Were there any underlying changes in Soviet government between 1953 and 1964?

(Word count: 2,100) Hosking has argued that during Stalins last years his totalitarian regime was reaching its limits, to the extent that it was starting to be harmful to itself. The demographic crisis produced by the repression in the 1930s, the war and the high mortality rates in the Gulag was starting to result in a pay-back in terms of economic difficulties.1 The Soviet leadership noticed this and was keen to start new reforms of the system. Moreover, foreseeing the imminent death of Stalin, the veterans in the political leadership also intended to introduce a reform programme which would secure their power against younger rivals promoted recently by Stalin.2 It is still discussed among historians the extent to which Stalin was aware of this new dynamism led by Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev, or the extent to which he actively promoted it. Did Stalin seek to encourage reform by calling Khrushchev to Moscow in 1949, or was it just a Machiavellian ploy to reinforce his position by offsetting the Malenkov-Beria alliance?3 Regardless of Stalins inner intentions, the fact is that he allowed this new movement of party revivalism towards collective leadership to develop soon before the XIX Congress in 1952. The turning towards the tradition of inner party democracy served two functions. First, the revivalist rhetoric resulted in a series of concrete measures which allowed Stalins potential successors to consolidate their positions.4 Second, it started off a new trend which would underlie changes in government until the fall of Khrushchev in 1964. This emerging current, which historians in the West labelled as de-Stalinization,5 resulted in a major turning point in Soviet history. De-Stalinization was a moment in which the USSR looked back to history, denounced errors perpetrated in the past and committed herself to return to her ideological roots in order to regain a momentum which would lead to the materialization of the Communist utopia. Nevertheless, the process of de-Stalinization would also lead to a series of contradictions and confusions which were reflected by the popular reactions to its different forms. Uncertainties in this process emanated from contradictory policies initiated by the government and, ultimately, from the main agent behind deStalinization: Nikkita Khrushchev. Stalin called the XIX Congress, but it was Khrushchev who started the democratization campaign. He was behind the revivalist rhetoric which emerged during the pre-congress period and which called for an ideological renewal within the Party, with its members abandoning a passive attitude in order to become active fighters for Communism.6 Moreover, his calls for collective leadership after Stalins death in 1953 favoured him, because they reflected continuity with the pre-congress rhetoric and thus helped to consolidate his position. The ideological language with which Khrushchev adorned
1 2

Hosking (1992), p.326. Service (2003), p.331. 3 Gorlizki (1995), p.4. 4 Ibid.p.3. 5 Service, p.341. 6 Gorlizki, pp.6-7.

Where there any underlying changes in Soviet government between 1953 and 1964?

Enrique Requero

himself also provided him with the means for getting rid of his opponents.7 Thus, Khrushchev was able to justify the detention of Beria in that the latters empowerment of the MVD favoured a potential coup dtat which would breach the principle of collective rule.8 Khrushchevs capacity to show ideological continuity during the transition period enabled him to gain supporters in the Central Committee and to shape it to his favour.9 This facilitated alienating Malenkov from the revivalist movement and removing him and his anti-party group from positions of influence in 1957.10 Thus, ideological continuity secured power for Khrushchev from his opponents. Nevertheless, his claim for an ideological turning and his setting of an agenda for deStalinization was only openly exposed by him with the speech he delivered to the XX Party Congress in February 25, 1956.11 In the speech, he denounced Stalins cult of the individual leader and its harmful consequences.12 He criticized the unjustified repression of political opponents, the attacks on innocent people and the violation of revolutionary legality.13 Stalins disregard for the principle of collective leadership and his abuse of power was also censured and, thus, Khrushchev called for a condemnation of the cult of the individual with a return to Marxist-Leninist theses, a continuation of the revivalist movement towards collective leadership and a restoration of Leninist democratic principles. All this was to be done in order not to repeat errors of the past.14 This speech could be considered the official beginning of de-Stalinization. Khrushchev certainly wanted it to be seen as such and consequently, he made sure that word about it spread quickly: he gave copies of the speech to foreign communists present in Moscow at the time, arranged for the KGB to ensure that the CIA received a copy as well and soon afterwards a full version of the speech was reproduced for the global audience in the London Observer.15 However, from the speech also emerged some of the contradictions of the deStalinization process. First, in order to avoid open commitment to reform, he denounced the anti-Stalinist Not by Bread Alone (Dudintsev). 16 Moreover, the speech was not made public officially in Russia until the XXII Party Congress in 196117 and no legal copies were published until the Gorbachev era, thus explaining why the speech has been dubbed the Secret Speech.18 What is more striking, however, is that if Stalin was guilty of anything, then Khrushchev and those in the political leadership had also blood on their hands. It is then understandable there should be an initial reluctance in the Presidium for the deliverance of
7 8

