The failure of the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers was a key postwar event in view of the position taken by the Soviet negotiators was thoroughly unambiguous: Stalin refused to move toward a definitive settlement in Europe, which could have partly been in reaction to the pronouncement of the Truman Doctrine two days after the conference began, in addition to what the Soviets pursuing their postwar interests that were incompatible with those of the western allies. This set the stage for the Marshall Plan, which was conceived as a “counter-offensive” to Moscow’s moves in Eastern Europe and as a reaction to Stalin’s decision, registered at the Moscow Conference, to rebuff all gestures of compromise looking toward settlement of the problems dividing Europe. The conference proved unable to bridge the gap between Western and Russian interests. The Western powers refused to grant Moscow the reparations they wanted, and without a deal on reparations, the Russians proved unwilling to compromise on the question of Germany’s political structure. They would also disagree with western proposals on the formation of an interim unified economic policy for all the occupation zones in Germany and Austria.
It became apparent to the Soviet authorities that the United States had adopted a policy of containment to maintain communism within the existing boundaries of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and rejected this offer for itself and its satellite states. In July, a series of bilateral trade agreements were hastily carried forward by Moscow, serving to link Soviet Russia with its erstwhile new allies in eastern Europe. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan also precipitated a major shift in Russian foreign policy of subjugating territories that had come under Red Army control according to the irreconcilable incompatibility between capitalist liberal democracies and communism as a form of state capitalism. The westward extent of a Soviet sphere of influence was forcibly established in satellite states led by national communist parties that would engage in postwar reorganisation of political life on the Soviet model as “people’s democracies” under the leadership of the Soviet Union. A conference involving all of the communist parties of eastern Europe was convened in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in September 1947 to seek a common response to the events of the previous spring and summer. One result was the establishment of the Communist Information Bureau, or Cominform, on 22 and 23 September 1947 in response to the perceived threat from the US. This organization was aimed at coordinating economic policies among the communist parties in the Soviet satellite states, and thereby establish greater Soviet control over them to challenge the west’s policy of containing communist influences by ensuring compliance and conformity. Its “two camps” vision of a world divided between “progressive” and “imperialist” forces mirrored the increasingly apparent bipolar view, in which the Soviet Union maintained the view that all capitalist states were antagonistic toward its ideological interests of extending socialism on an international scale, in which any alternative form of government or independence would not be tolerated in their sphere of influence.
The consolidation of Soviet controls in eastern Europe continued as Stalin sought to create buffer states between western Europe and the Soviet Union. The introduction of the Marshall Plan on 5 June 1947, beginning with sending economic aid to Greece that was in the midst of a civil war against communist insurgents and to Turkey aimed at containing the spread of communist influence in Europe by providing sustained financial assistance for the economic reconstruction in separate countries, and enable them to purchase American goods and services. Soviet authorities accurately interpreted Marshall Plain aid and the Truman Doctrine of containing the spread of communist influence as being directed against the Soviet Union extending its power in eastern Europe.
Czechoslovakia was the one eastern European country that could have been able to reconcile a Western-style democracy with the requirement of being subservient to the Soviet Union while operating with democratic institutions. However, the communist Minister of the Interior filled key police posts with trusted comrades and prepared trials against political opponents when the economic situation in Czechoslovakia began to deteriorate in late 1947. When the non-communist members of the government resigned in protest, President Beneš installed an all-communist government that replaced the former coalition of parties. Czech authorities having had initially accepted Marshall Plain aid as a counterweight to Soviet influence this culminated in the coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 under the auspices of Soviet Union, and thereby eliminated the last non-fully communist government in eastern Europe. Non-communist leaders in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania had been eliminated by terrorism, faked trials and political purges by the end of 1948, and the events in Prague helped win public support for Truman’s containment policy in reaction to this coup. The United States Congress expressed this international policy making orientation by endorsing the Marshall Plan by an overwhelming majority two months later, and then the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation; (OEEC) came into being on 16 April 1948 to handle the Plan. The Soviet Union responded to the Marshall Plan by organizing their own satellites in Europe by establishing the COMECON – a Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, in January 1949.
