This study is the first significant work to examine Soviet involvement with national liberation movements (NLMs) in Africa as a separate subcategory of Soviet foreign policy in the developing world. The text compares and contrasts actual Soviet behavior with declared policy. Daniel R. Kempton presents three case studies: the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, The Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (MPLA) and the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). These cases trace the development of the Soviet Union's ties to the national liberation movements, the amount and types of assistance provided, and the impact of the relationship on the national liberation movements. General analysts of international relations, analysts of Soviet foreign policy and Africanists will find this a valuable resource. The author contends that during the 1960s and 1970s the Soviet Union pursued a common strategy toward all three national liberation movements. Although the strategy was applied flexibly to take into account the idiosyncracies of the individual liberation struggles, in each case the Soviet Union pushed the national liberation movement to adopt the Soviet political model. The Soviet view was that the adoption of this model would eventually lead to the development of relatively more stable and dependable allies. Since 1980, however, in each case there is significant evidence that the Soviet Union has altered markedly, if not abandoned, its previous strategy.

Many analysts initially believed that the process of Soviet disintegration would inevitably open a Pandora's box of ethnic nationalism and regional self-determination. But, despite obvious setbacks such as Chechnya, the developments of the last decade have shown that while forces of disintegration remain a very real threat, the fifteen successor states have managed to stay largely intact. One explanation for this somewhat unexpected success is the varied strategies of center-periphery relations adopted by the post-Soviet states, tailored to meet the unique of circumstances faced by each former republic of the Soviet Union. The contributors to this up-to-date volume examine the specific cases of success and failure in center-periphery relations in the former USSR, and offer some provocative overall conclusions about the progress made and the impact on the process of democratization.

The cases examined in this volume are drawn from Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, among others. These case studies demonstrate that realtions between national and local governments have been evolving differently in each of the successor states in the but in each case there has been a conscious attempt to create stacble center-periphery relations, which give a degree of autonomy to minority groups while still providing for a stable state and democratic development. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of the former Soviet Union and those interested in federalization and center-periphery.