We explain what the peaceful coexistence was during the Cold War. In addition, its characteristics and outcome.
What was the peaceful coexistence?
Pacific coexistence It was a period of the Cold War which began after the death of the Soviet leader Lósif Stalin in 1953 and with the rise to the power of the Soviet Union (USSR) of Nikita Jrushchov. After a phase of great tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, which had begun after World War II (1939-1945), a new climate in relations between both states As of 1955, it made it talk about “peaceful coexistence” and “thaw.”
The idea of a peaceful coexistence with the United States and the western capitalist bloc was formulated by Jrushchov after the armistice that ended the war in Korea (1953) and the agreement that led to the end of the War of Indochina (1954). In addition, he was part of the “deestalization” policy that Jrushchov carried out in the Soviet Union carried outwhich implied the condemnation of Stalin's repressive practices, the release of dissidents who had been deported to forced labor fields and various economic reforms.
However, the peaceful coexistence climate did not mean the end of international crises: In 1956, a democratic revolution in Hungary was repressed by Soviet tanks; In August 1961, The German democratic republic built the Berlin wall, which reinforced the separation between Western Berlin (capitalist block) and Eastern Berlin (Soviet block); And in October 1961, in the XXII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the breakdown between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China was formalized.
Pacific coexistence concluded in 1962 when the missile crisis in Cuba occurred: The American discovery of a missile base installed by the Soviet Union in Cuba, which caused a diplomatic conflict between the two powers and was about to trigger a nuclear war.
Finally, an agreement was reached by which the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles and the United States promised not to invade Cuba. Following this fact, the “Red Telephone” was created, a direct communication route between the White House (United States) and the Kremlin (Soviet Union).
See also: Chronology of the Cold War
Causes of peaceful coexistence
The factors that explain the turn of the Soviet Union towards cohabitation and the distension in relations with the western block, which Jrushchov called “peaceful coexistence,” were:
- The “Terror Balance”that is, the situation created after the conversion of the Soviet Union into an atomic power and the accelerated rearmament of both powers. The United States had already launched two atomic bombs in 1945, and the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapons in 1949 (Pump A) and 1953 (Huma H). Therefore, the consequences of a nuclear war between both powers would have become aware of the consequences: mutual destruction.
- The need for a long period of peace that allow Jrushchov to undertake their economic modernization projects (giant dams in the Volga, irrigation of large semi -desert areas in Central Asia, among others).
- The conviction of the Soviet authorities That, if international relations were relaxed, the communist system would economically exceed the capitalist system and improve the standard of living of the population before 1980, since it was considered that capitalism was entering a phase of decline.
- The assumption that a relaxation policy could give new impulse to the communist parties of Western countrieswhich had been largely surrounded and decreased after the Prague coup d'etat of 1948 (which finished configuring the separation between the communist and capitalist blocks in Europe).
The first signs of distension of the era of Jrushchov (1953-1955)
Stalin's death on March 5, 1953 opened a new phase in the history of international relations. After a complex succession process, Jrushchov managed to settle in the power of Kremlin, especially after dismissing and imprisoning Lavrenti Beria, head of the Stalinist repressive apparatus, in June 1953.
At that time, the first signs of distension between US and Soviet governments appeared:
- The signature of the armistice in Panmunjon in 1953which ended the Korean war.
- Geneva agreements in 1954which ended the War of Indochina.
- The signing of the Peace Treaty with Austria (or Austrian State Treaty) in 1955which meant the evacuation of occupation troops (American, Soviet, British and French) that remained in the country since the end of World War II and that assured Austria's neutrality.
- The reconciliation between the Soviet Union and Yugoslaviawhich culminated with Jrushchov's visit to Marshal Tito in 1955 and was an attempt to relaxed between both communist countries, previously enmity.
These signs of distension did not prevent superpowers from using strength to affirm their hegemony in their areas of influence. In June 1953, workers' protests broke out in East Berlin and Eastern Germans which were hard repressed by the Soviet Occupation Army, while the CIA (American Intelligence Agency) He intervened in Iran to overthrow the progressive government of Mossadegh in 1953 and organized a coup in Guatemala against President Jacobo Affenz in 1954.
