The victory of the October Revolution and the establishment of the first workers’ state in the world, the USSR, created a new reality regarding international relations as well. Until then, the various types of states —slave-owning, feudal, and capitalist— pursued a foreign policy, which, as a result of domestic conditions, corresponded to the interests of the exploitative classes each time. On the contrary, the foreign policy basically followed by the Soviet Union was qualitatively different from that of capitalist countries, since its criterion was not the satisfaction of the interests of the capitalist monopolies and the bourgeois exploitative classes but of the working class, which had seized power by overthrowing the power of capital. For the first time in history, the workers across the world found a firm ally in the Soviet Union and its foreign policy in their struggle against imperialist war, for workers’ and social rights, in the struggle for socialism.

Undoubtedly, this foreign policy bore the stamp of both the positive elements of workers’ power as well as the negative elements of the international negative correlation of forces, together with the deviations and mistakes made by workers’ power domestically, particularly after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which eventually led to its overthrow. Nevertheless, these latter issues cannot negate the internationalist contribution of the USSR. Their study and the drawing of useful conclusions is a precondition for the preparation of the subjective factor, so that under revolutionary conditions, firm and decisive steps are taken for the new revolutionary construction of the new society, the communist one.

This article cannot provide exhaustive responses on all issues, however it intends to introduce the reader to both the internationalist contribution of the USSR, which today is under attack by bourgeois anti-communist forces and distorted by opportunist forces, as well as the examination of subjective mistakes and weaknesses. We seek to stick, as far as possible, to the issues of international relations and the foreign policy of the USSR, even though we are aware that they are entangled with the ideological and political directions of the CPSU as well as its internal developments.

Since its first hours, the workers’ power expressed its opposition to imperialist war. The “Decree on Peace” of the workers’ government characterized the continuation of the First World War as “the greatest of crimes against humanity”.

Furthermore, through this Decree the Soviet Union addressed the workers of the countries participating in the First World War —the workers of Britain, Germany, and France— stressing that it expects their help to successfully carry out not only the cause of peace but also of emancipation of the workers and the exploited masses from all forms of slavery and exploitation. Thus, the Soviet Union since its first years linked the struggle for peace, against imperialist war, with the cause of the social emancipation of the workers, which came into existence with the October victory.

Much ink has been spilled by bourgeois and opportunist historians over time to impose the identification of the USSR with Nazi Germany —in the name of the so-called totalitarianism— to the consciousness of the workers across the world. One of the issues of the foreign policy of the USSR that they utilize in this direction is the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (23/09/1939), even reaching to the point of accusing the USSR of being jointly responsible for the outbreak of the Second World War. This is a sleight of hand to the detriment of historical truth, which eradicates the real causes for the outbreak of the imperialist Second World War. It also eradicates historical facts, such as the shameful “Munich Agreement”, which had preceded on 30/09/1938, and the policy of the “democratic” capitalist states that supported Nazism as a “stronghold of the West against Bolshevism”, undermining and rejecting initiatives of the Soviet foreign policy. By virtue of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR utilized inter-imperialist contradictions and secured 21 valuable months of war preparation. This preparation, together with the sacrifice of millions of Soviet citizens led by the communists, ensured the military crash of fascism–Nazism.

Soviet Russia was in favour of the immediate ceasefire, without annexations, supporting the peoples’ right to self-determination. It did not hesitate to give up territories that the tsarist bourgeois power had annexed to the empire. Soviet power recognized the independent state entity of Poland and Finland, as well as of the Soviet regimes that had prevailed in the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). Moreover, it withdrew from a number of unfair and unequal agreements at the expense of other peoples reached by the Tsarist empire, triggering the struggle of other peoples, e.g. of Iran, for national and popular sovereignty.

As written by Lenin, the Soviet government declared the “complete break with the barbarous policy of bourgeois civilization, which has built the prosperity of the exploiters belonging to a few chosen nations on the enslavement of hundreds of millions of working people in Asia, in the colonies in general, and in the small countries”. [1] At the same time, it sought to develop relations with the revolutionary movements, assisting them in any way possible in their struggle against colonial powers. The Anti-fascist Victory of the Peoples in 1945, whose main burden was shouldered by the USSR, reinforced the struggle for the overthrow of the colonial system, as it was known until that time. The USSR supported the struggle of the peoples that broke the chains of colonialism by financial, political, and military means.

The USSR defeated fascism, which was bred and reinforced within the framework of the capitalist system. A few years before the onset of the war, a relatively timely and apt analysis of the international developments was made, which properly oriented the Soviet diplomacy towards hampering the formation of a united block of capitalist powers against it. Coming out of the war, the Red Army, which had liberated a series of countries, provided a guarantee for positive processes in favour of the peoples of Eastern Europe. Workers in Albania, East Germany, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia managed to strike a blow against the bourgeois class, whose power was shaken, most of the times in the presence of the Red Army. They opened the path for the construction of their own power, receiving the internationalist assistance of the USSR —even in terms of armed forces— while the counterrevolutionary forces, supported by imperialist powers, tried to divert this course in Eastern Germany (1953), in Hungary (1956), and in Czechoslovakia (1968).

While the imperialist block was being restructured after the Second World War and formed its own political–economic and military alliances, the USSR sought a closer political–economic and military cooperation with the governments that emerged in those countries, providing unconditional support to their peoples. Together with the majority of those countries, it formed a new transnational union, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or COMECON), aiming to develop their economic relations as well as to exchange technology and products, raw materials, scientific manpower, etc. Furthermore, following the founding of the imperialist organization of NATO, it formed the Warsaw Pact as a counterweight to the imperialist alliance.

