sign in sign up
<<
Home , Anastas Mikoyan, Andrei Gromyko, Baghdad Pact, Berlin Conference (1954), Boris Meissner, Brezhnev Doctrine

The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold

✣ Wolfgang Mueller

Like the Bolshevik doctrine in general, the Communist theory of international law was instrumental for legitimizing claims and behavior in the national and international arenas and, therefore, often subject to power interests.1 This applied also to the Soviet attitude toward and definition of “permanent neutrality,” a vaguely defined international status that can have non-neutral consequences as well. Whether neutrality, in Soviet eyes, was good or evil, whether it was rejected or promoted, and how it was defined and to what end thus depended on specific circumstances and the Soviet perception of how neutrality might affect the fate of in the USSR. To advance the objectives of the of the (CPSU) in a changing environment and to justify contradictory actions, the Soviet theory of international law and attitude toward neutrality had to be adjusted periodically. This happened in a top-down process. Each new po- sition was publicized through statements by political leaders, fashioned by articles that were published under party control, and finally elaborated in spe- cialized treatises by experts.2 Although the frequently updated textbooks of international law contained only brief references to the rules of wartime neu- trality, hints at the various Soviet interpretations of permanent neutrality could

1. See , “The Formulation of Soviet Foreign Policy: Ideology and ,” in Gabriel Gorodetsky, ed., Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1991: A Retrospective (: Frank Cass, 1994), pp. 30–44; and Mark Kramer, “Ideology and the ,” in Michael M. Cox, ed., Twentieth Century International Relations,Vol.2:TheRiseandFalloftheColdWar(London: Sage, 2008), pp. 26–68. 2. See, for example, L. A. Modzhoryan, Politika podlinnogo neitraliteta—Vazhnyi factor bor’by narodov za mir i nezavisimost’ (: Znanie, 1956); B. V. Ganyushkin, Sovremennyi neitralitet (Moscow: In- stitut mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii, 1958); L. A. Modzhoryan, Politika neitraliteta (Moscow: Znanie, 1962); B. V. Ganyushkin, Neitralitet i neprisoedinenie (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1965); O. I. Tiunov, Neitralitet v mezhdunarodnom prave (Perm: Gosudarstvennyi universitet im. Gor’kogo, 1968); L. A. Mojoryan [Modzhoryan], “Neutrality in Present-Day International Law,” in Grigory Tu n k i n , e d . , Contemporary International Law: Collection of Articles (Moscow: Progess, 1969), pp. 216– 232; and Yu. M. Prusakov, Neitralitet v sovremennom mezhdunarodnom prave (Moscow: Znanie, 1972).

Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 18, No. 4, Fall 2016, pp. 148–179, doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 C 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

148

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

be found in the semi-official Diplomatic Handbook, of which four editions appeared during the Cold War.3 In the 1950s, when Soviet foreign policy began to assign neutrality a larger role than in earlier eras, Western researchers were quick to analyze the contemporary Soviet specialized literature on neutrality.4 By the start of the 1990s, this stream of interest had greatly diminished, and in the post-Cold War era only a few analyses have appeared.5 Over the past decade-and-a-half, the most active scholars in this regard have been Finnish historians, who published archive-based research on Soviet policy as it related to ’s neutrality. Despite these efforts, small-state neutrality has remained, as described by Jussi Hanhimaki,¨ “one of the less researched topics of the Cold War.”6

3. A. Ya. Vyshinskii, ed., Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 1st ed., 2 vols. (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1948– 1950); A. A. Gromyko et al., eds., Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1960–1964); A. A. Gromyko et al., eds., Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 3rd ed., 3 vols. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1971–1973); and A. A. Gromyko et al., eds., Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 4th ed., 3 vols. (Moscow: Nauka, 1984–1986). On the rules of wartime neutrality, see, for example, G. I. Tunkin, Osnovy sovremennogo mezhdunarodnogo prava (Moscow: Vysshaya partiinaya shkola TsK KPSS, 1956); F. I. Koschewnikow, ed., Volkerrecht¨ (Hamburg: Hansischer Gildenverlag, 1960); Drei sowjetische Beitrage¨ zur Volkerrechtslehre¨ (Hamburg: Hansischer Gildenverlag, 1969); V.I. Lisovskii, Mezhdunarodnoe pravo (Moscow: Vysshaya shkola, 1970); and G. I. Tunkin, Theory of International Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974). For Western bibliographies, see Boris Meissner, ed., Sowjetunion und Volkerrecht¨ 1917 bis 1962: Eine bibliographische Dokumentation (: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1963); and Boris Meissner, Dietrich Frenzke, and Erika Chilecki, eds., Sowjetunion und Volkerrecht¨ 1962 bis 1973: Bibliographie und Analyse (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1977). 4. Heinz Fiedler, Der sowjetische Neutralitatsbegriff¨ in Theorie und Praxis: Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Disengagement (Cologne: Politik und Wirtschaft, 1959); George Ginsburgs, “Neutrality and Neu- tralism and the Tactics of Soviet ,” in The American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 19, no. 4 (1960), pp. 531–560; Gerhard Hafner, “Die permanente Neutralitat¨ in der sowjetischen Volkerrechtslehre,”¨ in Osterreichische¨ Zeitschrift fur¨ offentliches¨ Recht, Vol. 19, no. 2–3 (1969), pp. 215– 258; Peter H. Vigor, The Soviet View of War, Peace, and Neutrality (London: Routledge, 1975); Harto Hakovirta, “The Soviet Union and the Varieties of Neutrality in Western ,” in World Politics, Vol. 35, no. 4 (1983), pp. 563–585; Stelianos Scarlis, Neutralitat¨ in Europa aus sowjetischer Sicht im Zeitalter der Entspannung: Die Rolle der neutralen Staaten Europas in der Außenpolitik der Sowjetunion 1969–1975 (Munich: Tuduv, 1984); and Bo Petersson, The Soviet Union and Peacetime Neutrality in Europe: A Study of Soviet Political Language (Stockholm: MH Publishing, 1990). 5. Vladislav Zubok, “The Soviet Attitude towards European Neutrals during the Cold War,” in Michael Gehler and Rolf Steininger, eds., The Neutrals and the , 1945–1995 (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2000), pp. 29–43; Wilhelm Agrell, “Silent Allies and Hostile Neutrals: Nonaligned States in the Cold War,” in , Sven G. Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger, eds., War Plans and in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East and West (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 141–162; and Peter Ruggenthaler, The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin’s Foreign Policy 1945–53 (Lanham: Lexington 2015). On the Soviet attitude to and understanding of neutrality, see Wolfgang Mueller, A Good Example of ? The Soviet Union, , and Neutrality, 1955–1991 (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen¨ Akademie der Wissenschaften 2011). 6. Jussi M. Hanhimaki,¨ “The Lure of Neutrality: Finland and the Cold War,” in Klaus Larres and Kenneth Osgood, eds., The Cold War after Stalin’s Death: A Missed Opportunity for Peace? (Lanham, MD: Rowland & Littlefield, 2006), p. 257. See also Seppo Hentila,¨ “The Soviet Union, Finland, and the ‘Northern Balance,’” in Wilfried Loth, ed., Europe, Cold War, and Coexistence, 1953–1965

149

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

This article, which relies on Soviet treatises of international law, comple- mented by documents from the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Fed- eration (AVPRF) and the Russian State Archive of Recent History (RGANI), delineates the changing Soviet attitude toward permanent neutrality as well as toward four European neutrals (Austria, Finland, , ) during the Cold War. After an introduction describing the fundamental aspects of the Soviet theory as it emerged in the 1950s, the article proceeds chronologically from the 1960s up to the dissolution of the USSR, analyzing Soviet theory and practice during each period of the Cold War.

The Soviet Theory of Neutrality in the Late 1950s and 1960s

In -, the general attitude toward neutrality was shaped mainly by the theory of class struggle. Until the final victory of was achieved, this struggle would not allow any sort of neutrality. Any per- son not supportive of the proletariat was by definition a “class enemy.” With regard to wartime neutrality, declared that in the case of a war between two imperialistic powers, the neutrality of a was possible. However, if a war was revolutionary, defensive, or a war of liberation, and therefore “just,” according to Lenin, no type of neutrality was justifiable.7 In the context of the Soviet rediscovery of neutrality in the early 1950s, the USSR underlined its interest in this status by subscribing, in a note of 7 March 1955, to the Hague Conventions of 1907 on wartime neutrality.8 This did not rule out the Soviet criticism, albeit unofficial, that, after II there was no general “right to war,” and thus wartime neutrals should follow Leninism in distinguishing between just and unjust . Because of the circumstances of the Cold War—a tense struggle between two blocs for political influence, albeit in the absence of a general war—Soviet

(London: Frank Cass, 2004), pp. 239–257; Kimmo Rentola, “Der Vorschlag einer europaischen¨ Sicherheitskonferenz und die stille Krise zwischen Finnland und der Sowjetunion,” in Dominik Geppert and Udo Wengst, eds., Neutralitat—Chance¨ oder Chimare?¨ Konzepte des Dritten Weges fur¨ Deutschland und die Welt 1945–1990 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005), pp. 177–202; and Sandra Bott et al., eds., Neutrality and Neutralism in the Global Cold War: Between or Within the Blocs? (London: Routledge, 2016). 7. Margot Light, The Soviet Theory of International Relations (: St. Martin’s, 1988), pp. 229– 237. 8. F. I. Koschewnikow, “Die Gesetze und Gewohnheiten des Krieges,” in F. I. Koschewnikow, ed., Volkerrecht¨ (Hamburg: Hansischer Gildenverlag, 1960), pp. 458–459.

