The Thaw (Socialism with a Human Face)

Opening of the VIth World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow — one of the symbols of the "thaw"

The Thaw (also sometimes called the Beria's Thaw) is an unofficial designation for the period in the history of the USSR after the death of Joseph Stalin. It was characterized by the liberalization of the socio-political regime, the release and rehabilitation of political prisoners, the elimination of the GULAG system, the condemnation of the practice of the cult of the individual, the warming of relations with Western powers, the expansion of freedom of speech and creative activity. The period of the “thaw” takes its name from the eponymous story of Ilya Ehrenburg, published in 1954.

The beginning of the “thaw” is seen by the death of Stalin and the coming to power of the duumvirate of Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov, however, in reality, the first glimpses of liberalization appeared at the end of 1952. The end of the period is usually associated with the deterioration of Soviet-American relations in the mid-1960s, which led to a tightening of the regime.

"Thaw" in domestic politics

Already on the 10 March 1953 — 5 days after Stalin's death — the new head of the USSR Council of Ministers, Georgy Malenkov, at a closed meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee said: “In the past, we had major abnormalities, much went along the line of the personality cult. Now we need to immediately correct the trend going in this direction." The country entered a period of “collective leadership,” which meant that no member of the Presidency should have a decisive advantage over the rest. The 9 May, it was decided not to display portraits of the current leadership during demonstrations, and on the 30 July, on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the CPSU, the theses of the Central Committee's Agitation and Propaganda Department and the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute were published, which said: “The cult of personality contradicts the principle of collective leadership, leads to a decrease in the creative activity of the party masses and the Soviet people and has nothing to do with the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the high value of the directing activity of the leading bodies and leading figures ...".

Georgy Malenkov and Lavrentiy Beria — leaders of the USSR after Stalin's death and initiators of the "Thaw"

In the summer, Malenkov for the first time allowed himself to openly criticize Stalin's policies — for example, he recognized as erroneous the "political discrediting" againt Molotov and Mikoyan, Stalin's decision to increase taxes on the countryside by 40 billion rubles in 1953, the plan for the construction of the Turkmen Canal and the provision on the transition from commodity exchange to product exchange in Stalin's work "Economic problems of socialism in the USSR". At the same time, he stressed that all this should not serve as a reason for denigrating Stalin.

The 14—25 February 1956, the XXth Congress of the CPSU was held, at which the practice of the personality cult was officially condemned, but at the same time Stalin's personality itself was removed from the field of criticism — Beria, who spoke in the report, admitted the mistakes in politics after 1948, primarily Soviet Yugoslav schism and a number of repressive campaigns, however, the blame for them was laid primarily on the Stalinist entourage, who took advantage of old age and the leader's illness:

“

We believe that the cult of his personality was incredibly inflated to the detriment of Comrade Stalin. Comrade Stalin is indeed a great man, a brilliant Marxist but even such people should not be given such privileges as he enjoyed. As a result, we had the "Doctors' Plot" and the "Mingrelian Case".

”

Also, on the eve of Beria's report, Anastas Mikoyan criticized certain provisions of the "Short Course on the History of the CPSU (b)" and "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR," which were extremely ambiguous for the delegates of the congress. As a result of its work, it was decided to prohibit the renaming of objects in honor of the current leadership — the 6 March, by a resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the cities of Budyonnovsk (Prikumsk), Voroshilov (Ussuriysk), Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk), Voroshilovsk (Kommunarsk), Kaganovich (Novokashuirsk) (Perm), Molotovsk (Severodvinsk) and a number of others were given new names.

Laying flowers at the monument of Stalin in Tbilisi in 1956

Despite the fact that Stalin continued to be officially called "the successor of Lenin's cause" and "great marxist", after 1956 his name became less and less mentioned in state propaganda — for example, after the XXth Congress, it was decided to limit the performance of the USSR anthem to only the first verse and chorus, because in the second and third verses Stalin and the war were mentioned. The Moscow authorities abandoned the construction of the Pantheon in Vorontsovo, where it was planned to transfer the sarcophagi with the bodies of Lenin and Stalin, the Stalinist collected works were republished much less frequently, and they wrote about it in print only on major holidays. Public criticism of the late leader was allowed, but only within the framework indicated by Beria at the XXth Congress — it was allowed to talk about Stalin's miscalculations in relation to the last five years of his reign, while the failures of previous years were still interpreted through the prism of "intrigues of enemies" and "mistakes of individual people in Stalin's entourage ”, the list of which was replenished after each round of the internal party struggle. If in a speech at the XX Congress Beria named only the names of Zhdanov and Ignatiev, who were already deceased at that time, among those responsible for fanning the cult of personality and unjustified repressions, then later the members of the Anti-Government Group — Molotov, Bulganin, Khrushchev, etc.

Beria, leading a campaign to combat the cult of individuals, and remained a consistent supporter of the chosen course until the end of his reign. So, for example, he twice — in 1959 and 1964 — rejected the proposal to confer on himself the title of Generalissimo and the Order of Victory for merits during the war, which, however, is considered by some researchers as a purely populist step, since at the same At the very time in the press, it was Beria who was credited with the sole merit in the evacuation of industry to the east in 1941, the defense of the Caucasus, the development of nuclear and hydrogen weapons, the successful implementation of the Soviet space program, etc.

Political reforms

The transition to "collective leadership" entailed a series of large-scale political reforms that were supposed to consolidate the new political regime. Their main initiator was Beria, and the first transformations began with the Ministry of Internal Affairs subordinate to him — already in March 1953, at his suggestion, the General Administration of Camps (GULAG) was transferred to the Ministry of Justice, the 1 September, the Special Meetings were abolished, which had the right to impose punishment for counter-revolutionary crimes without court approval and in 1960, an independent Ministry of State Security (MGB) was separated from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Demonstration of 1st May 1955 on Red Square

In addition, in the 1950s, there were significant restrictions on the powers of the party apparatus — in May 1953, by a decision of the Council of Ministers, remunerations to party officials were halved and the so-called; "Envelopes" — additional remuneration not subject to accounting, and the 28 November, a resolution was adopted "On serious shortcomings in the work of the party apparatus", in accordance with which the first "purge" of the party ranks since 1939 took place, during which the number of the CPSU from 6 million members decreased to 5.5 million, mainly due to the exclusion from the party of persons suspected of bribery, moral decay, bureaucracy and disregard for the needs of the people. After the final defeat of the opposition in February 1957 plenum, Beria and Malenkov proceeded to the systematic removal of the CPSU from the leadership of the economy — the industrial, agricultural, transport, construction and other departments within the party were abolished, and according to the decisions of the XXIth Congress held in February—March 1961 , departments of administrative bodies, science and educational institutions, economics and finance were also subject to disbandment. In April, only 7 departments remained in the CPSU Central Committee — Ideological, Information, Personnel, International, General, Organizational and Administrative Affairs. Regional party organizations were reformed in a similar way.

Back in 1944, Malenkov prepared a draft resolution on combining the posts of heads of local party organizations and executive bodies — the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Union Republic, the regional committee, the regional committee, the district committee, the city committee, the district party committee was to become at the same time the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of a union or autonomous republic, the executive committee of the regional, regional, district, city, district Council of Working People's Deputies. Stalin supported Malenkov, but on the 26 January 1944, a meeting of the Politburo was held, at which the draft of this resolution was deleted from the agenda of the plenum. Since 1957, Malenkov's initiative, thanks to the support of Beria, found a "second wind" — at the 6th plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, elected by the XXth Congress, on the 16—17 December, the decision to combine in the same hands the posts of heads of party organizations and executive power in the localities was nevertheless adopted. and in 1961 the prefix “first” disappeared from the name of the leading position of the local party cell. This post was finally abolished with the adoption of the new Statutes of the CPSU at the XXIIth Congress, from which all references to the first secretaries disappeared.

