The Third World in Soviet Military Thought by Katz Mark;

Author:Katz, Mark;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Peaceful Coexistence

The Soviet military continued to hold the same view of peaceful coexistence during the late Brezhnev years that it developed during the middle Brezhnev years.9 Reducing the threat of nuclear war with the United States through peaceful coexistence was not viewed as incompatible with Soviet support (even military support) for wars of national and social liberation. Further, peaceful coexistence was a useful means of discouraging the United States from exporting counter-revolution, though if the US did become involved in a Third World conflict, the USSR would not give up the benefits of peaceful coexistence in Soviet-American bilateral relations.

During this period, Soviet military thinkers objected to American charges that the USSR was using peaceful coexistence in order to lull the United States into a false sense of security while it exported revolution to the Third World. The ‘export of revolution’ by the USSR was denied vehemently by the Soviets, although Soviet military assistance to wars of national and social liberation was at the same time admitted.10 Indeed, one writer went to such lengths to assert that the USSR never exported revolution that he insisted that even in Eastern Europe after World War II socialist revolutions were carried out by indigenous local forces; the Red Army present in these countries played only a minor role ensuring that the imperialists did not intervene to assist the counterrevolutionaries.11 The statement that the USSR did not export revolution to Eastern Europe, being false, did not give credibility to statements that the USSR was not exporting revolution to the Third World now. In general, though, the point that the Soviet military wanted to make was that even when the USSR became involved in a Third World conflict, the USSR did not cause the conflict; instead, the cause of the conflict was in the local situation. While they may not have caused the conflict, this did not mean that the Soviets would refrain from assisting the progressive forces by military means.

Finally, peaceful coexistence was seen not only as providing the possibility of socialist gains in the Third World, but also as having concretely done so. In February 1979, Major General D. Volkogonov viewed peaceful coexistence as having blocked to some extent American interests in the Third World while at the same time as having furthered Soviet interests:

Stepping forth as peaceful competition between the two systems, peaceful coexistence permits restructuring and blocking to a certain extent the manifestations of the chief reasons for wars of modern times which is rooted in the economic depths of the exploiter system.

At the same time, it is known that Marxist-Leninists do not come out against all and any wars in general, but only against aggressive, imperialist wars. Peaceful coexistence does not mean ‘prohibiting’ revolutionary, civil wars of workers for social liberation or national liberation wars against imperialist aggression. The Soviet Union’s decisive support of socialist Vietnam, revolutionary Ethiopia, people’s democratic Yemen, new Angola, and the progressive forces of Kampuchea in no way contradicts our adherence to a policy of peaceful coexistence despite what our class enemies sometimes declare.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.