PERESTROIKA AND THE THIRD WORLD 29 emerged essentially in the po^t-World War II period, with the massive decolonisation process leading to the political independence of a large number of countries in Asia and Africa, which had for long been under the direct colonial rule of various imperialist powers. The 1957 and 1960 documents of the international communist movement spelt out the then accepted concept of neocolonialism as a network of mechanisms for exploitation of the newly independent countries by imperialism. As the process of decolonisation countinued in the 1960s and 1970s, it was recognised that this implied—especially with the advances registered by the socialist camp—some change in the international correlation of forces in favour of the Third World* vis-^-vis imperialism. However, the documents of CPSU at its successive Congresses as also between them, and the writings of Soviet academicians retained the essence of the understanding of 'neocolonialism' spelt out in the accepted documents of the international communist movement. It is important to emphasise here that even though the CPSU leadership advanced, in the early sixties, its understanding of the new epoch v^hich was at variance with the 1957 and 1960 documents, the political-economic literature put out from USSR continued to accept and in fact sought to document the reality of neocolonialism. For instance, a work published at the peak of detente in 1973, which contains a detailed and carefully documented exposition of the concept and methods of neocolonialism, defined neocolonialism as follows: Neocolonialism is the colonial policy of the era of the general crisis of capitalism and the transition to socialism implemented by the imperialisst powers in relation to the former and existing colonies by means of more subtle methods and manoeuvres so as to propagate and consolidate capitalism and impede the advance of the national-liberation movement, extract the largest possible profits and strengthen the economic, political, ideological and military-strategic footholds of imperialism.1 This work also includes in its specification of the methods of neocolonialism the following: new forms for the export of industrial and finance capital, 'aid* programmes, unfair trade practices; establishment of military bases and blocs; various types of intervention in the internal affairs of the developing countries; the fanning of armed conflicts and 'local' wars, and attempts to use international and regional organisations in the interests of neocolonialist policy. This broad understanding of the structures and mechanisms of neocolonialism and of the reality of its presence in determining the content of economic and political relations between imperialism and ex-colonial and dependent countries continued to be reflected throughout the 1970s and early 1980s in various official documents and academic writings. Even as late as 1986, the understanding seemed to remain