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History - USSR 1917 - 1991 > 1.3 Reform, stability and stagnation, 1953-85 > Flashcards

1.3 Reform, stability and stagnation, 1953-85 Flashcards

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1
Q

What did Khrushchev believe in and want to do?

A
  • He wanted to regenerate the Soviet Union
  • He believed in the revolutionary goals of Lenin and wanted to create a society of plenty, where there was no inequality or poverty
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2
Q

Why did Khrushchev encourage greater republic participation in politics and greater dynamism within the party?

A

He believed mass commitment to the revolution was central to the future of communism

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3
Q

Why did Khrushchev reject Stalin’s belief that terror was central to revolutionary transformation?

A

Because he wanted to create a humane form of socialism in which people were free from the threat of arbitrary terror

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4
Q

When did Khrushchev give his ‘secret speech’?

A

1956

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5
Q

What did the speech propose should happen?

A

1) Return to the legality of Lenin
2) Give more power to the organisation at regional level
3) Two million political prisoners released
4) Regular meetings of the presidium and central committee

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6
Q

How was terror used under Khrushchev?

A

Through de-Stalinisation:
- Secret Police brought under party control
- Secret Police lost control over labour camps
- heavy punishments remain for corruption
- Secret police still watching the general population

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7
Q

What was the Secret Police called under Khrushchev?

A

The KGB

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8
Q

What was Brezhnev’s approach to Government?

A

Brezhnev quickly reversed those aspects of de-Stalinisation.
1) The division of the party into agricultural and industrial sections was dropped
2) Limits on tenure were dropped
3) Leader would have to consult the party on all decisions
4) However, there was no return to widespread terror that was seen under Stalin

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9
Q

What was the issue with Khrushchev?

A
  • He had clear aims but lacked a coherent plan
  • Naturally impulsive and made unrealistic promises
  • Announced major changes and then backtracked
  • His repeated retreats showed reflections that his authority was never as complete as that of Lenin or Stalin
  • Other Soviet leaders were willing to challenge his authority and force him to back down
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10
Q

What contributed to Khrushchev’s fall in 1964?

A

His impulsiveness, inconsistency and relative weakness within the government

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11
Q

What did Stalin’s death lead to?

A

A power struggle from 1953-1955 in which the first reforms and steps to de-Stalinisation took place

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12
Q

What was Stalin’s power largely based upon?

A
  • His reputation and his willingness to use terror
  • It was personal and not based on positions either in the party or the government
  • He left no testament on who he wanted to lead after he died; unlike Lenin
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13
Q

Who were the three main contenders after Stalin’s death?

A

Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev

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14
Q

Who was Malenkov?

A
  • Rumoured to be Stalin’s first choice of successor
  • Replaced Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union, the head of the Soviet Government
  • His powerbase was the Soviet State; assuming was superior to the communist party
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15
Q

Who was Beria?

A
  • Head of Stalin’s secret police
  • Responsible for implementing Stalin’s terror
  • Was deputy Premier in Stalin’s last years
  • Powerbase was the MVD
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16
Q

Who was Khrushchev?

A
  • Became secretary of the central committee on Stalin’s death
  • He has no state role
  • The party was his powerbase
  • Was a popular member of the politburo for being the ‘apparatchik’s apparatchik’
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17
Q

Even though Stalin had turned the Soviet Union into a military and industrial superpower, what major political problems did he leave behind?

A

There was a power vacuum, threatening to cause chaos within the government

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18
Q

What was one way the new leaders tried to empower the party and state?

A

Reduce and restrict the power of the MVD, (Stalin’s weapon against the power of the party and state)

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19
Q

Why did Beria initially lead the reform?

A

To calm the fears of his rivals who thought he was going to use the MVD against them

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20
Q

Why did Beria reform the Gulag system?

A

It had become inefficient and difficult to manage

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21
Q

How did Beria reform the Gulag system?

A
  • March 1953: introduced an amnesty for non-political prisoners serving short sentences
  • It was extended in April to some ‘counter-revolutionaries’
  • A party commission was set up in May to investigate past executions - they rehabilitated 4620 communists
  • MVD lost a great deal of its economic power
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22
Q

What was the result of the reform introduced by Beria?

