I. LAYING THE GROUNDWORK AND CHANGING NEUTRALITY, 1955–1960 “Neutrality is rather like virginity. Everybody starts off with it, but some lose it quicker than oth- ers, and some do not lose it at all. Unlike virginity, however, neutrality once lost can sometimes be recovered, albeit with difficulty.” Roderick Ogley,The Theory and Practice of Neutrality in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), 1. 1. Two Differing Concepts of Neutrality In Western theory and practice, neutrality is defined as a state of nonparticipation in war, including the refusal to lend the own territory to foreign military, and of im- partiality towards belligerent countries.1 Until World War II, the main focus rested on classical, wartime neutrality, as codified in the Hague Conventions of 1907.2 According to these documents, belligerents are obliged to refrain from attacking or using neutral territory, while the neutral state is to abstain from joining the war except for self-defense; to prevent belligerents from entering, crossing, or using neutral territory for military purposes; to refrain from supporting any belligerent; and to treat belligerents equally (except in economic matters).3 In the second half of the twentieth century, as a consequence of the waning acceptance of the “right to war” in international law on one hand, and the perma- nence of the Cold War on the other, permanent neutrality, as it had been adopted by Switzerland in 1815 and by Austria in 1955, garnered more interest. If in peacetime a country commits itself to observe neutrality in future wars, it may issue a decla- ration of permanent neutrality ‒ an act that can happen either in the context of an international settlement (as in the case of Switzerland) or solely through a unilateral declaration of will (as was the case in Austria). In wartime, a permanently neutral state bears roughly the same obligations as any other wartime neutral.4 In peace- time, a permanent neutral must not start a war, although it is obliged to prepare for self-defense. Furthermore, a permanent neutral shall maintain a discretionary “neu- tral policy,” i.e. refrain from any action that might draw it into a conflict or restrict its neutrality during a future war.5 In particular, it may not join a military alliance, 1 On the history and Western theory of neutrality, see Verosta, Die dauernde Neutralität, 7–44; Hans Haug, Neutralität und Völkergemeinschaft (Zurich: Polygraphischer Verlag, 1962); Michael Schweitzer, Dauernde Neutralität und europäische Integration (Vienna: Springer, 1977), 95–103; Karsh, Neutrality and Small States, 13–30; Michael Gehler, Finis Neutralität? Historische und politische Aspekte im europäischen Vergleich: Irland, Finnland, Schweden, Schweiz und Öster- reich, Center for European Integration Studies Discussion Paper C 92 (Bonn: Rheinische Fried- rich-Wilhelms-Universität, 2001), 3–29. 2 Verosta, Die dauernde Neutralität, 118–133. 3 Gerhard Hafner, “Österreichs Neutralität 1955–2005,” in Thomas Olechowski (ed.), Fünfzig Jah- re Staatsvertrag und Neutralität (Vienna: WUV-Universitätsverlag, 2006), 15–44, 24. 4 Boleslaw A. Boczek, “The Conceptual and Legal Framework of Neutrality and Nonalignment in Europe,” in S. Victor Papacosma and Mark R. Rubin (eds.), Europe’s Neutral and Nonaligned States: Between NATO and the Warsaw Pact (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1989), 1–42, 8; on the following, see also 9–16. 5 Schweitzer, Dauernde Neutralität, 111–145. 42 Laying the Groundwork and Changing Neutrality, 1955‒1960 permit the establishment of foreign military bases on its soil, or take on any (politi- cal, military, or economic) obligation that might render it impossible to maintain neutrality in a future war. In their entirety, such “secondary obligations” or “antici- patory effects” of permanent neutrality in peacetime were, however, never interna- tionally codified, ill-defined and, therefore, subject to diverging interpretations and conflicting views. While most Western experts argued that such obligations had to be interpreted restrictively so that acts of prudence were not turned into legal duty, other actors indeed were interested in or contributed to making such acts obligatory. In the wake of the Cold War and the decolonization process, the phenomena of neutralism and nonalignment emerged. Like the European permanent neutrals, the nonaligned states, mainly in South Asia, Africa, and Latin America, were not to join military alliances with any of the two big Cold War blocs or allow foreign military bases on their soil. Since neutralism was, in contrast to permanent neutral- ity, not an institute of international law but merely an orientation of foreign policy, such pledges were, however, not legally binding.6 The nonaligned, including small European states such