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It was characterized in the internal political life of the USSR by the condemnation of the personality cult of Stalin, the repressions of the 1930s, the release of political prisoners, the liquidation of the Gulag, the weakening of totalitarian power, the emergence of some freedom of speech, the relative liberalization of political and public life, openness to the Western world, greater freedom of creative activity.

The name is associated with the tenure of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev (1953-1964).

The word "thaw" is associated with the story of the same name by Ilya Ehrenburg.

Story

The starting point of the “Khrushchev thaw” was the death of Stalin in 1953. The “thaw” also includes a short period when Georgy Malenkov was with the country’s leadership and major criminal cases (“Leningrad Case”, “Doctors’ Case”) were closed, an amnesty for those convicted of minor crimes passed.

During these years, uprisings of prisoners broke out in the Gulag system: the Norilsk uprising, the Vorkuta uprising, the Kengir uprising, etc.

De-Stalinization

With the strengthening of Khrushchev's power, the "thaw" became associated with the debunking of Stalin's personality cult. At the same time, in 1953-1956, Stalin still continued to be officially revered in the USSR as a great leader; during that period, they were often depicted in portraits together with Lenin. At the XX Congress of the CPSU in 1956, N. S. Khrushchev made a report “On the cult of personality and its consequences”, in which the cult of personality of Stalin and Stalinist repressions were criticized, and in the foreign policy of the USSR the course for “peaceful coexistence” with the capitalist the world. Khrushchev also began rapprochement with Yugoslavia, relations with which had been severed under Stalin.

In general, the new course was supported at the top of the party and corresponded to the interests of the nomenklatura, since earlier even the most prominent party leaders who fell into disgrace had to fear for their lives. Many surviving political prisoners in the USSR and the countries of the socialist camp were released and rehabilitated. Since 1953, commissions have been formed to review cases and to rehabilitate. Most of the peoples deported in the 1930s and 1940s were allowed to return to their homeland.

Labor legislation has been liberalized (in 1956, criminal liability for absenteeism was abolished).

Tens of thousands of German and Japanese prisoners of war were sent home. In some countries, relatively liberal leaders came to power, such as Imre Nagy in Hungary. An agreement was reached on the state neutrality of Austria and the withdrawal of all occupation troops from it.

In 1955, Khrushchev met in Geneva with US President Dwight Eisenhower and the heads of government of Great Britain and France.

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At the same time, de-Stalinization had an extremely negative impact on relations with Maoist China. The CCP condemned de-Stalinization as revisionism.

In 1957, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR banned the assignment of names of party leaders to cities and factories during their lifetime.

Under Khrushchev, Stalin was treated neutrally positively. In all Soviet publications of the Khrushchev thaw, Stalin was called a prominent figure in the party, a staunch revolutionary and a major party theorist who rallied the party during a period of severe trials. But at the same time, all publications of that time wrote that Stalin had his shortcomings and that in the last years of his life he made major mistakes and excesses.

The Limits and Contradictions of the Thaw

The thaw period did not last long. Already with the suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, clear boundaries of the policy of openness appeared. The party leadership was frightened by the fact that the liberalization of the regime in Hungary led to open anti-communist speeches and violence, respectively, the liberalization of the regime in the USSR could lead to the same consequences. On December 19, 1956, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU approved the text of the Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On strengthening the political work of party organizations among the masses and suppressing attacks by anti-Soviet, hostile elements."

It said:

“The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union considers it necessary to appeal to all party organizations ... in order to attract the attention of the party and mobilize communists to intensify political work among the masses, to resolutely fight to stop the sorties of anti-Soviet elements, which in recent times, due to some aggravation international situation, intensified their hostile activities against the Communist Party and the Soviet state.

Further, it was said about the recent "intensification of the activities of anti-Soviet and hostile elements." First of all, this is a “counter-revolutionary conspiracy against the Hungarian people”, conceived under the guise of “false slogans of freedom and democracy” using “the discontent of a significant part of the population caused by serious mistakes made by the former state and party leadership of Hungary”.

It also stated:

“Recently, among individual workers in literature and art, who are slipping from party positions, politically immature and philistine-minded, there have been attempts to question the correctness of the party line in the development of Soviet literature and art, to move away from the principles of socialist realism to positions of unprincipled art, demands have been put forward to “liberate “literature and art from the party leadership, to ensure “freedom of creativity”, understood in a bourgeois-anarchist, individualistic spirit.”

A direct consequence of this letter was a significant increase in 1957 in the number of those convicted for "counter-revolutionary crimes" (2948 people, which is 4 times more than in 1956). Students for critical statements were expelled from institutes.

• 1953 - mass protests in the GDR; in 1956 - in Poland.
• 1956 - the pro-Stalinist protest of the Georgian youth in Tbilisi was suppressed.
• 1957 - Boris Pasternak is persecuted for publishing a novel in Italy.
• 1958 - mass unrest in Grozny was suppressed. In the 1960s, the Nikolaev dockers, during interruptions in the supply of bread, refused to ship grain to Cuba.
• 1961 - Rokotov and Faibishenko, the money changers, were shot in violation of the current legislation (the Rokotov-Faibishenko-Yakovlev Case).
• 1962 - the performance of workers in Novocherkassk was suppressed with the use of weapons.
• 1964 - Joseph Brodsky was arrested. The trial of the poet became one of the factors in the emergence of the human rights movement in the USSR.

Thaw in art

During the period of de-Stalinization, censorship was noticeably weakened, primarily in literature, cinema and other forms of art, where more critical coverage of reality became possible.

The "first poetic bestseller" of the thaw was a collection of poems by Leonid Martynov (Poems. M., Young Guard, 1955).

The literary magazine Novy Mir became the main platform for supporters of the “thaw”. Some works of this period gained popularity abroad, including Vladimir Dudintsev's novel "Not by Bread Alone" and Alexander Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".

In 1957, Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago was published in Milan. Other significant representatives of the thaw period were writers and poets Viktor Astafiev, Vladimir Tendryakov, Bella Akhmadulina, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Andrey Voznesensky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Film production has been dramatically increased.

Grigory Chukhrai was the first in cinematography to touch upon the topic of de-Stalinization and the thaw in the film Clear Sky (1963). The main film directors of the thaw are Marlen Khutsiev, Mikhail Romm, Georgy Danelia, Eldar Ryazanov, Leonid Gaidai. An important cultural event was the films - "Carnival Night", "Outpost of Ilyich", "Spring on Zarechnaya Street", "Idiot", "I'm walking around Moscow", "Amphibian Man", "Welcome, or No Trespassers" and other.

In 1955-1964, television broadcasting was distributed throughout most of the country. Television studios are open in all the capitals of the Union republics and in many regional centers.

In 1957, Moscow hosted the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students.

The new face of the security forces

The Khrushchev era was a time of transformation of the Soviet security agencies, which was complicated by the backlash caused by the Khrushchev report of 1956, when the role of the special services in the Great Terror was condemned. At that time, the word "chekist" lost its official approval, and its very mention could cause sharp reproaches. However, soon, by the time Andropov was appointed to the post of chairman of the KGB in 1967, it was rehabilitated: it was in the Khrushchev era that the term “chekist” was cleared, and the reputation and prestige of the secret service was gradually restored. The rehabilitation of the Chekists included the creation of a new series of associations, which were supposed to symbolize a break with the Stalinist past: the term "Chekist" received a new birth and acquired a new content. As Sakharov would later say, the KGB "became more 'civilized', acquired a face, albeit not entirely human, but in any case not a tiger."

