The Limits of Soviet Power in the Developing World Thermidor in the Revolutionary Struggle

This collective study concentrates on Soviet efforts to penetrate the major regions in the southern hemisphere - Central and Latin America, South and East Asia, Sub-Saharan and North Africa, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.;It concludes that despite Soviet gains in Cuba, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Angola, Afghanistan and more recently Nicaragua, Soviet success has been modest and continues to be costly. It also emerges that Moscow is compelled to adjust to the needs and interests of rising regional powers who are able to press their own demands on the international system and to elicit Soviet compliance.;It is suggested that the emerging period could lead to the end of the Cold War and to the development of a world society directed more by socio-economic and political competition rather than by military conflict and arms races.