Soviet theory judged Third World regimes by foreign policy, not domestic structure

Evidence

If it remained militarily non-aligned and expanded its economic relations with the socialist countries, then it could be called a National Democracy (a ‘progressive’ state based upon the nationalism of the national bourgeoisie, as distinct from a People’s Democracy, where a Communist Party was already in power), while an expanding state sector could even launch it on the road to socialism, through ‘non-capitalist’ development; Nehruvian India was often said to be verging on this ‘non-capitalist’ development, which overlapped nicely with Nehru’s description of his own planned economy as ‘socialistic’, with state monopoly and private enterprise (itself often monopolistic) finely balanced. In other words, the Third World was not uniformly progressive, but any state within it could choose to become so, regardless of its domestic structure, by choosing a nationalist – that is to say, pro-Soviet – foreign policy. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 578

The main point in all this was that the struggle between capitalism and socialism was to be waged (peacefully) between the (capitalist) First World and the (socialist) Second World, and the progressive character of any regime in the (nondescript) Third World was to be determined by the character of its foreign policy and external relations. If it remained militarily non-aligned and expanded its economic relations with the socialist countr.ies, then it could be called a National Democracy (a ‘progressive’ state based upon the nationalism of the national bourgeoisie, as distinct from a People’s Democracy, where a Communist Parry was already in power), while an expanding state sector could even launch it on the road to socialism, through ‘non-capitalist’ development; Nehruvian India was often said to be verging on this ‘non-capitalist’ development, which overlapped nicely with Nehru’s description of his own planned economy as ‘socialistic’, with state monopoly and private enterprise (itself . — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1304

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘National Democracy’ vs. ‘People’s Democracy’ and the criterion of ‘non-capitalist’ development — the core taxonomy of Soviet Third World categorization.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 578; Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1304