a. Khrushchev

NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV (1894-1971): 

  • Ukrainian, from worker-peasant background  

  • Became a political commissar with the Red Army during the civil war 1919-1921 

  • After leaving the army he returned to school to finish his education  

  • Was a leading Stalinist from the mid-20s, played an especially brutal role in the Great Purge of Ukraine following collectivisation  

  • Eventually emerged victorious in the power struggle which followed Stalin's death in March 1953 

   - He arranged the execution of Beria 

   - Expelled Malenkov from the Central Committee of the Communist Party after stealing his idea on the New Course  

  • Sponsored the build-up of Soviet nuclear and space programmes 

  • Agricultural policy was a failure and the USSR was forced to import wheat from Canada and the US 

  • Deposed by Leonid Brezhnev in Oct 1964, one year after the humiliation of the Cuban Missile Crisis  

 

WHAT DID OTHERS THINK OF KHRUSHCHEV? 

  •  He was undoubtedly a clever man who would be valuable to the cause of peace  

  • His rough manners, bad grammar, and heavy drinking problem caused many Western journalists and diplomats to underestimate him  

  • But despite his rough edges he had a keen mind and a ruthless grasp of power politics 

 

AIMS – DOMESTIC POLICY: 

  • To consolidate power 

  • To begin a process of controlled liberalisation – signalled by the 'Secret Speech' of 25th Feb 1956 

  • To shift resources away from heavy industry and the armed forces towards light industry, and thereby improve living standards 

  • To cut down on corruption, distribute power more effectively to the regions, and make planning mechanisms more responsive to actual needs 

  • To change the political culture of the USSR by freeing up channels of communication and reducing the power of the security services 

  • To significantly reduce the number of political prisoners in the gulags   

  • To overcome the deficiencies of the collectivised agriculture system by bringing new lands into cultivation and introducing new crops (the Virgin Islands scheme) 

 

AIMS – FOREIGN POLICY: 

  • Khrushchev pursued a policy of 'peaceful coexistence' to defuse military tensions with the West and consolidate leadership over the communist bloc  

  • Summit diplomacy  

  • Rebuild relations with Tito's Yugoslavia 

  • In April 1956 Cominform was dissolved, thus removing the direct control the Soviet Union had over Eastern European Communists  

  • Ensure that West Germany did not rearm and pose a threat again (Warsaw Pact) 

  • To develop the USSR's nuclear capability and match the USA's capability, so that spending on conventional forces could be reduced  

  • To defuse international tensions and avoid provoking the USA 

  • To enhance Soviet prestige in the Third World  

 

THE SECRET SPEECH – THE RECEPTION: 

  • The text of Khrushchev's speech was circulated throughout Eastern Europe and by June 1956 it had reached the US State Department  

  • The speech had profound implications for stability in the Eastern Bloc, and uprisings occurred in both Poland and Hungary soon after the speech was delivered