Destalinization
...ng the death of Stalin in 1953. Cries came from the people for reform, but they were quiet cries because nobody knew if the next leader would just continue Stalin's no-opposition policies. Also the secret police force, though without their master, still had power and still worked to satisfy Stalin's wishes (Rutherford, 16). Before dying, Stalin held one of several "great purges" in which he eliminated or imprisoned anyone who could possibly threaten his power- especially those who were gaining power in his own Communist Party (Great Events, 121). This led to confusion as to who actually held leadership, as there was no one truly ranked in a position to take over. Finally, a collective leadership was established in the Communist Party which was the majority party at the time. Several men ruled together and Georgi Malenkov emerged as the leader of this group. He named himself premier, a position just short of dictator, while a man named Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the leader of the Communist Party. Malenkov told the Russians that he would undo many of the changes that Stalin had made, but his reforms were extremely slow and ineffective. Khrushchev built support and soon gained enough power to blackmail Malenkov into resigning in 1955. Khrushchev finally became premier in 1958 and remained the Party leader, giving him almost total control over the nation. Khrushchev worked hard to be agreeable with the majority of the people he ruled. He went against many of Stalin's policies and gave the people a much greater sense of freedom. There was free political discussion, a standard 40 hour work week where people were free to change jobs, better government planning of production, and eased travel restrictions over the "Iron Curtain." Because he went away from Stalin's collectivization, industry and farm production suffered, and most of the nation's wheat was purchased from the West; the only counteraction to this was a happier constituency. Khrushchev established a policy of "peaceful co-existence" with the West in 1956 (Hirschfeld, 38-39). It helped the war-battered nation avoid further war with the West and it helped the nation to keep up with world technology. Stalin wanted to spread Communism where ever he could and however he could. Khrushchev, too, wanted to spread the political system, but he did it through words, and encouraged riots in other nations. These differences, along with a win in the space race, gave Khrushchev a popular image with the common people; but he was scorned by the neo-Stalinists and those who held a lot of power in the Communist Party. Probably the most notable achievement of Khrushchev was his process of "Destalinization." A political ploy to erase the past and ease the minds of those who suffered under the dictator. Khrushchev worked to denounce his former leader's doings and clean up the image of the nation on a worldwide scale. It is interesting to note though that Khrushchev worked with Stalin since nearly the time when Stalin took power at the uprisal of the modern Communist Party. He never made his newly found hatred for the man obvious while Stalin was in office, perhaps to protect himself, and perhaps to keep him rising through the ranks of the party. Only after Stalin's death did Khrushchev express his views on the leader's tyranny. The cities which were once named in honor of Stalin were given new names or returned to their old names (ex. Stalingrad returned to Volgograd) (Rutherford, 80). The statues and pictures of Stalin which were erected were destroyed, and letters were sent to families of those killed in battle which criticized Stalin's weak leadership during the time of war. Perhaps the most notable example of Destalinazation was a clandestine speech that Khrushchev gave to top officials of the Communist Party where he denounced Stalin and criticized the dictator and those who agreed with his views which murdered so many Russian citizens. The speech was supposedly kept a secret so that the Capitalist media would not receive word of it and gain an edge over the Communists if they knew of the strife that was occurring within the party. Stalin's grave was plundered and vandalized during this process, and Khrushchev gained approval from the West. It had a negative effect on Communism as a whole in that denouncing Stalin was basically denouncing Communism from its roots. Revolts broke out against the Communist governments in Poland and Hungary, and the USSR spent money to thwart these disturbances which might have helped to bolster Capitalism in the nearby areas. Now that the scene has been established, we shall look deeper to find possible reasons for why Destalinazation started and the impact that it had on Khrushchev and the nation. Joseph Stalin was probably one of the smartest leaders in keeping his people under an iron fist. Louis the XIV had the same effect, but he did it in a much more subtle way, quelling the nobility while serving the lay-people. It would have been tough for anyone to rise to power while Stalin was ruling because the secret police would have caught on to them so quickly and had them "removed." The reason's his policies failed may have been the rapidness of the instillation of Communism on the people. They had been under Czarist rule for so long, when all of the sudden Lenin seized power, and soon after, Stalin gained that power. The drastic differences in the way the government was run was bound to stir up conflict in the people, no matter what the consequences may have been. Also, many of his policies couldn't get accomplished because of what one could call weak "secondary" leadership. Nobody could rise to a position to take charge of a certain industry there because of Stalin's greed for absolute power. One man could not possibly rule a nation the size and calibre of the USSR by himself-but Stalin tried. The fact that his secret police were so well trained is probably the only reason why he remained in power as long as he did; if they weren't, revolutionaries or even conservative Communists could have easily striped him of power because the people certainly were not on Stalin's side. Yes, the policy of collectivization under Stalin boosted the economy, but the resulting loss of human life completely outweighed this gain, leading to a loss of workers, and, if Stalin would not have had to enter the war, a loss of production. The war brings up one last reason for the failure of Stalin's policies which were the subject of Destalinazation later on. Stalin could have somewhat redeemed himself with a prepared army that would defend the nation from the Nazis and establish the USSR as a major world power. The people might have then been able to appreciate the role of the State under Communism. But Stalin was too busy erecting statues of himself-gaining the image that he wanted to be remembered by. The soldiers, due to lack of money, were unprepared, untrained, and unequipped. The only thing that drove the German's out of the USSR was the immense mass of Russians that Stalin had fighting, but the casualties prove the Russians were certainly not victorious, and this probably deepened the people's hatred for the poor rule of Stalin and their lack of representation in society. During this time, Khrushchev kept quiet. This was most likely due to two factors: one, he did not want to be stripped of his power and two, he wanted to remain somewhat anonymous so that he would not be associated with Stalin's policies when it would be time for him to possibly rise to power. He was simply protecting his image, to both his leader, and the masses, looking favorable to both. He was probably one of those people that nobody likes-the type that will say whatever is necessary to boost his image at the time. If Stalin, who Khrushchev did work closely with at times, wanted an opinion, Khrushchev probably told Stalin that his policies were well thought out and working advantageously to the nation, but when confronted with his views in public, one would tend to believe that he would not be so praising, as to look good to the masses, which hated Stalin. Once Khrushchev finally rose to power and was safe because of Stalin's death, he started the process of Destalinizing the nation. Even though he had been a firm believer in Communism, and probably did not care about much of what Stalin did, Stalin had left his mark on history as an evil man. Khrushchev most likely wanted to take advantage of his opportunity to gain a positive image, and therefore he undid many of Stalin's reforms, he gave people their freedoms back, and he removed the image of Stalin from cities across the USSR. He simply told the people what they wanted to he...