stalin's main policy was [[socialism in one country]]. He focused on modernization of the Soviet Union, developing manufacturing, building infrastructure and improving agriculture. Expansion and wars were no longer on the agenda. The Kremlin-sponsored [[united front]] policy, with foreign Communist parties taking the lead in education and national liberation movements. The goal was [[Anti-fascism|opposition to fascism]], especially the [[Nazism|Nazi]] variety.

The high point of the United Front was the partnership in [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|China]] between the [[Chinese Communist Party]] and the [[Chinese nationalism|nationalist]] [[Kuomintang]]. The [[First United Front|United Front policy in China]] effectively crashed to ruin in 1927, when Kuomintang leader [[Chiang Kai-shek]] [[Shanghai massacre|massacred]] the native Communists and expelled all of his Soviet advisors, notably [[Mikhail Borodin]].<ref>David Priestland, ''The Red Flag: A History of Communism'' (2009) pp 248–49.</ref><ref>Tien-wei Wu, "A Review of the Wuhan Debacle: The Kuomintang-Communist Split of 1927." ''Journal of Asian Studies'' 29.1 (1969): 125–143.</ref> A [[Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)|short war erupted in 1929]] as the Soviets successfully fought to keep control of the [[Chinese Eastern Railway]] in Manchuria.<ref>Michael Walker, ''The 1929 Sino-Soviet War'' (2017)</ref>

After defeating all his opponents from both the left (led by Trotsky and [[Grigory Zinoviev]]) and the right (led by Bukharin), Stalin was in full charge. He began the wholesale [[collectivization]] of Soviet agriculture, accompanied by a massive program of [[Industrialization in the Soviet Union|planned industrialization]].<ref>Robert Service, ''A History of Twentieth Century Russia'' (1997), 174–176</ref>

===Respectability and normal relations===
After 1921 the main foreign-policy goals were for the [[major power]]s to treat the Soviet state as a normal country, and to open trade relations and diplomatic recognition. There was no more crusading for world revolution: the Communist Party leadership began to recognize that international revolution would not come and that Soviet Russia would have to reach some form of temporary accommodation with the "bourgeois" capitalist countries.<ref name=":3" /> The first breakthrough came in 1921 with the [[Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement]] that signified ''de facto'' recognition of the RSFSR. The United States refused recognition until 1933; however, [[Henry Ford]], alongside other American entrepreneurs and corporations, invested heavily in the Soviet Union, importing modern [[management]]-techniques and new industrial technology.<ref>{{cite book |author1= Mira Wilkins |author2= Frank Ernest Hill|title=American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=YOla2J3spCsC&pg=PA216|year=2011|page=216|publisher= Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781107007970}}</ref><ref name="Bailes">{{cite journal|first= Kendall|last= Bailes|title=The American Connection: Ideology and the Transfer of American Technology to the Soviet Union, 1917–1941 |journal= Comparative Studies in Society and History|volume=23|number=3|year=1981|pages=421–448|doi= 10.1017/S0010417500013438 |jstor=178483|s2cid=145162571 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/178483|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

[[Georgy Chicherin]] served as Soviet Russia's [[People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs]] (foreign minister) from 1918 to 1930. He worked against the [[League of Nations]] and attempted to lure the German [[Weimar Republic]] into an alliance with Moscow, an effort aided by his close personal friendship with the [[List of German Ambassadors to Russia|German Ambassador to Moscow]], [[Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau]]<ref name=":3" /><ref name="Timothy">{{cite journal|first=Timothy|last=O'Connor|title=G. V. Chicherin and the Soviet View of the League of Nations in the 1920s|journal=European Studies Journal|year=1989|volume=6|number=1|pages=1–17}}</ref> (in office: 1922–1928). Diplomatic tensions fed into the war scare of 1927.<ref>{{cite book|last=Main|first=Steven J.|editor-last1=Pons|editor-first1=Silvio|editor-last2=Romano|editor-first2=Andrea|editor-link2=Andrea Romano (politician)|year=2000|chapter=The Red Army and the Future War in Europe, 1925-40|title=Russia in the Age of Wars, 1914-1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_bCWJc2nHdkC|series=Volume 34 of Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli: Annali|publication-place=Milan|publisher=Feltrinelli Editore|page=175|isbn=9788807990557|access-date=5 August 2023|quote=[...] in 1927 [...] Britain broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR, the Soviet ambassador to Poland was murdered in June, there were a series of attacks on Soviet diplomatic representations in Berlin, Peking, Shanghai. All of these actions created the 'war scare' of 1927.}} </ref>

The League made several efforts to develop better relations with Russia, but these attempts were always rebuffed: the Soviets regarded the League as simply an alliance of hostile, capitalist powers.<ref name="Buzinkai">{{cite journal|first= Donald |last= Buzinkai|title=Soviet-League Relations, 1920–1923: Political Disputes|journal=East European Quarterly|volume= 13 |number= 1|year=1979|pages=25–45}}</ref> The USSR did not seek admission to the League of Nations until 1934, when it joined with French backing.<ref name="Jelavich">{{cite book|first= Barbara|last= Jelavich|title= St. Petersburg and Moscow: Tsarist and Soviet foreign policy, 1814–1974|year=1974}}</ref> It was expelled from the League in 1939 following the [[Soviet invasion of Finland]].

====Rapallo Treaty 1922====
{{Main|Treaty of Rapallo (1922)}}
The [[Genoa Conference (1922)|Genoa Conference of 1922]] brought the Soviet Union and Germany for the first time into negotiations with the major European powers. The conference broke down when France insisted that Germany pay more in [[World War I reparations|reparations]], and demanded that Moscow start paying off the Tsarist-era debts that it had repudiated. Soviet Russia and Germany were both pariah countries, deeply distrusted. The solution for the Soviets and the Weimar Germans was to get together at the nearby resort city of [[Rapallo]], [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]], where they quickly negotiated the [[Treaty of Rapallo (1922)|1922 Treaty of Rapallo]].<ref name="Salzmann">{{cite book|first= Stephanie|last= Salzmann|title= Great Britain, Germany, and the Soviet Union: Rapallo and After, 1922–1934|year=2003|publisher=Boydell & Brewer}}</ref> In a friendly agreement, they made a clean break with the past, repudiating all old financial and territorial obligations and agreeing to normalize diplomatic and economic relations. Secretly, the two sides established elaborate [[Reichswehr#Secret cooperation with the Soviet Union|military cooperation]], while publicly denying it. This enabled Germany to rebuild its army and air force secretly at sites in the Soviet Union, in violation of the 1919 [[Treaty of Versailles]].<ref name="Mueller">{{cite journal|first=Gordon|last=Mueller|title=Rapallo Reexamined: a new look at Germany's secret military collaboration with Russia in 1922|journal=Military Affairs|volume= 40 |number= 3|year= 1976|pages= 109–117|doi= 10.2307/1986524|jstor= 1986524|url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/1986524|url-access= subscription}}</ref>

====Great Britain====

=====Trade and recognition=====
At the direction of the Comintern, by 1937, 10% of [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] members were operating secretly inside the [[Labour Party (UK)|British Labour Party]], campaigning to change its policy on affiliation and to engineer a [[Popular Front (UK)|Popular Front]].<ref name=Campbell>{{cite journal|first1= Alan|last1= Campbell|first2= John|last2= McIlroy |title= The Trojan Horse: Communist Entrism in the British Labour Party, 1933–43|journal=Labor History|volume= 59 |number= 5|year=2018|pages=513–554|doi= 10.1080/0023656X.2018.1436938|s2cid= 158648970|url= https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323709987}}</ref> The Labour leadership fought back and became bitter enemies of Communism. When Labour came to power in the [[1945 United Kingdom general election|1945 UK general election]], it was increasingly hostile to the Soviet Union and supported the United States.<ref name="Thorpe">{{cite journal|first= Andrew |last= Thorpe|title= Locking out the Communists: The Labour Party and the Communist Party, 1939–46|journal= Twentieth Century British History|year= 2014|volume=25|number=2|pages=221–250|doi= 10.1093/tcbh/hwt020|url= https://academic.oup.com/tcbh/article-abstract/25/2/221/1690202|hdl=10871/16305|hdl-access=free|url-access= subscription}}</ref>

=====Zinoviev letter=====
Four days before the [[1924 United Kingdom general election|British general election in 1924]] the London ''[[Daily Mail]]'' newspaper published the [[Zinoviev letter]]. This document, purportedly a directive from [[Grigory Zinoviev]], the head of the [[Communist International]] in Moscow, to the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]], ordered it to engage in seditious activities. It predicted that the resumption of diplomatic relations (by a [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] government) would hasten the radicalization of the [[British working class]]. This would have constituted a significant interference in [[Politics of the United Kingdom|British politics]], and as a result, it was deeply offensive to British voters, turning them against the Labour Party. The letter seemed authentic at the time, but historians now agree it was a forgery.<ref>{{cite book|first=Victor|last=Madeira|title=Britannia and the Bear: The Anglo-Russian Intelligence Wars, 1917–1929|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=xNXCAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA124|year=2014|page=124|publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=9781843838951}}</ref> The letter aided the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] under [[Stanley Baldwin]], by hastening the collapse of the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] vote that produced a Conservative landslide against [[Ramsay MacDonald]]'s Labour Party.<ref name="mowat">{{cite book|first= Charles Loch|last= Mowat|title= Britain between the wars, 1918–1940|year= 1955|pages= 188–94}}</ref> [[A. J. P. Taylor]] argued that the most important impact was on the psychology of Labourites, who for years afterward blamed their defeat on foul play, thereby misunderstanding the political forces at work and postponing necessary reforms{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} in the Labour Party.<ref name="taylor">{{cite book|first= A.J.P.|last= Taylor|title= English History 1914–1945|year= 1965|page= 219 | series = Volume 15 of Oxford History of England | isbn = 9780191501296 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=9WuASzFGqsMC}}</ref>{{request quotation|date=August 2023}}

====United States====
{{Main|Soviet Union–United States relations}}

In the 1920s, the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] administrations in Washington refused to recognize the Soviet régime. However, some American businesses, led by [[Henry Ford]], opened close relations.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Charles E. | last=Timberlake | title=Russian American Contacts, 1917–1937 | journal=Pacific Northwest Quarterly | volume=61 | issue=4 | date=1970 | pages=217–221}}</ref> The Soviets greatly admired American technology and welcomed help in achieving the ambitious industrial goals of Stalin's [[First five-year plan (Soviet Union)|First Five-Year Plan]] of 1928–1932. Ford built modern factories and trained Soviet engineers.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Wladimir | last=Naleszkiewicz | title=Technical Assistance of the American Enterprises to the Growth of the Soviet Union, 1929–1933 | journal=Russian Review | volume=25 | issue=1 | date=1966 | pages=54–76  | doi=10.2307/126832 | jstor=126832 | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/126832}}</ref>
President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Franklin Roosevelt]] recognized the USSR in 1933, in the expectation that trade would soar and help the US out of its economic depression. That goal did not materialize, but Roosevelt maintained good relations with Moscow until his death in 1945.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Robert L. | last=Morris | title=A Reassessment of Russian Recognition | journal=The Historian | volume=24 | issue=4 | date=1962 | pages=470–482 | doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.1962.tb01735.x }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | first=Susan | last=Butler | title=Roosevelt and Stalin: Portrait of a Partnership | publisher=Vintage | date=2015 | pages=502–508}}</ref>

===Attack on social democratic parties===
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin insisted on a policy of fighting against non-communist socialist movements everywhere. This new radical phase was paralleled by the formulation of a new doctrine in the International, that of the so-called [[Third Period]], an ultra-left switch in policy, which argued that [[social democracy]], whatever shape it took, was a form of [[social fascism]], socialist in theory but [[fascism|fascist]] in practice. All foreign Communist parties – increasingly agents of Soviet policy – were to concentrate their efforts in a struggle against their rivals in the working-class movement, ignoring the threat of real fascism. There were to be no united fronts against a greater enemy.<ref>Kevin McDermott, "Stalin and the Comintern during the 'Third Period', 1928–33." ''European history quarterly'' 25.3 (1995): 409–429.</ref>

