The Price of Peace

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 вЂpremature’. 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 вЂcentre’, 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 вЂpeaceful coexistence’ ...»