Gorlizki, p.10. Service, pp.333-4. 9 Gorlizki, p.11. Contrast in Central Committee membership 1953 and 1957, reproduced in Pravda, March 1953, p.1, July 1957, p.2. 10 Service, pp.346-7. 11 Fragment reproduced in Suny (2003), pp.340-50. 12 Ibid., p.340. 13 Ibid., p.342. 14 Ibid., p.349. 15 Service, p.341. 16 Ibid., p.341. 17 Kozlov (2006), p.586. 18 Service, p.341.

Where there any underlying changes in Soviet government between 1953 and 1964?

Enrique Requero

the speech. Nevertheless, Khrushchev seems to have delivered the Secret Speech out of pragmatic rather than moral motives. Accordingly, he convinced his colleagues of the need to give the speech when he told them that if they did not tell the truth at the Congress, well be forced to tell the truth sometime in the future. And then we shant be the speech-makers; no, then well be the people under investigation.19 It was also ironic that while denouncing the cult of personality and claiming the need of revivalism, Khrushchev would not fail to get his picture in the press daily and was also the one most closely connected to the system.20 It is also worth noting that although he denounced Stalinist repression, Khrushchev did not hesitate to make use of Stalinist methods to get rid of Beria and to suppress the 1956 Hungary Revolt and the uprisings in some Gulags.21 Nevertheless, his ability to cover his back in this respect is significant. By denouncing only Stalinist policies after the mid-1930s, he made clear that he was condemning Stalin as a person, not his techniques or the Soviet system as a whole.22 Nonetheless, the reason why the Secret Speech has become so significant for historians of the Soviet Union is less for the contradictions it reflected and produced, and more to do with the major changes it led to. The claim for a return to Marxist-Leninist theories made at the XX Congress was the basis for the revitalization of Communist ideology which would result in utopian claims and promises being made throughout the Khrushchev period and which materialised in new policies which sought to reform the USSR in order to accelerate the progress towards the state of ideal Communism.23 These reforms affected first agriculture with the cultivation of new lands in Central Asia.24 Nevertheless, they also spread to other aspects in Soviet life and economy. Filtzer has accounted for the wage reforms introduced in 1956, which initially affected industry and the rest of the economy by 1962.25 Occasionally, the government did not seek reform; nevertheless, the context of utopian rhetoric Khrushchev had fostered, forced him, in many cases, to accept it. An example of this is the delegalization of Comrades Courts in 1959. These courts competed with Khrushchevs Anti-parasite tribunals, but due to pressures from the legal community, Khrushchev was eventually forced to give in and allow the restoration of Comrades Courts. Even so, the government still managed to make this restoration to look to be of their authorship, by claiming that the Comrades Courts would help to reach the state of Communism by eliminating crime and its causes.26 Reid has shown in her study of the American National Exhibition in Moscow (ANEM), which took place in 1959, how this utopian fervour also moved Khrushchev to make promises which would contradict his acclaimed Marxist-Leninist ideology. During the
19 20

Quoted in Service, p.338. Service, p.342; Gorlizki, p.22. 21 Ibid., pp.334-5, 343; Hosking, p.329. 22 Service, p.340. 23 Gorlizki (1998), p.403. 24 Westwood (1993), pp.409-15. 25 Filtzer (1989), pp.88-110. 26 Gorlizki, pp.414-6.

Where there any underlying changes in Soviet government between 1953 and 1964?