Mikhail Zimyanin at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus

Changes took place in national politics — Beria initiated a return to the practice of “indigenousism,” according to which the leadership in the soviet republics should belong to representatives of the titular nation. So, on the 12 June 1953, the head of Ukraine, Leonid Melnikov, was removed from office, replaced by the Ukrainian Alexei Kirichenko, and the 27 June, the Russian by nationality Nikolai Patolichev was replaced by the Belarusian Mikhail Zimyanin as head of Belarus. Unfortunately, excesses could not be avoided — for example, the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPB in 1953 adopted a resolution on the complete translation of the work of the Central Committee, Council of Ministers, local party and Soviet bodies, as well as cultural, trade and educational institutions into the Belarusian language, which required the intervention of Moscow, from where a special clarification came:

“

The new rules do not mean that the demands in Belarus are in Belarusian, because such an approach would be incorrect, non-partisan ... The Russian and Belarusian peoples are inextricably linked by their origin and their common sacred traditions of a centuries-old struggle against all foreign invaders, in which the great Russian people have always acted as a staunch friend of the Belarusian people ...

”

In 1957, republican orders of culture were established - for example, the Shevchenko Order in Ukraine, the Navoi Order in Uzbekistan, the Rustaveli Order in Georgia, the Nizami Order in Azerbaijan, the Nalbandian Order in Armenia, etc. They were supposed to be handed over to writers, composers, playwrights, etc., who made a significant contribution to the development of the culture of their republic.

Semyon Ignatiev — head of the Ministry of State Security in 1951—1953, who was blamed for the repression of the post-war period

The last major transformation of the “thaw” period was the legislative consolidation of the principle of change of power — the 22nd Congress of the CPSU in 1966 amended the Party Charter, guaranteeing the principle of staff rotation every 5 years, and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 7th convocation, which met in April, adopted amendments to the constitution, introducing the 65-year age limit for electing a person to leadership positions. By these measures, Beria and Malenkov hoped to ensure the preservation of the principle of "collective leadership" even after their resignation.

Rehabilitation of the repressed

The most important achievement of the "thaw" era was the rejection of the practice of mass terror and the rehabilitation of victims of political repression. From 1945 to 1953, Beria practically did not participate in the activities of the state security bodies, completely dealing with the issues of the nuclear industry, and, heading the Ministry of Internal Affairs after Stalin's death, found the state of affairs in the ministry extremely neglected. The blame for this was laid on the former head of the MGB and secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Semyon Ignatiev, whose inexperience seriously affected the work of Soviet intelligence — on the 5 April 1953, he was removed from all posts, and the 28 April, he was removed from the Central Committee. The 2 July, the Party Control Committee recognized Ignatiev's actions as head of the MGB "incompatible with the duties of a communist" and expelled him from the ranks of the CPSU. Later, he was arrested on charges of falsifying the "Doctors' case" and anti-Soviet activities, and the 7 July 1954, he was shot together with other organizers of repression in the post-war period — Sergei Ogoltsov, Lavrenty Tsanava and Mikhail Ryumin.

The Ignatiev affair became the prologue to the revision of most of the political processes of the 1940—1950s:

• On 2 April, persons involved in the murder of Solomon Mikhoels were arrested;
• On 3 April, all the defendants in the "Doctors' case" were amnestied;
• On 10 April, persons involved in the “Mingrelian case” were rehabilitated;
• On 29 May, the defendants in the "Aviators case" were rehabilitated — Air Marshal Novikov, General Shakhurin, and others;

Rehabilitation also affected Lazar Kaganovich's younger brother, Mikhail, and all those convicted under the so-called; "Artillery case".

Prisoners of Sevvostlag at the construction of the railway

As a result, already in 1953, most of the victims of the post-war repression, with the exception of only those involved in the "Leningrad case" and victims of the struggle against "rootless cosmopolitanism," supervised directly by Malenkov, were rehabilitated. Their organizers have already been prosecuted — some were shot, others were given various sentences, such as ex-Minister of State Security Viktor Abakumov, who was sentenced the 19 December 1954 to 15 years in prison for “organizing the murder of Mikhoels and instigating the Night of the Murdered Poets case”.

Beria's activities were not limited to the rehabilitation of the unjustifiably repressed — the 26 March 1953, he proposed a large-scale amnesty, during which it was necessary to release about 1,203,000 prisoners and stop investigative cases against another 401,000 people. Amnesty was imposed on those convicted for a term of up to 5 years inclusive, convicted of official, economic and some military crimes, as well as minors, the elderly, the sick, women with young children and pregnant women. This amnesty, which went down in history as "Voroshilovskaya", since the corresponding order was signed by the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Kliment Voroshilov, became one of the most ambitious in history. The "Voroshilov Amnesty" was followed by the "Kaiser Amnesty" in 1956, according to which all German prisoners of war who were on the territory of the USSR returned to their homeland. Subsequently, amnesties were timed to coincide with anniversary dates, most often the anniversary of the October Revolution.

The condemnation of the practice of the cult of personality and, in particular, the defeat of the "Anti-Government Group" led to a new — even more extensive — rehabilitation. The 19 April 1956, a decree was issued abolishing the decree of the Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee "On the procedure for conducting cases on the preparation or commission of terrorist acts" and the decree "On amendments to the existing criminal procedural codes of the Union republics", which at one time laid the legal basis for politics "Great Terror" by introducing an expedited procedure for examining cases of terrorism. The 29 December 1958, Article 58 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, which established responsibility for counterrevolutionary crimes, was canceled, and the concept of "enemy of the people" was removed from its text.

Grigory Safonov — Prosecutor General of the USSR, one of the leaders of the rehabilitation of victims of repression

The review of the cases of the illegally repressed was entrusted to a commission chaired by the USSR Prosecutor General Grigory Safonov, Justice Minister Konstantin Gorshenin and First Deputy Interior Minister Bogdan Kobulov. The commission worked for more than five years — as a result, 945,630 cases were considered and over 700,000 people were rehabilitated. By the end of the 1950s, the number of prisoners in the USSR had dropped to less than a million, and as of 1 January 1962, there were no more than 11,000 political prisoners —about 1% of the total Soviet detainees. At the same time, the defendants of the so-called; "Moscow trials" — Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda, as well as military leaders convicted in the pre-war period, such as Tukhachevsky, Blucher, Egorov, Uborevich, etc...were rehabilitated

Deported peoples

The events of the “thaw” had a direct impact on the fate of the peoples deported during the war. The 26 December 1953, by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, all restrictions were lifted from persons deported in 1944 from the territory of the Georgian SSR — primarily Meskhetian Turks, Kurds and Hemshil Armenians. At about the same time, the status of administratively deported was canceled in relation to Koreans deported from the territory of the Far East in the pre-war years.

The 17 January 1956, restrictions were lifted for the Poles, on the 17 March — for the Kalmyks, the 27 March — for the Bulgarians and Greeks, the 18 April — for the Crimean Tatars and Balkars, the 16 July — for the Chechens, Ingush and Karachais, and the 29 August — for the Volga Germans. The 7 January 1957, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Volga Germans was restored, and also the 9 January, the Kalmyk Autonomous District. The 11 February, the Kabardian ASSR was transformed into the Kabardino-Balkarian one. Rehabilitation in relation to some peoples was half-hearted — for example, the Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush and Karachais were not allowed to return to their original homeland there and their autonomy was not restored. In the case of the peoples of the North Caucasus, this decision was explained by the fact that after the abolition of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Karachay Autonomous District, a significant part of their territories was transferred to Georgia, the leadership was categorically opposed to the restoration of these autonomies, having received the support of Beria in this matter. The refusal to restore the Crimean ASSR was formally explained by the fact that the majority of the population of the peninsula were Russians even before the war, while the Crimean Tatars were recommended to move primarily to the territory of the Tatar ASSR.

Administrative division of the USSR in the early 1950s

The decision to rehabilitate a particular people was often dictated by political considerations — for example, the removal of all restrictions from the Volga Germans and the restoration of their autonomy was associated with the establishment of relations between the USSR and Germany, whose head of government, Jacob Kaiser, visited Moscow in September 1956. One of the first to restore their rights were those peoples, in whose deportation Beria did not take direct part or the initiative did not come from him — such peoples were the Koreans, Poles and, in part, Kalmyks, whose rehabilitation was used by the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the fight against Molotov. On the contrary, the Chechens and Crimean Tatars, on the other hand, were given back all rights, including the right to return to their former places of residence, only in 1967, after Beria's resignation, but their autonomy was never restored.

