How would you feel, and how would you approach decision-making and policy formulation, if you were a superpower running the world? Soviet leaders spent the Cold War grappling with that very question as they navigated the international conflict with both the United States and China. This struggle shaped Soviet policies, moving from the chaos of World War II, under Joseph Stalin’s drive for territorial expansion, to Nikita Khrushchev’s foreign adventures and nuclear threats, then to Leonid Brezhnev’s maneuvers to extend influence in the Third World, and finally to Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempts to reinvent Moscow’s claims to greatness, which ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
This long history—whose legacy still lingers in Russia today—teaches a key lesson about the ability of political leaders to align their ideas and aspirations with reality. This is the focus of Sergey Radchenko’s 2024 book, To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power.
The book offers an unprecedented deep dive into the psychology of decision-making within the Kremlin, revealing that the Cold War was from the start a “three-sided problem.” The Soviets were trying to achieve an elusive parity with the United States while China alternated between attracting and repelling both powers.
Despite acknowledging the difficulty of accessing Kremlin archives under Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Radchenko managed to rely on some documents related to the Cold War era, released over the past decade from Soviet government and Communist Party archives, as well as personal papers of former Kremlin leaders.
A Significant Gap
Radchenko’s central argument revolves around the major gap between the ideology upon which the Soviet Union was founded and the extent to which it sought to impose its authority. He argues that “what the Soviets considered their ‘legitimate’ interests were not seen as ‘legitimate’ by anyone else, leading to a form of existential insecurity that was compensated for by arrogance and aggression” from Kremlin rulers.
For instance, Stalin’s simultaneous commitment to global revolution and the security of the state he ruled was linked to his belief that the Soviet Union deserved a prominent place in international affairs. Yet, its security demanded repressive practices like arbitrary purges and enormous wartime sacrifices. Radchenko suggests that the problem was that the unilateral imposition of policies could not guarantee security, status, or legitimacy. This drove Stalin to enhance the Soviet Union’s international reputation while safeguarding its domestic security, all while maintaining legitimacy in both spheres.
Radchenko defines legitimacy as a sense of satisfaction with the status quo. Stalin, according to the author, could achieve this in matters he controlled entirely. However, Stalin didn’t fully realize his belief that the Anglo-Saxons, as greedy capitalists, would end up fighting each other, leaving Europeans outside the Soviet sphere to voluntarily choose communist parties to lead them, aligning with Moscow’s desires.
When that didn’t happen and Moscow failed to secure legitimacy, Stalin resorted to improvisation as a last resort, such as hesitating to respond to the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction after World War II, the limited concern over the Czechoslovak coup, the unsuccessful Berlin blockade, and the failed attempt to remove the communist Tito regime in Yugoslavia—the only regime in Europe enjoying local legitimacy at the time.
Communism Undermines Itself
Radchenko argues that Stalin, as a European, did not intend to “turn the world red,” but Khrushchev was more ambitious. He believed that national liberation movements in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East would look to the Soviet Union for leadership. Khrushchev began with his “secret speech” in 1956, denouncing Stalin’s policies at the Twentieth Party Congress. According to Radchenko, however, the speech was of little value but, when leaked, it caused internal panic, sparking uprisings in Poland and Hungary, and disillusioning communists in France, Italy, and Scandinavia, as well as creating deep mistrust in Mao Zedong, who had looked up to Stalin after his death.
Indeed, communism spread globally, but in a way that immediately fragmented it. Perhaps the successful launch of the “Sputnik” satellite in 1957 might have countered these losses, but Khrushchev’s subsequent attempts to leverage the situation—such as launching satellites and emphasizing the Soviet Union’s production of consumer goods like refrigerators—were intended to demonstrate communist superiority in all aspects, including production. The author suggests that Khrushchev’s pursuit of legitimacy for the Soviet Union relied on accelerating history in unexpected ways, leading to complex and entangled outcomes, making this period of history particularly fascinating in terms of how policies and decisions shaped the world’s future.
Nuclear Deception
Despite Khrushchev’s efforts, consumer goods and electronics were slow to appear in Soviet homes. This was especially disappointing in East Germany, where capitalism was visibly thriving in West Berlin after World War II. In response, Khrushchev attempted to solve the situation by bluffing about producing large numbers of missiles, aiming to end Western rights in the city by threatening nuclear war. However, U.S. spy planes and satellite imagery revealed that the Soviet military had not produced as many missiles as Khrushchev had boasted about.
Once exposed, Khrushchev allowed East Germans to build a wall around West Berlin and authorized an aerial test of a massive, unusable thermonuclear bomb. He then sent nuclear-armed missiles to Cuba under the leadership of Fidel Castro, the only communist front in the Western Hemisphere, in a bid to regain global respect by threatening global annihilation. Tired of these risks, Khrushchev’s Kremlin colleagues removed him from power in October 1964, paving the way for Brezhnev to gradually consolidate authority, becoming the longest-serving Soviet leader after Stalin.
This chapter in Soviet history reveals how Khrushchev’s attempts to gain legitimacy and power through nuclear brinkmanship and false boasts ultimately led to his downfall. It was a crucial moment in the Cold War, showing that policies built on deception and high-risk strategies are unsustainable and can lead to dangerous consequences.
Legitimacy Troubles
The narrative then shifts to the era of Leonid Brezhnev, who remained steady and reassuring until his health began to decline in the mid-1970s. Brezhnev’s role in the rest of the 1960s was to replace Khrushchev’s deceptions with real capabilities, creating a balance in strategic arms that allowed for arms limitation agreements in the 1970s, a key achievement of Brezhnev’s tenure.
Brezhnev’s second priority was related to drawing boundaries in international competition. The Cold War competition would continue in certain regions, with Brezhnev clearly stating that the Soviet Union would continue to support “wars of national liberation” in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, while the U.S., though less explicit, was committed to fighting “wars of containment” in those same regions. At the same time, Brezhnev sought to maintain the status quo in Europe, which was divided into a communist East and a capitalist West.
The third priority was personal diplomacy. Unlike Stalin and Khrushchev, who did not attempt to build long-term relationships with American or Western leaders, Brezhnev pursued Nixon passionately, creating a relationship that represented a point of strength for both Brezhnev and the international proletarian revolution. However, Radchenko notes that legitimacy can be a double-edged sword. As Nixon and Kissinger pushed the Soviets out of the Middle East after the 1973 war, Brezhnev two years later expanded Soviet activities in East and Southern Africa following the American defeat in Vietnam. Third parties could also disrupt delicate balances, as China did when it welcomed Nixon to Beijing in 1972.
Finally, Radchenko explores the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, who found himself caught between all the previous legitimacies of Kremlin rulers. His tenure ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev aimed to reform the system in a way that would make Europeans welcome his country into their fold, Americans view him as a partner in securing world order, and the world recognize his personal distinction as the “strategic president of change.” However, his lack of legitimacy at home deprived Gorbachev of the broader legitimacy he sought.
In conclusion, while Radchenko does not offer precise predictions, he suggests that for those seeking to identify patterns and parallels over time and place, his book offers valuable insights that could reshape how historians think about the Soviet Union and Russia’s longer history, which has now, quite unexpectedly, produced Putin as a new tsar.
If the overall lesson from Soviet leaders during the Cold War is that authoritarian regimes struggle more with legitimacy than democracies do, this is not the central lesson of the book. Rather, Radchenko’s analysis serves as a reminder that rigidity, wherever it appears, can be fatal, while adaptability, on the other hand, can turn even the most precarious situations into opportunities for growth and strength.
Source:
Sergey Radchenko, To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power, Cambridge University Press, 2024.
