When Lenin became disappointed in his expectations of a forthcoming proletarian upsurge in Germany and the advanced capitalist Countries of Western Europe following the First World War, he began to look to the East as a possible alternate route toward...
When Lenin became disappointed in his expectations of a forthcoming proletarian upsurge in Germany and the advanced capitalist Countries of Western Europe following the First World War, he began to look to the East as a possible alternate route toward fostering and eventually bringing about the coveted Communist World Revolution. In much the same vein, when Stalin’s heirs realized their inability to advance the cause of communism in Europe beyond the line reached at the end and in the aftermath of the Second World War, they began turning their attention increasingly to the less developed countries of Asia, Africa and, more recently, Latin America. The Soviet example was promptly followed by Soviet Russia’s East European communist associates and Communist China.
As documented by the increasing body of literature on the subject, this notable shift in
communist strategy attracted and continues to attract the attention of the students of world communism. 1n addition to numerous articles in scholarly journals and chapters in collections of readings and books on Soviet and Chinese foreign policies. communist strategy in what is now referred to as the “ Third World" has been explored in a number of book-length studies.
Some of them concern themselves only with one or several developing countries while others examine communist activities pertaining to one continent or subcontinent, or concentrate only upon one aspect of strategy, such as economic penetration. Nearly all of the books on communist strategy relative to the Third World published in the West cover pertinent Soviet activities and a number of them scrutinize also those of native communists. A few pay attention also to the Third World ventures of Communist China and fewer still touch upon the contributions made by communist East Europe. However, none of these studies covers the communist strategy vis-a-vis the Third World in its entirety.
It is the purpose of the present article to fill this gap and present an overall exposition and analysis of communist strategy in and toward the Third World without limiting the.
examination to a particular geographic target area or a particular aspect of strategy, and
irrespective of the communist country or party involved in its pursuit. Hence, this study
purports to encompass all of the significant aspects of communist strategy. In illustrating and documenting them. it draws on pertinent activities in all of the four main areas into which the Third World is usually subdivided,i.e., Africa, the Middle East, non-communist Asia and Latin America.