Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev remains one of the most mysterious and controversial personalities in Russian history. It was under him that the so-called “thaw” took place in relations with the capitalist world, but at the same time, the world was hanging by a thread from a nuclear war. He came to power in favor of Stalin, but after the death of the latter, he poured mud from head to toe, reading a report on the cult of personality and its consequences.
I. V. Stalin, or What does the concept of "state personality" mean
When considering such a complex issue, which reflects information about the results of the impact of a single person on the internal and external development of the state, the question arises of what kind of person? In the modern world, it is believed that one person cannot change the development process of an entire country and society as a whole. However, under some existing forms of power, thisbecomes possible, especially if this person has high volitional characteristics that allow her to promote her ideas, i.e. to bend your line.
Starting from the 20s, a strong personality stood at the head of the Soviet state - JV Stalin. He managed to carry out his reform activities very successfully for the formation of a totalitarian regime. At the same time, all power was concentrated in the hands of the party leadership, and this very leadership was “under the hood” of Stalin himself. For almost 30 years of ruling the USSR, he managed to radically change the political, economic and social sphere of the country. You have to admit, he did a lot. But in many ways there were not only positive facts. There were also terrible, inhuman atrocities that are hard to justify.
Nikita Khrushchev exposed all these negative aspects of his political activity to everyone: both "his own" and "foreigners", which the latter were very happy and applauded. For the Soviet Union itself, this had a profoundly destructive effect inside the country.
More than 60 years have passed since Stalin's death. This time is quite enough to determine his place in world history as a statesman. Time filters out various kinds of "factual garbage" and the most important thing remains - the contribution.
Today there are historians who write about the victories and contribution of Stalin himself to the cause of development and elevation, killed in the fire of the civil war of the Russian state. Thus, the time has come for a real assessment of Stalin as a statesman. If aremember Peter I, no less atrocities were committed under him, but in the history of the Fatherland he is a national hero who brought Russia to the world level. Undoubtedly, over the years, Stalin will also become such a hero, but for this some indefinite time must pass.
Genocide
20 The Party Congress was one of the few short-term historical events that had a huge international political and ideological impact on all elements of society - both those in power and ordinary citizens. It led to fundamental changes within the largest state - the USSR. But what was the background to this historic report?
The country lived in conditions of total total control. The state could even interfere in the personal affairs of any citizen. Moreover, even individuals holding high government positions could not be in peace for their lives and activities, as well as their families.
During the civil war and in the 20s of the XX century, the Soviet government destroyed the entire cultural potential of the once highly developed society. In those years, there was a real genocide of the bearers of the culture of the Russian state. The nobility was destroyed as a class. The clergy were declared outside the law - they were shot, hung, beaten to death by tens, hundreds and thousands throughout the country. Entrepreneurship, as a characteristic of the quality of the individual, was exterminated in the bud - the bourgeoisie and we althy peasants were declared to be kulaks who had taken possession of the people's "we alth". They were given to be torn to pieces by a heated tofury of the proletariat. The lion's share of the intellectual potential owned by the Russian Empire "floated" to the West. Russian writers and scientists have found their second homeland "out there" abroad, away from the Red Terror. Stalin, as one of the first persons of the new government, was personally involved in this, so the XX Congress of the CPSU was a reflection of the reality that was happening in the country.
The era of Stalin, "Stalinism"
The result of the above events was the general averaging of society. And not only in terms of material, but cultural and intellectual. By the end of the 1930s, there was no longer any need to talk about the opposition - it simply did not exist. All citizens were driven into the head about the correctness of the chosen path of development of the Communist Party. Citizens themselves killed any doubts about the justice of actions. There was an unspoken rule at the table to say a toast "for Stalin", and everyone followed it. The humor was dangerous, it was almost impossible to even predict what you could be "taken" for. With regards to this, you can give an anecdote about those days:
Three are sitting in the cell.
- Why did you go to jail?
- Anecdote told. And you?
- I heard a joke.
- Comrade, why are you here?
- For laziness! Was in the company, heard a joke. I walked home and thought: to report or not to report. Too lazy, didn't report. And someone was not too lazy."
This is, of course, a joke. But, as they say, in every joke there is only a fraction of a joke. At that time, millions of people were in the camps. If not every, then almost every family has lost someone from their members. Butno one told anyone about it. It was dangerous to open your mouth again. The 20th party congress became the point from which it became possible to discuss the wrongness of actions, especially Stalin's.
Only giant Stalinist construction projects were in sight - agriculture, industry developed at a very high pace. Posters hung everywhere with happy faces of Soviet citizens and optimistic calls for work.
The USSR was separated from the rest of the world - an information blockade, foreign radio stations are not listened to by the population due to the lack of shortwave radio receivers. The rest of the media are dominated by ideology and filled with propaganda.
