“Bread for the People and National Security”: Soviet commercial diplomacy during the period of détente

Abstract

The relevance of this research is defined by the need for analyzing the historical experience of adaptation of foreign economic activity of the Soviet State to the challenges of Western policy deterrence, the imperatives of which are being applied to Russia in the current context. The subject of this research is the Soviet grain procurement crisis and foreign policy ways for its overcoming. The object of this research is trade and diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the United States. The scientific novelty lies in elaboration of the concept of “commercial diplomacy” – the foreign economic activity of the USSR government aimed at solution of the domestic problems and tasks of modernization. Leaning on the newly introduced sources, the conclusion is made that the policy of commercial diplomacy implemented by the Soviet Union suggested the use of international dialogue within the framework of cooperation between the governments and public-private business circles on achieving the economic goals associated with the national interests of the Soviet Union. The critical need for grain procurement, discovery of the oil resources potential, and détente in the international relations between the two superpowers led to a new round in the Soviet Union – United States relations. It is underlined that grain and oil manifested as the factor of maintaining domestic political stability and the object of foreign policy exchange. The article answers the question: how the grain procurement problem has transformed from the economic into social issue, and the grain import has become the vulnerable spot of the Soviet Union in the ideological confrontation with the United States, and the object of international relations.