At the same time, a series of countries detached themselves from the imperialist system through their struggle, such as China, North Korea, and Vietnam in Asia and Cuba in the American continent. The national liberation struggle of the peoples in those countries was quickly associated with the struggle for social changes, for the overthrow at the level of power.

The USSR supported the struggle of the peoples in those countries by economic and military means. It led the struggle for the recognition of the revolutionary governments that emerged by the UN and for the permanent membership of China in the United Nations Security Council.

Entire pages would be needed to describe the internationalist assistance provided by the USSR to China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, and other countries in terms of financial resources, technology, scientific manpower, military assistance, etc. However, it is worth providing several facts:

Starting from 1945, the USSR delivered thousands of weapons and hundreds of military aircrafts and naval ships to China. More than 3,500 Soviet military advisers played an important role in the victories of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

The USSR delivered 2,057 tanks, 700 aircrafts, and 120 helicopters to Vietnam only in 1967. It trained 13,500 Vietnamese military personnel on its territory. It had a significant contribution to the anti-aircraft and anti-missile defence of Northern Vietnam. Between 1965 and 1974, 6,359 Soviet military advisers were sent to Vietnam, out of whom 13 were killed.

Apart from weapons and ammunition, the USSR also assisted Korea with military advisers and mostly with Soviet pilots, who were flying with Chinese military insignia and made 63,229 overflights, waged 1,790 aerial combats, and shut down 1,309 belligerent aircrafts, while they suffered losses of 355 aircrafts and 120 pilots.

The USSR supported the struggle of the peoples in Angola, South Africa, El Salvador, Chile, Yemen, and Palestine by various means. It made a series of crucial interventions both by military means as well as at a political–diplomatic level against the plans of the USA and their allies, against the Arab–Israeli wars and in numerous other cases. The bourgeois media still spew bile at the economic–political and especially the military assistance provided by the USSR to the revolutionary government of Afghanistan (1979–1989), which clashed with the armed bourgeois forces and the feudal residues enjoying the full support of the USA, Saudi Arabia, etc. with the aim of restoring the country’s previous exploitative regime, resulting in 14,453 casualties and 53,700 injuries.

The USSR made heavy internationalist sacrifices for those great struggles and other heroic moments of peoples’ struggle for a world without exploitation of man by man. The Soviet people expressed their solidarity with other fighting people by organizing large campaigns, such as in the case of the Soviet miners who collected money and sent it to their colleagues on strike in Britain. For the workers in the USSR true proletarian internationalism signified that they would be consciously deprived of some products or would obtain them with a coupon so that, at the same time, the Soviet people could send weapons to the fighting people in Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc.

On the occasion of the completion of 55 years since the so-called “Cuban Missile Crisis” (1962–1964), the Russian Ministry of Defence published some additional data showing that the USA was planning a new direct military intervention in Cuba. This development led the revolutionary Cuban government to reach an agreement with the USSR about the transport and installation of nuclear weapons on the Island of the Revolution. At that time, approximately 50,000 Soviet military personnel were found in Cuba to support the Cuban Revolution, together with powerful weapons, missiles, and nuclear weapons. During that two-year period, 64 Soviet military personnel lost their lives under various circumstances (most of them in an effort to provide assistance to the Cuban people during a strong hurricane) and military decorations were awarded to 1,001 of them.

We should separately note the internationalist assistance of the USSR to the communist and labour–popular movement of our country, of Greece, in crucial moments, such as the culmination of the class struggle in Greece, that is, the 3-year armed struggle of the heroic Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) during the civil war (1946–1949). It would be impossible to wage this struggle without the support of the USSR and the other socialist countries in the Balkans.[2] However, various factors seem to have played a part and this support was not always accompanied by the corresponding assistance.[3] Undoubtedly, this issue will be fully clarified when we gain access to the necessary and yet unknown archive material. After the military defeat of the DSE in the civil war (1946–1949), the Soviet power intervened to stop the executions, the tortures, and persecution in Greece; it embraced and sheltered tens of thousands of Greek political refugees, who in turn for decades were actively involved in constructing socialism in Uzbekistan and other Republics of the Soviet Union.

The relation between the USSR and various international organizations is a subject of a separate study. However, it is important to focus, as concisely as possible, on the two most prominent international organizations that the world has known (the League of Nations and the United Nations) and the stance of the USSR, the first socialist state in the world, towards those organizations.

After the end of the First Word War, the victorious forces founded the League of Nations (LON) in 1919, which operated until 1939 and was formally dissolved in 1946. They did so in an effort to secure the status quo and to continue distributing the territories and markets in their favour, as well as to impede the development of the international revolutionary movement and the prestige that Soviet Russia carried among the peoples,. The LON, like all imperialist unions, acted in the name of “maintaining peace”, “consolidating security”, and resolving differences by peaceful and diplomatic means.