The criticism of Stalinism did not appear from scratch - there was something to talk about, but Khrushchev was not the first to start it, he was Beria, but not everyone heard him. Nikita Sergeevich “beat” him.
Pospelov Commission
Nikita Sergeevich has been preparing for this congress for a long time. He was little interested in most of the agenda and reports of his comrades. He was interested in only one question - a report on Stalin's personality cult. For this, Khrushchev did a great deal of preparatory work. First, he convinced all the top leadership of the need to evaluate the atrocities of the "leader". After that, a special group was created, later called the "Pospelov Commission".
This commission de alt with the issue of rehabilitation of illegally convicted citizens of the USSR by the Stalinist apparatus. One of the important witnesses of those events was prisoner BorisRhodes. Under Stalin, he was an investigator for especially important cases of the MGB and was one of the main executors of the processes relating to the "political" that took place in the 40s. His words confirmed Stalin's terror against his own people and, especially, party workers and civil servants. Moreover, he insisted on the responsibility of the Generalissimo himself, but in no case other political figures. Khrushchev needed just that. Although he was well aware that all the top party workers and leaders of the Union republics were responsible for the events no less than Stalin. After all, it was they who fulfilled the "limits" and turned to the leader for new "limits" for the next arrests.
Preparation for the XX Congress
The preparation of Khrushchev's report to the XX Congress of the CPSU did not go smoothly. Once a heated argument broke out over the question of evaluating Stalin himself. Molotov remained loyal to the former leader, he argued that "despite everything, Stalin is a faithful successor to the work of Lenin," which he found support from Voroshilov and Kaganovich. Saburov and Mikoyan, on the contrary, accused him of anti-communist views and, most importantly, actions. Khrushchev's opinion was different. He believed that Stalin was devoted to socialism, but all his undertakings were carried out wildly, in a barbaric way. He was not a Marxist, Nikita Sergeevich claimed, he destroyed everything that is sacred in a person, subordinated everything to his whims.
"Pospelov's Commission" prepared a report for the month, considering Stalin's actions in 1935-1940. It contains monstrous in their own waythe cruelty of the picture. All data were supported by archival documents, so they were more than convincing. In particular, statistics were given of more than 1.5 million people arrested in 1937-38, about 700 thousand of them were shot! It also provided statistics on the defeat of the party-Soviet leadership. Everything was scheduled specifically for sub-items, reflecting the complete picture of the state of affairs in the country with regards to arrests, repressions and executions.
February 9, 1956, that is, a week before the start of the congress, this report was heard at the Presidium of the Central Committee. The hall was shocked by what they heard and the question was raised about the need for such a reading. The 20th party congress was supposed to briefly touch upon the years of Stalin's activity, however, as it turned out, special attention was aimed specifically at him.
The day before the start of the congress, that is, on February 13, it was decided to hold a closed meeting at which Khrushchev would make a report. Only on the 18th the text of the speech was prepared by Pospelov and Aristov, but Nikita Sergeevich was not quite satisfied with it, so the editing began. The next day, Khrushchev summoned a stenographer and dictated his version of the report. This option was a mixture of information from the "Pospelov commission" and Khrushchev's personal arguments and thoughts.
20 Party Congress
Date of the Congress February 14 - February 25, 1956. This historic event took place for about two weeks, and the last day, February 25, made it as if historical. It was then that Khrushchev read out his famous secret report. But let's talk about everything in order. Eventally, the 20th Party Congress can be divided into two unequal parts.
The first consisted of 19 open sessions. This part was no different from the rest of the congresses held by the party. As a rule, each speaker's report began with praising the activities of the CPSU, followed by a report. It must be said that all reports were held in an optimistic rhythm, reflecting the exclusively positive dynamics of the party's activities in the localities and regions. The party seemed to work flawlessly. However, in fact, since 1952, serious failures and mistakes have become visible in her work.
To be fair, in addition to praising the party and former leader Joseph Stalin, some speakers were critical. In particular, Anastas Mikoyan made a negative assessment of Stalin's "Short Course" and literature covering the history of the Great October Revolution, as well as the civil war that followed it and the history of the Soviet state. It must be said that such speeches were not supported at the congresses, and there is nothing surprising in the fact that Mikoyan did not find support among those present. The well-known academician A. Pankratova also pointed out the facts of falsification of history.
Closed meeting and Khrushchev's "secret report"
The second part of the congress turned out to be crucial for the development of the USSR and the entire Soviet society. It was said above that the two parts of the congress are unequal - this is true. The first part lasted 11 days and nothing more or less significant happened there. The second part took place on the last day of the congress. Nikita Khrushchev read out"secret report", which brought the hall into a state of stupor and deep shock. He debunked the myth of Stalin's personality cult and made him the main and only culprit of mass repressions and other atrocities for all the years of his time in power, that is, for all 30 years. It is not surprising that it was decided to do without debate and discussion of this report - there was deathly silence in the hall during the report, and after it there was no applause, which was unusual for such events.
