Insights into the Khrushchev years

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Insights into the Khrushchev years

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

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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 EuropeBerlin Wall, Cuban Missile Crisis

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• View of Nikita Khrushchev

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• 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.

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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.
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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"
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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).
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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!"
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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
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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.
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On Thursday morning May 5th, Khrushchev addressed
1300 deputies of the Supreme Soviet in the Great
Kremlin Palace
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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
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Paris Summit - May 14th 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.-
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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
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"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
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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
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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
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Cultural Differences
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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"
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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
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Maos Visit to the Soviet Union
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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!"
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Proposal for a joint-submarine fleet and
long-distance radio station
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"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
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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.
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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"
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"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"
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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 Stalins 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
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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.
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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
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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"
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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