150

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

policy focused on peacetime neutrality. In Soviet eyes, peacetime neutrality was more progressive than but less progressive than socialism, a status that paved the way for the achievement of socialism.9 By means of ever closer political, economic, and cultural cooperation with the —cooperation that the Soviet side demanded from a neutral—neutrals were expected to gravitate toward socialism. For a socialist state, however, permanent neutrality was, after World War II, not deemed a fit condition.10 The lack of generally accepted international norms of permanent neutral- ity was criticized by Soviet lawyers, who took on the task of formulating a set of rules that reflected Moscow’s interest in turning permanent neutrality into a useful tool of Soviet policy. A major step in codifying the Communist doctrine of neutrality was made by publishing the “Resolution on the Legal Aspects of Neutrality,” adopted by the seventh conference of the Soviet-sponsored International Association of Democratic Lawyers in 1960.11 The resolution contained “traditional Western concepts, adaptation to the realities of the pol- itics of neutrality in today’s Europe, and efforts to persuade the European neutral states to support the ‘peace policies’ of the socialist camp.”12 Communist teachings in the late 1950s and early 1960s distinguished between permanent neutrality (founded either on an international agreement or a national declaration recognized by other states) and “positive” or “active” neutrality (which in the majority of cases was declared unilaterally and often associated with neutralism or nonalignment).13 The permanent neutral was bound “to maintain neutrality forever, to avoid ever starting a war, and to refrain from conducting a policy that might lead to war,” and, therefore, “not to partake in military blocs or groupings, to ban the presence of foreign troops on their soil, and to maintain friendly relations with all states.”14 Soviet politicians and publications stressed that both groups (i.e., perma- nent as well as positive neutrals) had to conduct a “neutral policy” in peacetime

9. Tiunov, Neitralitet, p. 115; and Tunkin, Das Volkerrecht¨ der Gegenwart, p. 25. 10. E. Korovin, “Proletarian Internationalism in World Relations,” in International Affairs,no.2 (February 1958), p. 29, quoted in Roy Allison, The Soviet Union and the Strategy of Non-alignment in the (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 18. 11. International Association of Democratic Lawyers, ed., Legal Aspects of Neutrality: Proceedings of the Third Commission (Brussels: International Association of Democratic Lawyers, 1960), pp. 113–114. On the IADL, see Richard Felix Staar, Foreign Policies of the Soviet Union (Stanford, CA: Hoover Press, 1991), p. 80. 12. Hakovirta, “The Soviet Union and the Varieties of Neutrality,” p. 582. 13. Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 2nd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 395–397. The subject is analyzed in great detail in Fiedler, Der sowjetische Neutralitatsbegriff¨ , pp. 84–89. 14. D. B. Lewin and G. P. Kaljushnaja, eds., Volkerrecht¨ (East : Staatsverlag der DDR, 1967), p. 112.

151

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

(one by obligation, the other by free will).15 Insofar as the peacetime policy of permanently neutral and nonaligned countries was subsumed under “neutral policy,” the differences between the foreign policies of countries as diverse as , , Finland, Austria, and Switzerland were blurred.16 Even more important, the Soviet claim that in peacetime permanent neutrals were legally obliged to follow the same foreign policy as was practiced by the nonaligned states massively increased the burden on the permanent neutrals. This was the key feature of the Soviet neutrality doctrine of the 1950s and 1960s and the main bone of contention with the Western neutral states, which rejected such claims. In Soviet understanding, it was not possible for a neutral to be “passively indifferent to all occurrences in the international arena” or even “neutral in the question of war or peace.” The active “struggle for peace” was seen as the highest duty of neutral policy and as “the main criterion for evaluating it.”17 The neutral state had to contribute actively, by means of its neutrality and policies, to a “relaxation of tensions,” to fight the “forces of war and ” (i.e., the West), and to support the “forces of peace” (i.e., the Eastern bloc).18 In practice, the Soviet Union expected neutral countries to support ex- isting Soviet initiatives on detente´ and disarmament, as well as those of the “people’s ”; to recognize the German Democratic Republic (GDR); and to condemn U.S. policies. Furthermore, the USSR, particularly after the experience of the , encouraged neutral and nonaligned countries to join the (UN).19 The Soviet Union was interested not only in making neutrality more attractive by inviting the neutrals into international organizations but also in benefiting from the neutral countries’ support for the Soviet struggle in these arenas. Within the UN, neutral states, according to the Soviet doctrine, had to obey the following rule: If the Security Council unanimously (i.e., with Soviet support) sponsored a decision, a neutral state had to comply with it. If the General Assembly made a decision that was

15. Ganyushkin, Sovremennyi neitralitet, pp. 16, 83–84, 86. 16. Bol’shaya Sovetskaya entsiklopediya, 3rd ed., Vol. 17 (Moscow: “Sovetskaya entsiklopediya,” 1974), pp. 498–499. See also Hafner, “Die permanente Neutralitat,”¨ p. 225. 17. Ganyushkin, Sovremennyi neitralitet,p.8. 18. Mojoryan [Modzhoryan], “Neutrality in Present-Day International Law,” pp. 219, 226; and E. A. Korovin, “Istoriya mezhdunarodnogo prava,” in F. I. Kozhevnikov, ed., Mezhdunarodnoe pravo (Moscow: Yurizdat, 1957), p. 83. 19. Modzhoryan, Politika neitraliteta, pp. 18–19; and Tiunov, Neitralitet v mezhdunarodnom prave, pp. 59–60. See also Alexander Dallin, Die Sowjetunion und die Vereinten Nationen (Cologne: Wis- senschaft und Politik, 1965), p. 41.

152

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

against the Soviet will, the neutrals were expected to remain “neutral” and not follow that decision.20 Another duty of permanent neutrals as claimed in Soviet theory and prac- tice was nondiscrimination and economic equidistance between the blocs.21 Both claims were based on Soviet theorists’ reading of the Hague Conventions on wartime neutrality. In practice, Soviet experts tacitly overlooked the fact that many nonaligned states oriented themselves toward the East. This bias was justified in Soviet statements with the observation that the Eastern bloc, by definition, did not abuse economic links by using them to exert pressure. For Soviet lawyers, permanent neutrality meant abstention not only from war but from the Cold War. This postulate is a clear example of how the USSR attempted to transform political demands into legal claims. In addition to avoidance of any measure that might compel neutral states to join a conflict, including participation in economic embargoes or hostile against foreign powers, a neutral’s international obligations, from the Soviet point of view, also included “neighborly” or “friendly” relations with all other countries. With this view in particular, the Soviets sought to oblige neutrals to establish contacts with socialist states that were not yet recognized by the West, such as the GDR and Communist , and not to partake in Western boycotts against the Eastern bloc.22 The issue of freedom of opinion in a neutral state was another debated point. Leaders of neutral states such as Austria’s Julius Raab or Finland’s insisted that their status “does not extend to political convictions.”23 Indeed, neither wartime nor peacetime neutrality curbs the freedom of opin- ion. However, Soviet scholars insisted on banning “hostile propaganda” and— not without a side blow to Western ideas such as “freedom of the media”— advised the governments of both permanent and positive neutrals to take action against such behavior.24 The question of whether neutrals were allowed to or had an obligation to defend themselves in the case of war was not unanimously answered by Soviet

20. Denise Bindschedler-Robert, “Volkerrecht¨ und Neutralitat¨ aus sowjetischer Sicht,” in Osterreichische¨ Zeitschrift fur¨ Außenpolitik, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1965), p. 161. 21. G. Osnitskaya, “Neutrality and the Common Market,” in International Affairs (Moscow), No. 6 (June 1962), p. 54. 22. D. B. Lewin, “Grundprinzipien des modernen Volkerrechts,”¨ in Drei sowjetische Beitrage¨ zur Volkerrechtslehre¨ (Hamburg: Hanseatischer Gildenverlag, 1969), pp. 225–228; Ganyushkin, Sovre- mennyi neitralitet, pp. 83–84; and Tiunov, Neitralitet v mezhdunarodnom prave, pp. 5–7. 23. Urho Kekkonen, APresident’sView(London: Heinemann, 1982), p. 168. 24. Ganyushkin, Neitralitet i neprisoedinenie, p. 146 (see also pp. 13, 118–120).

153

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

scholars.25 They unanimously agreed that neutrals’ armies should be moderate in size and that the Swedish and Swiss armies exceeded such dimensions. In addition, Soviet legal specialists tended to discount small states’ efforts at self- defense as futile. The possession of nuclear weapons was deemed incompatible with neutrality, for it would increase a neutral’s dependence on foreign military technology and also increase the risk of being destroyed in a war by a nuclear counterattack.26 In the late 1950s and 1960s when Switzerland and Sweden considered introducing programs for nuclear defense, both countries came under fiercely attack from Soviet propaganda.27 Some accounts even claimed that, in the event of war, the neutral state was not to treat the aggressor and the victim equally.28 This thesis was a result of Lenin’s theory of “just wars,” but it was hardly reconcilable with the core concept of neutrality. Similarly inconsistent with the West- ern theory was the Soviet claim that a neutral must join the struggle for decolonization—a movement that was expected to dismantle Western bases worldwide and disrupt the flow of raw material from the colonies to .29 Fulfilling all these tasks (which Soviet leaders apparently believed were working to the USSR’s advantage) would have been interpreted in the West as abandoning neutrality. At the very least, it would be considered nonalignment rather than neutrality. From the Soviet point of view, however, these points were deemed necessary for being neutral. Although most claims of the Soviet theory of neutral policy could be dismissed as unofficial postulates without legal basis or international relevance, the growing catalog of demands was nonetheless hard to ignore and, if unchallenged by the West, bore the risk of being transformed into legal claims. This threatened to become a constant strife factor, even more so because Soviet experts on international law claimed the right of other states to evaluate the policies of each neutral state and decide whether its obligations were being fulfilled.

25. While Durdenevskii, Tiunov, and Ganyushkin, Sovremennyi neitralitet, pp. 93–95, support the opinion that a permanently neutral state is obliged to defend itself, Ganyushkin, Neitralitet i nepris- oedinenie, pp. 121–127, casts doubt on whether such obligations were still valid and praises plans for full disarmament. 26. Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 2nd ed., Vol. 2, p. 396. 27. Daniel A. Neval, “Mit Atombomben nach Moskau”: Gegenseitige Wahrnehmung der Schweiz und des Ostblocks im Kalten Krieg 1945–1968 (Zurich: Chronos, 2003), pp. 487–496. 28. Koschewnikow, “Die Gesetze und Gewohnheiten des Krieges,” p. 469; and Legal Aspects of Neu- trality, p. 114. 29. On Soviet views of neutral states’ obligation to support decolonization, see Tiunov, Neitralitet v mezhdunarodnom prave, pp. 27–29.

