Khrushchev's thaw: a turning point in Soviet history

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:54

Khrushchev's Thaw is primarily associated with the XX Congress of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which marked the beginning of a new stage in the life of the Soviet state. It was at this congress in February 1954 that the report of the new head of state was read, the main theses of which were the debunking of Stalin's personality cult, as well as the variety of ways to achieve socialism.

Khrushchev's thaw: briefly

Tough measures from the times of war communism, later collectivization,

industrialization, mass repression, show trials (such as the persecution of doctors) were condemned. Alternatively, the peaceful coexistence of countries with different social systems and the rejection of repressive measures in building socialism were proposed. In addition, a course was taken to weaken the control of the state over the ideological life of society. One of the main characteristics of a totalitarian state is precisely the rigid and widespread participation in all spheres of public life - cultural, social, political and economic. Such a system initially brings up in its own citizens the values and worldview it needs. In this regard, according to a number of researchers, the Khrushchev thaw put an end to totalitarianism in the Soviet Union, changing the system of relations between power andsociety to an authoritarian one. Since the mid-1950s, the mass rehabilitation of those convicted in the trials of the Stalin era began, many political prisoners who survived until that time were released. Special commissions were created for

consideration of the cases of the innocently convicted. Moreover, entire nations were rehabilitated. So Khrushchev's thaw allowed the Crimean Tatars and Caucasian ethnic groups, who were deported during the Second World War by Stalin's strong-willed decisions, to return to their homeland. Many Japanese and German prisoners of war, who later found themselves in Soviet captivity, were released to their homeland. Their number numbered in the tens of thousands. The Khrushchev thaw provoked large-scale social processes. A direct consequence of the weakening of censorship was the liberation of the cultural sphere from the shackles and the need to sing the praises of the current regime. The rise of Soviet literature and cinema took place in the 1950s and 1960s. At the same time, these processes provoked the first noticeable opposition to the Soviet government. Criticism, which began in a mild form in the literary work of writers and poets, became the subject of public discussion already in the 60s, giving rise to a whole layer of opposition-minded "sixties".

International detente

During this period, there is also a softening in the foreign policy of the USSR, one of the main initiators of which was also N. S. Khrushchev. The thaw reconciled the Soviet leadership with Tito's Yugoslavia. The latter was presented for a long time in the Union of the times of Stalin, as an apostate, almostfascist henchman only because he independently, without instructions from Moscow, led his state and walked

own way to socialism. During the same period, Khrushchev met with some Western leaders.

The Dark Side of the Thaw

But relations with China are starting to deteriorate. The local government of Mao Zedong did not accept the criticism of the Stalinist regime and considered Khrushchev's softening as apostasy and weakness before the West. And the warming of the Soviet foreign policy in the western direction did not last long. In 1956, during the “Hungarian spring”, the Central Committee of the CPSU demonstrates that it does not at all intend to let Eastern Europe out of its orbit of influence, drowning the local uprising in blood. Similar demonstrations were suppressed in Poland and the GDR. In the early 60s, the aggravation of relations with the United States literally put the world on the verge of a third world war. Yes, and in domestic politics, the boundaries of the thaw were quickly outlined. The harshness of the Stalinist era will never return, but arrests for criticism of the regime, expulsions, demotions, and other similar measures were quite common.