Khrushchev's reign was marked by a revival and re-establishment of the veneration of Dzerzhinsky. In addition to the statue on the Lubyanka, opened in 1958, the memory of Dzerzhinsky was immortalized in the late 1950s. throughout the Soviet Union. Untainted by participation in the Great Terror, Dzerzhinsky was supposed to symbolize the purity of the origins of Soviet Chekism. In the press of that time, there was a noticeable desire to separate the legacy of Dzerzhinsky from the activities of the NKVD, when, according to the first chairman of the KGB Serov, “provocateurs” and “careerists” filled the secret apparatus. The gradual official restoration of confidence in the state security agencies during the Khrushchev era relied on strengthening the continuity between the KGB and the Dzerzhinsky Cheka, while the Great Terror was portrayed as a retreat from the original KGB ideals - a clear historical border was drawn between the Cheka and the NKVD.

Khrushchev, who paid great attention to the Komsomol and staked "on the youth", in 1958 appointed a young 40-year-old Shelepin, a non-Chekist who had previously held leadership positions in the Komsomol, to the post of chairman of the KGB. This choice corresponded to the new image of the KGB, responded to the desire to create a strong association with the forces of renewal and revival. During the personnel changes that began in 1959, the total number of KGB cadres was reduced, but there was also a recruitment of new Chekists, attracted mainly from the Komsomol. The image of the security officer in the cinema has also changed: instead of people in leather jackets from the beginning of the 1960s. young neat heroes in strict suits began to appear on the screens; now they were respected members of society, fully integrated into the Soviet state system, representatives of one of the state institutions. The increased level of education of the Chekists was emphasized; So, in the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda" it was noted:

“Today, the vast majority of employees of the State Security Committee have a higher education, many speak one or more foreign languages,” while in 1921, 1.3% of Chekists had a higher education.”

Selected writers, directors and historians were given access to previously closed sources on the activities of Soviet intelligence officers; materials were declassified on several Soviet intelligence operations (for example, Operation Trust) and individual officers (including Rudolf Abel and Jan Buikis).

Increasing pressure on religious associations

In 1956, the anti-religious struggle began to intensify. The secret resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the note of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the Union Republics" On the Shortcomings of Scientific and Atheistic Propaganda "" dated October 4, 1958, obliged party, Komsomol and public organizations to launch a propaganda offensive against "religious survivals"; state institutions were ordered to carry out administrative measures aimed at tightening the conditions for the existence of religious communities. On October 16, 1958, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted the Decrees "On Monasteries in the USSR" and "On Increasing Taxes on Income of Diocesan Enterprises and Monasteries."

On April 21, 1960, the new chairman of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, Vladimir Kuroyedov, appointed in February of the same year, in his report at the All-Union Conference of the Commissioners of the Council, characterized the work of its former leadership as follows:

“The main mistake of the Council for the Affairs of the Orthodox Church was that it inconsistently pursued the line of the party and the state in relation to the church and often slipped into positions of service to church organizations. Occupying a defensive position in relation to the church, the council led the line not to combat violations of the legislation on cults by the clergy, but to protect church interests.

The secret instruction on the application of legislation on cults in March 1961 paid special attention to the fact that clergymen have no right to interfere in the administrative, financial and economic activities of religious communities. For the first time, the instructions identified “sects whose doctrine and nature of activity is anti-state and savage in nature, which were not subject to registration: Jehovists, Pentecostals, and Adventist reformists,” which were not subject to registration.

A statement attributed to Khrushchev from that period has survived in the mass consciousness, in which he promises to show the last priest on TV in 1980.

The end of the "thaw"

The end of the “thaw” is considered the removal of Khrushchev and the coming to the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev in 1964. However, the tightening of the domestic political regime and ideological control was begun during the reign of Khrushchev after the end of the Caribbean crisis.

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De-Stalinization was stopped, and in connection with the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War, the process of exalting the role of the victory of the Soviet people in the war began. They tried to bypass Stalin's personality as much as possible, he was never rehabilitated. In the third edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1976), a neutral article remained about him. In 1979, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Stalin, several articles were published, but no special celebrations were held.

Massive political repression, however, was not resumed, and Khrushchev, deprived of power, retired and even remained a member of the party. Shortly before this, Khrushchev himself criticized the concept of "thaw" and even called Ehrenburg, who invented it, a "swindler."

A number of researchers believe that the thaw finally ended in 1968 after the suppression of the Prague Spring.

With the end of the thaw, criticism of Soviet reality began to spread only through unofficial channels, such as samizdat.

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Start date: mid 1950s

Expiration date: mid 1960s

Helpful information

Khrushchev thaw

Mass riots in the USSR

• June 10-11, 1957, an emergency in the city of Podolsk, Moscow Region. The actions of a group of citizens who spread rumors that police officers killed the detained driver. The number of "groups of drunken citizens" - 3 thousand people. 9 instigators were prosecuted.
• August 23-31, 1958, the city of Grozny. Reasons: the murder of a Russian guy against the backdrop of escalated ethnic tensions. The crime caused a wide public outcry, and spontaneous protests grew into a large-scale political uprising, for the suppression of which troops had to be sent into the city.
• January 15, 1961, the city of Krasnodar. Reasons: the actions of a group of drunken citizens who spread rumors about the beating of a serviceman when he was detained by a patrol for violation of wearing a uniform. The number of participants is 1300 people. Firearms were used, one person was killed. 24 people were brought to criminal responsibility.
• On June 25, 1961, 500 people took part in the riots in the city of Biysk, Altai Territory. They stood up for a drunkard whom the police wanted to arrest in the central market. The drunk citizen during the arrest resisted the officers of the protection of public order. There was a fight with the use of weapons. One person was killed, one was wounded, 15 were prosecuted.
• On June 30, 1961, in the city of Murom, Vladimir Region, over 1.5 thousand workers of the local plant named after Ordzhonikidze almost destroyed the construction of a sobering-up station, in which one of the employees of the enterprise, brought there by the police, died. Law enforcement officers used weapons, two workers were injured, 12 men were put on trial.
• On July 23, 1961, 1,200 people took to the streets of the city of Alexandrov, Vladimir Region, and moved to the city police department to rescue two of their detained comrades. The police used weapons, as a result of which four were killed, 11 wounded, 20 people were put in the dock.
• September 15-16, 1961, street riots in the North Ossetian city of Beslan. The number of rebels - 700 people. The riot arose because of an attempt by the police to detain five people who were in a state of intoxication in a public place. Armed resistance was provided to the guards. One is killed. Seven have been put on trial.
• June 1-2, 1962, Novocherkassk, Rostov region, 4 thousand workers of the electric locomotive plant, dissatisfied with the actions of the administration in explaining the reasons for the increase in retail prices for meat and milk, came out to protest. The protesting workers were dispersed with the help of troops. 23 people died, 70 were wounded. 132 instigators were brought to justice, seven of whom were later shot.
• June 16-18, 1963, the city of Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk region. About 600 people took part in the performance. The reason is the resistance to police officers by a serviceman who was in a state of intoxication during his detention and the actions of a group of people. Four killed, 15 wounded, 41 put on trial.
• November 7, 1963, the city of Sumgayit, more than 800 people stood up to protect the demonstrators who were walking with photographs of Stalin. Police and vigilantes tried to take away unauthorized portraits. Weapons were used. One demonstrator was injured, six sat in the dock.
• On April 16, 1964, in Bronnitsy near Moscow, about 300 people defeated the bullpen, where a resident of the city died from beatings. The police, by their unauthorized actions, provoked popular indignation. No weapons were used, there were no dead or wounded. 8 people were brought to criminal responsibility.

