USSR WEEKLY REVIEW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00912A000100010049-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 21
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 12, 2004
• Sequence Number: 49
• Publication Date: November 2, 1977
• Content Type: REPORT

National Confidential -17
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Assessment
Center
USSR
Weekly Review
Confidential
RP ASU 77-032
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CONFIDENTIAL
2 November 1977
CONTENTS
Soviet Foreign Policy Since Sinai II--
An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Foreign Policy Implications of Soviet
Economic Problems: Some Further Speculations . . . 12
USSR: Changes in Education Policy
Reflect Soviet Concern for Labor Policy . . . . . . 17
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This publication is prepared by the USSR Division, Office of Regional and Political
Analysis, with occasional contributions from other offices within the National
Foreign Assessment Center. The views presented are the personal judgments of
analysts on significant events or trends in Soviet foreign and domestic affairs.
Although the analysis centers on political matters, it discusses politically relevant
economic or strategic trends when appropriate. Differences of opinion are some-
times aired to present consumers with a range of analytical views. Comments and
queries are welcome. They should be directed to the authors of the individual
articles or to F__ I
2 November 1977
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Soviet Foreign Policy Since Sinai II--An Overview
(NOTE: The following article is the text of a paper
presented on 20 October at a conference on the Middle
East sponsored by the Office of Regional and Political
Analysis. Comments on the personal judgments expressed
are solicited.)
Over the next half hour, I will set the stage for
our discussions of the next two days by placing Soviet
interests in the Middle East into the total evolving
world context as I think the Soviets see it. And to this
end, I suggest that we try to reconstruct an overview of
the most notable trends of the last two years--since
Sinai II--as a well-positioned, well-informed, and rela-
tively coolheaded Soviet specialist might see them.
Let us suppose that Kapitsa of the Foreign Ministry,
or Zagladin of the International Department of the Cen-
tral Committee, or best of all Aleksandrov-Agentov of
Brezhnev's personal staff was asked to compose for the
Politburo a memorandum listing and weighing--as objective-
ly as possible--the favorable and unfavorable aspects of
what has happened to Soviet interests in the world since
the fall of 1975. If such a person could afford to be
brutally frank (which is of course certainly open to ques-
tion), what would he say?
Looking first at the positive side of the ledger,
I suggest he might find that there have been five main
developments broadly favorable to Soviet interests in the
last two years.
First--and this is basic--would be the deep Soviet
satisfaction over their continued progress in the strategic
arms matchup with the United States. This has involved
the deployment of new ballistic missile-firing submarines
and the scheduled replacement of third generation ICBMs
by fourth generation ones with greater site hardness,
greater accuracy, and a MIRV payload. The net effect has
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been to maintain the Soviet lead over the United States
in certain quantitative measures of strategic power
while reducing the US lead on the qualitative side. The
ultimate scope of the political rewards anticipated by
the USSR from this buildup is still ambiguous. But the
Soviets almost certainly expect, at a minimum, to reduce
US leverage and improve their own in any future confron-
tations such as the one which occurred late in the Octo-
ber 1973 war.
Secondly, a Soviet official reviewing key events
since 1975 would recall that the war in Indochina had
ended only five months before Sinai II, and did so in a
manner that was surprisingly abrupt and imposed a humilia-
tion upon the United States which the Soviets found most
gratifying. As a result, the US was forced to take a
step back in Asia. The Soviet Union, on the other hand,
not only could claim credit for the help it had given
the winning side, but has since been able to consolidate
its position as the outside power with the greatest de-
gree of influence in Vietnam and Laos. This does not
mean, of course, that the USSR can expect to dominate the
Vietnamese--no one can do that--but rather that the end
of the war has allowed both the Vietnamese and Chinese
to remove some of the veils from their profound mutual
antagonism. With the Americans gone, this has left the
Soviet Union with a considerable local advantage, since
it is the only large power which has at least fair ideolog-
ical relations with Hanoi, which is sufficiently distant
to be nonthreatening, and which also has the capability
and inclination to render economic aid.
