Reform Stability and Stagnation 1953-85

key themes

-Krushchev's reforms and de-stalinisation

-Brezhnev and Stability

-Political Stagnation

Power Vacuum following Stalin's death

-Stalin's leadership wasn't based in an electorial means and he had not left any suggestion as to who should succeed him, given that Stalin occupied such a significant part of the Party and State in the USSR

-There were 3 contenders: Malenkov (rumoured to be Stalin's choice), Beria (head of the NKVD), Krushchev (no official position, was made the secretary of central committee after Stalin's death and was very popular)

-Both Malenkov and Krushchev attempted to shift power away from the leader (Was Stalin) at the risk of the Power vacuum made by Stalin's death becoming more of an issue

Reforms Beria- Attempt at leadership

-as head of the MVD (incharge of Secret police), Beria feared that he would be unpopular and that his involvement would lead to his demise

-1953 introduced several reforms including giving amnesty (pardoning) to non-political prisoners in the Gulags- this was extended to counter revolutionaries a month later

-set up a party commission which looked onto the cases of executons, the commission pardoned over 4000 of these on the basis that the confession had been falsified

-terminated projects of manual labour in the gulags which lessened the economic power of the MVD as they were no longer in charge of conducting mining or construction projects via forced labour

-Aslo reformed the Republic System- made it so that the Officials which represented each of the republics had to speak the language of the country they were representing and worked in

-Made it so that all official publications would have translations into the languages of the other countries

Beria Decline

-Was feared by others in the party despite weakening the authority of the secret police

-Krushchev and Malenkov devised a plan to arrest Beria and he was accused of handing soviet secrets over to Britain and was arrested for this, he was given a trial in which the MVD was used against him arguing that he used this organisation for his own personal gain as opposed to for the benefit of the USSR

-Power of the MVD concentrated back into the hands of the party

-Krushchev establishes his authority over the USSR by 1954 be is incharge

Krushchev consolidation of power

-Used his power as party secretary to remove Stalin's loyalist and replace them with his own

-by 1956 he had replaced 44% of the central committee with his own people

-Enforced an anti-bureaurocracy campaign over the state to weaken theirm control (weakening Malenkov as a result)

-Central Soviet Ministry membereship cut in half by 1954

-this weakened the authority of the central government and meant that the proportion of soviet controlled industry dropped by 15%

-introduced reforms to the 5 year plans (Virgin land schemes, 7 year plans ect...)

-Most importantly undermined Stalin as a leader through his polkicy of DESTALINISATION

De-Stalinisation

-Krushchev as a Leninist was against the policy of terror introduced by Stalin in his time in power, he wanted to humanise communism and have people be allowed freedom of expression

-He scrapped plans to make Stalin's dacha into a museum & ended the annual tradition of giving the Stalin Prize which was instead re-named to be the USSR State Prize

-Stopped annual celebrations of Stalin's birthday

-newspapers now quoted from Lenin and Marx instead of Stalin to show the shift away from Stalinism

-The Secret Speech: in the session of the Party Congress 1956, Krushchev criticised Stalin and his policies, focusing on on the cult of personality specifically highlighting that Stalin had strayed from the aim of communism and was instead only interested in his own dictatorship

-Also brought forth Lenin's testament which had been secret prior (document which outlined Stalin as unfit to rule the USSR by Lenin)

-DID NOT CRITICISE THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS UNDER STALIN

-Speech was copied and had made its way into the USA as well as shocking many party officials who did not know the extent of Stalin's control- this is seen as a way in which Krushchev puts all the blame of the Stalin era onto Stalin, absolving himself and other party officials of their crimes under Stalin's policies

Ending Terror

by 1956 Krushchev had released over 50,000 political prisoners from Gulags

-by 1961 half of those who had been executed under Stalin had been pardoned

-Seen as a hypocritical move from Krushchev, given that when Hungary attempted reform (1956) as one of the sattelite states, it was refused the right to do so and Krushchev sent in over 60,000 troops to squash the attempt leaving 3000 dead

Backlash from De-Stalinisation

-the sudden shift in revealing the actions of Stalin had left the public in shock and Krushchev was urged to repeal his statement and revise his words, with individuals claiming that he was reforming too fast