On the evening of March 5, 1953, after several days of sudden illness, I.V. Stalin. In the last hours of his life, the leader's inner circle shared power, seeking to legitimize their position and revise the decisions of the 19th Congress of the CPSU. G.M. became the head of the government. Malenkov. L.P. Beria received the post of Minister of the Interior, which included the Ministry of State Security. N.S. Khrushchev remained secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The "disgraced" Mikoyan and Molotov regained their positions. Until now, there are different versions about the illness and death of Stalin: natural death, murder, deliberate delay in calling doctors. It is clear that Stalin's death was beneficial to many of his entourage.

The struggle for power in the spring and summer of 1953 was connected with the definition of the country's development strategy. Numerous problems needed to be addressed. The country could not maintain a huge army, have 2.5 million prisoners, spend money on "great construction projects", continue to exploit the peasantry, foment conflicts around the world, create new enemies. The instability of the ruling stratum, the threat of repression worsened the controllability of the state. All members of the political leadership understood the need for change. But each in his own way determined the priorities and depth of the inevitable changes. The first ideologists of the reforms were Beria and Malenkov. From June 1953, Khrushchev became a supporter of reforms. A more conservative position was taken by Molotov, Kaganovich and Voroshilov.

At the initiative of Beria, on March 27, 1953, an amnesty decree was adopted, according to which about 1 million people sentenced to up to 5 years were released: latecomers and truants, women with children under 10 years old, the elderly, etc. Contrary to popular belief, the amnesty did not apply to murderers and bandits, but it did not affect political prisoners either. This action (more than a third of the prisoners who had acquired criminal experience in the camps and were not equipped in the everyday sense were released) caused a wave of crime in the cities.

At the beginning of April 1953, the "doctors' case" was terminated. For the first time, the official report spoke about the responsibility of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who used "prohibited methods of interrogation." Soon, those convicted in other post-war political trials (“the Mingrelian case”, “the case of the aviators”) were released. In June 1953, Beria submitted to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU a proposal to limit the rights of the Special Meeting under the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. Steps were taken to reform the Gulag system "due to economic inefficiency" a number of enterprises were transferred to line ministries.

Beria's initiatives went beyond the competence of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He advocated a change in personnel policy in the republics, proposing, in particular, a broad nomination to the leadership of national personnel. Beria insisted on the normalization of relations with Yugoslavia, as well as on the abandonment of the costly construction of socialism in the GDR and the creation of a neutral united Germany. The phenomenon of Beria in the history of the USSR has not yet been fully explored. He gained a reputation as a villain and executioner. It seems that such an assessment suffers from simplification.

Of course, Beria is responsible for the crimes committed by the authorities, but to the same extent as his associates Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Khrushchev and others. Beria, by virtue of his position, was the most informed person in the leadership, knowing the “pain points” of the system best of all, all information flowed to him through the security agencies about what the population of the country opposed in the first place. Beria's activity aroused the fears of the rest of the political leadership of his "sworn friends".

Beria was feared and hated by the leadership of the army. The local nomenclature was controlled by the apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was not responsible for anything, but interfered in everything. Companions began to suspect Beria of preparing his own dictatorship. Thus, Beria became a symbol of threat. He was feared and hated by all major political forces. By prior agreement between Malenkov, Khrushchev and Minister of Defense Bulganin, on June 26, 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, Beria was arrested. Marshal Zhukov, the commander of the MVO Moskalenko and several officers acted as the executors of the "operation".

At the beginning of July 1953, a plenum of the Central Committee was held, at which the image of a state criminal, a spy of "international imperialism", a conspirator, "an enemy who wanted to restore power for the restoration of capitalism" was created. From now on, Beria becomes, according to the modern researcher R.G. Pikhoi, "a kind of drain hole in the history of the party, the source of everything that did not meet the canonized ideas about the role of the party." Thus, a specific “political intriguer” was declared guilty of everything, and not the system of power, not Stalin. In December 1953, at a closed session of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Beria and his closest assistants were sentenced to death for treason.

The beginning of the "thaw".

The "Beria Case" acquired a powerful public outcry, giving rise to hopes for a change in the political atmosphere in the country. An important outcome of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU was the confirmation of the principle of party leadership. The logical result was the introduction at the September 1953 plenum of the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which Khrushchev received. It was he who began to gradually seize the initiative of the transformations, later called the "Khrushchev thaw."

Time from the end of 1953 to the beginning of 1955. characterized by a power struggle between Khrushchev and Malenkov. Their rivalry unfolded against the backdrop of defining a strategy for the country's economic development. Malenkov intended to change the priorities in the development of the economy by increasing the share of production of consumer goods. Khrushchev insisted on maintaining the former, Stalinist course of the predominant development of the heavy, defense industry. A particularly acute situation developed in agriculture, which had to be brought out of a state of complete ruin.

In August 1953, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Malenkov announced a reduction in taxes from peasants and the endowment of peasants with elementary social rights (primarily the partial issuance of passports). The new agrarian policy was finally formulated at the September (1953) plenum. It was directly said about the difficult situation in the countryside. Khrushchev announced a significant increase in state purchase prices for agricultural products, the cancellation of collective farm debt, and the need to increase investment in the agricultural sector of the economy.

These measures made it possible to somewhat improve the food situation, stimulated the development of private production of meat, milk, and vegetables, and made life easier for millions of citizens of the USSR. In 1954, to solve the grain problem, the development of virgin and fallow lands in Western Siberia and Kazakhstan began.

The next step was the selective rehabilitation of the victims of the Stalinist terror. In April 1954, those convicted in the so-called "Leningrad case" were rehabilitated. During 1953-1955. all the main political cases of the post-war period were reviewed, extrajudicial bodies were abolished, their rights were restored and prosecutorial supervision was strengthened, etc. But the political processes of the 1930s were practically not revised.

In addition, the rehabilitation was very slow. In 1954-1955. only 88,000 prisoners were released. At this rate, millions of applications would take several decades to process. Strikes and uprisings began in the camps themselves. One of the largest was the uprising in Kengir (Kazakhstan) in the spring and summer of 1954 under the slogan "Long live the Soviet Constitution!" The uprising lasted 42 days and was put down only with the help of tanks and infantry.

The "undercover" struggle between Khrushchev and Malenkov ended with the victory of the former. In February 1955, the session of the Supreme Council released Malenkov from the post of head of government. At the January (1955) plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which took place the day before, Malenkov was blamed for his economic and foreign policy views (for example, arguments about the possible death of mankind in a nuclear war). A weighty argument was his involvement in the repressions.

For the first time he was publicly accused of collaborating with Beria, that he was responsible for the "Leningrad affair" and a number of other political processes of the 40s and early 50s. This resulted in new rehabilitations. During 1955-1956. the theme of repressions and attitudes towards Stalin is gradually becoming the main one in society. Not only the fate of the party political leadership, but also the place of the party in the political system of the country depended on its decision.

Considering the history of the first post-Stalin decade, one should especially note the importance XX Congress of the CPSU. It became a turning point in the development of Soviet society, radically changed the situation in the international communist movement thanks to Khrushchev's secret report "On the cult of personality and its consequences", read on February 25, 1956 at a closed meeting.

The very decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU to read out this report at the congress was not unanimous. The report was a shock to the vast majority of delegates. For the first time, many learned about Lenin's so-called "testament" and his proposal to remove Stalin from the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. The report spoke of purges and "illegal methods of investigation" by which thousands of communists were forced to extract absolutely incredible confessions.

Khrushchev painted the image of Stalin the executioner, guilty of the destruction of the “Leninist guard”, who shot the 17th Congress. Thus, Khrushchev sought to lay the blame for everything bad in the past on Stalin, Yezhov and Beria and thereby rehabilitate the party, the ideas of socialism and communism. This made it possible to bypass the question of the system of organization of power, in the depths of which the debunked "cult" matured and developed.

