Sovjetski i američki pogledi na nesvrstavanje
Soviet and American Views on Nonalignment

Summary/Abstract: The author considers the policy of nonalignment as a part of the positive changes through which the contemporary development of the world is going and in that light analyses the viewpoints of the two strongest States with regard to those whose policy is nonalignment. Leaders of the two largest coalitions carefully followed, if not always completely objectively, the movements of the group of nonaligned countries, in an attempt to evaluate as realistically as possible, the main directions of action, the marks of new tendencies and possibilities for their own activities. Presenting Soviet viewpoints with regard to cooperation with nonaligned countries, the author starts from Lenin's analysis in which it was asserted that colonial and semicolonial countries would have a special place in international relations. However, only after Stalin's death when Soviet foreign policy was emerging from isolation was the value of the new countries of Asia and Africa realised in the USSR and an effort made to gain them as allies in the fight against imperialism. At the same time, Soviet doctrines regarding the internal development of those countries was also changing so that today the basic request is made for a non-capitalist path of development with the emphasis on the need for the development of internal democracy and the strengthening of ties with Socialist States. In America foreign policy, nonalignment was received from the very beginning as a certain form of neutralism against which one should fight decisively, for in the terminology of John Foster Dulles »if you’re not with us, you’re against us. In the principles of the nonaligned countries, American politics also saw the possibility of American politics being criticized and an attempt was made for a long time to treat the whole policy as a marginal phenomenon. Only with the increase of world economic problems was greater attention given to the so called resources of the Third World and its value to international economic relations. In this light the first recognition of the policy of nonalignment is also considered. However, this indication of evolution in no way points to the end of the present American policy towards the nonaligned. For years now combined methods have been being applied to the Third World, starting with political, economic, military and intelligence and a series of other more or less subtle instruments and methods with which the USA is now trying to achieve its aims. This particularly applies to the Western Hemisphere, where the US cannot come to terms with the idea that the nonaligned activity of individual countries could be anything other than anti-American, which leads to the application of considerably tough methods against them. Finally, the author concludes that the strengthening of nonalignment as a certain philosophy of international relations and a very important practical alternative for the activity of a large number of countries, should cause an echo even in the strongest States, which regardless of their original standpoint, have nonetheless, realised sooner or later that nonalignment is an organised policy present throughout the world. It is in this very acceptance of the existing reality of nonaligned countries and the principles of their policies that the guarantee for new successes lies. This is at the same time a proof that the policy of nonalignment however much it might be of a visionary character, is more and more gaining its true place in today’s structure of the international community.

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