Khrushchev's Russia:
KULSKI, W. W.
Khrushchev's Russia Soviet Foreign Policy After Stalin. By David J. Dallin. Lippincott. 543 pp. $7.95. Reviewed by W W Kulski Professor of Political Science, Syracuse University; author, "The...
...But no foreign policy can be an unbroken chain of victories, and the overall Communist balance-sheet remains impressive...
...The author's view that the USSR is limited by the traditional Continental Russian outlook does not accord with its bold overseas leaps toward West Africa and Cuba...
...Furthermore, the Russian Communists acquiesced in allowing Chinese leadership of several Asian Communist parties...
...Moreover, it is not certain that West Germany will ever reach this power stature...
...Khrushchev's Russia has emerged as a Great Power not only in the Near East but also in West Africa and the Caribbean...
...Similarly Russia has refused to negotiate any question which involves its own vital interests, such as the status quo in Eastern Europe, the unification of Germany and its cooperation with 75 Communist parties operating in non-Communist countries...
...The USSR is unlikely to stop its assistance to Cuba, to take the extreme example of a country distant from the Soviet Union but as vital to the United States as Poland is to Russia...
...Sino-Soviet relations, like those among the NATO allies or any allies, are marred by occasional frictions, but such tensions do not necessarily lead to an open break...
...Dallin is more cautious elsewhere when he says: it would be wrong to exaggerate the significance of the disagreements and the behindthe-scenes fights...
...The USSR had little interest in adding the East German resources to those of West Germany, whose economic growth caused serious anxiety in Moscow...
...The author documents his sevenyear story with admirable detail...
...But while one can disagree with Dallin's concluding optimism and with some of his interpretations of past events, this does not detract from the great usefulness of his book...
...author, "The Soviet Regime" David Dallin's new book is a valuable contribution to the literature on Soviet foreign policy...
...Would other West European nations be willing to underwrite a German policy fraught with nuclear risks...
...The Congo is another example of an issue on which the Soviet stand has coincided with the attitudes of several Asian and African countries...
...This prospect is well-noted in Communist literature, which does not overlook the possibility that these stresses might here and there provide an opportunity for a Communist seizure of power...
...Poland and Czechoslovakia might then be compelled to cling to Russia as a protective shield...
...Only a few years later, the British Prime Minister hastened to visit Moscow, and Khrushchev was a welcome guest in Washington and Paris...
...The unity of the international Communist movement survived despite the deStalinization process and intermittent Soviet-Chinese divergences of views...
...The New York Times is not a sufficient authority for alleging that Mao saved Poland from Soviet armed intervention in 1956...
...The USSR leaves open problems in the non-Communist part of the world and expects unilateral Western concessions...
...But Soviet strategic thinking has since evolved more than once, always acknowledging the decisive significance of nuclear weapons (not land armies) in a full-scale war...
...Their objectives were to undermine the West in the non-European areas hitherto considered its preserves, and eventually to isolate the West from its sources of raw materials, important markets and strategic positions...
...Stalin's heirs discarded his sterile policy of stubbornly refusing to recognize the true independence of the "national-bourgeois" governments in Africa and Asia...
...Instead, they sought to develop friendly relations with the new nations...
...The Soviet Union so far has demonstrated great flexibility in dealing with her Asian ally, and the author produces an impressive list of Soviet concessions in Manchuria, Sinkiang, Mongolia and Port Arthur...
...The extremely intelligent solution that they chose was a long-term enveloping movement against the West in the underdeveloped countries...
...Dallin feels that the Soviet offensive in the non-Western countries, at first successful, later bogged down...
...Yet Moscow's veto of German unification reflected its own regard for continuing the status quo in this area as well...
...But for how long...
...It is true, as Dallin points out, that "Soviet prestige in Europe and America fell [after the intervention in Hungary...
...Soviet prestige in India and Indonesia has not declined despite both countries' disputes with Communist China...
...but this policy, instead of contradicting China's ambitions, may eventually help it in the competition with India over the Himalayan buffer states...
...The growth of West German power is undisputed, but will it "imply the contraction of Stalin's empire on the old Continent...
...Could West Germany force the USSR out of Eastern Europe without a nuclear war...
...West Berlin, strategically a Western enclave within the Communist bloc, was the only area in Europe where agitation was directly employed...
...Quick to defend every newly independent country which quarreled with the West, they buttressed their skillful diplomatic and propaganda offensive with vigorous economic and military assistance...
...Soon after Stalin's death, his successors were faced with the dilemma of how to change the international status quo to the Soviet advantage without inviting a nuclear catastrophe...
...Dallin further projects the diminution of Stalin's empire in Asia "through the growth of the imperial designs of another Communist government," China...
...In furthering these aims, the Soviets capitalized on anti-colonialist sentiment and Western errors...
...The author also warns against the frequent and hitherto futile expectations of a sudden reduction of international tension...
...Since the West is still confronted with the unresolved problem of counteracting the Soviet offensive in the non-European areas, Dallin's optimism seems unfounded...
...Dallin places high hopes in the re-emergence of two Western powers, France and West Germany...
...In the same period, a crisis within the Communist bloc brought Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev his main foreign policy setback...
...Would they support the re-emergence of Germany as a military power...
...He quotes the Great Soviet Encyclopedia to prove that this Continental concept prevails even in the Soviet strategic doctrine of the nuclear era...
...Dallin relies mainly on Soviet sources, but sometimes he accepts as facts various rumors reported in the Western press...
...Yet the future policies of France under de Gaulle are uncertain, and are largely contingent on how his successor uses the powers of the office which was tailored for de Gaulle...
...The quarrel between the United Arab Republic's Nasser and Khrushchev over Iraq, for example, is less important than the striking similarities of the African policies of the UAR and the USSR...
...Simultaneously, Dallin tells us, the Soviet leaders conceded that neither they nor the West could change the European status quo...
...Is there much room left for a further Western retreat...
...it would be a blunder to expect a definite breaking off of the alliance...
...Yugoslavia, lost by Stalin, was not regained despite vigorous efforts...
...It is doubtful that the Soviet Union is ready for, or interested in, halting her successful offensive in the non-European continents...
...His conclusions, however, are too optimistic...
...To me, it seems more cohesive than Dallin is willing to concede...
...The 1956 crisis in Eastern Europe, however, was surmounted by Soviet intervention in Hungary and an accommodation with the Polish Communist party...
...Yet the two imperialisms could support each other, as Nazi Germany and Japan did, jointly expanding at the expense of third parties...
...Russia, a neighbor of Poland, did not need to bow to her weaker ally in her own geographical zone of influence...
...Dallin overlooks the social stresses and political instability which are frequent companions of rapid modernization in the underdeveloped countries...
...The history of international politics does not provide examples of a great power abandoning a promising opportunity just for the sake of pleasing its adversaries...
...Dallin notes the perils for India of Soviet penetration in Afghanistan...
...Moreover, any discerning reader of Soviet literature cannot disagree when Dallin says: "In all these mutations of Soviet theory and policy, one feature of the old days remained constant: hostility to the United States...
Vol. 44 • March 1961 • No. 13
