Válságkezelés a keleti blokkban Sztálin halála után
Conflict Management in the Eastern Block after the Death of Stalin

Summary/Abstract: The aping of Soviet policies had resulted by the early 1950s in serious economic and political damages in all the countries of the Socialist camp. After the death of Stalin a wave of discontent rushed through the region from Bulgaria to Poland. These manifestations of crisis faced the post-Stalinist Soviet leadership with a massive challenge, and forced it to pay a lot more attention to the other countries in the Socialist block. In the first part of the study the author outlines the particular features of the situation that obtained in the German Democratic Republic, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, and examines the forms that the eruption of political discontent could take. She also analyses the reactions of Moscow in the face of crises in Eastern-Europe, and the diverging views that were put forward within the Soviet leadership in order to handle the situation. The author pays in this respect special attention to events that unfolded in Czechoslovakia and East Berlin. The latter merits all the more attention as the suppression of the workers’ movement involved the participation of Soviet troops. It was the East-German rising that spurred the Soviet leadership to initiate a „new course” in the domestic policies of the Socialist countries and to encourage the local leaders to adopt it. The study examines the „counsels” that the Soviet leadership offered for the consolidation of the situation, and also the measures which were taken in the individual countries during the practical application of the new course, as well as the forms of intervention these involved on the part of Moscow.

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