154

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

From the “Stalin Notes” to the “”: The Soviet Rediscovery of Neutrality, 1949–1961

During the early Cold War, the Soviet (Zhdanov) doctrine of the “two camps” ruled out neutrality. Iosif Stalin voiced doubts that small states would be able to maintain neutrality, Soviet propaganda harshly denounced the idea of creating a neutral bloc in , and the most prominent neutral states in Europe—Sweden and Switzerland—were repeatedly attacked for allegedly disobeying the rules of neutrality.30 However, from 1949 to 1954, in the context of the Soviet struggle against the emergence of NATO and the European Defense Community (EDC), the Soviet and European Communist parties began to promote neutrality as a tool for dissuading states from joining the Western . This campaign reached its peak with Stalin’s proposal of March 1952, which offered the reunification of at the price of the country’s neutralization. In the case of Austria, Soviet representatives signaled that this status might increase Moscow’s willingness to join the Western powers in signing the State for the Reestablishment of an Independent and Democratic Austria.31 However, as long as the two-camps doctrine was in force, the Soviet use of neutrality remained mostly propagandistic.32 Not until new leaders had taken power in Moscow did the official Soviet attitude toward permanent neutrality change in any fundamental way. This shift was most likely a strategy to counter the expansion of NATO in 1955. Another factor was the dynamic triggered by the decolonization process.33 Some of the independent states of East Asia and the had already joined pro-Western blocs, such as the South East Asian Treaty Organization and the Pact. In this context, , the new Soviet leader, looked for ways to keep independent countries out of Western al- liances or to lure them away. “Peaceful coexistence” was adopted as the official

30. A. A. Komarov, “Politika SSSR po otnosheniyu k Skandinavskim stranam v Khrushchevskii period,” in N. I. Egorova and A. O. Chubar’yan, eds., Kholodnaya voina i politika razryadki,Vol.1 (Moscow: Institut vseobshchei istorii, 2003), pp. 96–98; and Hans Rudolf Fuhrer, “Neutral zwischen den Blocken:¨ Osterreich¨ und die Schweiz,” in Manfried Rauchensteiner, ed., Zwischen den Blocken:¨ NATO, Warschauer Pakt und Osterreich¨ (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2010), p. 247. 31. , Um Einheit und Freiheit: Staatsvertrag, Neutralitat¨ und das Ende der Ost-West- Besetzung Osterreichs¨ 1945–1955,5threv.ed.(Vienna:Bohlau,¨ 2005), pp. 220–222. 32. Jurgen¨ Zarusky, ed., Die Stalinnote vom 10. Marz¨ 1952: Neue Quellen und Analysen (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002); and Peter Ruggenthaler, ed., Stalins großer Bluff: Die Geschichte der Stalinnote in sowjetischen Dokumenten (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007). For a different view, see Wilfried Loth, “German Historians and the German Question in the Cold War,” in Juhana Aunesluoma and Pauli Kettunen, eds., The Cold War and the Politics of History (: Edita, 2008), p. 185. 33. Allison, The Soviet Union and the Strategy of Non-Alignment i,p.2.

155

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

strategy to reduce tensions and improve the USSR’s image abroad while peace- fully expanding Soviet influence. Together with this strategy, neutrality and nonalignment were promoted among non-socialist countries.34 In addition, the Soviet concept of two camps was expanded to include a third; namely, the neutral or nonaligned states. Soviet officials viewed with optimism the possi- bility that, by supporting the decolonization process, by extending foreign aid, and by shaping the neutral and nonaligned states’ behavior, the socialist and neutral camps could be merged into a “zone of peace,” thus tilting the inter- national balance in favor of the Soviet side.35 Thus, Soviet officials thought of neutrality as a “means of changing the balance of power rather than preserving it”—contrary to the understanding held in the West.36 Several factors, including discussions in the Western press about the estab- lishment of neutral zones in Europe, may have contributed to making Soviet leaders aware of the chances provided by neutrality and nonalignment.37 The Soviet reconciliation with Yugoslavia in 1953–1954 and the rapprochement with India made clear that nonalignment offered a viable alternative to these countries joining the .38 The founding of the Pact in May 1955 was an important precon- dition for the Soviet reevaluation of neutrality. The new organization reduced the danger that an East European state would try to shift to the neutral camp. The Soviet refusal to accept ’s 1956 declaration of neutrality proved that neutrality was to be spread exclusively among Western countries and that the Soviet Union regarded neutrality as a way “to promote the disso- lution of the military organizations of the Western powers only.”39

34. Mojoryan [Modzhoryan], “Neutrality in Present-Day International Law,” p. 219. 35. Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 2nd ed., Vol. 2, p. 394; and Programm der Kommunistischen Partei der Sowjetunion, angenommen auf dem XXII. Parteikongress 1961, in Boris Meissner, ed., Das Parteiprogramm der KPdSU 1903 bis 1961 (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1962), p. 183. 36. Cyril E. Black, Richard A. Falk, Klaus Knorr, and Oran R. Young, Neutralization and World Politics (Princeton, NJ: University Press, 1968), p. 45. 37. Geoffrey Roberts, “A Chance for Peace? The Soviet Campaign to End the Cold War, 1953–1955,” CWIHP Working Paper No. 57 (Washington, DC: Cold War International History Project, 2008), p. 19. 38. Svetozar Rajak, “No Bargaining Chips, No Spheres of Interest: The Yugoslav Origins of Non- Alignment,” in Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 16, no. 1 (2014), pp. 146–179; Vojtech Mastny, “The Soviet Union’s Partnership with India,” Journal of Cold War Studies (Summer 2010), Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 50–90; and Andreas Hilger, “The Soviet Union and India: The Khrushchev Era and Its Aftermath until 1966,” pt. iv, Parallel History Project on Security, 2009, available online at http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/collections/coll_india/intro_khrushchevee91.html?navinfo=56154. 39. Sven Allard, and the Austrian State Treaty: A Case Study of Soviet Policy in Europe (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1970), p. 221. The Warsaw Treaty was to cease to be operative “should a system of collective security be established in Europe.” Vojtech Mastny and Malcolm Byrne,

156

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

In the Austrian case, neutrality was applied to a state that was considered, albeit only unofficially, a “secret ally” of the West.40 In the early 1950s, Soviet internal reports and propaganda had warned against the growing possibility that Austria would be integrated into NATO’s military planning.41 As a result of the country’s four-power occupation, the Western powers had been free to use their areas for troop transports between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; ) and . By insisting that Austria become neutral, Khrushchev managed to disrupt these communication lines and prevent the country from following neighboring West Germany into the Atlantic alliance. This seems to have been the main reason for the sudden Soviet urgency to solve the Austrian problem in 1955. Following bilateral talks in Moscow, the Austrian leaders’ promise that their country would adopt a neutral status akin to Switzerland’s was laid down in the Soviet-Austrian memorandum of 15 April. This was an unofficial conditio sine qua non for the USSR’s consent to join the Western powers in signing the Austrian State Treaty on 15 May. On 26 October, after the Allied withdrawal was completed, the Austrian parliament passed a law establishing permanent neutrality.42 Because Stalin’s efforts to turn Austria into a Soviet ally had failed in 1945, neutrality formed the second-best solution from the Soviet perspective. Austria’s neutrality, which was explicitly mentioned in the Moscow memorandum (albeit not in the state treaty), provided the Soviet Union with a lever by which it could move Austria further from the West. Khrushchev saw the Austrian deal as his first major “victory” in foreign policy, and it was duly celebrated by Soviet propaganda.43 Creating a showcase of the benefits of neutrality was only the first step in Khrushchev’s campaign for promoting this status, a campaign that reached its high point in 1955–1959. The nonaligned states’ in April 1955 opened the door for improving Soviet relations with the South Asian

eds., A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the , 1955–1991 (: Central European University Press, 2005), p. 79. 40. Gerald Stourzh, “The Origins of Austrian Neutrality,” in Alan T. Leonhard, ed., Neutrality— Changing Concepts and Practices (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), p. 40; and Gunter¨ Bischof, “Osterreich—ein¨ ‘geheimer Verbundeter’¨ des Westens?” in Michael Gehler and Rolf Steininger, eds., Osterreich¨ und die europaische¨ Integration 1945–1993: Aspekte einer wechselvollen Entwicklung (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 1993), pp. 425–450. 41. Vladislav Zubok, “Soviet Intelligence and the Cold War: The Small Committee of Information, 1952–53,” CWIHP Working Paper 4 (Washington, DC: Cold War International History Project, 1992), p. 12. 42. Stourzh, Um Einheit und Freiheit, pp. 335–567. 43. Nikita Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev III: The Statesman, 1953–1964,ed.bySergei Khrushchev (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), p. 15; and , Khrushchev: The Man: His Era (London: Simon & Schuster Free Press, 2003), pp. 331, 333, 349.

157

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

regimes, which had hitherto been discarded as “lackeys of imperialism.”44 Soviet media and the national Communist parties were among the strongest supporters of the Asian countries’ neutralist foreign policies.45 In June 1955, Indian Prime Minister paid a well-received visit to Moscow, and in October his Burmese colleague, , followed suit. The new bonds were strengthened by the triumphal tour of Khrushchev and through India, Burma, and in November and . With the aim of “attracting” such states “to our side,” the Kremlin offered hundred-million-dollar loans for , , and Afghanistan and concluded trade agreements with , India, Burma and other nonaligned states.46 In the following years, the Soviet Union was a partner in the settlement that led to the neutrality of in 1962. That same year, the USSR also recognized the neutrality of , which had been declared in 1957.47 Egypt, Afghanistan, Mali, Burma, India, and Indonesia were applauded in Soviet statements as “having a neutral policy.”48 The recent Soviet reevaluation of neutrality was also reflected in praise for the Swiss status and Sweden’s neutral policy, as well as by the recogni- tion of Finnish neutrality.49 Scandinavia—with its delicate Nordic balance between NATO members , , and (the latter two without foreign soldiers on their soil), neutral Sweden, and the special case of Finland—was chosen to be another showcase of “peaceful coexistence” be- tween the USSR and the neutrals. In 1948, Finland, which had been attacked by the USSR in 1939 and fought a “” until 1944, was almost forced by Stalin into a but ultimately agreed only to a Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance (FCMA).50 This document

44. On the conference, see , The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 99–103; J. A. Mackie, Bandung 1955: Non-alignment and Afro-Asian Solidarity (: Millet, 2005); as well as Eric Pullin, “The Bandung Conference: Ideological Conflict and the Limits of US Propaganda,” in Bott et al., eds., Neutrality and Neutralism in the Global Cold War, pp. 52–71. 45. Alexander Dallin, Soviet Foreign Policy after Stalin (London: Methuen, 1962), p. 295. 46. Quoted in Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: TheInsideStoryofan American Adversary (New York: Norton, 2006), p. 82. 47. Mojoryan [Modzhoryan], “Neutrality in Present-Day International Law,” pp. 222–226. 48. Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 2nd ed., Vol. 2, p. 396. 49. W. Durdenewski, “Zur schweizerischen Neutralitat,”¨ Neue Zeit, No. 22 (1955), pp. 28–30; and M. Andreyeva and K. Dmitrieva, “The Soviet Union and in the War,” International Affairs, No. 9 (September 1959), pp. 66–71. 50. Jussi M. Hanhimaki,¨ Containing Coexistence: America, Russia, and the “Finnish Solution,” 1945– 1956 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1997), pp. 26–28; and John Vloyantes, “Finland,” in S. Victor Papacosma and Mark R. Rubin, eds., Europe’s Neutral and Nonaligned States: Between NATO and the Warsaw Pact (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1989), pp. 141–145.

