In the summer of 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was looking for guidelines for his foreign policy. The thaw in relations with the West was finally behind us and the consequences of the Berlin crisis were being felt. A year earlier, in the fall, American and Soviet tanks faced each other for nearly a day at Checkpoint Charlie in central Berlin, ready for battle. On the evening of August 1, GDR government head and party leader Walter Ulbricht told Khrushchev in Moscow that a year after the Berlin Wall was built, they needed to discuss some fundamental issues.

Plans for the first broadcast of Deutsche Welle radio in Russian were not preserved. But with a high degree of probability, Ulbricht’s visit to Moscow was reported in it. Shortly afterwards, the Kremlin demanded the withdrawal of the contingent of the three Western Allied powers from Berlin. This would amount to a gross violation of the so-called “four-party agreement on Berlin” and the leadership in Moscow was fully aware that Washington, Paris and London could not agree to this under any circumstances.

Nuclear weapons as a threat on the world stage

It is here that the first parallels with the present can be drawn. Was it not the Kremlin leadership that a few months ago again made completely unacceptable demands, clearly realizing that the recipient – the Washington government – would not agree with them under any circumstances? Just before ordering an attack on Ukraine, Putin demanded that the West carry out a complete overhaul of the existing world order that had been established in post-Cold War Europe – which would lead to the dismantling of NATO. Absolutely unacceptable.

Khrushchev decided in the summer of 1962 to go even higher. His diplomats were negotiating with communist friends in Cuba to sign an agreement on military and other assistance. On a Caribbean island, right under the nose of the United States, Soviet nuclear weapons would be deployed. The United States responded with all the political determination that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

But precisely here the parallel between yesterday and today disappears. Although President Putin has talked about the possible use of nuclear weapons since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, these nuclear threats have remained and remain vague, so Western observers see this more as a gesture of intimidation. Although it affects some Westerners, it is useless from a military point of view. Threats with a nuclear club – 60 years ago, they were perceived differently.

Beware of suggestive parallels

Russia is not the Soviet Union. Even as Russian soldiers sport the Soviet-era regiment colors during their bloody offensive in Ukraine. Even if the Russian historical policy of recent years consists of an increasingly manipulative embellishment of the image of the USSR. The Cold War we know from history cannot be compared to the new confrontation between East and West in the digital age. Comparisons are always ragged, especially historical comparisons, even if they seem to prove that everything was once so.

In the fall of 1962, the literary magazine Novy Mir published Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Anyone looking for parallels and comparisons, ask yourself, is it possible today, in 2022, to imagine that such dissident literature could bypass Russian censorship? However, modern censorship also knows that its effectiveness is limited in the digital world. Information will always find its way – even to Russia, which is trying to block questionable Internet sites. Russian technical internet censorship has proven to be as ineffective as Soviet attempts to block DW’s shortwave signal 60 years ago. Even so, Solzhenitsyn’s texts could be heard on DW radio.

The world situation in 1962 was so deplorable that the Norwegian committee could not find anyone to award the Nobel Peace Prize. I wonder if anyone will make it this year – and if so, who. We will definitely announce this on all Russian language platforms.

Posted by Christian Trippe, Head of Eastern Europe and Editor-in-Chief of DW Russia

The commentary expresses the author’s personal opinion. It may not agree with the opinion of Russian editors and Deutsche Welle in general.