The main achievement of the reforms of the 1950s and 1960s as a whole was the transformation of the regime from totalitarian to authoritarian and its introduction into the framework defined by legislation. Despite the fact that the masses, for the most part, still had no real opportunity to influence decision-making, the omnipotence of the bureaucracy was limited, the principle of personnel rotation was introduced, and the party bodies ceased to replace economic ones.

"Thaw" in foreign policy

The period of the "thaw" in foreign policy was characterized by the implementation of the doctrine of "peaceful coexistence" of states with different systems — for the first time Stalin announced the possibility of such coexistence in April 1952 in an interview with American publications, but it became real only after his death. The 25 May 1953, a note from the Soviet government was published in the Pravda newspaper with a proposal to the leaders of the United States, Great Britain and France to convene a peace conference on the German question; on 8 August, in Malenkov's speech at the 5th session of the USSR Supreme Soviet of the III convocation, the term “detente of international tensions", and the 12 March 1954, addressing the voters, he declared that the armed conflict between socialist and capitalist countries "with modern means of war means the death of world civilization."

Meeting of Georgy Malenkov during his visit to the USA

The change in leadership in the USSR, simultaneously with the coming to power in the United States of President Dwight D. Eisenhower — a leader much more open to negotiations than his predecessor Truman — provided an impetus that made it possible to largely overcome the differences between the two systems that had accumulated over the first 7 years of the Cold War.

"Peaceful coexistence"

Moscow's desire to resolve the German problem by peaceful means met with a warm response from an unexpected side — he was supported by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, thanks to whose visit to Moscow on the 17—22 June 1953, a breakthrough in the German question was achieved. The 14 July in Washington, the foreign ministers of the United States, Great Britain and France approved the idea of ​​convening a peace conference, which opened on 10 December in Berlin — as a result, a compromise project for the unification of Germany was adopted, designed in 3 stages: first, a customs union was created between the FRG and the GDR, from 1 May 1954, it was supplemented by a currency union, within which a new single currency was introduced into circulation, and in 5 December, the first elections to the all-German parliament were held. New Germany was declared a neutral non-aligned state — it was allowed to have an army of 50,000 soldiers, but was banned from adopting and deploying nuclear weapons on its territory. Following the elections, the country was headed by the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, Jacob Kaiser, with whom the Soviet Union developed good relations — in the 1950s, Germany was the most friendly country in Western Europe.

The success of the Berlin Conference became a prologue to a warming of relations between the West and the East — as early as 27 July 1953, an armistice was signed, which ended the Korean War, and on 26 April 1954, a conference on the Far East was opened in Geneva, at which the USSR proposed, by analogy with Germany, to carry out a peaceful unification of Korea and Vietnam. Despite the fact that it was not possible to resolve the Korean issue either in the 1950s or in the 1960s, the conference nevertheless approved the withdrawal of French troops from the territory of North Vietnam and the temporary division of the country along the 17th parallel up to the holding of free elections in 1956, both in the north and in the south, which were supposed to determine the political structure of Vietnam. Subsequently, however, the actions of the US protégé, General Ngo Dinh Diem, who seized power in the south of the country, led to the disruption of the project for the peaceful reunification of Vietnam — on 26 October 1955, after a rigged referendum in the territories subject to him, Diem proclaimed the creation of the Republic of Vietnam, and from the end of 1957 year, a sluggish civil war began between nationalists and communists.

Anastas Mikoyan in talks with Eisenhower and Dulles

US Vice President Richard Nixon in the Leningrad Metro during a visit to the Soviet Union

The period of "peaceful coexistence" allowed the diplomatic solution to a number of conflicts between the great powers — the 15 May 1954, representatives of the "Four Powers" signed the Austrian Declaration of Independence, which ended the 10-year occupation of the republic, on 5 December 1956, the Soviet Union and the United States jointly achieved the end of the trilateral intervention in Egypt, the Second Taiwan Crisis was resolved, caused by the shelling by Chinese artillery of the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Island in August 1958, and on 31 August of the same year, the three nuclear powers of that time — the USSR, Great Britain and the United States — after long and difficult negotiations agreed on a three-year moratorium on testing atomic weapons.

The culmination of the rapprochement between the USSR and the United States was Malenkov's visit to the States and the subsequent visit of Eisenhower to the Soviet Union. For the first time, the two leaders met on the sidelines of the Berlin conference — Malenkov made a favorable impression on the American president, who noted his diplomacy and openness to negotiations. For the first time, the idea of ​​mutual visits was voiced at the 1954 Geneva Conference, and on 18 November 1956, Deputy Prime Minister Anastas Mikoyan arrived in the United States on an unofficial visit — Eisenhower had just been re-elected for a second term, and expressed his readiness to receive Malenkov in Washington. In May, USSR Foreign Minister Vasily Kuznetsov visited the United States, and a month later Vice President Richard Nixon visited Moscow to discuss specific details of the upcoming visit of the head of the Soviet government to America.

Malenkov arrived in Washington on the 15 August 1957. He visited Camp David, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and a number of other cities, having met in addition to Eisenhower and Nixon with the Governor of New York, Averell Harriman, the former ambassador to Moscow, and UN Secretary General Doug Hammarskjold. The Soviet leader made a great impression on the American public — unlike Stalin, who dressed mainly in a jacket or marshal's uniform, Malenkov wore a jacket, tie and soft hat, his manner of speech and peaceful initiatives appealed to many Americans. In 1957, Time magazine recognized Malenkov as the “Man of the Year”.

Military attaches of foreign powers at the exhibition of the remains of the downed American U-2 in the Central Park of Culture and Leisure

Eisenhower's return visit took place on 16—24 May 1958 — in addition to Moscow, he visited Leningrad, Kiev, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, having traveled through the entire Soviet Union. In honor of the president, a solemn meeting was held in the Grand Kremlin Palace, a grand performance at the Bolshoi Theater, and visited the newly built Bratsk hydroelectric power station as well as Lake Baikal. It seemed that the leaders of the two superpowers had enough determination to end the Cold War, but in the same year the Lebanese and Taiwan crises caused a chill between Moscow and Washington, and the 1 May 1960, a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft piloted by Gary Powers was shot down over Sverdlovsk. The resulting diplomatic scandal, in the course of which the United States and Eisenhower personally, were seriously damaged in their prestige by asserting that America only carried out meteorological research, thus ending the policy of "peaceful coexistence". The incident with the downed U-2 was one of the reasons for the defeat of the Republican Party in the 1960 presidential election, as well the cooling of relations between the United States and Pakistan, whose leader, Muhammad Ayub Khan, said that Washington had misled him about Powers' flight goals.

Relations with the Socialist Bloc

"Thaw" in Hungary

The processes that began in the Soviet Union in the 1950s are reflected in almost all of its satellite states. The first of these was Hungary — the 27—28 June 1953, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers' Party (VPT), ​​the Stalinist Mátyás Rákosi was sharply criticized, who was recommended to be removed from the posts of General Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The new head of the Hungarian People's Republic government was Imre Nagy, who at one time was accused by Rákosi of "opportunism." The post of general secretary was abolished — at the head of the party, as in the USSR, a "collective leadership" arose, and the 18 April 1955, Rákosi and his closest supporters, including Defense Minister Mihály Farkas and Minister of the Interior Ernö Gerö, were deprived of their membership cards.

Imre Nagy in Budapest after his return from Moscow

Under the leadership of Nagy, large-scale political and economic reforms unfolded in the country — taxes were reduced, wages were raised, land use principles were liberalized, the construction of large industrial facilities was frozen, and the freed up finance was directed to the development of light and food industries. The policy of internment and eviction from cities on social grounds was terminated. From July 1953 to July 1954, a political amnesty took place — moderate politicians repressed under Rákosi, such as János Kádár, Gyula Kállai, Árpád Szakasits, and others, were released. Together with Antal Apro and Andras Hegedyus, they formed the closest circle of Nagy, which together with him implemented the reforms of the "New Deal". In 1955, László Rajk and other victims of the repression of Rákosi regime were posthumously rehabilitated. The 23 October 1954, the Patriotic Popular Front was formed, which was supposed to promote the promotion of non-party politicians to the leadership of Hungary.

