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Contemporary historians regard the beginning of de-Stalinization as a turning point in the history of the Soviet Union that began during the Khrushchev Thaw. The de-Stalinization process stalled during the Brezhnev period until the mid-1980s, and accelerated again with the policies of perestroika and glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev. De ...
The Khrushchev Thaw (Russian: хрущёвская о́ттепель, romanized: khrushchovskaya ottepel, IPA: [xrʊˈɕːɵfskəjə ˈotʲːɪpʲɪlʲ] or simply ottepel) [1] is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were relaxed due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization [2] and peaceful coexistence with other nations.
Khrushchev succeeded Stalin as the USSR's ruler, and articulated de-Stalinization in his secret speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At this point, censorship finally began to diminish; this was known as the "Khrushchev Thaw." Film output grew to 20 pictures in 1953, 45 in 1954, and 66 in 1955. [16]
This did not last, however, and Nikita Khrushchev eventually won the ensuing power struggle by the mid-1950s. In 1956, he denounced Joseph Stalin and proceeded to ease controls over the party and society. This was known as de-Stalinization.
After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw, a period of de-Stalinization began in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused the influence of Stalin's ideology to begin to wane in the USSR.
Statues that represented Stalin's cult of personality were subsequently removed from most public spaces in the Soviet Union and its satellite states as part of a process of "De-Stalinization". The only statue of Stalin in Budapest, Hungary, was destroyed by citizens during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution; no replacement was ever made.
As part of de-Stalinisation, Khrushchev set about renaming the numerous towns, cities, factories, natural features, and kolkhozes around the country named in honor of Stalin and his aides, most notably Stalingrad, site of the great WWII battle, was renamed to Volgograd in 1961.
The systematic attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church began as soon as the Bolsheviks took power in 1917. In the 1930s, Stalin intensified his war on organized religion. [ 38 ] Nearly all churches and monasteries were closed and tens of thousands of clergymen were imprisoned or executed.