The east-west rift continued in developments in Germany. An agreement of principle on Germany had been reached in London by the Conference of Six Powers (America, Britain, France, and the Benelux countries) in March 1948. Reconvening in April, the participants on 7 June issued a statement, based on the preliminary agreement reached two months earlier, authorizing the Ministers-President of the German Länder, or states, to convene a constituent assembly by 1 September 1948, for the purpose of drawing up a constitution for a federal form of government, to be submitted to the German people in a referendum. On 18 June 1948, a currency reform in the three western zones of Germany was announced without Soviet agreement in order to accelerate the process of economic reconstruction of the western zones, which, with Marshall Plan aid, would be integrated with western Europe, as well as contribute to establishing a strategically important West German state, while also excluding the recovery of eastern Germany, as well as the four power city of Berlin that was isolated inside the Soviet zone.
The Soviet Union’s response to this sequence of events leading to the creation of an independent West German state was attempting to launch economic retaliation, and represented the decisive and conclusive phase of Stalin’s rejection of the Marshall Plan. A Russian note on 6 March asserted that the London Conference had violated the Potsdam Agreement and, therefore, its recommendations were invalid. All rail traffic between Berlin and the West was suspended on the night of 23-24 June, immediately after the Western powers introduced a new currency in the Western zones, in an attempt to dislodge the Western Allies out of Berlin and prevent establishing a pro-Western German state that was also necessary for postwar economic reconstruction of western Europe as a whole owing to its industrial potential. Russian participation in the Allied government of the city ceased on 1 July. By August, the blockade of the Western sectors of Berlin was complete.
The United States and Great Britain responded by staging an airlift of supplies to Berlin in what became the largest logistical operations in history. Critical goods, especially food and fuel, were transported through the air corridors from 28 June 1949. These aircraft remained unimpeded at an unprecedented rate, which inevitably led to fatal accidents, while the Stalin would not risk war over Berlin as the Americans possessed atomic bombs, among other war material advantages that had been outlined in Operation Unthinkable. The Soviet Union realized the futility of the blockade and lifted it on 12 May 1949 when airlifted supplies reached their maximum of 12,000 tons a day. The implication thus became that the western allies could only be stopped by force, and for the since time since the end of the war, American strategic bombers moved back to England with the potential capacity to drop atomic bombs on the Soviet Union. Rather than sowing discord among the western allies, their connection against a common cause of maintaining defence against the Soviet Union, in addition to turning public opinion in western Germany in favour or aligning with the western powers as a result of ensuring the survival of West Berlin. Tensions further increased between east and west when the Russians tested their own atomic bomb on 29 August 1949, which would lead to a creation of a balance of terror that made peace improbable, and war practically impossible in view of the potential consequences for the world as a whole.
Foreign policy decision making concerning containing the expansion of the Soviet Union’s influence continued with the establishment of a military alliance that would maintain the balance of power in Europe. An agreement of mutual protection and cooperation was established among the nations of Belgium, Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Iceland, Canada, West Germany, Turkey and the United States known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or NATO, on 4 April 1949. Article V of the charter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation stated that “an armed attack against one or more of the member states in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack on them all.” Following the end of the civil war in Greece when Communist partisans surrendered in 1949, partly as a result of American pro-democracy intervention, Greece joined this alliance in 1952. This organisation thus composed a political counterpart of the Marshall Plan, providing a shelter of security behind which economic recovery could take place, and partly reflected a degree of lack of faith in the capacity of the UN to prevent the expansion of Soviet power, and combined the joint conventional resources of the member states along with the potential of American atomic weapons, while the USSR tested its own first atomic bomb on 29 August 1949 that was developed with secret information about nuclear development that had been passed on from the American testing centre at Los Alamos by Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist spying for the Russians. The potential of future warfare thus became more horrifying than ever before, while ideological antagonism continued, which was expressed in political conflicts and waging proxy wars based on conflict political ideologies.
