The influence of ideology on the formation of Soviet foreign policy - Essay Example

?The Influence of Ideology on the Formation of Soviet Foreign Policy Introduction The notion of a political system led in its international behaviourby a particular set of operational and ideological rules rather than temporary concepts of state ‘concerns’ is usually hard for Westerners to comprehend. Many scholars would agree that the complicated procedures, strategies, and goals making up the official Marxism-Leninism principle have had some influence on the formation of Soviet foreign policy, even though there are critical debates over the extent of the relevance of ideological influence. For instance, the policy aim underlying George F. Kennan’s well-known article in 1947 defining the justification for what developed into the ‘containment policy’ (Evans 1993, 44) was clearly to force the Soviet Union to discard ideological frame of thinking and to develop into a more cooperative and pragmatic one. Kennan tried to accomplish this by challenging Soviet rulers with geostrategic facts which rendered the policies and analysis originated from the ideology appears inexpedient and bleak (Quimet 2003, 81). A main idea underlying the containment strategy was that a ‘non-ideological’, specifically ‘normal’, Soviet Union would be much more unproblematic to contend with in the post-war period, when continuous cooperation between East and West would make the conditions of international security and reconstruction that much simpler to accomplish (Yanowitch 1991, 65). Kennan in the end came to challenge the relevance of the ideological influence (ibid, p. 65). Other scholars, such as Franz Borkenau, a German ex-communist, constantly refuted that ideology had any concrete influence on the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, at least from the succession to power of Stalin in the 1920s (Fawn 2003, 90). As stated in this argument, the Soviet Union, nearly from its formation, worked as an imperial power, simply maintaining the expansionist strategies of its Tsarist forerunner; radical ideology was only authorising window-dressing for a strategy of geostrategic opportunism (ibid, p. 90). The 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was the preferred example of Borkenau of this suggestion (Chafetz 1993, 29). Writing on the advent of the Gorbachev regime, Hugh Seton-Watson, satisfactorily described the continuous Western discussions of the influences of Soviet foreign policy as an outcome of what he refers to as ‘either-or fallacies’ (Miller 1991, 2): The most widespread is the controversy between those who see ‘ideology’ as the main force behind Soviet policy, and those who give this place to ‘security’. It is our case that the two are inseparable, and there is no need to repeat the argument. Arising from this misleading ‘either-or-ism’ is the dispute, perhaps even more widespread, as to whether Soviet policy is ‘expansionist’ or ‘defensive’. It is both. Obsession with protection of frontiers and of strategic position leads to expansion, and each successful expansion creates new positions to defend (ibid, p. 2). The argument of this essay resembles Seton-Watson’s assumption. Ideology has consistently been a major influence in the formation of Soviet foreign policy, but definitely not the only one. Also, its influence has usually been indirect rather than direct. Specifically, rather directly imposing policies, it has functioned to form the goals and context of Soviet policymakers, as well as their views of such seemingly ‘normal’ priorities as ‘defence’, ‘security’ and the requirements for ‘peace’ (Miller 1991, 2); the influence of ideology being referred to, as in Seton-Watson’s statement cited above, represent quite evidently the ‘old political thinking’ (OLT) (ibid, p. 3) that is currently challenged by Gorbachev. The Ideological Influence The definition of ‘ideology’ is itself the centre of some disagreement, as well as the characteristic of its contribution in state decision-making. Ideology, as defined by one scholar, is a ‘preconceived set or structure of beliefs, including both values and propositions about the way the world is thought to be. Thus, an ideology is a ‘world view’ with judgment and action implications’ (Miller 1991, 3). In this notion, ideology is a global reality, destined to affect not just the mainstream population of the society, but also its political leaders in the selection of strategies and courses of action viewed appropriate for addressing the problems of society (Donaldson & Nogee 1998, 110). Contrary to this idea with the discourse on the same universal trend in a general literature on the 1960’s Marxist philosophy (Miller 1991): In a class society social consciousness, whatever form it assumes, inevitably takes on a class character. The sum-total of political, legal, moral, artistic and other views and ideas of a definite class comprise its ideology... (ibid, p. 3). Because ideology constantly holds a class attribute, can it disclose reality? Does it not misrepresent the facts to fit the interests of classes? The revisionists argue that reality and ideology are irreconcilable; the ideology gives up reality to the benefit of one class or another (Fleron, Hoffman & Laird 2006, 102). Nevertheless, Marxism insists that ideology be perceived from a historical, concrete way so as to determine the interests of a particular class, conservative or radical, it articulates (Miller 1991): Marxist-Leninist ideology is scientific and true to the end, because the class interests of the working class and the objective course of history always coincide and therefore the ability of the Marxist-Leninist ideology to reflect truth is preserved at all stages of its development (ibid, p. 4). V. Afanasyev, on issues of direct significance to our subject, continues to argue a few pages afterwards (Miller 1991): Two opposing political ideologies—of the