challenging cold war system

traditional cold war narrative

• bipolar conflict

• two superpower-led blocs

• but a matter of perspective and period

odd arne westad

anne deighton

europe

• Bloc-building by the superpowers

• Division of the continent

• Strengthening of cohesion within the blocs

• Berlin Wall

• Bipolarity, monolithic blocs, and superpower leadership thus seemed confirmed.

• While the blocs did not implode, the superpowers nevertheless came to be challenged.

John Lewis Gaddis

the weak found oppurtunities to challenge the blocs and superpowers were losing authority

• strongly inspired by the escalation of the cold war in 3rd world but also applies to europe

apparent paradox

• challenge came in the wake of the ‘completion‘ of the bloc building in europe

factors

• less ‘existential threat‘

• globalisation of cold war

• rise of china and Sino-Soviet split

• european resentment at the superpowers

• powers, leaders and their aspirations

cracks in soviet bloc

• yugoslavia then Romania and Albania

• Prague Spring

challenge in West

• Criticism of US policies, notably in the Third World

• General Charles de Gaulle’s pursuit of grandeur and attempt to overcome the Cold War

how serious were the threats to the blocs

• De Gaulle ‘irritated’ the US (and other allies), but never broke with Washington.

• The challenge by some Soviet satellites remained limited and, if not, then Moscow brought them back into line (crushing of the Prague Spring).

difference between the blocs

The Western Bloc:

• Predominantly voluntary alliance based on self-interest

• Allowed for more room for manoeuvre, but out of self-interest of the European powers it held together.

The Eastern Bloc:

• Predominantly created and held together by force

• Limited, but real room for manoeuvre

key parts of challenging blocs

• communist leadership challenge

• prague spring

• enfant terrible

sino-soviet split

• Challenge to Soviet Communist leadership

• Division of the world Communist movement

• Background to ‘cracks’ in the Soviet Bloc

Chairman Mao Zedong:

• Undisputed leader of the PRC

• Major ally of Stalin and the Soviet Union

• ‘Outperformed’ de Gaulle

From alliance to split:

• Establishment of a formal alliance and partnership in the wake of the Communist victory in China in 1949

• Despite distrust, Mao looked up to Stalin

Soviet Union: source of ideological inspiration, economic and military aid, as well as of technical assistance (e.g. Chinese atomic bomb)

• The alliance did not outlive Stalin for long

Factors for its demise:

• Khrushchev’s ascent to power

• Moscow’s de-Stalinization campaign

• Beijing’s regained self-confidence

• Mao’s radicalisation (Great Leap Forward, late 1950s to early 1960s)

• Background of long history of hostility between Russia and China

The Sino-Soviet Split broke out into the open in the early 1960s.

division of world communist movement

• Chinese-led, ‘more revolutionary’ yet smaller bloc

• Soviet-led, ‘less revolutionary’ yet larger bloc

• Contributed to Khrushchev’s downfall (1964)

• Sino-Soviet rivalry for communist leadership was also played out in Europe.

albania

• Die-hard Stalinist regime led by Enver Hoxha

• Feared the hegemonic aspirations of Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Balkans

• Angered by Khrushchev’s willingness to compromise with Tito

• Ultra-leftism won Tirana the support of Beijing

Soviet-Albanian Split

• Contemporary to the Sino-Soviet Split

• Opportunity for the Chinese to challenge the Soviets in Europe

• In the making since the mid-1950s

• Broke out into the open in 1961

October 1961:

• Khrushchev accusing Albania of Stalinist deviationism at the 22^nd Congress of the CPSU

• Albanian response accusing Khrushchev of anti-Marxist activities and endangering the socialist camp

Moscow suspended diplomatic relations with Tirana in December 1961.

sino-albanian alliance

• Resulted from the Sino-Soviet and the Soviet-Albanian Splits

• Albania temporarily became a Chinese outpost in Europe.

• Chinese aid allowed Albania to survive.

• Beijing and Tirana teamed up and continued to accuse Moscow of deviationism.

1964 SU

• Attempt by the Kremlin to reassert its control over the world communist movement through a conference of communist parties

• Failure, and even challenge from the hitherto obedient PCI

• 15 October: Khrushchev was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev as General Secretary of the CPSU.

romania

Late 1950s: Georghe Gheorghiu-Dej ascertained his leadership.

• ‘Stalinist’ purges and terror

• Gheorghiu-Dej took Moscow’s side in the Sino-Soviet and Soviet-Albanian disputes in 1961.