====Battling social democracy in Germany 1927–1932====
In Germany, Stalin gave a high priority to an anti-capitalist revolution in Germany. His [[Communist Party of Germany]] (KPD) split the working-class vote with the moderate [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic Party]]. The SPD was the historic social democratic party in Germany, and tempered its Marxism to drop revolutionary goals and instead focus on systematic improvement of the condition of the working-class. This approach ran contrary to the goals and beliefs of the KPD which considered such short term concessions for the working that served only to delay the revolution. In the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]], the KPD sought to overthrow the Weimar government, which was historically controlled by a moderate coalition of liberals, Catholics, and the social democrats. As the [[Nazi Party]] grew rapidly throughout the early 1930s, winning support among the [[Protestantism in Germany|Protestant]] working class and financial capitalists, this system became increasingly undermined by political extremists. There was some fighting between the KPD and the Nazis in Germany's industrial cities. However, after The Communist International's abrupt [[ultra-left]] turn in its [[Third Period]] from 1928, the KPD regarded the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (SPD) as its main adversary and adopted the position that the SPD was the main fascist party in Germany.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://isj.org.uk/divided-they-fell-the-german-left-and-the-rise-of-hitler/|title = Divided they fell: The German left and the rise of Hitler • International Socialism|date = 9 January 2013}}</ref> This was based on the theory of [[social fascism]] that had been proclaimed by [[Joseph Stalin]] and that was supported by the Comintern during the late 1920s and early 1930s, which held that [[social democracy]] was a variant of fascism.<ref name="Grenville 1992 pp. 89–102">{{cite book | last=Grenville | first=Anthony | title=German Writers and Politics 1918–39 | chapter=From Social Fascism to Popular Front: KPD Policy as Reflected in the Works of Friedrich Wolf, Anna Seghers and Willi Bredel, 1928–1938 | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK | location=London | year=1992 | isbn=978-1-349-11817-5 | doi=10.1007/978-1-349-11815-1_7 | pages=89–102}}</ref> Consequently, the KPD held that it was "the only anti-fascist party" in Germany<ref name="Hoppe">{{cite book |last=Hoppe |first=Bert |year=2011 |title=In Stalins Gefolgschaft: Moskau und die KPD 1928–1933 |publisher= Oldenbourg Verlag |isbn= 9783486711738 }}</ref><!-- p. 195 --><ref name="Draper">{{cite journal |last1=Draper |first1=Theodore|author-link=Theodore Draper|date=February 1969 |title=The Ghost of Social-Fascism |url=https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-ghost-of-social-fascism/ |journal=[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]] |pages= 29–42 }}</ref> and stated that "fighting fascism means fighting the SPD just as much as it means fighting [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] and the parties of [[Heinrich Brüning|Brüning]]."<ref name="Bois">{{cite journal |last1= Bois |first1=Marcel |date=25 November 2015|title=Hitler Wasn't Inevitable |url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/nuremberg-trials-hitler-goebbels-himmler-german-communist-social-democrats/ |journal= [[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]] }}</ref> In KPD and Soviet usage, ''fascism'' was primarily viewed as the final stage of capitalism rather than a specific group or movement such as the [[Italian Fascists]] or the German [[Nazis]] and, based on this theory, the term was applied quite broadly.<ref name="Agethen">{{cite book |last1= Agethen |first1= Manfred |last2= Jesse |first2= Eckhard |author-link2= Eckhard Jesse |last3= Neubert |first3= Ehrhart |year= 2002 |title= Der missbrauchte Antifaschismus |location= Freiburg |publisher= Verlag Herder |isbn= 978-3451280177 }}</ref>{{Verify source|date=January 2021}}

In 1929, the KPD's banned public [[May Day]] rally in Berlin was broken up by police; [[Blutmai|33 people were killed in the clash and subsequent rioting]]. The RFB was then banned as extremist by the governing Social Democrats.<ref name=":0"/> In 1930, the KPD established the RFB's ''de facto'' successor, known as ''Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus'' ("Fighting Alliance against Fascism").<ref>Kurt G. P. Schuster: ''Der rote Frontkämpferbund 1924–1929''. Droste, Düsseldorf 1975, {{ISBN|3-7700-5083-5}}.</ref><ref>Eve Rosenhaft, ''Beating the Fascists?: The German Communists and Political Violence 1929–1933'', Cambridge University Press, 25 Aug 1983, pp. 3–4.</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cygMA0eVVV0C&q=RFB+1929 |title=Kampfbünde der Arbeiterbewegung: das Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold und der Rote Frontkämpferbund in Sachsen 1924–1933 |last=Voigt |first=Carsten |date=2009 |publisher=Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar |isbn=9783412204495 |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/weimarer-republik/innenpolitik/roter-frontkaempferbund.html|title=Gerade auf LeMO gesehen: LeMO Kapitel: Weimarer Republik|last=Museum|first=Stiftung Deutsches Historisches|website=Deutsches Historisches Museum|language=de|access-date=21 June 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/Lexikon/Roter_Frontk%C3%A4mpferbund,_1924-1929#Verbot_1929_und_illegales_Weiterwirken|title=Roter Frontkämpferbund, 1924–1929|website=Historisches Lexikon Bayerns|access-date=21 June 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vh6OnfbJRwgC&q=rotfrontk%C3%A4mpferbund&pg=PA92|title=Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists between Authenticity and Performance|last=Brown|first=Timothy Scott|year=2009|publisher=Berghahn Books|isbn=9781845459086}}</ref><ref name=":0"/> In late 1931, local ''Roter Massenselbstschutz'' ("Red Mass Self-Defence") units were formed by Kampfbund members as autonomous and loosely organized structures under the leadership of, but outside the formal organization of the KPD as part of the party's [[united front]] policy to work with other working class groups to defeat "fascism" as interpreted by the party.<ref>Rosenhaft, pp. 96–97.</ref>

During the Third Period, the KPD viewed the Nazi Party ambiguously. On one hand, the KPD considered the Nazi Party to be one of the fascist parties. On the other hand, the KPD sought to appeal to the [[Strasserite]]-wing of the Nazi movement by using nationalist slogans.<ref name="Hoppe"/><!-- p. 195 --> The KPD sometimes cooperated with the Nazis in attacking the SPD.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fippel |first1=Günter|year= 2003 |title=Antifaschisten in 'antifaschistischer' Gewalt: mittel- und ostdeutsche Schicksale in den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur (1945 bis 1961)|publisher= A. Peter |page= 21 |isbn= 9783935881128 }}</ref> In 1931, the KPD had united with the Nazis, whom they referred to as "working people's comrades", in [[1931 Prussian Landtag referendum|an unsuccessful attempt]] to bring down the SPD state government of Prussia by means of a referendum.<ref>Rob Sewell, ''Germany: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution'', Fortress Books (1988), {{ISBN|1-870958-04-7}}, [http://www.marxist.com/germany/chapter7.html Chapter 7].</ref> In the usage of the Soviet Union, and of the Comintern and its affiliated parties in this period, including the KPD, the epithet ''[[Fascist (insult)|fascist]]'' was used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually any anti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion.<ref name="Richter">{{cite book |last=Richter |first=Michael |year=2006 |chapter=Die doppelte Diktatur: Erfahrungen mit Diktatur in der DDR und Auswirkungen auf das Verhältnis zur Diktatur heute|title=Lasten diktatorischer Vergangenheit – Herausforderungen demokratischer Gegenwart |editor-last1= Besier |editor-first1=Gerhard | editor-last2=Stoklosa |editor-first2=Katarzyna|publisher=LIT Verlag |pages=195–208 |isbn=9783825887896 }}</ref>

The formation of ''[[Antifaschistische Aktion]]'' in 1932 indicated a shift away from the Third Period policies, as fascism came to be recognised as a more serious threat (the two red flags on its logo symbolized Communists in unity with socialists<ref name="Bray">{{cite book |last=Bray |first=Mark |year= 2017 |title= Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0_C5DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA34 |publisher=Melville House Publishing |page=54 |isbn=9781612197043 |author-link=Mark Bray (historian)}}</ref>), leading up to the 1934 and 1935 adoption of a [[popular front]] policy of anti-fascist unity with non-Communist groups. In October 1931, a coalition of right-wing and far-right parties established the [[Harzburg Front]], which opposed the government of the [[Centre Party (Germany)|Centre Party]]'s Heinrich Brüning. In response, the SPD and affiliated group established the [[Iron Front]] to defend [[liberal democracy]] and the constitution of the [[Weimar Republic]]. ''Antifaschistische Aktion'' was formed partly as a counter-move to the SPD's establishment of the Iron Front,<ref name=":0"/> which the KPD regarded as a "social fascist terror organisation."<ref name="Lokatis">Lokatis, Siegfried. ''Der rote Faden. Kommunistische Parteigeschichte und Zensur unter Walter Ulbricht''. Böhlau Verlag, Köln 2003, {{ISBN|3-412-04603-5}} (''Zeithistorische Studien'' series, vol. 25). p. 60.</ref> However, from the mid-1930s, the term ''anti-fascist'' became ubiquitous in Soviet, Comintern, and KPD usage, as Communists who had been attacking democratic rivals were now told to change tack and engage in coalitions with them against the fascist threat.<ref>{{cite book |last=Davies |first=Norman |year=2008 |title=Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory |publisher= Pan Macmillan |page= 54|isbn=9780330472296 |author-link=Norman Davies}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Pike|first=David|year=1982|title=German Writers in Soviet Exile, 1933–1945|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=88|issue=1|pages=8–9|doi=10.1086/ahr/88.1.133-a|issn=1937-5239}}</ref>

According to George Stein, a secret major military collaboration between Russia and Germany began in the early 1920s. Both sides benefitted from operational activities at the bases of Lipetsk, Kazan, and Torski. When Hitler and his Nazis came to power in 1933, the collaboration ended because Stalin feared the dangerous expansionist policy of the Nazis and neither he nor Hitler would risk further cooperation. Instead Stalin ordered Germans to cooperate with the SPD, but Hitler quickly suppressed both.<ref>George H. Stein, "Russo-German Military Collaboration," ''Political Science Quarterly'' (1962) 77#1 pp 54–71.</ref> With the KPD destroyed, a few leaders managed to escape into exile in Moscow, some of whom would be executed and others become leaders of East Germany in 1945. Simultaneously in Germany, the Nazis completely destroyed the SPD, imprisoning its leaders or forcing them into exile as well.<ref name="Jelavich"/><ref name="Beloff">{{cite book|first=Max|last=Beloff|title=The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia: 1929–1936|year=1947|pages=56–69}}</ref>

According to historian [[Eric D. Weitz]], 60% of German exiles in the Soviet Union had been liquidated during the Stalinist terror and a higher proportion of the KPD Politburo membership had died in the Soviet Union than in Nazi Germany. Weitz also noted that hundreds of German citizens, most of them Communists, were handed over to the Gestapo by Stalin's administration.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weitz |first1=Eric D. |title=Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State |date=13 April 2021 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-22812-9 |page=280 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JOgSEAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+handed+over+german+communists+gestapo&pg=PA280 |language=en}}</ref>

===Popular fronts (1933–1939)===
{{Main|Popular front}}

Communists and parties on the left were increasingly threatened by the growth of the Nazi movement. Hitler came to power in January 1933 and rapidly consolidated his control over Germany, destroyed the communist and socialist movements in Germany, and rejected the restraints imposed by the Versailles treaty. Stalin in 1934 reversed his decision in 1928 to attack socialists, and introduced his new plan: the "popular front." It was a coalition of anti-fascist parties usually organized by the local communists acting under instructions from the Comintern.<ref>{{cite book|author=Trond Gilberg|title=Coalition Strategies of Marxist Parties |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ryleTJzX88C&pg=PA72|year=1989|pages=72–74|publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0822308492 }}</ref> The new policy was to work with all parties on the left and center in a multiparty coalition against fascism and Nazi Germany in particular. The new slogan was: "The People's Front Against Fascism and War". Under this policy, Communist Parties were instructed to form broad alliances with all anti-fascist parties with the aim of both securing social advance at home and a military alliance with the USSR to isolate the fascist dictatorships.<ref>Kevin McDermott, and Jeremy Agnew, ''The Comintern: A History of International Communism from Lenin to Stalin'' (1996).</ref> The "Popular Fronts" thus formed proved to be successful in only a few countries, and only for a few years each, forming the government in [[Popular Front (France)|France]], [[Popular Front (Chile)|Chile]] and [[Popular Front (Spain)|Spain]], and also China.<ref>Julian Jackson, ''The Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy, 1934–38'' (1990).</ref> It was not a political success elsewhere. The Popular Front approach played a major role in [[Resistance during World War II|Resistance movements]] in [[French Resistance|France]] and other countries conquered by Germany after 1939. After the war it played a major role in French and Italian politics.<ref>Helen Graham and Paul Preston, eds. ''The Popular Front in Europe'' (1988).</ref>
[[File:Beck, Litwinow 1934.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Maxim Litvinov]] with Polish foreign minister [[Józef Beck]] in Moscow, February 1934]]
Hand-in-hand with the promotion of Popular Fronts, [[Maxim Litvinov]], the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs between 1930 and 1939, aimed at closer alliances with Western governments, and placed ever greater emphasis on [[collective security]]. The new policy led to the Soviet Union joining the [[League of Nations]] in 1934 and the subsequent non-aggression pacts with France and Czechoslovakia. In the League the Soviets were active in demanding action against imperialist aggression, a particular danger to them after the 1931 [[Japanese invasion of Manchuria]], which eventually resulted in the Soviet-Japanese [[Battle of Khalkhin Gol]].

Ignoring the agreement it signed to avoid involvement in the [[Spanish Civil War]], the USSR sent arms and troops and organized volunteers to fight for the [[Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)|republican government]]. Communist forces systematically killed their old enemies the [[Anarchism in Spain|Spanish anarchists]], even though they were on the same Republican side.<ref>Stanley G. Payne, ''The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and Communism'' (Yale UP, 2008).</ref> The Spanish government sent its entire treasury to Moscow for safekeeping, but it was never returned.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Vinas | first1 = Angel | year = 1979 | title = Gold, the Soviet Union, and the Spanish Civil War | journal = European Studies Review | volume = 9 | issue = 1| pages = 105–128 | doi=10.1177/026569147900900106| s2cid = 144358061 }}</ref>

The [[Munich Agreement]] of 1938, the first stage in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, gave rise to Soviet fears that they were likely to be abandoned in a possible war with Germany.<ref>Igor Lukes, "Did Stalin desire war in 1938? A new look at Soviet behaviour during the May and September Crises." ''Diplomacy and Statecraft'' 2.1 (1991): 3–53.</ref>

In the face of continually dragging and seemingly hopeless negotiations with Britain and France, a new cynicism and hardness entered Soviet foreign relations when Litvinov was replaced by [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] in May 1939.

