0 Peaceful Coexistence Policy and the Changing Personalities in Soviet Leadership

The Soviet Union was structured to the tastes of the leader at the helm, and so served his interests. The policies in place served not to improve the economic, social or economic fortunes of the entire nation but to concur with the ideological leanings of the leader in office. So was the case with communism. Despite this production model failing utterly to satisfy the basic demands of the ordinary Soviet citizen, it remained in place. They thought a departure from this model would signify a Soviet surrender to the Capitalist West in the ideological war. However, not all policies resulted in failure and devastating suffering (Allen 1964). One notable exception was the policy of Peaceful Coexistence instituted by Khrushchev.  Until then, the country had been led by Josef Stalin.

Under Stalin’s leadership, many oppressive and rigid policies were put in place. After his death, there was a significant incentive to revise them as they had weakened Soviet standing, both abroad and at home. The United States had outpaced the Soviet Union in the nuclear arms race (Mc Dougall 2000). The Soviet Union was surrounded by United States bases located all over Europe. As a result, the Soviet Union had to buy time so as to catch up with its rival. Peaceful Coexistence was the perfect resort. By declaring its interest in peace, the Soviet Union could fend off any likely attacks from the United States at its weakest hour.

By no means was Khrushchev a radical departure from Stalin. However, small changes took place, and they were the embodiment of the policy of Peaceful Coexistence. These small changes and how the person at the top helped brought them about shall be at the centre of this writing.

Stalin was a dictator. He used all means, mostly brutal, to achieve his selfish aims. He eliminated enemies at an alarming rate and with great ferocity. Its worth pointing out that the name Stalin means ‘man of steel’. His brutality was evident in the way that he expelled Trotsky from the Communist party. He subsequently organized for his murder even while in exile, in Mexico City. He did not believe in political competition (Allen 1964). He eliminated several of his close allies. When his son tried to commit suicide unsuccessfully all he could say was, “the idiot can not even shoot straight”. From this character, it would also be fair to assume that the Soviet Union would also take on a more aggressive attitude to international affairs. On the political front, the Soviet Union under Stalin dealt brutally with Poland. They corrupted the politics of Soviet member countries like Poland and Ukraine. Generally, the Soviet Union under Stalin was a reflection of the man himself, brutal.

Enter Khrushchev; an extremely different man when compared to Stalin. He could tolerate a little competition. He closed the Gulag labor camps which had thrived under Stalin.  He criticized Stalin as a brutal despot. His preference to indulge in negotiations is well documented. Taking after his character, the Soviet Union also adopted a more conciliatory tone with regard to international conflicts. When the fate of East Berlin was at stake, he issued a sixth month deadline which he subsequently withdrew in the interests of peace. His approach to the Cuban Missile Crisis is also worth mention. In the depth of the Cold War, he clandestinely stacked nuclear weapons in Cuba, a few miles off the United States border (Mc Dougall 2000). After this plan was unmasked by the Kennedy administration, he respectfully abided by the truce. These differing approaches to politics in the Soviet Union directly derive from the leader at the helm. This is very much in consonance with the Soviet maxim that the revolution begins at the top.

With regards to economic affairs, the approach also depended on the attitude and character of the leader at the helm. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union depended entirely on agriculture. It was Stalin’s ambition to transform the Soviet Union into an industrialized nation. Agriculture provided the funds to pursue all other economic goals. To this end, Stalin’s Five Year Plans aimed at collectivizing agriculture to ensure regular food supplies. As a result, agricultural labor was to be used sparingly, and the surplus was to be directed at industrialization. The collective farming was, however, forced upon the farmers, so they did not own the idea from the word go. This led to a drop in agricultural output (Allen 1964). War followed soon afterwards. Resources and labor were again redirected towards the war effort. After the war, it was time to start all over again. In a nutshell, economic activity never took off.

Khrushchev, on the other hand, encouraged farming on private plots. Those who farmed collectively still got more pay. The Soviet Union invested more in Agriculture. New land was opened up for farming in what was christened the Virgin Lands campaign. They were extremely productive, but they bore the brunt of the drought. He attempted to break bureaucracies imposed by Stalin on industry. His attempts to decentralize industry only resulted in making it inefficient. Under Khrushchev, industry slowed while agriculture made no notable gains.

All these explicate that the person at the helm directed all happenings. Were it not for changing of personalities, some of Stalin’s ideas that made industry more productive could have been retained. However, to make the change of leadership more felt on the ground, even productive policies had to be scrapped just to give the impression that change was indeed happening.

In the social perspective, political coexistence was a great departure from the way people and institutions related during Stalin’s years. Under Stalin, there were several secret police officers whose preoccupation was maintaining a form of law and order that existed in the Soviet Union only. Dissenters from either party or government policy were violently suppressed. As a result, people lived in immense fear and rarely spoke their mind. In some cases, executions were carried out, and trips to the labor camp were the order of the day (Allen 1964).

On the other hand, Khrushchev allowed for more individual freedoms. People spoke more freely but still dared not cross some lines. The psychology of repression had changed the Russian people into a passive lot. They resorted to heavy drinking to escape the harsh daily reality that was prevalent then. Apart from challenging authority, there is little the ordinary people could do to bring change.

By all accounts, peaceful coexistence was a step in the right direction for the Soviet Union, albeit a small one. However, the changes it brought about were more focused at ‘de-Stalinizing’ the nation than bringing about any real progress. These changes were targeted at the social, economic and political arena as already discussed above (Allen 1964). The changes were mostly tokenism.  For example, even as Khrushchev was busy preaching peaceful coexistence to the rest of the world, he was busy piling nuclear weapons in Cuba in what degenerated to the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, peaceful coexistence can not be entirely consigned to history. If Russia needed it then, it still does now.

  

References

Mc Dougall, D 2000, American Relations since the 1940s, Hodder and Stackton:  Melbourne.

 Spenceley, G 2011, A world in Shadow, U.S – Soviet Relations in the Nuclear Age, Oxford University Press: New York.

Allen, R 1964, Peaceful Coexistence: A Communist blueprint for success, New York.