THE SOVIETS IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

This title speaks for itself, but perhaps the operative word has been tucked away in the subtitle: ""Changing Policies Toward Developing Countries."" The main period under observation is post-Stalin, and yet, at least at the close range afforded in this volume, the chameleon changes in Soviet policy are staggering. Mr. Rubinstein, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, has practiced an artful and useful sort of synecdoche here; by focusing upon Russian participation in the specialized agencies and regional economic commissions of the UN, and by ""triangulating"" from this as it is revealed through UN committee records, through scholarly Soviet publications, and through the conduct of representatives of the USSR to underdeveloped countries, he has attempted to build a coherent model of Soviet foreign policy as a whole. He would probably be the first to disclaim this achievement, but certainly his judicious, methodical assessment of his material does provide at least the solid beginnings for a systematic reconstruction of whatever rationale there might be behind the smokescreen which the Kremlin has maintained in this region, periodically intensified over the past decade.