post-Stalin thaw

• Changes in the Eastern Bloc between 1953 to 1956:

  • Khrushchev’s rise and dununciation of Stalin
  • his acceptance that there were ‘many roads to socialism’
  • better Soviet relations with the West and Yugoslavia
• Berlin Rising: (June 1953)

  • new economic policy → greater emphasis on consumer goods
  • Walter Ulbricht (German communist) raised workers’ production quotes without increased pay → demonstrations provoked
  • 400k workers protested for free elections, general strike and lifting of quotas
  • government responded with force, arresting and executing protest eader
  • demonstrated the unpopularity of traditional communist policy and that control was based on force
• Poland: (1956)

  • Boleslaw Beirut’s death (Stalinist Polish communist leader) → increasing calls for liberation in February 1956
  • large demonstrations turned into anti-government protests (June 1956)
  • demands for Polish nationalist and Wladyslaw Gomulka (moderate communist) to be given power
  • Khrushchev tried to force Gomulka to back down but relented
  • certain economic reforms permitted as long as they remained committed to the Warsaw Pact
  • Khrushchev forced to compromise with demands of Polish communists
  • Mao Zedon (Chinese communist leader) publically supported the Polish reformers
• Hungary: (1956) 1/2

  • Imre Nagy, anti-Stalinist communist became premier (July 1956)
  • protestors called for multi-party democracy, free press, Hungary’s withdrawal from Warsaw Pact (October 1956)
  • Nagy agreed to the demands → USSR viewed this as an act of open revolt
• Hungary: (1956) 2/2

  • Red Army tanks entered Budapest to reassert Soviet control (4 November 1956)
  • ‘nationalist’ Janos Kadar became premier (11 November 1956)
  • Kadar’s government imposed one-party control, arresting 35k protestors and executing 300 leaders of the uprising
  • Hungarian protestors assumed that they would receive US military assistance but they refused to suppress the Red Army
• Eisenhower and Dulles take charge:

  • Eisenhower attacked Truman for being ‘soft’ on communism and rejected containment as ‘futile and immoral’
  • ‘New Look’ policy which emphasised hard-line Cold War diplomacy
• Impact of the Hungarian rising on the West:

  • US took in 25k Hungarian refugees
  • growing scepticism about USSR’s new mood of ‘accommodation’
  • direct Western involvement in Hungary would trigger a nuclear war
• Why did Eisenhower want better relations with the USSR?

  • his military background made him strongly aware of the dangers of a nuclear conflict that could ‘destroy civilisation’
  • concerned that military spending was too high which could impinge on US living standards
  • better relations with the USSR → nuclear war less likely → US military spending reduced
  • U-2 spy planes’ intelligance showed USSR was behind in the arms race
• Key features of the ‘New Look’ policy: 1/2

  • massive retaliation - greater use of nuclear threats and less reliance on conventional weapons
  • brinkmanship - warned China if Korean War would not end it would use nuclear weapons (1953) and issued nuclear threats when Chinese communists shelled nationalist-held islands (1954)
• Key features of the ‘New Look’ policy: 2/2

  • increased use of covert operations - ensured pro-western Iranian to become the Shah (1953) and development of U-2 spy planes
  • Domino Theory (1954) - if Vietnam became communist, surrounding countries would too → SEATO formed
  • Eisenhower Doctrine (1957) - halted communist penetration and oil supplies falling to hostile hands in Middle East
• ‘Geneva spirit’ and conference diplomacy: (1954 to 1961)

  • Stalin’s death and end of Korean War → renewal of superpower conference diplomacy
  • assisted by Khrushchev’s pusuit of peaceful co-existence and Eisenhower’s belief in face-to-face meetings
  • improved US-Soviet relations but failed to tackle importnt issues (Germany’s future and arms race)
• Geneva Conference: (April to July 1954)

  • first indication of success of superpower diplomacy
  • USA, USSR, Britain and France discussed Korea and Indochina
  • ceasefire declared and French troops to be withdrawn
  • Laos and Cambodia established as indepedent states
  • Vietnam temporarily divided into communist north → to be reunited through free elections by 1956