After Stalin: the Soviet Union, Europe, and the wider world, 1953–56

As well as heralding a series of momentous changes within Soviet domestic politics and society, the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953 also brought forward important shifts of tone and substance in foreign policy that seemed to indicate a relaxation of tensions in the Cold War might be possible. At Stalin’s funeral, the new premier, Georgy Malenkov, pronounced that the Soviet Union accepted a policy that acknowledged “prolonged coexistence and peaceful competition of two different systems, capitalist and socialist.” Henceforth international cooperation, with the aim of reducing the possibility of war with the United States and fostering world peace would, he said, be the basis of Soviet policy.