Soviet foreign policy

At the time of the founding of the Soviet Union (the USSR) in 1922, most governments internationally regarded the Soviet régime as a pariah because of its advocacy of communism, and thus most states did not give it diplomatic recognition. Less than a quarter century later the Soviet Union not only had official relations with the majority of the nation-states of the world, but had progressed to the role of a superpower.

By 1945 the USSR—a founding member of the United Nations—had become one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, giving it the right to veto any of the Security Council's resolutions (see Soviet Union and the United Nations). During the Cold War, the Soviet Union vied with the United States of America for geopolitical influence; this competition manifested itself in numerous treaties and pacts dealing with military alliances and trade agreements, and in proxy wars.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed Soviet foreign policy. Andrei Gromyko served as the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs for nearly thirty years (1957–1985).

According to Soviet theorists, the basic character of Soviet foreign policy was set forth in Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Peace, adopted by the Second Congress of Soviets in November 1917. It set forth the dual nature of Soviet foreign policy, which encompasses both proletarian internationalism and peaceful coexistence. On the one hand, proletarian internationalism refers to the common cause of the working classes of all countries in struggling to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to establish communist regimes. Peaceful coexistence, on the other hand, refers to measures to ensure relatively peaceful government-to-government relations with capitalist states. Both policies can be pursued simultaneously: "Peaceful coexistence does not rule out but presupposes determined opposition to imperialist aggression and support for peoples defending their revolutionary gains or fighting foreign oppression."

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