Khrushchev specifically focused on Stalin's fault in the initial period of the war. But there was no complete picture of the repressions: the revelations did not concern collectivization, the famine of the 1930s, repressions against ordinary citizens, and the fight against Trotskyists, oppositionists of “all stripes” was recognized as one of the most important achievements of Stalin. In general, the report did not claim to have a theoretical depth and analysis of such a phenomenon as Stalinism.

The closed session of the 20th Party Congress was not recorded in shorthand, the debate was not opened. It was decided to acquaint the communists and Komsomol members, as well as "non-party activists" with the "secret report", without publishing it in the press. They read the already edited version of Khrushchev's report. This caused a huge public outcry. There was a whole range of opinions: from disappointment with the incompleteness of the question of the “cult”, the demands of the party trial of Stalin, to the rejection of such a quick and sharp rejection of values ​​that were unshakable yesterday. There was a growing desire in society to get answers to numerous questions: about the price of transformations; about what of the tragedies of the past was personally generated by Stalin, and what was predetermined by the party itself and the idea of ​​building a "bright future".

The desire to introduce criticism within a certain framework was manifested in the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of June 30, 1956 "On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences." It was a step backwards compared with the "secret report" at the 20th Congress. Stalin was now characterized as "a man who fought for the cause of socialism", and his crimes as "certain restrictions on inner-party Soviet democracy, inevitable in the conditions of a fierce struggle against the class enemy." Thus, Stalin's activity was explained and justified. Application of the principle: on the one hand, an outstanding figure devoted to the cause of socialism, on the other hand, a person who abused power, should have removed the sharpness of criticism of the orders of the recent past and, moreover, not transferred this criticism to the present.

Throughout the following 30 years, criticism of Stalin in Soviet historiography was limited and opportunistic. This was manifested in the fact that, firstly, Stalin's activities were separated from the construction of socialism and thereby, in fact, justified the administrative command system. Secondly, the full scale of the repressions was not revealed and the closest associates of Lenin Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev, Zinoviev and others were not rehabilitated. Thirdly, the question of the personal responsibility of the closest Stalinist entourage and numerous perpetrators of terror was not raised.

Nevertheless, the importance of criticism of Stalin's personality cult cannot be overestimated. There has been a turn towards democracy and reforms in society. The system of total fear was largely destroyed. The decisions of the 20th Congress meant a renunciation of the use of repression and terror in the inner-party struggle, guaranteed security for the upper and middle strata of the state party nomenklatura. The rehabilitation process took on not only a massive, widespread character, but also embodied in the restoration of the rights of entire peoples who suffered in Stalin's time.

The policy of de-Stalinization pursued by Khrushchev, his numerous economic initiatives, which were not always distinguished by thoughtfulness and integrity, adventurous statements (the slogan "Catch up and overtake America in the production of meat and milk per capita", put forward in May 1957) caused growing dissatisfaction with the conservative part of the party- state apparatus. An expression of this was the speech of the so-called "anti-party group" within the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, using the support of the majority, tried at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee in June 1957 to remove Khrushchev from the post of first secretary of the Central Committee (it was supposed to eliminate this post altogether) and appoint him minister of agriculture. He was accused of violating the principles of "collective leadership", of forming a cult of his own personality, and of rash foreign policy actions. However, Khrushchev, having enlisted the support of the members of the Central Committee, demanded an urgent convening of the plenum. An important role was played by the support of Khrushchev by the Minister of Defense G.K. Zhukov.

At the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the actions of Khrushchev's opponents were condemned. A manifestation of some democratization of the party was that for the first time in many decades, not a narrow circle of members of the Presidium, but a plenum of the Central Committee acted as a decisive authority. Finally, the oppositionists themselves remained at large and members of the party. They were removed from the Central Committee and demoted. Khrushchev was given the opportunity to continue his reform activities. However, the rational that was contained in Khrushchev's criticism was not noticed for the time being either by himself or by his entourage.

The role of G.K. Zhukova in June 1957 showed the leadership the potential for the army to interfere in the political life of the country. During Zhukov's visit to Yugoslavia and Albania in the fall of 1957, Khrushchev indiscriminately accused him of "Bonapartism," an overestimation of his military merits. He was blamed for the “separation” of the Armed Forces from the party, the creation, without the consent of the Central Committee, of the central intelligence school of the prototype of the future special forces. At the end of October 1957, Zhukov was removed from the post of Minister of Defense. From March 1958, Khrushchev began to combine the leadership of the party and the state (he took the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR), which was the beginning of his sole rule.

He owed his triumph to the then political elite and, above all, to the party apparatus. This largely determined his further political line and forced adaptation to the interests of this layer. At the same time, the defeat of the "anti-party group", the removal of Zhukov and the transformation of Khrushchev into the sole leader deprived him of any legal opposition that would have restrained his not always thoughtful steps and warned against mistakes.

Socio-economic reforms.

The primary task of the economic policy of the new leadership was some decentralization of industry management, the transfer of enterprises to republican subordination. Another direction was the course towards accelerating technological progress. The result was the emergence of a nuclear power plant and an icebreaker, a civil jet aircraft Tu104, and the accelerated development of the chemical industry.

In the military sphere, nuclear submarines and missile-carrying aircraft appeared. Epochal events that go far beyond purely scientific achievements were the launch on October 4, 1957 of the world's first artificial Earth satellite and on April 12, 1961 of a spacecraft with a man on board. Yu.A. became the first cosmonaut in the world. Gagarin.

In 1957, the restructuring of economic management began, the main goal of which was the transition from the sectoral to the territorial principle. In each economic region, a Council of the National Economy was created. In total, 105 economic councils were created and 141 ministries were liquidated. The reform pursued the following goals: decentralization of management, strengthening of territorial, interdepartmental ties, increasing the independence of production entities.

Initially, the reform brought tangible results: the path of decision-making was shortened, the oncoming transportation of goods decreased, hundreds of the same type of small industries were closed. In the 1950s, according to some researchers, the growth rates of industrial production and national income were the highest in Soviet history. But this did not fundamentally change the dead-end economic system itself. The fundamentals of the administrative command system remained unchanged. Dissatisfaction, moreover, was shown by the metropolitan bureaucracy, which had lost some of its power.

Reforms in the agrarian sector were even less successful. Here, Khrushchev's impulsiveness and improvisation were especially clearly manifested. For example, the introduction of corn was in itself a reasonable step for the development of animal husbandry, but the breeding of new varieties in relation to Russian conditions required at least 10 years, and the return was expected immediately. In addition, the "queen of the fields" was planted up to the northern regions of the Arkhangelsk region.

The development of virgin lands has turned into another campaign, supposedly capable of immediately solving all food problems. But after a short-term growth (in 1956-1958, the virgin lands produced more than half of the harvested grain), the yields there fell sharply due to soil erosion, droughts and other natural phenomena that scientists had warned about. It was an extensive development path.

From the end of the 50s. the principles of the material interest of collective farmers in the results of labor began to be violated again. Administrative reorganizations and campaigns began, inevitable in the existing system. A vivid example was the “meat campaign in Ryazan”: a promise to triple meat production in 3 years.

The result was a sharp reduction in the number of cows put under the knife, and the suicide of the first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU. Similar, albeit on a smaller scale, happened everywhere. At the same time, under the banner of eliminating the differences between town and countryside, building communism, the restriction and even liquidation of the personal farmstead of the peasants began. The outflow of rural residents and, above all, young people to the cities has intensified. All this caused irreparable damage to the village.

