Khrushchev - Securing Power & De-Stalinisation

Question 1

When did Stalin die

Answer 1

5th March 1953

Question 2

What was Khrushchev’s job before Stalin died

Answer 2

First Party Secretary

Question 3

What was Beria’s reform plan

Answer 3

Release 1 million gulag prisons
Friendly relations with the west

Question 4

When was Beria arrested

Answer 4

26th June 1953 - Presidium meeting

Question 5

How many women was Beria accused of raping

Answer 5

357

Question 6

What was Malenkov’s new course

Answer 6

Boosting the economy through consumer goods and not heavy industry
Cut taxes for peasants and increase food prices
Nuclear weapons will bring peace

Question 7

When did Khrushchev announce his Virgin Lands Scheme and what was it

Answer 7

Turn unused land in Siberia and Kazakhstan into collective farms

Question 8

How did Khrushchev gain support

Answer 8

Held an anti-new course position giving him the support of industry and military
Touring farms, “boots dirty”
Success of VLS in 1954 harvest

Question 9

What issues needed urgent attention following Stalin’s death

Answer 9

Repression
Cold War
Economy
Stalin’s Image

Question 10

When was the Secret Speech delivered

Answer 10

20th Party Congress (1956)

Question 11

How did Khrushchev criticise Stalin as a person

Answer 11

Attacked the cult of personality
Read Lenin’s testament
Blamed him for the initial failings of the war

Question 12

How did Khrushchev criticise Stalin’s actions

Answer 12

Revealed statistics on party purges
Suggested Stalin killed the popular Kirov
Attacked the NKVD terror

Question 13

Why did Khrushchev deliver the secret speech

Answer 13

Plagued by his conscience
Liberate fear within the party
Delegitimise Stalinists
Take first action on the debate of Stalin’s actions

Question 14

What did Khrushchev not include in the secret

Answer 14

Criticism of Bolshevism as an ideology
Non-party oppression
Economic and Agricultural policies
His own rule in the terror

Question 15

What was the at home impact of the Secret Speech

Answer 15

Student protest (pictures torn down, Potemkin)
Stalin seen as ‘Enemy of the people’
Party confusion, looking for who was to blame
Prisoner releases

Question 16

How many political prisoners were rehabilitated in the 10 months after the secret speech

Answer 16

617,000

Question 17

What prompted the oppression in Hungary

Answer 17

Their attempt to leave the Warsaw Pact

Question 18

How many casualties in the Hungarian revolution

Answer 18

20,000

Question 19

How did relations with China weaken due to the Speech

Answer 19

Mao accused Khrushchev of being a “Revisionist”

Question 20

What was the Anti-Party Group

Answer 20

Khrushchev’s opposition within the party

Question 21

How did Khrushchev deal with party opposition

Answer 21

Had people expelled and denounced

Question 22

Where were Kaganovich, Molotov and Malenkov sent

Answer 22

Kaganovich - Ural Cement Factory
Molotov - Mongolian ambassador
Manlenkov - Kazakhstan hydro-electric plant

Question 23

What did Zhukov do that turned Khrushchev against him

Answer 23

Introduced military reform without party consultation

Question 24

What happened to Zhukov

Answer 24

Dismissed from his job in the Central Committee and Presidium

Question 25

What was Stalingrad renamed too

Answer 25

Volgograd

Question 26

What did D.A. Lazurkina say she had a dream about

Answer 26

Lenin telling her that he was uncomfortable with lying in state near Stalin