Policy shift by 1962:

• Khrushchev’s strong anti-Stalinism

• Soviet pressure on Romania to specialise in the production of raw materials and agriculture

April 1964:

• Declaration by the Romanian Communist Party that each socialist state could choose its own way towards socialism

Did neither break, nor align itself with the Soviet Union

• Nicolae Ceaușescu pursued and even accentuated this policy line.

Romania’s foreign policy under Ceaușescu :

• Welcomed by the West

• Strengthened his domestic position

• First Eastern Bloc country to establish diplomatic relations with the FRG (1967)

• Joined the GATT (1971), the IMF and the World Bank (1972)

• Preferential Trading Status with the European Common Market (1973)

• Condemnation of the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968

post-krushchev soviet leadership

• Shelved major reform plans

• Quest for stability and cohesion in the Soviet Bloc

• Major test in Eastern Europe: Czechoslovakia

czechoslavkia

• The leadership that had benefitted from and was compromised by the late Stalinist purges was still in place in the early 1960s.

• Party Secretary Antonín Novotný: against reforms and full rehabilitation of the victims of the purges

• Mounting pressure for renewal of the party leadership – both from within Czechoslovakia and Moscow in the early 1960s

• Review of the late Stalinist repressions commissioned at Khrushchev’s insistence

  • Slovakia: resentment towards Czech domination and desire for the rehabilitation of party members that had been persecuted for nationalist leanings

  • Alexander Dubček:

    –Reformist First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party

    –1963: together with the Slovak intelligentsia, he brought about the resignation of Viliam Široký, the Czech Prime Minister, and the rehabilitation of the  main Slovak Communists who had been victims of  the Stalinist purges.

    –Permitted greater intellectual and press freedom in Bratislava

• mosocw let Novotny fall and Dubcek is PS

economics of CS

• 1963: Czechoslovakia became the first country in Eastern    Europe to record negative growth.

• Czech economist, Professor Ota Šik, called for far-reaching economic reforms.

Reform plans: formally accepted in 1965, but diluted by officials

• Public statement by Šik in 1966: economic reform requires political reform

• Commission on the political system coming to similar conclusions

National Party Central Committee meeting - CS 1967

• Dubček calling for reform, a better treatment of Slovakia, the separation of party and state, and on Novotný to step down

• Novotný accusing Dubček of bourgeois nationalism

‘springtime‘

• Process of rehabilitation for the victims of the late Stalinist purges

• Those remaining from the Stalinist period were forced out of key positions.

• Lifting of censorship

• ‘Action Plan’: Soviet-style communism superseded by history; democratisation; meritocracy; market-based economic reforms; federal institutions; better relations with advanced capitalist economies…

• By implicitly declaring the class struggle as obsolete, the ‘Action Plan’ undermined the ideological basis of the communist system.

CS neighbours

• Fears of ‘democratic infection’

• Walter Ulbricht (GDR) saw Czech writers as a tool for the West against the socialist countries and did not trust Dubček to keep developments under control.

• Władysław Gomułka (Poland) was indeed faced with ‘contagion’: widespread student protests, to which he responded with repression.

• 23 March 1968: Czechoslovak leadership reprimanded by other Warsaw Pact leaders during a meeting in Dresden

• 4-5 May 1968: Czechoslovak leaders were chastised by Brezhnev in a bilateral meeting in Moscow.

Prague: reassurances to Warsaw Pact allies that despite domestic reforms, its international alignment would remain unchanged

soviet reaction PS

• Planning for military intervention

• Warsaw Pact manoeuvres on Czechoslovak soil

• Call on Dubček to rein in public debate by restoring censorship

Instead, the Czechoslovak leader relied on the media’s support for his ‘Action Plan’, and refrained from repressing overly critical voices

Warsaw Pact summit July 1968

• Czechoslovakia absent

• Calls for censorship (Ulbricht), intervention (Zhikov, echoed by Brezhnev and Gomułka), and tolerance (Kádár)

• Ultimatum to Prague: repress counter-revolutionary elements or face the consequences

• Instead of complying, Prague was seeking a dialogue with Moscow.

warsaw Pact invasion

Night of 20-21 August 1968

• Instead of going it alone, troops from all Warsaw Pact states (except Romania) participated.

• Predominantly Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia

• Western leaders were taken by surprise but, fearful of not endangering détente, they remained passive

• Czechoslovak leadership forcibly taken to Moscow

Moscow Protocol:

• Return to the status quo ante

• The Czechoslovak leaders saw no other way to safeguard their nation.

consequences of PS

• ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’: the Warsaw Pact would invade (itself) wherever socialism was in danger.

