The theory and practice of communism; Stalinism and After

One of the most common mistakes we make in the western world is to think of the Soviet government as a dictatorship in which the leader or leaders are all powerful. I think this is a mistake. No dictator was ever so powerful that he could do whatever he please. The USSR was a dictatorship and is a dictatorship but not even Stalin was omnipotent. There are social and economic forces at work in the USA and as anywhere else but go beyond the power and importance of individual leaders and any new look in the USSR was not the result of a single man's policy winning out over another man's policy but rather an interaction of many many different factors. In January 2015 1955 the party newspaper proud to openly attack the policy of distress on consumer goods. Two years. Two weeks later on February 8th 1955 mom and coach made a public confession of failure. Before. Thirteen hundred

representatives of the Supreme Soviet who thereupon meekly and without discussion unanimously accepted his resignation. This came from the team of K and B as the Britishers call them Khrushchev and people got in and the whole era of Stalin is that I don't think I need to go into I'm sure that we all belong most of us to a generation where the memories of the Stalin and station do not yet belong to mummified history and are still in it and in our minds the fact is though that Khrushchev and Bill Gandhi and later Khrushchev by himself tried to ease tensions to bring a better feeling within the Soviet Union and a relaxation of tensions in the whole world. The second face of the Stalin ization took place in 19 starting in

1956 with the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 24th 1956 in procedure it was like any other Congress under Stalin there was no debate no opposition. Also its most dramatic action the repudiation of the Stalin called had been foreshadowed earlier. And yet this 20th Congress is of vast importance in Soviet history. It was at that time the judge gave a $50000 to address a report on behalf of the Central Committee in which he deplored the cult of the leaders. He mentioned Stalin by name only once and then only to note quote shortly after the 19th Congress death took Jos that Stalin from our ranks and quote it was left for me going on to launch the attack on Stalin which he did in various ways he attacked the short history of the Communist Party attributed to Stalin. He referred sarcastically to that Stalin's

oath to Lenin and so on. The Congress ended with jobs sensational exposé of Stalin. It was published in summary form for the rest of the world for the first time the Yugoslav newspaper bought about March 20th one thousand fifty six and the Polish newspaper to march twenty seven thousand nine hundred fifty six. It was in that speech and the Who show up denounce Stalin as a capricious tyrant a murderer of his own comrades a man of whim who was responsible for the near defeat of the Soviet Union in World War 2 and so on. I'm tempted this point just to read to you from this speech but I don't want to keep you for the next seven hours. The charges come to some of it and maybe summarize them to some of these points that Stalin murdered hundreds of innocent Communists during the great purge of 1936 to thirty eight that he had weakened the Red Army by liquidating its great generals and that purge especially

marshal to a chip scheme that he had failed to take adequate defense measures prior to Hitler's attack. Obviously that had an alliance with Germany. There was a charge that he did not treat the nationalities of the Soviet Union correctly that he had provoked Tito's Yugoslavia into leaving the fold that he had fabricated certain plots such as the Leningrad case or the doctor's plot. Why did the Communist Party leadership decide to destroy Stalin's name. Why weren't they simply satisfied with doing the way what with what they called the cult of the personality. What was the purpose of the dramatic step of her job speech. A step which by the way specially the Communist Party of China did not like. First of all there was the human desire for revenge. Stalin had been guilty of humiliating and browbeating many of the Communist leaders including who's child himself whom he treated like a kind of clown. But this personal motive

of revenge is not significant enough. I think another reason Khrushchev in the party undertook their de Stalin is sation wants to make sure that no other Stalin would ever come about. To lay down the principles that the cult of the personality could never take place again. Furthermore I think this was the sop to the army that did not want again to be placed under the rule of one man in this way. Moreover it was so convenient to make a dead man the scapegoat for so many errors that had been made by blaming it all on Stalin you see you could then wipe the slate clean and start out in new directions in foreign policy it helped to it was it help foreign relations certainly with Yugoslavia it encourage non communist socialist to cooperate. It's still the fears of national leaders in Asia and Africa. Some might be more attracted to communism if the

