Khrushchev and de-Stalinisation

1953

Stalin’s death and power struggle

Power struggle after Stalin’s death → summary of first part

Gathered momentum after emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers, the party Central Committee and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR

A rationalisation of Stalin’s Presidium was agreed along with clarification of the roles of leading communists

4 rivals emerged from this

Rivals in power struggle → who??

Malenkov

Beria

Khrushechev

Vorishilov

Malenkov

• Became chairman of the Council of Ministers+ head of government (Premier)

• Role as well as first secretary of the party → demoted from party secretary two weeks after Stalin’s death

• As suspected of colluding with Beria in order to for a duopoly of power

Beria

• Appointed Minister of Internal Affairs (MVD) → office which absorbed previously titled People’s Commissariat for State Security (NKGB)

• Some thought he had been involved in the murder of Stalin → soon denounced as a traitor, arrested, executed

After Beria was shot in 1953 what happened?

MVD placed under control of party rather than one individual

Khrushchev

• 1949-1953: First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee, also a Secretary of the Central Committee.

• Gained post of secretary of the Party Central Committee from Malenkov

• Not most significant job, but actually meant that K in touch with desires and needs of party members

• Useful power base

• 1953 (September): Elected First Secretary of the Communist Party (the de facto top leader), serving until 1964. 

Vorishilov

Appointed president of USSR, to act as a figurehead

Other events after Stalin death

• Presidium reduced to 10 members

• by 1956 1/3 Party Central Committee new

• Similar replacement of 1/2 of secretaries in republic and local party committees

Collective leadership

Notion after Stalin’s death → conflict between Malenkov and Khrushchev meant hard to achieve

What did Malenkov want

Advocating consumerism and Westernisation → those who opposed said it reflected desires of administration, not the people

Khrushchev response

Virgin Land Campaign → launched in 1954, aimed to increase production by extending the area of cultivated land eastwards, mainly into Siberia and Kazakhstan.

Believed would lead to more internal wealth + stability + solve economic issues

By 1955 what had happened

Malenkov forced to resign as Premier (essentially Prime Minister) under pressure from Khrushchev → demoted to minister for power stations, replaced by Bulganin (more sympathetic towards K)

What did K want to do next?

• Keen to move Russia way from governance based on extreme repression → believed this had tarnished USSR reputation overseas, unhelpful in time of international Cold War tension

• Thought people would welcome alternative to Stalin repression

• Launched scathing attack on Stalin => DE-STALINISATION

Start of de-Stalinisation

Twentieth Party Congress 1956 → speech on ‘The Cult of the Individual and its Consequences’ → a secret speech

K criticisms of S

• Never been accepted by Lenin as potential leader

• State that was unprepared for military conflict in 1941

• Unforgivable crimes against people

• Misdemeanours against ‘outsiders’ who should have been embraced by USSR leadership → e.g. assassination of Hungarian revolutionary leader Béla Kun

Impacts of Secret Speech

Contents not officially released until 1961

But outcry among senior party members

Anti-Party Group → motives + actions

• Opposed Khrushchev

• Attempted to abolish the post of first secretary of the party

• Would have destroyed K’s power base

K response to Anti-Party Group

• Chief protagonists, Molotov, Kagonovich and Malenkov, quickly dealt with by Khrushchev

• K pointed out that only the party Central Committee could change the party organisational structure

• 3 opponents actions illegal → removed from Presidium

• 1957 these opponents gone

Bulganin aligned himself with an unsuccessful attempt to oust Khrushchev in 1957 → K replaced him as Premier 1958

1958

Khrushchev became Premier i.e. head of government

Total power of USSR

Key features of de-Stalinisation

• Release of political prisoners from gulags → started soon after S’s death but gained momentum from time of the Secret Speech

• Relaxation of censorship

• Resulted in publications of articles, novels and plays that criticised Stalin → Shostakovich 4th symphony 1961 premiere finally ;)

• Erosion of legacy of the cult of personality → pictures and statues of Stalin removed from public places, Stalingrad renamed Volgograd, at 22nd Party Congress 1961 Stalin’s body removed form Lenin mausoleum and buried beneath the wall of the Kremlin

Reaction to de-Stalinisation

• Strikes which included newly released prisoners from gulags

• Riots and protests for even greater freedoms esp. from satellite states e.g. Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary

K reaction to the riots and rebellious politicians etc.

• Order maintained through MVD → under control of party

• Khrushchev dismissed rebellious politicians at will e.g. Zhukov and Bulganin

• Used physical force when necessary e.g. tanks sent to Hungary 1956 to suppress Nagy regime

• DID NOT MOVE THAT FAR FROM AUTHORITARIAN RULE

USSR until 1991 was…

Always a one-party, one-leader state until its fall in 1991