Lecture VII: KHRUSHCHOVS REFORMS AND THEIR FAILURE

1
Lecture VIIKHRUSHCHOVS REFORMS AND THEIR
FAILURE

• In the framework of the course Crucial Issues of
  Russian Political History from the early XXth
  century up the present time
• Sergey Verigin, Ass. Prof.
• Petrozavodsk State University

2
Contents list

• I. Fighting for power after Stalin's death.
  Khrushchov's victory
• II. XXth Congress of the CPSU - denouncement of
  Stalin's personality cult
• III. Khrushchov's political and economical
  reforms. Reasons of their failure
• IV. Khrushchov's discharge

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I. Fighting for power after Stalin's death.
Khrushchov's victory Dissatisfaction with
Stalin's regime

• From 1946-1948 communist governments were
  imposed in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
  Romania and Bulgaria and home-grown communist
  dictatorships rose to power in Yugoslavia and
  Albania. These nations became known as the
  "Communist Bloc".
• Stalin viewed Soviet consolidation of power
  in the region as a necessary step to protect the
  USSR by surrounding it with countries with
  friendly governments, to act as a buffer against
  possible invaders.
• Finland retained formal independence, but was
  politically isolated and economically dependent
  on the Soviet Union.
• Greece, Italy and France were under the strong
  influence of local communist parties, which were
  at the very least friendly towards Moscow.
• After West Germany was formed by the union of the
  three Western occupation zones, the Soviets
  declared East Germany a separate country in 1949,
  ruled by the communists.

4
Dissatisfaction with Stalin's regime

• In the post-war years the political
  self-consciousness of the people was gradually
  growing. Having passed all the ordeals, the
  people straitened up, and and by came to
  understanding that it was not the Leader who
  played the decisive role in the historical
  process, but the people themselves. That
  development of the people's self-consciousness
  could not coexist with the Stalins regime. The
  Soviet society started to realise more and more
  clearly the necessity of reforms.
• A part of the population expressed
  dissatisfaction with Stalin's policy. The
  situation was aggravated by the monetary reform
  of 1947 and by the abolition of ration cards. The
  reform gave a start to the development of
  commerce, many products and commodities appeared,
  but the majority of the population could not
  afford them. The thinking part of the Soviet
  society and first of all the intelligentsia'
  started to think over the problems of the
  society. Various people suggested carrying out
  most radical reforms.
• The drafts of the new Program of the Communist
  Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) which was
  supposed to be adopted by the end of 1947, had a
  provision for the competition of candidates in
  elections to the Soviets.

5
Countermeasures. New wave of repression

• The committee in charge of the draft, which was
  headed by A.A.Zhdanov, rejected all those ideas.
  The administrative-commanding system, that is
  Stalin's regime, started protecting itself from
  the progressive people.
• In the late 1940s, repression started again. It
  did not reach the scale of the 1930s, but still
  affected hundreds of thousands of people.
• The first blow was directed against the
  intelligentsia. Severely criticised were writer
  M.Zoschenko, poet A.Akhmatova, composer
  D.Shostakovich, and others. They did not want to
  work under the methods of Soviet's realism.
• 1948 - an well-known "Leningrad case" was
  started, in which such prominent figures as the
  chairman of the State Planning Committee
  (Gosplan) N.Voznesensky, the secretary of the
  Central Committee of the CPSU A.Kuznetsov, the
  chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars
  (Sovnarkom) of the Russian Federation M.Rodionov,
  and some others were arrested and shot in secret