158

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

included three main stipulations: (1) Finland was obliged not to tolerate for- eign troops or military bases (other than Soviet) on its soil; (2) if unable to cope with an invasion by Germany or a state allied with it, Finland was to consult the Soviet government, which would be ready to render military assis- tance; and (3) the USSR recognized Finland’s aspirations for staying outside the conflicts of the great powers. In September 1955, Khrushchev, who was keen to secure the victory of a pro-Soviet candidate in Finland’s forthcoming elections, offered the Finnish president, Juho Paasikivi, a package deal: sign an extension of the FCMA for another twenty years, and in return the So- viet Union would relinquish its naval base in Finnish Porkkala. The country’s neutrality was explicitly recognized by Khrushchev in 1956 at the 20th CPSU Congress.51 When the Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish prime ministers visited Moscow in 1955–1956, Soviet officials suggested they make northern Eu- rope a neutral “zone of peace.”52 Iceland was offered a Soviet guarantee if it would expel U.S. forces and declare itself neutral. Although the three NATO members remained integrated in the alliance, Soviet officials reasoned that they would have greater leverage on the situation in Scandinavia if they did not force Finland into a closer alliance with the USSR—a step that might have induced Sweden to join NATO and its western neighbors to invite U.S. bases onto their soil, as Iceland already had at Keflavik airbase. In the years 1955–1959, the Soviet Union also promoted the adoption of neutrality by West Germany, Italy, , , and .53 In the context of the Soviet struggle against NATO’s tactical nuclear rearmament, all members of the alliance were warned of disastrous consequences in the event of a war. The Bulganin notes of 10 December 1957 and 8 January 1958 even offered a special Soviet guarantee to countries that declared “nuclear neutrality” and gave up their launching sites.54 In the case of Japan, Soviet

51. N. S. Chruschtschow, Rechenschaftsbericht des Zentralkomitees der Kommunistischen Partei der Sowjetunion an den XX. Parteitag 14. Februar 1956 (Moscow: Verlag fur¨ Fremdsprachige Literatur, 1956), p. 51. On the return of Porkkala, see Jussi M. Hanhimaki,¨ “, Coexistence, and Neutrality: The Return of the Porkkala Naval Base as an Issue in Soviet-American Relations, 1955– 1956,” Scandinavian Journal of History, Vol. 18, No. 3 (1993), pp. 217–228. 52. Bernd Bonwetsch, “Sowjetische Westeuropapolitik II,” in Dietrich Geyer, ed., Osteuropa-Handbuch Sowjetunion: Außenpolitik 1955–1973 (Cologne: Bohlau,¨ 1976), pp. 209–215. 53. Modzhoryan, Politika neitraliteta, pp. 21–24, 30–31. 54. Keesing’s Archiv der Gegenwart, 11 December 1957, p. 6809; Keesing’s Archiv der Gegenwart,10 January 1958, p. 6836; Ernst Deuerlein, Gisela Biewer, and Hansjurgen¨ Schierbaum, eds., Dokumente zur Deutschlandpolitik III/3, no. 3: 1957, (-am-Main: Metzner, 1967), pp. 2030–2042; and Ernst Deuerlein und Gisela Biewer, eds., Dokumente zur Deutschlandpolitik III/4, no. 1: 1958, (Frankfurt-am-Main: Metzner, 1969), pp. 21–81.

159

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

proposals aimed at clearing the country of U.S. troops. In the case of Italy, Soviet offers were made to guarantee the country’s security if it declared itself neutral—the guarantee offer would later be extended to Austria. To make neutrality more attractive for West Germany, the Soviet Union declared that neutrality would not preclude the FRG’s unification with “another state.”55 During the Berlin crisis, Khrushchev suggested “neutralizing” the western part of the city and replacing the Western garrison with armed forces from neutral countries, thus weakening ’s defense and flattering the self-esteem of the neutrals. Further Soviet advances toward the neutrals were made dur- ing Khrushchev’s struggle to replace Dag Hammarskjold¨ as Secretary General of the UN with a three-person executive body consisting of one represen- tative each from the capitalist, socialist, and neutral states.56 Because Soviet doctrine predicted that the neutrals would develop in the socialist direction, one may assume that this proposed restructuring of the UN was intended to facilitate the emergence of a neutral-socialist two-thirds majority. In addi- tion, Khrushchev proposed moving the UN headquarters to a neutral state, Austria. On as many official occasions as possible, Soviet leaders praised the benefits of neutrality. At the 20th CPSU Congress in 1956, for example, Khrushchev lauded the “strengthening of amicable relations” with Asian nonaligned coun- tries and European neutrals such as Finland and Austria.57 At the Communist world conference in Moscow in November 1960 and at the 22nd CPSU Congress in 1961 the neutrals were assured of unwavering Soviet support (even as Moscow sought to shape their behavior).58 That the internal Soviet assessment of the neutrals was more cautious is reflected by Khrushchev’s statement in the CPSU Presidium in May 1961 claiming to have told India’s representative in the UN, Krishna Menon, that “the majority” of the neutrals were “not neutral” and were instead “against Communism.”59 Although some neutrals were not anti-Communist, the Soviet leader saw “no guarantee” that this policy would be continued.

55. Ganyushkin, Neitralitet i neprisoedinenie, pp. 113–116. 56. Vystupleniya glav delegatsii SSSR/Rossiiskoi Federatsii na sessiyakh General’noi assamblei OON (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 2006), p. 314. 57. Chruschtschow, Rechenschaftsbericht,p.51. 58. Fritz Schenk, ed., Kommunistische Grundsatzerklarungen¨ 1957–1971 (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1972), p. 104; and N. S. Khrushchev, Otchet Tsentral’nogo Komiteta Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soyuza XXII s”ezdu partii (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1961), pp. 32, 38. 59. A. A. Fursenko et al., eds., Prezidium TsK KPSS 1954–1964, 3 vols., Vol. 1: Chernovye protokol’nye zapisi zasedanii, Stenogrammy (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2003), p. 506.

160

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

To promote neutrality in the West, Soviet leaders developed a neutrality “myth,” underlining the benefits that were allegedly ready to be harvested by neutrals, such as prestige, security, friendly relations with all states (including the USSR), low defense spending, and (thus) the availability of more resources for welfare.60 These benefits were contrasted with the disadvantages of mem- bership in NATO, such as the constant threat of being transformed into a nuclear battlefield. In addition, Soviet propaganda warned of the alleged ploys of “imperialists” to regain the neutrals as allies. Soviet officials hoped that by monitoring and commenting on the policies of the neutral states, they could induce the permanent neutrals to adopt the Communist theses on the obligations of neutrality. If a behaved “correctly,” the Soviet Union warmly praised and rewarded it. When Soviet officials wanted to persuade a neutral to take certain steps, they would claim that neutrality obliged the country to do so. If the neutral country did not fulfill Soviet expectations, the Soviet government would criticize it for not living up to its “obligations” and would threaten it with negative consequences. Because neutrality was portrayed as desirable, undesired actions by neutral states were branded as being at odds with neutrality. The aim was to make clear that “neutrality” did not allow neutral countries to do what the USSR did not want them to do.61 Other means of “reminding” a neutral of the Soviet point of view included economic sanctions and political pressure. Such measures were applied, for instance, during the “night frost crisis” of 1958, when the Soviet Union, perhaps out of fear of a swing in Finnish policy toward the West, put pressure on the newly elected , froze trade negotiations, and withdrew the Soviet ambassador.62 The crisis was resolved when Kekkonen appointed a new cabinet that was trusted by the Kremlin. Three years later, in in the midst of the Berlin crisis, another Soviet-Finnish crisis repeated the pattern. This time, Finland was confronted with a Soviet note demanding bilateral military consultations in accordance with the FCMA. The demand came after Denmark, Norway, and the FRG had discussed joint naval defenses in the and was therefore most probably a Soviet attempt to isolate West Germany and to forestall what Moscow perceived as a shift in the Nordic balance. In addition, the imminent presidential elections in Finland might

60. Nikita Khrushchev, For Victory in Competition with Capitalism (New York: Dutton, 1960), pp. 231– 248. 61. For an in-depth study of this issue, see Petersson, The Soviet Union and Peacetime Neutrality. 62. Aappo Kah¨ onen,¨ The Soviet Union, Finland, and the Cold War: The Finnish Card in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1956–1959 (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2006), pp. 127–139.

161

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

have contributed to the USSR’s sense of insecurity.63 Soviet diplomats had made clear that they rejected the contender and preferred the incumbent to be reelected. The crisis was defused after Kekkonen visited Khrushchev, his opponent withdrew his candidacy in the presidential elections, and Norway threatened to invite NATO troops to be stationed on its soil. In the Austrian case, the Soviet Union’s responses to perceived transgres- sions were less drastic. After Austrian officials publicly criticized the Soviet inva- sion of Hungary in 1956, expelled the Soviet-sponsored World Peace Council, and permitted U.S. troop transports through Tyrol, the Soviet Union subjected Austria to vigorous Communist propaganda attacks and offered “friendly ad- vice,” notably by Khrushchev’s close aide Anastas during his official visit in 1957.64

The Soviet Use of the Neutrals, 1961–1968/1969

After the Berlin and Cuban crises, international relations steered into less- troubled waters. Soviet leaders must have sensed that their hopes of dismantling NATO by neutralizing Western Europe would materialize less quickly than expected, and, in the wake of the “big bang” of decolonization, their interest in neutrality shifted somewhat to the nonaligned.65 Throughout the 1960s, Soviet policy toward the European neutrals fo- cused on two aims: preventing the neutrals’ rapprochement with the Euro- pean Economic Community (EEC) and encouraging them to promote Soviet ideas, in particular the recognition of the GDR and the convocation of an all- European conference designed to legitimize the postwar order, foster detente,´ and weaken the cohesion of NATO. In 1960, the neutrals Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland had joined Britain, Denmark, Norway, and in founding the European Free Trade Asso- ciation (EFTA). Under Soviet pressure, Finland chose to become an associate member only. Within a year, however, the British and Danish applications for EEC membership forced the other EFTA states to regulate their relationships

63. Hentila,¨ “The Soviet Union, Finland, and the ‘Northern Balance,’” p. 248; and Kari Mott¨ ol¨ a,¨ “Managing the Finnish-Soviet Relationship: Lessons and Experiences,” in Bo Huldt and Atis Lejins, eds., European Neutrals and the Soviet Union (Stockholm: The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 1985), pp. 45–46. 64. Mueller, A Good Example of Peaceful Coexistence? pp. 91–99. 65. Vigor, The Soviet View, p. 190.

