THE FINAL CURTAIN : An Ex-Superpower’s Reach: Measuring Moscow’s Sphere of Influence

At various times during the last 74 years, the Soviet Union’s influence has touched five continents and at least half the globe’s population. Here are some of the countries that have been dominated or strongly influenced by the Soviet Union:

ASIA

1. Afghanistan--A Marxist coup in 1978 led to a long and bloody civil war. Soviet troops intervened in 1979 and were withdrawn in early 1989 as part of an agreement with the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan calling for an end to outside aid to the warring factions.

2. Cambodia--Moscow backed the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978 and still had military advisers in the country as late as 1989. Treaties dealing with aid as well as cultural, scientific, economic and technical cooperation were signed in 1980.

3. China--Communist forces led by Mao Tse-tung and supported by the Soviet Union defeated the Chinese Nationalists in a long civil war leading to formation of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949. But relations between the two countries began to sour in the mid-1950s, and there was an open split by 1960.

4. India--Continuing a regional contest for influence going back to the czars, the Kremlin poured billions of rubles into India almost from the moment of its independence in 1947. The country’s system of state industries and central planning were based on the Soviet model. Also, India bought most of its arms from Moscow and found in the Kremlin a geopolitical ally against China and Pakistan.

5. Laos--The Soviet Union supported one of three competing factions during an intermittent Laotian civil war, and when fighting ended under a 1961 cease-fire agreement, it was the Soviet-backed Prince Souvanna Phouma who was chosen to head a coalition government. The Communists had seized complete power by 1975.

6. Mongolia--Soviet troops entered the country in 1921 and backed Mongolian revolutionaries who declared an independent republic in 1924. Mongolia sided with the Kremlin in its long-running dispute with China and was a member of the Soviet-led Comecon trade bloc. Free, multi-party elections held in 1990 produced a government that is still largely Communist but that is moving toward a market economy.

7 . North Korea--After the defeat of Japan in World War II, the Korean Peninsula was divided into U.S. and Soviet zones at the 38th Parallel--a Cold War division made permanent in 1948 with the formation of two separate nations. Moscow supported North Korea’s invasion of the south in 1950 but has lately been encouraging a budding rapprochement between the two Koreas.

8. Vietnam--Through its support of Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese, the Soviet Union exerted widespread influence throughout Indochina, backing Vietnamese actions in Cambodia and Laos. After the American military withdrawal and defeat of the U.S.-backed Saigon government, the Soviets maintained a major military presence at the former U.S. naval base at Cam Ranh Bay. A treaty of friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and the Soviet Union was signed in November, 1978, and last year the two signed a $1-billion trade agreement.

EASTERN EUROPE

9. Albania--Communist guerrillas seized power in 1944 with no help from the Soviets, but by 1948 the country was a virtual Soviet satellite. Tirana broke with Moscow in 1961 in protest over de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union. Only last March did a general strike and widespread street demonstrations force the all-Communist Cabinet to resign. It was replaced by a nonpartisan caretaker Cabinet.

10. Bulgaria--Long considered the most slavishly loyal of all the Soviet Union’s former Warsaw Pact allies in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria ended its four-decade Communist monopoly with free elections in May, 1990.

11. Czechoslovakia--Another Warsaw Pact ally of the Soviets, Czechoslovakia’s Communists tried to liberalize in 1968, only to experience a Soviet-led invasion to restore orthodoxy. But a “velvet revolution” at the end of 1989 brought democracy and commitment to a free-market economy.

12. Finland--A former czarist Russian duchy, Finland was pressured into joining the Nazis against Russia in 1941. Defeated, the Finns signed the first of two 20-year treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Kremlin in 1948. Helsinki’s studied avoidance of any action that might trigger Kremlin ire led to the term “Finlandization” to describe countries neutralized by fear of Moscow. A center-right government elected this year moved to integrate Finland’s economy with that of Western Europe.

13. East Germany--The Soviet-dominated state created in the post-World War II division of Germany finally ceased to exist in 1990 with German reunification.

14. Hungary--Leaders of a 1956 revolution tried to pull Hungary out of its post-World War II Warsaw Pact alliance with the Soviet Union, but they were put down by Soviet tanks. A reform movement in the 1980s gained momentum until free elections were held in 1990. The last Soviet troops left Hungarian territory last June.

