Forty-five years ago Nikita Khrushchev visited Sweden. Also, forty-five years ago the epoch in Soviet history that is connected with his name  ended. This book has its origin in contributions to a conference in 2004  called the ‘Peaceful co-existence? Relations between the USSR and Sweden during the Khrushchev era 1953–1964’. The aim of the conference was to present research endeavours undertaken in the field of Soviet foreign policy and relations with the world in the 1990’s and the 2000’s when critical archival documents on Soviet history were made accessible for the scholarly world both inside and outside Russia. Furthermore, the aims of the conference were to discuss central lines of Soviet and Swedish foreign policy and the main events in Soviet-Swedish relations in the years of Khrushchev regime.