04 Kramer 3-38

The Early Post-Stalin Succession Struggle and Upheavals in East-Central Europe Internal-External Linkages in Soviet Policy Making (Part 2) ✣ Mark Kramer The first part of this three-part article, which was published in the previous issue of the journal, examined the changing state of Soviet-East Euro- pean relations during the first few months after the death of Josif Stalin in March 1953. Important opportunities for political reform emerged once Stalin was gone, and these quickly led to a more relaxed internal climate within the Soviet Union. This change was evidenced by the announcement of a large-scale am- nesty, efforts to curtail some of the abuses committed by the state security or- gans, the easing of passport restrictions and of limits on domestic travel, and the publication of official statements discrediting spurious “plots” whose existence had been alleged by Stalin. Stalin’s demise also paved the way for significant changes in Soviet foreign policy, including a reorientation of policy toward East- Central Europe. The ongoing power struggle in Moscow in the spring of 1953 buffeted Soviet foreign policy and at times led to incoherent measures, but it did not prevent Soviet leaders from encouraging (or demanding) a general loosen- ing of Stalinist controls in the East-bloc countries. The first part of the article also discussed the political and economic crises that engulfed East-Central Europe shortly after Stalin’s death. Those upheavals underscored the need for sweeping reforms in the region, but they also posed serious dangers. A vast number of Soviet troops had to be deployed on 17 June 1953 to crush a full-scale uprising and to enforce martial law in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The first part of the article considered how the domestic political changes in the Soviet Union affected Soviet policy in East- Central Europe and, conversely, how the changes in Soviet external policy al- tered the internal complexion of the East-Central European countries. Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 1, No.2, Spring 1999, pp. 3–38 © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 3 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/15203979952559504 by guest on 01 October 2021 Kramer The second and third parts of the article, presented here and in the next issue of the journal, consider the evolution of Soviet policy toward East-Cen- tral Europe in the aftermath of the East German uprising. The second part looks first at the very brief interregnum between the suppression of the East German rebellion and the arrest on 26 June 1953 of Lavrentii Beria, the powerful head of the Soviet secret police. The article then explains the reasons for Beria’s arrest, the intricacies of the move against him, and the way the plot was executed. The third part of the article, in the next issue of the journal, discusses the well- orchestrated denunciation of Beria at a hastily convened plenum of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee in early July 1953. It then looks at the short-term and longer-term consequences of the Beria affair for Soviet policy toward Germany and the political configuration of the Eastern bloc. The final section ties together the three parts of the article by exploring the theoretical implications of the linkages between internal and external events in the Soviet Union and East-Central Europe in 1953, drawing on recent theoretical literature about the connection between domestic and international politics. From the East German Uprising to the Beria Affair The crisis in the GDR and its immediate aftermath had enormous long-term consequences for Soviet policy toward Germany and Eastern Europe as a whole. Stalin had once boasted that a revolt in East Germany was impossible: “Revolt? Why, they won’t even cross the street unless the light is green.” Yet it was precisely in East Germany that the first nationwide rebellion against a Communist regime took place. The uprising bore out the misgivings that many Soviet leaders had been expressing about the flimsiness of the East German regime. A senior official at the Soviet foreign ministry who handled policy toward Germany in 1953 later recalled the profound impact that the crisis had: This event came as a real jolt to the leadership in Moscow because it showed how tenuous the social base was of the regimes in the People’s Democracies. What was surprising for the Moscow leadership was not the mere fact that there was popular discontent in the GDR. The authorities in Moscow were well aware of that and had even tried to adopt some preventive measures. But what was shocking was the form that the discontent ultimately took—the overwhelming, widespread, and explosive nature of it.1 1. A. M. Aleksandrov-Agentov, Ot Kollontai do Gorbacheva: Vospominaniya diplomata, sovetnika A. A. Gromyko, pomoshchnika L. I. Brezhneva, Yu. V. Andropova, K. U. Chernenko, i M. S. Gorbacheva (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1994), p. 90. 