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De-Stalinization (Russian: десталинизация, romanized: destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power, [1] and his 1956 secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its ...
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.
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.
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.
De-Stalinization began in the former Soviet Union in the mid-1950s during the Khrushchev thaw following the latter's secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences". But this was framed as a return to orthodox Leninism and thus the cult of Lenin remained [ 1 ] until the dissolution of the USSR , when public challenges to the ...
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.
As the Cold War became an accepted element of the international system, the battlegrounds of the earlier period began to stabilize. A de facto buffer zone between the two camps was set up in Central Europe. In the south, Yugoslavia became heavily allied with the other European communist states. Meanwhile, Austria had become neutral.
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.