The most successful were social reforms. Illiteracy was completely eradicated. The practice of forced (so-called "voluntary") state loans has ceased. Since 1957, industrial housing construction began in the cities of "Khrushchev's" five-story buildings. They began a change in the type of housing for millions of people: from communal apartments to individual apartments.

In 1956, old-age pensions were introduced in all state branches (before that, a limited number of workers received them), and since 1964 they were first issued to collective farmers. Anti-worker laws were abolished: criminal liability for absenteeism and systematic lateness to work. Significantly increased wages, consumption of industrial and food products by the population. There was a reduction in the working day (up to 7 hours) and the working week.

Spiritual life.

The first decade after Stalin's death was marked by significant changes in spiritual life. The Thaw (after the title of I.G. Ehrenburg's story) marked the beginning of the liberation of public consciousness from dogmas and ideological stereotypes. Representatives of literature were the first to respond to the changes that began in society (the works of Dudintsev, Granin, Panova, Rozov, and others).

The work of Babel, Bulgakov, Tynyanov, and others was rehabilitated. After the 20th Congress, the magazines Moskva, Neva, Yunost, Foreign Literature, Friendship of Peoples, and others appeared. A special role was played by the magazine Novy Mir, headed by Tvardovsky. Here, in November 1962, Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" was published, telling about the life of prisoners.

The decision to publish it was made at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU under personal pressure from Khrushchev. A feature of the "thaw" was the emergence of the so-called "pop" poetry, young authors Voznesensky, Yevtushenko, Rozhdestvensky, Akhmadulina gathered large audiences in Moscow. Cinematography made significant progress during this period. The best films: "The Cranes Are Flying" (dir. Kalatozov), "The Ballad of a Soldier" (dir. Chukhrai), "The Fate of a Man" (dir. Bondarchuk) received recognition not only in the USSR, but also in the world. The Central Committee of the CPSU recognized as unfair the previous assessments of the work of outstanding composers Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian and others.

However, the "thaw" in the spiritual life was also a controversial phenomenon, since it had well-defined boundaries. The authorities have found new methods of influencing the intelligentsia. Since 1957, meetings of the leaders of the Central Committee of the CPSU with figures of art and literature have become regular. At these meetings, everything that did not fit into the official ideology was condemned. At the same time, everything that was personally incomprehensible to Khrushchev himself was denied. The personal tastes of the head of the country acquired the character of official assessments.

The loudest scandal erupted in December 1962, when Khrushchev, during a visit to an exhibition in the Manege, razed the works of young avant-garde artists, which were difficult for him to understand. One of the clearest examples of persecution of cultural figures was the “Pasternak case”. Publication in the West of the novel “Doctor Zhivago”, which was not censored for publication in the USSR, and the award to B.N. Pasternak of the Nobel Prize was harassed by the writer. He was expelled from the Writers' Union and, in order to avoid expulsion from the country, refused the Nobel Prize. The intelligentsia was still required to be "soldiers of the party" or to adapt to the existing order.

Foreign policy.

Considering foreign policy in the Khrushchev decade, it is necessary to note its contradictory nature. In the summer of 1953, a compromise was reached between the USSR and the USA, which resulted in the signing of an armistice in Korea. In the mid-1950s, Europe consisted of two opposing blocs. In response to the entry of West Germany into NATO, in 1955 the countries of the socialist bloc created the Warsaw Treaty Organization.

But at the same time, the foundations for stabilization in this part of the world began to be laid. The USSR normalized relations with Yugoslavia. At the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, the theses were substantiated about the peaceful coexistence of the two systems, about their peaceful competition, about the possibility of preventing wars in the modern era, about the variety of forms of transition of various countries to socialism. At the same time, the actions of the Soviet leadership in the international arena did not always proceed in line with these ideas.

The process initiated by the 20th Congress caused a crisis within the socialist camp. In the countries of Eastern Europe, building socialism on the Stalinist model, a departure from this model began. These processes have become especially acute in Poland and Hungary. In Poland, it was possible to maintain the power of the Communist Party by renewing the leadership of the country. In Hungary, in October 1956, thousands of anti-Soviet demonstrations began, which escalated into armed actions. Bloody reprisals against employees of state security and the party apparatus began. Under these conditions, the Soviet Union used armed force.

Pockets of armed resistance were suppressed. On November 7, 1956, the new head of Hungary, J. Kadar, arrived in Budapest in a Soviet armored car. The USSR created a precedent when disputes in the socialist camp were resolved by the forces of Soviet weapons and carried out the well-known in Europe in the first half of the 19th century. the role of Russia as a gendarme, bringing "order" in Poland and Hungary.

In the USSR, helping one's ally was seen as an international duty. Forceful maintenance of a balance between the USSR and the USA, as well as ensuring peace "from a position of strength" after the events in Hungary became the main line of foreign policy behavior of the Soviet Union. The Hungarian events were also reflected in the USSR. They became one of the reasons for student unrest that swept almost the entire country.

Berlin remained one of the hottest spots in the world from 1958 to 1961. In August 1961, by decision of the political leadership of the Warsaw Pact countries, the Berlin Wall was erected overnight, a fortification zone that completely isolated West Berlin from the rest of the GDR. She became a symbol of the Cold War. The main tool for maintaining the balance of power was the arms race, which concerned, first of all, the production of nuclear charges and their means of delivery to targets. In August 1953, the USSR announced that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, and the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles continued.

At the same time, Moscow understood the danger of a further escalation of armaments. The Soviet Union launched a series of disarmament initiatives, unilaterally reducing the size of the army by 3.3 million people. But these measures were not successful. One reason was that peace initiatives were accompanied by constant "saber-rattling". In addition, peace-loving statements were often combined with Khrushchev's impulsive improvisations, such as "We (that is, the USA) will bury you!" or that the USSR makes "rockets like sausages".

The Cold War reached its climax in the autumn of 1962, when the Caribbean Crisis broke out. In 1959, revolutionary rebels led by F. Castro came to power in Cuba. In April 1961, with US support, Castro's opponents tried to land on the island. The landing force was destroyed. A rapid rapprochement between Cuba and the USSR began. In the summer of 1962, Soviet missiles appeared in Cuba, creating a direct threat to the United States. The confrontation reached its peak at the end of October 1962. For several days the world was on the brink of nuclear war. It was only averted by a secret compromise between Kennedy and Khrushchev. Soviet missiles were withdrawn from Cuba in exchange for the US promise to renounce aggression against that country and the dismantling of American nuclear missiles in Turkey.

After the Caribbean crisis, a period of relative detente began in Soviet-American relations and international relations in general. A line of direct communication was established between the Kremlin and the White House. But after the assassination of Kennedy (1963) and the resignation of Khrushchev, this process was interrupted.

The events of 1962 deepened the split in Soviet-Chinese relations that began after the 20th Congress. Chinese leader Mao Zedong believed that nuclear war should not be feared and accused Khrushchev of capitulation. Much attention was paid to the development of relations with the states of the "third world" (developing countries). During these years, the colonial system collapsed. Dozens of new states were being formed, primarily in Africa. The USSR sought to extend its influence to these parts of the world. In 1956, the Egyptian leadership nationalized the Suez Canal.

In October 1956, Israel, Britain and France began hostilities against Egypt. The Soviet ultimatum played a huge role in their termination. At the same time, economic cooperation is developing with Egypt, India, Indonesia and other countries. The USSR provided them with assistance in the construction of industrial and agricultural facilities, and in the training of personnel. The main foreign policy result of this period was to prove that, with mutual desire, both superpowers (USSR and the USA) can conduct a dialogue between themselves and overcome international crises.

The thaw crisis.

