Russia,China,and the Underdeveloped Areas

Abstract

The divergence between Soviet and Chinese Communist policy toward the underdeveloped areas has de rived largely from differing views of national interest. The advent of nuclear weapons has fostered a Soviet wish to con trol the risk of local-war clashes that might involve the Soviet Union in total war. For this and other reasons, the Soviets have attempted to reduce the emphasis given armed "anti- imperialist" struggles generally while continuing to encourage such violence in particular cases judged to be both profitable and of little risk. Moscow has also favored a cautious policy toward newly independent states, relying upon the gradual growth of Soviet political and economic influence to induce the ruling "national bourgeoisie" to accept estrangement from the West, dependence on the bloc, and eventual domination by the local Communist party. Communist China, on the other hand, regards militant action throughout the underdeveloped world as the principal weapon available to it to strike at and isolate the United States. Peking has, therefore, strongly opposed every Soviet policy which in the Chinese view might inhibit such militancy. The Chinese Communists have also posed, with some hypocrisy, as consistent defenders of the interests of Communist parties betrayed by the Soviet Union in its con ciliation of the "national bourgeoisie."