2T - Soviet foreign and international policies: split with China
Learn how peaceful coexistence combined negotiation with intense rivalry, why relations with China broke down, and what Berlin, Cuba and space achievements reveal about Khrushchev's foreign-policy ambitions and risks.
Peaceful coexistence and rivalry
Khrushchev argued that socialism and capitalism could compete without an inevitable world war. Peaceful coexistence recognised the danger of nuclear conflict while preserving the belief that socialism would ultimately prove superior. Competition could continue through economic performance, propaganda, technological achievement and support for movements abroad. It was therefore compatible with Soviet attempts to expand influence and defend the Eastern European sphere.
Both practical pressures and ideology shaped this approach. Nuclear weapons made direct war enormously dangerous, while the USSR needed resources for domestic development. Negotiation could reduce risks and gain recognition of Soviet interests. After Stalin, the 1955 Geneva summit and the Austrian State Treaty offered signs of reduced tension. Khrushchev's 1959 visit to the United States and meetings with President Eisenhower further suggested that personal diplomacy might help manage rivalry.
Yet relations could deteriorate sharply. The shooting down of an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft in May 1960 wrecked the Paris summit when Khrushchev demanded an apology that Eisenhower would not give. Soviet threats over Berlin and support for revolutionary allies also alarmed Western governments. Coexistence was a strategy for conducting the Cold War, not proof that either side trusted the other.
Brinkmanship
Using threats and the risk of confrontation to secure concessions. Nuclear brinkmanship could create dangers greater than the immediate issue being disputed.
The split with China
The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China began the 1950s as allies, but their relationship contained unequal expectations. Moscow supplied expertise and support; Mao Zedong resented treatment that implied China was a junior partner. Rivalry over leadership of world communism made disagreements about strategy more than technical disputes.
De-Stalinisation aggravated these tensions. Mao criticised Khrushchev's attack on Stalin and argued that peaceful coexistence risked abandoning revolutionary struggle. The Soviet leadership regarded some Chinese policies and statements about nuclear war as dangerously adventurous. The two governments also differed over China's disputes with India and the confrontation around Taiwan. National interests and ideological claims reinforced one another: each could depict its preferred policy as the authentic Marxist-Leninist line.
Relations worsened through arguments over military cooperation and nuclear assistance. In 1960 the USSR withdrew its specialists from China, disrupting projects and making the breach concrete. Public exchanges in the early 1960s turned the dispute into a struggle for influence among other Communist parties. Mao criticised Soviet compromise in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. Khrushchev's search for greater stability with the West thus damaged relations with an ally that judged compromise differently.
The split did not arise from one quarrel or from Mao's personality alone. Differences over hierarchy, security, revolution and de-Stalinisation accumulated. It weakened the idea of a single united Communist bloc and required Soviet leaders to consider threats and competition on more than one front.
Berlin and the Western presence
West Berlin was a Western-controlled enclave within East Germany. Its presence challenged Soviet and East German claims about socialism and offered an escape route for East Germans. The departure of skilled workers damaged the GDR's economy and legitimacy. Khrushchev also wanted recognition of the post-war division of Germany and a settlement reducing Western influence.
In November 1958 he demanded a settlement within six months and proposed turning West Berlin into a demilitarised free city. He threatened a separate peace treaty with the GDR, which could place Western access under East German control. Negotiations and the 1959 Camp David meeting did not produce a final agreement. At the Vienna summit in June 1961, Khrushchev renewed pressure on President Kennedy. Western governments would not surrender their position or rights of access.
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