6
Anti-Semitic campaign

• 1948-1953 -the anti-Semitic campaign against
  so-called "rootless cosmopolitans," destruction
  of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the
  fabrication of the "Doctors' plot," the rise of
  "Zionology" and subsequent activities of official
  organizations such as the Anti-Zionist committee
  of the Soviet public were officially carried out
  under the banner of "anti-Zionism,"
• By the mid-1950s the state persecution of Soviet
  Jews emerged as a major human rights issue in the
  West and domestically.
• 1948 - First Jews were arrested. Members of the
  Jewish Anti-fascist Committee were sentenced to
  death and subsequently shot. The campaign was
  held under the slogan of fighting the
  "cosmopolitanism without kith or kin".
• January 1953 - a group of Jewish doctors of the
  Kremlin hospital were condemned of assassinating
  the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee
  Zhdanov and Scherbakov by means of improper
  medical treatment, and of preparing the
  assassination of Stalin. The doctors were said to
  work under the guidance of international Zionist
  organisation.
• A new campaign of mass repression was about to
  start, and only Stalin's death in March of 1953
  stopped it.

7
The starting point of the fight for power

• Match 5, 1953 - Stalin's death. It unleashed a
  new struggle for succession to the leadership of
  the party and the country. Molotov had been
  widely thought to be Stalin's obvious successor
  but he had fallen into disfavour during Stalin's
  final years and had been removed from the
  Politburo in 1952 (though he was reinstated after
  Stalin's death). The struggle for succession
  became a contest between Beria (the feared leader
  of the NKVD), Malenkov and Khrushchev.

8
Beria's execution

• July 1953 - the plenary session of Central
  Committee discussed the "Beria case". For a long
  time Beria headed the bodies of State Security
  and Internal Affairs and thus he was directly
  responsible for the repression. He was condemned
  of organising a plot to seize the power. L.Beria
  and six of his closest suppoters were shot.
• After the execution of L.Beria Soviet people
  started to speak openly about the mass repression
  and the abuse of power. Mass rehabilitation of
  those condemned of political crimes was started.

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Lavrenty Beria (1899 - 1953)
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Khrushchev's personality

• Khrushchev was regarded by his political enemies
  in the Soviet Union as uncivilized peasant, with
  a reputation for interrupting speakers to insult
  them.
• He repeatedly disrupted a United Nations
  conference in September-October 1960 by pounding
  his fists on the table and shouting in Russian
  during speeches. On September 29, 1960,
  Khrushchev twice interrupted a speech by British
  prime minister Harold Macmillan by shouting out
  and pounding his desk. The unflappable Macmillan
  famously commented "I should like that to be
  translated if he wants to say anything.
• At another occasion, Khrushchev said in reference
  to capitalism, "We will bury you." This phrase,
  ambiguous both in English and in Russian, was
  interpreted in several ways. He is famous for
  boasting to the U.S. President "We will bury
  you. Our rockets could hit a fly over the United
  States."

11
Nikita Khrushchev (1894 -1971)
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Beginning of the "Thaw"

• April 1954 - the Supreme Court of the USSR
  considered again the "Leningrad case" discharge
  of the people who had suffered from the political
  trials of the 1930s was started. At that time
  there appeared the first timid attempts of
  criticising the "personality cult" in the media,
  but Stalin's name was not mentioned yet. That was
  the beginning of the so-called "thaw" period in
  Russian history.
• The revision of the "Leningrad case" undermined
  the position G.Malenkov. February 1955 - he was
  relieved of the Chairman of the Council of
  Ministers.
• As a result, N.S.Khruschov alone took the leading
  position. Under his leadership the process of
  rehabilitation grew faster.

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II. XX Congress of the CPSU - denouncement of
Stalin's personality cult

• The XX Congress of the CPSU was a turning point
  in the development of the Soviet society.
• 1956 - Khrushchev pronounce at the XX Congress
  of the CPSU his report "Concerning the
  personality cult and its consequences.
• After the Congress, a special resolution of the
  CPSU Central Committee was passed ("Concerning
  the personality cult and its consequences"). It
  planed taking measures to re-establish Lenin's
  standards and the principle of collective
  leadership both in the communist party and in the
  state.
• After long deliberations, in a month the speech
  was reported to the general public, but the full
  text was published only in 1989.
• However the attempts made in the 1950s to give a
  profound analysis of such a complex phenomenon as
  stalinism were not successful. Most studies were
  focused on the issue of personality and on
  criticising Stalin's personal characteristics.
  Stalin was declared to be personally responsible
  for all crimes and mistakes. Analysts at that
  time failed to realize that the personality cult
  is a complex political, moral, social and
  psychological issue.