====Alliance with France====
{{Main|Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance}}

By 1935, Moscow and Paris identified [[Nazi Germany]] as the main military, diplomatic, ideological, and economic threat. Germany could probably defeat each one separately in a war, but would avoid a [[two-front war]] against both of them simultaneously. The solution, therefore, was a military alliance. It was pursued by [[Louis Barthou]], the French foreign minister, but he was assassinated in October 1934 and his successor, [[Pierre Laval]], was more inclined to Germany. However, after the declaration of [[German rearmament]] in March 1935 the French government forced the reluctant Laval to conclude a treaty. Written in 1935, it took effect in 1936. Both Paris and Moscow hoped other countries would join in and [[Czechoslovakia]] to sign treaties with both France and the Soviet Union. Prague wanted to use the USSR as a counterweight against the growing strength of Nazi Germany. Poland might make a good partner too, but it refused to join in. The military provisions were practically useless because of multiple conditions and the requirement that the United Kingdom and [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]] approve any action. The effectiveness was undermined even further by the French government's insistent refusal to accept a military convention stipulating the way in which the two armies would coordinate actions in the event of war with Germany. The result was a symbolic pact of friendship and mutual assistance of little consequence other than raising the prestige of both parties.<ref name="Carley">{{cite journal|first=Michael Jabara|last=Carley|title=Soviet foreign policy in the West, 1936–1941: A review article|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume=56|number=7|year=2004|pages=1081–1100|doi=10.1080/1465342042000294374|s2cid=154815598}}</ref>

The Treaty marked a large scale shift in Soviet policy in the Comintern from a pro-revisionist stance against the [[Treaty of Versailles]] to a more western-oriented foreign policy as championed by [[Maxim Litvinov]]. Hitler justified the [[remilitarization of the Rhineland]] by the ratification of the treaty in the French parliament, claiming that he felt threatened by the pact. However, after 1936, the French lost interest, and all parties in Europe realized the treaty was effectively a dead letter. The [[appeasement]] policies of the prime ministers of Britain and France, [[Neville Chamberlain]] and [[Édouard Daladier]] were widely held because they seemed to promise what Chamberlain called "peace for our time."<ref>{{cite book|author=Alan Axelrod|title=The Real History of World War II: A New Look at the Past|publisher=Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.|url=https://archive.org/details/realhistoryofwor00axel|url-access=registration|year=2008|pages=41–42|isbn=9781402740909}}</ref> However, by early 1939 it was clear that it further encouraged Nazi aggression.<ref name="Zhilin">{{cite journal|first=Pavel A.|last=Zhilin|title=The USSR and collective security 1935–1939|journal=Scandinavian Journal of History|volume=2|number=1–4|year=1977|pages=147–159|doi=10.1080/03468757708578916}}</ref>

The Soviet Union was not invited to the critical [[Munich Agreement|Munich conference]] in late September 1938, where Britain, France, and Italy appeased Hitler by giving in to his demands to take over the [[Sudetenland]], a largely German-speaking area of Western Czechoslovakia. Distrust was high in all directions. Leaders in London and Paris felt that Stalin wanted to see a major war between the capitalist nations Germany on the one hand, and Britain and France on the other, in order to advance the prospects of a working-class revolution in Europe. Meanwhile, Stalin felt the Western Powers were plotting to embroil Germany and Russia in war in order to preserve bourgeois capitalism.<ref name="Wallace">{{cite journal|first=John E.|last=Wallace|title=Russia and the Munich Conference|journal=Southern Quarterly|volume=5|number=1|year=1966|page=105}}</ref> After Hitler took over all of Czechoslovakia in 1939, proving appeasement was a disaster, Britain and France tried to involve the Soviet Union and a real military alliance. Their attempts were futile because Poland refused to allow any Soviet troops on its soil.<ref name="Duroselle">{{cite book|first=Jean-Baptiste|last=Duroselle|title=France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932–1939|year=2004|pages=346–63}}</ref><ref name="Carley2">{{cite journal|first=Michael Jabara|last=Carley|title=Down a Blind-Alley: Anglo-Franco-Soviet Relations, 1920–39|journal=Canadian Journal of History|volume=29|number=1|year=1994|pages=147–172|doi=10.3138/cjh.29.1.147}}</ref>

===Diplomats purged===
{{Main|Great Purge}}

In 1937–1938, Stalin took total personal control of the party, by purging and executing tens of thousands of high-level and mid-level party officials, especially the [[Old Bolsheviks]] who had joined before 1917. The entire diplomatic service was downsized; many consular offices abroad were closed, and restrictions were placed on the activities and movements of foreign diplomats in the USSR. About a third of all foreign ministry officials were shot or imprisoned, including 62 of the 100 most senior officials. Key ambassadorial posts abroad, such as those in [[Tokyo]], [[Warsaw]], [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]], [[Bucharest]], and [[Budapest]], were vacant.<ref>Alastair Kocho-Williams, "The Soviet Diplomatic Corps and Stalin's Purges." ''Slavonic and East European Review'' (2008): 90–110. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140501131056/http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/8144/1/The_Soviet_Diplomatic_Corps_and_Stalin%27s_Purges.pdf online]</ref>

===Non-Aggression Pact with Germany (1939–1941)===
{{Main|Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27337, Moskau, Stalin und Ribbentrop im Kreml.jpg|thumb|200px|Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking hands after the signing of the pact in Moscow in August 1939.]]

In 1938–1939, the Soviet Union attempted to form strong military alliances with Germany's enemies, including Poland, France, and Great Britain, but they all refused. In an effort to build up the Soviet military, Stalin made a non-aggression pact with Hitler, along with a secret protocol, and the two countries [[Invasion of Poland|invaded and partitioned Poland]]. The Soviet Union additionally [[Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940)|invaded and annexed]] the [[Baltic states]], as well as attacking Finland in the [[Winter War]], for which the USSR was expelled from the League of Nations.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gov.pl/web/libya/russian-imperialism-at-war-with-central-and-eastern-europe|title=Russian Imperialism at War with Central and Eastern Europe - Poland in Libya - Gov.pl website|website=Poland in Libya|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/German-Soviet-Nonaggression-Pact|title=German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact &#124; History, Facts, & Significance &#124; Britannica|website=www.britannica.com|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref> Soon after the pact, [[invasion of Poland|Germany invaded Poland]] on 1 September 1939. Stalin's [[Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|invasion of Bukovina]] in 1940 violated the pact since it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence that had been agreed with the Axis.<ref>Brackman, Roman ''The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life'' (2001) p. 341</ref> The German-Soviet pact provided for large sales of Russian grain and oil to Germany, while Germany would share its military technology with the Soviet Union.<ref>Silvio Pons, ''Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936–1941'' (2002).</ref> The ensuing [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] astonished the world and signaled the war would start very soon. French historian [[François Furet]] says, "The pact signed in Moscow by Ribbentrop and Molotov on 23 August 1939 inaugurated the alliance between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was presented as an alliance and not just a nonaggression pact." Other historians dispute the characterization of this treaty as an "alliance," because Hitler secretly intended to [[Operation Barbarossa|invade the USSR in the future.]]<ref>{{cite book|author=François Furet|title=The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=giY9sIayZBoC&pg=PA315|year=1999|page=315|publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=9780226273402}}</ref>

==World War II==
{{Further|Diplomatic history of World War II#Soviet Union|Soviet Union in World War II}}
[[File:Jalta 1945.jpg|thumb|250px|Soviet General Secretary [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]], US President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Roosevelt]] and British Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] [[Yalta Conference|confer in Yalta]] in 1945.]]

Stalin controlled the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, with [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] as the foreign minister.<ref>Robert Service, ''Stalin: A Biography'' (2004)</ref> Their policy was neutrality until August 1939, followed by friendly relations with Germany in order to carve up Eastern Europe. The USSR helped supply oil and munitions to Germany as its armies rolled across Western Europe in May–June 1940. Despite repeated warnings, Stalin refused to believe that Hitler was planning an all-out war on the USSR.<ref>{{cite book|author=Peter Oxley|title=Russia, 1855–1991: From Tsars to Commissars|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4nOO7Z2jRwsC&pg=RA4-PA19|year=2001|publisher=Oxford UP|pages=4–5|isbn=9780199134182}}</ref> Stalin was stunned and temporarily helpless when Hitler invaded in June 1941. Stalin quickly came to terms with Britain and the United States, cemented through a series of summit meetings. The US and Britain supplied war materials in large quantity through [[Lend Lease]].<ref name="auto">{{cite journal|jstor=260606|title=Lend-Lease and the Soviet War Effort|first=Roger|last=Munting|date=1 January 1984|journal=Journal of Contemporary History|volume=19|issue=3|pages=495–510|doi=10.1177/002200948401900305|s2cid=159466422}}</ref> There was some coordination of military action, especially in summer 1944. At war's end the central issue was whether Stalin would allow free elections in eastern Europe.<ref>William Hardy McNeill, ''America, Britain, and Russia: Their Co-Operation and Conflict, 1941–1946'' (1953)</ref><ref>Richard J. Overy, ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia'' (2004)</ref>

==Cold War (1947–1991)==
{{Main|Cold War}}
[[File:EasternBloc BasicMembersOnly.svg|thumb|250px|The Soviet Union is seen in red while states in light pink were satellites; Yugoslavia, a communist state that was a Soviet ally until 1948, is marked in purple; and Albania, a communist state which ceased being allied to the Soviet Union in the 1960s after the [[Sino-Soviet split]], is marked in orange]]

===Europe===
{{Main|Eastern Bloc}}

The Soviet Union emerged from World War II devastated in human and economic terms, but much enlarged in area. Militarily it was one of the two major world powers, a position maintained for four decades through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military strength, involvement in many countries through local communist parties, and scientific research especially into arms, weaponry and space technology. The USSR's effort to extend its influence or control over many states and peoples resulted in significant resistance from the West. Established in 1949 as an economic bloc of communist countries led by Moscow, the [[Council for Mutual Economic Assistance]] (COMECON) served as a framework for cooperation among the planned economies of the Soviet Union, its [[satellite state]]s in Eastern Europe and, later, Soviet allies in the [[Third World]]. The military counterpart to the Comecon was the [[Warsaw Pact]].

The Soviet Union concentrated on its own recovery. It seized and transferred most of Germany's industrial plants and it exacted war reparations from [[East Germany]], [[Hungarian People's Republic|Hungary]], [[Socialist Republic of Romania|Romania]], and [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]], using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It used trading arrangements deliberately designed to favor the Soviet Union. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes:
:The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $15 billion to $20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under the [[Marshall Plan]].<ref>Mark Kramer, "The Soviet Bloc and the Cold War in Europe," {{cite book|editor=Klaus Larresm|title=A Companion to Europe Since 1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EyNcCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT174|year=2014|publisher=Wiley|page=79|isbn=9781118890240}}</ref>

Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders and ensured its control of the region by transforming the East European countries into subservient allies. In 1956, Soviet troops crushed a [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|popular uprising in Hungary]] and [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia|acted again in 1968]] to end the Czechoslovak government's [[Prague Spring]] attempts at reform. Both countries were members of the Warsaw Pact: In addition to military occupation and intervention, the Soviet Union controlled Eastern European states through its ability to supply or withhold vital natural resources.

===Espionage===
{{Main|First Chief Directorate|GRU (Soviet Union)|Soviet espionage in the United States}}

All sides in the Cold War engaged in espionage. The Soviet [[KGB]] ("Committee for State Security"), the bureau responsible for foreign espionage and internal surveillance, was famous for its effectiveness. The most famous Soviet operation involved its [[atomic spies]] that delivered crucial information from the United States' [[Manhattan Project]], leading the USSR to detonate its first nuclear weapon in 1949, four years after the American detonation and much sooner than expected.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.com/news/atomic-bomb-soviet-spies|title=8 Spies Who Leaked Atomic Bomb Intelligence to the Soviets|date=18 August 2021|website=HISTORY|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref><ref>Christopher Andrew, ''The Sword And The Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB'' (1999).</ref> A massive network of informants throughout the Soviet Union was used to monitor dissent from official Soviet politics and morals.<ref>Raymond L. Garthoff, "Foreign intelligence and the historiography of the Cold War." ''Journal of Cold War Studies'' 6.2 (2004): 21–56.</ref><ref>Michael F. Hopkins, "Continuing debate and new approaches in Cold War history." ''Historical Journal'' 50.4 (2007): 913–934.</ref>

Historian [[Raymond L. Garthoff]] concludes there probably was parity in the quantity and quality of secret information obtained by each side. The Soviets probably had an advantage in terms of HUMINT (espionage) and "sometimes in its reach into high policy circles." Did it matter? In terms of decisive impact Garthoff concludes:
:We also can now have high confidence in the judgment that there were no successful "moles" at the political decision-making level on either side. Similarly, there is no evidence, on either side, of any major political or military decision that was prematurely discovered through espionage and thwarted by the other side. There also is no evidence of any major political or military decision that was crucially influenced (much less generated) by an agent of the other side.<ref>Garthoff, "Foreign intelligence and the historiography of the Cold War." p 29, 30.</ref>

In terms of the impact of intelligence on national policy it was not so much the minute details, or capture of top-secret plans that mattered most. Instead, every major country used its intelligence services to develop complex images of their adversaries, and to predict to the top leadership what they would do next.<ref>Paul Maddrell, ed. ''The Image of the Enemy: Intelligence Analysis of Adversaries Since 1945'' (Georgetown UP, 2015).</ref>

The USSR and East Germany proved especially successful in placing spies in Britain and [[West Germany]]. Moscow was largely unable to repeat its successes from 1933 to 1945 in the United States. NATO, on the other hand, also had a few successes of importance, of whom [[Oleg Gordievsky]] was perhaps the most influential. He was a senior KGB officer who was a double agent on behalf of Britain's [[Secret Intelligence Service|MI6]], providing a stream of high-grade intelligence that had an important influence on the thinking of [[Margaret Thatcher]] and [[Ronald Reagan]] in the 1980s. He was spotted by [[Aldrich Ames]], a Soviet agent who worked for the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]], but he was successfully exfiltrated from Moscow in 1985. Biographer Ben McIntyre argues he was the West's most valuable human asset, especially for his deep psychological insights into the inner circles of the Kremlin. He convinced Washington and London that the fierceness and bellicosity of the Kremlin was a product of fear, and military weakness, rather than an urge for world conquest. Thatcher and Reagan concluded they could moderate their own [[Anti-Sovietism|anti-Soviet rhetoric]], as successfully happened when [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] took power, thus ending the Cold War.<ref>Ben Macintyre, ''The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War'' (2018). [https://www.amazon.com/Spy-Traitor-Greatest-Espionage-Story/dp/1101904194/ excerpt]</ref>

===Africa===
{{Main|Africa–Soviet Union relations}}
[[File:1961 CPA 2566.jpg|thumb|1961 Soviet postage stamp: "Freedom to the peoples of Africa!"]]

