History of the Soviet Union (1953-1985)
Encyclopedia
In the USSR, the eleven-year period from the death of Joseph Stalin
(1953) to the political ouster of Nikita Khrushchev
(1964), the national politics were dominated by the Cold War
; the ideological U.S.
–USSR
struggle for the planetary domination of their respective socio–economic systems, and the defense of hegemonic
spheres of influence
. Nonetheless, since the mid-1950s, despite the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU) having disowned Stalinism
, the political culture of Stalinism — an omnipotent General Secretary
, anti-Trotskyism
, a five-year planned economy
(post-New Economic Policy
), and repudiation of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact secret protocols — remained the character of Soviet society until the accession of Mikhail Gorbachev
as leader of the CPSU in 1985.
as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU) and Georgi Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union
. However the central figure in the immediate post-Stalin period was the former head of the state security apparatus, Lavrentiy Beria
.
Beria, despite his record as part of Stalin's terror state, initiated a period of relative liberalization, including the release of some political prisoners. The leadership also began allowing some criticism of Stalin, saying that his one-man dictatorship went against the principles laid down by Lenin. The war hysteria that characterized his last years was toned down, and government bureaucrats and factory managers were ordered to wear civilian clothing instead of military-style outfits. However, the Politburo members disliked and feared Beria for his role under Stalin and with the support of the armed forces, had him arrested three months after Stalin's death. At the end of the year, he was shot following a show trial where he was accused of spying for the West, committing sabotage, and plotting to restore capitalism. The secret police were disarmed and reorganized into the KGB, ensuring that they were completely under the control of the party and would never again be able to wage mass terror. In the post-Beria period, Khrushchev rapidly began to emerge as the key figure.
The new leadership declared an amnesty for some serving prison sentences for criminal offenses, announced price cuts, and relaxed the restrictions on private plots. De-Stalinization
also spelled an end to the role of large-scale forced labor
in the economy.
During a period of collective leadership
, Khrushchev gradually rose to power. At a speech "On the Personality Cult and its Consequences
" to the closed session of the Twentieth Party Congress of the CPSU, 25 February 1956, Khrushchev shocked his listeners by denouncing Stalin's dictatorial rule and cult of personality
. He also attacked the crimes committed by Stalin's closest associates. Furthermore, he stated that the orthodox view of war between the capitalist and communist worlds being inevitable was no longer true. He advocated competition with the West rather than outright hostility, stating that capitalism would decay from within and that world socialism would triumph peacefully. But, he added, if the capitalists did desire war, the Soviet Union would respond in kind.
The impact on Soviet politics was immense. The speech stripped the legitimacy of his remaining Stalinist rivals, dramatically boosting his power domestically. Afterwards, Khrushchev eased restrictions, freeing millions of political prisoners (the Gulag
population declined from 13 million in 1953 to 5 million in 1956–57, and a vast majority of the remaining inmates were common criminals). Communists around the world were as shocked and confused by his condemnation of Stalin as they had been in 1939 by the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact.
Khrushchev initiated "The Thaw" better known as Khrushchev's Thaw, a complex shift in political, cultural and economic life in the Soviet Union. That included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods, allowing living standards to rise dramatically while maintaining high levels of economic growth. Censorship was relaxed as well. Some subtle critiques of the Soviet society was tolerated, and the artists were not expected to produce only works which had government-approved political context. Still, artists, most of whom were proud of both the country and the Party, were careful not to get into trouble. On the other hand, he reintroduced aggressive anti-religious campaigns, closing down many houses of worship.
Such loosening of controls also caused an enormous impact on other socialist countries in Central Europe, many of which were resentful of Soviet influence in their affairs. Riots broke out in Poland in the summer of 1956, which led to reprisals from national forces there. A political convulsion soon followed, leading to the rise of Władysław Gomułka to power in October. This almost triggered a Soviet invasion when Polish Communists elected him without consulting the Kremlin in advance, but in the end, Khrushchev backed down due to Gomułka's widespread popularity in the country. Poland would still remain a member of the Warsaw Pact (established a year earlier), and in return, the Soviet Union seldom intervened in its neighbors' domestic and external affairs. Khrushchev also began reaching out to newly independent countries in Asia & Africa, which was in sharp contrast to Stalin's Europe-centered foreign policy. And in September 1959, he became the first Soviet leader to visit the US.
