19.2: The USSR

Stalin died in 1954. After a power struggle between the top members of the communist party, Stalin’s successor emerged: Nikita Khrushchev, a former coal miner and engineer who rose in the ranks of the party to become its leader. Khrushchev genuinely believed that the USSR would overtake the west economically and that its citizens would in turn eventually enjoy much better standards of living than those experienced in the west.

Khrushchev broke with Stalinism soon after securing power. In Soviet history, "The Thaw" occurred, when he had four million prisoners released from the gulags as a gesture of sincerity. For a brief period, there was a flowering of literary and artistic experimentation comparable to that of the early 1920s. Censorship was relaxed, with a few accurate accounts of the gulags making it into mainstream publication. In turn, there was genuine hope for larger political reforms of the system.

This hope of a new beginning was not limited to the Soviet Union itself. In the last chapter, you read about the Hungarian uprising of 1956. Its aftermath showed that Khrushchev had no intention of allowing genuine independence in the Soviet Bloc countries of Eastern Europe. Angered both by the events in Hungary and by the growth of dissent (opinions different from the government) within the USSR itself, Khrushchev reasserted control.

It was also under Khrushchev that the Cold War reached its most frenzied pitch. Khrushchev had an explosive personality who sincerely believed in the possibility of the USSR “winning” the Cold War by

• exceeding the western world economically
• winning over the nations of the Third World to communism politically.
  • People often use the term “Third World” when referring to poor or developing nations.

To that end, he continued the Stalinist focus on building up heavy industry and military hardware, but he also devoted huge energies toward science and engineering.

During Khrushchev’s tenure as premier, the “space race” joined the arms race as a major centerpiece of Cold War policy. The 'winner' would have scientific superiority and be the victor in the eyes of the world. In addition to Sputnik, Khrushchev claimed that the USSR had developed missiles that could strike targets on the other side of the world. Thus, the West feared that the Soviets could easily detonate a nuclear weapon in the US or Europe. The idea of 'mutually assured destruction' emerged.

Figure 12.5.1: A commemorative Soviet postage stamp depicting Sputnik’s orbit.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, a lifelong communist bureaucrat. Brezhnev would hold power until 1982, a long period usually characterized by stagnation: the Soviet system, including its nominal adherence to Marxism-Leninism, would remain in place, but even elites abandoned the idea that “real” communism was achievable. Instead, life in the USSR was about trying to find a place in the system, rather than pursuing the more far-reaching goals of communist theory. The state and the economy were rife with corruption and nepotism, and a deep-seated, bitter cynicism became the outlook of most Soviet citizens toward their government.

During Brezhnev’s tenure as the Soviet premier, another eastern bloc nation tried unsuccessfully to break away from Soviet domination: Czechoslovakia. In the Spring of 1968, the Czech communist leader Alexander Dubcek received permission from Moscow to experiment with limited reforms. He called for “socialism with a human face,” meaning a kind of communist government that allowed freedom of speech, a liberalized outlook on human expression, and a diversified economy that could address sectors besides heavy industry. Dubcek relaxed censorship and allowed workers to organize into Soviets (councils) as they had in the early years of the communist revolution in Russia. These reforms were eagerly embraced by the Czechs and Slovaks.

Predictably, the reforms proved too radical for Moscow. Brezhnev sent in the Soviet military, and all of the other Warsaw Pact countries (except Romania) also sent in troops. This reaction was regarded around the world as especially crude, given that the Czechs and Slovaks did not rise up in any kind of violent way. In the end, the message was clear: no meaningful reform would be possible in the East unless the leadership in Moscow somehow underwent a fundamental change of outlook. That change did eventually come, but not until the 1980s under Mikhail Gorbachev. (You'll learn about this event later in the textbook.)