Editor's Note

This issue begins with two articles discussing Soviet relations with Islamic countries in southwest Asia during the final decade of the Cold War, showing how Soviet policymakers tried to cope with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the subsequent ascendance of a hardline Islamic regime in Iran. The first article, by Vassily Klimentov, discusses how the pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninist regime in Afghanistan, which Soviet troops in late 1979 were sent to prop up, gradually transformed itself during the nine-year Soviet war in Afghanistan. Rather than preserving the basic features of Soviet-style Communism, the authorities in Kabul sought to win support from a greater share of the Afghan population by gradually shedding the vestiges of Communist rule. That process reached its culmination under the final pro-Soviet ruler of Afghanistan, Mohammad Najibullah, who changed his name from Najib in 1986 to reflect the entrenchment of Islamic norms in the country. This transformation was intended to earn greater popular support and to co-opt insurgent fighters. By the time Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan in February 1989, Najibullah's government was able to sustain itself in power for more than three years, until the post-Soviet authorities in Moscow terminated material and financial support for the Afghan regime and precipitated its collapse.

The second article, by Timothy Nunan, explains how the Soviet Union and the Islamic authorities in Iran were able to forge a rapprochement in the late 1980s. Although both countries were staunchly opposed to Western "imperialism," they initially competed with each other to promote that goal. The new Islamic regime in Iran sought to present itself after 1979 as the leader of all those seeking to undercut Western dominance. Soviet officials responded by trying to rally global anti-imperialist forces under Moscow's own mantle. Each country sought to elevate its own model of anti-imperialism in Southwest Asia and the Middle East, but the competition between the two gradually diminished in the face of changes necessitated by globalization. Both countries had to accommodate pressures for a less radical, more moderate stance, and the result by the late 1980s was that anti-imperialist groups and governments did not have an obvious leader. Radical transnational organizations partly filled the vacuum, but the changing positions of the Soviet Union and Iran took at least some of the edge off the world's anti-imperialist movement in the final years of the Cold War.

The next article, by Joseph Torigian, reassesses the ouster of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in October 1964. Khrushchev had been in office during a dangerous phase of the Cold War, including the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, the armed confrontation between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact at Checkpoint Charlie in October 1961, and the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. Although foreign policy issues, especially the Soviet Union's acrimonious rift with the People's Republic of China (PRC), were not totally irrelevant to his downfall, the main factors spurring his rivals to dislodge him were concerns about internal politics and Khrushchev's ability to turn against them as leader of a Marxist-Leninist system. Contrary to depictions of Khrushchev's removal as inevitable, Torigian shows that in fact the Soviet leader had crucial resources at his disposal and institutional means to defend his position. For various reasons, however, he did not act decisively at key moments (as he had in June 1957) to triumph over his rivals, despite his awareness that a challenge was brewing. A close analysis of Khrushchev's downfall highlights the crucial role of contingency and chance, as well as the distinctive characteristics of Leninist politics, in the events that led to his ouster.

The next article, by Alsu Tagirova, recounts the efforts by Soviet and Chinese officials from 1969 to 1978 to resolve their border disputes. In the 1950s the Soviet Union and the PRC had been staunchly allied against the United States, but by the end of the decade the two Communist great powers had split angrily apart. In March and August 1969, the conflict between the two...