Beyond this, the Soviets have had reason to hope
that the highly undignified American departure from Saigon
would be seen all over the world as symbolic and sympto-
matic of a generally receding tide of US presence and
influence, while the Soviet Union would be seen all the
more as the advancing tide.
A Soviet memorandum-writer might at this juncture
cite a third recent trend which could be portrayed as
further evidence for this notion of the advancing and
the receding tide. After 15 years of frustration and
fluctuating fortunes, the Soviet Union since 1975 has
at last made a breakthrough in Africa sufficient to
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establish the USSR permanently as a major influence there.
The Soviet presence had been gradually improving in a
smaller way for some time previously, of course--notably
in dealings with the Marxist regime in Somalia, which
had granted the USSR use of an Indian Ocean base at
Berbera. But the major advances have come rather dramat-
ically as a consequence of the liquidation of the Por-
tuguese colonial empire in East and West Africa--and par-
ticularly, of course, as a result of the events in Angola.
The circumstances surrounding the triumph of the Soviet-
supported faction in Angola in late 1975 and early 1976
have indeed appeared to make the event a historical land-
mark. Never before had the Soviet Union sought to as-
sert so long a reach--to bring significant military power
to bear for a specific political end over such long dis-
tances, so far from areas of vital Soviet interest.
While the forces thus deployed were, to be sure, largely
proxies--Cubans--the weapons and much of the transport
used were Soviet. Indeed, the Angolan intervention sym-
bolized, as much as anything, the coming of age of the
Soviet air transport capability previously used abroad
mainly in periodically resupplying freshly defeated Arab
armies over relatively short distances. Thus this episode
demonstrated the most striking Soviet departure to date
from Stalin's conservative reluctance to become committed
to military adventures beyond the range of contiguous
land-based artillery. At the same time, coming as they
did within a year after the American debacle in Vietnam,
the Angolan events were widely interpreted as another
defeat for US policy by the Soviet Union, and one which
was somehow a continuation and confirmation of a trend
seen as implicit in the fall of Vietnam. A Soviet writer
could well profess to see both a historical link and
a gratifying contrast--on the one hand, the spectacular
use of American helicopters to extricate defeated person-
nel from Saigon out of the battle, and on the other hand
the equally spectacular use of Soviet air transport to
bring equipment and men to Luanda into the battle.
By picking his facts carefully and selectively, a
Soviet official could also cite many grounds for optimism
in the trends in Africa since the apparent final triumph
of the Angolan MPLA. These would include the Soviet
friendship treaties signed with Angola and Mozambique,
the aircraft reconnaissance base rights which the USSR
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may anticipate in Angola, the development of a legitimized
Soviet role, however circumscribed, in support of the
black nationalist campaign against Rhodesia, the rise of
the Namibia issue, the growing presence of small groups
of Cuban military experts in various parts of Africa, and
the long-term implications of the rise to power of a
radical military group in Ethiopia--the largest East
African state, which is ideologically predisposed to favor
the USSR and to be hostile to the US.
Leaving Africa for the time being, a Soviet official
seeking to isolate phenomena fovorable to Soviet interests
could of course refer to the various ongoing difficulties
of Western Europe and the Western alliance. This would
include, in the first place, the continued political
volatility and precariousness of NATO's whole southern
flank along the Mediterranean--because of the conflicting
interests of Greece and Turkey, because of the growing
role of the Communist Party of Italy and the implications
this has had for the future security of NATO planning,
and because of the continued fragility of the two new
regimes on the Iberian Peninsula. Beyond this, a Soviet
writer could refer to the ongoing economic problems of
much of Western Europe, involving unemployment, inflation,
continued vulnerability to high energy costs, and the
prospect of continued reduction of growth rates. All this
has sponsored a general malaise conducive to the growth
of leftist sentiment and ultimately--so the Soviet Union
might hope--suggesting the likelihood of increased West
European economic and political friction with the United
States and reduced responsiveness to American influence.
