Systems approach in the Soviet IR Theory: The Sources and Consequences of a Tacit Scientific Revolution

This article examines the intellectual foundations, rationale, and evolution of the systemic approach in Soviet international relations (IR) theory throughout the 1970s and 1980s. This topic has gained increasing relevance in contemporary debates on the theoretical foundations of Russian international political thought. The study demonstrates that the emergence of the systemic approach was a response to the theoretical anomalies encountered by Marxism-Leninism in explaining global developments following the Second World War. The weakening of inter-imperialist struggles, the persistence of capitalism, and the growing contradictions within the socialist bloc posed significant challenges to Marxist-Leninist explanatory frameworks. The transformation of the dominant paradigm into an ideological dogma did not prevent a scientific revolution; however, this transformation occurred covertly, with radical revisions masked as superficial reinterpretations of doctrine.The systemic approach in Soviet IR rested on three principal intellectual foundations: the reinterpretation of Marxist-Leninist tenets, engagement with Western—primarily Realist—theories, and the incorporation of terminology from general systems theory. Elgiz Pozdnyakov and Mark Khrustalev played a central role in its development. To navigate ideological constraints, these theorists maintained a high level of abstraction in their analytical framework, thereby avoiding explicit accusations of ideological deviation. Despite these constraints, they developed an original theoretical model that, in some respects, anticipated later insights in Western scholarship. However, its limited influence on applied policy analysis and official Soviet discourse in the 1980s suggests that the systemic approach produced non-trivial conclusions that were politically inconvenient.