In addition, in 1955 the Federal Republic of Germany rearmed and entered the NATO (Military Alliance of the Western Block). In response, the Soviet Union and the “popular democracies” of Central and Eastern Europe founded the Warsaw Pact (Military Alliance of the Eastern Block) in 1955.
See also: History of the Soviet Union
“Deestalination”
In the XX PCUS Congress (Communist Party of the Soviet Union), held in February 1956, Jrushchov denounced the crimes of Stalin and the “cult of personality” that had characterized its time at the head of the Soviet Union.
Jrushchov's secret speechwhich shocked many communist leaders and subsequently reached public opinion, The “deestalization” policy made official that had begun with the release of some prisoners of the Gulag (Forced labor fields) and with the first attempts of international distension after Stalin's death.
The new Pacific coexistence foreign policy was part of these changes in the era of Jrushchov and involved the acceptance of the existence of various paths for the construction of a socialist system.
This relative opening had its first reflection in Poland. Wladislaw Gomulka, a communist leader who had been persecuted and imprisoned by Stalin, returned to power in 1956, promoted by workers' manifestations. Since Gomulka expressed his faithfulness to the Soviet Union, the Soviet authorities finally accepted the new turn in Polish politics.
THE “TAKE”
The peaceful coexistence of the Soviet Union with the western block basically meant two things:
- The Soviet Union rejected the appeal to weapons to extend the communist revolution around the world.
- The Soviet Union rejected the idea that war with capitalism was inevitable.
The Soviet government considered that the communist bloc was at that time strong enough (especially in the military and nuclear field) to deter the western block of any attack. Therefore, The blocks were considered to coexist peacefully and focus their competence on the economic field.
Although there were episodes in which military violence continued to be used (such as the invasion of Soviet tanks in Hungary to suffocate a democratic revolution in 1956), In this period what some journalists called “thaw” began in the international relations of the Cold War.
After many years without bilateral meetings among the leaders of the two powers, Jrushchov traveled to the United States in 1959 and met with US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Subsequently, a summit was held in Vienna in 1961 with the brand new president of the United States, John F. Kennedy.
The American reaction
The doctrine of “mass reprisals”
Initially, the vision of the US government was not very influenced by the new Kremlin policy. The development in the Soviet Union of the Atomic Bomb and its essays with intercontinental missiles promoted a sense of insecurity in the United States. This feeling was reinforced by the launch of the Sputnik 1 In 1957, the first artificial satellite placed in orbit, which was the work of the Soviet.
Before reaching the presidency of the United States in 1953, Republican Eisenhower had criticized the “containment” policy of Democratic President Harry S. Truman (based on avoiding any new expansion of the area of Soviet influence), and John Foster Dulles, who would later be the secretary of state of Eisenhower, had proposed in 1952 the Roll Back: Make the Soviets back to their starting positions.
After the republican triumph, The Eisenhower government announced the doctrine of the “mass retaliation”: The United States threatened the Soviet Union with the massive use of nuclear weapons In the event that the Soviet government adopted a very aggressive foreign policy.
In practice, American foreign policy was rather moderate. Some historians define it as a reinforced “containment” policy, in which there was some continuity between Truman and Eisenhower diplomacy.
The doctrine of the “flexible response”
The “balance of terror”, that is, the certainty of the mutual destruction in case of a “hot war” between the superpowers, became more evident from the launch of the first artificial satellite by the Soviets In 1957: el Sputnik 1. The initial superiority of the Soviet Union in the “space race” showed the United States government the enemy's ability to attack him in his own territory.
Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense of the new US president, John F. Kennedy (who came to the presidency in 1961), raised the need to Modify the “mass retaliation” strategy for another of “flexible response” that prevented a minor accident from provoking a world nuclear catastrophe (It was about looking for means provided for each possible threat).
After the first years of the “thaw” period, international relations entered a contradictory period in which lThe first advances towards relaxation alternated with moments of great tension:
- In 1959 Jrushchov traveled to the United States and met with Eisenhower. It was the first trip of a Soviet leader to the United States.
- In May 1960 an American U-2 spy plane was surprised on Soviet and demolished territory. That year a summit was suspended that was going to take place in Paris between Jrushchov and Eisenhower, and in October, Jrushchov traveled to New York and protested against US imperialism in the UN General Assembly hitting his shoe on his desk.
