Khrushchev's Double Bind International Pressures and Domestic Coalition Politics

9780801848148

0801848148

How do world leaders manage the competing priorities of maintaining support at home and credibility in the international arena? In Khrushchev's Double Bind James Richter explores this conflict by examining the case of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Richter argues that in order to hold power and pursue his political agenda at home, Khrushchev needed to maintain his standing as an effective world leader. His successes--especially in winning concessions from the United States--contributed to his power base and ability to grant favors and effect change in the Soviet Union. Likewise, the more support he gained from Soviet colleagues, the better he could influence international affairs and increase the U.S.S.R.'s prestige. Richter explores ways in which certain images of the international environment became entrenched in the U.S.S.R.'s domestic institutions, furnished the backdrop for international actions meant to gain domestic support, and provided the standards by which the success or failure of competing strategies would be judged. The first book to make use of recent disclosures in the Russian archives, Khrushchev's Double Bind offers new perspectives on the interaction of international events and domestic bargaining in Soviet foreign policymaking during the 1950s and early 1960s. "Richter presents a very important reinterpretation of Khrushchev's 1958 Berlin ultimatum. Khrushchev's purpose was to show Politburo conservatives that the 'correlation of forces' had shifted sufficiently in the favor of socialism to allow international successes simultaneously with unilateral defense cuts. Richter marshalls impressive evidence in support of this interpretation. The work is systematic, persuasive, and larded with new information from archives, memoirs and other new sources."--Jack Snyder, Columbia University