While the Soviet Union has had only marginal ability to
affect any of these trends, a Soviet writer might cite
them as phenomena favorable to Soviet net interests and
worthy of applause. I shall return in a few minutes to
the question of whether this is really the case and
whether most Soviets now think so.
Finally, of course, a Soviet memorandum-writer cast-
ing about for favorable events of the last couple of
years would probably feel obliged to cite the 1975 con-
vening of the European Security Conference and the signing
of the Helsinki Declaration. This event did, after all,
mean the successful culmination of years of Soviet cam-
paigning for a conference which would put a final, author-
itative seal upon the postwar borders of Europe and
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legitimize Soviet World War II territorial gains. In
this sense, the Helsinki conference is probably still
regarded as a solid achievement of Soviet policy.
Nevertheless, if the hypothetical memorandum stopped
there, it would be likely to cause some raised eyebrows
and head-scratching among its Politburo readers. Despite
the important elements of truth in each of the points
made so far, it is symptomatic of the gravity of Soviet
problems that none of the Soviet leaders is likely to
consider the foregoing optimistic discussion an adequate
picture of the.main trends facing the Soviet Union. We
can therefore imagine the memorandum-writer taking a
deep breath and beginning again with the word "odnako"--
"however." In all Soviet reports, the heart of the matter
generally follows the "odnako."
In the first place, he would be obliged to note
flatly that the Soviet Union's relative position in the
overarching Sino-Soviet-US world triangle unfortunately
continues to be unfavorable, and has in fact deteriorated
slightly further in the last couple of years. On the
Chinese side of the equation, it has turned out that the
death of Mao Tse-tung a year ago has not had the moderat-
ing affect upon Peking's attitude toward the USSR for
which the Soviets had so long been hoping. On the con-
trary, the supposedly moderate, pragmatic figures now
in control in Peking continue to display toward the Soviet
Union an implacable hostility which is far more intense
than that toward the United States and which now appears
to be firmly rooted in a nonideological view of Chinese
national interest. The Chinese therefore continue to
wage vehement geopolitical warfare against the USSR on
every front around the world and, in particular, do their
utmost to persuade the major capitalist countries to
abandon all dealings with the Soviet Union. Although
Chinese capabilities in this regard, fortunately for Mos-
cow, are still limited, the Soviet Union continues to be
concerned over the potential effect of Chinese exhorta-
tions about the Soviet danger, particularly upon conserva-
tive forces in the West. The Soviet Union has also be-
come increasingly exercised this year over what is seen
as a growing possibility that the United States and
other Western states may soon expand the sale of military
technology to the Chinese. It is in this particular key
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respect that the already bad situation in the triangle
is growing worse for the USSR rather than better--and
this despite the fact that Sino-US relations are them-
selves stalemated over Taiwan.
Because of the Soviet desire to minimize these prob-
lems--and even more, to minimize the potential leverage
upon Moscow which Washington may hope to obtain from this
situation--the USSR would very much like to improve its
relations with Peking. But the Soviets are willing to
do this only if it can be done without sacrificing what
are regarded as essential national interests. Unfortu-
nately for the USSR, the Chinese are obviously determined
for their own reasons to keep the relationship frozen.
To this end they rigidly adhere to certain Maoist nego-
tiating demands in the Sino-Soviet border dispute which,
as they well realize, no Soviet Government can or will
ever consider. The upshot is that while Soviet experts
continue to hope for some eventual modification of the
Chinese position, they cannot encourage the Soviet leader-
ship to expect this in the next few years. They cannot
encourage any aged Politburo member in questionable
health--such as Brezhnev--to believe he will live long
enough to shake hands with a Chinese leader, and they
cannot nominate a time when it will become safe to stop
pouring concrete for pillboxes around Khabarovsk.