- In 1961, Kennedy's arrival to the presidency softened the situation again. THE MEETING BETWEEN KENNEDY and Jrushchov in 1961 in Vienna seemed to announce a new period of distension.
- The CUBA missile crisis In 1962 he led the superpowers at the time closest to a direct war between the two and, therefore, to a nuclear war.
See also: United States in the twentieth century
International crises (1956-1962)
Despite the “thaw” that was part of the peaceful coexistence, in this period there were some international crises:
- The Hungarian Revolution (1956). A revolutionary movement, which demanded democratic reforms, caused a change of government in the People's Republic of Hungary but was harshly repressed by Soviet troops who invaded the country with tanks
- Suez's crisis (1956). Both the Soviet Union and the United States demanded from the United Kingdom, France and Israel to leave the Sinai, a territory they had occupied in rejection of the nationalization of the Suez Canal by the Egyptian government. From now on, the Soviet Union reinforced its links with Egypt and other Arab countries, while the United States allied with Israel
- The construction of the Berlin Wall (1961). The German Democratic Republic (Eastern Germany) hoped to stop the migration of Germans from the communist bloc to West Germany through this wall, which separated both areas of the city until its fall in 1989
- The Chinese-Soviet rupture (1961). The Government of Mao Zedong criticized the “deestalization” of Jrushchov and its peaceful coexistence policy with Western capitalism. This caused the rupture, which was formalized in the XII PCUS Congress (1961), in which a delegate of the Communist Party of China participated for the last time. In the following years, mutual criticisms and border conflicts between both communist states took place.
The crisis of the missiles of Cuba (1962)
The taking of power in Cuba by Fidel Castro in 1959after the overthrow of the pro-state dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, caused a hard reaction from the United States government. One of the first actions was the US commercial embargo on Cuba imposed in October 1960. Then, during the Kennedy presidency, the failed attempt to invasion of Bay of Cochinos or Playa Girón (April 1961), organized by the CIA, occurred.
From this fact, The Cuban revolutionary government aligned with the communist bloc. Given the US threat to Cuba, Cuban and Soviet governments agreed to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuban territory.
On October 14, 1962, an American U-2 spy plane detected missile ramps in Cuba (that is, very close to the American territory). Kennedy reacted with the blockade of the island And the announcement, on October 22, that the American Navy would prevent the passage of any Soviet ship that went to the island. The world was found before the possibility of an incident that could lead to a nuclear escalation.
Finally, after negotiations and meetings in which the Soviet Foreign Minister actively participated, Andréi Gromikoon October 29 Jrushchov gave the order to withdraw Cuba missiles in exchange for the American commitment not to invade the island and to withdraw the missiles that the United States had deployed in Türkiye and Italy.
Once the missile crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union created in 1963 A direct communication route between both governments, known as “Red Telephone”. The doctrine of “insured mutual destruction” led from now on to take new steps towards distension, especially since 1969. At that time, Kennedy had already been killed (on November 22, 1963) and Jrushchov had been dismissed from the leadership of the Soviet Union (October 14, 1964).
Continue with:
document.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”, (e) => {
var sliderContainer, slider;
sliderContainer = document.getElementById(‘block_cf775035020c99311f04fac03b19909e’);
if (typeof initSlider !== ‘function’) {
console.log(‘Swiper haven\’t been loaded’);
sliderContainer.className += ‘ fw scroll-snap’;
return;
};
options = {
direction: ‘horizontal’,
speed: 1000,
slidesPerView: ‘auto’,
// slidesPerGroup: 1,
centerInsufficientSlides: true,
// centeredSlides:true,
spaceBetween: 15,
breakpoints: {
720: {
// centeredSlides: false,
// slidesPerGroup: 2,
spaceBetween: 25
},
},
pagination: {
el: ‘.swiper-pagination’,
type: ‘bullets’,
clickable: true
},
}
slider = initSlider(sliderContainer, options);
})
References
- Britannica, Encyclopaedia (2022). Cold War. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/
- Gibney, FB (2023). Nikita Khrushchev. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/
- Powaski, Re (2000). The Cold War: the United States and the Soviet Union, 1917-1991. Criticism.
- Saborido, J. (2009). History of the Soviet Union. I emecé.
- Veiga, F., Da Cal, E. & Duarte, A. (2006). Simulated peace. A story of the Cold War. Alliance.
