Rethinking Revolutions: The Cold War in the Third World

The article critiques recent research on the foreign policies of late 20th-century revolutionary movements, and attempts to identify some basic elements in the ideology and organization of these policies. The author finds the search for foreign great power allies to be a vital element in the foreign policy practice of revolutionaries, and seeks to analyze how Great Power interests and local revolutionary aspirations interplayed in different cases (China, Iran, Angola). In conclusion, the author looks at how the Cold War international system influenced the chances for revolutionary success, and finds that the character of the Soviet-American conflict in many countries enhanced the potential for revolution by making it impossible for established regimes to monopolize foreign support.