It is not yet possible to find out exactly what Khrushchev specifically said to the delegates. The printed text that has come down to us is edited, and no audio tape recordings have yet been found. But, given the fact of improvisation, the report "On the cult of personality and its consequences" could differ from the text released to the masses for review.
Result and response of the population to the "secret report"
It is very difficult to assess the consequences of Khrushchev's speech at the 20th Congress. People tend to "pump" from one extreme to another. Until February 25, 1956, Stalin was an "icon", even the thought of his failure as a politician did not arise, and even more so about the possible atrocities committed by him. The 20th Party Congress spoke about all this. Its historical significance was unpredictable. Most likely, even Nikita Sergeevich himself had no idea what his speech would lead to.
The population was divided into two parts in assessing the report - one was in favor and suggested continuing work in this vein, the second partspoke out sharply against the criticism of the leader of all times and peoples.
Letters and notes began to arrive in the Central Committee, in which it was proposed to continue the work of debunking the "myth about Stalin." There were separate proposals for each party member to speak out regarding this issue.
How did the populace hear about this report? The thing is that immediately after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party ended, a large-scale campaign began to familiarize the population of all categories with the text of Khrushchev's speech.
After that, there were questions about the legality of finding the body of Stalin next to Lenin. There were proposals for the rehabilitation of such seasoned revolutionaries as Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rakovsky. In addition to them, there were many thousands more proposals for the return of the honest name of illegally convicted Soviet citizens.
Bloody events in Tbilisi
A separate moment was the events in Tbilisi, which gave rise to the 20th Party Congress. The year 1956 was tragic for the Georgian people. Nikita Sergeevich needed to understand what his careless words could lead to. Georgia was the birthplace of Stalin. During the time that he was in power, he received such authority that they began to call him a demigod and began to deify him. By the way, to this day Georgia still has a special attitude towards him. The secret report was read at the end of February 1956, and mass unrest began in March.
Khrushchev could send experienced propagandists to Georgia who could explain everything “correctly” and convey it to the population. But Nikita Sergeevich was not interested in this - he sent punitive forces there. The result was a lot of bloodshed. To this day, in Georgia, Khrushchev is remembered with an unkind word.
Historical value
Khrushchev's report had mixed results. Firstly, it became the beginning of democratization in public administration - repression and terror were prohibited in the party struggle. But, at the same time, the government did not want to give the population a lot of freedom in action. Meanwhile, young people, as the most progressive part of society, understood the events that took place in politics in their own way. He believed that the time of shackles was in the past, real freedom had come.
But it was a mistake. Khrushchev wanted to return everything back, slow down the process of de-Stalinization, but it was already too late, and now he had to adapt to the ongoing events directed towards democracy.
The party leadership did not change because of this - it remained the same, but everyone wanted to blame Stalin and Beria as much as possible, thereby exposing their activities in a more attractive light.
The congress's decision to publicize Khrushchev's "secret report" led to big changes, but even top leaders did not understand what consequences this would lead to. As a result, the process of destruction of the state structure of a society of universal equality began.
Thaw
The second half of the 50s - the middle of the 60s of the XX century went down in Russian history as the period of the Khrushchev thaw. This is the time of the turning point in the development of the USSR from totalitarianismto something reminiscent of democracy. There was an improvement in relations with the capitalist world, the "iron curtain" became more permeable. Under Khrushchev, an international youth festival was organized in Moscow.
The persecution of party workers was stopped, many of those convicted under Stalin were rehabilitated. A little later, ordinary citizens were subject to rehabilitation. At the same time, the justification of the traitor peoples, which included the Chechens, Ingush, Germans and many others, took place.
The peasantry was freed from "collective-farm slavery", the working week was cut. The people accepted this optimistically, which had an overall positive impact on the country's economy. Across the country, active construction of housing areas began. To this day, there is no city in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union that does not have at least one "Khrushchev" building.
20 The party congress was an event not only of an intra-Soviet scale, but also of an international one. For speaking at this congress, Khrushchev was forgiven a lot - the Hungarian events, the massacre in Tbilisi and Novocherkassk, admiration for the West, his personal active participation in repressive actions during the reign of I. Stalin, boorish and arrogant attitude towards the intelligentsia. During the years of perestroika, there were even proposals to rebury Nikita Sergeevich at the foot of the Kremlin wall. Yes, of course, he became a world figure as a result of one famous speech. It's like Churchill after the Fulton speech, announcing the beginning of the Cold War, and instantly becoming a central figure in world politics.
