Between NATO and the “European Army”? Projects of European Security Guarantees and Politics of the USSR in 1954

The article analyzes the Soviet Union's 1954 statement about the possible participation of the USSR in the North Atlantic Alliance, based on new documentary sources from Russian and foreign archives. As the analysis of the documents shows, this proposal was in line with the Soviet leadership's logic that NATO was the lesser of two evils, and that Soviet participation could completely change its nature and even become one of the foundations of European security, along with the collective treaty proposed by the USSR. The author concludes that although the statement was propagandistic, it was not the only consideration in this Soviet initiative. It contributed to the failure to establish the EEC in 1954 and reflected the greater flexibility of Soviet diplomacy in the post-Stalin era.