14
Nikita Khrushchev is delivering a speech on the
Stalin's cult of personality at the 20th Congress
of the CPSU
15
Internal party struggle

• June 1957 - meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU
  Central Committee, Molotov and Malenkov
  unexpectedly raised the question of Khruschov 's
  dismissal. Khruschov was condemned of economical
  voluntarism, of illegal and ill-considered
  actions. Many of the reproaches were fair, but
  the main problem was that Khruschov had gone too
  far in revealing Stalin's deeds and that he had
  diminished the authority of the CPSU in the world
  communist movement.
• The Presidium of CPSU Central Committee passed a
  resolution on Khruschov's dismissal from the post
  of the First Secretary of the CPSU Central
  Committee, but Khruschov refused to obey and
  demanded to summon a plenary meeting of the
  Central Committee. At the plenary meeting
  Khruschov was supported by the majority, while
  V.Molotov, G.Malenkov and L.Kaganovich were
  condemned of organising an "anti-party" group and
  dismissed from their posts. That put an end to
  the collective leadership, as Khruschov got
  unlimited power both in the party and in the
  state.

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III. Khrushchov's political and economical
reforms. Reasons of their failureProcess of
democratization

• The XX Congress of the CPSU cleared the way for
  the processes of democratisation and renewal. The
  appraisals of the past which were made public,
  shocked people, especially shocking were the
  facts about the repressed and sunk into oblivion
  people. Changes in the public consciousness were
  under-way.
• The democratisation process touched the political
  structure of the country. Lenin's standards and
  principles of the party life were re-established.
• Regular convocation of party congresses and
  plenary sessions of the Central Committee were
  provided. Party and state documents were
  published in the mass media and discussed by
  people. The activities of the Soviets, trade
  unions and the Komsomol stirred up.
• New ideal and approaches were fruitful for the
  development of science, space, literature, and
  art.

17
1st photo - Yury Gagarin - the first human in
space (1961)2nd photo Nikita Khrushchev and
Yury Gagarin
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Foreign policy

• Khrushchev liberated millions of political
  prisoners (the GULAG population declined from 13
  million in 1953 to 5 million in 1956-57) and
  initiating economic policies that emphasized
  commercial goods rather than coal and steel
  production, allowing living standards to rise
  dramatically and at the same time having high
  levels of economic growth.
• Such loosening of controls also caused an
  enormous impact on its satellites in Central
  Europe, many of whom were resentful of Soviet
  influence in their affairs.
• 1956 - Hungarian Revolution was suppressed by
  Soviet troops. About 25-50,000 Hungarian
  insurgents and 7,000 Soviet troops were killed,
  thousands more were wounded, and nearly a quarter
  million left the country as refugees. The
  revolution was a blow to the Communists in
  Western countries many who had formerly
  supported the Soviet Union now criticized it.

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Economic reforms

• Late 1950s and early 1960s economic
  reforms were designed to provide the
  democratization of management, i.e. to give more
  economical rights to the republics, to strengthen
  local management, to reduce the managing staff.
• But many economical problems were approached with
  mere political methods.
• The tasks of the development of virgin lands and
  the construction projects in Siberia were
  undertaken with the old well-known appeals to the
  enthusiasm and consciousness. The movement in
  favour of the "communist labour" was born at the
  peak of the enthusiasm.
• All attempts of linking it with the economical
  interest were regarded as the restoration of
  capitalism in the economy.

