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Soviet Union [USSR] FOREIGN POLICY MAKING AND EXECUTION
The Foreign Policy Makers
The predominant Soviet foreign policy actor has been the
general secretary of the CPSU. The dominant decision-making body
has been the Politburo
(see Soviet Union USSR - Politburo;
Soviet Union USSR - Secretariat
, ch. 7).
Although the general secretary is only one of several members of
the Politburo, his positions as head of the Secretariat and the
Defense Council (see Glossary) give him preeminence in the
Politburo.
Other members of the Politburo also have had major foreign
policy-making responsibilities, most notably the ministers of
foreign affairs and defense, the chairman of the Committee for
State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti--KGB), and the
chief of the CPSU's International Department. The minister of
defense and the minister of foreign affairs had been full or
candidate members of the Politburo intermittently since 1917. The
chairman of the KGB became a candidate member of the Politburo in
1967 and has generally been a full member since then. The chief of
the International Department became a candidate member of the
Politburo in 1972 but from 1986 to 1988 held only Secretariat
membership. Since late 1988, he has been a candidate, then full
member of the Central Committee. Even when foreign policy
organizations were not directly represented on the Politburo, they
were nonetheless supervised by Politburo members.
It is incorrect to say that there are no policy differences
within the Politburo or no policy inputs or alterations of policy
by other foreign policy actors. One Western theory holds that
foreign policy innovation occurs when a new general secretary
consolidates his power and is able to implement his policy agenda.
It is also apparent that the foreign and domestic environments
affect the formulation and execution of Soviet foreign policy.
According to some Western theorists, for instance, Soviet
opportunism in the Third World in the 1970s owed something to
American preoccupation with domestic concerns following the end of
the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Similarly, the
"Reagan Doctrine" of assisting anticommunist insurgencies has been
suggested by some Western analysts as contributing to Soviet
reassessment of the long-term viability of some Third World
revolutionary democratic regimes. The extent to which human,
economic, and military resources are available for diplomatic,
foreign aid, and military activities also affects Soviet foreign
policy. It is nevertheless true that the centralization of foreign
policy decision making in the Politburo and the longevity of its
members (a major factor in the Politburo's lengthy institutional
memory) both have contributed to the Soviet Union's ability to plan
foreign policy and guide its long-term implementation with a
relative singleness of purpose lacking in pluralistic political
systems.
Data as of May 1989
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