Lenin, in the Programme of the RCP (B), revealed the true reasons behind its emergence: “The growing proletarian offensive, especially when it is victorious in various countries, increases the resistance of the exploiters and induces them to create new forms of international associations of capitalists (the League of Nations, etc.), which while organizing, on a world scale, the systematic exploitation of all the nations of the world, at present direct their efforts towards the immediate suppression of the revolutionary movements of the proletariat of all countries”. [4]

The League of Nations quickly showed its teeth to the fledgling Soviet Republic, blatantly supporting the counterrevolution and naturally the 14 countries that attempted to crush the Bolsheviks’ Russian Revolution by launching a military offensive. Lenin, known for his trenchant remarks, could not leave this support unchallenged: “You recently passed a resolution to the effect that the international League of Nations of the Allied powers recognized Kolchak as the only authoritative Russian ruler. And after that nothing was seen of Kolchak but a pair of clean heels”. [5]

At the same time, the leader of the October Revolution decried the social democratic forces that openly supported the LON: “Social-chauvinism was the principal and fundamental type of opportunism, i.e. support of “defence of country”, which in such a war was really equivalent to defence of the predatory interests of one’s “own” bourgeoisie. After the war, defence of the robber League of Nations, defence of direct or indirect alliances with the bourgeoisie of one’s own country against the revolutionary proletariat and the “Soviet” movement, and defence of bourgeois democracy and bourgeois parliamentarianism against “Soviet power” became the principal manifestations of those intolerable and treacherous compromises”. [6]

Lenin identified the severe inter-imperialist contradictions bred by this predatory alliance, even concerning its future stance towards Soviet Russia: “At every step the interests of the League’s member states are patently in conflict […] It became plain that the League of Nations was non-existent, that the alliance of the capitalist powers is sheer fraud, and that in actual fact it is an alliance of robbers, each trying to snatch something from the others”. [7]

Lenin foresaw the development of this “great united league, of all the foremost nations of the world”, as he mockingly characterized it, long before the collapse of the LON. “Unity of this kind is a sheer fiction, a sheer fraud, a sheer lie. And we have seen —and this was a great example— that this notorious League of Nations, which attempted to hand out mandates for the government of states, to divide up the world —that this notorious alliance proved to be a soap-bubble which at once burst, because it was an alliance founded on capitalist property”. [8]

Soviet Russia, under conditions of its isolation, clearly specified the main line of its international relations; on the one hand, the greatest possible commercial, economic, and political cooperation with the capitalist states in order to end its isolation and on the other hand, the steadfast support of the revolutionary movement across the world.

As demonstrated by its participation in the international economic and financial Conference of Genoa (1922), Soviet Russia sought and succeeded in benefitting from the inter-imperialist contradictions as regards the stance towards it. In response to the foreign creditor states’ claim for payment of all the debts of the Tsarist and Provisional government (18.5 billion gold roubles), it claimed the compensation for the damages caused by the foreign imperialist intervention (39 billion gold roubles). Furthermore, with a manoeuvre, it accepted the simultaneous and mutual prescription of both parties’ claims in exchange for the restoration of diplomatic and economic relations, thus breaking the “united front” against the USSR. At the same time, not only in Genoa, but later in various committees of the LON on disarmament, in which the USSR took part despite not being a member of the LON, it promoted the position of immediate and complete disarmament, revealing the role of the LON: “Or take, for example, the recent declarations of the Soviet delegation in Geneva on the question of genuine disarmament (and not window-dressing). What is the explanation of the fact that Comrade Litvinov’s straightforward and honest declaration in favour of complete disarmament struck the League of Nations with paralysis and came as a ‘complete surprise’ to it? Does not this fact show that the League of Nations is not an instrument of peace and disarmament, but an instrument for covering up new armaments and the preparation of new wars?”. [9]

Stalin, referring to the increase of armaments (1925) characterized imperialist peace as “armed peace”, criticizing the role of the LON and of the Second International: “There you have an example of the matchless hypocrisy of bourgeois diplomacy, when by shouting and singing about peace they try to cover up preparations for a new war […] What have the League of Nations and the Second International done to put a stop to this furious growth of armaments? Don’t they know that with the growth of armaments ‘the guns begin to go off of their own accord’? Don’t expect a reply from the League of Nations and the Second International. The point here is that the conflict of interests among the victor countries is growing and becoming more intense, that a collision among them is becoming inevitable, and, in anticipation of a new war, they are arming with might and main. I shall not be exaggerating if I say that in this case we have not a friendly peace among the victor countries, but an armed peace, a state of armed peace that is fraught with war. What is now going on in the victor countries reminds us very much of the situation that prevailed before the war of 1914 —a state of armed peace.

The rulers of Europe are now trying to cover up this fact with clamour about pacifism. But I have already said what this pacifism is worth and what value should be attached to it. The Bolsheviks have been demanding disarmament ever since the time of Genoa. Why do not the Second International and all the others who are chattering about pacifism support our proposal?”. [10]

Shortly afterwards (1927), referring to the bombardment of Nanjing (China) by Britain and the USA, he noted: “The League of Nations has been given another slap in the face. For who but lackeys of imperialism can consider it “normal” that one member of the League of Nations massacres the citizens of another member, while the League of Nations itself is compelled to keep silent and assume that the matter does not concern it?”. [11]

At the same time, the USSR leader explained why the USSR was not a member of the LON: “The Soviet Union is not a member of the League of Nations and does not take part in the League of Nations, firstly, because it does not want to take responsibility for the imperialist policy of the League of Nations, for the “mandates” which are handed out by the League of Nations for the exploitation and oppression of colonial countries. The Soviet Union does not take part in the League of Nations because it is opposed to imperialism, opposed to the oppression of the colonies and dependent countries.