working class and the bourgeoisie—are not at grips in the world. The political ideology of the working class is the ideology of proletarian internationalism, friendship of the working people of all countries, unity and co-operation of all the progressive forces in the common struggle for peace, democracy and socialism. It is expressed most fully and from every angle in the Marxist-Leninist theory, in the Communist parties’ programmes and the socialist countries’ constitutions. This ideology proves the need for the class struggle of the working class and all the working people against the bourgeoisie, for the victory of socialism and communism. It serves the working class and its party as a guide in the political struggle, the highest form of the proletariat’s class struggle (ibid, pp. 4-5). This thought substantiates the necessity for the class struggle of the labour force and all the proletariats against the owners of the means of production, for the triumph of communism and socialism. It functions as the guide of the working class in the political contest, the greatest form of the political struggle of the working class. The disparities between the two ideas are remarkable. Ideology, for the one side, is a misrepresented image of reality which orients the way people see the world and respond to it; in other words, it is fundamentally a barrier to the activity of rational decision (Jackson 2003, 118). Ideology is apparently subordinate to ‘theory’, which is considered firmly anchored in empirical truth, essentially value-neutral and predisposed to unbiased interpretation and substantiation (Quimet 2003, 128). The Soviet, for the other side, ‘ideology is theory’ (ibid, p. 118); value-neutrality is non-existent in human cognition; however, Marxism-Leninism, as the principle of the historically more ‘revolutionary’ class, the working class, is by description constantly closer to reality than the bourgeois’ ideology (Jackson 2003, 120). In the hands of the forerunner of the working class, the Communist Party, the ideology Marxism-Leninism is hence viewed as a potent instrument for arresting the mechanisms of change and creating needed policies to gain advantage from them. It should be underlined at this point that this was the articulated ideological foundation of the OLT and that Soviet specialists of the foreign policy activity demonstrated growing indications of paying sheer lip-service to the dogma in the final stages of the Brezhnev regime (Quimet 2003, 128). Specifically, ideological creations became fundamentally ‘ex post facto’ sanctioning justifications for strategies formulated on essentially opportunistic, pragmatic basis or plain inertia (Chafetz 1993, 77). It is relevant to underline the functional differentiation between ideology as authorising dogma and as a systematic instrument. What Gorbachev confesses to be trying to accomplish under the criteria of the ‘new political thinking’ (NPT) (Miller 1991, 6) is to abandon the doctrinal, rigid incrustations which had build up around the ideology from the time of the Stalin regime and to bring back its importance as a method and tool of analysis. It would be intensely erroneous to presume, as many Western scholars, not used to contending at close hand with a group of policymakers dedicated to a theoretical discussion of policy matters, seem to be carrying out, that he is throwing away the ideology Marxism-Leninism entirely. Gorbachev knows, just like any of his reactionary adversaries, that ideology Marxism-Leninism is one of the major bases, if not the main basis, of the rationale of the Communist Party. Without it there would be no justifiable grounds for the party’s preserving its cartel of political authority in communist societies (Yanowitch 1991, 108). The new thinking of Gorbachev by 1990 had advance to the extent that to persuade him to recognise the finale of the party’s supremacy (ibid, p. 108), but he was hesitant to surrender the mission of restoring ideology itself as an analytical instrument and a practical way of perceiving the world where in Soviet foreign policy was restricted to act. Concurrently, it is evident from the work of Afanasyev that a large-scale devastation and reconstruction project would be needed (Miller 1991, 6). The ideology had turned out o be quite beset with doctrines and pseudo-scientific facts that quite few of the living dogmatic tenets could play as a foundation for the form of theoretical perspective that Gorbachev envisions (Rapoport 1971, 39). For instance, the whole issue of the inappropriateness of the social formation of bourgeois-capitalism, and thus the truth-value of its foundational and rational grounds, is now under attack and open to subjective replication. For the meantime, we are more interested here with the development of ideology and its constituent units within the OPT. Even though Lenin was not without doctrinal tendencies, numerous of his questionable once feasible ideological creations became misrepresented and criticised, as it were, in the hands of Stalin (Kant & Veolgyes 1972, 49). One of the primary causes of these misrepresentations was the proclivities in the social-democratic community of Marxism, not just in Russia, because ideology to be employed as a rhetorical tool against political rivals within the faction (ibid, p. 49). Marx himself frequently turned to this method (for instance, in his arguments with Ferdinand Lassalle), and Lenin would stand to be a historical master of the strategy (Laird 1987, 80). Given the power of these personalities in the movement, it is possibly not astonishing that numerous of the simple debating arguments they made in the climax of verbal disagreement against adversaries became preserved as Holy Writ (ibid, p. 80) in the care of their less rationally particular constituents. Marx stated, in reaction to the imitating of several of his more conflicting and serious arguments by his adherents, that he