Secondly, it is against this background that we note
that the Soviet relationship with the other member of the
triangle--the United States--has been continuously eroding
from the end of 1974 until a few weeks ago. It is now
evident that a turning point in the detente relationship
occurred late in 1974, when the Vladivostok understandings
were reached and the Stevenson Amendment was passed to the
Export-Import Bank bill. Consolidation of the Vladivostok
understanding in a new draft treaty was to prove impossi-
ble for nearly three years, partly because of growing con-
cern in the United States over Soviet strategic intentions,
and partly for a number of other reasons, including dis-
content in the US over the way in which detente was being
defined as well as anger over Soviet behavior in Angola.
At the same time, the declining state of the relationship
has also been reflected in the Soviet inability to secure
revision of the obnoxious US trade legislation of Decem-
ber 1974 whose passage precipitated Soviet rejection of
the Trade Agreement the following month.
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Meanwhile, the internal processes of the United
States have evolved in a fashion which has given the
Soviet Union new cause for concern. Soviet satisfaction
with the rate of Soviet strategic deployment has been
tempered by a healthy respect for US technological capa-
bility, and by gradually increasing anxiety over the
advent of new US weapon systems not yet matched in the
Soviet Union. Similarly, Soviet self-satisfaction be-
cause of the US discomfiture over Vietnam has this year
been replaced by anxiety over the emergence of a new US
leadership which has taken the political offensive on
several fronts against the USSR.
Thirdly, the advance of Soviet fortunes in Africa
has proved a much more complex and difficult task in
1977 than it had appeared in 1975 or 1976. In Angola,
for example, the MPLA has found itself unable to assert
its authority over a considerable portion of the national
territory in the face of a prolonged insurgency, at the
same time that Neto's personal attitude toward the Soviet
Union has cooled considerably. Meanwhile, the Soviet
effort to court the radical Mengistu government of
Ethiopia has involved the USSR in a dilemma because of
the Somali attempt to conquer Ethiopia's Ogaden region.
The Soviet decision to supply arms to Ethiopia and to
put pressure on the USSR's older client, Somalia, to
desist has thus far not rescued the Ethiopians--much to
Mengistu's chagrin. On the other hand, the Soviet tilt
toward Ethiopia has placed in jeopardy the Soviet posi-
tion in Somalia and the continued Soviet use of their
base at Berbera. There is some fragmentary and inconclu-
sive evidence to raise the possibility that this painful
dilemma could eventually lead the USSR to rediscover the
virtue of seeking limited local cooperation with the
United States with a view to finding a way to end the
conflict.
Fourthly, in Europe, the Soviets have once again
discovered the two-edged, equivocal nature of several
trends that might at first glance have seemed favorable
to Soviet interests.
One such problem has, as we know, accompanied the
rise in Communist influence in parts of Western Europe.
While hoping for a decrease in US influence and a loosen-
ing of NATO ties as the end-product of this trend, many
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Soviet officials seem by no means sure that this goal
will be worth the cost they are already paying in dimin-
ished Soviet influence over the key Communist parties.
In combating the rise of Eurocommunism, the Soviets are
struggling against the apparently very strong temptation
for Eurocommunist leaders to strengthen their position
in their own societies by distancing themselves from
the Soviet Union and attacking Soviet practices. More-
over, the Soviets view the heresies and challenges to
CPSU legitimacy voiced by West European Communists as
particularly dangerous because of their potential sub-
versive effect upon Eastern Europe. There is consider-
able evidence to suggest that in the last few years the
weighing of the plusses and minuses of these trends has
evoked as much uncertainty and controversy in Moscow as
in the West.
An associated, particularly unpleasant dilemma for
the Soviets has arisen in Europe in 1976 and 1977 in
connection with the unforeseen aftermath of the European
Security Conference. Even before the new US administra-
tion publicly espoused the human rights issue, the effect
of the adoption of Basket III at Helsinki was to stimulate
challenges to Communist authority and practice in East
Europe and the Soviet Union. While these could be easily
contained in the USSR, they are viewed as much more ser-
ious in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, where
the situation is uniquely fragile because of the endemic
weakness of the Polish economy and the proven readiness
of the Polish proletariat to rebel. Beyond this security
issue, the Soviet leaders have seen the human rights
movement spawned by Helsinki as placing them on the politi-
cal defensive throughout the world, and they believe that
the issue has been deliberately used this year for that
purpose by the new US administration. At the same time
the Soviets have also come to fear discussion of the human
rights question as feeding the Eurocommunist impetus to-
ward autonomy.