Suspicion of renewed Soviet aggression into western Europe remained a matter of concern from the end of the Second World War. The Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill ordered the Chiefs of Staff Committee to plan for this contingency, without prior consultation with their American counterparts, in June 1945, known as Operation Unthinkable, to attack the Soviet Union by mobilising British and American forces, along with auxiliary forces from Poland and reformed German prisoners-of-war. Churchill speculated about a new confrontation against the Soviet Union by delivering a decisive blow into eastern Germany and Poland to contain Stalin’s territorial expansionist ambitions, and thereby allay Soviet hegemony over eastern Europe where puppet governments were being installed during the immediate postwar period as proxies for Soviet political influence, rather than adhering to the Yalta Conference protocols, since Churchill was more concerned about the developments that had taken place after this conference had taken place.
This matter of conjecture was aimed at liberating Poland from Soviet control, beginning with launching an attack into Soviet-occupied northern Germany on 1 July 1945 and then press into Poland, in order to negotiate a new postwar settlement. This assault could then theoretically advance further eastward into the Soviet Union, as well as other eastern European states, as a matter of expediency when the Soviet Union was facing immense challenges with rebuilding its economy and infrastructure at a time when western industrial output was six times higher than that of the Soviet Union that had lost twenty-five percent of its industrial capacity, while the Soviets possessed well prepared and superior numbers of personnel, constituting a four to one advantage, and a two to one advantage in armoured units, which could theoretically be offset by the western allies’ superiority in air and naval power, as well as resources that they had hitherto supplied to the Soviet Union in the form of Lend-Lease aid. However, war weary British forces faced imminent demobilisation, while American forces were expected to be shifted to the Pacific theatre of operations. Potential outcomes for this scenario, which would inevitably lead to enormously consequential negative outcomes, would only remain hypothetical, especially as the U.S. would not sanction this plan during the immediate postwar years, while Marshal Zhukov ordered defensive positions to be prepared in Poland in July 1945 that would have eliminated the key element of surprise. More importantly, the British chiefs of staff concluded on 8 June that an attack on Poland would not succeed, and would then also lead to a new world war that could lead to considerable advantages for the Soviet Union. This plan was shelved as being unrealistic while American authorities would not lend their support, while Stalin did not in fact have any plans to advance westward through military means or the economic capacity to continue prolonging the war effort to achieve further territorial gains in western Europe, while focusing on establishing political control in the countries and territories that were occupied by the Soviet armies.
Having a secret contingency plan to stage resistance against a potential Soviet invasion was given practical expression in separate western European countries, including those that were not aligned with NATO. The American National Security Council launched the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) on 18 June 1948, with the purpose of establishing covert “stay behind” networks in Europe as resistance and intelligence units to harass advancing Soviet forces, in the event of their overrunning western European countries, as well as organise and assist local resistance movements in occupied territories. One such plan in Italy was known as Operation Gladio that was tasked with organising resistance in the form of waging guerilla warfare, in the event of Soviet forces overrunning western Europe. Italian troops were assigned to posts in northeastern Italy, where they had access to 139 secret weapons caches. Other western European likewise had stay behind resistance plans. Norway began establishing a stay behind clandestine networks in February 1948 following the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, known as Saturn, Jupiter, and Uranus that would gather intelligence, protect local industry and enlist civilians who would fight alongside military special forces, which were later unified into a unified plan in early 1949 known as Rocambole. A similar stay behind network was set up in Denmark known as Absalon under the jurisdiction of the military secret service, the FE. British military authorities trained such forces to take part in clandestine operations in Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. The head of the British Special Intelligence Service, Sir Steward Menzies, created the Western Union Clandestine Committee in 1948 to coordinate unorthodox warfare, which was merged into NATO as a mutual defence organization, and was renamed the Clandestine Planning Committee in 1949, and included neutral countries thereafter. Spain established its own non-aligned stay behind clandestine network in coordination with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1948, which would later cooperate with NATO when Spain joined in 1982. Greece set up its network known as the Hellenic Raiding Force (LOK), while Turkey set up such an organization known as the Tactical Mobilisation Committee that both came under NATO jurisdiction upon Greece and Turkey joining NATO in 1952, while Portugal later set up its own such network known as Aginter Press in September 1966.
