Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Khrushchev emerged as the most powerful Soviet politician. [3] A period of "silent de-Stalinization" subsequently took place, as the revision of Stalin's policies was done in secret, and often with no explanation. There were dangers in denouncing Stalin as he was placed on a pedestal both at home and among communists abroad. [4]
However, Stalin was not publicly denounced, and his portrait remained widespread through the USSR, from airports to Khrushchev's Kremlin office. Mikhail Gorbachev , then a Komsomol official, recalled that though young and well-educated Soviets in his district were excited by the speech, many others decried it, either defending Stalin or seeing ...
The Great Purge was denounced by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev following Stalin's death. In his secret speech to the 20th CPSU congress in February 1956 (which was made public a month later), Khrushchev referred to the purges as an "abuse of power" by Stalin which resulted in enormous harm to the country. In the same speech, he recognized ...
It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. [1] [2] Delegates at this Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were given no warning of what to expect.
The meetings were simultaneously held in several places, especially in Lenin Square and at the wreath-covered Stalin monument. The central streets were full of the demonstrators who loudly denounced Khrushchev, demanded that Stalin be rehabilitated and that his anniversary be allowed, and specifically asked Vyacheslav Molotov to defend Stalin's ...
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.
While Khrushchev's Secret Speech denounced Stalin's personality cult and purges as early as 1956, rehabilitation of Old Bolsheviks proceeded at a slow pace. Nikolai Bukharin and 19 other co-defendants were officially completely rehabilitated in February 1988.
Khrushchev was a staunch party man and lauded Leninism and communist ideology in his speech as often as he condemned Stalin's actions. Stalin, Khrushchev argued, was the primary victim of the deleterious effect of the cult of personality, [19] which, through his existing flaws, had transformed him from a crucial part of the victories of Lenin ...