Stalin made [[Africa]] a very low priority, and discouraged relationships or studies of the continent. However, the [[Decolonisation of Africa|decolonization]] process of the 1950s and early 1960s opened new opportunities, which Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was eager to exploit.

The Kremlin developed four major long-term policy goals:
* to gain a lasting presence on the continent,
* to gain a voice in African affairs,
* to undermine Western/NATO influence, especially by identifying capitalism with [[Imperialism|Western imperialism]],
* and, after 1962, it fought hard to prevent the [[China|People's Republic of China]] from developing its own countervailing presence.

At no time was Moscow willing to engage in combat in Africa, although its ally [[Cuba]] did so. Indeed, the Kremlin at first assumed that the Russian model of socialized development would prove attractive to Africans eager to modernize. That did not happen, and instead, the Soviets emphasized identifying likely allies and giving them financial aid and munitions, as well as credits to purchase from the Soviet bloc. Although some countries became allies for a while, including [[People's Republic of Angola|Angola]], [[Somali Democratic Republic|Somalia]], and [[People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia|Ethiopia]], the connections proved temporary. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian influence greatly diminished.<ref>Maxim Matusevich, "Revisiting the Soviet Moment in Sub-Saharan Africa" ''History Compass'' (2009) 7#5 pp 1259–1268.</ref>

===Middle East and North Africa===
{{Main|Soviet Union and the Arab–Israeli conflict|Soviet Middle Eastern foreign policy during the Cold War}}

====Relations with Israel====
For its first years Israel had wanted to remain on good terms with the USSR, but after antisemitism in the USSR rose and the Israeli public opinion turned on the USSR, relations turned. The Israeli government was still hesitant to change its stance on the USSR as shown by renowned Israeli UN ambassador and politician named [[Abba Eban]] who said America wanted to add their, "...loud and resounding voice to those who disparage the Soviet Union along with the entire propagandist political spectrum the world over."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rubenstein |first1=Joshua |title=The Last Days of Stalin |date=1976 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, Connecticut |isbn= 0300192223|pages=64}}</ref> The first source of tension in relations between Israel and the Soviet Union occurred on 9 February 1953 (four weeks before the death of [[Joseph Stalin]]), when the USSR severed relations with [[Israel]]. The USSR used a bomb incident against the Soviet Legation in [[Tel Aviv]] as an excuse to end relations and claimed that the government was responsible.<ref name="Govrin">Govrin, Yosef. ''Israeli–Soviet Relations, 1953–67: From Confrontation to Disruption''. 1st ed. Portland: Frank Cass, 1998. Pages 3–58, 221–324</ref> The Israeli government received this news with shock and concern. This was the first breach in diplomatic relations that Israel had experienced with a superpower. There is a general consensus that Israeli charges against the USSR [[Doctors' Plot]] and public want for improvement for the [[History of the Jews in the Soviet Union|Soviet Jews]] were deciding factors. Without Israel's fierce hostility to the false allegations of the Doctors' Plot, the Soviet Union most likely would not have ended relations. After the rupture, Israel continued to speak out against the Doctors' Plot, and successfully attracted international attention.<ref name="Govrin" />

After the [[Death of Joseph Smith|death of Stalin]] in 1953, the Soviet Union's foreign policy was less hostile. The new Soviet Prime Minister, [[Vyacheslav Molotov]], presented a new policy of openness and peacefulness. This new policy inspired Israel to initiate relations with the USSR again, on condition that Israel would no longer criticize the USSR publicly, especially regarding the Soviet Jews. Moscow began to support the Arab states in the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to use this conflict for its own confrontation with the West.<ref name="Govrin" />

On 2 February 1958<ref>Podeh, Elie (1999), ''The Decline of Arab Unity: The Rise And Fall of the United Arab Republic'', Sussex Academic Press, {{ISBN|1-84519-146-3}}</ref> [[Egypt]] and [[Second Syrian Republic|Syria]] declared the establishment of a common federation: the [[United Arab Republic]].<ref name="Govrin" /> The destruction of Israel was their main goal. In 1955, the USSR made an arms deal with Egypt.<ref name="Primakov">Primakov, E. M., and Paul M. Gould. ''Russia and the Arabs: Behind the Scenes in the Middle East from the Cold War to the Present''. New York: Basic Books, 2009. Pages 60–113</ref> This angered Israel. While Britain sided with the US and agreed to withhold further funding for the construction of Egypt's [[Aswan Dam]] in July 1956, Britain was also furious at the action and believed that America's withdrawal of aid had provided the opening for Soviet penetration of Egypt.<ref name=aswane /> Both Britain and Israel now saw Egypt as a threat to regional stability.

The [[Suez Crisis]] occurred in the second half of 1956. At this time, Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt, claiming that they were protecting the [[Suez Canal]].<ref name=aswane /> The USSR saw this event as a threat to its security and international prestige by the West.<ref name="Primakov" /> Britain and France lost prestige when the United States opposed the invasion and forced a withdrawal. The Suez Crisis was the first clash between Israel's security interests and the strategic interests of the USSR in the Middle East.<ref name="Primakov" />

[[File:Soviet Union Welcomes Nasser.ogv|thumb|The Soviet Union welcomes Nasser in 1958]]

On 5 June 1967, the [[Six-Day War]] commenced.<ref name="Morozov">Morozov, Boris, and Yaacov Ro'i. ''The Soviet Union and the June 1967 Six Day War''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. Pages 2–33</ref> Immediately, the Soviet Union went to the United Nations to stop the war and remove Israeli forces from the border. The USSR threatened to break off relations with Israel. The USSR never wanted a war to occur in the Middle East. By 10 June, the Soviet Union threatened to intervene militarily if Israel did not stop its advance towards Syria.<ref name="Morozov" />

In March 1985 [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] became the Secretary General of the CPSU and in April he declared [[Perestroika]]. It took more than 6 years before Moscow consented to restore diplomatic relations with Israel on 19 October 1991, just 2 months prior to the collapse of the USSR.

=====Six-Day War against Israel=====
{{Main|Six-Day War}}

During the Six-Day War, the [[United Arab Republic]] asked the Soviet Union for more arms, but the Soviet Union denied its request because it wanted the war to end. The war ended in the defeat of the UAR and Syria on 10 June. Once the war was over, though, the Soviet Union was satisfied with the state of the Middle East and gave weapons to the Arabs in order to repair relations with them. For the Soviet Union, defeat meant that its position in the Middle East was impaired and its weapons and military training were given a poor reputation.<ref name="Morozov" /> Following this loss, [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] agreed to allow the Soviets to keep military bases in the country.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://data.mongabay.com/history/egypt/egypt-foreign_military_assistance.html|title=Egypt-FOREIGN MILITARY ASSISTANCE|website=data.mongabay.com|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref>

====Egypt====
In 1955, Egypt made an arms deal with [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]].<ref name="Primakov" /> This was technically a deal between Egypt and the Soviet Union because Czechoslovakia had Soviet arms. At this point, Egypt was neutral towards the Soviet Union and made the deal to manipulate the United States into giving it financial aid. The arms deal was the Soviet Union's first step in creating relations with Arab states and gaining a foothold in the Middle East for expansion and domination.<ref name="Primakov" />

US Secretary of State [[John Foster Dulles]] was deeply suspicious of Egyptian president [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]], whom he believed to be a reckless and dangerous [[Arab nationalism|nationalist]].<ref name=aswane>{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-withdraws-offer-of-aid-for-aswan-dam|title=United States withdraws offer of aid for Aswan Dam|website=HISTORY|date=13 November 2009 |accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref> Following Egypt's arms deal with Czechoslovakia, however, others in the Eisenhower administration convinced Dulles that the American aid might pull Nasser back from his relationship with the Soviet Union and prevent the growth of Soviet power in the Middle East.<ref name=aswane /> In December 1955, Secretary Dulles announced that the United States, together with Great Britain, was providing nearly $75 million in [[United States foreign aid|foreign aid]] to Egypt to help in the construction of the [[Aswan Dam]] on the [[Nile|Nile River]].<ref name=aswane /> In response to Nasser's increasing attacks on Western colonialism and imperialism and Egypt's continued alliance with the Soviet Union,<ref name=aswane /> Britain and the United States withdrew funds for the Aswan Dam in July 1956.<ref name=aswane /> That action drove Egypt further toward an alliance with the Soviet Union and was a contributing factor to the Suez Crisis later in 1956.<ref name=aswane /> Nasser responded to the aid cut by nationalizing the Suez Canal and the Soviets then rushed to Egypt's aid;<ref name=aswane /> the Aswan Dam was officially opened in 1964.<ref name=aswane />

During the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Soviet Union sided with Egypt. The USSR viewed the nationalization of the Suez Canal as important to the removal of Western influence from within the Middle East.<ref name="Govrin" /> Additionally, the Soviet Union was willing to fund Egypt because in return, it received access to warm-water ports, which it desperately needed to spread its influence. Though US President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] was also infuriated at the invasion and had successfully brought an end to end to Suez Crisis by pressuring the invading forces to withdraw from Egypt by early 1957,<ref name=aswane /> the United States continued to maintain good relations with Britain, France and Israel and sought to limit Soviet ally Nasser's influence, thus damaging its relations with the Middle East for the next 35 years.<ref name=aswane /> By continuing to side with Egypt, the Soviet Union gained more prestige in the Middle East and succeeded in intimidating its superpower opponent, the United States.<ref name="Govrin" /> Nasser's [[pan-Arab]] influence spread throughout the Middle East and he soon gained a popular image among those who resented Western colonialism. In spite of his alliance with the Soviet Union, Nasser would not sign a military alliance pact with the nation; made efforts to prevent the spread of [[sphere of influence|communism and other foreign influences]] throughout the [[Arab region]] by forming a civil union with Syria known as the [[United Arab Republic]] (UAR)—a nation which he had hoped other Arab states would eventually join as well—in 1958; and was a founding father of the [[Non-Aligned Movement]] in 1961; though the union with Syria collapsed in 1961, Egypt would still be officially known as the United Arab Republic for a while longer.

