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

Abstract

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. Briefly summarized, the changes in Soviet policy toward the WVest in the period 1949-521 reflected the increase in Western cohesion and military capabilities, stimulated by the period of militant advanice in Soviet policy from 1947 to 1949, as well as the Soviet effort to redefine the outer periphery of its sphere of interest in the molten power situation followving the war. After the failure of the Berlin blockade, the last and climactic act of this period of militant Communist probing in Western Europe, Soviet policy evolved through a period of experimentation toward a less overtly bellicose course of action, in an effort to create an atmosphere of relaxation of international tension. This relaxation of tension was intended to check the adverse trend in the world power position of the Soviet Union by removing the stimulus to Western cohesion and mobilization, and by encouraging divergent trends within the Western alliance. During the period of transition, Soviet policy failed to prevent the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty