How likely was “peaceful co-existence” in the years following Stalin’s death in 1953?
Despite Stalin’s terrifying and repressive policies in the USSR, when he died in 1953, a genuine sense of loss and grief spread across the Soviet Union. He also left behind him a power vacuum, with no obvious successor in the Kremlin. As a collective government took control, the phrase ‘peaceful co-existence’ was whispered from within the ranks of power. To the American leaders, ‘peaceful co-existence’, was just a Soviet promise that was unlikely to be carried through, as the Secretary of State put it: ‘we are not dancing to any Soviet tune.’ However, to the people of Eastern Europe the phrase gave them a glimmer of hope that the tight grip that Moscow had over them in economics, politics and culture may be released. Even with hindsight the term can be considered ambiguous, it denotes that it could be achieved simply by avoiding war, however it implies a request for a working diplomatic relationship.
Since Stalin’s rise to power, the soviet people were subjected to a single man’s totalitarian domination. His harsh plans of state collectivised agriculture and visions of industrial gigantism subjected the working and peasant classes to appalling day to day living conditions for very little pay- their only motivation being national pride in the first socialist state and fear of bring purged or arrested. Workers in the satellite states bore the brunt of this treatment. Stalin in his last years became increasingly paranoid and he increased his personal dominance over society and culture. Eastern European countries were utterly denied their national identity and had to accept the total obedience to the master state, led by Moscow.
When Stalin died he left international relations in a desperate place of mistrust and tension. The ideological battle with the USA had intensified with Truman’s personal dislike of Stalin and communism. The long telegram, Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech as well as the Truman Doctrine and Marshal Plan had left bitter resentment between the two super powers. This resentment was exacerbated by the new nuclear era. Both the USA and the USSR had the atom bomb by 1953 and the Hydrogen bomb was being tested in the USA. However his death brought about the potential for change is an otherwise volatile climate, Dulles said:
‘A new era begins, an era in which the guiding spirit is liberty, not enslavement, and when human relations will be those of fraternity, not one-man domination.’
However the new ‘peaceful’ era did not get off to a promising start. France lost control of Vietnam to guerrilla fighters, namely the Vietcong, who displayed communist leanings. Temporary peace was established at a conference in Geneva, dividing the country along the 38 degree line leaving a communist north and non-communist south. America, desperate to contain communism sent advisors to help the southern government. This worried the newly communist state of China, who bordered northern Korea. Vietnam proved to be a significant point of ideological tension.
Krushcev, a main contester for power, in 1955 met with Eisenhower to discuss a proposition of ‘open skies’. The USA were increasingly worried by the Soviet advancement in weaponry and wanted to secure the ability to fly over the USSR to check on their military capabilities, in return, the USSR could do the same to them. This, it would appear would have been a significant moved towards a peaceful working relationship and would have alleviated some suspicion and mistrust. Krushcev rejected this proposal. His rejection angered the new USA administration, who began to speak of ‘rolling back the frontiers of communism’. The hope for peace with the USA had not been overruled by the collective USSR leadership and Malenkov openly stated: ‘there is no unresolved question which cannot be settled by peaceful means’.
The West of Germany, in 1955 was accepted into NATO and allowed to have an army, fearful memories of Nazi rule spread across Eastern Europe. In direct retaliation to this, the Soviet Union set up the Warsaw pact. On one hand it was designed to antagonise the West for breaking the Potsdam agreements, on the other it was a moved designed to match the threat of power and therefore continue a mutual balance of peaceful co-existence. Either way it legitimised the Soviet troop’s presence in the countries that joined. Thus angering the eastern European workers.
Back in Russia, Kruschev had taken power. He went to visit Tito in Yugoslavia to try and repear Stalin’s damages within the communist bloc. Inside Russia Krushcev made attempts to overcome the legacy of terror and hardship by investing in the production of consumer goods and better housing. He spoke of de-stalinisation and his ‘secret speech’ at the 20th part congress. This surprised the West, some leading US politians spoke of a potential for peace however the official line was still one of distrust: ‘massive retaliation’. Further to the move towards peace, British, French, American and Soviet troops all withdrew from Austria in 1955, the first time in 10years there were no occupying troops in the war- torn nation.
