9 - The Soviet reassessment of socialist orientation and the African response

Summary

Since Mikhail Gorbachev became Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1985 and the concepts of new thinking, openness, and restructuring were added to the Soviet lexicon on international relations, many interesting debates have arisen among Soviet academics and politicians about international politics in general and relations with the Third World in particular. The latter will be the main focus of this chapter.

Naturally, Gorbachev did not initiate this debate, and neither are debates about international relations anything new in the Soviet Union. What is new is the fact that Gorbachev's policies have lent a new dimension to these debates and have opened for discussion aspects previously considered outside the parameters of permissible academic debate. To the extent that Soviet social scientists responded to the new openness several key doctrinal concepts of the past, based on Marxist–Leninist philosophical assumptions, have been questioned. One of these was the concept of “non-capitalist development” (also referred to as “socialist orientation”) for Third World countries.

The amendments made to the latter will be examined, first, within the broader context of the recent Soviet reevaluation of international relations theory, whereafter the discussion will focus on the adaptations to and the eventual demise of the theory of socialist orientation in Soviet literature. In conclusion the African response to the reassessment in the Soviet Union will be briefly addressed.