Soviet Foreign Policy Since The Death Of Stalin

Soviet Foreign Policy After Stalin, first published in 1962, reviews the constants and variables in the Soviet international course after Stalin. It examines the legacy of Stalin’s policy of Soviet imperialism, and how much his foreign policy was followed by his successors. It looks at the period of transition, the uprisings in Europe, the new Soviet course toward the ‘uncommitted nations’, Sino-Soviet relations, the ascent of Khrushchev and the stiffening of the Soviet view toward the West.

Originally published in 1972, this volume contains selected significant documents to illustrate Soviet foreign policy between 1953 and 1970, according to its author, 'in the words of Soviet leaders and Soviet people.' Extracts from speeches by Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Brezhnev and Kosygin are included, together with commentary from other communist leaders, including Hoxha of Albania and Nagy of Hungary. The invasion of the former Czechoslovakia and the Chinese view of Soviet foreign policy are fully covered. A comprehensive and informative introduction traces the course of Soviet foreign policy since 1953. Some general considerations are given in the conclusion, and short explanatory comments elucidate the documents themselves.

The purpose of this treatise is to give a brief account of Soviet foreign policy from the moment of the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 to the involvement of the Soviet Union in the Second World War, in June, 1941.

In the first analysis of the start of the Cold War from a Soviet viewpoint, Caroline Kennedy-Pipe draws on Russian source material to reach some startling conclusions. She challenges the prevailing orthodoxy of Western historians to show how Moscow saw the presence of US troops in Europe in the 1940s and early 1950s as advantageous rather than as a check on Soviet ambitions. The author points to a complex web of concerns than fuelled Moscow's actions, and explores how the Soviet leadership, and Stalin in particular, responded to American policy. She shows how the Soviet experience of the United States and Europe, both before, during and after the Second World War, led Moscow to a policy that was not simply fuelled by anti-Americanism. Six chapters cover events from the wartime conferences of 1943 until the death of Stalin. A final chapter places the book in the context of the current debate over the causes of the Cold War.