Stalin and the Bomb

by David Holloway

In spite of Molotov’s misgivings, “peaceful coexistence” soon became a standard term in the Soviet political lexicon. It was a significant innovation, as Molotov’s criticism indicates. By asserting that capitalism and socialism could coexist for a long time, the new leaders were rejecting Stalin’s vision of another world war within fifteen to twenty years of the end of World War II. “Peaceful coexistence” was defined as the alternative to nuclear war, as the policy that had to be followed if nuclear war was to be avoided. Khrushchev, for example, writes in his memoirs that the main issue for Mao was “not peaceful coexistence but how to prepare for war and to defeat our enemies in war.”122 Peaceful coexistence did not mean ideological coexistence, however, nor did it entail renunciation of the struggle with imperialism. But that struggle had to be conducted in such a way as to avoid nuclear war.