to organise an increasingly sophisticated economy
without relegating the party to a subordinate role
in the state, a subordination which they feared
would undermine the leadership and government
of the USSR. Yet a centralised authoritarian party
structure seeking to take the major decisions
without reference to self-regulatory market forces
is simply not equipped to manage the vast and
complex industry of a modern state. In agricul-
ture various communist efforts to stimulate pro-
duction also proved wasteful of resources.
Khrushchev’s erratic course was especially evi-
dent in his handling of the Soviet Union’s exter-
nal relations. He correctly foresaw the importance
of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles as the
vital deterrent and measure of military power.
‘Going nuclear’, moreover, allowed a reduction in
the size of the Red Army at a time of labour short-
age due to the smaller wartime birth rate. The
launching into space of Sputnik in October 1957
was a rare propaganda triumph – the Soviet Union
appeared briefly to be technologically ahead of the
US. The reverse was true, and the Soviet Union
paid dearly for this propaganda first. It helped to
discredit Eisenhower’s more restrained armaments
policies and prompted John F. Kennedy to close
the ‘missile gap’ that never was. The nuclear-arms
race was significantly accelerated just as the Soviet
Union was closing the real missile gap with the US
in the 1960s.
In the Middle East, Khrushchev took advantage
of Western hostility to Egypt to establish bases in
Egypt and in Syria and to assist in building the
Aswan High Dam. But the benefits Russia gained
were limited and its Arab allies proved uncertain
friends more concerned to take advantage of Soviet
aid than to offer much in return. But Soviet com-
mitments, though costly, were likewise limited.
Khrushchev threatened Britain and France during
the Suez War in November 1956, but they were
idle threats. The US did not withdraw its funda-
mental support of Israel, and the Soviet Union
would not risk a direct military confrontation with
the Americans by involving Russian ‘volunteers’
and pilots in actual fighting in the Middle East.
The Arab states did not want to introduce Soviet-
style communism, or to be dominated by the
Soviet Union as its East European allies were.
Indeed, the identity of interests was a tenuous
one. The shift from Stalin’s European-centred
policy to the post-Stalin global policies cost the
USSR a great deal and yielded few dividends.
The Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, Egypt, Cuba,
Ghana, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Angola and
India all received Soviet aid at various times and
were courted by the Soviet Union. But the
Russians suffered setbacks in all these relation-
ships, most spectacularly in China.
China had expected to be treated as an equal
after Stalin’s death, but although it had developed
an independent world policy it still relied on
Soviet aid. Divergences between the Chinese and
Soviet viewpoints increased as the 1950s drew to
a close. According to Mao, Khrushchev’s empha-
sis on Soviet material advances sapped the true
revolutionary spirit that should be impelling the
communist camp forward in the world. The
Russian leader’s pursuit of detente with the US
after 1958 led the Chinese to conclude that the
world was once again endangered by the national
chauvinism of the two superpowers. This became
even more evident to the Chinese when the
Russians refused to help them to become a
nuclear power. During Khrushchev’s last two
years of leadership the Sino-Soviet break became
unbridgeable.
Ironically, the Soviet–US detente did not last
long, given the way Khrushchev handled it. The
Paris summit in May 1960, intended to seek solu-
tions to Berlin and the German question, was
called off before it began, Khrushchev deciding
against negotiating with Eisenhower in the
terminal period of his presidency, and the U-2
incident provided the means to humiliate the
American president. A meeting with President
Kennedy in Vienna in June 1961 brought the
Russians no nearer to their desired solution of the
German problem. Meanwhile, Berlin remained
the open door through which the citizens of East
Germany poured to express their preference for
the West. The construction of the Berlin Wall in
August 1961 to block that exit became an open
admission of the bankruptcy of Soviet policies and
those of the East German regime. Neither con-
ciliatory statements nor threats, which succeeded
on each other, had much effect on the West
1
THE FALL OF KHRUSHCHEV 483