In November 1956, the 1956 Hungarian uprising was brutally suppressed by Soviet troops. About 2500-3000 Hungarian insurgents and 700 Soviet troops were killed, thousands more were wounded, and nearly a quarter million left the country as refugees. The Hungarian uprising was a blow to Western communists; many who had formerly supported the Soviet Union began to criticize it in the wake of the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising.
The following year Khrushchev defeated a concerted Stalinist attempt to recapture power, decisively defeating the so−called "Anti-Party Group
". This event also illustrated the new nature of Soviet politics—the most decisive attack on the Stalinists was delivered by defense minister Georgy Zhukov
, and the implied threat to the plotters was clear; however, none of the "anti−party group" were killed or even arrested, and Khrushchev disposed of them quite cleverly: Georgy Malenkov
was sent to manage a power station in Kazakhstan
, and Vyacheslav Molotov
, one of the most die-hard Stalinists, was made ambassador to Mongolia
and later the Soviet representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Khrushchev became premier on March 27, 1958, consolidating his power — the tradition followed by all his predecessors and successors. This was the final stage in the transition from the earlier period of post-Stalin collective leadership. He was now the ultimate source of authority in the Soviet Union, but would never possess the absolute power Stalin had.
Aid to developing countries and scientific research, especially into space technology and weaponry, maintained the Soviet Union as one of the world's two major world powers. The Soviet Union launched the first ever artificial earth satellite in history, Sputnik 1
, which orbited the earth in 1957. The Soviets also sent the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin
, in 1961.
Khrushchev outmaneuvered his Stalinist
rivals, but he was regarded by his political enemies — especially the emerging caste of professional technocrats — as a boorish peasant who would interrupt speakers to insult them. Incidents such as pounding his shoe on a table at the UN in 1960 and red-faced rants against the West and intellectuals were a source of grave embarrassment to Soviet politicians.
, which introduced important innovations in this area of the Soviet economy. The state encouraged peasant
s to grow more on their private plots, increased payments for crops grown on collective farms, and invested more heavily in agriculture.
Khrushchev continued to believe in the theories of the biologist Trofim Lysenko
, a carryover from the Stalin era. In his Virgin Lands Campaign
in the mid−1950s, he opened many tracts of land to farming in Kazakhstan
and neighboring areas of Russia. These new farmlands turned out to be susceptible to drought
s, but in some years they produced excellent harvests. Later agricultural reforms by Khrushchev, however, proved counterproductive. His plans for growing corn
and increasing meat
and dairy
production failed, and his reorganization of collective farms into larger units produced confusion in the countryside.
In a politically motivated move to weaken the central state bureaucracy in 1957, Khrushchev did away with the industrial ministries in Moscow and replaced them with regional economic councils (sovnarkhoz
es).
Although he intended these economic councils to be more responsive to local needs, the decentralization of industry led to disruption and inefficiency. Connected with this decentralization was Khrushchev's decision in 1962 to recast party organizations along economic, rather than administrative, lines. The resulting bifurcation of the party apparatus into industrial and agricultural sectors at the oblast (province) level and below contributed to the disarray and alienated many party officials at all levels. Symptomatic of the country's economic difficulties was the abandonment in 1963 of Khrushchev's special seven−year economic plan (1959–65) two years short of its completion.
In defense policy, Khrushchev began cutting the military's budget, feeling that the Soviet nuclear arsenal was an adequate deterrent to outside aggression. This had a practical reason in that there was a shortage of military-age men due to the lower birth rate of the 1940s, but it alienated key figures in the Soviet military establishment and culminated in the fiasco (in Soviet eyes) of the Cuban missile crisis. Despite large reductions in Soviet conventional forces since 1956, the construction of the Berlin Wall
, made under initiative of the East German authorities, created a source of tension with the West.
Khrushchev's boasts about Soviet missile forces provided John F. Kennedy
with a key issue to use against Richard Nixon
in the 1960 U.S. presidential election
—the so−called 'Missile gap
'. But all Khrushchev's (probably sincere) attempts to build a strong personal relationship with the new president failed, as his typical combination of bluster, miscalculation and mishap resulted in the Cuban fiasco. After the Berlin and Cuba crises, tensions tapered off between the two superpowers.
By 1964 Khrushchev's prestige had been damaged in a number of areas. While industrial production, living standards and consumer goods were still growing at a very rapid pace, the agricultural sector faced a bad harvest in 1963. Abroad, the split with China
, the construction of the Berlin Wall
, and the Cuban missile crisis
hurt the Khrushchev's own prestige in his own country, and his efforts to improve relations with the West antagonized many in the military. Lastly, the 1962 party reorganization caused turmoil throughout the Soviet political chain of command. Power started going to his head, and he began to act more autocratically than before. He was also the subject of a growing personality cult, which was noticeable at the celebrations of his 70th birthday in April 1964. Furthermore, he travelled outside the country constantly, which allowed plots to be formed against him.
