Khrushchev Rollback Effect

The Russian’s loss in the Russo-Japanese war was the another way that they got the public to turn against the provisional government and strengthen the communist revolt. The revolt got stronger and stronger until the Bolsheviks finally revolted and took down the Russian Provisional Government. Because of this, civil war erupted all over the country. At the end of this war, in 1920, the Bolsheviks set up the USSR, or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, under control of Vladimir Lenin. When Lenin died, Stalin aggressively worked his way up until he was the leader of the USSR. In his control, Stalin set up a “5 year plan” to advance the Russian economy from just farming to also having industry. In this plan, he would also advance the military and “cleanse the country of villains” or those he saw as villains. To “cleanse the country”, Stalin would have unfair trials that would have many on trial at once. These were called his “Show Trials”. The majority, if not all, of these people were found guilty and sent for execution. They were executed all at once, and the executions were called the Purges. To advance the Russian economy, Stalin would work the farmers to death… literally. When the farmers revolted, Stalin stopped sending them food and even more died from starvation. On the last of the purges, 16 men were put on trial and accused of acts of terrorism towards Stalin and the Soviet government. Two of them were Stalin’s allies after Lenin’s death, Zinovyev and

Serving as one the most controversial leaders of the Soviet Union during its relatively short existence, Nikita Sergeyevich Khruschev proved to be a leader capable of transforming a nation. Through his many alterations to the systems by which the Soviets lived, he managed to increase the standard of living and productivity of this Communist State. Described as a man of enormous energy and drive, he was shrewd, tough, earthy, sociable and talkative, and he confidently took colossal gambles in both foreign and domestic policies. From his "Secret Speech" and the following De-Stalinization of the Union, to the friendly relations with other countries of the world, his goal to remodel the Soviet Union into an

To begin with, this book educated the reader about the past. Everyone in the Soviet Union looked up to the leader, Stalin, even though he wasn’t a good leader at all. He caused many problems for the citizens including uncomfortable living conditions. This book educates the reader by showing that back then even when people were treated badly, they still had to look up to their leader even though he was the cause of all

For many decades, Russia was isolated from other part of the world politically and geographically. During the First World War, Russia’s industrialization was progressing fairly, as they implemented an education reform program to promote literacy among people. The program would have been successful if it was continued without obstacles. They also implemented a program named Stolypin in order to modernize the agriculture, which was bringing successful changes to the country; however, the Stolypin program was not completed because of problems such as War, the absent of a proper parliament institutions ,the corruption and excess of power among the secret police. Ethnicity in Russia groups was also among the problems as the Russian empire was becoming anarchical and it was getting difficult to maintain it due to pressure form the population who felt that their basic need were not being responded while the monarchy was having an extravagant lifestyle (Kennan,1). By 1917, most Russian were now convinced about the fact that Czar Nicholas II was not good enough to help revive the economy in Russia. Also, Corruption in the government was still untouched and the king had already dissolved the Duma because they did not agree to his will. The economy was still backward, without jobs, frustrated people were tired of the conditions that they lived

While Stalin was in power the size of the Communist Party increased by many millions. Many people attribute this to the fear that he culminated into the Soviet Union’s citizens’ minds. His principal way to gain power were a sum of dishonesty, fraud, lies, extreme brutality, and mass murder. Some examples of the ways he used to make people fear him are the Gulag camps, the secret

Khrushchev was desperate to present himself as a reformer, completely breaking away from the reliance of ‘fear into submission’ tactics of the Stalinist era, by presenting

The many long-term internal causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union centralized around weaknesses in their economy. They had an inflexible central planning system, the inability to modernize, and the inefficiency in their agriculture production. Sometime around the 1970's the computer and automation revolution had emerged. This revolution took over the West, but practically missed the Soviet Union, except in the military sector (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev's goal in economic restructuring was to create a separation between the economic and the political. The major changes began with the legalization of private farming and business co-operatives, and the allowing of foreign company ownership over Soviet enterprises (Baylis &Smith, 2001) All of Gorbachev's ideas on economic restructuring backfired on him since the price levels were inconsistent, and a sense of social confusion about the future of their state was created.

