‘Peaceful coexistence' is an ideology enunciated by Khrushchev after the Twentieth Congress which governed Soviet foreign policy during the so-called Khrushchev Thaw. This emphasised the possibility of ideological coexistence of both the Communist bloc and the capitalist bloc which marked a paradigmatic shift from the Stalinist doctrine of antagonistic contradiction and inevitable conflict between Communism and capitalism. Furthermore, it highlighted that countries should be allowed to take ‘different roads to socialism’ thus decreasing the role of the USSR for stringent bolshevisation of states as seen in the dissolution of Cominform. Due to the emergence of brinkmanship politics and development of nuclear weapons such as the H-Bomb, the ideology aims to minimise possibilities of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), alongside ‘military conflict with the West’. ‘Peaceful coexistence’ was argued by revisionist historians such as Alperovitz that it eased political tensions between the two superpowers through modus vivendi such as in the Austrian State Treaty.
Peaceful coexistence was a theory developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of its ostensibly Marxist–Leninist foreign policy and was adopted by Soviet-influenced "Communist states" that they could peacefully coexist with the capitalist bloc (USA) who had also decided they did not wish to continue in a hostile manner with the Soviet Union. Many tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union during the Cold War seemed to have been eased by ‘peaceful coexistence’. Developments such as the end of the Korean War in 1953 and factors such as the Austrian independence, improved Soviet-Yugoslavia relations in 1955 and the ‘Geneva Spirit’ based on east-west summit diplomacy and Khrushchev’s visit to the USA in 1959 showed ‘peaceful coexistence’ easing up the Cold War tensions in the years 1953 – 1961’. However, factors, which ensured Cold War tensions remained in the years 1953-61, were the US attitudes towards communism in the 1950s such as the domino theory and the Soviet concept of peaceful coexistence based on long-term victory of communism. The impact of the Berlin Crisis and the u2 spy plane incident in 1960 also displayed the tensions between the superpowers during the Cold War years.
Another perspective, the Revisionist view initiated by the historian William Appleman Willams regards that the American’s attitude to dispense their ideology of capitalism as well as their tactics in using military means to dominate with world trade was the cause. On the other hand, historians such as John Lewis Gaddis follow a Post-Revisionist view that suggests neither countries were to blame and in fact the breakdown of relations was due to the misunderstandings during a period of mass “growing sense of insecurity” and acted upon failure to acknowledged each others fears. However, it is possible to suggest that one country is held responsible for the origins of the Cold War through the occurrences during this time. This discussion will outline these factors by debating the validity of the question in whether or not it was the Soviet’s attitude and involvement that were to blame. In February 1945 at the Yalta Conference which involved the “Big Three” displayed the highpoint of an inter-allied cooperation.
However in reality this was not the case, as because Lenin believed he was speeding up the dialectical phase of Marxism he adopted the ideology of ‘dictatorship’ rather than ‘communism’ due to his belief that he was the only one capable of leading the country to communism. The adjustment of ideology meant that there was little difference between his ideology and the ideology of ‘autocracy’ on which the preceding Tsars had based their rule. This meant that both the Tsars and the Communists believed in absolute rule, (good evaluation in this para)which in turn affected the nature of the government in many ways. Firstly, it affected the structure, resulting in both Tsarist and communist government sharing a ‘top down’ structure, in which the leader at the time had absolute control, as shown by Alexander III use of Land captains to increase state control, Nicholas II overruling the decisions of the
Leaders from the communist party worked to claim power and weren’t born into it. By definition of the two types of rule it should be suggested that Russian government ought to have been completely different with no similarities. However, it can be strongly argued that this was not the case. All Russian leaders during this period were motivated by the need to maintain their power and their ideological views which is shown to be one of the main similarities between them. Asides from the obvious ideological differences between the Tsars and the communists, they do not differ all that much in other ruling aspects such as use of repression and the role of themselves as a ruler.
And with the cold war the likelihood would have been that once one side had launched a nuclear bomb, the other would and the cold war would have turned into a world- wide disaster. However there are some elements to the nuclear arms race that did not act as portraying it to be a stabilising factor. From 1949 both superpowers knowledge and developments of nuclear technology was expanding. Both sides wanted to match the others developments, if not exceed them in order to gain the upper hand and have more power over the other side due to the threat of the disruption a nuclear bomb explosion would cause. One, if not the most prominent way that the nuclear arms race stabilised the cold war was the threat of one being launched, both the USA and the USSR were both already threatened by the ideological capabilities of each other, which is why they feared the nuclear arms race would extend to not just trying to achieve the upper hand over their opponent.
Even though the ordinary Russian citizen initially saw little difference between Nicholas II and the new Provisional Government, the authoritarian regime of the Tsar had not simply been exchanged for another in the short term. However in the long term Lenin's Bolsheviks had seized power in the October Revolution. This was a significant turning point as the totalitarian Government of the Communist party were little different to the autocratic regime of the Tsar to some extent, especially under Stalin. His version of communism differed from that of Lenin before him which resulted in Stalin effectively being a 'red Tsar', devoted to his vision of Russia no matter what the cost
However, Nicholas II had no choice to create the Duma because of the 1905 revolution; so he reluctantly did so he did not completely lose his position. The Communists were a lot more willing to reform politically. Krushchev, similar to Lenin, was keen to reform politically for example decentralisation; he transferred economic planning to more local
Gorbachev, who was the new General Secretary in 1985, was to a large extent contributed to the break-up of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. Unlike Stalin and his processors, Andropov and Chernenko , he tried to reform Soviet Union by highly promoting democracy among the Soviet satellites through the democratic programs. Among the two democratic programs which he had carried out, Glasnost was the program which led to the break-up of the USSR while the consideration of economic reform led to the break-up of the Warsaw Pact. Glasnost, which means openness, granted the people more freedom. Such as freedom of speech, voting rights, cutting off the power of the communist party, as well as releasing dissidents like Sakharov.
After the death of Stalin in March 1953, Nikita Khrushchev emerged as leader of the USSR. There was also change in the US Presidency as Harry Truman was replaced by Dwight Eisenhower. Both the USA and the USSR felt secure enough to pursue different approaches to foreign policy, and these changes led to the establishment of a framework for improved relations. Peaceful Coexistence was adopted by Khrushchev during the 20th Party Congress, with aims to reduce hostility between the two superpowers. Despite hostility created by Hungary in 1956 and Berlin 1958-1962, superpower relations after 1953 did generally stabilise, as pressures from the arms race and economic concerns pushed them towards accommodation.