Abstract
In the 1970s, Brezhnev faced a turning point in the foreign policy. Having achieved remarkable diplomatic success through the conclusion of the Moscow treaty with West Germany and SALT I treaty with the United States, He wanted to improve the relations with the West further. But Suslov and other ideologues inside the Soviet leadership, concerned about the diminishing anti-imperialist nature of the Soviet foreign policy, called for a more active internationalist policy. Although Brezhnev rejected such an overall ideological offensive against the West, he recognized the need to launch counteroffensives against Chinese political and ideological challenges all over the world. To retain the Soviet position inside the international communist movement, the Soviets found it necessary to contain the Chinese influence in the Third World by supporting the liberation movements. Brezhnev, despite his will to make detente irreversible, thereby heightened the East-West tensions, which culminated in the collapse of the detente. As official Soviet documents are still unavailable, this account is based largely on the memoirs of former Soviet diplomats and East German archival sources.