The secret speech also sent a wave of hope to the western frontiers of the buffer zones. Aided by free radio Europe, the speech was used as Western propaganda, to remove blind subordination to the Stalinist regime. ‘Peace’ for the ordinary eastern European, was for the first time since the outbreak of world war two, a real possibility. This new hope combined with their exploitation: ridiculous intrusion of Cominform and Comecon, the political and economic satellite unifiers, the purges, the secret police, anti-Semitism, the control on religion and an increase in production targets sparked a workers uprising in several countries
In East Germany, in the Polish City of Poznan and in Hungary violent revolutions took place. The workers demanded more human rights, even independence. In each circumstance the uprising was put down by the forceful exertion of soviet tanks. 1956 was a year of bitter fighting and bloodshed in the satellite states and definitely not ‘peaceful’. However the unrest was all within the Soviet sphere, outside relations were somewhat surprisingly calm. Britain and France were absolutely resented by the Hungarians; they had waged a war in the Middle East- the Suez Crisis. This had taken worldwide attention away from the Hungarian fight for freedom. Although the USA had no such preoccupation, they were not prepared to provide military or otherwise aid in the struggle, their policy was clear: ‘do not create any hopes on part of the satellite countries that we will intervene’. Peaceful co-existence, in this sense was achieved between the superpowers. America knew that any intervention had the potential to lead to a nuclear war and they were not prepared to risk this in 1956.
The arms race was ever escalating during these years despite some surface attempts at limiting their production and in 1957 a new competition put the USSR ahead of the USA for the first time. Sputnik, a Soviet Satellite was successfully launched, leaving the world astounded. The USA became even more alarmed at the soviet development in weaponry: inter continental ballistic missiles. The USSR could now launch a missile from their own country and guide it via satellite to hit any major US city. The next 18 months saw an uneasily quiet patch of competition allowing each country to build up their nuclear stockpiles. The tensions under the surface were apparent and were symbolised by the US Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radar’s that they installed in the UK.
Kruschev endeavoured to publicly build bridges with the USA. In 1959 he visited the USA in a high profile meeting designed to limit the arms race. This was seen as a major achievement to have a communist leader on US soil. Had the talks been successful this would have benefited the USSR most at this point since their economy was feeling the strain of such vast spending. This made the USA look like the instigating peacekeeper acting selflessly for the good of mankind. The talks resulted in some minor limitations on nuclear arms but squabbling between Kruschev and the vice president over shadowed them. Evidently cold war tensions could not be kept quiet for long but the appearance of a truce lasted, quite convincingly, for 6 months until the U2 incident.
Whilst relations between the USSR and USA appeared to be getting better, a new dimension threatened the acquisition of peaceful co-existence. Mao, the new dictator of China was known for his admiration of Stalin’s ‘iron’ rule. He felt threatened by Krushcev’s de-stalinisation, as it condemned his own style of control. He was absolutely outraged by Krushcev’s visit to the USA; he saw it as a weakness in his leadership and accused him of displaying bourgeoisie traits. This criticism offended both the USSR and the USA. China withdrew from any Soviet influence and prepared to take the lead in the Communist bloc. A policy called the ‘Great Leap Forward’ was designed to strengthen China into a force to challenge the USA. It went horribly wrong and international conflict was averted but at a huge human cost to the Chinese.
The U2 incident ended any peaceful progress as it emerged that underneath any façade of peace was a manifest mistrust that had resulted in spying using high flying aircraft. It was a propaganda disaster for the USA. It gave Krushcev the legitimacy to break any previously agreed restraints. He did indeed take the liberty to do this in a power display in 1961 where he exploded the largest bomb ever to be let off in the world.
President Kennedy won the US elections in mid 1960 and was left with a diplomatic minefield and his predecessor’s doctrine of ‘massive retaliation’ as his overriding guideline for foreign policy. At the Vienna Summit Krushcev tried to bully the inexperienced president. In 1961 when tensions in Berlin erupted: the western sectors of Berlin, a show-front of the glamour of capitalism embarrassed eastern Berlin which was poor and run down with a focus on developing heavy industry. Many young intellectuals were fleeing eastern Berlin over the unrestricted boarder. The East German economy was falling apart due to loosing so many of its young and talented. So Krushcev order the Berlin Wall to be built. Kennedy acted cautiously and failed to stop the Berlin Wall from being built, he then refused proposals for US troops to tear it down for fear of nuclear conflict. This made him look weak but more importantly entrenched a bitter resentment between Kennedy and Krushcev.
This was the final straw for any hopes of peaceful co-existence that could have arisen out of Stalin’s death, the window of opportunity provided by Stalin’s departure was truly closed. The cold war tensions in the decade after Stalin’s death were repressed but not extinguished, in fact they bubbled away under the surface until they fully erupted in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world came the closest it ever has to nuclear war. Some argue that the ideological conflict was such that peaceful co-existence would never have been a reality, however I think it was not impossible. Krushcev genuinely appeared to want change but circumstances out of his control, led to a break down of peaceful existence within the USSR to restore control. His international attempts at peace were also hindered by situations beyond his control like the U2 incident. Arguably, however, peaceful co-existence was achieved: nuclear disarmament was not achieveable but nuclear war was unthinkable, and this alone kept the cold war ‘peaceful’ in a sense.