25 years ago: Soviet Union acceded to Libya bombing by US

Media revelations this week in 1986 made clear that the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union had given the Reagan administration a free hand to bomb Libya on April 15, 1986, which had killed more than 100. In spite of verbal protests after the fact, Moscow indicated to Reagan that the attack would not interfere with its efforts to conclude arms reduction deals.

Libya was on paper a Soviet ally. The USSR was its main supplier of arms... The Soviet bureaucracy had given Reagan numerous signals they would tolerate an attack. When Washington provoked a confrontation with Gaddafi’s small navy in the Gulf of Sidra in late March, Soviet military advisers refused to provide Libya with satellite imagery, and remained in their bunkers throughout the exchange.

The Soviets tacit acceptance of the US attack on Libya marked a shift in world politics. Since the consolidation of Stalinist rule in the late 1920s, Moscow had based its foreign policy decisions on the material interests of the bureaucracy under the guise of building “socialism in one country,” policies antithetical to the interests of the international working class. At the same time, to provide bargaining chips with imperialism the Soviet Union had backed certain nationalist leaders and movements in the Third World. This had allowed figures such as Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq a limited ability to maneuver between East and West. The attack on Libya signaled that this period was coming to an end.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/twih-a18.shtml#top