as Yugoslavia and Malta, aimed at not getting involved in the Cold War. In contrast to the Western concept of permanent neutrality, however, their nonalignment did not apply to regional military alliances. In addition, the nonaligned states vowed to support the decolonization struggle of the Third World and actively contribute to the spread of disarmament and coexistence. While they strove for equal distance, not only between the military alliances, but also between the ideologies of the Western and the communist world and their societal, politi- cal, and economic systems, some of them turned out to be much more critical of the West than of the Soviet bloc7 and refrained from making the commitment of remaining neutral in the case of war. 6 For a brief comparison of permanent neutrality and nonalignment, see Hanspeter Neuhold, “Per- manent Neutrality and Nonalignment: Similarities and Differences,” in Robert A. Bauer (ed.), The Austrian Solution: International Conflict and Cooperation (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1982), 161–204, esp. 174, 180; Daniel Frei, Neutrality and Non-Alignment: Convergencies and Contrasts (Zurich: Forschungsstelle politische Wissenschaft, 1979); Jens Ha- cker, “Neutralität, Neutralismus und Blockfreiheit,” in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, no. 18 (1983), 3–20. Cf. on neutralism and nonalignment Peter Lyon, Neutralism (Leicester: University Press, 1963); Peter Willetts, The Non-Aligned Movement: The Origins of a Third World Alliance (London: Pinter, 1982); Paul Luif, “Neutralität – Neutralismus – Blockfreiheit: Ideologien und Interessen,” in Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 8, no. 3 (1979), 269–285; Karl E. Birnbaum, and Hanspeter Neuhold (eds.), Neutrality and Non-Alignment in Europe, Laxenburg Papers 4 (Vienna: Braumüller, 1981). 7 Boczek, “Conceptual and Legal Framework,” 18. Two Differing Concepts of Neutrality 43 The Soviet attitude towards neutrality When Khrushchev decided that Austria should become a “life-size test of neutrality,”8 he relied on a concept relatively fresh in postwar Soviet foreign-policy thinking. In Marxism-Leninism, the general attitude towards neutrality was defined by the theory of class struggle, a permanent conflict of historical dimensions taking place in all societies of the world between the proletariat, supported by “progressive,” i.e. socialist, forces, and reactionary ones, the bourgeoisie. Until the final victory of socialism was achieved, this struggle would not allow any sort of indifference. Any person not supportive of the proletariat was by definition a bourgeois or “class enemy.” Neutrality was often depicted by Marxists as camouflage, a cover-up for the neutral’s preference for bourgeois forces. In a similar vein, Frederick Engels attacked neutral Switzerland’s authorities for cracking down on exiled revolutio- naries, thus giving in to the demands of the foreign reaction.9 In his “Tasks of the Left Zimmerwaldists,” written during World War I, Lenin stated that neutrality was merely a “bourgeois deception or hypocrisy, that in fact it means passive submis- sion to the bourgeoisie and to such of its particularly disgusting undertakings as imperialist war.”10 Once the Bolsheviks had taken power in Russia, the Marxist-Leninist attitude towards neutrality was influenced by Soviet state interests. This applied not only to (a) the Soviet interpretation of what duties neutrality comprised. As we shall see soon,11 in Soviet theory and practice, neutrality meant different things at different times, and its content was redefined several times according to the political aims of the USSR. The “highly changeable character of Soviet views on neutrality”12 also applied to (b) whether the USSR welcomed or promoted the neutrality of a particular state at a particular time. If neutrality was good or evil from the Soviet perspective depended on the side exercising it, the specific circumstances under which it was declared, and its effect on the fate of communism.13 In the case of a war between two imperialistic powers, the neutrality of a socialist state was con- 8 Thomas M. Verclytte, “Austria between East and West,” in N.I. Egorova and A.O. Chubar’ian (eds.), Kholodnaia voina i politika razriadki: diskussionnye problemy 1 (Moscow: Institut Vseob- shchei Istorii Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 2003), 103–116, 104. 9 Engels, “Political Position of the Swiss Republic,” [1853], 90–92. 10 V.I. Lenin, “Tasks of the Left Zimmerwaldists in the Swiss Social Democratic Party,” [1916], in idem, Collected Works 23, 4th English edition (Moscow: Progress, 1964), 137–148, 144. 11 See below, pages 56–67, 205–207, 246–248. 12 Petersson, The Soviet Union and Peacetime Neutrality, 111. Cf. Harto Hakovirta, “East-West Tensions