Yet another set of dilemmas arises from the Soviet
economic relationship with the West. The Soviets have
learned that inflation and other factors that distress
the economies of Western Europe and thus cheer the hearts
of ideologues in Moscow also raise the price of the for-
eign technology the USSR wishes to purchase. At the same
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time, any such difficulties in the large capitalist states
render even more improbable the huge capital investments
in the exploitation of Soviet raw materials which the
USSR has been seeking from the capitalist world, with
minimal success, since detente began. Meanwhile, some
Soviets may have begun to wonder whether the windfall
benefits in hard currency earnings they have obtained in
the West from the leap in the world price of oil will
outweigh, over the long run, the growing economic burdens
that high oil prices are bringing to Eastern Europe.
These are burdens which the Soviet Union in the last
analysis will have to share rather than accept the politi-
cal consequences. This issue is likely to come to a head
within the next few years if, as anticipated, Soviet oil
available for export both to succor Eastern Europe and to
earn hard currency in the West begins to diminish rapidly
and the Soviets are forced to choose. Recently aired
Western predictions of such a reduction of Soviet oil
exports may well have multiplied Soviet anxieties about
the future of their technology imports from the West, if
their hard currency earnings to finance such imports do
plummet as forecast.
This brings us, finally, to the Middle East, where
the political losses the Soviets have suffered in recent
years are also closely intertwined with Soviet economic
weaknesses. In the last two years the already poor So-
viet position in the area has endured further major set-
backs, the two most significant being Sadat's abrogation
of the Soviet-Egyptian friendship treaty and expulsion
of the Soviet fleet from Alexandria, together with Asad's
humiliating demonstration of Soviet impotence to prevent
him from breaking the power of the PLO in Lebanon. In the
face of this steady erosion of Soviet influence, Soviet
hopes to begin a comeback have remained centered on the
possibility of reconvening a Geneva Conference at which
the USSR would be seen in a coequal role with the United
States.
More fundamentally, the Soviet overall position in
the Middle East continues to be squeezed between three
converging pressures: first, the enormous influence of
the conservative oil-producing states working against
Soviet interests; secondly, the enticement of the Arabs
by the United States with hopes that the US could deliver
significant Israeli concessions; and thirdly, the in-
creasing orientation of the economies of even radical Arab
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states toward the capitalist industrial states because
of the fundamental inferiority of most Soviet and East
European civilian technology to that of the West. The
last factor has already increased the East European bur-
den on the USSR by defeating East European attempts to
secure significant quantities of oil from the Middle East
without the expenditure of hard currency. It is true
that Soviet weapons are competitive in quality with those
of the West, that the USSR can earn hard currency or the
oil equivalent through weapon sales to states possessing
oil, and that the Soviet Union has earned sizable amounts
in this way through sales to Libya and Iraq. It therefore
seems likely, as a recent OER paper notes, that if the
anticipated Soviet hard currency difficulties materialize
in the next few years, the economic motive for seeking
such arms sales will increasingly supplant the political
motive in Soviet eyes. Nevertheless, it does not seem
probable that customers will be found to make such pur-
chases on a scale commensurate with Soviet problems.
Finally, what can we conclude from this survey of
recent Soviet adventures and misadventures?
First, that the Soviets continue to take for granted
that their relationship with the US must necessarily be
a mixture of cooperative and competitive elements. But
more than this, they have made it apparent that in many,
although not all places, they regard their interests as
inherently incompatible with those of the US. Their
policy in Angola and in much of the rest of Africa has
appeared to be grounded on this assumption. At the
same time, they also appear to take for granted that the
US has often acted under the same assumption, particularly
in view of the successful US efforts to constrict Soviet
influence in the Middle East since 1973. As a consequence,
it is clear that the Soviets have never taken seriously nor
expected the US to take seriously the 1972 joint Soviet-US
pledge to avoid transgressing on each other's interests.