The Soviet Union does not take part in the League of Nations, secondly, because it does not want to take responsibility for the war preparations, for the growth of armaments, for the new military alliances, and so forth, which the League of Nations screens and sanctifies, and which are bound to lead to new imperialist wars. The Soviet Union does not take part in the League of Nations because it is wholly and completely opposed to imperialist wars [...] under present conditions the League of Nations is a “house of assignation” for the imperialist bosses who transact their nefarious business behind the scenes. What is said officially in the League of Nations is mere talk, designed to deceive the people. But what is done unofficially by the imperialist bosses behind the scenes in the League of Nations is real imperialist action, hypocritically covered up by the grandiloquent orators of the League of Nations”. [12]

Stalin revealed the underlying economic causes of the contradictions within the LON: “The Economic Conference of the League of Nations in 1927, the object of which was to “unite the economic interests” of the capitalist countries, also ended in a fiasco. The peaceful road to the solution of the problem of markets remains closed to capitalism. The only “way out” left open for capitalism is a new re-division of colonies and of spheres of influence by force, by means of armed collisions, by means of new imperialist wars”. [13]

The foreign policy of the USSR sought to prevent the united front of the imperialists against it by utilizing the existing inter-imperialist contradictions. Stalin noted the contradiction of interests in the camp of the imperialists, the overall interest of several countries to maintain economic relations with the USSR, the reaction of the working class in Europe, and the imperialists’ fear that they would unintentionally ignite a revolution in their own countries in the event of war against the USSR. At the same time, he added that this fact did not mean that Britain would abandon its efforts to organize a united front against the USSR or that it would fail to do so. The war threat would not cease to exist despite Britain’s temporary failures.

Stalin noted: “We must not forget Lenin’s statement that as regards our work of construction very much depends upon whether we succeed in postponing war with the capitalist world, which is inevitable, but which can be postponed either until the moment when the proletarian revolution in Europe matures, or until the moment when the colonial revolutions have fully matured, or, lastly, until the moment when the capitalists come to blows over the division of the colonies. Therefore, the maintenance of peaceful relations with the capitalist countries is an obligatory task for us”. [14]

However, the foreign policy of the USSR, which was characterized by the pursuit of peaceful relations with the capitalist countries, at the same time proclaimed the promotion of goals for the development of the international communist movement, such as the struggle:

a) for the development of the Communist Parties throughout the world;

b) for the strengthening of the revolutionary trade unions and the workers’ united front against the capitalist offensive;

c) for the strengthening of the friendship between the working class of the USSR and the working class in the capitalist countries;

d) for the strengthening of the link between the working class of the USSR and the liberation movement in the colonies and dependent countries. [15]

At the same time it fought bourgeois pacifism with its League of Nations, its preaching of “peace”, its “prohibition” of war, its talk of “disarmament”: “There are naive people who think that since there is imperialist pacifism, there will be no war. That is quite untrue. On the contrary, whoever wishes to get at the truth must reverse this proposition and say: since imperialist pacifism and its League of Nations are flourishing, new imperialist wars and intervention are certain. And the most important thing in all this is that Social-Democracy is the main channel of imperialist pacifism within the working class —consequently, it is capitalism’s main support among the working class in preparing for new wars and intervention”. [16]

After the withdrawal of Japan (March 1933) and Germany (October 1933), 30 member states of the LON headed by France asked the USSR to join the LON. The USSR sought to utilize the accession to the LON in order to accomplish the main task it had set, that is, to hinder the formation of a united imperialist block against it.

In reply to a question of a US reporter about whether the USSR still had a negative stance towards the LON, Stalin explained: “No, not always and not under all circumstances. Perhaps you do not fully understand our point of view. In spite of Germany’s and Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations —or possibly just because of it— the League may become a certain factor in retarding the outbreak of hostilities or in preventing them altogether. If that is so, if the League can prove to be something of an obstacle that would make war at least somewhat more difficult and peace to some extent easier, then we shall not be against the League. Yes, if such is the course of historical events, the possibility is not excluded that we shall support the League of Nations despite its colossal shortcomings”. [17]

Thus, the USSR accepted this invitation and became a permanent member of the LON, seeking to obstruct the outbreak of a war after the withdrawal of those two countries. However, the Soviet government warned that it would not assume any obligation as regards the decisions and agreements that the LON had realized before the USSR joined it.

The USSR was expelled from the League of Nations in 1939, a few years before the LON practically ceased functioning, because it responded to Finland’s military provocations. In that period, the fascist axis (Germany, Italy, and Japan) launching a series of military operations was reversing the “scenery” set by the First World War. The Soviet leadership estimated that “the new imperialist war had become a fact”. [18]

At the same time, it soon saw two causes for the constant submission of the “western democracies” to the fascists; they were afraid that a second imperialist world war might also lead to the victory of the revolution in one or several countries [19] and at the same time the “western democracies” were trying to turn the fascist countries against the USSR: “The policy of non-intervention reveals an eagerness, a desire, not to hinder the aggressors in their nefarious work; not to hinder Japan, say, from embroiling herself in a war with China, or, better still, with the Soviet Union; to allow all the belligerents to sink deeply into the mire of war, to encourage them surreptitiously in this, to allow them to weaken and exhaust one another; and then, when they have become weak enough, to appear on the scene with fresh strength, to appear, of course, “in the interests of peace,” and to dictate conditions to the enfeebled belligerents”. [20]

Thus, the main goal of the USSR was to maneuver in order to thwart those plans. As we noted, this was achieved through the “non-aggression pact”, also known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which was signed after Britain, France, Italy, and Germany had signed the Munich Pact (1938) that lead to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the annexation of its territories to the German Reich.

