From March to June Beria acted in close alliance with Malenkov. Together they swayed the Praesidium, probably against Molotov's and certainly against Khrushchev's opposition or semi-opposition. Jointly they represented the strongest bloc of power within the Praesidium. The new policy aroused great hopes and was undoubtedly very popular; and as long as this was so, nobody could challenge Malenkov's and Beria's joint authority.
(Against this interpretation the old argument may be advanced that under a totalitarian regime the states of the popular mind and the sodal, cultural and moral trends at work in society are of no political importance. In his criticism of Russia After Stalin, Mr. George F. Kennan, for instance, writes that the ‘majority of students of modern totalitarianism … feel that if the ruling group remains united, vigilant and ruthless, it need not defer extensively to, or be seriously influenced by, subjective feelings within the populace at large’. And again: ‘In general, totalitarian leaders who retain their internal unity and their ruthlessness can scoff at subjective states of the popular mind…’ (My italics—I.D.)
Mr. Kennan's words, written before Beria's fall, reflected an assumption that there was no need for Western policy to take into account any genuine divisions within the Soviet ruling group, because no such divisions existed. This assumption has been proved wrong. But what conclusion is to be drawn from the fact that the Soviet ruling group does not ‘remain united’ and does not ‘retain its internal unity’? Surely the ‘subjective states of the popular mind’ do acquire some political significance thereby? And those states of mind may in part even account for the differences within the ruling group itself?)
From the beginning, however, the forces opposed to the Malenkov-Beria policy were formidable. The old hands of the political police were not idle. Some party stalwarts were shocked by the all round break with the old-established canons of Stalinism. Some chiefs of armed forces pondered with alarm the implications of the quasi-liberal reforms: Would the reforms not cause a slump in labour discipline and imperil the armament programmes? By dint of tradition the army has been the mouthpiece of ‘Great Russian chauvinism’ and has viewed with suspicion and hostility the ‘centrifugal’ nationalisms of the outlying Republics. Some marshals and generals could not adopt a favourable attitude towards a foreign policy obviously directed towards an eventual withdrawal of the occupation armies from Germany and Austria.
But the coalition of shocked Stalinist diehards, resentful policemen, and anxious generals was helpless as long as the new policy was triumphantly carried forward on a tide of popular enthusiasm. The first hitches apparently occurred on the home front. To judge from circumstantial evidence, labour discipline did slump in industry, and collective farms lagged with food deliveries. But these hitches were either not serious enough to permit the opponents of the new policy to launch a frontal attack on it, or else they did not provide convenient ground for such an attack.
It was Eastern Germany that gave the opponents of the new policy the opportunity they had eagerly awaited.
The Germans who on 16 and 17 June descended upon the streets, clamouring for the dismissal of the government of Pieck and Ulbricht, assailing the People's Police, and meeting Russian tanks with a hail of stones, did in fact bring about an upheaval; but the upheaval took place in Moscow, not in Berlin.
Almost certainly a cry against ‘appeasement’ went up at once within the walls of the Kremlin. Army chiefs could now argue that it was the army that had to bear the consequences of the neck-breaking political experiments started by the civilians; that order reigned in Eastern Germany as long as General Chuikov ruled there with an iron hand; that the trouble began as soon as the general had been replaced by Semyonov, as High Commissioner, and a civilian regime had been established; and that then it was the army that had to rescue that regime.
Starting from the German issue the critics could turn against the new policy as a whole. They could point out that not only Germany but the West at large was receiving Russian concessions as proof of Russian weakness; and that Washington in particular was using these concessions as the starting point for an intensified on-slaught on Russia's positions in Eastern and Central Europe.
Moreover, the ruling group saw that the new policy was indeed becoming a source of weakness for Russia: it plunged the whole of Eastern Europe into a turmoil; it caused a rapid deterioration in Russia's bargaining position; it tempted American diplomacy to pass from ‘containment’ to ‘liberation’; and it threatened to rob Russia of the fruits of her victory in the Second World War, without any compensating gains.
The ‘appeasers’ may still have argued that the new line had not yet been given a chance; that it would be wrong to abandon it immediately after it had encountered the first difficulties; and that only by persisting patiently in the policy of concessions could the Soviet Government reap its benefits.
But after the earthquake in Eastern Germany, after the tremors in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, after all the calls for a tough policy which resounded from Washington, the argument against ‘appeasement’ carried more weight in the Kremlin.
In Russia as in the United States there exist groups which hold the view that all peace-seeking is futile; these groups regard with Schadenfreude any setback suffered by the conciliators. The position of such groups was now greatly enhanced: the advocates of a tough policy in the West had effectively played into their hands.
There is no reason, however, to assume that after 16 and 17 June these extremists became the real masters of Soviet policy. The core of the ruling group still consists of men prepared to seek agreement with the West. But even the men of the ‘centre’ must have been affected by the arguments against ‘appeasement’. They had to admit that the conduct of Soviet policy since Stalin's death was rather inept in some respects.
They had to admit that Moscow was overhasty in making concessions and over-zealous in demonstrating its willingness to make further and more far-reaching concessions. Official spokesmen had many times confidently stated that the government would never accept Washington's demand that Russia must yield substantial ground before the West opened negotiations. In fact Malenkov's government behaved as if it had tacitly accepted that demand — it did make concessions in advance of negotiations.
Even from the viewpoint of the Soviet appeaser the initiation of the mild course in Eastern Germany turned out to have been ‘premature’. It provoked a near collapse of the Communist regime there.
From the Soviet viewpoint it would have been justifiable to take such risks only after the West had agreed to an all-round withdrawal of the occupation armies. The undoing of the Communist regime in Eastern Germany would then be the price Russia paid for a German settlement and a stop to the armament race. But to start paying this price so early in the game was the peak of folly, from the Kremlin's viewpoint.
Thus even the men of the ‘centre’, who had hitherto backed the new policy, had to recognize the need for a change in tone and perhaps in tactics, even if they were not at all inclined to give up the quest for ‘peaceful coexistence’. Finding themselves under deadly fire from the extreme groups, they were all too anxious to disclaim responsibility for the ‘appeasement’ of recent months, and to throw the blame for it on someone else.