A REAPPRAISAL OF SOVIET POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00904A000500010021-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 10, 2006
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: November 5, 1959
• Content Type: MF

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C E N T R A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A G E N C Y
5 November 1959
SUBJECT: A Reappraisal of Soviet Policy
5NV19'54
1. The course of Soviet foreign policy over the last
year has been puzzling. Exactly one year ago Khrushchev
precipitated the Berlin crisis, potentially the most danger-
ous challenge the Soviets have so far posed to the West.
Yet over the last two months we have heard from him pleas
for peaceful coexistence more insistent, and apparently
more sweeping in their implications, than the Soviets have
offered at any time in the postwar period.
Is There a New Phase in Soviet Policy?
2. Since the change was sudden, coming precisely at the
moment of the President's invitation for Khrushchev to visit
the US, it was possible to be skeptical at first. But his
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subsequent behavior tended to support the view that there had
been a major turning in Soviet tactics. He began by preaching
the new gospel, t1.,-.t all international issues must now be
handled by negotiation in an atmosphere of relaxed tension,
to an obviously ill-disposed audience in Peking. Doubts and
some confusion over the new line were reported from Eastern
Europe, but in East Germany the Soviets ordered Ulbricht to
stop agitating the Berlin issue. Soviet domestic propaganda
consistently led the Soviet people to hope for a promising
new phase in relations with the West.
3. With Khrushchev's speech of October 31 it is clear
that Soviet policy is entering a new phase as compared with
that of a year ago. The speech was a formal programmatic
utterance before the Supreme Soviet. It contained a lengthy
historical and theoretical justification for the new course,
replete with citations from Lenin. Its central message was
that the dangers of nuclear war were so immense that responsible
men had no alternative but to negotiate peaceful accommodations
on those outstanding issues which, if they were left untended,
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would surely bring the ultimate calamity. It promised that
the USSR would approach this task with "flexibility" and a
willingness to make "mutual concessions." It branded those
in the Communist Bloc who might oppose such a policy --
whether these might be Chinese, certain Satellite leaders,
or even elements in the CPSU was not made clear -- as
advocates of "adventurism." The force of this classic Comu-
nist epithet was strengthened by linking it to the hated name
of Trotsky, whose "Pilate's objections" to Lenin's policy on
the Brest-Litovsk peace in 1918 "played into the hands of
the German imperialists."*
What Does the Current Phase in Soviet Policy Mean and
What are Its Limits?
4. In. trying to appraise the change in the Soviet atti-
tude, we should be clear as to what it is not. It is not a
defensive maneuver. It is not suggested that the Soviets are
willing to pay any serious price for reducing tensions.
*
The close parallel between Trotsky's advocacy in the early
years of a "leftist" doctrine of "permanent revolution" and
the new Chinese thesis of "uninterrupted revolution" will not
be lost on the elite of all the Communist parties.
C
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Khrushchev thinks that he is bargaining from strength. "The
main cause of the changed international atmosphere," we are
told, "is the growing might and international influence of
the Soviet Union and of all countries of the world social-
ist system."
5. Disarmament has become for Khrushchev "the main
question." He showed himself much exercised in his speech
to establish the "sincerity" of his UN proposal which he said
had been questioned by skeptics in the West. Khrushchev's
sudden thrusting of disarmament to the forefront .._ it appeared
in his first speech in the US without the usual prior buildup
in Soviet propaganda -- probably had several motives: a) It
was a device for pushing the critical Berlin issue into the
background at a time when he felt that the Soviet demands
could not be pushed farther without getting into a situation
of serious risk; b) It was the theme best suited for propa-
ganda exploitation in connection with his dramatic appearance
at the UN; c) While the UN appeal for total disarmament is
scarcely credible, the circumstances under which it was made
might have been calculated to give added push to the partial
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disarmament measures which nay bbe the real Soviet interest.
These include long-sought Soviet aims -- a ban on nuclear
weapons, atom free zones, abandonment of foreign bases, with-
drawal of troops from Ger.:rany.
6. Khrushchev is no longer demanding the West's de-
parture from Berlin as an immediate first step, nor threat-
ening a separate treaty with East Germany to force the West
out. Instead he speaks of an agreed peace treaty for Germany
as a whole from which a Berlin settlement "follows naturally."
Evidently he does riot now third, that the questions of an all-
German settlement and of Berlin should be attacked directly.
He probably hopes that they can be solved as the end product
of certain agreer.lents on disarr_uu:.ent, especially those which
would alter the military dispositions of both sides on German
territory. His objectives in Germany remain unchanged, how-
ever. They are acceptance by both sides of a Germany indef-
initely divided, a West Germany denied full participation in
NATO's defense programs, and an arrangement about Berlin which
makes the withdrawal of Western influence certain in the end.
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How Long Will t1ne New Phase Last?
7. It seers certain that Khrushchev now has in mind a
fairly prolonged phase of negotiation under conditions of
relaxed tension. The coming summit is seen as only the open-
ing act of the drana. His speech of 31 October, with its
Leninist analysis of the world situation which makes the
course he has charted the only possible one for the CPSU,
and all Comnunists, to follow, is in itself a profound con-
mitnent. He could not reverse himself at an early date with-
out provoking considerable confusion onong the Corinunist
parties. Moreover, he has certainly given rise to great ex-
, would
pectations among the Soviet people which, although t1 e
not be binding for hire, he would doubtless be nest reluctant
to disappoint in any obvious way.
FOR THE BOARD OF NATIONAL ESTTh'IATES
ABBOT SMITH
Acting Chairman
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MEMORANDUM FOR:
The Board has been wrestling with
the problem of Soviet policy. It
has two memos on hand, and con-
siders neither wholly satisfactory.
But here they are.
r_ ~y4~ X959 , ~
FORM NO. l yl REPLACES FORM 10-101
1 AUG 54 V WHICH MAY BE USED.
(DATE)
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