162

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

to the Common Market anew. Despite Soviet warnings, in mid-December 1961 the three neutrals applied for association with the EEC.66 Although the neutrals’ entry into EFTA had been condemned by rather sparse Soviet propaganda, their attempted rapprochement with Brussels triggered a full-blown campaign declaring that association with the EEC was as unacceptable as full membership in the community. Several theses were brought forward. First, the EEC was allegedly an economic front for NATO, and thus it would be unacceptable for a neutral to join. Second, the EEC’s supranational structure would prevent neutral countries from maintaining neutrality. Third, the EEC treated outsiders differently from members, which was seen as a violation of the Soviet thesis that neutrals were obliged not to discriminate against third countries. Fourth, Soviet officials claimed that it would be impossible to limit the obligations for neutrals by their being as- sociates rather than members of the EEC.67 An additional Soviet argument claimed that Austria’s association with the EEC would lead to a new with Germany and thus be incompatible with the state treaty.68 Some of these allegations were debatable. The EEC was hardly identical to NATO or to Hitler’s Greater Germany, its supranational structure was anything but fully achieved, and its discrimination against outsiders was similar to the rules of other regional trade organizations. On one point, the Soviet stance was clearly inconsistent, attacking the European neutrals for their desire to gain associative membership in the EEC but recognizing African associates of the same organization as being “neutral.”69 Several reasons for the Soviet posture can be adduced. Any form of West European integration ran counter to the Soviet aim of obstructing, as far as possible, the creation or expansion of Western blocs, and the European ambitions of the neutrals violated their role as it was envisaged by Moscow (i.e., promoting neutrality and forming a bulwark against Western blocs).70 Finally, because the Soviet Union wanted to foster East-West trade on a

66. Michael Gehler, Osterreichs¨ Weg in die Europaische¨ Union (Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2009). 67. Ganyushkin, Neitralitet i neprisoedinenie, pp. 168–175. 68. Tunkin to Aleksandrov, 12 December 1956, in Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii (AVPRF), Moscow, Fond (F.) 66, Opis’ (Op.) 35, Papka (P.) 66, Delo (D.) 26, List (L.)19. 69. Daniel Tarschys, “Neutrality and the Common Market: The Soviet View,” in Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1971), pp. 72–74. 70. K. Timashkova, “Neitral’nye strany v usloviyakh imperialisticheskoi integratsii,” in M. M. Maksimova, ed., Ekonomicheskie gruppirovki v zapadnoi Evropy (Moscow: Nauka, 1969), pp. 269– 280.

163

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

state-to-state basis, any rapprochement of third states with the EEC was criti- cized by Soviet propaganda for economic reasons.71 After the British application for EEC membership was vetoed by in January 1963, the Austrian government—in contrast to Sweden and Switzerland—declared its wish to continue its Alleingang toward European in- tegration. From the Soviet point of view, any further Austrian rapprochement with the Common Market thus became even more dangerous. Without the other neutrals Austria seemed more susceptible to Western influence. The USSR reacted by stepping up its criticism of Austria’s ambitions in countless articles, memoranda, and conversations—a campaign that eased only after the Austrian endeavor failed in 1967.72 When the EEC decided in 1969 to recommence negotiations with all EFTA members, Soviet warnings again began to intensify. Although Moscow remained uncertain whether Sweden was aiming for full membership in the EEC, Communist attacks against Prime Minister Olof Palme were particularly vehement.73 When the free trade agreements between the EFTA states and the EEC were concluded in July 1972, the USSR displayed comparatively modest misgivings with regard to Austria and Sweden. Soviet officials did not consider the agreements a threat to neutrality or to Soviet interests.74 The USSR’s trade surplus with Western Europe might have calmed Soviet concerns about the EFTA-EEC agreements. In addition, the Soviet Union’s decision to revise its hitherto negative attitude toward the EEC and to tolerate negotiations about an agreement between EEC and CMEA might have contributed to the Kremlin’s acquiescence in the neutrals’ agreements with the EEC.75 In the case of Finland, the USSR intervened vigorously and achieved several extra concessions: Finland would extend both the Soviet-Finnish treaty and the term of President Kekkonen, would conclude an associative agreement with the CMEA, and would sign bilateral free trade agreements with CMEA members. This delayed the Finnish agreement with the EEC, which was signed only in October 1973.76

71. See Harto Hakovirta, “East-West Tensions and Soviet Politics of European Neutrality,” in Bengt Sundelius, ed., The Neutral Democracies in the New Cold War (Boulder: Westview, 1987), pp. 201–202. 72. Mueller, A Good Example, pp. 150–162. 73. Scarlis, Neutralitat¨ , pp. 126–127, 132–143. 74. Soviet embassy Vienna to Soviet MFA, 8 September 1972, in AVPRF, F. 66 Op. 51 P. 110 D. 12, Ll. 4–12. 75. Wolfgang Mueller, “Recognition in Return for Detente?´ Brezhnev, the EC, and the Moscow Treaty with West Germany, 1970–1973,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 13, no. 4 (2011), pp. 79–100. 76. Scarlis, Neutralitat¨ , pp. 140–143.

164

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

In addition to containing the EEC, the second main function assigned to the European neutrals by the USSR in the 1960s was the convocation of an all-European summit on security. The roots of this concept dated back to the of 1954, when Moscow had proposed replacing NATO with a security system that included the USSR and gave the no more than observer status.77 After reviving the idea of neutrality, the Soviet Union’s encouragement of the neutrals to promote this proposal in the international arena was symptomatic of Moscow’s patronizing attitude toward neutral countries in the larger Soviet struggle against NATO. Once the idea had been relaunched in the Bulganin notes of 1957–1958, the Soviet premier, in a “personal message,” called on Austria’s Raab to support the initiative. Although Austria agreed to back the Soviet proposal, under the condition that the summit would be “well prepared,” the chancellor was reluctant to go out on a limb and become a champion of the initiative.78 In the early Brezhnev years, Soviet advances concerning this matter were intensified. In the Warsaw Pact’s Bucharest declaration of July 1966, the neutrals were assured that they “could play a positive role” in the convo- cation of an all-European summit, and in November of the same year the Soviet head-of-state, Nikolai Podgornyi, expressed his hope for the neutrals’ support.79 Some weeks earlier, the Soviet Foreign Ministry had recommended that the “opportunity” created by Austria’s EEC ambitions be seized on “to exert influence over the Austrian government.”80 During Podgornyi’s visit to Vienna, both sides agreed that a “well prepared” conference on Euro- pean security would have a favorable influence on the global situation.81 Aus- tria was the second neutral to endorse the proposal in a joint communique´ with the USSR. Similar statements had been made earlier on the occasion of Polish-Swedish and Soviet-Finnish meetings in June; further endorsements by

77. See the materials from the Berlin Conference in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Vol. VII: Germany and Austria (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986), pp. 1189–1192. 78. Hans Mayrzedt and Waldemar Hummer, eds., 20 Jahre osterreichische¨ Neutralitats-¨ und Europapolitik 1955–1975, Vol. 2 (Vienna: Braumuller,¨ 1976), pp. 230–232. 79. Friedrich-Karl Schramm, Wolfram-Georg Riggert, and Alois Friedel, eds., Sicherheitskonferenz in Europa: Dokumentation 1954–1972: Die Bemuhungen¨ um Entspannung und Annaherung¨ im poli- tischen, militarischen,¨ wirtschaftlichen, wissenschaftlich-technologischen und kulturellen Bereich (Frank- furt: Metzner, 1972), p. 434; and Conversation with the Soviet president, 15 November 1966, in Osterreichisches¨ Staatsarchiv, Vienna, (OStA),¨ AdR, BMAA, II-Pol, GZ. 49225–6/66, Z. 49860– 6/66. 80. “Obshchii rynok i Avstriya,” 26 September 1966, in AVPRF, F. 66, Op. 45, P. 96, D. 20, Ll. 31– 37. 81. Kommunique,´ 22 November 1966, in UdSSR—Osterreich¨ (Moscow: Novosti, 1980), p. 119.

165

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

Italy and Britain followed during Soviet visits to these two countries in early 1967.82 After these agreements were reached, the Soviet Union stepped up its media campaign to encourage the neutrals to launch an initiative for a Euro- pean security conference.83 Soviet experts criticized “the permanent neutral- ity of Switzerland and Austria, and the traditional neutrality of Sweden—in contrast to the active and dynamic Afro-Asian neutralism” for being “sig- nificantly more passive and play[ing] a less positive role in international relations.”84 Such passivity was deemed incorrect, because not only the non- aligned states but also the permanent neutrals should “take an active part in the struggle for world peace and security, peaceful coexistence of states and international friendship.”85 The European Communist parties’ Karlovy Vary declaration of 26 April stated that, in preparing an all-European conference, much depended on a “more active peace policy” of the neutrals. Brezhnev made this appeal even more explicit by encouraging the neutrals to offer their “good offices” to the cause.86 The Soviet leader also used the opportunity to declare that “for a number of [NATO] countries, in particular in Europe’s north, neutrality might be an alternative to participation in military-political groupings.” To make the invitation more tempting, the declaration tried to lure the neutrals with the offer of including official “recognition of the principle of neutrality and of unconditional respect for the inviolability of neutral states” on the conference agenda. During the Austrian president’s visit to Moscow in May 1968, Pod- gornyi repeated the Soviet call for an Austrian contribution to conven- ing the CSCE.87 Other East European leaders, such as ’s , also encouraged Austria to launch an invitation.88 However, once

82. Bernhard Schalhorn, “Sowjetische Westeuropapolitik I,” in Dietrich Geyer, ed., Osteuropa- Handbuch Sowjetunion: Außenpolitik 1955–1973 (Cologne: Bohlau,¨ 1976), p. 121. 83. Thomas Fischer, “Die Sowjetunion, Osterreich,¨ und die finnische KSZE-Initiative vom 5. Mai 1969,” in Wolfgang Mueller and Michael Portmann, eds., Osteuropa vom Weltkrieg zur Wende (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen¨ Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007), pp. 324–329. 84. Ganyushkin, Neitralitet i neprisoedinenie, p. 176. 85. Mojoryan [Modzhoryan], “Neutrality in Present-Day International Law,” p. 219. 86. Fur¨ den Frieden und die Sicherheit in Europa: Konferenz der kommunistischen und Arbeiterparteien Europas zu Fragen der europaischen¨ Sicherheit, Karlovy Vary, 24. bis 26. April 1967 (: Dietz, 1967), pp. 18, 91–92. 87. Conversation, Podgornyi with Jonas, 20 May 1968, in AVPRF, F. 66, Op. 47, P. 101, D. 11, Ll. 35–42. 88. Gerhard Wettig, Europaische¨ Sicherheit: Das europaische¨ Staatensystem in der sowjetische Außenpolitik 1966–1972 (Dusseldorf:¨ Bertelsmann, 1972), p. 94.