The liberalization of the regime led to a rise in opposition sentiments among young people — in 1954, the Petőfi Circle was created in Budapest, in which discussions about the political future of Hungary were held; in October 1956, a series of demonstrations took place in the capital demanding an open trial of the organizers of the repression. These events caused a harsh reaction from Nagy — the circle was disbanded, some of its organizers were fired from their jobs, the position of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was headed by Kádár, strengthened. The course on reforms continued, but now Nagy proclaimed his main goal to increase the living standards of the population and create an effective economy. It was supposed to pass to political reforms only after solving economic problems.

Department store in Budapest

Nagy's health did not allow him to actively participate in politics — in the 1960s, he was forced to stay for a long time on treatment in the Soviet Union, so the leadership actually passed to Kádár and Kállai. Nagy initiated the development in Hungary of the private sector in agriculture and the service sector, obstacles to small-scale entrepreneurship of the self-employed were removed and the rights of those employed in collective farms were significantly expanded. The country ranked 1st in Europe for the production of wheat and meat per capita, and 2nd for the number of eggs. In Hungary, there was the most liberal censorship from the countries of the socialist camp, citizens enjoyed the right to freely travel abroad, tourists came to the country not only from Eastern Europe and the USSR, but also from Canada, the USA and Western Europe, bringing significant sums to the budget of the Hungarian People's Republic.

In Moscow, Nagy was perceived as the most loyal of the leaders of the socialist states, and Hungary secretly served as a "testing ground" for economic reforms. In 1961, Hungarian Finance Minister Rezső Nyers, Deputy Prime Minister Jenő Fock and Agriculture Minister Lajos Fehér formulated the concept of the New Economic Mechanism, which provided for a complete rejection of directive planning in the economy and endowing enterprises with economic autonomy. It was in Hungary that the system of the "socialist market economy" received the ironic nickname "Goulash communism" from the Hungarians themselves for the first time.

"Thaw" in Bulgaria

The 26 January 1954, at a plenum of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, the reformist wing, led by Todor Zhivkov and Anton Yugov, defeated the Stalinist Valko Chervenkov — the post of General Secretary was officially abolished, and the 4 March, Zhivkov was entrusted with the leadership of the Central Committee Secretariat. A huge role in the internal party struggle in Bulgaria was played by Malenkov's visit in 1955, who unequivocally supported Zhivkov as opposed to Chervenkov and his closest associates, Raiko Damyanov and Georgy Chankov. The 18 April 1956, Anton Yugov became the new head of the Council of Ministers, but soon they parted ways with Zhivkov and the 19 November 1962, Yugov was removed from office under the pretext of "gross violations of socialist legality and anti-state activities."

Todor Zhivkov on the podium

Zhivkov concentrated the sole leadership of Bulgaria in his hands. Unlike Nagy in Hungary, his policy was characterized only by limited liberalization — in particular, some politicians repressed under Chervenkov were rehabilitated, the powers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were curtailed, the practice of the cult of personality was condemned, following the example of the USSR. However, at first the matter was limited to this — there were no changes in the economy, and in 1959 Zhivkov, inspired by the example of China, even announced the "Great Leap Forward" policy. The tasks of creating a powerful industrial complex, increasing the output of agricultural products by 2-3 times, as well as enlarging collective farms were proclaimed, but they were never fulfilled. Moreover, in 1962 Bulgaria found itself in a state of deep debt crisis, which had to be overcome by abandoning forced industrialization and transition to market reforms.

In May 1963, the introduction of a "new system of planning and management of the national economy" was announced, according to which enterprises gained independence, the size of workers' wages was tied to the size of the profits of their enterprises, preferential loans were canceled, the state significantly reduced subsidies to industry. The reforms gave a positive result — Bulgaria came out of the debt crisis, but the Stalinist opposition to Zhivkov's regime perceived his innovations as "capitulation to imperialism." In 1965, a conspiracy led by General Ivan Todorov-Goruny was discovered, who hoped to reorient Bulgaria to Maoist China, but the plans of the conspirators were cut short by state security.

Władysław Gomułka on the cover of Time Magazine

"Thaw" in Poland

On 10 March 1954, the Second Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party (PUWP) was held, which, under pressure from the Soviet Union, decided to rehabilitate the ideologists of the “Polish path to socialism” who were repressed during Stalin's direction — Władysław Gomułka, Zenon Kliszko, Grzegorz Korczyński, Wacek Komar, and others. Gomułka, the leader of a group of reformers, was officially reinstated in the party and reappointed to the post of deputy chairman of the government, which he held in 1944—1949. The 12 March 1956, the first secretary of the PUWP Central Committee, Bolesław Bierut, died in Moscow, main proponent of Stalinism, who at one time accused Gomułka of a "right deviation", after which he was inducted into the Politburo at an urgent plenum and was elected Bierut's successor. The coming to power of Gomułka marked the beginning of the liberalization of the regime: Bierut's closest associates were removed from their posts — Deputy Prime Minister Jakub Berman, who at one time oversaw the punitive bodies, the Chairman of the State Planning Committee Hilary Minc, the Defense Minister Konstantin Rokossovsky and others. Some of the organizers of the repressions appeared before court and received prison terms.

Gomulka became the most popular politician in the country overnight — largely due to his uncompromising criticism of Stalinism and his policy independent of Moscow. Poland became the only country of the socialist camp, apart from Yugoslavia, whose leadership openly blamed Stalin for the repression — by the end of the 1950s, not a single object remained on the territory of the PPR named after the late leader. About 35,000 political prisoners were released, including the head of the Polish Church, Cardinal Vyshinsky, and the jamming of foreign radio broadcasts in Polish stopped. There were lively political discussions in the country, informal circles and organizations arose, more and more calls were made to restore the social role of the Catholic Church, to hold free elections to the Sejm, to ensure guarantees of political rights.

 Gomułka speaks at the 400,000th rally in Warsaw

Seeing this, Gomulka went to reconciliation with the church — religious instruction in schools was restored, the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny began to be published again, memoirs of anti-Nazi resistance participants on the side of the Home Army began to be published. The role of the non-communist satellite parties of the PUWP - the United Peasant Democratic Party and the Catholic PAX Association — has grown in importance. The changes also affected the economy — the state farms were disbanded, the land for the most part returned to the private property of individual peasants, programs for the development of heavy industry were suspended, and "workers' councils" were created at the enterprises based on the Yugoslav model. The Polish "thaw", however, despite the depth of the transformations, turned out to be a short-lived phenomenon — already on the 31 August 1956, special formations ZOMO (Polish: Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej — "Motorized support of the civilian police") were created, which became a response to the June protests in Poznan and in November ZOMO units took part in breaking up demonstrations in Bydgoszcz and Szczecin.

"Thaw" in Albania

The most dramatic events of the period of the "thaw" were in Albania — there was the most consistent Stalinist regime headed by Enver Hoxha, who managed to completely suppress the armed resistance of local nationalists in 10 years of the leadership of the NRA, as well as suppress the attempts of Albanian emigrants to overthrow the power of the Albanian Party of Labor (APT). In addition, he practically destroyed the internal opposition, the leader of which — the head of the secret service "Sigurimi" (Alb. Drejtoria e Sigurimit të Shtetit - "Directorate of State Security") Koçi Xoxe — was hanged on charges of "Titoism."

Enver Hoxha — leader of Albania in 1946—1956

The 20th Congress of the CPSU spawned a new opposition within the APT, led by Tuk Jakova, a former deputy prime minister of Albania. He was supported by ex-Prosecutor General Bedri Spahiu, Secretary of the Central Committee Liri Belishova, Generals Panajot Plaku and Dali Ndreu, as well as the head of the Women's Anti-Fascist Movement Liri Gega. Moscow's Ambassador Krylov also expressed support for the opposition on behalf of the Soviet leadership. The 14 April 1956, the Tirana Party Conference opened, at which the reformers openly criticized the policies of Khoja — there were demands for a revision of Koçi Xoxe's verdict and the reinstatement of Jakova and Spahiu in the Politburo, Radio Tirana and the party film studio in fact were also in full force opposed the government. The 15 April Hoxha appeared at the conference, hoping that his presence would help restore the shaken discipline, but suddenly criticism sounded personally to the first secretary — he was forced to admit his mistakes, but in the evening of the same day he gave the command to Defense Minister Bekir Baluk to send a tank battalion to the capital.

