The permissible pace and scope of post-Stalin political reform in East Central Europe depended greatly upon which faction happened to have the upper hand in the incessant power struggles within the Soviet leadership, but there was never any question in Moscow that the satellite states should remain inside the Soviet empire. At the same time, Soviet leaders were ready to figure out and employ a more flexible and reliable model of cooperation, a model which would be more predictable for both parties in the course of normal, day-to-day relations between Moscow and the East Central European states. While previously this had generally meant direct and exclusive contact between Stalin and the top leaders of each East European country - the local "little Stalins" - the Soviet leaders now did their best to strengthen the local collective leadership in each country and to maintain contact with them. Another new feature was that the occasional ad hoc consultations that formerly had occurred were replaced by regular bilateral and multilateral meetings at a senior level.
As early as June 1953, during talks with the Hungarian leadership, the Soviets explicitly stated that they wanted to rejuvenate their relationship with their allies in Eastern Europe. According to Lavrentii Beriia, the relations had not evolved in a productive fashion. "In the future we will create a new kind of relationship, a more responsible and serious relationship," he promised. Malenkov said that the paradigm would be entirely different from that
Of the past, and Beriia added that Moscow would keep its allies informed, hinting at the preparation of a special memorandum containing new directives.461 While no such document emerged until October 30,1956, interactions with the allies did change remarkably between 1953 and 1955. However, this did not mean any radical adjustment of the subordinate status of the East European satellite states; the changes merely regulated and rationalized the established hierarchy. When Soviet leaders believed they could achieve their goal only by brutal political intervention, they sharply rebuked the leaders of East European countries in tones that often outdid even Stalin. InJanuary 1955, when the Hungarian leaders were again summoned to Moscow for consultations, Khrushchev practically threatened Nagy with execution. 462 In perceived emergencies, when Soviet imperial interests seemed at risk, the men in the Kremlin did not shrink from using the most drastic means possible. In October 1956, they threatened to intervene militarily in Poland, and in November they invaded Hungary and put an end to the revolution there.
Nonetheless, Moscow hoped to improve relations. The Warsaw Pact, established in May 1955, was designed to promote unity and also to strengthen Soviet dominance within the bloc. But this political-military alliance gradually came to be the catalyst for a new era in Soviet-East Central European relations. The Warsaw Pact imitated the organizational framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and in theory was a voluntary alliance of sovereign and equal states. The scheduling of multilateral and regular meetings constituted a qualitative change with respect to former conditions. Previously, only bilateral consultations were held regularly, and they were normally initiated by the Soviets; likewise, multilateral discussions and interbloc summit meetings could be instigated by Moscow alone. Thus, in interesting ways, the establishment of the Warsaw Pact increased the international reputation ofthe allied states, heretofore referred to as “Soviet satellite states" in the West. Thereafter, Moscow encouraged its allies to use their diplomatic stature for the benefit of the entire Eastern bloc. Their task was to promote the success of Soviet goals in Europe and, even more so, in the Third World, especially in Asia, the Arab states, and Latin America. In Europe, they were supposed to develop economic ties with
West European states; in the Third World, their job was to facilitate Soviet economic and political penetration, and to ensure the Kremlin’s lasting influence.463
At the beginning of January 1956, hardly a month before the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), leaders of the European Communist countries participated in Moscow’s most important summit since Stalin’s death. At the meeting, Khrushchev stressed the importance of the new "active foreign policy" doctrine, by which the socialist camp was to strengthen its international position. "It is true that the Soviet Union is the great force of our camp," said Khrushchev, "but if we organized our work in a more flexible way, the Soviet Union would not always have to be the first to take action. In certain situations one or another people’s democracy could take action and then the Soviet Union would support that country."464
Although no initiatives had yet been taken, this strategy became the model for cooperation among the states of the Soviet bloc, especially from the mid-1960s until the collapse of the Communist regimes in East Central Europe. From 1954 on, Moscow kept its allies informed on matters of international politics, often outlining actions that the Soviets planned to take in the area of East-West relations. This practice meant radical change: between the last session of Cominform in November 1949 and Stalin’s death in March 1953 only one such meeting seems to have occurred, but seven summits took place from November 1954 to January 1957.
Nikita S. Khrushchev wanted to remake the basic foundations of intrabloc relations essentially by modifying the terms of those relations from those of colony to dominium. In formal terms, the position of the allies was even more promising: they could now participate in shaping bloc policies as equal partners in the Warsaw Pact and in the Comecon (which was roused from dormancy in the spring of 1956). It was an important element of Khrushchev’s thinking that the Eastern bloc enjoy at least ostensibly equivalent capabilities and conditions in its peaceful competition with the West.
World History
