Driving the Soviets up the wall : Soviet-East German relations, 1953-1961
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Driving the Soviets up the wall : Soviet-East German relations, 1953-1961
（Princeton studies in international history and politics）
Princeton University Press, c2003
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [315]-335) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The Berlin Wall was the symbol of the Cold War. For the first time, this path-breaking book tells the behind-the-scenes story of the communists' decision to build the Wall in 1961. Hope Harrison's use of archival sources from the former East German and Soviet regimes is unrivalled, and from these sources she builds a highly original and provocative argument: the East Germans pushed the reluctant Soviets into building the Berlin Wall. This fascinating work portrays the different approaches favored by the East Germans and the Soviets to stop the exodus of refugees to West Germany. In the wake of Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviets refused the East German request to close their border to West Berlin. The Kremlin rulers told the hard-line East German leaders to solve their refugee problem not by closing the border, but by alleviating their domestic and foreign problems. The book describes how, over the next seven years, the East German regime managed to resist Soviet pressures for liberalization and instead pressured the Soviets into allowing them to build the Berlin Wall. "Driving the Soviets Up the Wall" forces us to view this critical juncture in the Cold War in a different light.
Harrison's work makes us rethink the nature of relations between countries of the Soviet bloc even at the height of the Cold War, while also contributing to ongoing debates over the capacity of weaker states to influence their stronger allies.
Table of Contents
List of Maps ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xv Abbreviations xix Introduction: The Dynamics of Soviet-East German Relations in the Early Cold War 1 Chapter One: 1953: Soviet-East German Relations and Power Struggles in Moscow and Berlin 12 Chapter Two: 1956-1958: Soviet and East German Policy Debates in the Wake of the Twentieth Party Congress 49 Chapter Three: 1958-1960: Khrushchev Takes on the West in the Berlin Crisis 96 Chapter Four: 1960-1961: Ulbricht, Khrushchev, and the Berlin Wall 139 Conclusion 224 Notes 235 Note on Sources 311 Bibliography 315 Index 337
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