The following primary source analysis is from Nikita Khrushchev’s speech delivered to the 20th congress of the Communist party of the USSR in Moscow on February 25 1956. In the speech Khrushchev heavily criticized the role played by the deceased Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and in particular the great purge of the communist parties at the end of the 1930s. He accused Stalin of constructing a leadership personality cult and still claiming to follow the beliefs of the communist party. Khrushchev’s primary objective was to turn back the communist party to follow Leninist communist ideals instead of the former Stalinist ideals, and to also gain further control of the communist party against other competitors.

It is undeniable that Stalin had a profound impact on the Soviet Union following Lenin’s death. His rise to power within the Soviet Union has provided historians with a hotbed of political intrigue for many years. He was an opportunist, coming to dominance by manipulating party politics and influential figures in the politburo to eliminate his opposition by recognising and exploiting their weaknesses thus becoming the dominant leader of the Soviet Union. He was severely underestimated by other members of the Politburo about his potential within the party, leading to missed opportunities to ally and stand against him- a mistake that Stalin never made. He gained support from the public by exploiting the idea of ‘the Cult of Lenin’ in 1924 at Lenin’s funeral, and then adopting this concept for himself, thereby likening himself to Lenin; and, more importantly, gained support from other party members by following the wishes of Lenin, for example, initially supporting the continuation of the NEP and supporting the idea of factionalism. This essay will also argue that he was ideologically flexible as he was able to change his ideas for the party according to who he needed as an ally, in order to achieve dominant status in the party. He sought out which individual was the biggest threat, and eliminated them before they could stand against him.

This ‘Anti-Party’ group assaulted Khrushchev on his agricultural policies and called for his abdication as the First Secretary of the Central Committee (S., 1957). However, despite the supporters and efforts to take power from Khrushchev made by the ‘Anti-Party’ group, Khrushchev proved to have stronger allies. On July 4th, 1957 Malenkov, Molotov, and Kaganovich were removed from their positions in the Party and any real threats to Khrushchev’s power were thereby diminished ( S., 1957). Now Khrushchev had no competition and in March of 1958 he was named the First Secretary of the Central Committee, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Chairman of the Central Committee Bureau for the RSFSR, and member of the Presidium, finally supplying Khrushchev with immense power and signifying that he was Stalin’s clear successor (Taubman et al.,

Joseph Stalin led the Socialist Soviet Union in the “Revolution from Above,” a movement to centralize the government and transform society without popular participation . Because Stalin’s radical goals were destructive for the populace to attain, his legitimacy was based on the credibility of his ideological authority . In protection of that conviction, Stalin was in constant fear of competitive initiative and philosophy. Stalin subjected society and culture to strict party surveillance and control, issuing pro-socialist, xenophobic propaganda, censoring literature, art, and media, and launching anti-religious campaigns . In addition to his confiscation of religious property and denunciation of belief, Stalin was

To say the least, his peers were stunned. In making this speech Khrushchev was actively tearing down the Cult of Personality that had surrounded the premier position since Lenin. This was intentional. While Stalin used the Cult to gain power and

But make public his speech wasn’t part of his plan, his speech was for the communist party, that’s why he didn’t mention his disapproval of the persecution of non-communist. His speech was named “Stalin’s second funeral” since it reconsidered everything Stalin supported, Khrushchev, on the other had advocated a new policy of peaceful coexistence. After his speech protester took the streets in the soviet satellites of Poland and Hungary, the Polish revolt was resolved peacefully, unlike the Hungarian which was suppressed with tropes and tanks a cost the life of 2,500 Hungarians. In his domestic front, Khrushchev tried to increase agricultural work and raise living standards. He also reduced the power of the Soviet Union’s feared secret police, released many political prisoners, relaxed artistic censorship, opened up more of the country to foreign visitors and inaugurated the space age in 1957 with the launch of the satellite

	At the Twentieth Party Congress, held February 1956, Khrushchev further advanced his position within the party by denouncing Stalin’s crimes in a "secret speech". Khrushchev revealed that Stalin had arbitrarily liquidated thousands of party members and military leaders and had established a cult of personality. With this speech Khrushchev not only distanced himself from Stalin, and Stalin’s close associates, Molotov and Malenkov, but also abjured the dictator’s policy of terror. As a result of the

Khrushchev criticized Joseph Stalin in this “secret speech” in 1956 on many of his actions. He reprehended Stalin for his abuse of power and the execution of not only enemies, but also of collective party