William Colby as a CIA operative based in Stockholm was charged with training clandestine forces in neutral Sweden and Finland with the full support of NATO and the local governments, as well as in Norway and Denmark. A stay behind military partisan force was established in Belgium known as SDRA8 as a branch of the Belgian military secret service, which was to function in conjunction with a civilian contingent, the STC/Mob as a branch of the secret service to collect intelligence on an occupation force. Similar operations were set up in the Netherlands, known as “Operations” and “Intelligence,” to wage different forms of unorthodox warfare in the event of an occupation. Luxemburg also had its own stay behind units recruited by the local secret service, the SRE. The French military secret service, the SCEDE, likewise set up a plan for clandestine resistance known as Mission Smala. Just as every NATO state had its own version of stay behind networks to wage clandestine and guerilla warfare in the event of a Soviet invasion of western Europe, there were other such NATO secret armies as anti-Soviet resistance forces in Switzerland, initially named “Special Service,” and then renamed P-26, which was developed with assistance from the British Special Air Service. A partisan force was also set up in Austria in cooperation with American, British and French intelligence services, operating under the code name, Austrian Association of Hiking, Sports and Society, under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior. A stay behind force was also organised in West Germany in 1950, known as the “technical service” (Technische Dienst) of the Association of German Youth (Bund Deutsche Jugend) that was funded by American intelligence services, which was later condemned by German political authorities in 1952 as an extremist terrorist organisation who aimed at attacking German politicians suspected of collaborating with communists. Among other such stay behind forces was established in Heidelberg in the early 1950s under the guise of the Cosmo Press news agency to train as a partisan force known as Kibitz 15, led by former German military officers, to stage resistance in the event of a Soviet invasion of West Germany, which became integrated into the West German intelligence service, the BND, on 1 April 1956.
Attempts were made to infiltrate partisans into Soviet occupied Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia by the British SIS to organise local isolated resistance from 1945, and then in coordination with the American CIA from 1950 and 1956 proved to be futile in the face of being countered with countermeasures from Soviet security forces, lacking support from local resources, and being compromised by Soviet counterintelligence information. The national partisan army as an organised force in Lithuania chose to disband in 1952, although isolated partisan activity continued there, in Latvia until 1953, and in Ukraine by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army until its official disbandment in 1955. Separate attempts to infiltrate partisans into Albania during Operation Valuable Fiend from 1949 to 1954 proved to be completely unsuccessful in the face of resistance from the local security forces that were informed about these efforts through a Soviet spy in the British Intelligence Service, Kim Philby.
Political deadlocks continued in view of mutual suspicions in the international sphere. Negotiations for a unified settlement in Germany between the western allies and the Soviet Union continued in stalemate, and the western allies continued to move forward with establishing a West German state, with began to operate with its new national government of the Federal Republic of Germany on 21 September 1949. This was countered in the Soviet zone by establishing the German Democratic Republic on 7 October 1949 controlled by the German Communist party. Having been unable to restore a unified Germany that was envisaged at Potsdam four years earlier, the occupation powers settled for a provisional arrangement by which they created two German states that conformed to their respective ideologies. This division of Germany into two states thus represented in the new international situation – the so-called Cold War between the western allies and the Soviet Union – with both new states representing the ideological interests of east and west.