High growth rates of industrial output in the 50s. served as the basis for optimistic forecasts. In 1959, the 21st Congress of the CPSU declared that socialism in the USSR had won a complete and final victory. The new, third Party Program adopted at the 22nd Congress (1961) set the task of creating the material and technical base of communism by 1980. To do this, the task was put forward to "catch up and overtake America in terms of the main types of industrial and agricultural products." The utopianism of the program goals of this document is obvious today. Only a small part of the planned plans was fulfilled.

At the same time, the propaganda of the communist myth was increasingly separated from reality. In 1963, a food crisis broke out in the country. In the cities there was not enough bread, huge queues lined up for it. For the first time in the history of the USSR, grain was purchased abroad (in the first year, 12 million tons were bought, which cost the state $1 billion). After that, buying imported grain became the norm. In 1962, the government announced an increase in prices for meat and dairy products (in fact, the first price increase officially announced by the state after the war and the abolition of the rationing system).

This immediately caused mass discontent and indignation, especially among the working environment. The discontent of the working people reached its apogee in Novocherkassk, where a 7,000-strong workers' demonstration took place. With the knowledge of the top leaders of the CPSU Mikoyan and Kozlov, she was shot by the troops. 23 people died, 49 were arrested, seven of them were sentenced to death.

Removal of N.S. Khrushchev.

All this led to the fall of Khrushchev's authority. The failure of his domestic policy was obvious. In military circles, Khrushchev was dissatisfied with large-scale reductions in the armed forces. Officers who served for many years were forced to leave for civilian life without a profession, without an adequate pension, without the opportunity to find the desired job. Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were deprived of a number of privileges. The party and economic bureaucracy was dissatisfied with the countless reorganizations of administrative structures, which led to frequent changes in personnel. In addition, the new Party Charter adopted at the 22nd Congress provided for the rotation (renewal) of personnel, which especially offended the interests of the nomenklatura, which sought to get rid of the "irrepressible reformer."

Khrushchev's vulnerability was significantly increased by his mistakes in personnel policy and certain personal qualities: impulsiveness, a penchant for ill-considered, hasty decisions, and a low level of culture. At the same time, it was in 1962-1963. an ideological campaign began to grow to immoderately praise Khrushchev (“the great Leninist”, “the great fighter for peace”, etc.), which, against the backdrop of economic difficulties and the recent exposure of the Stalin cult, further undermined his authority.

By the fall of 1964, Khrushchev's opponents had enlisted the support of the leaders of the army, the KGB, and the party apparatus. On October 13, 1964, Khrushchev, who was on vacation in Pitsunda (Caucasus), was summoned to Moscow for a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, at which he was presented with a long list of charges. Only Mikoyan spoke in his defense. At the plenum of the Central Committee that opened after this, Khrushchev was removed from all his posts and sent into retirement. Officially, this was explained by the state of health of the country's leader. L.I. was elected the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Brezhnev, and A.N. Kosygin. The participants in the Plenum stressed the need for collective leadership.

Thus, the removal of Khrushchev took place as a result of a formally legal act at the Plenum of the Central Committee, "by a simple vote." Such a resolution of the conflict without arrests and repressions can be considered the main result of the past decade. Khrushchev's resignation, despite the fact that it was the result of a conspiracy, did not cause discontent in the country. Both the population and the nomenklatura greeted the decisions of the plenum with approval. Society craved stability. Few people realized that with the resignation of Khrushchev, the era of the “thaw” also ended.

The thaw in the USSR is a conditional unofficial name for the period that lasted from the mid-50s to the mid-60s. It is characterized by significant changes, in particular, the debunking of Stalin's personality cult, the liberalization of freedom of speech, and the reduction of censorship. Western literature became more accessible. In relation to the political and public life of that era, there were also certain indulgences, which Soviet reality had not seen since the 20s.

And some moments in the history of the USSR generally happened for the first time: condemnation of one's own mistakes, the past, repressions. Unfortunately, this did not become a deep process, did not change the essence of the ongoing events: universal control, centralization of power, and much more remained in the USSR, at least until perestroika, and something disappeared only with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the influence of the Khrushchev thaw had an effect for a long time. The authorities have demonstrated that dictatorship is optional.

The spiritual life has also changed quite interestingly. In the USSR, they began to show more attention to everything Western, to demonstrate greater openness. Creativity was less censored. Attempts to achieve certain changes in the management of the national economy also belong to this period. They are characterized by a certain naivete, since for successful implementation they required more serious and deeper study. However, these changes still had positive results.

The period of the thaw struck the majority in the USSR with criticism of Stalin's personality cult. However, he also showed that many did not agree with the policy being implemented. A striking example was the rapprochement with Yugoslavia, with which the dictator severed relations. In addition, one should not forget what event happened in the USSR during the thaw period: the liquidation of the Gulag. It was also directly connected with the condemnation of repression, with the outbreak of riots. Some historians note that over time, this system became more and more unprofitable to maintain, therefore, it is possible that there was a commercial rationale in the destruction of the structure from the inside.

However, the thaw period also included the announcement of a course towards peaceful coexistence with Western countries. Emphasis was placed on the fact that it is very important to be able to get along in one big world. It should be noted that the nomenklatura rejoiced at these changes and quite willingly supported them, because under Stalin the danger threatened almost everyone. Now I don't have to constantly fear for my life. So for many, the thaw period had only positive moments.

Khrushchev's policy turned out to be quite loyal for prisoners of war: many Japanese and Germans were simply sent home to their countries. It is worth noting that we are talking about tens of thousands of people. Most of the deported peoples were allowed to return to their places of former residence. Labor legislation has noticeably softened: criminal liability for absenteeism has been abolished, and there has been talk of decriminalizing other articles. The concept of “enemy of the people” was also removed from the Criminal Code.

There were also certain advances in the international arena. They agreed with the USSR on the withdrawal of the occupying troops from Austria and that the state would maintain political neutrality. In this regard, the thaw period gave the West more than they initially expected. He showed that with the Soviet Union it is difficult, but it is possible to negotiate. And after the Second World War, they wanted this most of all.

contradictions

At the same time, during the thaw period in the USSR, Joseph Brodsky was arrested, Pasternak was persecuted for publishing his work in Italy, an uprising was suppressed in Grozny, in Novocherkassk (the latter with the use of weapons). In addition to the above, the money changers were shot in violation of the fundamental principles of law (the Rokotov case), and the case was reviewed three times. The death sentence was imposed after the law giving the corresponding right came into force. As is known, the criminal law does not and cannot have retroactive effect, with the exception of certain situations of amnesty. However, this principle was simply ignored here. This decision caused protests even among the investigators who were in charge of this case. But it was not possible to influence the situation: the sentence was carried out.

The episode with Brodsky, characterized by attempts to attract the attention of the Soviet intelligentsia and the world community, turned out to be rather scandalous and unpleasant for the USSR. As a result, it was possible to achieve that the poet's term was reduced. And active work on liberation became the foundation for the birth of a human rights movement in the USSR, which is still developing today. The issue of human rights in the Soviet Union was riveted, they began to talk about it, which during the life of Stal was simply unimaginable. This already showed certain shifts in the public consciousness, but did not make the society completely healthy.

Changes in art

The theme of de-Stalinization, the need and importance of change was raised in the film Clear Sky. Pasternak was able to publish Doctor Zhivago in Milan, although he later ran into problems with it. They printed Solzhenitsyn, which, again, was impossible to imagine before. Leonid Gaidai and Eldar Ryazanov began to realize themselves as directors. The film "Carnival Night" turned into a real cultural event, there were other interesting works.

