Waging the Cold War: the origins and launch of Western cooperation to absorb migrants from Eastern Europe, 1948-57

This article reconstructs the gradual process leading the Western powers to cooperate to absorb migrants from Eastern Europe, from the February 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état to the 1956-57 Hungarian crisis. This study reveals that cooperation to manage migration became a major component of West...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCold war history Vol. 20; no. 4; pp. 461 - 481
Main Author Comte, Emmanuel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 01.10.2020
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Cold War
Communism
Cooperation
Coups d'etat
Hungarian crisis
ICEM
International cooperation
Migrants
Migration
Refugees
Eastern Europe
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Summary:This article reconstructs the gradual process leading the Western powers to cooperate to absorb migrants from Eastern Europe, from the February 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état to the 1956-57 Hungarian crisis. This study reveals that cooperation to manage migration became a major component of Western Cold War strategy. Centred on the German predicament, it was first a way to contain the Soviet Union by reducing the pressures affecting Western countries bordering Eastern Europe. It also became an offensive strategy aiming at encouraging outflows from Eastern Europe to weaken Communist governments. Only cooperation at a Western level could achieve those objectives.
ISSN:1468-2745
1743-7962
DOI:10.1080/14682745.2020.1756781