=====Egypt and Israel=====
By 1969, Nasser had formed an alliance with Jordan's [[Hussein of Jordan|King Hussein]] and started to move towards cementing peace with Israel in exchange for the return of the [[Sinai Peninsula]] and the formation of a [[Palestinian state]] in the [[Gaza Strip]] and [[West Bank]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU_4PYR50ek| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121029142107/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU_4PYR50ek&gl=US&hl=en| archive-date=2012-10-29 | url-status=dead|title=Gamal Abdel Nasser interviewed in English |last=ladyknowz|date=28 June 2012|via=YouTube}}</ref> On 28 September 1970, Nasser died of a heart attack and his vice president [[Anwar Sadat]] succeeded him. Though Sadat sought to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union, he was also willing to consider economic assistance from nations outside the [[Arab region]] and the [[Eastern Bloc]] as well. In 1971, Sadat, hoping to help the nation's economy recover from its losses in the Six-Day War, officially changed the UAR's name back to Egypt and signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union. In 1972, however, the direction of Soviet-Egypt relations changed dramatically when Sadat ordered Soviet military personnel to leave the country.<ref name=dpppqvb>{{cite web|url=https://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/2007/N1524.pdf |title=Notes|website=rand.org|year=2007|access-date=20 June 2023}}</ref> Throughout the remainder of the 1970s, Sadat developed strong relations with the Western powers, repealed Egypt's Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union in March 1976, made [[Egypt–Israel peace treaty|peace with Israel in March 1979]] following the [[Camp David Accords]]—where it was agreed that Israel would depart from the [[Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula|Sinai Peninsula]] in exchange for making the area a [[demilitarized zone]] and that Egypt would not seek claims to a Palestinian state in the [[Gaza Strip]] and [[West Bank]] in exchange for annual economic and military aid from the United States—and distanced Egypt from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union now focused on building relations with its three other principal allies in the Middle East: Syria, Iraq and the [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] (PLO).<ref name=dpppqvb />

====PLO====
In 1964, Nasser and other [[1964 Arab League summit (Cairo)|Arab League in Cairo Summit 1964]] initiated the creation of the [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] to represent the [[Palestinians|Palestinian people]].<ref name="fundingevil">{{Cite web|url=http://eufunding.org.uk/terror/FundingEvil.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304025623/http://eufunding.org.uk/terror/FundingEvil.pdf|url-status=dead|title=Funding Evil, How Terrorism Is Financed – and How to Stop It By Rachel Ehrenfeld|archive-date=4 March 2016}}</ref> Despite establishing ties with the new organization, the Soviet government also feared the PLO would weaken their influence in the Arab region and reacted with skepticism towards the group's leadership.<ref name=ipavatand>{{Cite journal|doi=10.1080/05679327608448456|title=Historical background|journal=The Adelphi Papers|volume=17|issue=131|pages=1–2|year=1976|last1=Golan|first1=Galia}}</ref> Following the Six-Day War, however, Soviet influence would further increase in the Arab region and PLO would follow suit.<ref name=ipavatand /> In March 1968, [[Yasser Arafat]] and his [[Fatah]] organization gained international attention and popularity in the Arab region when it engaged in a [[Battle of Karameh|full-scale battle]] with the [[Israel Defense Forces|Israel Defense Force]] at the city of [[Karameh]] in Jordan, in which 150 Palestinians and 29 Israelis were killed.<ref name=arafatri>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ijs.org.au/Yasser-Arafat/default.aspx|title=Yasser Arafat – Israel & Judaism Studies|accessdate=20 June 2023|archive-date=25 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130425111717/http://www.ijs.org.au/Yasser-Arafat/default.aspx|url-status=dead}}</ref> Two months later, Fatah would join the PLO and Arafat was appointed as the organization's Chairman.<ref name=arafatri /> Under Arafat's leadership, favoritism towards the USSR was firmly established within the ranks of the PLO and the organization would frequently buy Eastern Bloc military equipment to carry out sporadic terrorist attacks against Israel.<ref name=ipavatand />

In 1972, the Soviets declared the PLO the vanguard of the Arab liberation movement.<ref>Golan, ''The Soviet Union and the Palestine Liberation Organization'', pp. 35–36.</ref> Nevertheless, the Soviets still refused to let the PLO influence their standing in the [[Arab-Israeli peace process|Arab–Israeli peace process]] and sought to push their own proposed resolutions before the [[United Nations Security Council|UN Security Council]]. In September 1978, however, Soviet influence over the Arab-Israeli peace progress weakened significantly after Egypt and Israel agreed to make peace with one another during the [[Camp David Accords]]. Afterwards, the [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet General Secretary]], [[Leonid Brezhnev]], declared that "there is only one road" to a real settlement, "the road of full liberation of all Arab lands occupied by Israel in 1967, of full and unambiguous respect for the lawful rights of the Arab people of Palestine, including the right to create their own independent state."<ref>''Soviet World Outlook'', Vol. 3, No. 10, 15 October 1978, p. 4.</ref> At the end of Arafat's visit to Moscow, 29 October to 1 November 1978, the Soviet authorities finally recognized the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."<ref>''Pravda'', 2 November 1978.</ref>

====Syria====
In 1966, the [[Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region]] gained power in a [[1966 Syrian coup d'état|coup d'état]] and intended to cooperate with the USSR.<ref name="McInerney">{{cite journal|jstor=3791681|title=Prospect Theory and Soviet Policy Towards Syria, 1966–1967|first=Audrey|last=McInerney|date=1 January 1992|journal=Political Psychology|volume=13|issue=2|pages=265–282|doi=10.2307/3791681}}</ref> The Soviet Union was willing to take every effort to guarantee stability of the new regime in Syria in order to have support from a Communist regime in the Middle East. Once this regime gained power, the USSR's activity in the Middle East intensified. The USSR encouraged the new Syrian regime and admonished Israel. The USSR wished to gain more dominance in the Middle East, so it aggravated the Arab–Israeli conflict. However, the Soviet Union did not want a war, so it acted to pacify Israel's policy towards Syria. The USSR desired to be the sole defender of the Arab world, and so did everything in its power to increase the Arab states' dependence.<ref name="McInerney" />

On 7 April 1967, Syria executed terrorist attacks on Israel. The attacks were directed at an Israeli tractor working land in the demilitarized area on the [[Syria-Israel Border|Syrian–Israeli border]].<ref name="Morozov" /> Syria and Israel exchanged fire all day. At the end of the battle, Israel had shot down seven Soviet-made [[Syrian Air Force]] aircraft.<ref name="Morozov" /> This was the first air battle between the two nations. The USSR supported Syrian attacks and blamed the violent acts on Israel. Syria did not hesitate to act because it believed that the other Arab states would support it and Israel was not capable of defeating it. In the UAR, the USSR motivated Nasser to have the [[United Nations Emergency Force|UN forces]] leave the [[Sinai Peninsula]] and the [[Gaza Strip]] and to blockade the [[Straits of Tiran]].<ref name="Govrin" /> Like Nasser, the USSR didn't believe that Israel would start a war on its own.<ref name="Govrin" /> Even if Israel did attack, it was unlikely that Israel would be capable of defeating the Arab states. Syria believed that, with the help of the UAR, it could beat Israel. On 11 May, the USSR warned the UAR that Israel troops were gathering on the border with Syria and that an invasion was planned for 18 May to 22 May. At this time, the USSR also began to publish accusations against Israel in order to cement the defensive unity of the UAR and Syria.<ref name="Morozov" />

=====Syria after 1966=====
Since 1966,<ref name="McInerney" /> Syria had obtained most of its military equipment from the Soviet Union.<ref name=vpppav /> In 1971, when [[Syrian Air Force]] Commander [[Hafez al-Assad]] became [[President of Syria]] by way of a coup, he elected to maintain a strategic policy of close cooperation with the Soviet Union.<ref name=jewsyria>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2009/02/28/the-syria-soviet-alliance/|title=The Syria-Soviet Alliance|publisher=Jewish Policy Center|date=28 February 2009}}</ref> The same year, Assad agreed to allow Soviet military personnel to keep a naval base in [[Russian naval facility in Tartus|Tartus]]. In February 1972, Syria signed a peace and security pact with the Soviet Union as a means to strengthen its defense capability.<ref name=jewsyria /> During the year, Moscow delivered more than $135 million in Soviet arms to Damascus.<ref name=jewsyria /> In 1980, Syria signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union.<ref name=vpppav>{{Cite web|url=https://countrystudies.us/syria/68.htm|title=Syria - Relations with the Soviet Union|website=countrystudies.us|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref>

A secret protocol to the treaty reputedly detailed Soviet military obligations to Syria and gave the USSR to power to mandate the dispatch of Soviet troops to Syria in case of an Israeli invasion.<ref name=vpppav /> Syrian defense minister [[Mustafa Tlass]] warned in 1984 that the Soviet Union would dispatch two Soviet airborne divisions to Syria within eight hours in the event of a conflict with Israel.<ref name=vpppav /> Tlas's has also stated that the Soviet Union would use nuclear weapons to protect Syria.<ref name=vpppav /> Tlas's statements, however, were not endorsed by the Soviet Union.<ref name=vpppav /> Syrian–Soviet nuclear cooperation was limited to a February 1983 agreement for cooperation and exchange for peaceful purposes.<ref name=vpppav /> In addition to the PLO, Syria and Iraq, the Soviet Union also developed good relations with [[History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi|Libya]], the [[Yemen Arab Republic]], and [[South Yemen]].

====Iraq====
Between 1958 and 1990, Soviet–Iraqi relations were very strong.<ref name=Russian-IraqiRelations>{{cite news |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_4_23/ai_80966042/pg_1 |title=Russian-Iraqi Relations: A Historical and Political analysis |access-date=4 March 2008 |publisher=findarticles.com |first=Tareq Y. |last=Ismael |year=2001}}</ref> The [[Soviet Union]] established [[diplomatic relations]] with the [[Kingdom of Iraq]] on 9 September 1944.<ref name="mid">{{cite web |script-title=ru:Российско-иракские отношения |publisher=[[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russia)|Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation]] |date=26 May 2008 |url=http://www.mid.ru/ns-rasia.nsf/1083b7937ae580ae432569e7004199c2/6b6d8c7dfa1002eac32571950025525a?OpenDocument |access-date=27 January 2009 |language=ru}}</ref> The regime of King [[Faisal II of Iraq|Faisal II]] was [[anti-communist]] and only established links with Moscow due its dependence on the United Kingdom and the [[Anglo–Soviet Treaty of 1942]]. In January 1955, the Soviet government criticised the Iraqi decision to join the [[Baghdad Pact]], which led to Iraq cutting diplomatic relations with the Soviets. After Faisal II was overthrown in a military coup on [[14 July Revolution|14 July 1958]], the newly proclaimed [[Republic of Iraq]] led by General [[Abd al-Karim Qasim]] re-established relations with the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union began selling arms to Iraq. In 1967, Iraq signed an agreement with the USSR to supply the nation with oil in exchange for large-scale access to Eastern Bloc arms.<ref name=ivapn>{{cite journal|jstor=20690330|title=Iraq and U.S.S.R.: Oil Agreement|date=1 January 1968|journal=International Legal Materials|volume=7|issue=2|pages=307–311|doi=10.1017/S0020782900052517|s2cid=249004473 }}</ref> In 1972, Iraq, by now Moscow's closest Arab ally, signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union.<ref name=soviraq>{{Cite web|url=https://countrystudies.us/iraq/82.htm|title=Iraq - The Soviet Union|website=countrystudies.us|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref>

====Yemen====
The Soviet Union was among the first group of nations to recognize North Yemen following its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1918. On 27 December 1962, two treaties were concluded between the two countries, for setting up a study for economic projects and using soil and ground waters.<ref name=yemrus>{{Cite web|url=https://thenationpress.net/news.php?lid=2&cat=40&newsi=1&newsid=7390|title=الأخبار &#124; شبكة الأمة برس|website=thenationpress.net|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref> In 1963, the Soviet government appointed the first ambassador to the [[Yemen Arab Republic]] (YAR) in [[Sanaa|Sana'a]].<ref name=yemrus /> In September 1963, Russians finished constructing Arrahaba International Airport.<ref name=yemrus /> On 21 March 1964, President of YAR [[Abdullah al-Sallal|Abdullah Assalal]] paid the first visit to Moscow.<ref name=yemrus /> The visit resulted in signing a friendship treaty between the two countries in addition to conducting economic and military relations.<ref name=yemrus />

In 1967, the Soviet Union immediately recognized [[South Yemen]] after it gained independence from Britain.<ref name=yemrus /> In 1969, South Yemen became the first and only avowedly Communist nation in the Middle East. Unaccepted by Muslim nations in the region, South Yemen relied on aid from Communist nations and allowed the Soviets to keep naval bases in the country. In 1972, after a war broke out between the two neighboring Yemen states,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr70/fyemennorthsouthwar1972.htm|title=North South Yemen War 1972|website=www.onwar.com|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref> the Yemen Arab Republic and South Yemen agreed to eventually unify. In October 1979,<ref name=yemaid /> the Soviet Union and South Yemen officially signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.<ref name=nyyem>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/10/world/soviet-and-yemen-sign-20-year-amity-treaty.html | work=The New York Times | title=Soviet and Yemen Sign 20-Year Amity Treaty | date=10 October 1984}}</ref> Despite the aid it now received from the United States following a brief spat with South Yemen between 1978 and 1979,<ref name=yemaid>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mGG-x_tuNUcC&q=south%20yemen%20soviet%20union%20treaty%20of%20friendship&pg=PA727|title=Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan|first=Raymond L.|last=Garthoff|date=1 January 1994|publisher=Brookings Institution|isbn=978-0-8157-3041-5}}</ref> the Yemen Arab Republic would not break with the Soviets<ref name=yemaid /> and later renewed its Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the USSR in October 1984.<ref name=nyyem />