15. Poland--After the conquest and partition of the country during and after World War II, Poland eventually became a “people’s democracy” in the Soviet model, even lending the name of its capital to the pro-Soviet Cold War alliance of East European states. The focus of repeated anti-Communist unrest, Poland was finally able to install a non-Communist government in 1989.

16. Romania--The final Warsaw Pact member, Romania, ousted the repressive Communist regime of the late Nicolae Ceausescu in a bloody rebellion in December, 1989. Despite its ideological banner, Romania under Ceausescu had been an increasingly dissident voice in the Soviet Bloc.

17. Yugoslavia--The Soviet Union helped World War II anti-Nazi guerrilla leader Josip Broz Tito to remove his opposition and consolidate power after the war. But Tito broke with Moscow in 1948 and played a major role in the creation of a worldwide nonaligned group of nations.

AFRICA

18. Algeria--It had military ties with the Soviet Union up to the end of the Cold War in 1989.

19. Angola--The Soviet Union backed the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola in its fight against the U.S.-backed rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). The government dropped its official Marxism-Leninism in favor of democratic socialism in 1990.

20. Congo--Signed an economic and technical aid pact with the Soviet Union in 1975. In July, 1990, the leaders of the ruling party voted to end the one-party system and in 1991 renounced Marxism and scheduled the country’s first free vote for 1992. A 20-year friendship and cooperation treaty was signed with Moscow in May, 1981.

21. Ethiopia--Previously a supporter of Ethiopia’s northeast African rival, Somalia, Moscow switched sides in 1977, becoming Ethiopia’s primary weapons supplier. By 1984, Ethiopian leaders formally proclaimed a Communist regime, but a cutoff of Soviet aid contributed to the success in 1991 of a long-running anti-government rebellion.

22. Libya--The Libyan regime proclaimed itself socialist in 1977 and has long had military, scientific and economic ties with the Soviet Union.

23. Mozambique--A pro-Soviet government was established when the country gained its independence from Portugal in 1975, and the country was heavily dependent on Soviet economic, technical and military aid until July, 1989, when it abandoned its commitment to Marxism-Leninism.

24. Somalia--Mogadishu was the Soviet Union’s principal ally in northeast Africa from 1974 until Moscow suddenly shifted its support in 1977 to much more populous Ethiopia.

LATIN AMERICA

25. Chile--The Marxist Salvador Allende was elected Chile’s president in 1970 and sought closer ties with the Soviet Union and other Communist nations as he tried to turn Chile into a socialist state. He was killed during a 1973 military coup.

26. Cuba--Revolutionary leader Fidel Castro forged an alliance with the Soviet Union after relations with the United States ceased on Jan. 3, 1961. Castro maintains a strict adherence to Marxism despite increasing economic pressures and the collapse of Soviet influence.

27. Nicaragua--After coming to power in 1979, the Sandinista government of then-President Daniel Ortega relied on Cuban and Soviet economic and military aid to maintain control amid a civil war with U.S.-backed Contras. Elections were held in 1990, and the Sandinista government was defeated.

28. Peru--A short-lived Marxist government between 1968 and 1975 has been followed by a fragile democracy.

MIDDLE EAST

29. Egypt--Under President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt-- strongly backed by Soviet economic and technical assistance--embarked in the late 1950s on an ambitious program of industrialization. The country also built up its military with modern, Soviet-supplied weaponry until 1972, when Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, ordered the expulsion of Soviet advisers.

30. Iraq--The Kremlin was long the chief arms supplier to Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime as a way of projecting Soviet power southward. After Hussein invaded Kuwait in August, 1990, however, the Kremlin turned its back on its former ally, joining with the United States in condemning the action and imposing a superpower arms blockade of Baghdad.

31. Syria--Moscow had long been Syria’s principal source of military support and economic aid, but its influence, never absolute, has been on the wane since the end of the Cold War.

32. Yemen--The Republic of Yemen was established in May, 1990, when pro-Western Yemen and the Marxist Yemen Arab Republic merged. A coalition government has flourished with the Socialist Party of the former Soviet-supported state taking a leading role in the government.

Much of Moscow’s influence was wielded through the Warsaw Pact defense alliance, disbanded this year, and Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), the now-defunct trading bloc for Soviet client states.