Enrique Requero

power struggle following Stalins death, he had attacked Malenkov on the grounds that the latters intentions of increasing the volume of consumer industry implied an acceptance of co-existence with world-capitalism, which was ideologically unacceptable.27 In 1959, however, Khrushchev seemed not to mind inviting the Cold War enemy home, allowing the Americans to show off their advanced technological and household commodities, developments which made capitalism look superior.28 Reid explains that allowing the ANEM to take place followed on from Khrushchevs promise to make the USSR to catch up and overtake the USA.29 Thus, before the exhibition, promises had been made through propaganda that technological developments would quickly put the Soviet Union ahead of the USA, providing better living conditions for Soviet citizens. In this context, the ANEM was just an opportunity to learn from the Americans in order to emulate and improve their technology. Nonetheless, this was a contradiction on Khrushchevs part: by portraying the American way of life as a goal which the USSR would reach and surpass, was he not also implying an acceptance of capitalism?30 Regardless of this apparent contradiction, Reid also shows how the Soviet public supported the USSR against this apparent attack from the USA. This is an example of a popular acceptance of the process of de-Stalinization with the public, in this case, trusting in the government with its promises of development and rewards for decades of shortage. 31 This is also exemplified by popular support of Comrades Courts. Nevertheless, in other instances, popular reactions to de-Stalinization uncovered degree of confusion and division among the people. Dobson argues that the popular reception of Solzhenitsyns One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich reveals a degree of widely-held resentment to de-Stalinization. Despite the initial popular support for the rehabilitation of released zeks, the increase in crime rates in the early 1960s made people start opposing releases from the Gulags, because they threatened the poshlost, the social values promoted during the Stalin years.32 Kozlov also assesses the changes taking place by looking at the popular reception of literature emerging during the Thaw. The public was highly critical of Pasternaks Doctor Zhivago in 1958, due its apparent anti-sovietness, and people used a wide range of patriotic arguments to undermine the value of the novel. By contrast, social moods changed during the 1960s when people started to learn in detail about Stalins terror. This made them rethink their view on national history and be less inclined passionately to defend the USSR. While people still criticised anti-soviet novels, they also started to criticise the repression of their authors by the state, demanding freedom and democracy and expressing fears of the terror returning.33 Space is too limited to account for all the aspects in which the process of deStalinization was made manifest. Changes in foreign policy and in regard to the other Soviet
27 28

Service, p.338. Reid (2008), p.856. 29 Ibid., p.863. 30 Ibid., p.865. 31 Ibid., pp.876-78. 32 Dobson(2005), pp.588-92. 33 Kozlov, pp.557-97.

Where there any underlying changes in Soviet government between 1953 and 1964?

Enrique Requero

republics, for example, have been left to one side despite transformations experienced here too during this period. Overall, this essay has shown how the process of de-Stalinization was the underlying change in Soviet government between 1953 and 1964. Gorlizki has demonstrated how it started well before Stalins death. It gave way to an ideological revival of the Party, which resulted in reforms being introduced. Popular response to new literature and government policies reflected many confusions and contradictions over de-Stalinization. Despite this, the process made the Soviet Union re-define herself. Though often painful, the process had also positive results. It moved the Soviet Union towards modernization and it also made the USSR take the first few steps towards a more democratic system. This is demonstrated by the fact that in 1964 Khrushchev did not have to die in order to leave power. He was deposed by his opponents, who in doing so used the legitimate means he had himself established.34 Khrushchev accepted this and a process of stabilization followed, with the USSR still moving forward.35

Bibliography Rise and Fall of Khruschev -Y. GORLIZKI, -Party Revivalism and the Death of Stalin, Slavic Review 54 (1995), pp.1-22.

-W.J. TOMPSON, The Fall of Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Studies, 43 (1991), pp. 1101-21. Ideological Dimensions of de-Stalinization. -N. KHRUSHCHEV, Secret Speech to the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, excerpted in SUNY (ed.), The Structure of Soviet History (2003), pp. 340-50. -M. DOBSON, Contesting the Paradigms of De-Stalinization: Readers Responses to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Slavic Review, 64 (2005), pp. 580600. State and Society in the Khrushchev Era -D.FILTZER, The Soviet Wage Reform of 1956-62, Soviet Studies, 41 (1989), pp. 88-110. -Y. GORLIZKI, -Delegalization in Russia: Soviet Conrades Courts in Retrospect, American Journal of Comparative Law, 46 (1998), pp. 403-25.

34 35

Tompson (1991), pp.1101-21. Service, pp.376-397.

Where there any underlying changes in Soviet government between 1953 and 1964?

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-D.A. KOZLOV, I Have Not Read, but I Will Say: Soviet Literary Audiences and Changing Ideas of Social Membership, 1958-66, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 7 (2006), pp.557-97. Society and Culture in the Post-Stalin era -S.E. REID, Who Will Beat Whom? Soviet Popular Reception of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 9 4 (Fall 2008), pp. 855-904. Genral Reviews -G. HOSKING, A History of the Soviet Union 1917-1991 (1992). -R. SERVICE, A History of Modern Russia From Nicholas II to Putin (2003). -J.N. WESTWOOD, Endurance and Endeavour, Russian History 1812-2001.