• Exposed the impossibility to reform and revive Communism from above.

• Trustworthiness of the Soviet Union in international relations was undermined.

• The reputation of Communism, at least in its Soviet variant, took another severe hit.

enfant terrible

an unconventional, outspoken person who causes shock or embarrassment

• The term often refers to a brilliant, innovative, or highly successful individual who disrupts the status quo and disregards traditional rules

De Gaulle

• Pursuit of ‘grandeur’

• The ‘Mao’ (light version) of the Western Bloc

Aim to break up the bipolar Cold War international system

• Paradox: challenging American leadership while benefitting from US protection

• ‘Failure’ because of France’s limited means

• Influence on the long-term transformation of the Cold War

France and US aid

• Marshall Plan - ERP

• Security - NATO

• military aid

return of de gaulle

• World War II hero

• Critical of the weak 4^th Republic, presenting himself as the only credible alternative

Return to power in 1958

• Foundation of the 5^th Republic

• Presidential constitution with extensive foreign policymaking powers

• Ambition to re-establish France’s international rank

• Need for internal stability and international credibility

Resolution of the Algerian ‘problem’

• Strengthening of France’s economic and military base

de Gaulle’s vision

• The restoration of France’s rank required the transformation of the international system.

• Original Cold Warrior

Temporary nature of the Cold War:

• Communism in the East would not last forever;

• US would not remain a European power.

Eventual obsolescence of the bloc system: Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals”

• Engagement with the Soviet Union and its bloc

• Prime role for France, notably as the leader of Western Europe

• Initial focus on the Western Bloc

western bloc

• Frustration with the ‘Anglo-Saxon’-dominated Atlantic order

• 1958: Proposal to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harold Macmillan for a tripartite directorate (US, UK, and France) of the Atlantic Alliance

• In response to US ‘rejection’, focus on Franco-German cooperation and European integration

Aim to strengthen Western Europe, and France’s role therein, to ultimately engage with the Soviet Bloc

• Initial priority: redistribution of power within NATO

• Berlin and Cuban Missile Crises and solidarity with Konrad Adenauer at first precluded any attempt to overcome the East-West divide.

looking east

By 1964, focus on overcoming the Cold War order

Factors:

• Potential increase of superpower control of Europe in light of Soviet-American rapprochement following the crisis years

• More ‘predictable’ Soviet behaviour after Khrushchev’s fall

• Soviet need for moderation towards the West in light of Sino-Soviet Split

• Increased autonomy in the Soviet Bloc (e.g. Romania)

• Washington’s insistence on US primacy in the Western alliance

• Engagement with the East as an antidote to US hegemony

• Increasing contacts and exchanges with the Soviet Union and its satellites, culminating in de Gaulle’s 1966 visit to the USSR

soviet reaction to de gaulle

• Pleased by de Gaulle’s opposition to US hegemony

• Irritated by his promotion of autonomy in Eastern Europe

• Disappointed by his refusal to subscribe to Moscow’s vision of European security

Frederic Bozo

• “For a while, French diplomacy was thus in a position to set the East-West agenda in Europe, and it clearly played a role in the evolution of its Western allies’ more active East-West policies. Bonn’s nascent Ostpolitik and Washington’s careful search for détente with Moscow were a response to de Gaulle’s activism.”

frances allies

• Washington: saw containment undermined and was wary of a European settlement excluding the US.

• Bonn: suspicion of a potential deal between Paris and Moscow.

• Worried and irritated by France’s disengagement from NATO

• Consternation in Washington about de Gaulle’s increasingly global assault on US hegemony

1968 end of grandeur

• Internal crisis: students’ revolt and social unrest

• Weakening of the regime, eventually leading to de Gaulle’s resignation

• Financial crisis, undermining the foundation of de Gaulle’s diplomacy and illustrating the limits of grandeur.

• Crushing of the Prague Spring

• Pursuit of détente within (and not beyond) the logic of the Cold War

conclusion

• De Gaulle failed to overcome the status quo.

• The Prague Spring was crushed.

• Romania did not break free from the Soviet Bloc.

• Albania became isolated in Europe.

Nevertheless, within both blocs there was room for manoeuvre to mount a challenge to the respective superpower.

What were the reasons for and of what consisted de Gaulle's policy of grandeur?

What means did the General have at his disposal in pursuing his grand strategy?

Why did Paris clash with Washington?

How did Western Europe receive de Gaulle's policy initiatives?

How successful was de Gaulle in overcoming the Cold War order?