De-Stalinsation: Successes and Failures

If you haven’t already, before reading this section I would recommend looking at Khrushchev’s motives for de-Stalinisation, which you can find here

Now we’re going to evaluate the success or failure of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinist policies:

1. Did they successfully de-Stalinise the USSR?

2. Were they economically successful?

There was once a 2-in-1 question that asked candidates to answer both of these questions in the same essay, which was very nasty to tackle, but should it come up again then this section is essentially an essay plan for it.

De-Stalinisation took the following forms:

-          Within a year, labour camps were opened and millions of prisoners were set free

-          Five years later, Stalin’s name was removed from the Russian map

·         Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd

-          The 22^nd Congress decided to remove Stalin’s body from the Lenin mausoleum

-          De-Stalinisation resulted in a failed attempt to remove Khrushchev from power in 1957.

·         The party voted 7:4 for his dismissal from the role of Party Secretary.

·         Khrushchev was able to overcome this through using his position to consolidate a power base

A Time of New Freedom?

“The Thaw” was the name given to the relaxation in artistic and cultural life under Khrushchev.

-          For example, in 1959 a new history of the Party was approved, criticising the excesses of the 1930s

-          The composer Shostakovitch’s work was allowed to be performed

-          Books by Western authors like Ernest Hemingway appeared in Russian bookshops

-          Cultural and sporting exchanges were arranged with capitalist countries

·         E.g. football teams like Dinamo Moscow became popular in Europe

HOWEVER, there were limits to this freedom

-          Boris Pasternak was heavily criticised for his novel “Doctor Zhivago” and had to refuse his Nobel Prize for Literature

·         Khrushchev thought it was too critical of the Bolsheviks in the Revolution and the Civil War

·         Other writers met a similar fate, e.g. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

-          Khrushchev didn’t ease pressure on religious groups

·         Orthodox Churches were destroyed in large numbers -> only 7500/20,000 remained as places of worship.

·         Muslim and Jewish places of worship met the same fate

Relations with the Satellite States

The Hungarian Crisis 1956 ­- the most important example!

When anti-Soviet demonstrations broke out in Budapest and the leader Imre Nagy announced his intention to leave the Warsaw Pact, Khrushchev sent in Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks into Hungary.

-          Why??? -> The Warsaw Pact was an agreement signed in 1955, in which all the Iron Curtain countries committed themselves to the collective defence of Soviet Europe against “Western Imperialism”

·         Therefore, Khrushchev feared if Hungary withdrew, the other satellite states would follow suit

-          Over 20,000 Hungarians were killed, and Khrushchev’s reputation was badly damaged

Yugoslavia

Khrushchev visited their leader Tito in 1955 and 1956, and the bestowal of Soviet favour strengthened the idea that, with Stalin gone, the Kremlin had accepted Yugoslavia’s right to develop its own Communism.

Poland

As strong demands were being made for Poland to be left free to develop its own socialism, Khrushchev compromised and allowed popular Polish patriot Gomulka to return to political prominence, as long as he renewed his commitment to the Warsaw Pact.

East Germany

In November 1958, Khrushchev publicly challenged the rights of the Western Powers to remain in Berlin, and demanded that within six months, West Berlin should become a demilitarised, free city.

-          In June 1961, he threatened Kennedy by saying the West must be ready to leave Berlin within six months

·         This increased the flight of people from East to West Berlin and led to the construction of the Berlin Wall

·         The 28-mile long Berlin Wall symbolised Communist tyranny

·         But in some ways it was a success. It restored greater stability, stopped the loss of essential manpower, and meant the economic collapse of East Germany could be avoided.

International attention was distracted by the Suez Crisis caused by the Anglo-French decision to intervene in Egypt when President Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company.

Agriculture

The issues with agriculture following Stalin were:

-          There were fewer animals in the USSR before the Revolution

-          Farmer’s income was too low from state procurement prices

-          Productivity was very low and farmers were taxed too highly

-          The Party had been misled by the idea of “biological yields”

Khrushchev’s remedies to these were the following:

-          A rise of 25% in the price of grain procurements 1953-1956

-          Costs to collective farms were cut

·         E.g. the cost of transport and the hire of equipment

·         This pricing system did little to encourage farmers to grow what was necessary – the state offered prices often less than the cost of production

-          Peasant taxation was reorganised so it was paid on the size of the plot rather than fruit trees and livestock

-          Peasants without livestock weren’t expected to provide meat

·         Shortages caused the government to raise the prices of meat and dairy -> in Novocherkassk there were protests, when troops fired on rioters and killed 24.