A

Gulag population dropped from 2.4 million in 1953 go 1.5 million in 1956

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23
Q

In June 1953. what reforms did Beria introduce to make republican governments more representative?

A
  • He introduced a measure that required all senior party officials to speak the language of the republic that they worked in
  • He ordered that all official publications should be available in the language of the republics as well as Russian
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24
Q

Why did Khrushchev and Malenkov plan to arrest an execute Beria?

A

Because they worried he would use the MVD to terrorise and eventually execute them

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25
Q

What happened at a meeting in the Presidium in June 1953?

A
  • Khrushchev accused Beria of handing Soviet secrets to the British government and crimes against the Soviet people
  • He was arrested, tried and executed
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26
Q

What was the execution of Beria another plan to do?

A

Restricting power of the MVD and restoring the party power

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27
Q

What were the aims of Khrushchev’s reforms?

A
  • He wanted to enhance his own power
  • Wanted to enhance the power of the party at the expense of Malenkov and the state
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28
Q

What was one of Khrushchev’s first attempts at reform?

A

Replacing Stalin’s supporters with his own

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29
Q

How did Khrushchev carry out his first attempt at reform?

A
  • He used his position as Secretary of the central committee to replace senior officials throughout the party
  • Between 1953 and 1956 he replaced around half of the regional party secretaries and 44% of the Central Committee
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30
Q

What did carrying out personnel changes do for Khrushchev?

A

Secured his position within the party by filling up top levels of the party with people who were loyal to him and people who were prepared to back reform

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31
Q

What was Khrushchev’s second initiative?

A

To weaken the state

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32
Q

What was a direct attack on Malenkov’s powerbase?

A

Cutting bureaucracy by devolving power from the Soviet government to republican governments

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33
Q

What did Khrushchev do in 1954?

A
  • Reconstructed the government, cutting the number of central soviet ministries from 55 to 25
  • Economic power exercised by republics increased
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34
Q

What did the reforms mean?

A
  • The proportion of soviet industry controlled by central government dropped from 68% to just 44%
  • The success of the reforms meant that Malenkov lost the premiership in February 1955 and Bulganin, the new premier, was no Khrushchev’s key allies
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35
Q

Why did Malenkov and Khrushchev unite?

A
  • Their desire was to end important aspects of Stalin’s rule
  • They both wanted to humanise communism
  • Wanted to end Stalin’s use of terror and enhance the living of Soviet citizens by improving their standard of living and enriching Soviet culture with new novels, plays and other form of art
36
Q

Why did both Khrushchev and Malenkov reject the ‘cult of personality’?

A

Because they were Leninists and wanted to shift focus from Stalin as a heroic leader to the achievements of the communist party and the soviet people

37
Q

How were the first steps of ending Stalin’s cult of personality initiated?

A
  • Plans to turn Stalin’s dacha into a museum were scrapped
  • Annual Stalin prizes were cancelled
  • There were no official celebrations of Stalin’s birthday
38
Q

Why was criticising Stalin a huge risk for Khrushchev?

A
  • Stalin was widely respected as a founder of the soviet system
  • Criticising him risked undermining the authority of the Soviet Union and communism
  • Risked outraging the party because many senior communists still respected Stalin
39
Q

What did Khrushchev negotiate with the Presidium in 1956?

A

To present his criticisms of Stalin at a secret session of the Twentieth Party Congress of 1956 (14th Feb)

40
Q

What did Khrushchev critique Stalin on?

A
  • Argued that Stalin abandoned collective leadership and set himself up as a dictator
  • Stalin placed himself above the party and robbed it of its role
  • Without the wisdom of the party, Stalin made serious mistakes e.g. purge the red army after WW2
40
Q

What did Khrushchev claim about Stalin?

A
  • That he committed serious crimes, especially during the terror when he ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people
  • He revealed the scale of terror that Stalin kept from the party
  • He quoted the criticism Lenin made in his testament
41
Q

What did Khrushchev not criticise?

A

Stalin’s policy of industrialisation or collectivisation or any aspect of communist ideology

42
Q

What happened once Khrushchev gave his secret speech?

A

Many delegates were profoundly shocked and some even suffered with a hear attack and others took their lives when they heard of Stalin’s crimes

43
Q

What did Khrushchev and Malenkov do in May 1954?