====Libya====
Although Libya was not as firm a Soviet ally as many [[Third World]] Marxist regimes were, Moscow developed close ties with the anti-Western regime of [[Muammar Gaddafi]], who had overthrown Libya's [[Kingdom of Libya|pro-Western monarchy]] in 1969.<ref name=libussr>{{Cite web|url=http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/russian-libyan-rapprochement-what-has-moscow-gained|title=The Russian-Libyan Rapprochement: What Has Moscow Gained &#124; Middle East Policy Council|website=www.mepc.org|date=6 July 2010 |accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref> The number-two Soviet leader at that time, [[Alexei Kosygin]], went to Libya in 1975, and Gaddafi visited Moscow in 1976, 1981 and 1985. Soviet-Libyan trade volume during the 1970s and 1980s was approximately $100 million per year<ref name=libussr /> and relations between the two accelerated between the years 1981 and 1982.<ref name=libya18812 /> During this period, Moscow also supplied $4.6 billion in weaponry to Libya, providing about 90 percent of that country's arms inventory,<ref name=libussr /> and the Gaddafi regime assisted the Soviet Union by playing a key role in preserving the Communist regimes in both [[People's Republic of Angola|Angola]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-8232.html|title=Libya - Relations with Sub-Saharan Africa|website=www.country-data.com|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref> and [[People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia|Ethiopia]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://countrystudies.us/ethiopia/139.htm|title=Ethiopia - Ethiopia's Border Politics|website=countrystudies.us|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref> According to Kommersant, "Libya was one of the Soviet Union's few partners that paid in full for the military equipment it purchased from the USSR,"<ref name=libussr /> though the Gaddafi regime still maintained good relations with the Western nations of France and Italy and refused to sign a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union.<ref name=libya18812>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1KAKByP4hzgC|title=Imagery and Ideology in U.S. Policy Toward Libya 1969–1982|first=Mahmoud|last=Gebril|date=15 December 1988|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Pre|isbn=978-0-8229-7651-6}}</ref> Libya, however, did run up a debt to Moscow during those years.<ref name=libussr />

Throughout much of the Cold War, Syria and Iraq were each ruled by rival fractions of the pan-Arab [[Baath Party]] and the two nations were often tense towards one another despite their close relations with the Soviet Union. Their relationship, which had been lukewarm at best since 1963, started to change in a dramatic fashion when [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]], the [[list of kings of Persia|Shah of Iran]], was [[Iranian Revolution|overthrown in February 1979]] and replaced with the pro-Islamist regime of [[Ayatollah]] [[Ruhollah Khomeini]]. After seizing power, Khomeini established a system of laws which required the mostly [[Shia Islam|Shiite]] population of Iran to follow strict adherence to the [[Twelver]] school of thought. Assad, himself a Shiite, soon formed a strong alliance with Iran and sought to use this new relationship to greatly weaken Iraq.<ref name=uoooqvbu6>{{Cite web|url=https://countrystudies.us/iraq/85.htm|title=Iraq - Iraq and Other Arab Countries|website=countrystudies.us|accessdate=20 June 2023}}</ref> On 16 July 1979, [[Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr]], who had ruled Iraq following a [[17 July Revolution|coup in 1968]], stepped down from power and appointed his cousin [[Saddam Hussein]], a strongly anti-Shiite [[Sunni]], to be his successor and the Syrian government officially closed its embassy in Baghdad soon afterwards.<ref>{{cite news |title=Syria boosts diplomatic ties with Lebanon |url=https://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1015/p04s01-wome.html |quote=The hostility between Syria and Iraq began in the 1960s when both were ruled by rival branches of the Baath Party. Syria closed its embassy in Baghdad after Saddam Hussein took power in 1979. |work=[[Christian Science Monitor]] |date=15 October 2008 |access-date=2012-08-24 }}</ref> In 1980, relations between Iraq and Syria officially broke apart when Syria declared its support for Iran during the [[Iran–Iraq War]] and Hussein, hoping to gain the advantage over Iran, expanded relations with the Western nations and recanted Iraq's previous position towards Israel.<ref name=uoooqvbu6 />{{unrelated}}

====Contradictions====
In December 1979, relations between the Soviet Union and Iraq, though still very strong in private,<ref name=soviraq /> soured greatly in public when Iraq condemned the [[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]].<ref name=soviraq /> After Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980, the Soviet Union, hoping to make Iran a new ally, cut off arms shipments to Iraq (and to Iran) as part of its efforts to induce a cease-fire.<ref name=soviraq /> However, it also allowed Syria to continue to back Iran and ship Libyan and Eastern Bloc weapons to the country as well.<ref>{{cite book|author=Kazem Sajjadpour|chapter=Neutral Statements, Committed Practice: The USSR and the War |editor=Farhang Rajaee |title=Iranian Perspectives on the Iran–Iraq War|publisher=University Press of Florida|year=1997|page=32}}</ref> While Khomeini was strongly anti-American and had demonstrated this sentiment by calling United States "the [[Great Satan]]" and taking [[Iran hostage crisis|US embassy workers hostage]], he also strongly opposed the Soviet Union, labeling the communist belief a threat to Islam; and efforts by the Soviets to make Iran an ally further soured when Khomeini openly declared support the [[Mujahideen|Afghan mujahideen]] during the Soviet–Afghan War and refused to crack down on pro-Afghan protesters who consistently attacked the USSR embassy in Tehran.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K6naU6_WWs8C|title=The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran|first=Aryeh|last=Yodfat|date=28 February 2011|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-61058-2}}</ref> In 1982, when it became clear that Iran would not align with the USSR after the Khomeini regime gained the upper hand in the Iran–Iraq War and invaded Iraqi territory,<ref name=soviraq /> the Soviets resumed regular arm shipments to Iraq,<ref name=soviraq /> but relations between the two nations were still politically strained and would not become strong in public again until early 1988.<ref name=soviraq />

After 1966, a large Soviet military presence developed in Syria.<ref name=vpppav /> Syria eventually became the Soviet military's most favored client not only in the Middle East, but throughout the Third World as well.<ref name=vpppav /> By mid-1984, there were an estimated 13,000 Soviet and East European advisers in Syria.<ref name=vpppav /> Though relations still remained strong,<ref name=vpppav /> the Soviets' stance towards Syria's support for Iran changed dramatically when Iran further advanced into Iraqi territory and drew strong ire from the Soviets as it continued to suppress members of the pro-communist [[Tudeh Party of Iran]].<ref name="Mohiaddin Mesbahi 1993 82">{{cite book|author=Mohiaddin Mesbahi|chapter=The USSR and the Iran–Iraq War: From Brezhnev to Gorbachev |editor=Farhang Rajaee |title=The Iran–Iraq War: The Politics of Aggression |publisher=University Press of Florida|year=1993|page=82}}</ref> As a result, many of the advisers were withdrawn in 1985 and between 2,000 and 5,000 remained by 1986.<ref name=vpppav /> In February 1986, Iran successfully [[Operation Dawn 8|captured]] the [[Al-Faw Peninsula]] and the Soviet Union's stance in the [[Iran–Iraq War]] completely shifted towards Iraq.<ref name="Mohiaddin Mesbahi 1993 82" />

The Soviet Union's foreign policy in the Middle East was contradictory. While the USSR first supported Israel, this relationship soon disintegrated as the Soviet Union felt threatened by Israel's need for security from the United States. The USSR turned to other Arab states in order to gain influence in the Arab world and to eliminate Western influence. The USSR viewed the Arab states as more important than Israel because they could help the USSR achieve its goal of spreading Communist influence. The USSR chose to support Egypt and Syria with arms in order to demonstrate its domination. The Soviet Union manipulated the Arab states against Israel in order to increase their dependence on the Soviet Union and to discourage Western powers from assisting Israel.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Tines |first=Bernard Gwertzman Special to The New York |date=1973-10-10 |title=U. S. Says Moscow Bids Other Arabs Aid Egypt and Syria |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/10/archives/u-s-says-moscow-bids-other-arabs-alidegypt-and-syria-us-says-soviet.html |access-date=2023-07-09 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Holbik |first1=Karel |last2=Drachman |first2=Edward |date=1971 |title=Egypt as Recipient of Soviet Aid, 1955-1970 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40749433 |journal=Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft / Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics |volume=127 |issue=1 |pages=137–165 |jstor=40749433 |issn=0044-2550}}</ref>

===Americas===

====Cuba====
{{Main|Cuba–Soviet Union relations}}

After the establishment of diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union after the [[Cuban Revolution]] of 1959, [[Cuba]] became increasingly dependent on Soviet markets and military aid and was an ally of the Soviet Union during the [[Cold War]]. In 1972, Cuba joined the Comecon, an economic organization of states designed to create co-operation among the communist [[planned economies]], which was dominated by its largest economy, the Soviet Union. Moscow kept in regular contact with [[Havana]] and shared varying close relations until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.  Cuba then entered an era of serious economic hardship, the [[Special Period]].

====Grenada====
{{Main|Grenada–Soviet Union relations}}

Diplomatic relations between Grenada and the Soviet Union were severed in November 1983 by the Governor General of Grenada. Eventually in 2002, Grenada re-established diplomatic relations with the newly formed Russian Federation.<ref>[http://www.rusembassyguyana.org.gy/bilateral/rgren.html Embassy of the Russian Federation in Georgetown, Guyana – Bilateral relations between Grenada and Russia] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721084842/http://www.rusembassyguyana.org.gy/bilateral/rgren.html |date=2011-07-21 }}</ref>

====United States====
{{Main|Soviet Union–United States relations}}
Through even the toughest and most stagnant parts of the Cold War, diplomatic relations were still kept and even sought after between the United States and the Soviet Union. Whether for peace-making reasons or for negotiations, these agreements played a vital role in the Cold War.

===== Space Race =====
{{Main|Space Race}}

Between the years 1957 and 1958, US President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] sought cooperative US-Soviet space initiatives through a series of letters directed at Soviet leadership. These Soviet recipients included [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|First Secretary of the Communist Party]] [[Nikita Khrushchev]] and [[Premier of the Soviet Union|Chairman of the Council of Ministers]] [[Nikolai Bulganin]]. In these letters, Eisenhower suggested a protocol for peaceful space use. However, Khrushchev rejected the offer, feeling that his country was ahead of the United States in space-related technology after the successful launch of [[Sputnik 1]] on 4 October 1957.<ref>Sagdeev, Roland. "United States-Soviet Space Cooperation during the Cold War". ''NASA''.</ref>

Despite the continued space competition between the United States and USSR, Khrushchev wrote a letter to US president [[John F. Kennedy]] detailing the possibility of future space cooperation between the two sworn rivals after American [[John Glenn]] became the first American to orbit Earth on 20 February 1962. These discussions between the Soviet Union and the United States led to cooperation in three areas: weather data and future meteorology-related launches, the mapping of the [[Earth's magnetic field|geomagnetic field]] of the Earth, and the relay of communication.<ref name=":2" />

The reaction to the [[Apollo 11|United States landing the first humans on the Moon]] in the Soviet Union was mixed. The Soviet government limited the release of information about the lunar landing, which affected the reaction. A portion of the populace did not give it any attention, and another portion was angered by it.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apollo-moon-khrushchev/|title=The Moon Landing through Soviet Eyes: A Q&A with Sergei Khrushchev, son of former premier Nikita Khrushchev|magazine=Scientific American|date=16 July 2009|access-date=7 January 2019|last1=Das|first1=Saswato R.|archive-date=25 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225085952/http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apollo-moon-khrushchev/|url-status=live}}</ref>

===India===
{{Main|India–Soviet Union relations}}
{{see also|Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation}}

The relationship between the Soviet Union and India was a significant part of the Cold War. Both political and scientific in nature, this cooperation lasted for nearly 40 years. Over this span of nearly four decades, Soviet-Indian relations maintained through three pairs of leaders—[[Jawaharlal Nehru]] and [[Nikita Khrushchev]], [[Indira Gandhi]] and [[Leonid Brezhnev]], and [[Rajiv Gandhi]] and [[Mikhail Gorbachev]].<ref>Mastny, Vojtech (Summer 2010). "The Soviet Union's Partnership with India". ''Journal of Cold War Studies''. '''12'''.</ref> This Indo-Soviet relationship can be seen being stemmed from India's distrust and general unsatisfactory feeling towards [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]'s administration's insistence that Third World countries could not remain neutral during the Cold War and with American hesitation to consult with their governments on issues pertinent to these countries.<ref>Arms, Thomas (1994). ''Encyclopedia of the Cold War''. New York, NY: Facts On File. p. 45. {{ISBN|978-0816019755}}.</ref>

India's pro-Soviet stance was professed when the government of Indira Gandhi broke with the rest of the non-communist world to embrace and support the [[Operation Storm-333|Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]] at the UN General Assembly, despite earlier comments criticizing the operation.<ref>{{cite news| url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/01/12/india-supports-soviets-afghan-position-in-un-debate/17dd1eb5-93f9-44bf-9f95-ecda7285843c/| title = India Supports Soviets' Afghan Position in U.N. Debate – The Washington Post| newspaper = [[The Washington Post]]}}</ref> The former ambassador, [[Inder Kumar Gujral]], commented that the deep involvement of Pakistan in mobilizing the [[Afghan mujahideen]] was a concern for Indian security and stability, while also expressing India's "friendship" with the Soviets.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.associationdiplomats.org/Publications/ifaj/Vol1/1.1/1.1%20-%20Oral%20History%20-%20India%E2%80%99s%20Response%20to%20the%20Soviet%20Military%20Intervention%20in%20Afghanistan%20-%20IKGujral.pdf|title=Oral History|website=associationdiplomats.org|access-date=20 June 2023|archive-date=25 June 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240625094740/http://www.associationdiplomats.org/Publications/ifaj/Vol1/1.1/1.1%20-%20Oral%20History%20-%20India%E2%80%99s%20Response%20to%20the%20Soviet%20Military%20Intervention%20in%20Afghanistan%20-%20IKGujral.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> India was also the only country outside the Soviet bloc to fully recognize the [[People's Republic of Kampuchea]] after the [[Cambodian–Vietnamese War|Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/20/world/cambodia-dropped-from-india-parley.html |title = CAMBODIA DROPPED FROM INDIA PARLEY – The New York Times|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 20 December 1982}}</ref>

====Space cooperation====
Scientific cooperation between the Soviet Union and India began with the formal establishment of an Indo-Soviet Joint Committee of Scientists, which held its first meeting in January 1968.<ref name=":0">Thakur, Ramesh (1992). ''Soviet Relations with India and Vietnam''. Springer. p. 75. {{ISBN|9781349093731}}.</ref>

The Soviet Union was a major contributor to India's space effort. Most notably, Soviet technical assistance in design and launching was paramount to the success of Indian satellites [[Aryabhata (satellite)|Aryabhata]], [[Bhaskara (satellite)|Bhaskara-I]] and [[Bhaskara (satellite)|Bhaskara-II]].<ref name=":1">"Soviet Space Cooperation with India". ''www.globalsecurity.org''. Retrieved 2019-04-18.</ref> When considering India's reputation for poverty and food insecurity at the time, outsiders began to wonder if India belonged to such a prestigious group of nations, or if it was only given the opportunity by the Soviet Union.

