Khrushchev 1953-64

After Stalin's death Malenkov took leadership as chariman of council of ministers and general secretary of the party  but a week later he was replaced as general scretary by Khrushchev and a collective leadership is established. The political leadership struggle was underway between the prominent members of the ruling 'troika' - Lavrenty, Beria, Malenkov and Molotov.

Beria emerged as the leader who was most anxious to depart from Stalinist policies. He advocated the release of all but the most dangerous prisoners, took a moderate line in foreign policy and sought to scale back some of Stalins more costly construction projects. The popularity of his pronouncements as well as the power of his office caused alarm at the top. Malenkov and the other presedium members conspired against him and arranged for his arrest at the hands of the military in June 1953. An anti-beria campaign was conducted in the press and he was accused of 'criminal anti party and anti state activities'. He was secretly tried and executed on 24th December 1953. his supporters were also purged. 

Malenkov who placed government above party attempted, with Molotovs backing, to use his influence to launch a 'new course'. He wanted to change collective farm policy, reduce peasant taxes and put more investment into consumer goods. Against this Khrushchev, who placed emphasis on party before government, proposed a more radical idea of parrallel development of heavy and light industry and sold himself as an agricultural expert, launching his virgin lands scheme in 1954. The early success of this scheme helped to rally the party behind him.

Khrushchev beleived that one way to increase production was to cultivate grazing lands in western sideria and Kazakstahn that had not previously been used before. When the first scheme in 1953 proved succesful, the cultivated area was extended and a huge campaign was launched to attract farmers to settle in these parts. By 1956 35.9 million hectares of 'virgin land' had been ploughed for wheat; the equivalent of the total cultivated area of Canada.

Khrushchev also laucnhed several campaigns for new crops, particularly maize. He thought that this would be the answer to the USSRs food shortages since it produced a tonnage per hactare and it could not only be used for human consumption but for that of livestock as well. 

Agritowns were huge collective farms/towns that were designed to replicate urban conditions of work and living on the land and so destroying the old, conservative, rural villiages making for greater effieciency. It was designed to provide leisure time and give workers an incentive and motivation to do well.

A closed session was held and none of the 1400 delegates were allowed to ask questions. In his speeas entitled '0n the cult of personality and its consequences' Khrushchev delivered a blistering attack on Stalin, accussing him of responsibility for the teror, purges, torture, mass arrests, executions and the gulags causing 'tremendous harm ti the cause if socialist progress'. He also blamed Stalin for the murder of Trotsky. The speech was met with resounding applause.

The coercive machineryof the stalinist era was dismantled and the secret police apparatus reduced in size. Political amnesties and a partial revival of an independent judicial system marked a move away from police influence in state matters.

The Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members. The treaty called on the member states to come to the defense of any member attacked by an outside force and it set up a unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union.

The death of Stalin led many Hungarians to hope that Hungary also would be 'de-Stalinised'. In July 1956, the 'Stalinist' Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, Rakosi, fell from power. During October 1956, students, workers and soldiers in Hungary attacked the AVH (the secret police) and Russian soldiers, and smashed a statue of Stalin. On 24 October 1956 Imre Nagy - a moderate and a westerniser - took over as prime minister. Nagy asked Khrushchev to move the Russian troops out. Khrushchev agreed and on 28 October 1956, the Russian army pulled out of Budapest.

Then, on 3 November 1956, Nagy announced that Hungary was going to leave the Warsaw Pact. However, Khrushchev was not going to allow this. He claimed he had received a letter from Hungarian Communist leaders asking for his help. At dawn on 4 November 1956, 1,000 Russian tanks rolled into Budapest. They destroyed the Hungarian army and captured Hungarian Radio the last words broadcast were "Help! Help! Help!". Hungarian people - even children - fought the Russian troops with machine guns. Some 4,000 Hungarians were killed. Knrushchev put in Russian supporter, Janos Kadar, as prime minister.

The Anti-Party Group  was a group within the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that unsuccessfully attempted to depose Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Party in June 1957. The group, given that epithet by Khrushchev, was led by former Premiers Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov. The group rejected both Khrushchev's liberalisation of Soviet society and his denunciation of Joseph Stalin.

In 1957 the USSR launched the first artificial satelite - sputnik - the same year sputnik II took a dog Laika into orbit. In 1959 a red flag was placed on the moon abd pictures of the dark side of the moon were taken. 

In 1959 the icebreaker Lenin was launched - this was the worlds first civil nuclear powered ship.

Russian space science made continuos advances. A test flight brought two dogs back to earth alive and in April 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1963 Valentina Tershkova became the first female cosmonaut.

In 1962 the USA discovered that Khrushchev was supplying nuclear weapons to Castro in Cuba. They placed a 'quarantine' around Cuba and ordered soviet ships heading for the island to turn back. After tense negotiations the ships withdrew, an apparent victory for US diplomacy.

Khrushchev stated that the dictatorship of the proletariat introduced by Lenin was over...

and the amitious goal was declared to build communism in 20 years...

The seven year plan of 1959 had an emphasis on improving the standard of living for ordinary people, with a 40 hour week and a 40% wage rise promised by 1965. There was a slight shift in priorities from the traditional of heavy industry to the previously neglacted modern industries. 

The aims were:

• a vast expansion on chemical industries
• housing factories to produce prefab sections for new flats (Khrushchev slums)
• increased production of consumer goods
• greater exploitation of the USSRs resources 

Expanding soviet communications and technology was also a major focus of Knrushchevs:

• many railway lines were electrified or had engines converted to run in deisel
• networks were greatly expanded
• air transport was expanded 
• the aeroflot corporation was subsidied to offer cheap long distance passenger travel often undercutting the railways

The USSR took important steps forward in 1957 when it abolished sixty Mosocw Ministeries and divided the USSR into 105 economic regions each with its own economic council to plan and supervise economic affairs. This reform had an ulterior political motive in that it removed Malenkovs men (in the centeral ministeries) and extended Khrushchevs patronage network in the localities. Even with the decenteralisation measure in place there still needed to be a degree of political planning in Moscow. State committees and a new supreme economic council were therefore set up to supervise a new seven year plan announced in 1959. 

The unrest began when Nikita Khrushchev raised the prices of meat and butter throughout the Soviet Union on June 1st. On the same day, as required by a separate economic plan, the minimum production quotas for each worker at the factory were increased, thereby effectively reducing pay rates.This culminated in a march on the town hall and police headquarters, and the strike spread to other enterprises after police arrested thirty workers. 26 protesters were killed by the machine-gun-equipped Soviet Army troops, and 87 were wounded with 3 of those dying later of their wounds. After the initial demonstrations, a curfew was implemented in the town. The dead bodies were secretly buried in the cemeteries of other towns. However, the following morning, a large group of several hundred demonstrators again gathered in the square. One hundred and sixteen were arrested, of which fourteen were convicted by show trials, seven of those receiving a death sentence and were executed. The others were sentenced to prison terms of ten to fifteen years. The whole story was never allowed to appear in the press or any other Soviet mass media and remained classified until 1992.

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