Destalinisation Flashcards
What did Khrushchev and Malenkov do about the terror?
They ended the terror and set up a special commission to review cases of political prisoners. Only 4,620 of 113,739 were released. This progressed after the secret speech, by June 1956 51,439 were released.
What did Khrushchev do to Stalin’s cult of personality?
- Stopped plans to turn Stalin’s dacha into a museum celebrating his life.
- No official celebration of Stalin’s birthday for the first time since the 1930s.
- Quotes from Stalin were replaced with quotes from Marx and Lenin in the newspaper.
What was part of the reason the Hungarian Uprising happened? What did Khrushchev do about it?
Khrushchev made it clear he would not treat satellite states or soviet republics with the same force as Stalin. Some countries saw this as an opportunity to revolt - the Hungarian Uprising which Khrushchev crushed with Soviet troops.
How did Khrushchev attempt to decentralise?
- Abolished central ministries in charge of economy.
- Devolving power to 105 economic councils.
- Powerful officials lost power, creating a renewed criticism for Khrushchev.
How did Stalinists feel?
Argued reforms were happening to quickly.
Khrushchev backtracked as a result.
What were the successes of destalinisation?
- 51,439 prisoners released, including 26,155 political prisoners.
- The use of Political Terror ended.
What were the failures of destalinisation?
- Editors of a magazine that had published the extent of Stalin’s crimes were punished and in December he secretly authorised a special commission to suppress anti-communist activity. Khrushchev admitted in a speech on NYE that all communists were in fact “Stalinists”
- Hungary started their own revolution and elected a new prime minister. This led to the ending of the military alliance between Hungary and the Soviet Union. Khrushchev ordered the Soviet troops to crush the revolution