Tuk Jakova — leader of the opposition

The 16 April, Generals Plaku, Ndreu and Spahiu left for the units loyal to them — by that time the conspirators had long been working in the troops, trying to lure them over to their side, as a result of which Baluk's order remained unfulfilled. The decisive events took place in the afternoon when, seeing the decline in the popularity of the first secretary, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Kadri Hazbiu, who had friendly relations with Plaku, sided with the opposition. The 17 April, after almost all supporters turned away from him, Hoxha resigned from the post of first secretary — his successor was never appointed, and the IIIth Congress of the APT, gathered in June, completely abolished the post of party head. The head of the government Mehmet Shehu, his wife Fikirete, who headed the capital's party organization, and the deputy of Husni Kapo, as well as Defense Minister Baluk, Chairman of the Presidium of the People's Assembly Haji Leshi, Minister of Education Ramiz Alia and etc... Tuk Jakova was elected as the new head of government, who henceforth became the de facto leader of Albania, Generals Plaku and Ndreu headed, respectively, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff, and Bedri Spahiu became, after the Minister of Internal Affairs Hazbiu in 1960 was accused of conspiracy to seize authorities, the new head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The new Albanian leadership launched reforms in the country that generally repeated the experience of neighboring powers — the collegiality of the leadership was restored, the victims of political repression were rehabilitated, including Koçi Xoxe, who was posthumously reinstated in the party, the role of "Sigurimi" was limited, the pace of industrialization and collectivization was reduced, social expenses, the Armed Forces have been reduced, and retraining courses have been opened for demobilized servicemen.

General Ludvik Svoboda — President of Czechoslovakia 1957—1969

"Thaw" in Czechoslovakia

Gustav Husák, leader of the Czechoslovak reformers

Czechoslovakia entered chronologically last in the period of "thaw" among the states of Eastern Europe — unlike Hungary, Albania, Poland and other people's democracies, the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia did not oppose the Stalinist course, carried out by the first secretary of the Central Committee Antonín Novotný and Prime Minister Viliam Široký. Nevertheless, under the influence of reforms in the USSR, the country's president, Antonín Zápotocký, decided to curtail forced collectivization, as a result of which by 1954 about 70,000 peasants left the collective farms.

Zápotocký died on the 13 November 1957 — the Czechoslovak leadership decided to elect the convinced Stalinist Viliam Široký as the new president, but this caused a sharply negative reaction from Moscow. Beria categorically recommended General Ludvík Svoboda, the ex-Minister of National Defense, who was repressed in 1952, for the presidency. The leaders of the CPC were forced to obey, but they hoped that without serious support in the party, Svoboda would not be able to really influence politics — as time has shown, the calculation did not come true, since the new president immediately after being elected, began to fight for a gradual reform of the regime and one after another, he removing the Stalinists from the leadership and introducing into it supporters of reforms. The 21 December 1957, Gustáv Husák was amnestied, previously accused of "bourgeois nationalism" with four other leaders of the Slovak Communist Party, in 1958 Rudolf Slánský, Josef Frank, Vladimír Clementis and other victims of political repression were rehabilitated, and in 1960 a special commission was created under the leadership of Husák, from whom by that time all charges had already been dropped and reinstated in the party, to review the sentences passed on his opponents during the reign of Klement Gottwald. In the course of the activities of the Husák commission, exhaustive information was collected about the participation of many members of the Czechoslovak leadership in the repressions, which opened up opportunities for Svoboda to fight the Stalinists who remained in the Politburo.

The 19 October 1961, Široký was dismissed from the post of chairman of the government — Husák became the new prime minister, and the 22 September 1963, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Antonín Novotný lost his post of first secretary, after which the post of the formal head of the party was de facto abolished. Only after that, the liberalization processes in Czechoslovakia unfolded with full force — censorship was weakened, the autonomy of Slovakia was expanded, amendments were made to the constitution that limited the president's tenure to two 5-year terms, the role of the National Front and the non-communist parties represented in it — the Czechoslovak Socialist Party, the Czechoslovak People's Party, the Party of Slovak Revival and the Freedom Party.

"Thaw" in other countries

Similar processes were observed in some other satellites of the Soviet Union — for example, in August 1956, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the DPRK Kim Il Sung lost his posts, against the "pro-Soviet" and "pro-Chinese" factions whom within the WPK united. The new head of government was Park Chan Ok, the leader of the pro-Soviet faction, and the leader of the party was the pro-Chinese Choi Chang Ik. Former Foreign Minister Park Hong Young was rehabilitated, charges were posthumously cleared against First Secretary of the Central Committee Ho Ga Yi, and the 12 January 1959, the court sentenced Kim Il Sung to life in prison on charges of working for American intelligence.

Mao Zedong speaks to Chinese students at Moscow University

A short period of "thaw" was also observed in China — the 5 April 1956, the newspaper "People's Daily" published an article "On the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat", which criticized the practice of the cult of personality, and the 27 February 1957, at the suggestion of Mao Zedong, the policy " Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools compete," within which the intelligentsia was given the right to freely criticize the Communist Party. Liberalization did not last long and was curtailed already in June, after which repressions fell upon the "right-wing bourgeois elements".

The only country that was practically not affected by liberalization was Romania — Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who headed the republic, after the XXth Congress of the CPSU took a course to distance himself from the Soviet Union: Moscow's recommendations to abandon the construction of a steel plant in Galati were ignored, in 1958 Dej achieved the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from the territory of the Socialist Republic of Romania, Romanian textbooks began to write about the historical belonging of Bessarabia to the Romanians, the works of Karl Marx in which he criticized "Russian imperialism" were published in thousands of copies, and in 1964 Dej demanded that Romania be completely cleared of the Soviet MGB employees. In the same year, diplomatic relations were established between Romania and the United States — the parties signed a trade agreement, and the following year, US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, known for his extreme antipathy to communism, even called Romania "the friendliest communist country." In 1961, there was an attempt to remove Dej from the post of leader, undertaken by supporters of the reforms JIosif Chișinevschi and Miron Constantinescu, who accused the head of the republic of imposing a "personality cult", but this attempt failed. Despite the fact that Dej belonged to the words "We have no one to rehabilitate posthumously," under the influence of rapprochement with the United States in 1964, he nevertheless agreed to an amnesty for a number of political prisoners.

"Thaw" in the economy

Harvesting in Ukraine

In 1953, despite the rapid economic development, the Soviet Union suffered from a disproportion in various sectors of the national economy - in his report to the Supreme Soviet, Georgy Malenkov said "that over the past 28 years, the production of means of production in the USSR has grown 55 times, and production is a commodity increased during this period only about 12 times, which cannot satisfy us." The state of agriculture was also difficult — from 1949 to 1953 the number of able-bodied workers on collective farms decreased by 3.3 million people, the pre-war level of production in the agricultural sector was restored only in 1952—1954, while in industry it was already surpassed in 1948.

The 25 March 1953, the Council of Ministers decided to freeze the largest long-term construction projects of Stalin's time — the Main Turkmen Canal, the Transpolar Mainline, the Sakhalin Tunnel, etc., and the 8 August, in a speech at the 5th session of the Supreme Council, Malenkov first announced a draft eliminate the imbalance in the Soviet economy.

Agricultural reforms

According to the project, it was supposed to concentrate efforts on the development of Group B enterprises, that is, on the production of consumer goods, increase financing for agriculture, partially write off the debts of collective farms, increase the size of private household plots of the peasantry by 5 times and purchase prices for grain and meat of 6—7 times, as well as reduce the tax burden. Funds to finance the agrarian reform were supposed to be obtained through reparations from Germany, as well as cutting army spending by almost 2 times and freezing long-term construction - the reform was supposed to be carried out in about 3—4 years. The 25 August, it was also decided to connect the collective farms to a single electrical system, to increase the production of tractors, to sell building materials to the collective farms, to strengthen the Machine and Tractor Stations with professional personnel.