A
  • Set up a special commission to review the cases of political prisoners who had been sent to the Gulags
  • First year progress was slow, only 4620 of 113,739 prisoners were released
44
Q

How did the process in the Gulags escalate after the secret speech?

A

In June 1956, 51,439 prisoners were released

45
Q

What was one problem caused by de-Stalinisation?

A

Communist parties in Hungary and Poland began their own process of de-Stalinisation. In Hungary, students and artists initiated a new revolution and elected a new Prime Minister. After the new government ended its alliance with the Soviet Union, Khrushchev ordered Soviet troops to crush the revolution

46
Q

What was the second problem caused by de-Stalinisation?

A

The legitimacy of communist rule was questioned because of Stalin’s shocking crimes

47
Q

Why did Khrushchev backtrack?

A

Because he agreed with the Stalinists in the party, that de-Stalinisation had destabilised the government

48
Q

What was the purpose of democratisation?

A

Increased the participation of workers in the government; did not involve new elections

49
Q

What two measures did Khrushchev introduce to help democratise?

A
  • Allowed expansion of party membership. Membership grew from 6.9 million in 1954 to 11 million in 1964; making it more democratic because greater proportion of its members were peasants
  • He introduced fixed terms for senior communists to ensure they were replaced regularly; two thirds of regional secretaries and the presidium were replaced between 1951 and 1961
50
Q

What did Khrushchev do to decentralise the party?

A

Abolished some of the central ministries that oversaw the economy and devolved power to 105 newly created economic councils

51
Q

What did Khrushchev’s reforms mean?

A

Many people lost their jobs, or were forced to move away from Moscow and renewed criticism of him within the party

52
Q

Why was there an attempt to overthrow Khrushchev?

A
  • Because the problems caused by de-Stalinisation and his reforms
  • June 1957 a majority of the presidium, led by Malenkov, voted to replace him
53
Q

How did Khrushchev survive the attempt to overthrow him?

A

He argued that the decision to replace him could only be taken by the Central Committee

54
Q

Why was the attempt of the coup in 1957 significant for the evolution of soviet government?

A
  • Demonstrated senior communists would no longer use political terror against each other
  • Recognised the power of the party leader depended on the support of the Central Committee
55
Q

What did Khrushchev use the Twenty-second Party Congress of October 1961 to do?

A
  • Introduce his final major political reforms
  • To start the process of de-Stalinisation
  • Involved Stalin of being involved in Kirov’s murder
  • Congress voted to remove Stalin’s body from public display
56
Q

What was Khrushchev’s radical party reform?

A

Built on his earlier measures by introducing fixed terms for all jobs within the party

57
Q

How did Khrushchev’s 1962 reforms split the party in two?

A
  • One half of the party was put in charge of agriculture and the other industry
  • Khrushchev hoped this reform would boost economic growth
58
Q

Why did senior figures in the Presidium plot to overthrow Khrushchev?

A

Because of concerns that his foreign policies were rash and dangerous

59
Q

Why did Khrushchev retire?

A
  • He was summoned to a special meeting where he was criticised for mishandling the economy, foreign policy and creating his own cult of personality
  • The plotters had the backing of the Central Committee
60
Q

What was Khrushchev’s greatest political achievement?

A
  • Ending the use of political terror against party officials
  • His enemies were sacked but not tortured or killed
  • Ended Stalin’s system of personal rule
61
Q

What did Khrushchev have to go through that Stalin didn’t?

A
  • He was forced to work with senior figures in the party
  • His power depended on retaining a majority of support on the Central Committee
62
Q

What aspects of Stalinism lived on?

A

The government never publicly rejected his legacy or admit the extent of Stalin’s crimes

63
Q

What did Brezhnev’s government focus on?

A

Stability of cadres and restoration; his first acts were to restore Khrushchev’s most unpopular reforms

64
Q

Describe one reform that Brezhnev reversed?

A

Aspects of de-Stalinisation and ended economic change and rejected the use of mass terror

65
Q

What did Brezhnev believe?

A

Revolutionary transformation of society had been achieved between 1917 and 1930 and so revolutionary aspects became less obvious

66
Q

During 1964 and 1965, what was the new leadership based upon?

