The Concept of “Real socialism” in the Foreign Economic Policy of the USSR, the 1960s — the First Half of the 1970s

Abstract

The concept of “real socialism” during the period of détente in the 1960s — the first half of the 1970s acquired in the USSR an expanded interpretation, adopted for the needs of external economic course. The archival collections of working documents of the party leadership of the USSR prove commitment to the class Marxist-Leninist priorities of the Soviet foreign policy — the world socialist system, the national liberation and world labor movements. The well-known Soviet social achievements (state education and health care, full employment, etc.) were still widely advertised. At the same time, the "real socialism" increasingly includes recognition of the diversity of forms, methods and rates of socialist construction in the countries of people's democracy, the complexity and contradictions within the world socialist system. With the proclamation by the Soviet Union of the ideological struggle as the main form of class struggle in international relations, the idea of "real socialism" began to be used in order to characterize the pragmatic course for mutually beneficial cooperation with states of the opposite socio-economic system (long-term trade agreements with countries of the Common Market, attempts to improve relations with the European Economic Community, the inclusion in the Helsinki Act of economic “second basket”). Besides, the idea of “real socialism” detached the constructive course from the universal revolutionary theory and ideology of communism. The evolution of the concept of “real socialism” in the USSR reflected pragmatism and hopes for broad economic international cooperation in order to overcome the “shortcomings” and “difficultiesѼ of the Soviet national economy.