We explain what peaceful coexistence was during the Cold War. Also, its characteristics and outcome.
Nikita Khrushchev adopted a policy of peaceful coexistence with the United States.
What was peaceful coexistence?
peaceful coexistence It was a Cold War period. which began after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953 and with the rise to power of the Soviet Union (USSR) of Nikita Khrushchev. Following a period of great tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, which had begun after World War II (1939-1945), a new climate in relations between the two States Starting in 1955, it led to talk of “peaceful coexistence” and “thawing.”
The idea of peaceful coexistence with the United States and the Western capitalist bloc was formulated by Khrushchev. after the armistice that ended the Korean War (1953) and the agreement that led to the end of the Indochina War (1954). In addition, it was part of the “de-Stalinization” policy carried out by Khrushchev in the Soviet Union.which involved the condemnation of Stalin’s repressive practices, the release of dissidents who had been deported to forced labor camps, and various economic reforms.
However, the climate of peaceful coexistence did not mean the end of international crises.: In 1956, a democratic revolution in Hungary was suppressed by Soviet tanks; in August 1961, The German Democratic Republic built the Berlin Wall, which reinforced the separation between West Berlin (capitalist bloc) and East Berlin (Soviet bloc); and in October 1961, at the XXII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the break between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China was made official.
Peaceful coexistence ended in 1962 when the Cuban missile crisis occurred.: the American discovery of a missile base installed by the Soviet Union in Cuba, which caused a diplomatic conflict between the two powers and was about to trigger a nuclear war.
Finally, an agreement was reached in which the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles and the United States agreed not to invade Cuba. As a result of this event, the “red phone” was created, a direct communication channel between the White House (United States) and the Kremlin (Soviet Union).
Causes of peaceful coexistence
The factors that explain the Soviet Union’s turn towards cohabitation and détente in relations with the Western bloc, which Khrushchev called “peaceful coexistence,” were:
- The “balance of terror”that is, the situation created after the Soviet Union became an atomic power and the accelerated rearmament of both powers. The United States had already dropped two atomic bombs in 1945, and the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapons in 1949 (the A-bomb) and 1953 (the H-bomb). The consequences of a nuclear war between the two powers had therefore become clear: mutual destruction.
- The need for a long period of peace that allowed Khrushchev to undertake his economic modernization projects (giant dams on the Volga, irrigation of large semi-desert areas in Central Asia, among others).
- The conviction of the Soviet authorities that, if international relations were relaxed, the communist system would economically surpass the capitalist system and improve the standard of living of the population before 1980, since it was considered that capitalism was entering a phase of decline.
- The assumption that a policy of détente could give new impetus to the communist parties of Western countrieswhich had been largely surrounded and diminished after the Prague coup d’état of 1948 (which ended up configuring the separation between the communist and capitalist blocs in Europe).
The first signs of détente in the Khrushchev era (1953-1955)
Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953 opened a new phase in the history of international relations. After a complex succession process, Khrushchev managed to establish himself in power in the Kremlin, especially after deposing and imprisoning Lavrenti Beria, head of the Stalinist repressive apparatus, in June 1953.
At that time, the first signs of détente between the American and Soviet governments appeared:
- The signing of the armistice in Panmunjon in 1953which ended the Korean War.
- The Geneva agreements in 1954which ended the Indochina War.
- The signing of the Peace Treaty with Austria (or Austrian State Treaty) in 1955which meant the evacuation of the occupation troops (American, Soviet, British and French) that had remained in the country since the end of the Second World War and which ensured Austria’s neutrality.
- Reconciliation between the Soviet Union and Yugoslaviawhich culminated in Khrushchev’s visit to Marshal Tito in 1955 and marked an attempt at detente between both communist countries, previously at odds.
These signs of détente did not prevent the superpowers from using force to assert their hegemony in their areas of influence. In June 1953, workers’ protests broke out in East Berlin and eastern Germany. which were harshly repressed by the occupying Soviet army, while the CIA (American intelligence agency) intervened in Iran to forcibly overthrow the progressive government of Mossadegh in 1953 and organized a coup d’état in Guatemala against President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954.
Furthermore, in 1955 the Federal Republic of Germany rearmed and joined NATO (military alliance of the Western bloc). In response, the Soviet Union and the “people’s democracies” of central and eastern Europe founded the Warsaw Pact (military alliance of the Eastern bloc) in 1955.
“Destalinization”
Nikita Khrushchev denounced the political repression of the Stalin era.
At the 20th Congress of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union), held in February 1956, Khrushchev denounced the crimes of Stalin and the “cult of personality” that had characterized his time at the head of the Soviet Union.
Khrushchev’s secret speechwhich shocked many communist leaders and later reached public opinion, made the “de-Stalinization” policy official which had begun with the liberation of some prisoners of the Gulag (forced labor camps) and with the first attempts at international détente after Stalin’s death.
The new foreign policy of peaceful coexistence was part of these changes of the Khrushchev era. and implied the acceptance of the existence of various paths to building a socialist system.
This relative openness was first reflected in Poland. Wladislaw Gomulka, a communist leader who had been persecuted and imprisoned by Stalin, returned to power in 1956, driven by workers’ demonstrations. Since Gomulka declared his loyalty to the Soviet Union, the Soviet authorities finally accepted the new turn in Polish politics.
Thawing”
The peaceful coexistence of the Soviet Union with the Western bloc basically meant two things:
- The Soviet Union rejected the use of arms to spread the communist revolution throughout the world.
- The Soviet Union rejected the idea that war with capitalism was inevitable.
The Soviet government considered that the communist bloc was at that time strong enough (especially in the military and nuclear fields) to deter the Western bloc from any attack. Therefore, It was considered that the blocks should coexist peacefully and focus their competition on the economic field..
Although there were episodes in which military violence continued to be used (such as the invasion of Soviet tanks in Hungary to suppress a democratic revolution in 1956), During this period, what some journalists called the “thaw” in international relations of the Cold War began..
After many years without bilateral meetings between the leaders of the two powers, Khrushchev traveled to the United States in 1959 and met with the American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. A summit was subsequently held in Vienna in 1961 with the new president of the United States, John F. Kennedy.
The American reaction
The doctrine of “massive retaliation”
Initially, the US government’s vision was not greatly influenced by the Kremlin’s new policy. The development of the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union and its testing of intercontinental missiles promoted a feeling of insecurity in the United States.. This sentiment was reinforced by the launch of the Sputnik 1 In 1957, the first artificial satellite was put into orbit, which was the work of the Soviets.
Before becoming president of the United States in 1953, Republican Eisenhower had criticized the “containment” policy of Democratic President Harry S. Truman (based on preventing any further expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence), and John Foster Dulles, who would later be Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, had proposed in 1952 the roll back: drive the Soviets back to their starting positions.
After the republican victory, The Eisenhower administration announced the doctrine of “massive retaliation”: The United States threatened the Soviet Union with the massive use of nuclear weapons in the event that the Soviet government adopted a very aggressive foreign policy.
In practice, American foreign policy was rather moderate.. Some historians define it as a policy of reinforced “containment”, in which there was some continuity between Truman’s diplomacy and that of Eisenhower.
The doctrine of “flexible response”
Kennedy’s military advisors recommended that he attack the missile bases in Cuba.
The “balance of terror,” that is, the certainty of mutual destruction in the event of a “hot war” between the superpowers, became more evident after the launch of the first artificial satellite by the Soviets in 1957: the Sputnik 1The initial superiority of the Soviet Union in the “space race” showed the United States government the capacity of the enemy to attack it on its own territory.
Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense of the new American president, John F. Kennedy (who became president in 1961), raised the need for changing the strategy of “massive retaliation” to one of “flexible response” that would prevent a minor accident from causing a global nuclear catastrophe (it was about finding proportionate means for each possible threat).
After the first years of the “thaw” period, international relations entered a contradictory period in which lThe first steps towards…