Insights into the Khrushchev years

• The conventional view •Eisenhower-Khruschev relations •Sino-Soviet relations •Berlin Wall

1. The Conventional View:

• The Soviet Union that had started the Cold War after WWII when it ruthlessly occupied territory and set up pro-communist puppet governments in Eastern Europe…Berlin Wall, Cuban Missile Crisis…

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View of Nikita Khrushchev

• The Soviet Union together with fellow communist allies, especially Red China, spied and spread discord across the globe and endlessly probed for Western weakness as part of a larger plan for communist world conquest.

2. Eisenhower-Khrushchev relations

The Soviet Union repeatedly took unilateral steps to attempt to bring about an end to the Cold War, as for example when Khrushchev dramatically cut Soviet troop levels in the late 1950s. Khrushchev introduced a policy of co-existence, visited the US, was optimistic of a solution to the Berlin stalemate.

Khrushchev at Disneyland

“Why couldn't I go? Had cholera broken out? Had Disneyland. Had it been seized by bandits who might destroy me?” It was at this point that Frank Sinatra whispered to David Niven, Nina Khrushchev was at the table, "Screw the cops! Tell the old broad you and I'll take 'em down this afternoon"

Gettysburg helped. Khrushchev admired Eisenhower's house (a rich man's house but not a millionaire's) his cattle (one of which the president asked him"right then and there to accept this as a gift), and his grandchildren.(whom Khrushchev kindly invited to visit the USSR with heir grandchildren).

Khrushchev addressed Americans on television, praising them as an "amiable and kindhearted people", commending their president, who had referred to him as "my friend", as a man who "sincerely desires an improvement of relations our countries", and closing in heavily accented English "Goot-bye! Goot-luck! Friends!"

U2 Spyplane incident

The way to teach smart alecks a lesson is with a fist. Our fist will look impressive enough. Just let them poke their nose in here again. - Khrushcev to his son

Khrushchev still assumed Eisenhower wasn't responsible, that rogue elements in the military and the CIA were. His next move was to trap the Americans by not revealing that he had the plane and its pilot, by waiting for Washington to invent some sort of cover story, and then unmask it.

On Thursday morning May 5 th , Khrushchev addressed 1300 deputies of the Supreme Soviet in the Great Kremlin Palace

Comrades, I must tell you a secret. I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and in good health and that we have parts of his airplane. We did this intentionally, since if we had reported everything at once, the Americans would have made up another version. I must say that our cameras take better pictures and are more accurate. The pilot, Powers, was suppose to have killed himself by pricking himself with a poison pin. What barbarism? Here is this instrument - the latest achievement of the Americans for killing their own people. Powers had been given 75 hundred rubles. Did that mean that he had flown in to "exchange old rubles for recently issued, new ones? Besides his own watch, Powers had two other gold watches and 7 women's rings. What did he need all this for in the upper layers of the atmosphere? Or perhaps the pilot was to have flown even higher-to Mars-and there intended to entice Martian ladies

Paris Summit - May 14 th : When his plane touched down, "my anger was building up inside me like an electric force which could be discharged in a great flash at any moment. Our delegation was like a powerful magnet which repels foreign bodies of opposite charge. Anything could happen.-

Eisenhower's comments were subdued. The US would not shirk it's responsibility to safeguard against surprise attack. The U2 flights were suspended after the recent incident are not to be resumed. We would undertake bilateral conversations between the US and the USSR while the main conference proceeds

"some of those fascist bastards we didn't finish off at Stalingrad are here. We hit them so hard that we put them ten feet underground right away. If you boo us and attack us again, look out! We will hit you so hard there won't be a squeal out of you. I am a representative of the great Soviet people, who under the leadership of Lenin and the Communist party, accomplished the Great October Socialist Revolution and... I will not conceal my pleasure. I like coming to grips with the enemies of the working class and it is gratifying for me to hear the frenzy of these lackeys of imperialism

3. The Sino-Soviet relations

"He's got some sort of odd, peasant-like views; it's as if he's afraid of the workers and therefore isolated his armies from people who live in cities. Mao is a caveman Marxist." Joseph Stalin

Soviet Aid

Dear Mao,

"Between 1953 and 1956, Moscow agreed to build, or aid in the construction of 1,205 factories and plants valued at about $2 billion, with $727 million financed with Soviet credits, all at a time when the Russians themselves suffered shortages. In April 1955, the USSR promised to help Beijing develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. During these same years, about 10,000 Chinese students studied in the Soviet Union, while another 17,000 were trained by Soviet teachers in China. - Chen Jian and Yang Kuisong, in Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet

Cultural Differences

Cultural Differences

Treated to a fabled Cantonese dish, "Fight of the Dragon and theTiger", with the dramatis personae a snake and a cat respectively, most of the Soviets, including Khrushchev, refused even to taste it, and the two women in the party, Yekaterina Furtseva and Yadgar Nasredinova, burst into tears. Even tea drinking became a kind of torture. "During meetings, they kept serving tea. As soon as you finished one cup they'd bring you another. If you didn't manage to finish, they'd take say the cup and produce a fresh one, again and again." The result was that delegation members couldn't sleep at night until a Soviet doctor told them to cut down on caffein. "But although we weren't used to this sort of ceremony, we engaged in it out of respect for our hosts"

Mao-Khrushchev - Destalinization speech

Khrushchev made a mess of things, Mao told party colleagues on March 17 1956, "He's just handing the sword to others, helping tigers harm us. Stalin should have been criticized not killed. Khrushchev is not mature enough to lead such a big country. “People like Khrushchev do not adhere to Marxism Leninism. They do not take any analytical approach to things, and they lack revolutionary morality. The Soviet leaders are blinded by lust for gain. The best way to deal with them is to give them a tongue lashing” - - Dr Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao

Mao’s Visit to the Soviet Union

Mao - "Look how differently they're treating us now. Even in this Communist land, they know who is powerful and who is weak. What snobs!"

