The 1950s were a very difficult time for the Soviet Union. In 1953, stalin, the great leader of the Soviet Union, left the place for which he had struggled all his life.
After his death, the Soviet Union and many socialist countries mourned while there was a large-scale upheaval, and for a time the world socialist movement seemed to be plunged into darkness.
And this is closely related to the then US President Eisenhower, what did he do?
U.S. President Eisenhower
The United States and the Soviet Union entered a state of hostility after the end of World War II. In the early confrontation, the United States tried to win the advantage, but it never had a chance.
Until stalin's death, US President Dwight Eisenhower seized the opportunity to launch an attack on the Soviet Union with "psychological warfare".
The United States habitually uses psychological tactics to destroy the enemy. During World War II, the Psychological Warfare Organization "Voice of America" was formed to promote peace and justice to the people of fascist countries through radio broadcasts.
After the war, the United States used such tactics against the Soviet Union. During Truman's presidency, a "Psychological Strategy Committee" was secretly established to be responsible for psychological warfare against the Soviet Union.
The Psychological Strategy Committee successively planned, coordinated, and evaluated a series of psychological warfare plans and projects against the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, including the Psychological Warfare Plan for Refugees of Soviet Satellite Countries and the Psychological Warfare Plan for Countering Soviet Blackmail against the United States.
In this way, the United States wants to convey American values to the people behind the Iron Curtain. However, due to the internal power struggle of the Psychological Strategy Committee and Truman's immature use of psychological tactics, the Psychological Tactics of the United States against the Soviet Union did not achieve the desired effect.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman
When Eisenhower came to power, he abolished the useless Psychological Strategy Committee and formed the "Action Coordination Committee". In order to change the situation of internal power struggle, Eisenhower no longer appointed the head of the office, but the deputy secretary of state directly served as the chairman of the Coordination Committee of Action.
There were fewer power struggles, and the Coordinating Committees of Action functioned more fluidly, with clear- aiming, specific, and professionalism, and developed a large number of psychological tactics against the Soviet Union.
After Stalin's death, the Eisenhower administration saw an opportunity. They formulated more targeted psychological warfare plans and projects, mainly "Psychological Warfare Plan for Exploiting Stalin's Death", "Psychological Warfare Plan for the Economic Security of Soviet Satellite Countries", and so on.
In order to achieve the desired perfect results, the Operational Coordination Committee regularly evaluates the implementation of the plan and revises the details in it to continuously refine psychological tactics.
The U.S. Congress also strongly supported it, allocating a large amount of funds for the operation.
The "Voice of America" broke through the Iron Curtain 24 hours a day, propagating American values over and over again and forcibly "brainwashing" the people behind the "Iron Curtain."
A war without smoke and smoke began. Under the unremitting offensive of the United States, the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe were affected.
In June 1953, three months after Stalin's death, East Germany, which bordered the Western countries, was first affected. A mass strike movement broke out in the capital, East Berlin.
In just two days, 500 factories and enterprises, nearly 300,000 people were involved.
Shouting slogans such as "oppose the Soviet 'occupying forces', demand higher wages and improve living conditions", they marched and demonstrated in the streets as many as 60 times, triggering multiple bloody incidents with the police and killing 55 people.
6.17 East Germany
These U.S. plans soon saw results. After the events in East Germany, the leaders of the Soviet Union and some socialist countries in Eastern Europe began to reflect and question some of Stalin's policies.
Where did they know that they had jumped into the deadly trap designed by the United States!
Eisenhower
At the same time, the United States has gradually improved its strategic plan in the continuous "actual combat". On the basis of psychological warfare, Eisenhower added a new content - peaceful evolution.
After the peaceful evolution was formally proposed, the Coordinating Committee for Action submitted to Eisenhower a memorandum entitled "The Psychological Strategy of Geneva" to regain the initiative in the psychological propaganda war by proposing "open skies" to the Soviet government at the Geneva Summit of the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France.
Soviet leader Khrushchev did not hesitate to reject the U.S. proposal, which he considered a naked spy plot by the United States to target the Soviet Union.
After the Geneva Summit, the United States publicized the idea of "opening the sky" to the socialist camp through speeches, movies, leaflets, cartoons, press conferences, etc., in an attempt to force Khrushchev to submit through popular public opinion.
Khrushchev was pressured to sit at the negotiating table and negotiate with Eisenhower.
Although until the end, the Soviet Union did not sign any agreement with the United States, the United States succeeded in shaping a glorious image before the people of the world. And that's the propaganda strategy for the Peaceful Evolution Plan.
Eisenhower's offensive against the Soviet Union did not stop because of a small victory. After the Geneva Summit, the U.S. government introduced a series of policies in a year's time, reaffirming once again the determination of the United States to continue to "force changes in the nature and policy of the Communist regime in the Soviet Union."
To achieve this, Eisenhower made full use of anti-communistism, nationalism, and people's capital to launch another offensive against the Soviet Union.
Khrushchev and Eisenhower
In 1956, the U.S. Coordinating Committee for Action and the U.S. Information Service, through U.S. personnel in the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, began distributing and sending "special packages" filled with propaganda materials to intellectuals and journalists behind the Iron Curtain.
In this particular package, the United States hypes up the so-called "people's capitalism" and declares that under such a system, workers live a prosperous life and families are happy.
With the cooperation of the American Broadcasting Commission, similar propaganda content continued to appear in the lives of people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
To ramp up the output, Eisenhower delivered a speech at the University of Burrough in May, introducing a "People-to-People Partnership" program to the American people.
At the heart of the program was to encourage U.S. citizens who traveled, worked, or were associated with the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries to "create a wave of anti-Soviet and anti-socialism by helping to convey the truth about the peaceful goals advocated by our country and the Americans."
Eisenhower's purpose was achieved. After Khrushchev's speech, which completely negated Stalin, a massive demonstration broke out in Poland and Hungary.
Many workers and citizens took to the streets to demand that the government step down, and even the demonstration crowd attacked the municipal building.
Events in Poland in 1956
These two events had a greater impact on the socialist camp and almost caused a split in the camp.
After gaining the upper hand in the peaceful evolution offensive, Eisenhower took advantage of the victory and in 1958, he promoted the "agreement on cultural, technological and educational exchanges" between the United States and the Soviet Union, opening up a history of cultural exchange and confrontation between the two countries.
The United States began to carry out psychological tactics against the Soviet Union through official channels. After that, almost every two years, the United States and the Soviet Union exchanged.
Khrushchev visited the United States
In 1989, eastern Europe underwent drastic changes, and the major socialist countries changed from socialism to capitalism. Two years later the Soviet Union collapsed, and the world socialist movement suffered a major setback.
Since then, the number of socialist countries has been countless. Western countries, on the other hand, have attributed this major event to the credit of "peaceful evolution."
More than 20 years later, the United States and its allies have repeated their old tricks to promote "peaceful evolution" in the Middle East for the sake of Middle East resources, creating an "Arab Spring" and causing turmoil in the Middle East to this day.
Even today, the United States is still playing with the policy of "peaceful evolution." For such "conspiracies and tricks", we should learn from the overthrow of the past.
Resources
QIU Bin. The Evolution of American Cultural Policy Toward the Soviet Union during Eisenhower's First Term[J].Journal of the School of International Relations, 2012, (No. 1).
FAN Baiyu. Controlling Peace: The Adjustment of the Eisenhower Administration's Policy Toward the Soviet Union[J].Studies in the History of Modern and Contemporary International Relations, 2018, (No. 1).