Foreign policy of the Soviet Union

At the time of the founding of the Soviet Union (the USSR) in 1922, most governments internationally regarded the Soviet régime as a pariah because of its advocacy of communism, and thus most states did not give it diplomatic recognition. Less than a quarter century later the Soviet Union not only had official relations with the majority of the nation-states of the world, but had progressed to the role of a superpower.

By 1945 the USSR—a founding member of the United Nations—had become one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, giving it the right to veto any of the Security Council's resolutions (see Soviet Union and the United Nations). During the Cold War, the Soviet Union vied with the United States of America for geopolitical influence; this competition manifested itself in numerous treaties and pacts dealing with military alliances and trade agreements, and in proxy wars.

The USSR had close relations with the socialist states that were established in the territories its army occupied in the aftermath of the Second World War, forming both military and economic cooperation organizations. In 1948, diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia disintegrated over mutual distrust between their leadership. A similar split happened with Albania in 1955 over changes in policy during the process of de-Stalinization.

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