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WHEN the COLD WAR DID NOT END: the SOVIET PEACE OFFENSIVE of 1953 and the AMERICAN RESPONSE1 by Jef Frey Brooks

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WHEN the COLD WAR DID NOT END: the SOVIET PEACE OFFENSIVE of 1953 and the AMERICAN RESPONSE1 by Jef Frey Brooks OP #278: WHEN THE COLD WAR DID NOT END: THE SOVIET PEACE OFFENSIVE OF 1953 AND THE AMERICAN RESPONSE1 by Jef frey Brooks The world devoted enormous was nonetheless conciliatory, He sums in human energy, lives, and invoked the wartime alliance and economic resources to the military- challenged Soviet leaders to match strategic competition that was the cold their wor ds with deeds. 2 “What is the w a r. Each side invested billions in Soviet Union Ready to Do?” armaments that could have been spent Eisenhower asked rhetorically. “What- otherwise, fought wars, and for ced ever the answer be, let it be plainly much of the developing world to spoken.” choose between a client capitalism of Scholars disagr ee about oligar chs and dictators and some Eisenhower ’s options. 3 John Lewis variant of a Soviet style one-party Gaddis cites a missed “opportunity to system. Neither side was willing to reunify Germany.”4 Walter Lafeber shift the conflict to the terrain of notes American hesitation under economics and culture, for neither pr essur e of McCarthyism, and could imagine a future in which the Vladislav Zubok and Konstantin other system existed. Ther e wer e Pleshakov see a lost chance “for those moments, however, when the r eigning in the Soviet leadership pr epared to Manicheanism seemed in doubt. move away from the universalist Among them, none was more plau- ideology of communism and the sible than the weeks after Stalin’s practice of global confr ontation.” 5 death, when the shock of his absence Contrarily, Richar d H . Immerman and led Soviet leaders as well as some in Robert R. Bowie str ess Soviet intransi- the West to eschew the familiar dis- gence, as does Vojtech Mastny, who course of diametric opposition. As they finds the Soviet desir e for change pr obed a possibly dif fer ent r elation- “strictly limited.” 6 In the discussion of ship, they ultimately failed to commu- the motives and intentions of the two nicate and ended up on the r oad states, the issue of communication traveled over the next thr ee decades. remains unexplored. How well did the Soviet concessions between rivals understand each other ’s mes- Stalin’s death on Mar ch 5, 1953 and the sages? Did the new Soviet leadership June 17 uprising in East Berlin ar e well fail to convey a desir e for detente documented. In the first weeks of the simply because they lacked a language new era, Soviet for eign policy de- that American policymakers and pended chiefly on Georgy Malenkov, American journalists could under- the Chairman of the Council of Minis- stand? Alternatively, if their objective ters, and Lavr enty Beria, minister of was simply propagandistic, did they the newly merged Ministry of Internal blunder for the same r eason in an Af fairs (MVD) and State Security ef fort to split the emer ging western (MGB). Neither leader had a savory alliance and pr event West German reputation, and Beria was a very rearmament? In either case, as unlikely r eformer. Y et jointly or singly Eisenhower observed, Stalin’s succes- they made statements and launched sors needed the skill of “plain speech.” initiatives that led the newly elected W inston Churchill wr ote to Eisenhower to respond in his speech, Eisenhower of a similar concern on “The Chance for Peace,” on April 16. April 11: “We do not know what these The President made no concessions but men mean. We do not want to deter 1 them fr om saying what they mean.” 7 back to Teddy Roosevelt. The resort to W e have no equivalent statement of arms in for eign r elations also suited linguistic puzzlement fr om the Soviet Lenin and Stalin’s thinking. The side, but it is not unr easonable to military-strategic character of the cold assume that they found the language war was not predetermined, however. of American politics equally tr ouble- On the American side, George F. some. The long hiatus in close r ela- Kennan, Charles E. Bohlen, and others tions, br oken only by the brief and sought a competition more r eflective of guarded wartime cooperation, left each the Jef fersonian and Wilsonian tradi- side nearly ber eft of skilled interpr eters tions, accor ding to which the United of the other ’s cultur e and political States could peacefully radiate fr ee- language. dom to all peoples. Eisenhower was The strategic balance after Stalin’s also wary of enlar ging the military’s death can be considered favorable to role in American life. On the Soviet mutual agreement. It was a moment of side, Stalin’s first successors, eager to per ceived parity, if only in the sense of raise living standar ds and satisfy the mutual anxiety. The United States rising expectations of Soviet citizens, worried over the Chinese Communist likewise sought to diminish military victory and the imminent Fr ench expenditures. In exploring this option, defeat in Indochina, but took comfort they inadvertently fell back on ap- in Western Eur ope. Soviet leaders proaches to the West developed con- faced a crisis in Eastern Eur ope but curr ently and contradictorily after the success in Asia, as well as in their Soviet Civil War by diplomats Georgy peace propaganda. 