4 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/15203979952559504 by guest on 01 October 2021 The Early Post-Stalin Succession Struggle Of particular concern to the Soviet authorities was the distinctly anti-Soviet as well as anti-Communist overtone of the rebellion. A top-secret memorandum sent to Nikita Khrushchev on 24 June 1953 recounted the “abuse,” “vul- gar insults,” “violent threats,” and “stone-throwing” directed against Soviet troops and officials in East Germany on 17 June “not only by the demonstra- tors themselves, but also by the crowds milling on the sidewalks and the on- lookers dispersed all along the way.”2 The events on the 17th, according to the memorandum, had revealed “deeply troubling” and “ominous” senti- ments lying just below the surface in the GDR: “One must acknowledge that the mass of the [East German] population have retained a hatred toward So- viet officials, which has now been inflamed again. This hatred was openly on display during the demonstrations.”3 The fact that violent unrest occurred much sooner and on a much larger scale than anyone had expected was construed at the time in two very dif- ferent ways. Neo-Stalinist officials in both Moscow and Eastern Europe claimed that their earlier warnings about the dangers of liberalization had been vindicated. This was the view put forth by Walter Ulbricht, the General Secretary of the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED), during a stormy ses- sion of the SED Politbüro on 21 June. Although Ulbricht did not propose an immediate end to the New Course in the GDR or a restoration of the hardline Construction of Socialism policies (primarily because he knew that these steps would be unacceptable in Moscow), he insisted that the sudden relax- ation on 11 June had given a wedge to “anti-socialist and fascist provocateurs and pro-Adenauer subversives.”4 The clear implication was that the measures announced on 11 June should be revoked. By contrast, a number of senior officials in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union claimed that sweeping changes were more necessary than ever to prevent another explosion. This view was expressed in Moscow by Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who had been arguing throughout the spring of 1953 that far-reaching reforms were urgently needed in East-Central Europe. He and other high-ranking Soviet officials, including Beria, had warned in early June that “what has occurred in Czechoslovakia might now be repeated in 2. “Soobshchenie o sobytiyakh v Berline 16 i 17 iyunya 1953 goda,” Report No. 235 (Secret) by P. Naumov, 22 June 1953, with a cover note dated 24 June from D. T. Shepilov to N. S. Khrushchev, in Tsentr Khraneniya Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii (TsKhSD), Fond (F.) 5, Opis’ (Op.) 30, Delo (D.) 5, Listy (Ll.) 82–83. 3. Ibid., L. 85. 4. Rudolf Herrnstadt, Das Herrnstadt-Dokument: Das Politbüro der SED und die Geschichte des 17. Juni 1953, ed. by Nadja Stulz-Herrnstadt (Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1990), pp. 98–99. 5 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/15203979952559504 by guest on 01 October 2021 Kramer other countries, with an enormous negative impact.”5 The uprising in the GDR amply corroborated their forebodings. Although some of Molotov’s colleagues still hoped that limited remedial measures—including an effort to integrate the East European economies more closely with the Soviet economy—would suf- fice, Molotov himself was willing to recommend much bolder steps.6 He laid out his argument in mid-June in a memorandum to the Presidium of the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU) on the implications of the recent crises in East-Cen- tral Europe. Referring specifically to the Czechoslovak authorities’ decision to adopt an “iron hand” policy in the wake of the crisis in PlzeÀ on 1–2 June, Molotov averred that “the Czechoslovak friends have blatantly understated the complexities of the internal situation in their country and have failed to draw the necessary conclusions from the events that occurred. This situation is fraught with the potential for new and even more explosive difficulties in the future.”7 On 20 June, the CPSU Presidium endorsed the memorandum and au- thorized Molotov to send an urgent telegram to the Soviet ambassador in Prague declaring that “it is imperative for the Czechoslovak friends to develop a better sense of their current economic plans for both industry and agriculture and to make fundamental corrections in those plans.”8 The telegram left no doubt that major political reforms would also be essential. The same theme was stressed by a few leading officials in East-Central Europe who had gained prominence soon after Stalin’s death.

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