-by 1957 the radical de-stalinisation had been paused

Krushchev Decentralisation and Democratisation 1957

-aimed to reduce the size and power of the central committee

-allowed an expansion of party membership, from 6.9 million to 11 million- this allowed the Party to be more democratic as there were more voters many of which came from backgrounds of Peasantry (60%)

-introduced fixed terms to ensure that senior communists were replaced often- 2/3rds of Communists replaced in the years 1957-61

-de-centralised the government by moving the ministry for agriculture out of Moscow "closer to the fields"

1957 Attempted coup

-triggered as a result of Krushchev's widely unpopular policies, saw a call for a vote to remove Krushchev from office, Krushchev argued that this vote could only take place by the centralm committee where he had a majority and thus remained in power

-1959 Krushchev took over the role of Prime Minister in order to properly consolidate his authority

-the coup signified a shift in politics as Terror was no longer the way political opponents were taken out and showed how the Party leader no loger had sole authority which was instead dependant on the support of the central commitee

SIGNIFICANT SHIFT IN THE POLITICAL AUTHORITY IN THE USSR

Krushchev final reforms and decline

-radical party reform of 1962 which split the party in half with one half running industry and the other agriculture, this was significant as it divided the central commitee into sectors and was a widely unpopular policy

-the lack of success in this policy with significant economic decline being felt in Krushchev's policies meant that he became more and more unpopular within the party and central committee

-as a result as his public failiure in handling the Cuban Missile Crisis leading to threat of nuclear war between the USSR and USA, as well as his failiure in economic policy, Krushchev was ultimately removed from power by senior officials who accused him of creating a cult of personality and mismanaging the economy and foreign policy

-Krushchev was removed from office under the guise that he was stepping down for health reasons in 1964

Brezhnev and stability

-Attempted to reverse the radicalism brought in by Krushcev in his time in office

-brought forth ideas of restoration and bringing the USSR back into Greatness

-ended the economic reforms and re unified the 2 halves of the party

-significant emphasis on stability meant that the Party under Brezhnev overlooked incidents of corruption

-Didn't bring back terror but did repeal some of the claims of Krushchev on de-stalinisation

-Leadership still based in majority support

-the focus on stability caused mass stagnation as well as the establishment of a gerontocracy, given that majority of the authority under Brezhnev was in the older generation

-removed the requirement of replacing party officials through fixed terms, arguing that by doing so Krushchev had introduced a patronage system

Stability of the Cadres

-ensured that senior members of the Party maintained their positions and were not under threat of removal because of the fixed terms brought in under Krushchev in 1961

-this created more job security for party officials and gained Brezhnev support from many within the party

-1977 Brezhnev constitution established official policy dictating that the Party had authority over the State, something which had been in ambiguity prior

80-90% of congress retained their jobs for the duratuon of Brezhnev's time in power, by 1982 the average age of a party official in the Politburo was 75 in comparison to the 1966 average age of 58

-average age of central committee membeer from 52 in 1961 to 62 in 1981

-barely anyone was removed from power under Brezhnev which meant that corruption was common

-the generational gap between Brezhnev and his people meant that the Government failed to maintain relevancy with the people, Brezhnev was visibly declining which was seen in his failiure to address his people over television in the early 80s- he was clearly in poor health by this point- highlighted a decline in the power of the Soviet Union

-lack of punishment meant there was no incentive to improve and many party officials were operating in self interest with little to no consequences

Andropov and Chernenko

-next 2 leaders of the USSR, emerged as a result of the gerontocracy in Brezhnev's government, recognised there were issues that needed to be fixed but were not prepared to introduce reforms strong enough

-Andropov did introduce several reforms such as a campaign against alchoholism and corruption in the workplace, both which were widely unpopular and unsuccessful as a result of the lack of tackling the core issues

-both died within a year of thir rise to power

-were in their 70s by the time they took office

-more economic stagnation and decline

-ANDROPOV DID ABANDON THE SAVE THE CADRES POLICY WHICH MADE WAY FOR 1/4 REMOVAL AND REPLACEMENT OF SENIOR OFFICIALS MAKING WAY FOR A MORE YOUTHFUL GOVERNMENT AFTER HIS DEATH