Secondly, it also seems likely that the Soviet view
of how far to allow cooperation to dilute their competi-
tive instincts has varied over time. One key factor has
been their changing perception of what they have to lose--
that is, what they are obtaining from their bilateral re-
lationship with the United States at each point in time.
It is also obvious that other matters being equal, the
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Soviets have been less inclined toward cooperation at
moments and places where they regard themselves as having
the upper hand over the United States (as in the middle
East prior to 1967 and Angola in early 1976) and rela-
tively more inclined to do so when and where they see
themselves in difficulties (as in the Middle East in
recent years and perhaps the Horn of Africa today).
Thirdly, in this competition the Soviets have made
certain undeniably solid gains in recent years. This is
particularly so in the strategic relationship, as well
as in Africa, where despite the recent problems to which
I have alluded the Soviets have achieved a political
base from which they are unlikely to be totally dislodged,
and which they will use for many years in an ongoing
struggle against US influence.
Fourth and lastly, despite these gains, it is my
judgment that the overall foreign political balance
sheet for the Soviet Union has been negative over the
last couple of years and will probably become more so.
Of all the issues I have mentioned, two towering prob-
lems--that of China and that of Soviet economic vulner-
abilities--appear to me to overshadow all else, and both
are likely to prove intractable.
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Foreign Policy Implications of Soviet Economic Problems:
Some Further Speculations*
The continuing decline in economic growth is sharp-
ening the dilemmas of Soviet foreign policy. If, in addi-
tion, the Soviets are forced to reduce, and perhaps
eliminate, oil exports to the West--exports which now
account for over half of their hard currency export
earnings--a major Soviet reexamination of economic rela-
tions with the West will become necessary. Moreover,
Eastern Europe's economic ties to the West and perhaps
Soviet economic relations with Eastern Europe will also
have to be reexamined. The expansion of the entire bloc's
economic relationship with the West has been an integral
part of the Soviet concept of detente, and Eastern Europe's
need for an increased share of the USSR's exportable oil
surplus has restrained and now threatens Soviet oil ex-
ports to the West.
Contradictions Emerge
The concept of detente, as ratified at the 24th
Party "Peace" Congress in 1971, appears to have been
premised on a growing recognition of the USSR as a super-
power and on a continuing favorable shift in the "correla-
tion of forces." The USSR was becoming the military, if
not the economic, equal of the US and was capable of
simultaneously taking steps to address the unsettled
postwar issues in central Europe, integrate Eastern
Europe into an inviolable "socialist commonwealth," and
face comparison, engagement, and negotiations with the
West on a broad range of issues. Until recently, events
tended to bear out these Soviet assumptions. The growing
recognition of Soviet military parity with the US and the
impact of the international energy crisis on the West ap-
peared to affirm that in the crucial arenas of military
and economic competition the balance was continuing to
shift toward the USSR.
For another discussion of the implications of Soviet eco-
nomic problems, particularly for domestic issues, see
"Political Implications of the USSR's Economic Future:
Some Speculations," USSR Regional and Political Analysis,
RP ASU 77-028, 6 October 1977.
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The assumptions about future East-West economic and
military trends, however, have become questionable. As
relations with the US have deteriorated, the threat has in-
creased of a new, qualitatively oriented spurt in the
arms race, during which the Soviets could have difficulty
maintaining the pace. At the same time, the West has
partially recovered from the energy crisis, and future
bloc gains from expanding East-West economic relations
have been jeopardized by the serious problems of debt,
credit, exports, and cooperation. If Soviet economic
performance deteriorates further and particularly if
economic relations with the West decline abruptly be-
cause of a lack of exportable oil, improvements in the
East-West "correlation of forces" will become increas-
ingly difficult to sustain.
