Khrushchev: Government

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Created on: 02-04-18 14:09

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Khrushchev: Government
- Early reforms and the power struggle
  - Beria
    - Reduced the power of the secret police
      - To make him not look like he was going to use terror to seize power
    - 1953: Khrushchev and Malenkov arrange his arrest and execution
      - Accused of being a British spy
      - The secret police was brought under Party control
  - Malenkov
    - Khrushchev increased Party power over the state to ensure he overpowered Malenkov
    - Khrushchev used his roll as First Secretary of the Central Committee to bring in members loyal to him
      - 1956: He had replaced nearly half of the Central Committee with his old associates from the Ukraine and Moscow
    - Power was decentralised to the republics to weaken state bureaucracy further
      - Weakened Malenkov
  - Party membership
    - Increased from 6.9 million (1954) to 11 million (1964)
      - Made it seem more democratic
  - Fixed terms introduced for senior communists
    - Made sure that they were replaced regularly
    - Reduced the personal power that people could collect
      - 1961: Two thirds of regional party secretaries had been replaced
- The Secret Speech (February, 1956)
  - Criticised Stalin
    - The personality cult
    - Blunders during the war
      - E.g. Purging the Red Army just before WWII
    - Stalin's responsibility for the Great Terror
    - Stalin's personal dictatorship
    - Revealed Lenin's criticisms of Stalin in his Testament
  - Aims
    - To blame Stalin for all atrocities to maintain support for Communism
    - To gain the freedom to institute his own changes and reforms
    - To remove blame for the purges from himself
- Attempt to overthrow Khrushchev (1957)
  - Stalinists in the Party argued that his reforms had destabilized the Soviet government
    - Responsible for recent anti-Soviet revolts in Poland and Hungary
  - June, 1957: A majority in the Presidium, led by Malenkov, voted to replace him
    - Khrushchev argues that it could only be decided by the Central Committee
      - Where he had a majority
  - Khrushchev survived and fired his opponents
  - Impact
    - Demonstrated that senior Communists would no longer use political terror against each other
      - Would instead use popular support
    - Recognised that the power of the Party leader depended on the support of the Central Committee
      - Collective leadership
- De-Stalinisation and ending terror
  - 1958: New criminal code
    - Evidence, witnesses, and confessions were now essential to convict someone
    - Prisoners could now receive and sent mail
  - KGB
    - New organisation of the secret police
    - They lost control over the gulags which they used for slave labour in mining and construction projects
    - They were brought under Party control
    - 1960: 2 million political prisoners were released
    - Far fewer people were arrested or executed than under Stalin
  - Terror
    - Khrushchev ended the use of political terror against Party officials
      - His enemies were fired but not imprisoned or executed
    - Khrushchev could retire with a pension instead of being tried or executed
  - Power
    - Khrushchev ended Stalin's system of personal rule
      - The crisis of 1957 showed that he was subject to the support of the Central Committee
    - Khrushchev's overthrow in 1964 demonstrated how far the Party's power was independent of the leader
  - Stalin
    - Many statues of Stalin were removed
    - Cities like Stalino and Stalingrad were changed back to their old names (Donetsk and Volgograd)
    - There were no official celebrations of Stalin's birthday
    - Stalin's quotes and ideas were no longer shown as equal to Lenin's or Marx's
    - Stalin was accused of Kirov's murder
    - Stalin's body was removed from Red Square
    - Previously considered dissident works were allowed to be published
      - E.g. Alexander Solzhenitsyn
- Later government reforms
  - 1961: Rule 25
    - Limited the time in office for Party members
  - 1962: Party division
    - Split into agricultural and industrial departments
      - Reduced the power of Party officials
      - Boosted economic growths
- Limitations of de-Stalinisation
  - The secret police was reorganised but not disbanded or reformed
  - The gulags were not closed and 750,000 remained imprisoned
  - Reintroduction of the death penalty for serious economic crimes
  - Punishment for corruption and criticism of the Party
  - Khrushchev's reforms did nothing to alter the fundamental foundations of the one party state and the central economic planning of Lenin and Stalin
  - He was still prepared to use violence against protesters
    - Use of repression against reform movements and uprising in the satellite states
      - E.g. Hungary and Poland (1956)
- Khrushchev's fall from power (1964)
  - Why?
    - He was criticised for mishandling the economy and foreign policy
    - His political reforms had created discontent within the Party
      - Many officials had been demoted, lost their jobs, or had to move away from Moscow
  - The plotters against Khrushchev had the backing of the Central Committee
  - Khrushchev "retired due to ill-health" and was given a pension and other luxuries

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Khrushchev: Government

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