The UN was founded in 1945 and reflected a new reality as regards the correlation of forces, where the USSR held an upgraded position due to the role it played in the outcome of the Second World War. At the same time, the danger of war was taking on new dimensions due to the emergence of nuclear weapons.

In 1944, Stalin elaborated the following positions: “There is only one means to this end, apart from the complete disarmament of the aggressor nations: that is to establish a special organization made up of representatives of the peace-loving nations for the defence of peace and safeguarding of security; to put at the disposal of the directing body of this organization the necessary minimum of armed forces required to avert aggression, and to oblige this organization to employ these armed forces without delay if it becomes necessary, to avert or stop aggression, and to punish those guilty of aggression.[…] Can we expect the actions of this world organization to be sufficiently effective? They will be effective if the great Powers which have borne the brunt of the war against Hitler Germany continue to act in a spirit of unanimity and accord. They will not be effective if this essential condition is violated”. [21]

As was proven later, the above statements underestimated the aggressive character of imperialism. Of course, the fact that those statements were made in a historical period marked by the acute competition for the advantage to produce nuclear weapons played a significant part. As we know today, the USA led the field. In 1945, it used nuclear weapons against Japan, while its real goal was to terrorize the USSR that acquired this weapon only in 1949, creating the so-called “nuclear balance” which for decades had a deterrent effect on a new imperialist offensive against it.

By means of war or conventional weapons, it was soon proved that the character of the UN was not different from that of the LON. Before 1955, the imperialist powers used the UN in their plans, e.g. against the People’s Republic of China, in the war of Korea (1950), while they sought to abolish the right of veto of the USSR in the UN Security Council, and they rejected the proposals of the USSR on disarmament.

They leader of the USSR condemned the imperialist interventions in China and Korea and made the following analysis on the UN resolutions: “I regard it (the utilization of the UN against the Peoples Republic of China and Korea) as a scandalous decision. Really, one must have lost what was left of conscience to maintain that the United States of America, which has stolen Chinese territory, the island of Taiwan, and fallen upon China’s borders in Korea, is the defensive side; and on the other hand, to declare that the Chinese People’s Republic which has defended its borders and striven to take back the island of Taiwan, stolen by the Americans, is the aggressor.

The United Nations Organization, which was created as a bulwark for keeping peace, has been transformed into an instrument of war, a means to unleash a new world war. The aggressive core of the United Nations Organization have formed the aggressive North Atlantic pact from ten member states (the USA, England, France, Belgium, Canada, Holland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Iceland) and twenty Latin-American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela.) And the representatives of these countries now make the decisions in the United Nations Organization about war and peace. It was these that have, in the United Nations Organizations, carried through the scandalous decision about the aggression of the Chinese People’s Republic. [...]

Thus, the United Nations Organization, from being a world organization of nations with equal rights, has changed into an instrument of a war of aggression. In reality, the United Nations Organization is now not so much a world organization, as an organization for the Americans and treats American aggression as acceptable. Not only are the United States of America and Canada striving to unleash a new war, but on this path you also find the twenty Latin-American countries; their landowners and merchants long for a new war somewhere in Europe or Asia, to sell their goods to the countries at inflated prices, and to make millions out of this bloody business. The fact is not a secret to anybody that the representatives of the twenty Latin American countries represent the strongest supporters and the willing army of the United States of America in the United Nations Organization. The United Nations Organization treads, in this manner, the inglorious path of the League of Nations. Thereby they bury their moral authority and condemn themselves to fall into decay”. [22]

In the same interview in “Pravda”, Stalin defined the nature of the struggle for peace as follows: “Where will this entire struggle between the aggressive and the peace-loving powers end? Peace will be kept and strengthened if the people take the holding of peace into their own hands and defend it to the utmost. War could be unavoidable if the arsonists of war succeed in trapping the masses with their lies, in deceiving them and in drawing them into a new war.

Now, therefore, a broad campaign for the holding of peace, as a way of exposing the criminal machinations of the arsonists of war, is of prime importance.

As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, it will continue to carry through the politics of preventing war and keeping peace”. [23]

In short, we could say that the socialist construction in the USSR, despite the enormous destruction (human and material) caused by the Second World War, and its strengthening combined with the presence of other socialist countries were powerful factors that influenced the correlation of forces and also had an impact on the UN.

The USSR, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, exercised its veto right 120 times (79 times in the first ten years).

Thanks to the presence of the USSR and the other socialist countries (since 1955) as well as of other countries from Asia and Africa, the UN adopted a series of significant, positive resolutions against imperialist plans and powers, e.g. the condemnation of US action against Cuba (1960–1962), in the Middle East, and the Cyprus issue.

A series of conventions and treaties, resolutions on disarmament, on the ban of nuclear testing, on bacteriological war and space were adopted as a result of the pressure exerted by the USSR.