Negative changes

It cannot be said that all the changes, without exception, were unambiguously positive. Changes in architecture turned out to be rather negative for the USSR. In an effort to quickly provide everyone with housing, it was decided to abandon the "unnecessary decoration", so long as it does not interfere with the functionality of the houses. As a result, the buildings turned out to be typical, monotonous, they began to look like template boxes, they lost their individuality. Significantly reduced the area per person. The issue of audibility worsened: houses appeared in which what was said on one floor could be easily disassembled after several floors. Unfortunately, such standards in construction remained until the collapse of the USSR, changing for the most part only for the worse.

Positive Feedback

The appearance of the thaw gave rise to another phenomenon - the sixties, that is, young people who went through the war (or their relatives) became disillusioned with Stalin. However, at the same time, they decided that the communist government had nothing to do with it, having heard about the debunking of the personality cult. They actively opposed the image of the dictator - Lenin, romanticized the revolution and existing ideals.

As a result, as many researchers note, the appearance of such softening looks somewhat twofold. Of course, the liberalization of the regime, greater creative freedom is positive. However, the people got the feeling that the Soviet government really knows how to admit its mistakes, draw conclusions that there will be no return to the former, that something is moving towards improvement and correction.

Meanwhile, the execution, contrary to the legislation that was in force at that time, of currency traders very eloquently showed that all the changes are more likely to concern the form, and not the essence of what is happening. The Gulag was disbanded, but at the same time, those who were directly related to the crimes that took place there were not convicted. They did not publicly declare the inadmissibility of such methods in relation to people. The Soviet government did not admit responsibility for what it actually allowed.

Such exposure would be too dangerous for the nomenklatura itself, which in one way or another was part of the Stalinist repressive machine. Someone carried out criminal decrees, and someone even took the initiative. As a result, the condemnation of Stalin was cautious. He was still recognized as an outstanding figure of his era. The genocide carried out by him was called “mistakes”, which took place, according to Soviet leaders, “toward the end.”

Summing up, it can be noted that there have certainly been certain positive changes. But they turned out to be much smaller, besides, many were temporary. And some achievements on the way to liberalization were canceled in connection with the arrival of Brezhnev. Therefore, speaking about the positive aspects, we should not forget about the negative ones.

After Stalin's death, there were three contenders for power: G. M. Malenkov, L. P. Beria and N. S. Khrushchev. Beria's claims to leadership, expressed in the desire to gain public support through a demonstrative rejection of Stalin's methods and amnesty, frightened competitors. He was arrested and sentenced to death for espionage, treason against socialism, etc. During the revision of the Leningrad case, Malenkov's guilt was revealed in the deaths of A. Kuznetsov, N. Voznesensky and others (later Malenkov was removed from the post of head of government). As the first secretary of the Central Committee of the party, Khrushchev gradually strengthened his position in power.

XX Party Congress. At a closed session of the congress in February 1956, Khrushchev delivered a report “On the cult of personality and its consequences”, condemning Stalin’s one-man style of government, the “cult of personality”, mass repressions, mistakes in the war, etc. After the congress, rehabilitation intensified political convicts, the Gulag was liquidated.

In 1957, V. Molotov, G. Malenkov, L. Kaganovich and K. Voroshilov at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee demanded the resignation of Khrushchev and received the support of 7 out of 11 members of the Presidium. Khrushchev, with the help of Marshal G. Zhukov and the head of the KGB, I. Serov, managed to quickly convene the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, at which the majority of the members of the Central Committee supported Khrushchev and dismissed his opponents. As a result, Khrushchev headed both the party and the government.

After the death of Stalin, a period began in the life of the country, called the "thaw". The essence of the “thaw” was that people got the opportunity to speak more openly about what was previously dangerous to talk about. Against the background of indulgences, the works of the "sixties" began to be published (V. Dudintsev, E. Yevtushenko, A. Voznesensky, B. Okudzhava). In 1962, at the direction of Khrushchev, the Novy Mir magazine published A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” about life in the camp. However, freedoms were limited. For example, the novel "Doctor Zhivago" by B. L. Pasternak was never allowed for publication in the USSR.

Agriculture by 1953, it required urgent action, since for many years resources were mainly pumped out of the village. In 1953, the collective farms were written off their debts, purchase prices were increased by 3 times, taxes were reduced by 2.5 times, and the collective farmers were allowed to develop their household plots.

To quickly increase the grain harvest, Khrushchev proposed to develop virgin lands (mainly the steppes of Kazakhstan). In 1954–1956 36 million hectares were plowed instead of 13 million according to the plan. In 1956, 125 million tons of grain were harvested, of which 50% were virgin. Virgin lands began to give up to half of the bread in the country, but spending on its development reduced spending on the agricultural sector in other regions.

Solving the problem of livestock fodder base, Khrushchev launched a "corn campaign". The first results paid off, and soon corn was planted everywhere, eliminating traditional crops. In general, the right idea gave a good result, but only where the climate was suitable. In many regions, planting corn caused damage.

Industry. The growth rate of the industry was high, on average up to 10% per year. At the same time, the authorities understood the need to strengthen the development of Group B industries (consumer goods) and saw the perniciousness of excessive centralization of the economy. In 1957, Khrushchev initiated the transition from a sectoral to a territorial system of economic management. Instead of most of the central ministries, councils of the national economy (sovnarkhozes) were created - local economic management bodies. This approach led to the establishment of links within the regions, but there was a lack of interaction between regions.

Under Khrushchev, the country achieved outstanding results in science and high technology. The world's first nuclear power plant was built (1954), the first jet passenger aircraft TU-104 was put into operation (1956), and the world's first nuclear icebreaker Lenin was created (1957). In 1957, an artificial Earth satellite was launched, and in 1961 Yu. Gagarin made his first flight into space.

Social sphere. During the years of Khrushchev's rule, there was a constant increase in the standard of living of the Soviet people. In the cities, the attachment of workers to enterprises was canceled, wages grew. In the countryside, payments for workdays have tripled. The pension system developed: pensions in cities almost doubled, the retirement age was lowered (men retired at 60 and women at 55). In 1964, pensions were introduced for collective farmers. Intensive construction of housing was carried out, popularly called "Khrushchev". The houses were built according to simplified building standards, but people were happy, because many received separate apartments for the first time in their lives. For 1956–1960 more housing was built than in all pre-war years (474 ​​million m² with a population of about 210 million people). In 1960, the country recorded the lowest death rate - 7.1 people. per 1 thousand population (for comparison: 1913 - 29 people; 1940 - 18 people; 1980 - 10 people). In demography, this indicator is the most important, since it reflects the degree of adaptation of a person to the conditions in which he lives and works.

At the XXII Party Congress in 1961, the task was set to build communist society. Struggling with the private ownership of citizens, Khrushchev set restrictions on the conduct of personal subsidiary plots in small towns, and then in the countryside. The number of livestock has declined sharply, which has increased the demand for food. There was a food shortage. Khrushchev tried to eliminate it by raising the price of meat, milk and butter by 20-50%. This caused discontent among the population, especially in the provinces. The most serious unrest occurred in Novocherkassk (1962). Troops were brought into the city, and as a result, 24 people died. Later, seven instigators of the riots were shot.

In 1963 virgin land did not yield. The grain harvest in the USSR was sharply reduced. Khrushchev was forced to buy bread abroad. Since then, grain purchases have become a constant practice, although their own production has also grown.

Discontent accumulated in the party and the country. As a result, Khrushchev was removed from all posts in 1964, rightly accused of subjectivism and voluntarism (making decisions without taking into account objective factors and putting them into practice using powers of authority).