The introduction of poorly prepared economic policies in the German Democratic Republic, announcing concessions for certain groups while increasing work norms for others led to expressions of widespread discontent with the Ulbricht regime. A delegation of construction workers went to the government on the morning of 15 June, to clarify the situation, and delivered a letter to Otto Grothewohl demanding a meeting and threatening to strike if he refused to rescind the increase in the norms. On the next morning on 16 June, the trade union newspaper confirmed the higher work norms in an article written at Ulbricht’s request. Construction workers then went to the building of the Council of Ministers, and were joined by other workers along the way to demand lower work quotas, which were followed by calls for the government’s deposition and free elections. The Polibureau then issued a statement that it had been wrong to order raising work quotas, but did not clarify its intentions, stating this was only to be done “on the basis of persuasion and voluntary cooperation,” which led to plans for strikes in several large factories. A call for a general strike and a mass meeting on 17 June, which had begun as a protest against economic conditions expressed wider political satisfaction. There were several disturbances in several parts of the country, which involved about six percent of the total workforce, many of whom were violently opposed to Communism and the SED regime, with the four most common demands being a revocation of the new work norms, an immediate lowering of the cost of living, free and secret elections, and no victimisation for the strikers.
Industrial workers in many cities reacted against the regime by tearing down posters of the party leader and other official slogans and banners. They occupied the town hall and various public buildings, and tried to release political prisoners. The Soviet military commander declared a state of emergency, and after these demonstrations had assumed a direct political character, such as assaults on all party members, Soviet military force was used to disperse the workers at the end of the day, and this rising of indignation came to a standstill after mass meetings dissipated. There were no plans to continue or expand the rising, and the workers had achieved their main demand to reduce work norms on the previous day. This spontaneous movement therefore faded away after the first day while it lacked political leadership and an overall strategy, while the western Allies mainly observed and reported on the events of this short-lived uprising, without providing any notable external support.
Nikita Khrushchev emerged in 1955 as the new premier of the USSR through dominating the communist party bureaucracy, and over the next decade, until his overthrow in 1964. Khrushchev was to become world famous as the architect of de-Stalinisation, particularly marked by his speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in February 1956, in which he revealed and denounced Stalin’s rule of terror as a means to consolidate his personal political power while removing the influence of those opposed to this authority, and the proclaimed doctrine of so-called “peaceful co-existence” with non-communist countries. In response to military integration in the West and the later integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO in October 1954, the Soviet Union created a similar organization in 1955 called the Warsaw Pact, which included Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania, known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance to counter NATO, while in practice subjugating the Soviet Union’s eastern European states through maintaining a military presence of Soviet troops to stifle dissent. As with NATO, the members of the Warsaw Pact pledged to retaliate if one of the member states were attacked. NATO and the Warsaw Treaty never directly waged war against each other in Europe for the next thirty-six years, while were portrayed as hostile systems of aggression pitted against each other. However, the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies implemented strategic policies aiming at the containment of each other in Europe, while competing for influence within the wider Cold War on a worldwide scale.
The Cold War in Europe later settled into a period of “peaceful coexistence,” which was partly the result of the achievement of a nuclear balance that threatened the end of the world if they were deployed. The US exploded its first hydrogen bomb in November 1952, to was followed by the USSR detonating its own such device nine months later. It was also in part due to a positive change in personnel and policies with the death of Stalin on 5 March 1953, which resulted in a three-year struggle for power within the leadership of the USSR, as a successor had not been named. One of the contenders was Lavrenty Beria, the head of state security. Another was Georgi Malenkov, the deputy head of the Soviet Ministers. A third was Nikita Kruschev, the head of the Moscow Communist Party administration. Beria became the new Minister of the Interior, Malenkov became the head of the Soviet of Ministers, and Krushchev became the First Secretary of the Communist Party, and was confirmed in this position in an election in September. Beria, who was building his power base among regional interior ministries, was arrested for abusing his power on 26 June. The tentative outcome was a collective leadership of Malenkov and Khrushschev, while Krushschev appointed loyal cadres in key positions to establish personal support, until Malenkov was forced to resign on 8 February 1955 as a result of facing criticisms for economic failures. Krushchev eventually consolidated his control over the party when the Twentieth Party Congress was convened in February 1956, where he delivered a speech on 24 February revealing and denouncing Stalin’s crimes, and establishing a cult of personality during his leadership. There was a greater preoccupation of the USSR during Kruschchev’s leadership with its internal problems, which included pursuing a policy of destalinization, by which Kruschchev vowed to introduce decentralisation of power and curbing political terror.