Work on [[Aryabhata (satellite)|A'ryabhata]] began following an agreement between the [[Indian Space Research Organisation|Indian Space Research Organization]] and the [[Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union|USSR Academy of Sciences]] in May 1972. On 19 April 1975, less than one year after India's first successful [[Nuclear weapon|nuclear bomb]] [[Nuclear weapons testing|test]] on 18 May 1974, the Soviet Union helped launch India's first satellite [[Aryabhata (satellite)|Aryabhata]] from [[Kapustin Yar]], a [[Russia]]n rocket launch and development site in [[Astrakhan Oblast]] using a [[Kosmos-3M]] launch vehicle. It was built by the ISRO, but the Soviets provided technical assistance and components such as solar cells, batteries, thermal paints, and tape recorders to aid in its proposed 6 month solar and atmospheric studies.<ref name=":1" /> Though the satellite was expected to perform solar and atmospheric studies for 6 months, the experiments had to be closed down after 5 days due to a power supply problem.

On 7 June 1979, Bhaskara-I was launched from [[Kapustin Yar]] aboard the C-1 Intercosmos Launch Vehicle.<ref name=":0" />

On 20 November 1981, Bhaskara-II was launched, providing nearly two thousand photos for ocean and land surface data.<ref name=":0" />

In April 1985, the [[Indian National Science Academy]] and the [[Russian Academy of Sciences|Soviet Academy of Sciences]] signed an agreement for joint research in applied mathematics and technology such as computer electronics, biotechnology, and silicon technology. On 21 March 1987, following [[Rajiv Gandhi]]'s visit to the Soviet Union, a protocol for cooperation in science and technology were signed, leading to new initiatives in laser technology, alternative energy sources, and electron accelerators.<ref name=":0" />

===Break with China===
{{Main|Sino-Soviet split|History of Sino-Russian relations}}
The Sino-Soviet split (1956–1966) was the breaking of political relations between the [[People's Republic of China]] (PRC) and the USSR, caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of [[Marxism–Leninism]], as influenced by their respective geopolitics during the Cold War.<ref name="World History 2000. p. 769">''Chambers Dictionary of World History'', B.P. Lenman, T. Anderson editors, Chambers: Edinburgh:2000. p. 769.</ref> In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sino-Soviet debates about the interpretation of [[Orthodox Marxism]] became specific disputes about the Soviet Union's policies of national [[de-Stalinization]] and international [[peaceful coexistence]] with the Western world. Against that political background, the international relations of the PRC featured official belligerence towards the West, and an initial, public rejection of the Soviet Union's policy of peaceful coexistence between the Eastern and Western blocs, which Mao Zedong said was [[Marxist revisionism]] by the Russian Communists.<ref name="World History 2000. p. 769"/>

Beginning in 1956, after Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin and Stalinism in the speech ''[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|On the Cult of Personality and its Consequences]]'' (25 February 1956), the PRC and the USSR had progressively divergent interpretations of Marxist ideology; by 1961, their intractable differences of ideologic interpretation and praxis provoked the PRC's formal denunciation of [[Soviet communism]] as the work of "revisionist traitors" in the USSR.<ref name="World History 2000. p. 769"/> Among the [[Eastern Bloc]] countries, the Sino-Soviet split was about who would lead the revolution for [[world communism]], China or Russia, and to whom would the [[Vanguardism|vanguard parties]] of the world turn for political advice, financial aid, and military assistance.<ref name=":2">Robert A. Scalapino, "Sino-Soviet Competition in Africa", ''Foreign Affairs'' (1964) 42#4, pp. 640–654 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20029719 in JSTOR] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009092822/https://www.jstor.org/stable/20029719 |date=9 October 2018 }}</ref> In that vein, the USSR and the PRC competed for ideological leadership through the communist parties native to the countries in their spheres of influence.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Scalapino |first1=Robert A. |year=1964 |title=Sino-Soviet Competition in Africa |journal=Foreign Affairs |volume=42 |issue=4|pages=640–654 |jstor=20029719|doi=10.2307/20029719 }}</ref>

The Sino-Soviet split transformed the geopolitics of the bi-polar cold war into a tri-polar cold war, and facilitated Sino-American rapprochement and the [[1972 Nixon visit to China]]. It ended the era of "monolithic communism". Historically, the ideological Sino-Soviet split facilitated the Marxist–Leninist ''[[Realpolitik]]'' by which Mao established the [[Three worlds theory|tri-polar geopolitics]] (PRC-USA-USSR) of the late-period Cold War.

Historian Lorenz M. Lüthi said: 
:The Sino–Soviet split was one of the key events of the Cold War, equal in importance to the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Second Vietnam War, and Sino-American Rapprochement. The split helped to determine the framework of the second half of the Cold War in general, and influenced the course of the Second Vietnam War, in particular. Like a nasty divorce, it left bad memories and produced myths of innocence on both sides.<ref>{{cite book|author=Lorenz M. Lüthi|title=The Sino–Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dl4TRDxqexMC|year=2010|publisher=Princeton UP|page=1|isbn=978-1400837625}}</ref>

===Relations with Southeast Asian states===
The Soviet Union gradually became heavily involved in the contest for influence in [[Southeast Asia]]. Although the Soviet Union is usually associated with its diplomatic support for [[North Vietnam]] during [[the Vietnam War]], it also played a significant role in other Southeast Asian countries. Prior to the rise of President Suharto, the Soviet Union's largest recipient of arms aid between 1958 and 1965 was [[Indonesia]].

==The 1970s onward==
{{Main|Détente}}

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union achieved rough nuclear parity with the United States, and surpassed it by the end of that decade with the deployment of the [[SS-18]] missile. It perceived its own involvement as essential to the solution of any major international problem. Meanwhile, the [[Cold War]] gave way to ''[[Détente]]'' and a more complicated pattern of international relations in which the world was no longer clearly split into two clearly opposed blocs. Less powerful countries had more room to assert their independence, and the two superpowers were partially able to recognize their common interest in trying to check the further spread and proliferation of nuclear weapons (''see'' [[SALT I]], [[SALT II]], [[Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty]]).

[[File:Ford signing accord with Brehznev, November 24, 1974.jpg|left|thumbnail|200px|[[Leonid Brezhnev]] meets with [[Gerald Ford]] in [[Vladivostok]] in November 1974 to sign a joint [[communiqué]] on the [[Strategic Arms Limitation Talks|SALT]] treaty.]]

Elsewhere the Soviet Union had concluded friendship and cooperation treaties with a number of states in the non-communist world, especially among Third World and [[Non-Aligned Movement]] states. Notwithstanding some ideological obstacles, Moscow advanced state interests by gaining military footholds in strategically important areas throughout the Third World. Furthermore, the USSR continued to provide military aid for revolutionary movements in the Third World. For all these reasons, Soviet foreign policy was of major importance to the non-communist world and helped determine the tenor of international relations.

Although myriad bureaucracies were involved in the formation and execution of Soviet foreign policy, the major policy guidelines were determined by the Politburo of the Communist Party. The foremost objectives of Soviet foreign policy had been the maintenance and enhancement of national security and the maintenance of hegemony over Eastern Europe. Relations with the United States and Western Europe were also of major concern to Soviet foreign policy makers and, much as with the United States, relations with individual Third World states were at least partly determined by the proximity of each state to the border and to estimates of strategic significance.

==Gorbachev and after==
{{Further|Sinatra Doctrine}}
[[File:President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in Red Square during the Moscow Summit.jpg|thumb|190px|Gorbachev and [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] in Moscow during the [[Moscow Summit (1988)|Moscow Summit]], 31 May 1988]]

When [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] succeeded [[Konstantin Chernenko]] as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985, it signaled a dramatic change in Soviet foreign policy. Gorbachev put forth the doctrine of "[[new political thinking]]", which in part pursued conciliatory policies toward the West instead of maintaining the Cold War status quo. The USSR exited Afghanistan after its unsuccessful [[Soviet-Afghan war|10-year war against the country]], signed strategic arms reduction treaties with the United States. It did not attempt to stop the successful effort of all the East European satellite nations to declare their independence and expel the Soviet Union-dominated leadership, 
issues about the status and borders of Germany were addressed in 1990, when the Soviet Union, along with the United States, Britain and France, signed a [[Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany|treaty on German reunification]] with the two German governments. After extensive negotiations, West Germany absorbed East Germany, with large cash payments made to Moscow. After the final dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, [[Russia]] became the legal successor to the Soviet Union on the international stage, and in terms of treaties and agreements. Under [[Boris Yeltsin]], Russian foreign policy solicited Western support for capitalist reforms in post-Soviet Russia.
== Foreign relations of the Post-Soviet states ==
{{div col|colwidth=15em}}
* {{flagicon|Armenia}} [[Foreign relations of Armenia|Armenia]]
* {{flagicon|Azerbaijan}} [[Foreign relations of Azerbaijan|Azerbaijan]]
* {{flagicon|Belarus}} [[Foreign relations of Belarus|Belarus]]
* {{flagicon|Estonia}} [[Foreign relations of Estonia|Estonia]]
* {{flagicon|Georgia (country)}} [[Foreign relations of Georgia|Georgia]]
* {{flagicon|Kazakhstan}} [[Foreign relations of Kazakhstan|Kazakhstan]]
* {{flagicon|Kyrgyzstan}} [[Foreign relations of Kyrgyzstan|Kyrgyzstan]]
* {{flagicon|Latvia}} [[Foreign relations of Latvia|Latvia]]
* {{flagicon|Lithuania}} [[Foreign relations of Lithuania|Lithuania]]
* {{flagicon|Moldova}} [[Foreign relations of Moldova|Moldova]]
* {{flagicon|Russia}} [[Foreign relations of Russia|Russia]]
* {{flagicon|Tajikistan}} [[Foreign relations of Tajikistan|Tajikistan]]
* {{flagicon|Turkmenistan}} [[Foreign relations of Turkmenistan|Turkmenistan]]
* {{flagicon|Ukraine}} [[Foreign relations of Ukraine|Ukraine]]
* {{flagicon|Uzbekistan}} [[Foreign relations of Uzbekistan|Uzbekistan]]
{{div col end}}
==See also==
* [[Foreign relations of Russia]]
* [[History of the Soviet Union]]
* [[History of Sino-Russian relations]]
** [[Sino-Soviet split]]
* {{section link|Soviet Union|Foreign relations}}
* [[Soviet Union–United States relations]]
* [[Foreign relations of Nazi Germany]], 1933-1941
* [[Diplomatic history of World War II]]
* [[Ministry of External Relations (Soviet Union)|Ministry of External Relations]]
* {{section link|Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War|Foreign policy}}
* {{section link|Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War|International involvement in the Revolution and Civil War}}
* {{section link|Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union|Foreign policy and external relations}}
* {{section link|Bibliography of the Post Stalinist Soviet Union|Foreign policy}}
* [[Dates of establishment of diplomatic relations with the USSR]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Bellamy, Chris. ''Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War'' (2008), 880pp [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375724710/ excerpt and text search]
* Beloff, Max. ''The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia: 1929–1941'' (1949) [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.84434 online].
* Butler, Susan.  ''Roosevelt and Stalin'' (2015) [https://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt-Stalin-Partnership-Susan-Butler/dp/0307741818/ excerpt]
* {{cite journal | last1 = Carley | first1 = Michael Jabara | year = 2000 | title = Episodes from the Early Cold War: Franco-Soviet Relations, 1917–1927 | journal = Europe-Asia Studies | volume = 52 | issue = 7| pages = 1275–1305 | doi=10.1080/713663134| s2cid = 154700868 }}
* Crozier, Brian. ''The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire'' (1999), long detailed popular history
* Dallin, David J. ''Soviet Russia and the Far East'' (1949) [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.52766/page/n3 online] on China and Japan
* Feis, Herbert. ''Churchill Roosevelt Stalin: The War They Waged and the Peace They Sought: A Diplomatic History of World War II'' (1957), by a senior official of the U.S. State Department [https://archive.org/details/churchillrooseve00feis online ]
* Fischer, Louis. ''Russia's Road from Peace to War: Soviet Foreign Relations 1917–1941'' (1969) [https://archive.org/details/russiasroadfromp00fisc Online ]; replaces previous histories by Fisher. 
* Gaddis, John Lewis, ed. ''Russia, Soviet Union & the United States: an Interpretive History'' (1978)
* Herring Jr., George C. ''Aid to Russia, 1941–1946: Strategy, Diplomacy, the Origins of the Cold War'' (1973)
* Jacobson, Jon. ''When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics'' (1994), on 1920s [https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft009nb0bb;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print online]
* Jelavich, Barbara. ''St. Petersburg and Moscow: Czarist and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1814–1974'' (1974), scholarly survey [https://archive.org/details/stpetersburgmosc00barb online]
* Keeble, Curtis. ''Britain and the Soviet Union, 1917–89'' (1990).
* Kennan, George F. ''Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin'' (1961)
* Kershaw, Ian, and Moshe Lewin. ''Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison'' (2004) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521565219/ excerpt and text search]
* [[Josef Korbel|Korbel, Josef]]. ''Poland Between East and West: Soviet and German Diplomacy toward Poland, 1919–1933'' (Princeton University Press, 1963) [https://archive.org/details/polandbetweeneas0000jose online]
* Kotkin, Stephen. ''Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928'' (2014), v 1 of major biography
** Kotkin, ''Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941'' (2017), v 2 of major biography
* Librach, Jan. ''The Rise of the Soviet Empire: A Study of Soviet Foreign Policy'' (Praeger, 1965) [https://archive.org/details/riseofsovietempi00libr online], a scholarly history
* McKenzie, David. ''From Messianism to Collapse: Soviet Foreign Policy 1917–1991'' (1994), university textbook. 
* McNeill, William Hardy. ''America, Britain, and Russia: their co-operation and conflict, 1941–1946'' (1953)
* Materski, Wojciech. "The Second Polish Republic in Soviet Foreign Policy (1918–1939)." ''Polish Review'' 45.3 (2000): 331–345. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25779203 online]
* Moore, Harriet L. ''Soviet Far Eastern Policy, 1931–1945'' (Princeton UP, 1945). [https://dspace.gipe.ac.in/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10973/35891/GIPE-013397.pdf?sequence=3 online]
* {{cite journal|jstor=260606|title=Lend-Lease and the Soviet War Effort|first=Roger|last=Munting|year=1984|journal=Journal of Contemporary History|volume=19|issue=3|pages=495–510|doi=10.1177/002200948401900305|s2cid=159466422}}
* Nekrich, Aleksandr Moiseevich. ''Pariahs, partners, predators: German-Soviet relations, 1922-1941'' (Columbia University Press, 1997).
* Neilson, Keith. ''Britain, Soviet Russia and the collapse of the Versailles order, 1919–1939'' (Cambridge UP, 2005) [http://www.langtoninfo.com/web_content/9780521857130_frontmatter.pdf excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171226235431/http://www.langtoninfo.com/web_content/9780521857130_frontmatter.pdf |date=26 December 2017 }}.
* Overy, Richard. ''The road to war'' (2009) pp 245-300 for 1930s. [https://archive.org/details/roadtowar0000over_b8e1/page/n6/mode/1up  online]
* Quested, Rosemary K. I. ''Sino-Russian relations: a short history'' (Routledge, 2014) [https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315018898 online]
* Roberts, Geoffrey. ''The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War'' (Palgrave, 1995) [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24124-8_7 The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War: Russo-German Relations and the Road to War, 1933–1941]
* Rubinstein, Alvin Z. ''Soviet foreign policy since World War II'' (1989) [https://archive.org/details/sovietforeignpol00rubi online]
* Service, Robert. ''Comrades! A history of world communism'' (2007).
* Service, Robert. ''Stalin: A Biography'' (2004) [https://archive.org/details/stalinbiography00serv_0 online ]
* Service, Robert. ''Lenin: A biography'' (2000) [https://archive.org/details/leninabiography00serv online * Service, Robert. ''A history of Twentieth-century Russia'' (1997)] [https://archive.org/details/historyoftwentie00serv online borrow]
* Shen, Zhihua, ed. ''A Short History of Sino-Soviet Relations, 1917–1991'' (Springer Singapore;Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973'', 2nd ed. (1974), a standard scholarly history [https://archive.org/details/expansioncoexist00adam online]
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Stalin'' (1973), a scholarly biography; [https://archive.org/details/stalinmanhisera00ulam oonline ]
* Ulam, Adam B. '' The Communists: the story of power and lost illusions, 1948–1991'' (1992) [https://archive.org/details/communistsstoryo0000ulam_r2n5 online]
* Weeks, Albert Loren. ''Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II'' (2004) [https://books.google.com/books?id=z3hP33KprskC&q=intitle:lend+intitle:lease excerpt and text search]
* Wheeler-Bennett, John W. "Twenty Years of Russo-German Relations: 1919–1939" ''Foreign Affairs'' 25#1 (1946), pp. 23–43 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20030017 online]
[[File:Cold war europe military alliances map en.png|thumb|right|300px|Cold War European Military Alliances]]