8 Both nations had Chicherin and Maxim Litvinov, and to acquir ed thermonuclear weapons, and a lesser extent by Nikolai Bukharin although the American superiority in and his rival Leon Trotsky. Bukharin bombers was considerable, the Soviet and Trotsky, although far fr om gentle side could take consolation fr om its by character, stressed economics and successful networks of spies. Citizens cultur e because they genuinely be- in each country yearned for peace and lieved in the superiority of the socialist a better material life. Soviet wartime system. Chicherin and Litvinov valued memories were heartr ending, and the benefits derived fr om diplomatic victory led some to question the and economic relations with capitalist Stalinist system. 9 Nearly thirty million powers without giving up the revolu- people had died, and Soviet poverty tionary pr oject. Stalin saw the world was galling to those who had seen life otherwise, but with his passing, the abr oad. Stalin’s death was less of an pattern of implacable military and opening in America, where anger over political confr ontation he established the takeover of Eastern Eur ope and the appeared to float fr ee of its moorings. Korean War had spurr ed Dwight D. On March 15 Malenkov launched Eisenhower ’s landslide victory in 1952. his “peace of fensive,” announcing, Nevertheless, ther e wer e signs of a with r efer ence to the United States, possible opening ther e too and also “ther e is no dispute or unr esolved among America’s closest allies. question that cannot be settled peace- Belliger ency in for eign af fairs was fully by mutual agr eement of the intrinsic to each nation. Militarism inter ested countries.” 10 Y et he and his accor ded with an American willing- colleagues could not deal with the ness to advance America’s special r ole American democracy as Stalin had in the world by for ce that harkened with Hitler or even the western de- 2 mocracies during World War II. The the leader, the party, and the state took informational world in which they cr edit for all achievements and in operated had changed thanks in part which Soviet citizens wer e beholden to to the Voice of America and the British their leaders for everything allotted to Broadcasting Company. To convince them. I have elsewhere called this Eisenhower and his militantly anti- relationship between state and citizen Communist advisors, they had to the economy of the gift. 13 Its ef fect on make a case that would resonate with for eign af fairs was to encourage a the American public. To do this they perspective in which the Soviet Union needed to modify the language of appeared larger than life and the Soviet public life. Khr ushchev accom- surr ounding world smaller. Thus the plished something of the sort with the story the pr ess told after May 9, 1945 thaw and so clear ed the way for was that Stalin had for eseen the war, agreements by himself and his succes- saved the country, and also the world. sor. Gorbachev and his advisors did By str essing the world’s obligation, considerably more, but at a point when journalists appealed to Soviet pride it was alr eady too late to pr olong the and enlar ged the economy of the gift. Soviet system. The notion of Stalin as benefactor was The political language available to epitomized by his portrayal as Grand- Soviet leaders in the spring of 1953 father Fr ost, the Russian Santa. He had reflected a longstanding censorship appeared in this r ole on the fr ont page and monopoly of public expression. of Labor , the of ficial trade union news- Lenin instituted this hegemonic lin- paper, on December 30, 1936, smiling guistic or der, and Stalin extended it by at a tr ee decorated with schools, buses, adopting rituals of theater to rally planes, and other such “gifts” and support for his br utal pr ograms. Public ringed with happy children. utterances acquir ed a bombastic and The Soviet pr ess fit the Truman self-r eflexive character, mor e appr opri- Doctrine and Marshall Plan into this ate for giving or ders than making narrative by portraying the U.S. as a arguments, and the government false benefactor, beneath whose secur ed conformity thr ough terr or.
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