Rural shop in the village of Khizhki, Sumy region

From 1954 to 1958 in the USSR, for the first time in the post-war period, there was an increase in the rural population, and agricultural production increased 1.5 times. The family's annual monetary income, received from the collective farm fund, in 1960 had grown by almost 4.5 times and amounted to an average of 3,763 rubles. The 14 July 1956, it was decided to pay pensions to collective farmers. Malenkov proposed to move to the intensification of agricultural production on the basis of economic incentives, for which he introduced the term "material interest", as well as the active introduction of the latest agricultural technology, mineral fertilizers, etc.

The success of the reform gave Malenkov reason to come up with a proposal to deepen it — taxes on personal household plots ceased to depend on the amount of property owned by peasants, and in 1958 they were completely abolished. Since 1956, fishing artels began to be created in the village, in which peasants, in their free time from field work, could manufacture goods at home and then resell them on the market. Payments with MTS, previously carried out by products, were converted into monetary form, strictly fixed in each region and independent of the volume of the harvested crop. In 1958, peasants were also allowed to rent land not used for agricultural needs for their own money — in this way small private farms appeared, in many ways similar to farms. They were most widespread in the north, mainly in the Arkhangelsk region, where the leased land was used primarily for grazing. However, due to bureaucratic obstacles, this type of farms did not acquire a mass character.

The reforms slowed down after 1960 — the cooling of relations with the United States and the beginning of the Space Race forced Beria to make a statement about the need to concentrate main efforts on the development of Group A enterprises for the earliest possible achievement of military-strategic parity with the United States. Nevertheless, even at this time, the peasants managed to achieve some indulgences — for example, the restrictions on the number of livestock and equipment in their personal household were lifted, moreover, they were allowed to be leased. Back in 1956, the new charter of the agricultural cartel gave the collective farmers the right to determine the size of their plots themselves, which inexorably led to an increase in the role of the individual peasant in the economy. The period of rapid growth in the well-being of the rural population was interrupted by the 1963 crop failure, which forced the state to return to directive methods of agricultural management — a commission led by Fyodor Surganov and Dinmukhamed Kunayev developed a large-scale plan to fill the grain deficit by plowing virgin and fallow lands in Kazakhstan, the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East. The project was designed for a decade ahead — it was planned to put into circulation over 30 million hectares of arable land, increasing the production of grain crops to 200 million tons per year. The decision to develop virgin lands actually drew a line under the agrarian reforms of the "thaw" period.

Industrial reforms

Sewing artel "Zarya" in the city of Davlekanovo

At the very beginning of 1953, Malenkov took measures to increase the purchasing power of the population — on 1 April, another price cut was carried out, planned by Stalin, according to which prices for meat decreased by 15%, and prices for vegetables immediately by 50%, and at the same time on average wages increased by 3%. In the summer, the transfer of a part of the military—industrial complex enterprises to the production of "peacetime" goods began, the expenditures on the Armed Forces decreased by 2 times, which made it possible to send about 5.85 billion rubles to the consumer goods industry. In 1953, their production increased by 13% against a 12% increase in the production of means of production.

Despite the obvious advantages, the reform also had a negative effect — for example, in 1953, according to the calculations of Minister of Finance Zverev, for the first time the USSR had a budget deficit of 10%, which was equal to about 50 billion rubles. To cover the costs, the government had to dramatically increase oil production — up to 148 tons per year, that is, 7.5 times compared to the post-war level. Reparations received by the USSR for the unification of Germany also became a significant help. Malenkov proposed stimulating the production of essential goods through trade levers — in 1954, retail turnover in state and cooperative trade had grown by about 70% compared to the 1950 level, consumer cooperation was actively developing, which resulted in a real boom in shops and collective farm markets. However, the growth in production clearly did not keep up with the growth in demand, in connection with which Malenkov decided to stake on the private sector in the economy that remained from the time of the NEP, namely, on artel entrepreneurship.

In 1953, there were about 114,000 artels in the USSR, which employed about 2 million people, producing almost 6% of the gross industrial output. In some sectors of the economy, the percentage of artisan production was even higher — up to 40% of furniture, 70% of metal utensils, more than a third of all knitwear, almost all children's toys were produced by the entrepreneurial sector. The system of industrial cooperation included 100 design bureaus, 22 experimental laboratories and two research institutes. The 14 April 1956, the Council of Ministers issued a decree on the abolition of most taxes levied on private enterprises, and the 16 July, speaking at a session of the Supreme Council, Malenkov urged to support artel production with all his might — the state officially abandoned directive pricing in retail trade, the owners of artels were allowed to use hired labor, although initially the number of employees in the private sector was strictly limited and should not exceed the number of shareholders , and therefore the reform primarily affected the service sector. In the 1950s, many small private enterprises were established in the country — hairdressers, cafes, bakeries, shops, repair shops, etc.

Construction of cooperative houses

The 21 January 1958, the law "On cooperation in the USSR" was adopted, which significantly expanded the scope of activity of consumer and industrial cooperatives, provided artels with benefits for the purchase of raw materials and obtaining loans. By the end of the decade, artels were created in the road repair sector and the mining industry — the most famous was the network of enterprises founded by Vadim Tumanov in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East, which in the 2nd half of the 1970s produced an average of up to 500 tons of gold annually. In addition, the law on cooperation legalized housing construction cooperatives that built housing at the expense of shareholders, while receiving a loan from the state in the amount of up to 70% for a period of up to 20 years and other benefits. To reduce the cost and speed up the work, future residents sometimes took personal part in the construction. The brigades composed of them went to the second and third shifts after the completion of the zero cycle by the contractor. The main popularizer of this construction method was the head of the Voronezh region, Nikolai Ignatov.

Reforms in the USSR in the 1950s and 1960s are often referred to as "market reforms," ​​which is not entirely accurate — in reality, neither Malenkov nor Beria pursued the goal of changing the social system and were not going to abandon economic planning. Concessions to the private sector were a forced measure, since the state could not, on its own, satisfy the basic needs of the population — as soon as this task was solved, the intensity of the transformations began to decline. In 1960, a trial was held over currency speculators Yan Rokotov, Vladimir Faibishenko and Dmitry Yakovlev, who were searched for 16,000 $, and the total turnover of their underground "firm", according to investigators, was 200 million rubles. The speculators were sentenced to 8 years in prison, which provoked outrage among the state leadership, dissatisfied with the leniency of the sentence — in the future, punishments for economic crimes were significantly toughened, and since Rokotov was also an informant for the OBKhSS, many of whose employees were involved in corruption schemes, in the country the fight against corruption was launched. In 1961, amendments were made to the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which introduced the death penalty for corrupt officials.

The trial in the case of Rokotov, Faibishenko and Yakovlev

The Rokotov-Faibishenko-Yakovlev case coincided with a discussion within the leadership regarding the project of "automation of the economy" proposed by the Soviet cyberneticians Kitov and Glushkov — they managed to prove the promise of the idea of ​​connecting all enterprises using a single information network, which would improve planning efficiency, there will be no more postscript and theft of corporate assets. The 19 December 1963, Beria, who usually did not speak on economic issues, said in a speech to the Supreme Soviet that the main goal facing the government was "not to deviate from the plan, but to improve it."

By this time, the share of the private sector in the USSR economy had tripled — in 1963 it produced up to 17.5% of GNP, and the number of private enterprises almost reached 1.5 million. The Soviet economy in 1953—1966 grew at a record pace, the annual GDP growth averaged 10-11.5%, but these colossal successes had a number of negative consequences — first of all, the active involvement of the business sector in trade while maintaining the upper "limit" of price growth led to the emergence of a black market, because private traders often sought to illegally sell part of the goods at an inflated cost, for which they sometimes artificially provoked its deficit, increasing demand. In addition, the use of hired labor by artels, albeit extremely limited, led to the emergence of unemployment, since the dismissed worker could not always quickly find a new profession. Officially, the authorities refused to recognize the existence of unemployed in the USSR, as a result of which attempts by Western economists to at least roughly estimate their number in the 1950s—1960s led to a serious scatter — from several tens of thousands to 1-2 million people. However, the latest estimates were clearly overestimated, since in the conditions of economic growth and a constant increase in the number of enterprises, the percentage of unemployed could hardly have been so significant.

