The U.S. took for granted during the Cold War that Soviet foreign policy was driven by the tenets of Marxism-Leninism toward imperial expansion and subversion. Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, and even Mikhail Gorbachev were viewed as ideologues bent on leading their Third World clients to resist U.S. hegemony — or subverting American interests.
In this episode, historians Sergey Radchenko and Vladislav Zubok weigh the role of ideology versus other, more “realist” factors, such as the quest for security and the recognition of the legitimacy of the Kremlin’s interests. The focus of the discussion is Mr. Radchenko’s latest book “To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid For Global Power,” which was reviewed in The Washington Times on June 21.
“I do not say that ideology did not matter. I question what is ideology fundamentally? If we say that ideology is the canon of Marxist-Leninist work … I contend that this is not all that important in understanding Soviet foreign policy. Look at Khrushchev or Brezhnev. Did they ever read ’Das Kapital’? I bet they never read this stuff,” said Mr. Radchenko, a scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “So what is it that the Soviet leaders wanted? I contend they wanted legitimacy.”
“For a long time, many people in America saw ideology like the way John Foster Dulles saw ideology. He carried with him ’Concerning Questions of Leninism’ written by Stalin and quoted them even at the meetings of the National Security Council. This is ridiculous, but in this way, many Americans thought of the Russians as being very fanatical and ideological,” said Mr. Zubok, the author of Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union.
History As It Happens is available at washingtontimes.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