Nevertheless, the nature of imperialism did not change! International Law and its resolutions have been a result of the global correlation of forces that forced the imperialists to manoeuvre and make concessions although they never gave up their plans as the imperialist interventions, the coups and the arms race have shown. There were even cases when the imperialist powers used, despite the opposition of the USSR, the UN troops for their reactionary plans, as in the case of Congo (1960–1963). However, the overthrow of socialism resulted in the deterioration of the global correlation of power. This loss of the USSR and the socialist system is reflected in the UN and the international relations in general.

A huge undertaking, which led to the upsurge of the revolutionary movement around the world, was the formation of the Third International, i.e. the Communist International (Comintern), in 1919. The existence of the Comintern gave strength to the newly founded Communist Parties, in their struggle with the bourgeois political world and opportunism. The scale of this attempt was clearly larger than the capabilities of the previous two Internationals. This was due, on the one hand, to the impact of the victorious October Revolution and, on the other hand, to the establishment of the first workers’ state in the world. As J. Stalin wrote, “the October Revolution has at the same time created —in the shape of the first proletarian dictatorship— a powerful and open base for the world revolutionary movement, a base such as the latter never possessed before and on which it now can rely for support”. [24]

Despite the strategic weaknesses and mistakes in the policy of the CI, to which we have referred in a number of our Party documents, its contribution to the development of international solidarity was unquestionable.

The Soviet state supported the Communist International with all its might, in its attempt to organize the communist movement and its struggle. One of the most characteristic moments of the USSR’s internationalist support for the decisions taken by the Comintern is the decision in favour of the Spanish Republic against the forces of Spanish fascism and its imperialist allies. Thus, the USSR was in danger of losing half of its merchant fleet in its attempt to supply the Spanish fighters with clothing, medicine and weapons, as the fleets of Franco, of Portugal, of Britain, of Italy and of Germany sank the ships bound for the Spanish Republic. The Communist International decided and organized the mission of anti-fascist volunteers, who formed military units, that is, the “International Brigades” (7 brigades with 35 thousand men). Approximately five hundred Greek and Cypriot communists and anti-fascists, many of whom immigrants in other countries, as well as seamen, with great risk of their lives arrived and fought in Spain through the Greek Company “Nikos Zachariadis”.

As we have already mentioned, we use the drawing of useful conclusions for the present and the future of the communist movement as a starting point for the study of the history of international relations of the first socialist state. We need to examine how the theoretical mistakes or the mistakes concerning the assessments of the CP of the Soviet Union later on influenced the foreign policy of the USSR as well.

The KKE, following the study of the History of the USSR, has assessed that “the line of “peaceful co-existence”, as was developed in the post-war period, to some extent at the 19th Congress (October 1952) and primarily at the 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956), acknowledged the capitalist barbarity and aggression of the USA and Britain, and of certain sections of the bourgeoisie and its respective political forces in the western European capitalist states, but not as an integral element of monopoly capitalism, of imperialism. In this way, it allowed the nurturing of utopian perceptions, such as that it is possible for imperialism to accept on a long term basis its coexistence with forces that have broken its worldwide domination”.[25]

Our Party is not distracted by the fact that the Soviet Union remained the only socialist state until the end of the Second World War and that the external (imperialist) attack and the counterrevolution fueled and strengthened the internal counterrevolutionary forces and actions. It was, therefore, necessary to make a series of tactical diplomatic moves primarily aiming at its survival —some with Lenin already being at the leadership of the Party. Such were the participation in the Genoa Conference; the Treaty of Rapallo with Germany, which was experiencing the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles; the attempt to reach out to China and the leader of the Kuomitang, Sun Yat-sen (whose name was given to a university in Moscow in 1925), but also other “anti-imperialist and anti-colonial forces” —non-communist ones— in a number of countries such as India, Turkley, Persia, Afghanistan, South Africa, etc. The survival of the first and, at that point, the only socialist state, i.e. the Soviet Union, definitely required on the one hand, international workers’ solidarity, and on the other, a relatively non-aggressive stance from the capitalist states that would at least be open to some trade and diplomatic relations.

However, the task set from the outset to the Soviet diplomacy to utilize every “crack”, every “rupture”, and every contradiction among imperialist powers, in order for the USSR to take advantage of them and be strengthened is one thing; the theoretical “separation of the imperialist centres into pro-peace and pro-war” [26] is another.

Developments have shown that even those bourgeois forces that appeared to be “pro-peace” and “democratic” did not hesitate to commit equally vicious crimes against the peoples in order to secure the monopolies’ profits and power. Reality showed that imperialism —with the war being its inherent element— utilizes the interstate agreements at will and therefore the peoples should not have any illusions about its allegedly “peaceful” intentions. The positions of Lenin continue to be timely: “Under these conditions the slogans of pacifism, of international disarmament under capitalism, of arbitration courts, and so on, are not only a reactionary utopia but also a downright swindle of the toilers aimed to disarm the proletariat and to distract the workers away from the task of disarming the exploiters. Only a proletarian socialist revolution can lead humanity out of the impasse which imperialism and imperialist wars have created. Whatever difficulties the revolution may have to encounter, whatever possible temporary setbacks or waves of counterrevolution it may have to contend with, the final victory of the proletariat is inevitable”. [27]

That is why this erroneous distinction between the bourgeois forces, which distorted “Lenin’s reference to peaceful coexistence concerning economic and commercial relations between the two socio-economic systems, was altered and given an ideological and strategic content”. [28]

After the Second World War, not only was the colonial system dissolved, but also a number of countries in Europe, Asia, and later the Americas declared that they would follow the path of socialist construction. In addition, the USSR, which had borne the brunt of the victory against fascism, acquired a say in the formation of the UN, in international law in general, which was then being formed as a result of the correlation between the forces of capitalism and socialism. The USSR acquired the right of “veto” in the UN Security Council, while shortly afterwards it managed to secure a similar right for China. All the above formed the impression that not only were some positive tendencies in the international correlation of power strengthening, but that it had already become favourable for the forces of socialism. In other words, there was an overestimation of any positive changes, both by the USSR and by the communist movement in general.

