The conduct of foreign policy under Molotov was Stalin’s without Stalin. Molotov resurrected Stalin’s abortive proposal for the unification of a neutral Germany from March 1952. That proposal had differed from Beriia’s by not envisaging the liquidation of Communist East Germany but rather the creation of a united "democratic" Germany built upon the foundations of the regime in its eastern rather than its western part. Molotov’s amended version was not an improvement. It called for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country, but only after a peace treaty had been signed with an all-German government, formed by following procedures Moscow deemed necessary to ensure its "democratic" character.
Such a prescription for the future of Germany was grist to the mill of West Germany’s staunchly anti-Soviet chancellor Konrad Adenauer, ensuring his electoral victory in September 1953, which Moscow had badly wanted to prevent. Undeterred, Molotov continued to insist on unification through negotiations between the two German states as equals - known to be anathema to both West Germany and the United States. He made the solution of the German question on Soviet terms a precondition for ending the four-power occupation regime in Austria as well. Given such positions, the failure of the January 1954 Berlin meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers was a foregone conclusion.
Molotov’s policies followed from the doctrinaire assumption that inherent contradictions among capitalist states would make it possible for the Soviet Union to drive a wedge between Washington and its allies, split the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and expel the United States from Europe. The durability of that assumption despite recurrent disappointments may be explained by a development that gave reason to believe that it would ultimately be proven right. The spreading perception in Western Europe of a diminishing threat made Washington’s pursuit of the European Defense Community (EDC) - the centerpiece of its policy aimed at West Germany’s rearmament - an uphill struggle.
Molotov’s truly original response was his “Monroe doctrine in reverse,” proclaiming the Soviet Union to be Europe’s benevolent protector from outside interference. He called for a European security conference, to which the United States and Canada would not be invited. Ignored, he followed up with a proposal that NATO prove its peaceful intentions by admitting the Soviet Union as a member. Only the belief that the Western alliance was on its last legs could justify such proposals.
Having attended the Geneva conference on Indochina in July 1954, Molotov came to believe there was growing discord within the capitalist camp. The rejection next month of the EDC project by the French National Assembly seemed to corroborate that impression, and vindicate the soundness of Soviet policy. Moscow rushed to congratulate the French on their “patriotic” decision, reiterating the proposal for the security conference as the blueprint for Europe’s future. (Ironically, it would become such a blueprint twenty years later in the form of the Helsinki conference that would ultimately help terminate both the Cold War and the Soviet Union.)
Had the Kremlin shown a conciliatory face at that moment of American distress, Washington would have found it difficult not to respond in kind. That, however, could have happened only if the person in charge of foreign affairs in Moscow had not been a product of the Soviet system as Molotov had been. In any case, the chance passed, and two months later the bankruptcy of his policy was laid bare. For the failed EDC, the West ingeniously substituted the Paris Agreements that provided for German rearmament within NATO. The date set for West Germany’s admission into the alliance - May 1955 - also set the timeframe within which the Soviet Union would either have to reverse this unexpected development or else start cutting its losses. Only now was the stage set for a substantive change in Soviet foreign policy, and the results were little short of spectacular.
World History