A

An informal pact between Brezhnev and Kosygin who together had a great deal of support in the Politburo and Central Committee

67
Q

How long did Brezhnev restore the party by reverting Khrushchev’s key reforms?

A
  • Centralisation: Khrushchev tried to break up central ministries and decentralised government by giving more power to the republics. Brezhnev reversed this, re-establishing all-union ministries that Khrushchev had abolished
  • He ended the split between industrial and agricultural wings of the party
68
Q

What created a context for corruption?

A
  • Sackings were rare and opportunities for advancement were extremely limited
  • Soviet officials who could not grow rich through hard work and used their positions to grow rich, knowing they were unlikely to be disciplined
69
Q

What did Brezhnev’s policies mean?

A

They led to stagnation, so change in the government was slow/ non-existent

70
Q

What did the anti-corruption campaign do?

A
  • Attacked senior figures
  • Included media exposes of corrupt officials
71
Q

What did Brezhnev believe?

A

Revolutionary transformation of society had been achieved between 1917 and 1930 and so revolutionary aspects became less obvious

72
Q

Why was Brezhnev’s style of government nicknamed ‘Gerontocracy’?

A

Because the government aged, it meant ‘the rule of old people’

73
Q

What were the results of the reforms?

A
  • The proportion of soviet industry controlled by central government dropped from 68% to just 44%
  • The success of the reforms meant that Malenkov lost the premiership in February 1955 and Bulganin, the new premier, was no Khrushchev’s key allies
74
Q

How did the government become less effective as it aged?

A
  • His critics argued his style of government created a generation gap between the government and society. Brezhnev’s government no longer understood the society they governed
  • Senior officials became increasingly ill and unable to perform their jobs
  • The system provided no incentives to work hard because there were so few opportunities for promotion because of the ‘stability of cadres’
75
Q

What reforms did Andropov implement?

A
  • Abandoned the ‘stability of cadres’ policy, replacing a quarter of senior officials
  • Introduced small-scale economic reforms focusing on labour discipline
  • Anti-corruption campaign
76
Q

What was a form of corruption under Brezhnev?

A
  • Selling goods on the black market
  • Brezhnev was implicated in the corruption; his daughter was able to gain access to diamonds
77
Q

Why was Russia led by Andropov and Chernenko?

A
  • Due to Brezhnev’s death in 1982 and Gorbachev’s appointment as General Secretary in 1985
  • They were both old and part of the gerontocracy
78
Q

What else did Brezhnev reverse?

A

Aspects of de-Stalinisation and ended economic change and rejected the use of mass terror

79
Q

How did Brezhnev’s ‘stability of cadres’ cause little change in the government?

A

Between 1964 and 1971, only two people were promoted to the Politburo. Between 1966 and 1971, between 80% and 90% of central committee members retained their jobs following party congresses

80
Q

What did Brezhnev’s policies lead to?

A

Stagnation and the last years of his rule were characterise by ever growing problems of corruption which he failed to address

81
Q

Why couldn’t Chernenko play a much of a role in the government?

A
  • He was 72 when he came to power and was extremely ill at the time
  • Gorbachev held meetings on his behalf
  • He achieved very little as soviet leader because of his health and shortness of time
82
Q

How did Brezhnev and Kosygin commit themselves?

A
  • Ensured that the two top jobs in the government were not accompanied by the same person, to stop the emergence of an all powerful leader
  • Divided key posts in the government roughly equally between supporters of them
  • Ensured that the party and state officials kept their jobs for long periods to limit the opportunities for patronage
83
Q

What was Andropov’s biggest achievement?

A

Removing old and corrupt officials and allowing a younger generation to rise within the soviet government

84
Q

What years did Andropov rule?

A

November 1982 - February 1984

85
Q

What did Andropov believe?

A
  • The Soviet Union was fundamentally stable, but minor reforms were necessary
  • He believed the Soviet Union needed to become a more discipline nation
86
Q

What did ‘stability of cadres’ replace?

A
  • Khrushchev’s 1961 policy of limited terms, which was unpopular with the party
  • It ensured support for the new leaders from government officials because it gave them job security

History - USSR 1917 - 1991 (16 decks)

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