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Administrative changes

• Krushchevs economic reforms were focused on
  decentralization and on strengthening the
  economical independence of enterprises.
•  February 1957 - the Plenary meeting of the CPSU
  Central Committee passed a resolution on the
  liquidation of Ministries and establishing
  Councils of National Economy (sovnarkhoz's)
  instead.
• 1962 - Khrushchev's decision to divide party
  organizations into party committees in industry
  and agriculture
• Sovnarkhoz, (?????????, ????? ?????????
  ?????????, Sovet Narodnogo Hozyaistva, "Council
  of National Economy"), usually translated as
  Regional Economic Council, is an organization of
  the Soviet Union to manage a separate economic
  region. They were subordinated to the Supreme
  Soviet of the National Economy.

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Results of the reforms

• The first results of the 1957 reform were
  positive, but later it resulted in the
  dissociation of industries, and weakened the
  integral technical policy.
• A great damage for the agriculture were the
  attempts to plant corn all around the country.
• The reform of party bodies failed too (party
  bodies were divided into party committees which
  headed industry and agriculture)
• Industrial growth had slowed, while
  agriculture showed no new progress.
• Abroad, the split with China, the construction
  of the Berlin Wall, and the Cuban crisis hurt the
  Soviet Union's international status.
• In military policy Khrushchev pursued a policy of
  developing the Soviet Union's missile forces with
  a view to reducing the size of the armed forces.

22
Assimilation of newly-ploughed virgin soil in the
USSR
23
Nikita Khrushchev convinced to plant the corn in
the USSR
24
The Caribbean Sea crisis of 1962
25
Fidel Alejandro Castro and Nikita Khrushchev
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IV. Khrushchov's dischargeChanges in social
environment

• The processes of democratisation found support
  among the working people. But people raised hard
  questions concerning not only the responsibility
  of Stalin, but also that of the whole political
  leadership. Thus Khruschov made himself and his
  colleagues an aim for criticism.
• Minister of culture Furtseva confessed that the
  leadership was not ready to face the criticism.

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Slide back

• Early 1960s were marked by the deviation from the
  decisions of the XX Congress of CPSU.
• The attitude towards searching the "truth of
  life" in works of art began to change (criticism
  of Dudintsev's novel "Not by bread alone",
  persecution of B.Pasternak for the novel "Doctor
  Zhivago", the "bulldozer exhibitions", etc). The
  leadership of the country headed by Khruschov was
  not convinced that the processes of
  democratisation in the country are socialistic by
  nature.
• International factors were important, too. First
  of all, the events in Hungary in 1956 were taken
  into account. 
• They were considered as counter-revolution
  against the leadership of the ruling party in
  Hungary, which finally resulted in the revolt of
  October - November. The Soviet leadership was
  very much concerned about possible repetition of
  the Hungarian revolt in the USSR.
• The events in Novocherkassk, where soldiers shot
  at striking workers, also concerned Khruschov.

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Anti-Khruschovs opposition

• Early 1960s were marked by the struggle between
  the democratic and the conservative trends in the
  social life.
• Who were the opponents of Khruschov's reforms?
• 1) Party and Soviet bodies
•  
• 2) Officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
  and the KGB were dissatisfied the Khruschevs
  policy.
• 3) The attitude of the working people and of city
  dwellers became more and more negative (prices
  for meat and milk grew, State loans were not paid
  back, food supplies were not constant, the events
  in Novocherkassk where tanks were used against
  workers).
• 4) Agricultural problems became deeper. In early
  1960s country people opposed Khruschov's policy.
• 5) The "intelligentsia" shared common people's
  dissatisfaction with Khruschov too. The "thaw" of
  late 1950s failed to become spring. Persecution
  of the intelligentsia grew in early 1960-s.

29
Khrushchev's fall

• October 14, 1964 - Khrushchev's rivals in the
  party deposed him at a Central Committee meeting.
• The Communist Party subsequently accused
  Khrushschev of making political mistakes, such as
  provoking the 1962 Cuban crisis and
  disorganizing the Soviet economy, especially in
  the agricultural sector.
• Following his removal from power, Khrushchev
  spent seven years under house arrest. He died at
  his home in Moscow on September 11, 1971 and is
  interred in the Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow,
  Russia.

30
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31
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