The Soviet Union meanwhile maintained control over its eastern European satellite states, regardless of Khrushchev’s policy of destalinization that had given hope to reformers who expected their views could be expressed. The death of the Stalinist leader of Poland, Bolesław Bierut on 12 March 1956 in Moscow, after attending the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union led to appointment of Edward Ochab who began a process of de-Stalinisation, including releasing political prisoners, which instigated calls by the Writers’ Union for economic and social reform, in reaction to the oppression of all forms of dissent. Riots broke out in Poznan on 28 June over demands for improved living conditions based on these demands to be granted by the state, which led to armed clashes with the demonstrators, until they were forcibly dispersed on the following day. Poland was then granted greater autonomy under the new leadership of Władysław Gomulka in October 1956, including acquiring control over the ministry of defence, a large number of Soviet troops were also withdrawn from Poland, and agricultural collectivization was abolished, along with relaxing controls over the media and the arts, with a reduction of repression of the Catholic church.
The success of moderate reform in Poland following Khrushchev’s secret speech fatally compromised the Stalinist leadership of Mátyás Rákosi in Hungary. Large numbers of people within the Hungarian Communist party and society at large began to speak out against him and call for his resignation, as information about the party’s past abuses came to light. Rákosi was finally forced to resign in July 1956 and leave for the Soviet Union, and was replaced by Ernő Gerő as the First Secretary of the Hungarian Workers’ Party, and Imre Nagy serving as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People’s Republic, whose reformist faction began a process of de-Stalinisation of Hungary by replacing delegates to the Hungarian Workers’ Party who had previously been expelled, and introduced public forums for discussion among intellectuals, workers and students regarding the future of the country.
The Hungarian Revolution broke out during a mass demonstration of over twenty thousand people in Budapest demanding reforms on 23 October 1956. The chairman of the Writers’ Union, Veres Peter, read a sixteen-point manifesto to the demonstrators, demanding various liberal reforms, including the withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Hungary, the restoration of a free press, free and open multi-party elections, a new government led by Nagy to stage these elections, and a complete reorganization of the national economy. The ÁVH secret police were deployed to disperse the increasing numbers of demonstrators, and killed three of them, leading to calling on support from the military, which sided with the demonstrators, which was then followed, and began arming them. Nagy was elevated to the position of Prime Minister on 24 October with the sanction of the Soviet Union’s leadership in exchange for restored stability with the presence of Soviet troops who engaged in fighting against the protesters, while Hungarian troops fought either for or against them. Armed protests continued spreading on 25 October. Nagy formed a new government on 27 October, which was followed by pledging his support for the revolution on the following day by offering to dissolve the ÁVH, and replacing the military with a National Guard, releasing political parties, restoring outlawed political parties, and unilaterally withdrawing Hungary from the Warsaw Pact and declaring neutrality, while fighting against communist elements continued as the revolutionary movement lacked any central leadership. Soviet troops ultimately crushed the uprising on 4 November and installed a new Soviet-backed Communist government under János Kádár.
Khruschev likewise aggravated the ongoing East-West conflict in 1958 by attempting to resolve the problem of the presence of a prosperous West Berlin serving as a showcase for the success of western capitalism deep in the heart of the Soviet sphere of influence by issuing an ultimatum to the western powers, demanding that they withdraw their forces from the city, and creating it as a demilitarized free city within six months, or else stage a new blockade. This intimidation attempt ended in failure, having been ignored by the western powers, just as Stalin’s four separate diplomatic proposals for re-opening negotiations for the reunification of Germany in the ongoing atmosphere of mistrust about Soviet foreign policy aims regarding precluding West German rearmament and communist encroachment. Another ultimatum was issued over the western allies being withdrawn from West Berlin, while the flow of political refugees from the German Democratic Republic that had begun since 1949 continued unabated, which threatened the continued sustainability of its economy.