166

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

the EEC application had failed in 1967, the USSR lost one of its levers over Austria.89 Another neutral country stepped in, however. In 1968, Finland, which of the European neutrals was traditionally the one most exposed to Soviet demands, had come under increased pressure as the USSR and the GDR de- manded with growing insistence that the Finnish government recognize the East German state. Similar demands had been communicated, albeit with less pressure, by Soviet representatives to Austria. The Soviet thesis that neu- trals were obliged to “maintain friendly relations with all states” served as a basis for these claims.90 In the 1960s, together with growing pressure for an all-European conference, Soviet appeals to become active in the recognition process of the GDR were intensified in numerous diplomatic conversations. Soviet leaders insisted that neutral states could formally recognize the GDR more easily than could NATO members. In the end, however, Austria, Swe- den, and Switzerland recognized only after the West German government had established diplomatic relations with the GDR. In the meantime, the pressure on Helsinki grew. A further menace could be seen in the decreasing Soviet willingness to recognize Finland’s neutrality, a change that had been noted since early 1968. In the official report to the on 27 , Finland was not mentioned when Foreign Minister Gromyko praised the role of neutrality.91 In the communique´ issued during a bilateral visit in 1969, the Soviet side forestalled the hitherto tradi- tional mention of Finnish neutrality.92 In 1970 President Kekkonen managed to convince the Soviet leaders to reaffirm Finland’s neutrality in a declaration. But this was to be the last such mention for many years. Until 1989, So- viet statements referred only to Finland’s “striving for neutrality” and warmly praised the so-called Paasikivi-Kekkonen line of Finnish-Soviet friendship. Al- though the Soviet reasons for this position are yet to be fully analyzed, the USSR, in the wake of 1968 and the crackdown on the Spring, was likely interested in limiting the attractiveness of neutrality in and in recapturing the lead position among European Communists. Although Soviet leaders believed that the United States had been weakened by the

89. Fischer, “Die Sowjetunion, Osterreich,¨ und die finnische KSZE-Initiative,” pp. 329–330. 90. Conversation, Khrushchev with Scharf¨ and Kreisky, 13 October 1959, in OStA,AdR,BMAA,¨ II-Pol, GZ. 236.711-pol/59, Z. 249.552-pol/59. 91. Andrei A. Gromyko, “Za mir i bezopasnost narodov,” in Dokumenty vneshnei politiki 1968 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1985), Vol. 2, p. 151. 92. Seppo Hentila,¨ Neutral zwischen den beiden deutschen Staaten: Finnland und Deutschland im Kalten Krieg (Berlin: BWV, 2006), pp. 74–77, 89–92.

167

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

debacle, Soviet suspicions were raised when Richard Nixon’s administration praised Finland. The were told by Soviet diplomats to position them- selves not between Communism and the West but between the USSR and neutral Sweden. This change was all the more threatening because, from 1969 to 1971, the Soviet Union seemed to be supporting Finland’s pro-Communist People’s Democratic League in a major, final attempt to gain power.93 Against the background of the Soviet-led invasion of in 1968 and growing Soviet pressure on Finland, Kekkonen decided to strengthen his coun- try’s by following the Soviet proposal and, in a memorandum on 5 May 1969, called for an all-European conference.94 The Austrian memorandum of 24 July 1970, addressed to all European states (including the USSR), the United States, and , supported the Finnish proposal for a CSCE as well as the Western proposal for mutual balanced force reductions (MBFR) of all (not just “foreign”) troops in Europe. The document met a frosty reception in Moscow. Because the USSR did not favor MBFR, called on Austria to show “more activity” as well as “more independence” from the West. In contrast, Swiss contributions, which omitted the troop reduction issue, were welcomed by Soviet propaganda.95

The Soviet Union and Neutrality in the 1970s

After the 1968 invasion and the declaration of the , Soviet lawyers shifted their attention to the differences between the sets of laws regulating the relations between capitalist states or capitalist and socialist states, on the one hand, and those regulating the relations between socialist states, on the other. The lawyers confirmed the thesis that neither general international law nor “peaceful coexistence” was applicable to relations between socialist states.96

93. Kimmo Rentola, “Early Detente´ Soviet Anxieties: The Case of Finland 1969–71,” in N. I. Egorova and A. O. Chubar’yan, eds., Kholodnaya voina i politika razryadki, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Institut vseobshchei istorii, 2003), pp. 211–214, 220–226; and Rentola, “Der Vorschlag einer europaischen¨ Sicherheitskonferenz,” pp. 178–185. 94. Thomas Fischer, “‘A Mustard Seed Grew into a Bushy Tree’: The Finnish CSCE Initiative of 5 May 1969,” in Cold War History, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2009), pp. 177–201. See also Finnish memorandum, 5 May 1969, in Hans-Adolph Jacobsen, Wolfgang Mallmann, and Christian Meier, eds., Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa (KSZE): Analyse und Dokumentation, Vol. II/1 (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1973), pp. 128–129. 95. Petersson, The Soviet Union and Peacetime Neutrality, p. 90; and Scarlis, Neutralitat¨ , pp. 97–100. 96. Gregorij I. Tunkin, Volkerrechtstheorie¨ (West Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 1972), p. 21; and Theodor Schweisfurth, “Einleitung,” in Tunkin, Volkerrechtstheorie¨ , pp. 10–15.

168

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

The neutrals remained determined to adhere to detente,´ insofar as it widened their maneuvering room. However, in the age of detente´ and most probably as its consequence, Soviet interest in neutrality and nonalignment declined. Once the USSR had established friendlier relations with the leading NATO powers and the CSCE was convened, the European neutrals appeared less crucial as mediators and promoters of Soviet ideas. The behavior of the neutrals at the CSCE did not exactly reflect what the Soviet Union had hoped for, and the Kremlin reacted by assigning them a less important role. In the Third World, the nonaligned movement had not achieved the historic shift of power the Soviet Union apparently expected. In the aftermath of the , promoting neutrality could be dangerous to East-bloc cohesion. The decline in Soviet interest in permanent neutrality was mirrored by the decreasing number of official statements promoting neutrality and nonalignment. The CPSU congresses in the 1970s did not promote neutral- ity, and the third edition of the Diplomaticheskii slovar’ (Diplomatic Dictio- nary), published in 1971–1973, reduced the coverage of neutrality from five pages to one.97 This was also accompanied by a shift in the Soviet under- standing of neutrality, whereby the gap between permanent neutrality and nonalignment was recognized more explicitly than before.98 “Positive” or “active” neutrality was now equated by the USSR with nonalignment and proclaimed to be a characteristic of the emerging countries of the Third World, whereas permanent neutrality was no longer seen as a “form of peaceful coexistence.” This did not mean, however, that Soviet criticism of any allegedly im- proper implementation of neutrality ceased. Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland were criticized by the Soviet Union for not being neutral enough, and Fin- land continued to be seen in Moscow as not neutral at all. The Soviet tactic of including specific political wishes in an ever-growing list of the neutrals’ alleged “legal obligations” continued as well. A monograph published in 1972 listed, in addition to the already well-known duty of “peaceful cooperation,” other duties of “neutral policy” such as support of nuclear-weapons-free zones in Europe, the struggle for the liquidation of NATO and the recognition of the GDR, and the maintenance of systematic consultations and economic

97. On the congresses, see XXIV.Parteitag der Kommunistischen Partei der Sowjetunion 30. Marz–9.¨ April 1971: Dokumente (Moscow: APN, 1971); Rechenschaftsbericht des Zentralkomitees der Kommunistischen Partei der Sowjetunion (Prague: Frieden und Sozialismus, 1976); and XXVI. Parteitag der KPdSU: Rechenschaftsbericht des Zentralkomitees der Kommunistischen Partei der Sowjetunion (Berlin: Dietz, 1981). 98. Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 3rd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 373–374.

169

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

cooperation with socialist states.99 To balance out such obligations, the pub- lication highlighted numerous “special entitlements” of neutrality (praised as the “highest form of ”), including a “right to jurisdiction,” a “right to honor,” and other trivialities. Likewise, the Soviet tradition continued of criticizing permanent neutrals for their unwillingness to fulfill such “obliga- tions” or to recognize specific aspects of Marxism-Leninism, such as the theory of “just wars.”100 Although the language of the disapproval was broad—“the European permanent neutrals do not follow the principle of maintaining an active peace-loving policy and prefer to remain inactive and stand to the side in this regard, contradicting their international legal status”—Switzerland bore the brunt of the criticism.101 The Swiss were attacked for maintaining an army that was considered too large for a neutral state and for having failed to es- tablish solid relations with the socialist states. In the Austrian case, the alleged violation of neutrality during the Hungarian uprising in 1956, violations of Austria State Treaty Articles 9 and 12 regarding neo-Nazism and rearmament, and anti-Soviet propaganda were cited in the “book of sins.” The steady flow of Soviet propaganda addressing the neutral states during the CSCE can be interpreted as an attempt, by means of praise, encouragement, demands, criticism, or even threats, to influence their behavior. Soviet envoys to the CSCE repeatedly chided the neutral countries for not being active enough, but Soviet officials themselves wanted the neutrals to be silent supporters of Eastern proposals, and at least passive hosts for the negotiations.102 The neutral governments, however, promoted their own ideas and in some important cases even supported Western proposals. The differences between the neutrals and the Warsaw Pact on questions of military security, disarmament, confidence- building measures, mediation, and human contacts, as they developed before and during the conference, must have disappointed the Soviet Union. Despite previous Soviet opposition, human rights issues were included in Basket III of the conference, as had been urged by the Western and neutral states, and all Soviet attempts at restricting their value were turned down. On the other side, the Swiss proposal concerning a mechanism for a peaceful settlement of disputes and Sweden’s and Austria’s drafts regarding military security were rebuffed by Moscow. After the Soviet strategy to block conventional arms control failed, Soviet diplomats sought, unsuccessfully, to include the neutrals

99. Prusakov, Neitralitet, pp. 13–14, 20, 28, 60. 100. Lisovskii, Mezhdunarodnoe pravo, p. 428. 101. Prusakov, Neitralitet, pp. 23–24, 32, 38, 43. 102. Thomas Fischer, Neutral Power in the CSCE: The N+N States and the Making of the (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009), p. 171. See also ibid., pp. 120–138, 177–187, 240–297.

