Page 472 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

Gazelles and Lions 469

communists. Whereas the Soviet Union was prepared, in the interests of
securing her own objectives as a great power, to accept the notion of gradualism
- of separate and peaceful paths to socialism, of the role of the national
bourgeoisie in effecting the transition to the socialist state and in fomenting and

sustaining anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East as well as in Asia at large
- the Chinese were not. They rejected all such compromises, declaring that the
triumph of socialism in the world could only be achieved through the national
liberation movement, a violent uprising of the urban and rural proletariat led

by the communists and directed against the ‘colonialists’ and ‘feudalists’. No
trust or hope was to be reposed in the ‘national bourgeoisie’, however one
defined, or failed to define, this anomalous body: its members were bound in

the long run to throw in their lot with the ‘imperialists’ against the ‘progressive’
forces.
Under the impact of the Maoist assault the Russians were forced to revise
some of their ideological formulations concerning the progression to socialism
in the backward countries of the world. By the mid-1960s less emphasis was

being placed upon the role of the national bourgeoisie as an instrument of
political transformation, especially in countries where more than one political
movement was active. More confidence was reposed instead in those one-party

states where the governments, although not communist in complexion, were
nevertheless strongly anti-Western, as well as interventionist in their national
economic policies. In truth, however, the ideological arguments were be­
coming increasingly diffuse, contradictory and irrelevant as opportunism
gained the upper hand in Soviet foreign policy. This became particularly

evident in the Middle East after the disaster which befell Arab arms at the
hands of the Israelis in the war of 1967, a disaster which grieved the Kremlin
sorely. It had tied its fortunes to those of Nasser’s ‘Arab socialist’ regime
without having sufficient influence over the Egyptian dictator to ensure that

his fortunes prospered. The Russians were not going to make the mistake again
of allowing themselves to be ideologically identified with an Arab regime which
claimed to be socialist. Thus Soviet commentary on the Arab world after 1967
made a point of emphasizing how far the states of the area were from making
the transition to true socialism.

It was this attitude of caution which regulated Soviet relations with South
emen in the years immediately following that country’s attainment of inde­
pendence in 1967. The Russians had been relatively slow to take notice of

eve °Pments in Aden and the protectorates in the years after the Second
or d War. It was not until 1958, in fact, that they began to comment upon
m, and then largely as a consequence of their own activities in the Yemen.

top6 USUal ProPaganda resulted. Britain was ‘exploiting’ Aden and the protec-
andteS •US^n^ t^lem as a kase f°r ‘aggression against the peace-loving countries
the ^atl^na^ liberation movements of Asia and Africa’. Over the next few years

ussians, in accordance with their theories about the national bourgeoisie,