On March 5, 1953 the future of the Cold War was at a crossroads. Soviet Premiere Joseph Stalin, the man who had been the architect of communist party policy since 1924, died. Stalin was a dictator who had ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist from the outset. He was known for executing or exiling those who opposed him from government officials to the peasant farmer; his rule was absolute. In the immediate years following his death, the Russians began a process called destalinization in an attempt to restore the faith of the people in the government and communist policies. Leaders around the world, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower, were hopeful that a change in political leadership could change the tide of the Cold War.
In his speech "The Chance for Peace" (excerpted below) delivered to a national audience on April 16, 1953, Eisenhower expressed his hopes for a change of course on the "dreaded road" that Soviet policies under Stalin had created in the eight years following World War II. He said in his address, "This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace." The blame for the tensions and fears of the Cold War were placed squarely at the feet of Stalin and his desire for absolute control and now that he was gone, their was a chance for change. Although Eisenhower was optimistic about the future, he emphasized that the U.S. policies and those of it's allies would remain steadfast in their convictions for the protection of freedom around the world. The door was open for for the Soviets to join forces with other nations around the world to ensure a peaceful and prosperous future, but the choice was theirs alone to make.
The Chance for Peace, President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953
The Soviet government held a vastly different vision of the future.
In the world of its design, security was to be found, not in mutual trust and mutual aid but in force: huge armies, subversion, rule of neighbor nations. The goal was power superiority at all cost. Security was to be sought by denying it to all others.
The result has been tragic for the world and, for the Soviet Union, it has also been ironic. The amassing of Soviet power alerted free nations to a new danger of aggression. It compelled them in self-defense to spend unprecedented money and energy for armaments. It forced them to develop weapons of war now capable of inflicting instant and terrible punishment upon any aggressor.
It instilled in the free nations--and let none doubt this--the unshakable conviction that, as long as there persists a threat to freedom, they must, at any cost, remain armed, strong, and ready for the risk of war.
It inspired them--and let none doubt this--to attain a unity of purpose and will beyond the power of propaganda or pressure to break, now or ever.
There remained, however, one thing essentially unchanged and unaffected by Soviet conduct: the readiness of the free nations to welcome sincerely any genuine evidence of peaceful purpose enabling all peoples again to resume their common quest of just peace.
The free nations, most solemnly and repeatedly, have assured the Soviet Union that their firm association has never had any aggressive purpose whatsoever. Soviet leaders, however, have seemed to persuade themselves, or tried to persuade their people, otherwise.
And so it has come to pass that the Soviet Union itself has shared and suffered the very fears it has fostered in the rest of the world.
This has been the way of life forged by 8 years of fear and force.
What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road?
The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
The worst is atomic war.
The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that comes with this spring of 1953.
This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace.
It is a moment that calls upon the governments of the world to speak their intentions with simplicity and with honesty. It calls upon them to answer the question that stirs the hearts of all sane men: is there no other way the world may live?...
If we strive but fail and the world remains armed against itself, it at least need be divided no longer in its clear knowledge of who has condemned humankind to this fate.
The purpose of the United States, in stating these proposals, is simple and clear.
These proposals spring, without ulterior purpose or political passion, from our calm conviction that the hunger for peace is in the hearts of all peoples--those of Russia and of China no less than of our own country.
They conform to our firm faith that God created men to enjoy, not destroy, the fruits of the earth and of their own toil. They aspire to this: the lifting, from the backs and from the hearts of men, of their burden of arms and of fears, so that they may find before them a golden age of freedom and of peace.
1. According to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, what were the best and worst options for the hopes of the world if the Cold War continued on its current state?
2. According the address, what was being wasted as result of the Cold War? Why?
3. According to the address, what are the benefits to ending or reducing the fears and tensions created by the Cold War?
References
Corbin, B. (2008). Stars of Political Cartooning – Herb “Herblock” Block. Comic Book Resources Retrieved from http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/06/stars-of-political-cartooning-herb-block/
Eisenhower, D. D. (n.d.). Speeches. Retrieved 2015, from Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home: http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/all_about_ike/speeches/chance_for_peace.pdf