Internal Politics and Soviet Foreign Policy: a Case Study

Abstract

IN RECENT years, the realms of domestic and foreign policy in the Union have become increasingly interconnected and interdependent. It is clear, for example, that the current detente is a product not just of external considerations (the Sino-Soviet conflict, West Germany's Ostpolitik, changes in American foreign policy, etc.), but of domestic concerns too (agricultural difficulties, pronounced technological deficiencies). Conversely, decisions which might be thought of as basically domestic in nature (the treatment of Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov and other dissidents, the imposition of an exit tax on emigrating Jews, or the jamming of foreign broadcasts) are now heavily influenced by foreign policy considerations. Stalin did not have to frame his foreign policy with an eye to domestic opponents nor be concerned that a foreign set-back would seriously damage his domestic standing. Brezhnev is not so fortunate. It is unfortunate-though understanable-that students of linkage phenomena have been slow to bring the Union into their purview. For many years, under the influence of the totalitarian model, it was widely assumed that the leaders of the Union were able both to insulate domestic politics from unwanted foreign influences and to formulate their foreign policy in a setting divorced from domestic constraints and pressures. Until relatively recently, most studies of foreign policy revolved around the question of the role of ideology in determining conduct. Although there were significant differences even within this approach-with some analysts pointing to the Soviet Design for a World State and a Communist Blueprint for Victory, while others postulated a more subtle relationship between policy and doctrinethe general tendency was to employ non-reactive models of behavior. As William Zimmerman has noted, foreign policy was conceptualized in mechanistic or essentialist terms which left little room for the operation of domestic constraints or influences.1 Moreover, even when the totalitarian model began to fall into disfavor, there was still the practical problem of severely limited sources of information. Sustained kremlinological digging might yield a few fascinating glimpses of intra-elite conflicts, but it has been extremely difficult to relate these (and other domestic influences) to foreign policy with any degree of precision. In the last few years, the approach toward the study of foreign policy has begun to shift. A new concern with the interrelation of domestic and foreign policy has arisen due both theoretical considerations (the increased attention of international relations theorists to linkage phenomena) and practical developments (the relative decline of ideology and the limited