As this attempt at negotiation failed in the face of lacking exercising any leverage powers against the western allies, Khruschev ordered physically sealing off West Berlin by closing its borders on 12 August 1961, and constructing a massive wall around the city. Soviet command economies remained failing basic needs with worsening living standards, in stark contrast to increasing economic prosperity in an economically integrated western Europe, beginning with the Organisation of European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) in October 1949, and then the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in April 1951, followed by the founding of the European Economic Community with the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957. As western integration continued, the Soviet Union faced another foreign policy challenge to its authority that would lead to Khrushchev’s dismissal from office.
The American administration confronted the Soviet Union over the deployments of missile launchers in Cuba, which led to a naval blockade in 1962 to prevent the delivery of further military shipments. An agreement was reached on publicly removing Soviet SS-4 missiles from Cuba in exchange of secretly removing American Jupiter missiles in Turkey in October. Although this agreement averted the threat of nuclear war, the Soviet leadership found this agreement to have lost national prestige, and Khrushchev was forced to resign in 1964, and was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
A further Soviet foreign policy challenge took place in Czechoslovakia. Alexander Dubček, the First Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, led a process that accelerated cultural and economic liberalisation in Czechoslovakia from April 1968, known as the Action Programme to recover from economic stagnation. The reform measures sought to introduce a shift from the Stalinist command economy, establish trade ties with western countries, and encourage the production of consumer goods. He also sought to introduce civil liberties that would entail greater freedom of political expression, which entailed nearly completely lifting restrictions on free speech, introducing a multi-party electoral system, and modify the constitution to enable the National Assembly to serve as state governing body, rather than the Communist party central committee. These reform proposals were opposed by conservatives within the Communist party, as well as interests in the neighboring Soviet bloc countries who feared losing institutional power. Discussions between Dubček and the Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, who succeeded Krushchev on 14 October 1964 as a result of his disastrous agrarian policies along with autocratic temperament, culminated in the Bratislava Declaration on 3 August 1968. The Soviet Union, Poland, the DDR, Hungary and Czechoslovakia agreed that the Soviet Union would be enabled with military intervention if a “bourgeois system” were instituted, which in practice meant allowing challenging the hegemony of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, the censorship had been lifted, political pluralism had been allowed, and central economic planning had been considerably reduced, which Brezhnev interpreted as threats to Communist governance that could have an impact on the USSR and the eastern bloc nations.
The ultimate reaction to these reform attempts was Brezhnev launching “Operation Danube” to occupy Czechoslovakia, beginning with the occupation of the Prague airport, followed by dispatching 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops on the night of 20/21 August, without the prior knowledge of the national government, on the pretext of crushing the attempt to institute democratization to create “socialism with a human face” that was intended to pose a challenge to western liberal democracies. 137 Czechoslovaks were killed, and another estimated 500 were wounded in staging active opposition, along with the local population staging spontaneous acts of non-violent resistance expressed popular resistance. The Czechoslovakian Communist party leadership was temporarily suspended until 27 August, when Dubček and other reformers were returned to office, after having had been taken into custody by the KGB almost immediately upon the invasion. The invasion was met with international condemnation, including Rumania, Albania, Yugoslavia and China, while Soviet leadership was compelled by these and other circumstances that the government was popular and legitimate. The Communist party of Czechoslovakia was largely composed of Dubček supporters, and therefore could not be rapidly removed. This reinstated government nevertheless was compelled to agree to the Moscow Protocol of 26 August 1968 in exchange for remaining in power, while being unable to resist military intervention. The government consented to the prolonged military occupation of the country, ending political pluralism, removing numerous reformers from the government and maintaining remaining hardliners in office, recalling its call to the UN Security Council to address the domestic political situation. The earlier liberalisation reforms were hereafter dismantled in the interest of so-called “restoring normality,” which in practice meant acquiescence to Soviet demands for maintaining the status quo.
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