White Spots—Black Spots by Adam Daniel Rotfeld Anatoly V. Torkunov

Author:Adam Daniel Rotfeld, Anatoly V. Torkunov [Adam Daniel Rotfeld, Anatoly V. Torkunov]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822980957
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 2015-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

The Crisis of Stalinism in Poland in Reaction to the Soviet Crisis of Power

The beginnings of de-Stalinization in the center and the mechanisms of their transfer to the Polish periphery in 1953–55 do not yield interesting material relating to our chief point of interest, that is, the structure of Poland’s dependence/subordination. The role of the respective factions in Warsaw and in Moscow, the nature of their ties, the progress of the infighting—all these issues hardly function as “difficult matters” in Polish-Russian relations. Furthermore, without access to the Moscow archives, little more can be said on the subject. We do know that the losers included the security apparatus and, to a certain extent, the armed forces, though not necessarily the military-industrial complex (it is unclear if, in the Polish conditions, it constituted an identifiable, self-aware lobby).

Events that occurred 10–14 May 1955 seem more relevant to our topic: when Khrushchev came to the Polish capital to sign the Warsaw Pact, he was accompanied by Molotov, still the Soviet foreign minister. One of the greatest achievements in Molotov’s career was the conclusion of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, including the infamous secret protocol. Sixteen years later, it was one of the many fundamental historical facts zealously denied throughout the bloc. In May 1955, the Soviet Union was consolidating and bringing order to its “external empire” in Europe, which it had partly acquired in 1939 and 1940 under the 1939 treaties and partly conquered militarily in 1944–45. Molotov’s presence was supposed to lend credibility to stabilization, the creation of a legal network, and a reduction of tensions (the Soviet Union had proposed a conference on peace and security in Europe), that is, sui generis détente in Europe. It was irony at its finest and, at the same time, convincing proof that de-Stalinization, with its inevitable impact on relations between the Moscow center and the European periphery, remained, at least until the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, a process that was uncertain, unclear, and equivocal.

Conclusions

There has been no development after 1989 of the discussion—quite vigorous in the previous two decades, particularly among Western historians—on the mechanisms (e.g., reactive) or the inevitability of the Stalinization of the Soviet Union’s foreground in Europe. In this situation, an interpretation of the transitional period, formulated a quarter of a century earlier by Dietrich Geyer, has retained its validity:

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