opposition to Khrushchev

Question 1

How did the thaw promote greater opposition

Answer 1

• Thaw saw the return of greater intellectual freedom to create a new group of cultural dissidents utilising the arts to promote greater rights and democracy
• Not outright physical opposition

Question 2

What were the 2 methods of evading Soviet censorship in publishing

Answer 2

tamizdat: published work abroad hoping it could be smuggled into Russia e.g. Pasternak’s Dr Zhivago. CIA helped get in material
Samizdat: labouriously duplicating material by hand, typewriter or illegal press; very dangerous

e.g. done by underground societies such as ‘The Youngest Society of Geniuses’ a student group set up in the ’60s that produced a journal The Sphinxes, which contained collections of prose and poetry

Question 3

What did the monument to satirical poet Vladmir Mayakovksy in Moscow attract

Answer 3

became a place of regular readings known as the Mayak in Mayakovsky Square and were popular among students and intelligentsia

Question 4

What happened at the Mayak in 1941

Answer 4

• In 1961, some of the regular attenders were arrested for political activity such as Vladmir Bukovsky and Edward Kuznetsov

Question 5

What happened to Alexander Ginzburg’s dissident magazine Synxtaxis

Answer 5

arrested in 1960 and sent to labour camps on 3 separate occasions between 1961-9 for exposing human rights abuses and demanding reforms

Question 6

How did authorities commonly deal with dissidents

Answer 6

• Accused them of being crazy
• 1961: 130,000 people were identified as leading an ‘anti-social parasitic way of life’

e.g. Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky was charged with ‘social parasitism’ and sentenced to 5 years exile in Archangel

Question 7

What were illegal musical recordings known as

Answer 7

Magnitzdat; often wasa jazz/rock/soul or Western pop

Question 8

What was Yully Kim’s ‘Moscow Kitchens’

Answer 8

told how subversive thought was passed around in society

Question 9

What was Khrushchev’s opinion on non-conformist art

Answer 9

Krushchev disapproved of non comformist art on his attendance to the Manzeh Art Exhibition

Question 10

What did Erik Bulatov form

Answer 10

Erik Bulatov founded the ‘Sretensky Boulevard Group’ including people such as Oleg Vassiliev and Ilya Kabakov

Non-conformist artists weren’t regarded as much of a threat and most took up part-time jobs to not be scrutininsed too much

Question 11

What did the famous ballet dancer Rundolf Nureye do

Answer 11

He defected in Paris in 1961

Question 12

What did the treatment of Malenkov symbolise about the change in the treatment of oppsoition

Answer 12

• Malenkov became director of a HEP station in Kazakhstan
• People at most expelled, never shot like in Stalin years

Question 13

By 1956 how many political prisoners had been rehabilitated back into society

Answer 13

8-9 million humously or posthumously political prisoners were rehabilitated
around 2 million returned from gulags and another 2 million from special settlements between 1953-60

Question 14

By 1957, what % of the Soviet prison population was political prisoners

Answer 14

By 1957, only 2% of Soviet prison populations were political prisoners

Question 15

What are the 6 main reasons for Khrushchev’s fall from power

Answer 15

1. How did contribute to Khrushchev’s fall from power
2. Decentralisation
3. Agriculture
4. Industry
5. Military
6. Foreign Policy

Question 16

How did a personal style of leadership contribute to Khrushchev’s fall from power

Answer 16

• Leadership was more collective after Stalin
• Accused of ‘one-man style’ and nepotism - son in law
• Embarassing behaviour - 1960 UN General Assembly banged the table with a shoe

Question 17

How did decentralisation contribute to Khrushchev’s fall from power

Answer 17

• Upset central party members who lost jobs (shut down 60 Moscow Ministries)
• Regional Party secretaries offended by way the responsibilities had been divided up
• Khrushev’s demand that a 1/4 of the Central Committee be renewed at every election threatened their influence

Question 18

How did agriculture contribute to Khrushchev’s fall from power

Answer 18

• Failure of Virgin Lands Scheme
• 1963 imports from USA
• Seen as Khrushchev’s personal strength but he failed

Question 19

How did industry contribute to Khrushchev’s fall from power

Answer 19

• Decision to promote consumer goods and reduce arms spending alienated influential heavy industry

Question 20

How did the military contribute to Khrushchev’s fall from power

Answer 20

• Khrushchev reduced defence spending after acheiving the atomic bomb

Question 21

How did foreign policy contribute to Khrushchev’s fall from power

Answer 21

• Percieved failure in handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Personally blamed for poor relations with Communist China

Question 22

How did foreign policy contribute to Khrushchev’s fall from power

Answer 22

• Percieved failure in handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Personally blamed for poor relations with Communist China

Question 23

What did Khrushchev do with his son in law Alexi Adzhubel

Answer 23

· He was given special favours such as the** editor of Izvestia** and had a direct telephone line to Khrushchev’s office
· Elected to the Central Committee
· He was used to speak to foreign Diplomats in preference the the dour Foreign minister
He was even used by Khrushchev to arrange a visit to West germany in 1964

Question 24

How was Khrushchev removed from power

Answer 24

· Khrushchev received an urgent call for a emergency Presidium meeting on 13th October 1964
· At the meeting his former supporters voiced their criticisms
· Khrushchev refused to resign but was denied access to the media which might have enabled him to whip up popular support - two of his supporters were the editor of Pravda and head of the state radio
· The next day Khrushchev was forced to resign
· The next day Suslov stood up to read a damning list of his shortcomings, and resolutions were passed by which Brezhnev became First Secretary and Alexi Kosygin became Premier
Within the USSR Izvetsia (edited by Khrushchev’s son-in-law) was suppressed on the day the resignation was announced so only Pravda and the radio announced his retirement

Question 25

What did Pravda denounce Khrushchev for

Answer 25

Weeks later Pravda denounced Krushchev for his ‘hare-brained schemes, half-baked conclusions, hasty decisions, unrealistic actions, bragging, phrase-mongering and bossiness’

Question 26

After 1962 how did hardliners in the Presidium tighten control over criticism of Stalinism

Answer 26

Khrushchev personally ordered the publication of Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to undermine the hardliners to which the hardliners prevented any more copies of Soslzhenitsyn’s novels afet 1962

Question 27

How did Khrushchev deal with opposition at the 22nd Party congress

Answer 27

• Molotov and Kaganovich were expelled at the 22nd Party Congress
• However, other hardlines such as Suslov continued oppsition within the party