In October 1964, while Khrushchev was on holiday in Crimea
, the Presidium
unanimously voted him out of office and refused to permit him to take his case to the Central Committee. He retired as a private citizen after an editorial in Pravda denounced him for "hare−brained schemes, half−baked conclusions, hasty decisions, and actions divorced from reality." However, Khrushchev must also be remembered for his public disavowal of Stalinism
, significant liberalization in the country, and the greater flexibility he brought to Soviet leadership.
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
(1953) to the political ouster of Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
(1964), the national politics were dominated by the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
; the ideological U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
–USSR
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
struggle for the planetary domination of their respective socio–economic systems, and the defense of hegemonic
Hegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
spheres of influence
Sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or conceptual division over which a state or organization has significant cultural, economic, military or political influence....
. Nonetheless, since the mid-1950s, despite the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
(CPSU) having disowned Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
, the political culture of Stalinism — an omnipotent General Secretary
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the title given to the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some exceptions, the office was synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union...
, anti-Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
, a five-year planned economy
Planned economy
A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...
(post-New Economic Policy
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
), and repudiation of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact secret protocols — remained the character of Soviet society until the accession of Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
as leader of the CPSU in 1985.
De-Stalinization and the Khrushchev era
After Stalin died in March 1953, he was succeeded by Nikita KhrushchevNikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
(CPSU) and Georgi Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union
Premier of the Soviet Union
The office of Premier of the Soviet Union was synonymous with head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . Twelve individuals have been premier...
. However the central figure in the immediate post-Stalin period was the former head of the state security apparatus, Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
.
Beria, despite his record as part of Stalin's terror state, initiated a period of relative liberalization, including the release of some political prisoners. The leadership also began allowing some criticism of Stalin, saying that his one-man dictatorship went against the principles laid down by Lenin. The war hysteria that characterized his last years was toned down, and government bureaucrats and factory managers were ordered to wear civilian clothing instead of military-style outfits. However, the Politburo members disliked and feared Beria for his role under Stalin and with the support of the armed forces, had him arrested three months after Stalin's death. At the end of the year, he was shot following a show trial where he was accused of spying for the West, committing sabotage, and plotting to restore capitalism. The secret police were disarmed and reorganized into the KGB, ensuring that they were completely under the control of the party and would never again be able to wage mass terror. In the post-Beria period, Khrushchev rapidly began to emerge as the key figure.
The new leadership declared an amnesty for some serving prison sentences for criminal offenses, announced price cuts, and relaxed the restrictions on private plots. De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
also spelled an end to the role of large-scale forced labor
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
in the economy.
During a period of collective leadership
Collective leadership
Collective leadership or Collectivity of leadership , was considered an ideal form of governance in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...
, Khrushchev gradually rose to power. At a speech "On the Personality Cult and its Consequences
On the Personality Cult and its Consequences
On the Personality Cult and its Consequences was a report, critical of Joseph Stalin, made to the Twentieth Party Congress on February 25, 1956 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It is more commonly known as the Secret Speech or the Khrushchev Report...
" to the closed session of the Twentieth Party Congress of the CPSU, 25 February 1956, Khrushchev shocked his listeners by denouncing Stalin's dictatorial rule and cult of personality
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
. He also attacked the crimes committed by Stalin's closest associates. Furthermore, he stated that the orthodox view of war between the capitalist and communist worlds being inevitable was no longer true. He advocated competition with the West rather than outright hostility, stating that capitalism would decay from within and that world socialism would triumph peacefully. But, he added, if the capitalists did desire war, the Soviet Union would respond in kind.
The impact on Soviet politics was immense. The speech stripped the legitimacy of his remaining Stalinist rivals, dramatically boosting his power domestically. Afterwards, Khrushchev eased restrictions, freeing millions of political prisoners (the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
population declined from 13 million in 1953 to 5 million in 1956–57, and a vast majority of the remaining inmates were common criminals). Communists around the world were as shocked and confused by his condemnation of Stalin as they had been in 1939 by the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact.