"Thaw" in culture and art

Changes in ideology

Dmitry Shepilov — one of the main ideologists of the "thaw"

Alexey Rumyantsev — Minister of Culture of the USSR during the "thaw"

The removal of the CPSU from the leadership of the national economy, condemnation of the practice of the cult of the individual, detente in relations with the capitalist world inevitably led to changes in the dominant ideology — the XXth Congress not only fixed the possibility of "peaceful coexistence" of states with different systems, but also recognized the multiple paths to socialism, which was a concession to the Communist Parties of Western Europe. The possibility of a transition to the construction of socialism was allowed, bypassing the revolution and civil war.

The peak of the "thaw" in the USSR came in 1957—1960, when the ideological work in the party was supervised by Dmitry Shepilov, the former editor-in-chief of the Pravda newspaper and the "speechwriter" Malenkov. He, as well as Minister of Culture Alexei Rumyantsev, advocated active work with the intelligentsia and its involvement in the ideological activities of the party — Shepilov regularly arranged meetings with writers, directors, composers, trying to convey to them the directives of the leadership and, if possible, to solve the accumulated in the creative environment of the problem. After the XXIth Congress, Zimyanin was entrusted with overseeing the ideological work, and Shepilov was entrusted with cadres — despite the fact that the new chief ideologist also tried to preserve the image of a "liberal" and maintain ties with the intelligentsia, in fact, with his arrival in the Secretariat, a gradual "tightening of the screws began. ".

Beria and Malenkov set the goal of the reforms being carried out in the country to meet the urgent needs of the population, while the tasks of socialist construction were postponed indefinitely, which, in turn, gave rise to the need for new ideological searches. The party, on the one hand, having lost its administrative levers, was now much more actively involved in philosophical discussions, and on the other hand, in conditions of softening censorship, it lost its ideological monopoly. The 1950s—1960s were the heyday of various philosophical circles and groups in the Soviet Union, whose members sought to comprehend the processes taking place in the country and offer an alternative official picture of the world — back in 1952, the Moscow logical circle emerged at Moscow State University, in 1958 it stood out from Moscow methodological circle, and at Leningrad State University in the same years, the Leningrad ontological school took shape. During the years of the "thaw" such philosophers as Evald Ilyenkov, Mikhail Lifshits, Alexander Zinoviev, Merab Mamardashvili, Georgy Shchedrovitsky, and others gained fame. Mamardashvili even worked at one time in the Ideological Department of the CPSU Central Committee. Ideological discussions in the countries of Eastern Europe, primarily associated with the names of Ernst Bloch and Gyorgy Lukacs, also had an impact on Soviet philosophy.

An important event of the thaw period was the VIth World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Moscow from 28  July to 11 August 1957, attended by 34,000 people from 131 countries of the world, making it the most massive in the history of this event. Thanks to the festival, the fashion for jeans, sneakers, rock 'n' roll and badminton began to spread among Soviet youth, for the first time the Kremlin was opened for free visits. For the first time, Soviet people in large numbers collided with representatives of other cultures, which largely contributed to the emancipation of their consciousness.

Postcard dedicated to the VIth World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow

During the years of the "thaw" there was a significant warming in relations with the church — the 4 February 1955, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the enthronement of Patriarch Alexy, he was personally congratulated by the head of the government Malenkov, who recalled, among other things, the great role that the Russian Orthodox Church played during the war. The authorities viewed religious organizations as another political instrument in their hands — in particular, the establishment of relations with the United States, countries of Western Europe and the Arab world, in which religious institutions played an important social role, pushed the USSR, in order to maintain its image, to make concessions to the believing part population. As early as the 10 November 1954, the Central Committee of the CPSU adopted a resolution "On mistakes in conducting scientific and atheistic propaganda among the population", which "condemned the methods of slander, insults and administrative interference in the activities of religious organizations, instead of deploying systematic painstaking work to promote natural science knowledge and ideological struggle with religion." Moreover, the resolution of the Council of Ministers adopted on the 17 February 1956 "On changing the procedure for opening prayer buildings" gave the Council for the Russian Orthodox Church the right to register those religious communities that were already operating without official permission. The peak of the liberalization of religious life came after the defeat of the "Anti—Government Group", whose leaders, primarily Khrushchev and Suslov, criticized Beria for conniving at churchmen.

Political opposition

The weakening of ideological control inevitably led to the emergence of political opposition. Since there were no legal opportunities for its existence in the conditions of a one-party regime and the prohibition of factionalism in the CPSU, all opposition groups during the "thaw" period were underground. In 1957, the Ministry of Internal Affairs arrested Lev Krasnopevtsev, secretary of the Komsomol organization of the history faculty of Moscow State University, who, with several associates, distributed leaflets criticizing Malenkov and Beria, in which he called for an open trial of the organizers of Stalinist repressions, free elections to councils, holding a general party discussion, etc. In 1961, a open criticism of Beria and calls for the democratization of the socialist system, made by a teacher at the V.I. MV Frunze, the General Pyotr Grigorenko.

American Industrial Exhibition in Moscow Sokolniki Park

In addition to the opposition “from the right,” there was also an opposition from the “left,” for example, in August 1963, three young people were arrested in Batum for posting leaflets around the city with the slogan “The USSR needs Mao Zedong!” The Maoists, however, unlike the liberals, as well as the neo-Marxists and Trotskyists that emerged in the late 1960s under the influence of the Frankfurt school, remained largely unorganized and did not create any underground groups.

During the years of the "Thaw", a national movement arose among the deported peoples, primarily those of them that were never fully restored to their rights — at first it was not dissident in nature and its leaders were communists and party workers. Mustafa Selimov and Dzheppar Akimov stood at the source of the Crimean Tatar movement, the rights of the Chechens and Ingush were defended by Yunus Desheriyev, Idris Bazorkin and others — they repeatedly appealed to the Central Committee of the CPSU, signed petitions in defense of their compatriots, tried to achieve a return home at meetings with the leadership. The 23—31 August 1958, interethnic clashes between Chechens and Kazakhs took place in Ust-Kamenogorsk — troops had even to be sent into the city to suppress them.

"Thaw" in literature

The first glimpses of the "thaw" in literature began during Stalin's lifetime — at the end of 1952, the Novy Mir magazine began to publish essays by Valentin Ovechkin "Rayon Weekdays", which for the first time raised the problems of the difficulties of the Soviet hinterland and the unscrupulousness of the leadership. In 1953, Leonid Leonov's novel "Russian Forest" was published, written in the spirit of the doctrine of the noosphere, as well as an essay by Vladimir Pomerantsev "On Sincerity in Literature", dedicated to the issues of the writer's dependence on power. In December 1954, the II Congress of Soviet Writers was held, at which the question of the rehabilitation of Bulgakov and Tynyanov was raised, and in the same year Alexander Tvardovsky published his poem "Tyorkin in the Next World", for which he was dismissed from the post of editor-in-chief of the magazine "New World".

Sholokhov at the presentation of the Nobel Prize

Gradually, the "thaw" was gaining momentum — 28 new literary magazines were created in the country, in which authors such as Daniil Granin, Yuri Nagibin, "village breeders" Fyodor Abramov and Gabriel Troepolsky began to publish. The book by Vladimir Dudintsev “Not by Bread Alone”, dedicated to the conflict between the young rationalizer and the Stalinist system, and Boris Pasternak, “Doctor Zhivago”, published in Novy Mir in 1956, became iconic - the decision to publish was worth the post of editor-in-chief Konstantin Simonov, again replaced by Tvardovsky. The "Thaw" became the time of the greatest popularity of poetry among the population of the USSR — the performances of such poets as Yevtushenko, Voznesensky, Rozhdestvensky and Akhmadulina took place in squares and stadiums, invariably gathering thousands of listeners. The 23 October 1958, the year of the closest possible rapprochement between the United States and the USSR, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Mikhail Sholokhov for the novel Quiet Flows the Don, which had already been nominated for it 5 times before.

"Thaw" in painting and architecture

In 1957, the Union of Artists of the USSR was created, headed by Konstantin Yuon. In the same year, Stalin's favorite artist Alexander Gerasimov was dismissed from the post of president of the Academy of Arts. It was in painting that the "thaw" had the greatest effect, which became especially noticeable in December 1962, after visiting the exhibition of avant-garde artists in the Manege by the then leadership of the USSR — Beria, Zimyanin, Shelepin and Pavlov. Beria talked a lot with Eliy Belyutin, Hulot Sooster and other artists, after which a detailed report was published in the Pravda newspaper in support of new directions in painting - in fact, by this, at the official level, the intelligentsia was authorized to go beyond the framework of socialist realism in their work.