-          Collective farms were allowed to set their own targets and were given more freedom to decide how to use their land

-          The MTS were abolished and repair stations were set up instead, for whose services collective farms had to pay

·         This meant there were no barns on farms to store equipment or the expertise to maintain them.

·         Mechanics from former MTS tended to return to industry

·         Farm machinery rotted in the fields for want of small parts

The Virgin Land Scheme

-          This was introduced to cultivate the 90 million acres of unfarmed land in western Siberia and northern Kazakhstan

-          It showed early signs of success in 1954 and 1956  (1955 was a drought year)

·         The 1956 grain harvest totalled 50% of total USSR grain production

·         By 1956 an extra 35.9 million hectares were cultivated = total cultivated area of Canada

·         Around 500,000 volunteers were recruited

·         In the first year of the scheme, 6 million acres were freshly ploughed

·         12,000 tractors were provided

-          However, despite initial success, after 1956 the scheme became a total failure

·         Erosion by wind proved to be a difficult problem – 13,000 square miles had their topsoil removed by 1960 alone

·         After the poor harvest of 1963, Khrushchev suffered the humiliation of having to import grain from the capitalist West

·         Khrushchev advised farmers to grow more maize -> 85 million acres were planted, only 1/6 was harvest ripe, a colossal waste of manpower and land because it wasn’t suited to the climate

Therefore, it is safe to say that Khrushchev’s agricultural policy, although de-Stalinist in that it actually prioritised agriculture, was largely a failure. The Virgin Lands Scheme became an example of Khrushchev’s “hare-brained scheming”, which was only accentuated by the fact Khrushchev had referred to himself as an “agricultural expert”, which obviously turned out not to be the case!

Industry

In 1959 the Party launched a Seven Year Plan with more realistic targets than the Five Year Plans of the 1930s

-          This had a heavy emphasis on power stations and consumer goods.

-          Statistics suggest it was a great success:

·         Coal increased from 391million tons in 1955 to 578 million tons in 1965

·         Tractor production increased from 314,000 in 1955 to 804,000 in 1965

·         TV set production increased from 495,000 in 1955 to 3,655,000 n 1965

In industry, Khrushchev differed very little from Stalin, focusing on meeting targets as opposed to ensuring quality.

He made some reforms in the organisation of industry:

-          105 regional councils (sovnarkozy) took the place of national ministries in decentralisation

·         This moved away from central planning of the Stalinist system

·         Was resented by some within the Party

·         It added another layer of bureaucracy: Filtzer called it “bureaucratic anarchy”

·         Furthermore a Supreme Economic Council was set up in Moscow

-          To prove the USSR could equal the West, Khrushchev invested a huge amount of resources into the Space Race, resulting in the USSR landing a Red Flag on the moon in 1959

·         Oct 1957 – launch of the first artificial satellite (Sputnik)

·         1959 – Luna I’s exploratory mission to the moon

·         1961 – Venera I explored Venus

·         April 1961 – Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in Vostok I

-          New emphasis was placed on technology and science

·         German technicians were forcible recruited

·         By 1965 – the USSR possessed over 4700 scientific establishments and employed more scientists than in any other country

The standard of living did improve:

-          A minimum wage was introduced in 1956, although most workers earned more

-          The average household income rose by 3% per year between 1960-65

-          The diet of the Russian people improved and became less dependent on bread and potatoes

-          Books and public transport became cheaper in the West, although items like clothes and footwear were expensive

-          By 1964 - only 5 in 1000 Soviets had a car, only 82 in 1000 had a television and only 40 in 1000 owned a refridgerator

-          The substantial increase in housing meant young married couples could find a place of their own

-          Diesel trains were added to Russian railways, but few families had cars

And that’s de-Stalinisation covered! Next we’ll be looking at the reasons for Khrushchev’s fall from power, but that’s another section. For now, try to reach your own judgements based on each section, and then we’ll link them to his ousting.