communism were purged of dictatorial methods associated with Stalin. Now there are all kinds of results of that. The Stalin ization process. Those of you who saw the documentary on TV about Khrushchev need not be reminded of such things. The revolts in Poland and in Hungary in 1956 Ford there were just some of the effects of this release of tensions. In June of 1957 my link of Molotov and Kaga Norvig fearing for their own position in the party leadership decided to force Khrushchev out. And they were successful in getting a majority of four out of seven in the party presenting him against Khrushchev. But Khrushchev wouldn't go away and he did an unprecedented thing by taking his case to the larger three hundred thirty man

executive committee of the party where he had more power and he not only had the action of the seven mand presidium rescinded but got the ouster of his own enemies. Note that they were not killed. Some say they were given a fate worse than death. Molotov was made ambassador to Outer Mongolia mining cough was made the manager of a distant industrial installation and so on. Having done this in March I'm ninety one thousand fifty eight Bill Gandhian was purged too and Khrushchev became chairman. Premier as well as head of the Communist Party. Despite all the changes the USSR continued to be a one party dictatorship under one man rule. But there was no doubt that it was a much better time for most Soviet citizens than they had had in Stalin's time. Ten years of office are associated with a definite upsurge in the economy.

With doing away with all kinds of restrictions on human freedoms though let us not make any comparisons with a truly free country. The lowering of taxes life was made easier for many citizens. There was a greater tendency to express oneself and certainly the policy of peaceful coexistence in foreign affairs was of great importance in the world especially for us. Let me and a summary. It is perhaps unnecessary in view of your own memory simply by raising the question why then did Khrushchev fall from power if he had managed to do all of these things in his ten years. Here perhaps men will be less able to follow me than women because women by nature know the difference between good reasons and real reasons

and we have to think about the subtleties of the situation here. The reason that was given for a top 20 job was because he was an old man and ill health. For those of you saw the TV documentary the other day one of you has asked me Well why didn't they just do away with him or do what they did with my link up or something of the SAARC. Why treat Khrushchev so gently after all the difference between life today is hardly different from that of Harry Truman's in some way. They're both in a sort of genteel retirement. Why were they so kind to Khrushchev. Well quite apart from personal things the fact the child had been kinder to others than Stalin had been and so there wasn't the spirit of revenge. There was the fact that the official announcement as to the Soviet official reason for why Khrushchev was ousted was because he was getting old and was in

poor health. So if this is the official reason then of course they have every reason to to make him look as though he's just retired as an old man and taking it easy. We must not discount this after all Khrushchev was 70 at the time. And anyone who saw that documentary the other day realizes that Khrushchev really does act and walk like a very old man who seems to have lost any spunk. He was in poor health at the time. One must say this about it he had gone to a Black Sea resort he was under a doctor's care at the time when he was ousted. So this gave a good excuse for the genteel announcement that was made by the Soviet authorities. In fact himself it talked of retiring and on one occasion doing a party in their meeting got so angry that he said he would quit on them and just leave and so they took him up on it.

The thing that interests me as a historian of Russian affairs is that the change took place so peacefully and in such an orderly fashion. Indeed it was almost Parliamentary in procedure. First of all the ouster of Khrushchev was discussed in the party crazy idea. And then as in one thousand fifty seven it was carried over into the three hundred thirty man executive committee. From everything that we know both sides were heard. I gave a speech before night session of the executive committee on Tuesday October 13th which lasted five hours and then Khrushchev replied in kind and got angry and began to insult most of the people present. When he realized that the executive committee was against him and the vote was taken early Wednesday October 14th the world learned of it. Thursday October 15th when the president of the Supreme Soviet ousted him as premier there was not the slightest sign of popular unrest except in parts of Eastern Europe.

The change came as a surprise not only to the world but to who showed himself. And yet it was not sudden. It was rather long in brewing and various leaders had various complaints against him. What were the six complaints. Well they were first of all those of an inner party nature that Khrushchev was putting together putting forward ambitious men some of them his own relatives to Bay for example his son in law that this was nepotism. Another was that Khrushchev was not handling the situation with the quarrel with communist China very carefully and that he wanted to make public the correspondence with Mao Tse-Tung which would have been very scandalous. Certainly there was a disagreement over agricultural policy and Khrushchev his whole scheme of opening up the so-called virgin lands of Kazakhstan. Many of us remember Khrushchev in Iowa and learning how to raise corn in the Soviet Union.