never became a ‘Marxist’ (Miller 1991, 7). As a practicing policymaker, Lenin, possibly with an interest on the relevance of his position as Bolshevism’s ideological ‘high priest’, seemingly never sensed the necessity or had the scholarly sincerity to make a similar revelation (ibid, p. 7). Hence, from the beginning, the use of ideology Marxism-Leninism became infected with quick-fix political devises and irrelevant doctrines. To be certain, this is not an especially uncommon occurrence in the history of the practice of world politics. In the perspective of a movement invaded with the significance of methodical theoretical formulation for appropriate policy creation, though, this otherwise innate predisposition gained a more threatening importance. It had a tendency to confine its practitioners into commonly unrealistic and unsound views and encouraged them to attempt to enforce their misrepresented ideas upon those components of reality that were open to their control. The current trends of economic and political progress in ‘post-communist’ Eastern Europe are an excellent example of this dynamics and its random outcomes. Even concrete analyses of the role of Soviet ideology were confused by the conflict in the evident commitment of practitioners to their ideas and the different perspectives of the analysts. David Joravsky stresses, in the extreme condition of Stalinism, The Stalinists performed numerous things in such lavishly vicious and extravagant ways that scholars came to view them as insane ideologists whose thoughts were disturbed by a vision of utopia and absolute power (Fawn 2003, 129). The Stalinists considered themselves as completely pragmatic individuals, who prioritise practical needs over theoretical concerns (ibid, p. 129). Ideology has to be situated on a range of articulation of political idea. It functions, with ideology at one end, as it was described by a manifold research on ideology, as a ‘set of systematic theoretical principles projecting and justifying a socio-political order’ (Fawn 2003, 3). The study defined ideology as offering an analytical discussion of history and an agenda or unravelling of the future. Ideology can be differentiated from other concepts as a cluster of core principles that are invulnerable and not questionable. The issue for the current group of country research is the level to which this definition is factual for the values and thoughts that orient foreign policy in the post-communist world and what, if anything, has succeeded a precise ideology like Marxism-Leninism. Each country has implemented new strategies; a few have even declared ‘missions’ (Miller 1991, 6). The suffix-‘ism’ that flags thinking as an ideology has crept into some post-communist foreign policy parlance, particularly with ‘Eurasianism’. But even when a term appears with the familiar-‘ism’ suffix of an ideology, it need not have much content or be synonymous across the region, and Eurasianism denotes different substance in the case of Russia and Kazakhstan (ibid, p. 6). Ideology can be assumed to create courses of action. These provide forceful articulation to objectives; but although these may originate from ideology, they can also independently exist as manifestations of objectives. Without the wide-ranging philosophical interpretation of history that an ideology claims to have, a course of action alone can be assumed to provide more permanent objectives. Short-range goals, even when the idea underlying them emanates indirectly from the wider idea and world view of a leader, should be viewed as independent of ideology, course of action or political culture. All over, the differentiation between political culture and ideology is important and these are assumed to work at various points (Hoffman 1980, 92). Moreover, since this is an essay on dynamic, evolving foreign policies, the concept of ideology has not been viewed or used here as a rigid theory; certainly, a number of works that have dealt with ideology, specifically in the context of the Soviet Union, discovered that it has a single unvarying meaning or form. Conclusions The role of ideology on Soviet foreign policy involved a description of history, an assessment of the present and a vision of utopia, alongside a proposition of the way by which the future would be achieved. Referred to as Marxism-Leninism, its perspective of the global political system was that the world was partitioned into two factions. One side made up of peaceful, egalitarian socialist states, and the ideologies of socialist globalisation shaped the foundation of their shared relations. Since they were egalitarian, these states were without inter-state or local conflict. The other faction made up of capitalist societies which, because of the conflict-ridden relationships between the social groups within them, were motivated by inter- and intra-state hostilities. Even though socialist countries rooted their affairs with capitalist nations in the ideology of nonviolent coexistence, disagreement between the two factions was unavoidable because of capitalism’s confrontational feature. This rendered the global system very perilous. Conflict and hostilities would cease to exist only when the whole world accepted socialism. Even though it was commonly hard to connect this set of ideas directly to specific actions carried by the Soviet Union, its leaders constantly asserted that their foreign policy was influenced by the ideology Marxism-Leninism. Therefore, it is safe to assume that ideology significantly influenced the formation of Soviet foreign policy. References Barghoorn, F.C., 1960. The Soviet Cultural Offensive: The Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Soviet Foreign Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bouscaren, A.T., 1962. Soviet Foreign Policy: A Pattern of Persistence. New York: Fordham University Press. Chafetz, G.R., 1993. 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