|
|
Article: Did the West undo the East? (influence of Western nations on the collapse of Communism in the former USSR) (Special Issue: The Strange Death of Soviet Communism)
- Article from:
- The National Interest
- Article date:
- March 22, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 The National Interest, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
THE COLD WAR, it was often said, was a struggle not merely between states but between incompatible social and political systems. There was as a result no issue of Western policy more important, more persistent or more controversial than whether external influences might alter the internal evolution of Soviet communism. In different ways and at different times, the problem preoccupied and divided realists and moralists, liberals and conservatives, militarists and appeasers, businessmen and legislators, Europeans and Americans, those who claimed to know what kind of pressure would work and those who said the effort was futile, even dangerous. Most recently, of course, with ...