La « nouvelle pensée » politique occidentale de l'U.R.S.S

Abstract

The « new thinking » of Soviet occidental policy There are some who willingly admit that the USSR has for many years shown the precursory signs of profound economic stagnation, extreme social disillusionment and pernicious politico-institutional inadequacy. Consequently Mikhail Gorbachev, reaching power in March 1985, finds himself immediately confronted with the imperious obligation to counter the weakening of Soviet society's dynamism. Moreover, it is not only the country's internal situation that requires an immediate cleaning up. Over the past two decades, the Kremlin's avatars of diplomacy, reaching a paroxystic level with disastrous intervention in Afghanistan, indubitably indicate that on the international scene the USSR's status as a super-power is becoming less and less credible. Thus, conscious of the urgent — if not dramatic — nature of the USSR's present situation, Mikhail Gorbachev strongly intends to substitute the decrepitude of some anachronistic structural and functional components of the system with the appeal of new elements, alone capable of generating internal as well as external support, so essential to complete actualization of current reform. The adoption of reformist orientation, however, doesn't allow Gorbachev's rhetoric concerning nuclear disarmement, democratization, cultural liberalization and respect for human rights to be considered a « substantial » transformation of the Soviet system, but rather a « formal » adaptation whose only goal is the systemic revitalization of the country. In fact, the realization of perestroïka, strictly motivated by the necessities of survival, demands a calm climate at the international level, favourable on the one hand to the establishment of « new Socialist thinking » giving greater importance to the training, discipline and responsibility of production agents (decision makers and executors), and on the other hand, to the granting of funds and occidental technological transfers so essential to the modernization process undertaken by the new ruling team. In spite of the conspicuous campaign of seduction directed towards the West that she has orchestred, the USSR nonetheless has not renounced her hegemonic designs beyond her borders. Consequently, it is essential to clearly understand, beyond the recurrent Soviet pacifist talk, the real underlying intentions of apparent bringing together of East and West initiated by Moscow. What are the top priorities of the USSR's current occidental policy and how this policy distinguish itself from its predecessors ? Such are the fundamental questions which an analysis of Gorbachev's occidental policy will attempt to answer.