Khrushchev initiated "The Thaw" better known as Khrushchev's Thaw, a complex shift in political, cultural and economic life in the Soviet Union. That included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods, allowing living standards to rise dramatically while maintaining high levels of economic growth. Censorship was relaxed as well. Some subtle critiques of the Soviet society was tolerated, and the artists were not expected to produce only works which had government-approved political context. Still, artists, most of whom were proud of both the country and the Party, were careful not to get into trouble. On the other hand, he reintroduced aggressive anti-religious campaigns, closing down many houses of worship.
Such loosening of controls also caused an enormous impact on other socialist countries in Central Europe, many of which were resentful of Soviet influence in their affairs. Riots broke out in Poland in the summer of 1956, which led to reprisals from national forces there. A political convulsion soon followed, leading to the rise of Władysław Gomułka to power in October. This almost triggered a Soviet invasion when Polish Communists elected him without consulting the Kremlin in advance, but in the end, Khrushchev backed down due to Gomułka's widespread popularity in the country. Poland would still remain a member of the Warsaw Pact (established a year earlier), and in return, the Soviet Union seldom intervened in its neighbors' domestic and external affairs. Khrushchev also began reaching out to newly independent countries in Asia & Africa, which was in sharp contrast to Stalin's Europe-centered foreign policy. And in September 1959, he became the first Soviet leader to visit the US.
In November 1956, the 1956 Hungarian uprising was brutally suppressed by Soviet troops. About 2500-3000 Hungarian insurgents and 700 Soviet troops were killed, thousands more were wounded, and nearly a quarter million left the country as refugees. The Hungarian uprising was a blow to Western communists; many who had formerly supported the Soviet Union began to criticize it in the wake of the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising.
The following year Khrushchev defeated a concerted Stalinist attempt to recapture power, decisively defeating the so−called "Anti-Party Group
Anti-Party Group
The Anti-Party Group was a group within the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that unsuccessfully attempted to depose Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Party in May 1957. The group, named by that epithet by Khrushchev, was led by former Premiers Georgy Malenkov and...
". This event also illustrated the new nature of Soviet politics—the most decisive attack on the Stalinists was delivered by defense minister Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Zhukov
Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers' occupation...
, and the implied threat to the plotters was clear; however, none of the "anti−party group" were killed or even arrested, and Khrushchev disposed of them quite cleverly: Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
was sent to manage a power station in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, and Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
, one of the most die-hard Stalinists, was made ambassador to Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
and later the Soviet representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Khrushchev became premier on March 27, 1958, consolidating his power — the tradition followed by all his predecessors and successors. This was the final stage in the transition from the earlier period of post-Stalin collective leadership. He was now the ultimate source of authority in the Soviet Union, but would never possess the absolute power Stalin had.
Aid to developing countries and scientific research, especially into space technology and weaponry, maintained the Soviet Union as one of the world's two major world powers. The Soviet Union launched the first ever artificial earth satellite in history, Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 ) was the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth's orbit. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1s success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space...
, which orbited the earth in 1957. The Soviets also sent the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
, in 1961.
Khrushchev outmaneuvered his Stalinist
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
rivals, but he was regarded by his political enemies — especially the emerging caste of professional technocrats — as a boorish peasant who would interrupt speakers to insult them. Incidents such as pounding his shoe on a table at the UN in 1960 and red-faced rants against the West and intellectuals were a source of grave embarrassment to Soviet politicians.
Reforms and Khrushchev's fall
Throughout his years of leadership, Khrushchev attempted to carry out reform in a range of fields. The problems of Soviet agriculture, a major concern of Khrushchev's, had earlier attracted the attention of the collective leadershipCollective leadership
Collective leadership or Collectivity of leadership , was considered an ideal form of governance in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...
, which introduced important innovations in this area of the Soviet economy. The state encouraged peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s to grow more on their private plots, increased payments for crops grown on collective farms, and invested more heavily in agriculture.
Khrushchev continued to believe in the theories of the biologist Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist of Ukrainian origin, who was director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin. Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of the hybridization theories of Russian horticulturist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, and adopted them into a powerful...
, a carryover from the Stalin era. In his Virgin Lands Campaign
Virgin Lands Campaign
The Virgin Lands Campaign was an initiative by Nikita Khrushchev to open up vast tracts of unseeded steppe in the northern Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and the Altay region of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, started in 1954....
in the mid−1950s, he opened many tracts of land to farming in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
and neighboring areas of Russia. These new farmlands turned out to be susceptible to drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
s, but in some years they produced excellent harvests. Later agricultural reforms by Khrushchev, however, proved counterproductive. His plans for growing corn
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
and increasing meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
and dairy
Dairy
A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting of animal milk—mostly from cows or goats, but also from buffalo, sheep, horses or camels —for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on a dedicated dairy farm or section of a multi-purpose farm that is concerned...
production failed, and his reorganization of collective farms into larger units produced confusion in the countryside.