Changes have also taken place in architecture. During the first years of the Thaw, the dominant style continued to be the Stalinist Empire style, within which on the 1 January 1955, the last, eighth skyscraper in Moscow, the 275-meter building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was inaugurated, thus becoming the tallest object in the capital. However, on 4 November of the same year, the USSR Council of Ministers and the CPSU Central Committee adopted a resolution "On eliminating excesses in design and construction", according to which efficiency and functionality were put forward in the first place in the construction of residential buildings. The new mainstream was modernism, which became popular thanks to the interaction of Soviet architects with Western colleagues. The most famous buildings and structures made in the style of modernism are the complex of the Palace of Soviets on Vorobyovy Gory, the building of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Ostankino TV tower, etc.

Interior Ministry building in Zaryadye

Construction of the Ostankino TV tower

The building of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences

The cheapening of construction made it possible to switch to mass standard urban development, during which, from 1956 to 1963, the national housing stock almost doubled — from 640 to 1,184 million m2, that is, during this period more housing was built in the USSR than in the previous 40 years. The construction policy was supervised by the first deputy chairman of the government, Lazar Kaganovich and appointed by the head of the Ministry of Construction, Boris Muzrukov — he came up with the idea of ​​a "microdistrict", which is essentially a microtown. At a distance of 5—10 minutes walk from the house there should have been all the institutions necessary for people in everyday life: shops, a school, kindergartens, a clinic, a consumer services complex, a post office, canteens, sports grounds and a stadium, a house of culture, a library, a cinema and etc..., and in addition, vast areas of green spaces — parks and squares. Depending on the specific conditions, the microdistrict could house a theater, a scientific library, a concert hall or a sports complex, a research institute, a university, a technical school, a bus depot, a plant, a factory, etc., common for the entire city. Muzrukov's ideas became the basis for Soviet mass development in 1950—1960s.

"Thaw" in cinema

During the period of the "thaw" the number of films being shot increased several times - film studios were created in each of the union republics, and cinemas increased 2.5 times. In 1958, the First All-Union Film Festival was held, at which the main prize was won by Sergei Gerasimov's film "Quiet Don", and in 1959 the Moscow International Film Festival was resumed. In the same 1958, for the first time, a Soviet film was awarded one of the most prestigious film awards in the world — the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It was the military drama of Mikhail Kalatozov "The Cranes Are Flying", which was perceived in the USSR as a recognition of the outstanding achievements of the entire Soviet cinema. In 1962 Andrei Tarkovsky's film Ivan's Childhood won the main prize at the Venice Film Festival — the Golden Lion.

Sergey Bondarchuk at the presentation of the main prize of the 1st Moscow International Film Festival

The “thaw” cinema was characterized by the image of a “new hero” — positive, but not without flaws, which was a sign of a departure from the rigid norms of socialist realism. On the screen, this image was embodied by actors Nikolai Rybnikov, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Alexei Batalov and others. In the 1950s, such outstanding directors as Eldar Ryazanov and Georgy Danelia, Grigory Chukhrai and Marlen Khutsiev began their career. A variety of genres also appeared — a significant event was the release in 1957 of the film by debutant director Leonid Gaidai "The Bridegroom from the Other World", which was a satire on the Soviet bureaucracy. In the year of its premiere, it was watched by over 30 million viewers, which made the picture one of the leaders of the Soviet film distribution and brought the 35-year-old director nationwide fame.

In addition to cinema, painting and literature, other forms of art also flourished. The role of the theater has grown, the aristes of which were given the opportunity to go on tour abroad. In 1956, Oleg Efremov's Sovremennik Theater appeared, and in 1964, Yuri Lyubimov's Taganka Theater. In 1958, the head of the Union of Composers of the USSR, Tikhon Khrennikov, canceled the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the opera “Great Friendship” and achieved the rehabilitation of its author Vano Muradeli, which became the prologue of the “thaw” in music. Pop music is gaining great popularity, the genre of author's song appears, the main representative of which was Bulat Okudzhava, jazz is gaining recognition, and from the second half of the 1950s rock and roll began to gradually spread. In 1965 - already at the end of the "thaw" — the first record of the British rock band "The Beatles" was released in the USSR.

Outcomes and consequences

USSR Foreign Minister Vasily Kuznetsov and US President John F. Kennedy at the talks on a peaceful settlement of the Cuban missile crisis

The "thaw" began to gradually fade away in the 1960s — the incident with the pilot Powers of 1 May 1960, the Cuban missile crisis on thr 21—25 November 1962, the beginning of the Vietnam War, the entry of NATO troops into France, and other events sharply worsened the Soviet-American relations. This immediately affected domestic politics — contacts with the West began to gradually diminish, and legislation and censorship became tougher. The poor harvest in 1963 led to a temporary abandonment of further market reforms in agriculture in favor of the development of virgin lands, and the transition to automation of the economy — from the further expansion of the private sector in industry and trade. The beginning of the Space Race also played a role — on the 16 January 1962, the Council of Ministers of the USSR authorized the start of work on the creation of super—heavy rockets for a flight to the Moon, which required a manifold increase in defense costs, which, among other things, it was decided to obtain through the partial abolition of tax breaks for the business sector.

One of the manifestations of the winding down of the "thaw" was the gradual abandonment of criticism of the cult of Stalin — in 1956—1964 he was mentioned only in connection with anniversaries as one of the leaders of the party and the state, and some cities and objects named after him were given new names, however, the process was reversed soon. The first sign of a change in attitudes towards Stalin was the appearance in Moscow of Stalingradsky Prospekt in 1964 — this was the first after the death of the leader to assign his name (albeit indirectly) to a major metropolitan highway. The 9 May 1965, in a speech at the Victory Day parade, Minister of Defense Maslennikov mentioned Stalin as the commander-in-chief during the Great Patriotic War, thanks in large part to whom the victory was won, and in December of the same year, Beria unexpectedly reacted sharply about Mikhail Romm's film "Ordinary Fascism ”, Accusing the director of trying to make a caricature of Soviet reality. This speech was largely remembered thanks to Beria's assessment of the Stalin era:

“

If we consider [Stalin's] life and work as a whole, then his services to the Soviet people largely outweigh his blunders, despite serious mistakes and excesses made by such people from his environment as Khrushchev or Ignatiev. Comrade Stalin's merits are paramount, and mistakes are of secondary importance.

”

The trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel

1965 is traditionally considered the last year of the "thaw" — the 13 September 1965, the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuri Daniel, who were distributing samizdat, were arrested. The 14 February 1966, they were sentenced to 5 and 7 years in prison, respectively. The trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel caused a negative reaction from the liberal-minded public - many representatives of the creative elite spoke out in their defense, including Konstantin Paustovsky, Bella Akhmadulina, Korney Chukovsky, Varlam Shalamov, and others.

Nevertheless, despite the end of the “thaw” and the tightening of the regime, the liberalization processes of the 1950s turned out to be irreversible — the GULAG system, political terror, the omnipotence of the state security services remained in the past, and the scope of creative freedom was significantly expanded. Already under the new leadership — in 1966—1967 — Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" was first published, as well as individual works from the collection "Kolyma Tales" by Varlam Shalamov. And on 14 April 1967 in Moscow, for the first time, two performances of the British rock band "Rolling Stones" took place, which were attended by about 5,000 Muscovites. Mick Jagger, who returned from his first European tour, said the band had "shattered the iron curtain" with their Eastern European tour.

In general, the "thaw" not only did not undermine the foundations of the Soviet system, but rather, on the contrary, strengthened it — the political system acquired an effective mechanism for the change of power and personnel rotation while maintaining the ideological monopoly of the CPSU, the market, thanks to economic reforms, was filled with consumer goods, which significantly strengthened the popularity of the authorities among the population, the prestige of the USSR abroad increased many times over.

Notes

The universe "Socialism with Human Face" is the intellectual property of his author Huey Long on the site Альтернативная История. I do here only the translation and the identical retransciption in English of his work. To ask him questions and / or see his other works go to his profile.