And while some of his plants in agriculture were good others were indeed as the newspapers later called the hairbrained indeed disagreement was so great for the Khrushchev threatened to resign before they actually kicked him out. Now about these good and real reasons I was talking about. Certainly there was a domestic domestic conflict and domestic problems especially in agriculture and Khrushchev could not solve those problems. In foreign policy the Soviet Union didn't seem to get forward very much. There was a kind of stalemate in Berlin. You remember the ignominy its withdrawal from Cuba though Khrushchev claimed in that documentary we saw that the victory was really is but I don't think he's fooling anybody but himself. Furthermore there is a kind of how shall I put I don't know whether call them right wing or left wing of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. There

is always worried about anybody that's being soft on capitalism and Khrushchev seems to be soft on the capitalist west and the Chinese Communists were always eager to point this out. Furthermore Eastern Europe was the sort of so-called satellite states were in disarray and Khrushchev not only didn't stop this but seemed even to encourage a greater relaxation of Muscovite control to such a degree that this is a Soviet satellite Empire seem to be in a state of disintegration. I will not be able to prove this but I think that the end of the issue on which really the whole thing broke though even with all of these other reasons the issue which created the trouble was the one with China who definitely was made the scapegoat for the bad relations between communist China and the Soviet Union. And it was sort of hoped that with the change of leadership if the Chinese Communist leaders had hurled such epithets at Khrushchev

that it seemed impossible to conduct any kind of conversations between the Chinese communists and Khrushchev. And since he was old and tired and getting in the way and all the rest of it anyway why get rid of him and let's start again. So they did get rid of him. In conclusion let me point out just a few basic consideration about Stalin's box of successors. First of all they do not oppose Khrushchev's policies. One cannot conceive a regime you have and Cacique in as being the opponents of Khrushchev. They are carrying forward many of his policies. I think it's also important to note that both bridge and at least 10 years younger than Khrushchev. Now I don't know at what age to be 10 years younger means a lot but. After all from the standpoint of effective administration there may be quite a difference

between a man who is 75 and one who is 65 or one who is 65 and one who is 55. Not great human Cosequin were not only 10 years younger which makes for a quantitative difference but qualitatively they were different too because for example because Sagan was 12 years old in 1917 when the revolution took over and he was about 20 years old when Stalin came to power so that they belonged to a different age Gracious Heaven. And then the men who are just ten years older than they are and who were young men and fighting actually in the revolution in 1917. Now what's the difference between this older and this younger generation even younger by 10 years. The difference is that those who actually were old enough to fight in the revolution itself belong to the communist party at a time when it was the underground. When the big thing was if you were a good revolutionary and were willing to

devote your life to it and even risk your life for the sake of the revolution and it didn't matter how much you knew about theory or whether you were a good manager or anything of the sort as long as you were good revolutionary and carried out orders fearlessly and Khrushchev did that. But those seeking were of the younger bunch that were trained completely under a Soviet system and they were trained as engineers. Both of them. They're not politicians in that sense they are engineers whose main idea in life is to make something work and they are just as ruthless as any capitalist in getting rid of something if it doesn't work namely Khrushchev. If you just good and tired and old and can't do the job right anymore get rid of it and get some get rid of anybody else in the same way in order to make this system work. Not as cruel and hard as that may sound the fact is that we capitalists understand such people. We can talk to them. It's the IDeologists that get us all

fussed up but it's these practical heads that we can talk to and I think that the visit you could see given Glasper on elsewhere shows some of this ability of practical men to talk to practical men when idiology doesn't get in the way. Will there be another starving I think not. And we have had several changes now since Stalin and not one has come even to approach as I cannot conceive of brace yet let alone Cacique in being another Stalin and furthermore I cannot even conceive of them wanting to be because there are all kinds of considerations involved here and risks. As for the consequences for the rest of the world I cannot escape the conclusion that while I'm not ready to breathe a sigh of relief at all the changes in the Soviet Union and think that nobody has to worry about anything anymore.

The fact is that the world under Khrushchev was better than the world under Stalin and that I have the feeling that working with the leaders after next job would be even easier than working with Khrushchev himself. But this is merely a guess. You have been listening to Professor Michael B Petrovich of the University of Wisconsin as he discussed Stalinism and after another lecture drawn from the 1967 Wisconsin Alumni seminar on the theory and practice of communism. Next week the first of a two part discussion of the Yugoslav way to socialism. These lectures are arranged for radio by WAGA the University of Wisconsin. Again almost speaking this is the national educational radio network.