Peaceful Coexistence

• Death of Stalin:

  • death by stroke in March 1953
  • led to discontent behind the iron curtain due to uncertainties and emergence of Khrushchev
  • sparked riots in East Berlin
  • final years marked by foreign policy failures, Berlin Blockade, Yugoslavia’s defection COMINFORM
• Emergence of Khrushchev:

  • had a sense of humour; always laughing and smiling
  • led people to believe there would be an easing of tension
  • met western leaders at summit meeting
  • US visit in 1959
• De-Stalinisation:

  • Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a terrible tyrant
  • reformed secret police (KGB)
  • ‘de-Stalinise’ Eastern Europe end the cult of personality
  • followed a ‘new course’ in economic policy; greater emphasis on production of consumer goods
• The secret speech:

  • 25 February 1956 - closed session of 20th party congress; Krushchev’s six hour speech
  • details were given of the purges and the creation of a myth about Stalin as a war hero
  • ideas of cult of personality dismissed
  • Stalin also criticised for destroying party democracy
  • USA saw it as a sign of change in the USSR
• Krushchev’s policies:

  • domestic: (began cautiously)
  • after 1955 - Stalin condemned
  • liberalised Soviet censorship of books and films
  • sponsored the space program
  • foreign:
  • aimed to improve relations with the West
  • build up Soviet prestige in the Third World
  • attended Superpower Summits (1955 and 1960)
  • crushed challenges to Soviet control in East Europe
  • created the Warsaw Pact (1955)
  • quarrelled with China
  • risked war in 1962 to reach nuclear parity with the US
• “You do not like communism. We do not like capitalism. There is only one way out - peaceful co-existence.” - Krushchev on a visit to Britain in 1956
• Krushchev and communism:

  • Stalin made all Communist countries to do what he wanted and had conflict with President Tito of Yugoslavia
  • Krushchev told Tito that ‘there are different roads to communism’ (1955)
  • Western leaders thought he would no longer insist that all Communist countries to take orders from Russia
• Immediate impact of Peaceful Co-existence:

  • Austrian State Treaty 1955
  • Austria divided into zones; US and USSR withdrew troops and agreed to be neutral
  • Soviet withdrawal from Finland
  • Finnish-Soviet Peace Treaty - USSR gave 50 year lease to Porkalla (returned in 1956)
  • Finland followed a neutral position; USSR still exercised some influence
• Was there really a Peaceful Co-existence?

  • Russia possessed the hydrogen bomb (1953)
  • Krushchev falsely boasted they were producing missiles ‘like sausages’
  • took high risk ventures → Berlin Crisis (1958-59) and Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
  • Warsaw Pact members: USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania
  • Space Race - Sputnik launced (1957) and Yuri Gagarin first astronaut to orbit Earth (1961)
• US reaction:

  • propaganda war againt communism
  • NATO agreed to West German Army of 500k men (1955)
  • determined to win Space Race
  • used U2 planes to spy on Russia
• Eisenhower becomes President:

  • adopted foreign policy known as the ‘New Look’
  • hard line approach (popular in the US)
  • belief that USSR was pursuing an expansionist policy
  • use of military to contain communism
  • ‘Massive Retaliation’ impied use of threat of nuclear action against Communist Bloc