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Some Implications of Changes in Soviet Policy toward the West: 1949-1952

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Extract

The prevailing interpretation of recent Soviet foreign policy emphasizes Stalin's death as the great watershed event, from which is charted the shift toward a more flexible and differentiated policy, broadly known by the term “peaceful coexistence.” While this emphasis properly draws attention to the new departures of the more recent period and to the dynamic character of Soviet policy, it gives insufficient attention to significant changes in the Soviet outlook and in Soviet behavior abroad which began to be manifested before the death of Stalin. The issue is not merely one of correctly dating the beginning of a trend in Soviet policy, but, more significantly, of deepening our understanding of the forces which shape Soviet foreign policy. The purpose of this essay is to examine some of the significant implications of these developments in Soviet policy prior to the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1961

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References

1 A detailed account of these changes is given in my book, The Soviet Union and the West, 1949-1952: An Interpretive Essay, scheduled for spring publication by the Harvard University Press.

2 September 29, 1951.

3 Assistant ProfessorIvashin, I. F., “The Periodization of the History of Soviet Foreign Policy,” International Affairs (Moscow), No. 7, July, 1958, pp. 5963.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 62.

5 Yeshin, S., “Periodization Should be Soundly Based,” International Affairs, No. 7, July, 1958, p. 64.Google Scholar

6 Khvostov, V. M., “A Summing Up of the Discussion Concerning the Periodization of the History of Soviet Foreign Policy,” International Affairs, No. 8, August, 1958, pp. 6771.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 71.

8 “The difficulties of periodization have been and remain in the fact that we have to take into account the laws of internal Soviet development as well as the laws governing international development, since Soviet foreign policy has always been implemented against the background of a definite international situation. That is just what we wish to show in our curriculum and concise study aid which … neither identify foreign and domestic policy nor divorce them.” Ivashin, op. cit., p. 60. Other articles on the subject may be found in International Affairs No. 2, February, 1958, pp. 63-70; and No. 5, May, 1958, pp. 71-75.

9 Speech by Nikita S. Khrushchev, January 15, 1960