170

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

in the talks and thus either reassign such negotiations to the state-to-state level (thereby weakening NATO) or put the blame for refusals on the United States.

From the Final Peak of the Cold War to Its End

The last phase of the Cold War brought two main developments for the Euro- pean neutrals. On the one hand, rising tensions restricted their maneuvering space. On the other hand, the systemic need for bridge-building activities rose.103 Thus, the final peak of the Cold War increased, to some extent, the importance of the neutral and nonaligned countries for the Soviet Union— although the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan strained the USSR’s relations not only with the but also with the nonaligned states. This had been foreseen by Gromyko, who in a Politburo session in early 1979 voiced his concern that, in the case of a Soviet intervention, “all the nonaligned countries will be against us.”104 Brezhnev, who in the wake of the 1979 nonaligned states’ summit in had identified its participants as “natural allies” of the So- viet Union, made a clumsy attempt at mending fences.105 “The development of the friendship and cooperation with the nonaligned countries,” he claimed, “which are one of the most important links in the joint front in the peoples’ struggle for peace and freedom, was and remains the principal position of the Soviet Union.”106 In speeches by Communist leaders and publications by experts, the neutral countries were invited to join the struggle against the Western embargoes that were imposed in the wake of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, martial law in , and the Soviet downing of a Korean airliner. Yurii Andropov, in his report to the Central Committee plenum on 14–15 June 1983, called on the neutral states and the “peace movement” to increase activities against Western rearmament.107 Soviet publications encouraged the neutrals to con- tribute to a “Europeanization” of European affairs (i.e., the elimination of the

103. Bengt Sundelius, “Dilemmas and Strategies for the Neutral Democracies,” in Sundelius, ed., The Neutral Democracies in the New Cold War,p.19. 104. Quoted in Vladislav Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), p. 260. 105. Hakovirta, “East-West Tensions and Soviet Policies on European Neutrality,” p. 205. 106. Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskogo Soyuza i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya 1981 (Moscow: Mezhdunar- odnye otnosheniya, 1982), p. 11. 107. Plenum TsK KPSS 14–15 iyunya 1983g.: Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1983), p. 130.

171

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

U.S. presence in Western Europe).108 These strategies were accompanied by an adaptation of the Soviet definition of permanent neutrality and nonalignment. Whereas earlier Soviet publications had attempted to activate the permanent neutrals by blurring the differences between permanent neutrality and non- alignment, the fourth edition of the Diplomatic Handbook dropped the notion of “positive neutrality,” which previously had been used for expanding the peacetime obligations of the permanent neutrals by linking them with the nonaligned states.109 For the European neutrals, the renewed Cold War tensions brought new dilemmas. The West and the domestic Right criticized the neutral states’ lack of solidarity with Western ideals and human rights, whereas the East and the domestic Left tended to charge neutral governments with displaying too much cohesion with the West.110 When the United States, as a result of the increased threat, stepped up the high technology embargo overseen by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, many West European and neutral states insisted on preserving economic links with the Communist bloc. From the Soviet side, pressure on the neutrals increased, particularly in the north. Finland was invited to hold joint military exercises with the USSR. In addition, Finland (as well as the Soviet Union) had to adjust to Kekkonen’s retirement after 25 years in power, and leaders in Moscow demanded the continuation of the “Paasikivi-Kekkonen line” under his successor, .111 In the United Nations, the Finnish representative abstained from voting on the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan while condemning (together with Sweden) the U.S. invasion in Grenada. Sweden was also put under Soviet pressure by frequent violations of its airspace and . This culminated in the “Whiskey on the rocks” crisis of 1981, when a Soviet Whiskey-class submarine, armed with nuclear torpedoes, became trapped by an underwater rock two kilometers from a Swedish naval base. Spying was one of the objectives, but the Soviet intru- sions into Swedish waters also seemed calculated to demoralize the neutral

108. Viktor A. Kremenyuk, “The European Neutrals and Soviet-American Relations,” in Hanspeter Neuhold and Hans Thalberg, eds., The European Neutrals in International Affairs (Vienna: Braumuller,¨ 1984), pp. 99–101. 109. Diplomaticheskii slovar’, 4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 271–272, 277–278. 110. Karl E. Birnbaum, “East-West Relations and the Position of the European Neutrals,” in Bo Huldt and Atis Lejins, eds., European Neutrals and the Soviet Union (Stockholm: The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 1985), pp. 1–6. 111. Raimo Vayrynen,¨ “Adaptation of a Small Power to International Tensions: The Case of Finland,” in Sundelius, ed., The Neutral Democracies in the New Cold War, pp. 39–42, 48, 52.

172

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

country’s self-defense efforts.112 The Swedish initiative to include the north- western USSR in a proposed Nordic nuclear-weapons-free zone (a project that Khrushchev and Brezhnev had encouraged since 1959) was indignantly rejected by Soviet officials.113 By the early 1980s, as a result of the Soviet pres- sure, the majority of the Swedish population, which had entertained friendly feelings toward the USSR during most of the 1970s, perceived it as unfriendly or even a permanent threat to peace. In an opinion poll, 40 percent spoke out in favor of Sweden being assisted by NATO in the case of a Soviet attack, and only 4 percent advocated soliciting Soviet assistance against a threat by NATO. The Swiss government, too, was “alarmed by the fact that, in their eyes, the Soviet Union took advantage of the period of detente´ and of the polit- ical weakness of the United States after the Vietnam disaster and increased her armaments.”114 In contrast to many Austrian, Swedish, and even West German politicians, the Swiss minister of defense, Georges-AndreCheval-´ laz, saw NATO’s Double-Track Decision as a necessary reaction to the insecurity created by Soviet deployments of SS-20 missiles in Europe. In response to growing international tension, Switzerland remained committed to upholding its military capabilities and, at the Stockholm Conference for Disarmament in Europe, rejected Yugoslav and Swedish proposals for reduc- ing all armed forces close to borders and for creating a Central European nuclear-weapons-free zone. Gromyko in his memoirs does not hide his con- tempt for Swiss policy, whereas he highly praises the almost-demilitarized Austria.115 In the UN General Assembly session of 1981, Austria’s foreign minister, Willibald Pahr, classified “the illegal [Soviet] occupation of Afghanistan” as a “heavy burden on the policy of detente.”´ 116 This did not mean, however, that the Austrian government was prepared to join the resulting Western boycott.

112. Nils Andren,´ “Swedish-Soviet Relations: An Overview,” in Bo Huldt and Atis Lejins, eds., Euro- pean Neutrals and the Soviet Union (Stockholm: The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 1985), pp. 69–78. Despite intra-Swedish quarrels about the nationality of the vessels, the Soviet responsibility for these violations has been emphasized in recent research. Bengt Gustavsson, “Submarine Intru- sions in Swedish Waters during the 1980s,” Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security, 2010, http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/collections/coll_india/SubmarineIncursions.html. 113. Scarlis, Neutralitat¨ , p. 167. On the nuclear-weapons-free zone, see Lev Voronkov, Non-Nuclear Status to Northern Europe (Moscow: Nauka, 1984), pp. 94–134. 114. Hans Vogel, “Switzerland and the New Cold War,” in Sundelius, ed., The Neutral Democracies in the New Cold War, p. 107. 115. , Memories (London: Hutchinson, 1989), p. 225. 116. Excerpts from the UN General Assembly proceedings, in Osterreichische¨ Zeitschrift fur¨ Außenpoli- tik, Vol. 21 (1981), p. 355.

173

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

Austria’s decision to participate in the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow was commended by Gromyko.117 In 1984, Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold Gratz traveled to Poland, thus breaking its Communist regime’s isolation after the introduction of martial law. Austria never supported the West’s economic sanctions or the flight boycott against the Soviet Union after the shooting down of Korean Air Lines flight 007. The Soviet intrusions into Swedish waters and airspace in the 1980s and similar violations of Austria’s airspace in the 1960s, in particular during the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, illustrated that, at times, Soviet respect for the military implications of neutrality was defined by consider- ations of utility rather than international law. A Warsaw Pact war game of 1965 foresaw Hungarian troops confronting NATO forces that, under the cover of the Bundesheer, had entered Austria. Vienna was to be either totally destroyed or at least largely demolished by two Soviet 500-kiloton nuclear devices launched from Hungarian soil.118 Similar details have emerged from evidence regarding Soviet war plans concerning Sweden.119 In Finland’s case, the FCMA provided a legal basis on which Soviet leaders could press for the occupation of the country by Soviet military forces. Such war games and plans appear more threatening for the neutral states when one takes into account the fact that since the late 1950s the USSR apparently had adhered to an offensive military doctrine for preemptive war in Europe against the West. Sweden and Switzerland, which were well armed and located at the periphery of the Soviet advancing lines, might have been circumvented, isolated, and spared the introduction of Eastern forces, but Austria’s chances of evading an attack seemed slim. Only after the late 1980s and the new “defensive” defense doctrine of the Warsaw Pact introduced by did Soviet-bloc military exercise planning foresee a continued neutral status for Austria. The advent of Gorbachev and the relaxation of international tensions contributed to a downgrading of the role of neutrality. As Soviet-Western negotiations grew more intense, mediation or promotion of Soviet ideas by

117. Conversation, Kreisky with Gromyko, 17 May 1980, in Stiftung Bruno-Kreisky-Archiv, Vienna, Landerboxen,¨ UdSSR 6. 118. Mastny and Byrne, eds., A Cardboard Castle? pp. 118–119, 189–191, 634–635. For a com- prehensive discussion of Western and Eastern war plans regarding Austria, see Manfried Rauchen- steiner, ed., Zwischen den Blocken:¨ NATO, Warschauer Pakt und Osterreich¨ (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2010). 119. Bengt Gustavsson, “The Soviet Threat to Sweden during the Cold War,” Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security, 2008, http://php.isn.ethz.ch/collections/coll_sovthreat/Introduction2f3a .html?navinfo=46465.

