Soviet policy towards the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America underwent substantial expansion and change during the three decades since Khrushchev first initiated efforts to break out of the USSR's international isolation. This 1988 volume examine various aspects of Soviet and East European policy towards the Third World.

This reference guide includes information on a number of institutions in Western countries devoted to the study of international questions, especially of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. It indicates the general areas of research work taking place in each one.

This book is originated from the 1985 Rome conference on "Soviet-East European Relations: Implications for the West," which explored the elements of continuity and change, especially the trends in intra-Warsaw Pact relations. It contains revised versions of the papers presented at the conference.

The late twentieth century witnessed remarkable changes in Soviet domestic and foreign policy. Eastern Europe sprang free of the country that held it in its grip for over forty years. The Soviet leadership has accepted the reunification of Germany and supported the US-sponsored resolution in the UN permitting the use of force in the Gulf against one of its former allies.

Valdez argues that the use of the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism to perform various functions ultimately brought about a change in the basic assumptions of the theory itself. This resulted in the abandonment of the previous insistence on a universal model of socialism and of the idea that the international interests of the socialist bloc must take precedence over individual national interest. Soviet influence in Eastern Europe rested on little else than these ideological principles and consequently stood little chance of surviving their re-interpretation. Finally Valdez assesses the re-interpretation of the fundamental principles of Soviet-East European relations by reformist scholars in the Soviet Union, and the response by conservative members of the party apparatus.