We should not forget that the UN resolutions, under the influence of the Soviet diplomacy, might facilitated their struggle on several issues, however they were not always implemented by the imperialists. We know for instance that the just resolutions of the UN Security Council on the Cyprus issue, the Palestinian issue, etc, have remained on paper and were never implemented since they opposed the interests of the US and other powerful imperialist powers. The mesh of uneven interdependence (political, military, and economic) between the countries of the world imperialist system remained. Our Party, studying the construction of socialism in the USSR concluded in its 18th Congress that after the Second World War “the imperialist system, with the USA at its helm, created a series of military, political, economic alliances, and international lending organizations (NATO, European Communities, IMF, World Bank, international trade agreements). These ensured the coordination of capitalist states and bridged some of the contradictions amongst them in order to serve the common strategic goal of a multi-pronged pressure on the socialist system. They organized imperialist interventions, systematic and multifaceted provocations and anti-communist campaigns. They used the most up-to-date ideological weapons to manipulate the peoples, to create a hostile climate against the socialist states and the communist movement in general. They utilized the opportunist deviations and the problems of ideological unity of the communist movement. They supported economically, politically, and morally every form of discontent or disagreement with the CPSU and the USSR. They made billions of dollars available from their state budgets for this purpose”.

The achievement of technological advances, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles in the early 1960s also contributed to the overestimation of the global correlation of forces. A. Gromyko, foreign minister of the USSR in the period 1957–1985 and B. Ponomariov, member of the PB of the CPSU and responsible for the international relations of the CPSU in 1955–1986, assessed that “The construction of intercontinental and space missiles of great accuracy, the launching of the first satellites and the launching of rockets to the moon show the enormous achievements of the Soviet country in significant spheres of science and modern technology including the military one. The emergence of the intercontinental missile has broken the military invulnerability of the US. The military correlation of forces has changed to the benefit of the Socialist block”. [29]

The developments tragically refuted those assessments. The Resolution of the 18th Congress of KKE on socialism estimates that “Both sections of the communist movement (in power or not) overestimated the strength of the socialist system and underestimated the dynamic of the post-war reconstruction of capitalism”. [30]

Among other things, particularly following the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the position about “peaceful coexistence” was turned into a position about “peaceful competition” between the two socio-political regimes. Such a position, however, in practice “embellished capitalism and consolidated the misconception that, at least for a historical period, the two systems could coexist and compete peacefully with each other”. [31] On this basis, utopian positions developed along with opportunistic policies on the international and regional “security systems”, which would ensure the “peaceful coexistence” and the mutual “respect” of the two socio-political systems, underestimating the “predatory” nature of imperialism. Thus, e.g. in 1955, the USSR called on the US and European imperialist powers to work together on “a security system whose state-members would promise to give up the use of armed forces and solve all crucial issues with peaceful means”. [32]

Such a position, of course, has not only to do with some attempt to exploit the inter-imperialist contradictions, but was characteristic of the opportunistic turn in the CPSU and, in conclusion, in the foreign policy of the USSR, which led to major theoretical mistakes. As our Party has estimated “the same applies to the avoidance of thermonuclear warfare. Realistic transnational negotiations to avoid it should in no way lead to ideological generalizations about a sincere and firm stance of the capitalist states on the issue of peace [...] Throughout the post-war period, imperialist wars were a reality. In the final analysis, even when the states possess nuclear weapons, the most consistent and effective struggle against imperialist wars is the comprehensive revolutionary preparation and readiness for the socialist revolution, which will impose peace, to take place in the appropriate economic and political conditions. The constant accumulation and refinement of nuclear weapons in the arms race, although necessary for the strategic balance between the two systems, from one point onwards had a negative effect on the already problematic strategy of the international communist movement”. [33]

Moreover, “the division of capitalist states and governments into subjugated and non-subjugated, into peaceful and pro-war ignored the unified strategy of international capitalism in its goal of overthrowing socialism”. [34]

On 14 May, 1955, the USSR and the other socialist states of Europe signed in Warsaw the “Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance”, which became known as the “Warsaw Pact” and was a means of defense. It served the security of the socialist states and the maintenance of world peace. “It contained the utopian element of being open to the accession of new states, independent of their social system, and of self-abolition in the event of the establishment of a system of collective security in Europe”. [35]

One must especially note the fact that the USSR also overestimated the role of the so-called Non-Aligned Countries. Our Party has estimated that the expectation and goal to rally the “national” bourgeois classes of those countries in a steadfast anti-imperialist direction, as pursued by the Soviet Union and other states, was erroneous and unfounded. The medium-term non-membership of many new states in international imperialist organizations was mainly due to the needs of their “national” bourgeois classes to strengthen their position, in combination with the then correlation of forces within those states and internationally.