===Cold War===
{{Main|List of primary and secondary sources on the Cold War}}

* Dallin, David. ''Soviet foreign policy after Stalin'' (1961) [https://archive.org/details/sovietforeignpol00dall online]
* Dobbs, Michael. ''One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War'' (2008) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400043581/ excerpt and text search]
* Donaldson, Robert, and Joseph L. Nogee ''The Foreign Policy of Russia: Changing Systems, Enduring Interests'' (4th ed. 2015), emphasis on Putin years
* Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali. '' Khrushchev's Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary'' (2007) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/03330729/ excerpt and text search]
* Garthoff, Raymond L. ''Détente and confrontation: American-Soviet relations from Nixon to Reagan'' (2nd ed. 1994) covers 1969 to 1980. [https://archive.org/details/detenteconfronta00raym online ]
* Garthoff, Raymond L. ''The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War'' (1994), In-depth scholarly history, 1981 to 1991.
* Goldgeier, James M. ''Leadership style and Soviet foreign policy : Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev'' (1994) [https://archive.org/details/leadershipstyles0000gold online]
* Goncharov, Sergei, John Lewis and Litai Xue, ''Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao and the Korean War'' (1993) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0804725217/ excerpt and text search]
* Haslam, Jonathan. ''Russia's Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall'' (2012)
* Jelavich, Barbara. ''St.Petersburg and Moscow: Czarist and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1814–1974'' (1974), Scholarly survey
* Keeble, Curtis. ''Britain and the Soviet Union, 1917–89'' (1990).
* Kennan, George F. ''Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin'' (1961)
* Leffler, Melvyn P. ''For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War'' (2008) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374531420/ excerpt and text search]
* Librach, Jan. ''The Rise of the Soviet Empire: A Study of Soviet Foreign Policy'' (Praeger, 1965) [https://archive.org/details/riseofsovietempi00libr online], a scholarly history
* Lund, Aron. "From cold war to civil war: 75 years of Russian-Syrian relations." (Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 2019) [https://www.ui.se/globalassets/ui.se-eng/publications/ui-publications/2019/ui-paper-no.-7-2019.pdf online]
* [[Vojtech Mastny (historian)|Mastny, Vojtech]]. ''Russia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, 1941–1945'' (1979)
* [[Vojtech Mastny (historian)|Mastny, Vojtech]]. ''The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years'' (1998) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195126599/ excerpt and text search]
* Mastny, Vojtech, and Malcolm Byrne. ''A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955–1991'' (2005)
* Nogee, Joseph L. and Robert Donaldson. ''Soviet Foreign Policy Since World War II '' (4th ed. 1992)
* Ouimet, Matthew J. ''The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy'' (2003)<
* Roberts, Geoffrey. ''Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953'' (2006).
* Roberts, Geoffrey. ''Molotov: Stalin's Cold Warrior'' (2012)
* Saivetz, Carol R. and Sylvia Babus Woodby, eds. ''Soviet-third World Relations'' (1985) 
* Schulz, Brigitte and William W. Hansen, eds.'' The Soviet Bloc And The Third World: The Political Economy Of East-south Relations'' (1989)
* Service, Robert. ''Comrades!: A history of world communism'' (2007).
* Service, Robert. ''Stalin: A Biography'' (2004) [https://archive.org/details/stalinbiography00serv_0 online ]
* Service, Robert. ''A history of Twentieth-century Russia'' (1997) [https://archive.org/details/historyoftwentie00serv online ]
* [[Taubman, William]]. ''[[Khrushchev: The Man and His Era]]'' (2004), Pulitzer Prize; [https://archive.org/details/khrushchevmanhis00taub online]
* Taubman, William. ''Gorbachev: His Life and Times'' (2017).
* Taubman, William. ''Stalin's American Policy: From Entente to Détente to Cold War'' (W W Norton & Company, 1982) [https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-American-Policy-Entente-Detente/dp/0393301303 excerpt]
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973'', 2nd ed. (1974), a standard scholarly history [https://archive.org/details/expansioncoexist00adam online]
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Dangerous relations: the Soviet Union in world politics, 1970–1982'' (Oxford UP, 1984). [https://archive.org/details/dangerousrelatio0000ulam online]
* Ulam, Adam B. ''The Rivals: America and Russia Since World War II'' (1971) Current survey by an expert, but did not have access to the important documents opened after 1989. [https://archive.org/details/rivalsamericarus00ulam online]
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Stalin'' (1973), an older scholarly biography; [https://archive.org/details/stalinmanhisera00ulam oonline ]
* Vasiliev, Alexey. ''Russia's Middle East Policy: From Lenin to Putin'' (Routledge, 2018).
* Weiner, Tim. ''The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945–2020'' (2020); Pulitzer Prize [https://www.amazon.com/Folly-Glory-America-Political-1945-2020/dp/1627790853/ excerpt]
* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev'' (2007) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0807830984/ excerpt and text search]

===Historiography===
* Johnston, Robert H., ed. ''Soviet Foreign Policy 1918–1945: A Guide to Research and Research Materials'' (2nd ed. Scholarly Resources, 1991) 236 pp [https://archive.org/details/sovietforeignpol0000john online]
* Resnick, Evan N. "Hang Together or Hang Separately? Evaluating Rival Theories of Wartime Alliance Cohesion." ''Security Studies'' 22.4 (2013): 672–706. On World War II
* Sakwa, Richard. " The Soviet collapse: Contradictions and neo-modernisation" ''[[Journal of Eurasian Studies]]'' 4 (2013) 65–77 [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:bwJx4wmrTm0J:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=1,27&scillfp=16881460059992716107&oi=lle online]
* Timberlake, Charles E. "Russian American Contacts, 1917–1937" ''Pacific Northwest Quarterly'' 61.4 (1970): 217–221. 
* Ulam, Adam B. ''Understanding the Cold War: a historian's personal reflections'' (2nd ed 2002). [https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Cold-War-Historians-Reflections/dp/0765808854 excerpt]

===Primary sources===
* Butler, Susan.  ''My Dear Mr. Stalin: The Complete Correspondence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph V. Stalin'' (Yale UP, 2015).
* Degras, Jane T. ''The Communist International, 1919–43'' (3 Vols. 1956); documents; [https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/documents/volume1-1919-1922.pdf online vol 1 1919–22]; [https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/documents/volume2-1923-1928.pdf vol 2 1923–28] (PDF).
* Degras, Jane Tabrisky. ed. ''Soviet documents on foreign policy'' (1978).
* Eudin, Xenia Joukoff, and Harold Henry Fisher, eds. ''Soviet Russia and the West, 1920–1927: A Documentary Survey'' (Stanford University Press, 1957) [https://archive.org/details/sovietrussiawest00eudi/page/n3 online ]
* Eudin, Xenia Joukoff; North, Robert Carver, eds. ''Soviet Russia and the East, 1920–1927; a documentary survey'' (Stanford University Press, 1957) [https://archive.org/details/sovietrussiaeas00eudi online ]
* Goldwin, Robert A., Gerald Stourzh, Marvin Zetterbaum, eds. ''Readings in Russian Foreign Policy'' (1959) 800pp;  long essays from primary and secondary sources
* Gruber, Helmut. ''International Communism in the Era of Lenin: A Documentary History'' (Cornell University Press, 1967)
* Khrushchev, Nikita. ''Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev'', edited by his son Sergei N. Khrushchev ''Volume 3: Statesman, 1953–1964'' (2007), 1176pp [http://www.psupress.psu.edu/books/titles/978-0-271-02935-1.html contents]
* [[Ivan Maisky|Maisky, Ivan.]] ''The Maisky Diaries: The Wartime Revelations of Stalin's Ambassador in London'' edited by [[Gabriel Gorodetsky]], (Yale UP, 2016); highly revealing commentary 1934–43; [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0300180675/ excerpts]; abridged from 3 volume Yale edition; [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/20/the-miasky-diaries-review online review]
* Molotov, V.M. ''[[Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics]]'' ed. by Felix Chuev and [[Albert Resis]] (2007)
{{Country study}}
* Source: [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html Soviet Union]

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060224162702/http://axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=461 The Kremlin's Envoy, Who Rejected the Iranian Revolution]
* [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.browse&sort=Collection&item=Soviet%20Foreign%20Policy The CWIHP at the Wilson Center for Scholars: Collection of Primary Documents Dealing with Soviet Foreign Policy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090101173309/http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.browse&sort=Collection&item=Soviet%20Foreign%20Policy |date=1 January 2009 }}

{{Foreign relations of the Soviet Union}}
{{Soviet Union–United States relations|state=collapsed}}
{{Foreign relations of former countries}}
{{Soviet Union topics}}
{{Foreign relations of Europe}}
{{Asia in topic|Foreign relations of}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Foreign relations of the Soviet Union| ]]
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