If the Soviets perceive the political, social, and
ideological consequences of bloc economic problems as
serious threats, retrenchment in relations with the
West, rather than significant change at home, appears
to be the more likely course for the present leadership,
at least initially. There are already signs that imports
from the West are being cut back, albeit reluctantly, and
that East European economic needs, including oil, will
receive priority, even though the USSR is incapable of
meeting them fully. Although such policies will have a
long-range cumulative effect on Soviet domestic resource
allocations, this emerging situation threatens to have
a more immediate impact on a fundamental premise of
detente--the assumption that internal bloc economic ties
with the West would be complements, rather than alterna-
tives. (CEMA integration was, on the one hand, to be
fostered by imports of advanced Western technology and
equipment and, on the other hand, to generate improved
products capable of export to the West.) Declining
Soviet economic prospects thus undercut the economic
pillar of detente and pose growing difficulties for
Soviet foreign policy.
The Dialectic at Work
As always, however, the primary question for Soviet
leaders is not what provides the basis for improved ties
with the West, but what provides the basis for improved
competition with the West. Military detente, which has
largely superseded economic detente as the driving force
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behind the Soviet "peace offensive" in the past few years,
may be valued in part for fostering economic and polit-
ical benefits. But the primary virtue of continuing
to strive to reduce tensions with the West must lie in
the impact on the overall East-West balance--on the
trend in the "correlation of forces"--of which such
benefits are but a part and in which the military ele-
ment looms large. The dilemma for the Soviets lies in
mitigating the burden of the arms race, yet continuing
to find grounds for claiming--and projecting--further
gains vis-a-vis the West in the overall balance.
As long-term economic prospects dim, these two
goals will become increasingly difficult to reconcile.
Since the beginning of the detente era, the continuing
Soviet military buildup has posed a latent danger--the
prospect that the West might react by embarking upon major
new military programs that would place greater strains on
the faltering Soviet economy as it is called upon to re-
spond with greater military production. Now, while the
economic and technological benefits available from East-
West ties may be declining, the potential gains from any
slowing of the arms race are increasing as the reduced
increment to Soviet economic growth becomes more diffi-
cult to allocate-among competing claimants.
Nevertheless, there are reasons why the Soviets may
believe the risks inherent in heightened military compe-
tition are well worth taking. First, such competition
may be viewed as compensation for the increased frustra-
tion experienced in trying to overtake the West economi-
cally, frustration that may bring with it an erosion of
Soviet political and ideological authority at home and
abroad. Secondly, Soviet military power represents a
major commitment of resources, and there may be increased
temptation to try to draw foreign policy dividends from
these past investments. As the economy slows, the rela-
tive attractiveness for Soviet leaders of arms sales and
military support for client regimes or insurgent forces
in the Third World is likely to grow as export earnings
and the resources available for economic aid become more
difficult to generate. Moreover, should economic dis-
location and Social unrest within the bloc become serious
threats because of oil shortages, such policies could
increasingly be directed toward the securing of foreign
oil supplies.
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A Hopeful Synthesis?
Yet resorting to a more assertive use of military
power for immediate economic or political objectives
would jeopardize the Soviets' remaining economic ties
with the West and the Third World, thereby forcing an
even more rapid retreat towards autarky. It would also
probably trigger a costly boost in the arms race. Clearly
a more far-sighted policy for Soviet leaders, in the
face of the prospect of the USSR or the bloc becoming
a net oil importer, would be to seek stability in the
Middle East and a concerted East-West effort to assure
fulfillment of the oil requirements of both sides. The
feasibility of such a policy may be enhanced by the ex-
pectation that the West will also become increasingly
dependent upon Arab oil by the 1980s and by a declining
Soviet interest in higher oil prices as exports to the
West fall.
But the cooperative route would also pose difficult
problems for Soviet leaders. Having only recently been
widely recognized as a military equal of the US, and
still clearly feeling economically and technologically
inferior in any great power or East-West comparison, the
Soviets naturally see themselves as disadvantaged in the
economic arena. Although Brezhnev clearly senses--as
Khrushchev did--that expanded international economic ties
and a gradual institutional involvement offer the basic
long-term answer, a myriad of inhibitions arise in the
short term. As economic performance slows, and particu-
larly if the prospect of serious oil shortage looms, the
feeling of economic inferiority will become more diffi-
cult to overcome.