In general, under Khrushchev, the country developed dynamically, despite a number of serious mistakes made by the leader. After his resignation, the party was headed by L. I. Brezhnev, and the government - by A. N. Kosygin.

Questions for self-control

1. What is the significance of the 20th Congress of the CPSU in the history of our country?

2. What successes in the social sphere were achieved in the era of N. Khrushchev?

3. What international crises occurred in the era of N. Khrushchev?

Decade 1954-1964 entered our history as the time of the "thaw". It began as early as 1953, shortly after the death of IV Stalin. The era of spectacles is over, the era of bread is coming ... These lines of the poet B. Slutsky correctly reflected the mood in the community. People have been waiting for a change for the better for a long time. Throughout the post-war years, the Soviet Union lived in constant overstrain. The Soviet economy was suffocating under the burden of military spending, the arms race with the West. Industry and agriculture required technical re-equipment. People were in dire need of housing and adequate food. In a difficult situation were the prisoners of the Stalinist camps (GULAG), which by the beginning of the 50s. there were a total of about 5.5 million people (see Soviet society in 1945-1953). The extremes of the Stalinist regime: repression, lawlessness, the deification of the personality of the "leader" - were so obvious to Stalin's inner circle that there was no way forward without overcoming them. Only three people from the power elite - G. M. Malenkov, L. P. Beria and N. S. Khrushchev could really claim to lead the Soviet state after the death of the "father of the peoples." Each of them was aware of the impossibility of maintaining a totalitarian system (see Totalitarian regime in the USSR). For Stalin's heirs, the indisputable truth was the need to continue the course towards building a communist society, strengthening the military and industrial power of the country, and supporting communist regimes in other countries. Therefore, none of the contenders for power was ready for a serious "revision" of the communist idea. In a tough behind-the-scenes struggle for power, Khrushchev won. In the summer of 1953, the "Lubyansk Marshal" Beria was arrested on charges of plotting to seize power, and in December of the same year he was shot along with six of his closest employees. The removal of Beria put an end to the mass terror in the country. Political prisoners began to return from prisons and camps. Their stories, as well as rumors about strikes and uprisings of Gulag prisoners, had a strong impact on society. The growing "from below" pressure contributed to the deployment of criticism of the Stalinist regime and Stalin himself. For the ex, the first timid criticism of the "cult of personality of Stalin" woke up Soviet society, gave rise to hopes for a change in life for the better. A powerful stream of letters, proposals, requests went to the country's leadership.

N. S. Khrushchev initiated numerous, sometimes poorly thought out and inconsistent reforms to democratize and liberalize Soviet society. The first transformations began as early as 1953 with the abolition of Soviet "serfdom" in the countryside. Collective and state farms were given relative independence. All debts that had accumulated since the war years were “written off” from private farms, the agricultural tax was halved, the norms of obligatory natural deliveries introduced under Stalin and keeping the village in a half-starved state were reduced. Even these partial measures made it possible to ensure the growth of agricultural production. By 1958, its gross output had doubled, and agriculture became profitable for the first time.

In 1956, the system of forced labor was abolished, which fixed people in their jobs, severe punishments were abolished at enterprises, villagers gained civil rights, trade unions - the right to control the dismissal of workers, production rates, and tariff rates.

At this time, Khrushchev's position in the leadership was so strengthened that he could take a new step. At the XX Congress of the CPSU, held in February 1956, at a closed meeting, Khrushchev announced Stalin's personal involvement in mass repressions, cruel torture of prisoners, and the death of outstanding commanders through the fault of the "leader". The speaker blamed him for the collapse of agriculture, for the defeat of the Red Army at the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War, for gross miscalculations and perversions in national politics. The “secret” report at the 20th Congress, which shocked most of its delegates, did not become public knowledge and was published in print only in 1989.

In condemning Stalin's crimes, Khrushchev did not touch upon the nature of the Soviet totalitarian system. He was not ready to democratize public institutions, to include in the struggle for reforms the liberal-minded layers of the intelligentsia - writers, publicists, scientists, whose efforts in the early 50s. the ideological prerequisites for a “thaw” were created. For this reason, Khrushchev's "thaw" never became a real spring. Frequent “freezes” after the 20th Congress threw society back. In early 1957, more than 100 people were prosecuted for "slandering Soviet reality." From 6 to 10 years of imprisonment were received by members of the group of a graduate student of Moscow State University L. Krasnopevtsev. They issued a leaflet, which contained a call for a fight against the Stalinist system of oppression, a demand for the trial of all Stalin's accomplices. Khrushchev's actions in economic and foreign policy were also contradictory. The brutal suppression of the uprising of the Hungarian people in 1956 had a huge impact on the fate of the reforms and put a limit to further liberalization. Nevertheless, the 20th Congress accelerated the development of many new processes in the economy, politics, and spiritual life. First of all, the rehabilitation of Gulag prisoners has accelerated. Extraordinary commissions with broad powers directly in places of detention and exile resolved many issues, and mass release of prisoners began. The national autonomy of 5 peoples unfairly deported to Central Asia and Kazakhstan was restored. In February 1957, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR restored the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as part of Russia, formed the Kalmyk Autonomous Region (since 1958 - an autonomous republic). The Kabardian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was transformed into the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Cherkess Autonomous Region into the Karachay-Cherkess. Crimean Tatars, Meskhetian Turks, Germans were not rehabilitated. Nevertheless, the entire system of political repressions was practically eliminated.

Since the mid 50s. the leadership of culture became more democratic. The reader finally got access to works that were undeservedly forgotten or previously unknown. Forbidden poems by S. Yesenin, A. Akhmatova, M. Tsvetaeva, stories by M. Zoshchenko were published. 28 magazines, 7 almanacs, 4 literary and art newspapers began to appear. It became easier for historians to study the past. Of great importance were the resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU of May 28, 1958 "On correcting errors in the evaluation of the operas" Great Friendship "," Bogdan Khmelnitsky "," From the bottom of my heart ". For the first time, the CPSU tried to publicly admit its erroneous decisions on questions of art. The publication of A. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" in the Novy Mir magazine opened the theme of Stalin's camps and mass terror, which was forbidden for Soviet literature. At the same time, B. Pasternak was unfairly expelled from the Writers' Union of the USSR for publishing the novel Doctor Zhivago abroad (he was forbidden to travel to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature). Pasternak's "case" clearly defined the boundaries of the "thaw" in spiritual life. Attempts by the party leadership in the early 60s. return to strict regulation of the artistic process pushed the creative intelligentsia away from the reformers.

In the second half of the 50s - early 60s. The country's leadership, having achieved some success in the de-Stalinization of society, embarked on a new series of reforms in the economic and cultural spheres. N. S. Khrushchev wanted to achieve real results in raising the material standard of living of the people. To do this, it was necessary to reorganize and decentralize the management of the economy. In May 1957, Khrushchev, having liquidated the sectoral ministries, created economic councils. Now many economic problems were solved locally, the influence of the bureaucracy was weakened. But the reform did not change the very principles of management and planning, but only replaced the sectoral organization with a territorial one. The quality indicators of products manufactured by the industry fell, the control system became even more complex and unreliable. The reform failed. The reforms in agriculture and public education were not brought to an end. But the social consequences of even such half-hearted transformations turned out to be much broader than the country's leadership assumed. The liberalization of spiritual life gave rise to freethinking, the emergence of dissidents, samizdat. The expansion of the local initiative deprived the metropolitan nomenklatura of power and privileges (see Officialdom). The growing economic difficulties put the country's leadership before a choice: either fundamental changes in the foundations of the existing system, or regular administrative reorganizations. Ultimately, the third path was chosen - in October 1964, N. S. Khrushchev was removed from his posts. The era of "thaw" is over.