Undoubtedly, the national independence was a first and main precondition for the colonial countries to overcome the backwardness that prevailed in all spheres of social life. In many cases, their industrial development was supported by their beneficial economic relations with the USSR and other countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). However, this development also entailed the strengthening of the domestic bourgeois forces, and therefore the sharpening of the class struggle within those countries and the struggle for their future integration into one of the two rival socio-economic systems.

The USSR and the other socialist states formed a policy of economic and other kind of cooperation and support for the new regimes, the so-called Non-Aligned Countries, with the aim of hindering their integration into the international capitalist market and the imperialist unions, and of strengthening the forces that had a socialist orientation.

In fact, the developments quickly led to the strengthening of domestic reactionary forces. There was no timely and effective assessment of the new situation by the USSR and the other states of socialist construction. 

Thus, the effort of the Soviet Union to develop economic relations and even alliances with some capitalist states against stronger imperialist powers was legitimate and understandable, as it weakened the united front of the imperialists, detached forces from it, even if only temporarily, and utilized contradictions in the imperialist camp. The problem was that this contingent (state) policy of the USSR, which was expressed at an economic, diplomatic, or other level towards certain countries, was elevated into a principle; it was turned into a theory; and there was talk of the so-called “non-capitalist path of development” in those countries that was linked to the view about a “peaceful transition”. This led communist forces, and consequently the labour movement, into tailing bourgeois forces.

 In practice, “the Soviet diplomatic and negotiation moves, as well as its stance towards other Communist Parties, were impacted by the problem of elevating the foreign policy of the USSR into a principle. In other words, strategically specific political choices were theoreticized, a problem that had a negative effect on the development of the international class struggle for the victory of socialism”. [36]

A major issue with many implications is the international economic relations of the USSR, both with the CMEA countries as well as with the capitalist economies, in pursuit of mutually beneficial transnational economic relations. This issue requires further in-depth study, however we can note that in “The Debate about the Manual of Political Economy” in 1941, Stalin emphasized that “the economy should be planned as to ensure the independence of the people’s economy and prevent it from becoming a tool of the capitalist economy. It is in our hands not to become a tool of the capitalist economy.” [37]

As indicated by the developments, in the course of time things took another turn in the framework of the “peaceful competition” and the so-called building bridges policy (OST POLITIK). This turn affected not only the stability of the Soviet economy, e.g. the sharp fall in world oil prices in the 1970s, but also political developments.

Under the influence of the USSR in the wake of its Victory in the Second World War and thanks to its contribution, a number of great mass anti-imperialist international organizations were formed, such as the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the World Peace Council (WPC), the World Organization of Democratic Youth (WFDY), the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), and the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR). The ideological and organizational weaknesses of the CPs and the intervention of opportunist and bourgeois forces are having a negative effect in these international organizations. Opportunist and social democratic conceptions —that often have the final say and dominate the ideological–political struggle— are strengthened in these organizations, which, thanks to the active intervention of the communists, withstood the tide of the counter-revolution. Even bourgeois forces seek to exploit the historical course and legacy of these organizations, to benefit from the loss of anti-capitalist reflexes and the ideological confusion prevailing among communist forces, for example, about the economic–political content of imperialism, in order to promote their own plans, their support for one or another imperialist alliance. Further discussion is needed on the correlation of forces in each of these organizations, their outlook, their framework of struggle, and the communists’ intervention.

Of course, the above mistakes, deviations, and miscalculations in no way can obliterate the positive contribution of the USSR and its internationalist assistance to the peoples.

 As can be understood from the above, the KKE, looking at the socialist construction of the 20th century with a critical eye, rejects both the idealization of the Soviet Union and the slanderous attack against it launched by bourgeois and opportunistic forces. As regards foreign policy issues, in the recent past these forces have even sought the unacceptable and unhistorical identification of the internationalist assistance provided by the USSR to other Communist Parties and popular and revolutionary movements with the interventions of US imperialism in other countries, talking about the so-called social-imperialism. Such accusations, which were and are grist for the mill of reaction, were directed against the USSR by the petty bourgeois opportunist ideological currents of Trotskyism, “Eurocommunism”, and “Maoism”, which had abandoned the principles of proletarian internationalism, forgetting the fact that “it is the obligation of the socialist state to openly support the revolutionary movements of other countries”. [38]

 Such opportunistic, but also other, bourgeois conceptions accused the USSR of “defending its state interest, at the expense of the class interest” in various countries around the world. However, as our Party has assessed, the principle of proletarian internationalism “is inseparable from the socialist state interest, from the class interest of the working class in each country [...] The above separation consciously ignores the general interest of the international working class from which stem the common goals for the individual sections of the international revolutionary movement, a part of which was the CPSU, in fact as its strongest component”. [39]

 It is becoming clear that the KKE’s critical approach to the USSR and its foreign policy contributes to the deeper study of issues of socialist construction and opposes the approaches of bourgeois and opportunist forces. The KKE respects and honours the contribution of the Bolshevik revolution and the first socialist state, and seeks to study and draw conclusions both from the positive aspects as well as from the mistakes and weaknesses that it had. Based on such an approach, we consider that we should note the important conclusion that “the elements of foreign policy of a socialist state in no way should be theoreticized or elevated into a principle, to become elements of the strategy of the International Communist Movement, neither on the part of the USSR, nor on the part of the CPs of the capitalist countries”. [40]

Today, the communist movement in all countries is called to study these aspects, to exchange views around them, and to hold a comradely discussion. We believe that in this direction the class struggle for socialism–communism will be strengthened.