If compounded by a more limited prospect for eco-
nomic benefits from East-West ties because of increasing
Western resistance to the expansion of credit and co-
operation, the autarkic pressures already enhanced in
the bloc by the energy crisis could then spread more
rapidly beyond the fuel and raw material sphere to that
of more technology-intensive industries. This would
further reduce the Soviet economic incentive for detente
and hence whatever incentive now exists for responding
favorably to Western political pressures. This could,
in turn, facilitate a return to greater orthodoxy at home
and perhaps to a more belligerent posture abroad.
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Whether the Soviets see greater competition or
greater cooperation with the West as the primary answer
to their mounting economic problems will depend not only
on the nature and severity of these problems--and of
course on leadership inclinations--but also on how the
West is believed likely to respond. Western reactions
to Soviet military involvement in Africa over the past
couple of years may have provided them with some indica-
tion of how a competitive/aggressive policy would fare.
On the other hand, two recent trends serve to test the
prospects for a more cooperative approach; Soviet efforts
to diversify their oil supplies by reaching beyond the
radical clients favored in the past to include Iran, and
Brezhnev's repeated calls for an East-West energy con-
ference. For this second, cooperative approach to win
final Soviet acceptance, however, the Soviet leaders
would have to be willing to accept the likelihood of a
relatively long stand-down in their drive to overtake
the West until economic cooperation, perhaps accompanied
by more effective arms control, has laid the groundwork
for the future triumphs of "socialism." F77 I
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USSR: Changes in Education Policy Reflect Soviet Concern
for Labor Quality
The specter of a sharp slowdown in labor force growth
in the 1980s has prompted Soviet leaders to revamp the
vocational-technical education system in an effort to
increase the quality of training for new entrants. Train-
ing workers on the job has proved to be unsatisfactory,
and an effort is being made to formalize and extend voca-
tional training and, at the same time, provide a greater
proportion of new entrants into the labor force with a
complete secondary education.
A resolution was adopted by the Central Committee
and the Council of Ministers in September calling for
further improvement and expansion of vocational and tech-
nical school training, particularly at the secondary
level. The resolution stipulates that vocational-tech-
nical schools will be the major vehicle for training future
workers. Compared with a current course of one to two
years, the legislation provides for a three-year course
of study for eighth-grade graduates in which students would
be trained for an occupation and receive a secondary
education as well. Also, one- to two-year vocational
training courses for graduates of secondary schools (tenth
grade) who will enter the labor force are to be established.
Apparently, the regime is gambling that additional tech-
nical training will raise the productivity of new workers
sufficiently to offset the decline in production the de-
lay in their entering the labor force might cause.
During the current five-year-plan period, the Soviets
are planning to train 11 million young workers in voca-
tional-technical schools. In 1980, more than 80 percent
of the future workers (compared to 28 percent in 1976)
will be trained at secondary vocational-technical schools,
according to A. Bulgakov, Chairman of the State Committee
for Vocational and Technical Education. The new legisla-
tion also calls for the construction of schools, revision
of curricula, training of more qualified teachers, and
overhauling the certification procedures.
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Vocational-technical schools have long been the
poor relative of the Soviet school system. These
schools were attached to particular enterprises and min-
istries to train workers in occupations specifically for
their parent enterprise. The Soviet press has reported
regularly on the poor utilization of funds for vocational-
technical school construction, outdated training equip-
ment, inadequate educational and technical background of
the teachers, lack of interest on the part of the sponsor-
ing organizations, and low prestige in the eyes of the
students. A further flaw in the vocational network has
been the lack of participation by females. In 1966 women
composed 50 percent of workers and employees in the econ-
omy and 18 percent of students in vocational schools.
By 1977 the proportions had increased to 51 percent of
workers and employees and 30 percent of enrollment.
Currently, females are trained for only 580 of 1,200 pro-
fessions in the vocational-technical system and 280 of
530 at the secondary-vocational level.
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