174

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

the neutral states became less important. This trend was reflected in the Soviet media, which also signaled a declining interest in neutrality. The new situation had two consequences for the neutrals. On the one hand, Finland’s neutrality was again recognized by the USSR. On the other hand, Soviet resistance to Austria’s rapprochement with the European Community (EC), which had recommenced in 1986, decreased. In a conversation with the Austrian chancellor in October 1988, Gor- bachev (like Khrushchev before him) acknowledged that economic integration was an objective process. However, EC membership would make it impossi- ble for Austria to maintain neutrality. If it stayed out of the bloc, Gorbachev stated, the country’s importance would grow.120 Despite Soviet doubts, in July 1989 Austria applied for EC membership. A Soviet memorandum in August reminded Austria that it remained obligated to a policy of neutrality and re- peated the claim that the participation of a neutral in a union “that will pursue a common foreign and security policy ...would lead to a loss of real possibil- ities to implement its neutral policy.”121 Despite praising Austrian neutrality, the Soviet memorandum expressed “concern.” Moreover, the Soviet side un- derlined its hope that Austria, if the conservation of the country’s neutrality within the EC turned out to be impossible, would give up its integration efforts. The situation, however, was fundamentally changed by the . In October, the Austrian ambassador in Moscow sent a report to Vienna about declarations made by Gorbachev in Helsinki in which the Soviet leader not only reaffirmed Finland’s neutrality but also stated that all countries were entitled to decide independently which international organizations they wanted to join.122 Three reasons for this change can be extrapolated: Gorbachev decided that the USSR should not interfere in the neutral states’ affairs to prevent them from joining the EC; the Soviet attitude toward the Brussels club had changed to embrace cooperation; and the Soviet authorities had begun to appreciate the value of having neutrals in the EC. Nonetheless, only after the abortive hardline putsch against Gorbachev in August 1991 did the Soviet leader consent to Austria’s entrance into the EC. A year earlier, in November 1990, Austria and Finland had already used the window of opportunity to declare that certain restrictions of the Austrian State Treaty and the Finnish regarding defense were obsolete (among others, the missile ban).

120. Conversation, Gorbachev with Vranitzky, 11 October 1988, in Gorbachev Foundation, Moscow, F. 1 O p. 1 . 121. Gehler, Osterreichs¨ Weg in die Europaische¨ Union, pp. 285–287. 122. Ambassador Herbert Grubmayr, interview, 15 July 2009.

175

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

None of the signatory powers rejected this move. When Austria, Finland, and Sweden entered the EC, the USSR had already ceased to exist.

Conclusions

In Soviet eyes, neutrality offered two main advantages: (1) neutral countries were barred from entering Western blocs and (2) they were seen as potential supporters of Soviet policy. Khrushchev in particular seemed optimistic that it might be possible, by promoting neutrality and nonalignment and by shaping the neutral and nonaligned states’ behavior, to weaken the West, win over the neutral countries as informal allies, and thus tilt the international balance. Hence, the Soviet approach toward peacetime neutrality was subject to Soviet interests in a double sense. First, officials in Moscow advocated neu- trality or neutralization when this was beneficial to the USSR, on the grounds that neutrality can have “non-neutral” consequences under certain conditions. When these consequences favored the USSR, as in the cases of Austria and Fin- land in 1955–1956, neutrality was welcomed. But when these consequences were detrimental to the Soviet Union, leaders in Moscow ignored pledges of neutrality, as in the case of Hungary in 1956 and Finland during the Brezhnev era. Neutrality in non-socialist states was also promoted by the Soviet govern- ment when Communists in those states had only a minuscule chance of soon gaining power. To make neutrality and neutralism attractive to Western states, the neu- trals were used as showcases of the benefits of “peaceful coexistence.” This included demonstratively friendly treatment and economic benefits. Applause for a neutral meant, first and foremost, promotion of neutrality or neutralism. Moreover, treating the neutrals in a friendly manner was an easy way to improve the image of neutrality and of the USSR abroad. Whenever the promotion of neutrality was deemed necessary, Austria and Finland were extolled as models of “peaceful coexistence.” Whenever the opposite was deemed necessary (e.g., to diminish the attraction for Eastern Europe or to communicate Soviet dis- pleasure), warnings and fantastic accusations were published, notably during the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian crises, when Austria was depicted as a playground of villains or enemies; during the “note crisis”; or after the Prague Spring, when Soviet recognition of Finland’s neutrality was withdrawn. The Soviet aim to neutralize certain areas did not apply only to the neutral and nonaligned states. The Soviet attitude toward neutrality and the neutral countries was also part of Soviet policy toward Western Europe. Some scholars argue that the Soviet goal was gradually to neutralize all of Western Europe

176

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

and that the USSR, “through a combination of blandishment, pressure, and looming military superiority, [sought] to promote a change of policy and outlook in Western Europe that would assure Soviet in Eastern Europe and set the stage for effective political preeminence over Western Europe as well.”123 Soviet foreign policy thus encouraged the adoption of neutrality or at least of neutralist policies and postures in all of Western Europe. Because the Soviet Union’s fostering of neutrality and neutralism was complemented by attacks against the creation of neutral groupings, this suggests that neutrality, in Soviet eyes, was a strategy for fragmenting the opposing bloc without creating a new one. Second, the Soviet interpretation of neutrality was linked to Soviet in- terests. Neutralizing a country was seen as a means to draw it nearer the socialist bloc (not just keep it away from the Western camp) and to make the neutrals useful allies for Soviet policy. This aim was to be achieved through a special neutrality doctrine, which included responsibilities that, if fulfilled, were likely to foster the neutral’s rapprochement with the East. The doctrine comprised few rights for the neutral but many duties, including the obligation to struggle against NATO and the EEC, to promote Soviet diplomatic goals, to maintain friendly relations with the East, and to curb criticism of the USSR. Many of these concepts were adopted by the nonaligned countries, and the Soviet Union strove to make them binding for the European neutrals, too, through propaganda and the spread of Communist theories of international law. Because the USSR wanted the neutrals to embody and promote a specific, Soviet approach to neutrality, it attempted to push the neutrals’ understanding and practice of neutral policy in this direction. Neutrality provided a lever over the neutrals, and Soviet leaders and propaganda consistently claimed the right, by referring to the Soviet teachings on neutrality, to tell the neutrals what to do and what not to do. Because their neutrality was not as “total” or even pro-Moscow as the Soviet Union wished, they were repeatedly criticized for this defect. As neutrality gave the USSR a self-defined measuring stick for evaluating the neutrals’ politics, any unwanted act was attacked as being at odds with neutrality. This included things such as Switzerland’s refusal to ban nuclear weapons, Sweden’s maintaining a strong army, and Austria’s, Sweden’s, and Switzerland’s striving to reach an association agreement with the EEC. On the other hand, desired behaviors—such as Finnish proposals for

123. George Ginsburgs and Alvin Z. Rubinstein, “: Soviet Strategy or Geopolitical Footnote?” in George Ginsburgs and Alvin Z. Rubinstein, eds., Soviet Foreign Policy toward Western Europe (New York: Praeger, 1978), p. 4.

177

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 Mueller

nuclear-weapons-free zones, Swedish criticism of U.S. policy, and efforts to call for an all-European summit—were encouraged and praised. Neutrality meant different things at different times, and the various Soviet interpretations of the neutrals’ obligations were always formulated in accor- dance with the prevailing Soviet political agenda. In the 1950s, efforts to counter and undermine NATO and other pro-Western blocs as well as to forge an informal alliance of the socialist, neutral, and nonaligned countries seems to have been the main function of neutrality from the Soviet point of view. But in the 1960s the neutrals were encouraged to recognize the GDR and promote an all-European summit. Furthermore, they were to act as scouts for developing East-West trade and to provide the USSR with goods, includ- ing machinery, consumer products, and pipes for pipelines, that could not be purchased in other Western countries because of Western restrictions or a lack of economic agreements. Until East-West trade intensified, Austria and Finland were, in Max Jacobson’s words, “the best shopping center[s] in the neighborhood” for the Soviet Union.124 Once detente´ was achieved, the role of the neutrals diminished. Similarly, Austria’s and Finland’s pioneering po- sition in trade with the USSR was lost during detente,´ as the Soviet Union began to develop its economic ties with other, larger Western states such as Italy, France, and West Germany. Not until the resurgence of the Cold War in the early 1980s did the value of the neutrals for the Soviet economy increase again. Despite these common features, the neutrals were a heterogeneous bunch, and the Soviet Union related to them in different ways. The legal bases of their neutrality, their geostrategic locations, their levels of international activity, their economic interdependence with the Eastern bloc, and their ability to defend themselves—these are among the areas in which the neutrals differed significantly from one another. The USSR had much greater leverage over Austria and Finland, whose neutrality was linked to the Soviet Union as a result of Moscow’s role in the postwar settlement with these two countries. They were located at the Soviet (bloc’s) border, militarily weak, and exposed to Soviet pressure. Austria and Finland were also relatively new to the experi- ence of neutrality, making them susceptible to external influences, particularly from the Soviet side. Of all the neutral states in Europe, Finland had by far the highest number of economic and political exchanges with the Soviet Union and was, by virtue of these factors as well as geographic proximity, the most vulnerable to Soviet interference. Soviet-Austrian relations were, for

124. Max Jacobson, Finland in the New Europe (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), p. 72.

178

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021 The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War

most parameters, comparable to Soviet-Finnish rather than Soviet-Swedish or Soviet-Swiss relations, which barely existed before the 1970s. Soviet officials referred to Austria as a model for other Western states, but they referred to Finland as a model for Austria. All along, however, Soviet leverage was signif- icantly higher in Finland, and Austria’s maneuvering space was much wider. No Soviet “night frost” or “note crisis” was staged against the Alpine republic, whose self-censorship also never reached the degree found in Finland. Finland, Austria, and Sweden also had much stronger economic ties with the East than did Switzerland. Austria and Finland lacked the Swiss or Swedish determina- tion to create a strong deterrent and neglected armed defense, relying instead on notions of “active” neutrality as a tool for achieving security. Whether neu- trality would have protected the neutrals if a general war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO had broken out is, however, highly doubtful.

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Juhana Aunesluoma for his valuable comments concerning Finnish history.

179

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00683 by guest on 27 September 2021