Gorbachev Ally Says Exporting of Revolution Is Outdated

A Soviet official with close ties to Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said Friday that the export of world revolution has become outdated as a foreign policy concept.

Yevgeny M. Primakov, writing in the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, said current Soviet policy demands dictate an end to excessive military spending if the country is to bridge a wide economic gap with the United States.

He said this could be achieved through the new East Bloc military doctrine of “defensive sufficiency,” in which East and West would seek parity at lower levels, and he contended that increased trust in the Soviet Union could make this policy a reality.

“The exclusion of the export of revolution is an imperative of the nuclear century,” Primakov, director of the Moscow-based Institute of the World Economy and International Relations, wrote.

He said the country’s previous foreign policy stand of warning that any aggression against it would lead to war was correct due to the need to build up offensive capacity.

“Previously we agreed in a number of cases with the so-called ‘rules of the game,’ which consisted of matching American steps in the arms race,” he said.

But he said the situation has changed, and the Soviet Union now seeks to ensure its security by political means.

Primakov said Soviet economic problems necessitate now more than ever before that an optimal balance be struck between military and civilian production expenditures.