ABSTRACT
In the conceptual system of the Soviet Union's foreign policy doctrine, generally all developing countries that have taken a "non-capitalist" path to development are considered states of "socialist orientation." In the more restricted sense, they are Third World states with whose regimes Soviet leadership maintains or wants to establish special cooperative relations because of a more or less evident ideological affinity and also because of very tangible foreign and military-strategic motives. Brezhnev was the first to use the formula "states with a socialist orientation" in his report to the Twenty-fourth CPSU Congress in April 1971; the term has since been part and parcel of the ideological-theoretical standard vocabulary of all Soviet foreign policy makers and Party literati concerned with Third World problems. A core sentence of the Political Resolution by the Twenty-fourth CPSU Congress stated: "The Congress assigns special significance to the consolidation of cooperation with the countries with a socialist orientation."