In a politically motivated move to weaken the central state bureaucracy in 1957, Khrushchev did away with the industrial ministries in Moscow and replaced them with regional economic councils (sovnarkhoz
Sovnarkhoz
Sovnarkhoz, , usually translated as Regional Economic Council, was an organization of the Soviet Union to manage a separate economic region....
es).
Although he intended these economic councils to be more responsive to local needs, the decentralization of industry led to disruption and inefficiency. Connected with this decentralization was Khrushchev's decision in 1962 to recast party organizations along economic, rather than administrative, lines. The resulting bifurcation of the party apparatus into industrial and agricultural sectors at the oblast (province) level and below contributed to the disarray and alienated many party officials at all levels. Symptomatic of the country's economic difficulties was the abandonment in 1963 of Khrushchev's special seven−year economic plan (1959–65) two years short of its completion.
In defense policy, Khrushchev began cutting the military's budget, feeling that the Soviet nuclear arsenal was an adequate deterrent to outside aggression. This had a practical reason in that there was a shortage of military-age men due to the lower birth rate of the 1940s, but it alienated key figures in the Soviet military establishment and culminated in the fiasco (in Soviet eyes) of the Cuban missile crisis. Despite large reductions in Soviet conventional forces since 1956, the construction of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, made under initiative of the East German authorities, created a source of tension with the West.
Khrushchev's boasts about Soviet missile forces provided John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
with a key issue to use against Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
in the 1960 U.S. presidential election
United States presidential election, 1960
The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th American presidential election, held on November 8, 1960, for the term beginning January 20, 1961, and ending January 20, 1965. The incumbent president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party...
—the so−called 'Missile gap
Missile gap
The missile gap was the term used in the United States for the perceived disparity between the number and power of the weapons in the U.S.S.R. and U.S. ballistic missile arsenals during the Cold War. The gap only existed in exaggerated estimates made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and United...
'. But all Khrushchev's (probably sincere) attempts to build a strong personal relationship with the new president failed, as his typical combination of bluster, miscalculation and mishap resulted in the Cuban fiasco. After the Berlin and Cuba crises, tensions tapered off between the two superpowers.
By 1964 Khrushchev's prestige had been damaged in a number of areas. While industrial production, living standards and consumer goods were still growing at a very rapid pace, the agricultural sector faced a bad harvest in 1963. Abroad, the split with China
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
, the construction of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, and the Cuban missile crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
hurt the Khrushchev's own prestige in his own country, and his efforts to improve relations with the West antagonized many in the military. Lastly, the 1962 party reorganization caused turmoil throughout the Soviet political chain of command. Power started going to his head, and he began to act more autocratically than before. He was also the subject of a growing personality cult, which was noticeable at the celebrations of his 70th birthday in April 1964. Furthermore, he travelled outside the country constantly, which allowed plots to be formed against him.
In October 1964, while Khrushchev was on holiday in Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
, the Presidium
Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Politburo , known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, functioned as the central policymaking and governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.-Duties and responsibilities:The...
unanimously voted him out of office and refused to permit him to take his case to the Central Committee. He retired as a private citizen after an editorial in Pravda denounced him for "hare−brained schemes, half−baked conclusions, hasty decisions, and actions divorced from reality." However, Khrushchev must also be remembered for his public disavowal of Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
, significant liberalization in the country, and the greater flexibility he brought to Soviet leadership.
See also
- History of the Soviet Union (1964–1982)History of the Soviet Union (1964–1982)The history of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, referred to as the Brezhnev Era, covers the period of Leonid Brezhnev's rule of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . This period began with high economic growth and soaring prosperity, but ended with a much weaker Soviet Union facing social,...
(Brezhnev Era) - History of the Soviet Union (1982–1991) (Post-Brezhnev Era and the Soviet dissolution)
Further reading
- Baradat, Leon P., Soviet Political Society, Prentice−Hall, New Jersey, 1986. ISBN 0-13-823592-9
- Nenarokov, Albert P., Russia in the Twentieth Century: the View of a Soviet Historian, William Morrow Co, New York, 1968.
- Schapiro, Leonard, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Vintage Books, New York, 1971. ISBN 0-394-70745-1