Proposal for a joint-submarine fleet and long-distance radio station

"If Moscow wants joint ownership and operation, then let there be joint ownership of our army, navy, air force, industry, agriculture, culture and education. The USSR could have all of China's more than 10,000 km of coastline while Beijing maintain only a guerilla force. Go home!, Mao shouted, "you can't explain things clearly. Go back and tell Khrushchev to come here. Let him tell me directly exactly what he wants."

Mao to Soviet Ambassador Yudin

Khrushchev dropped everything and rushed to Beijing. He found "no red carpet, no honor guards, no hugs”. He was the target of a a new round of Maoist condescension and humiliation. Mao declared that Sino-Soviet cooperation was assured for 10,000 years. In that case, Khrushchev replied, "we can meet again in 9,999 years to agree on cooperation for another 10,000 years." Khrushcehv explained his idea at great length, emphasizing the purity of Moscow's intentions. Mao smoked throughout, despite Khrushchev's aversion to cigarettes, and mocked his guest for rambling on in disorganized fashion. You've talked a long time but have still not gotten to the point," said Mao, waving his hand dismissively.

Mao "banged his large hands across the soft, and stood up angrily. His face turned red and his breath turned heavy. He used his finger to point impolitely at Khrushchev's nose: 'I asked you what a common fleet is. You still didn't answer me"

"What does it mean to 'discuss things together? Do we still have our sovereignty or don't we?" We don't want to use Murmunsk, and we don't want you to come to our country either. The British, Japanese and other foreigners who stayed in our country for a long time have already been driven away by us, Comrade Khrushchev. I'll repeat it again. We do not want anyone to use our land to achieve their own purposes anymore"

The chairman was deliberately playing the role of emperor, treating Khrushchev like a barbarian come to pay tribute. It was a way of sticking a needle up his ass - Mao told Dr Li.

April - Sept 1960 - Third Congress of the Romanian Communist Party on June 20 in Bucharest. At a final closed session of the Congress, he threw away his prepared text and launched into a furious harangue. He criticized Mao by name as "oblivious of any interests other than his own, spinning theories detached from the realities of the modern world. He referred to Mao as an old galosh, the word that means scumbag in both Russian and Chinese

Overnight, he pulled all Soviet advisers out of China. According to the Chinese, Moscow withdrew 1390 experts, tore up 343 contracts and scrapped 257 cooperative projects in science and technology "all within the short span of a month. Sino -oviet trade declined by more than half in 1961, and by 1962, Soviet exports to China were a mere quarter of what they had been in 1959.

- Chinese Communist Party Central Committee letter of February 1964 to Soviet Central Committee. From John Gittings, ed. Survey of Sino-Soviet Dispute.

The alliance fell apart in the early 1960s. Border guards from the Soviet Union and China even came to armed conflict in 1969 in a dispute over territory along the Ussuri River, during which hundreds of soldiers from both sides died. Chinese reports of the first shooting match denounced the Soviets for their “blatant provocation” of the border guards

4. The Berlin Wall

Eastern Europe, Eastern bloc allies were actually far more autonomous in their attitudes and actions than had previously been suspected. “Within weeks of Stalin’s death, East Germany was asking that a wall be built. The Soviets called it politically unacceptable and grossly unrealistic . . . they told the East Germans they needed to find other ways to keep people in the country,” - Hope Harrison, professor at George Washington University

Soviet Reactions

“Khrushchev vetoed the idea as too dangerous, then changed his mind. Several signals from Washington in the meantime (including Kennedy's repeated pledges to defend West Berlin, but not East Berlin, and a July 30 statement by Senator JW Fulbright seeming to accept a closed inter German border) suggested the Americans wouldn't resist but the Soviets couldn't be sure.”

Staged Development of Berlin Wall

As an extra precaution, Khrushchev decreed that the wall go up in stages; first, barbed wire, with concrete to follow only if the West acquiesced. Even so, the Soviets held their breaths on August 13, waiting to see how the Americans would react. There was a crisis atmosphere in the Foreign Ministry. When it became clear that the wire wouldn't be torn down, "Father sighed with relief. Things had turned out all right". - Sergei Khrushchev

“I never Got out of the Car”

Khrushchev's nervousness manifested itself in the strict secrecy that surrounded preparations for construction of the wall; Even highly classified Soviet transcripts of the Warsaw Pact summit include no discussion at all of the wall. Before signing off on the project, Khrushchev even paid an incognito visit to both East and West Berlin. "I never got out of the car,", he recalled, "but I made a full tour and saw what the city was like"

East German response

Peace is in good hands with the working class in power, with a government of the National Front under the leadership of Walter Ulbricht! When peace is threatened, Ulbricht does not hesitate to save it. He fulfills the legacy of Karl Liebknecht.A power has developed in Germany that can stand against barbaric militarism. Look at the authority of our workers' and farmers' state! Aren't those splendid lads in our police and army? Look at the splendid men in our fighting groups who keep order and win respect for our workers' and farmers' state! Thanks to our lads, thanks to the workers and others in the uniforms of the fighting groups! Translation of material provided to East German propagandists in August 1961, just after the Berlin Wall was built in http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/argu61.htm