Cold War Diplomacy

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“In the years 1953-1961, Soviet Cold War diplomacy was based om co-existence rather than confrontation” How far do you agree with this view?

Soviet policy was a carefully constructed mixture of co-existence and hidden confrontation in the years 1953-1961, from Khrushchev’s secret speech to the Suppression of the Hungary Rising, it is apparent that Khrushchev will speak of coexistence but act in a manner that is not so peaceful and towards the will dismiss co-existence all together. However, policies such as the Austrian State Treaty show that coexistence was a possibility and one that the soviets may well have followed. At first, the western powers had hoped that Khrushchev would be the start of the road to peaceful co-existence and be the one to begin the ‘thaw’, in fact Khrushchev often met with western leaders at summits, a period of time that would become known as ‘summit fever’. At the Geneva Summit (July 1955), the first time Eisenhower accepted there could be a chance of co-existence with a soviet leader, it was at this summit that Khrushchev first showed signs that maybe he would be willing to start a course to co-existence with agreeing to the idea of arms reduction proposals made by the French. During this summit despite there being many discussions between the many leaders who were there, limited agreements were made and very few were ever followed through. In addition Khrushchev is para-phrased too have said ‘I don’t like capitalism, you don’t communism, but we both know we cannot fight physically’ from this we could assume that Khrushchev would like to follow peaceful coexistence, however, my looking closer at this quote we can see that Khrushchev’s coexistence was one of appearance only, as he would attack capitalism through economic policies, ‘we will bury you’, rather than a military conflict. In the year 1956 (the year following the Geneva Summit), Khrushchev shows just how hypocritical he is, he allows reforms in Poland but then supresses the rising in Hungary the same way Stalin would have done. First in Poland there was a group pf protests in Poland that would not be settled without reform in the country. Khrushchev realising the need to keep Poland calm, allowed for economic reform and pushed greater liberalisation, in return for this Poland would stick to the Warsaw pact. One major reason for Khrushchev’s allowing of the reform is that fact that China was in support of Poland and they knew they would have to rely heavily on China for support for the side of communism. However once again showing the fact that Khrushchev was not a peaceful leader would be that in the same year of the Polish reforms there was call for change in Hungary in the Hungary-Rising. On the other hand unlike in Poland, Khrushchev was not having any reform I the Hungary and sent I troops to suppress the rising by capturing 35,000 protestors as well as the execution of the leader Nagy who tried to implement multi-party elections. Khrushchev’s actions here are very Stalinist. In addition, it not only shows confrontation through the Stalinist actions, it is also confrontation because the US were in support of the Hungary-Rising. Khrushchev did not care who was in support of this, he just acted like the Stalinist he was before Stalin’s death. Khrushchev was no starting to show that he would be peaceful if he gained from it but if what was going on would threaten his soviet dream he would now stand for it and it confront it in a Stalinist way. The Paris Summit of 1960 marks the end of the road that could have lea to co-existence. Thirteen days before the summit, the US sent a spy plane over the USSR which was then taken down, and the pilot was captured. When first confronted with the plane incident, the US claimed it was only a weather plane, but when the USSR confronted with the fat they had the pilot and the plane almost in tacked, they admitted to it being a spy plane. When the two met at the Paris Summit, Khrushchev
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