Russian History: A Very Short Introduction

As a result of that victory, the USSR gained an ‘outer empire’ in Central Europe and the Balkans, including part of Germany itself. It set about building Soviet-style socialism in its new dependencies, tolerating only minor deviations from the model to accommodate national distinctions. The methods by which pro-Soviet regimes were established and sustained alienated most of the local populations. They also alarmed the former Allies. The result was an ‘iron curtain’ running north–south through the middle of Europe. The traditional Russian–Western dichotomy now entrenched itself anew in the form of military alliances, the Warsaw Pact and NATO. The result was an uneasy peace, universally dubbed ‘Cold War’.

The Second World War had changed Soviet society permanently, not necessarily to the benefit of the population. The ruling elite, both military and civilian, had proved their capacity to govern the country and achieve victory at a time of unprecedented danger. They had also become more independent of Stalin and more capable of defending their own interests. After 1945, terror was still applied, but on a much reduced scale compared with the 1930s. As for ordinary people, those who had survived were traumatized, most of them had lost family members, workplaces, and/or homes, and were more dependent on the ruling elite than ever before.

The official ideology had not changed much on the surface, but its inner content and the mentality of its audience had been transformed. The ‘proletarian internationalism’ of 1917 had now finally been replaced by a confident Russian-Soviet patriotism. ‘Building communism’ was still the official aim as post-war reconstruction got under way. But perpetual change was no longer acceptable, even to the younger generation. On the contrary, the Soviet Union was becoming a deeply conservative society, in which people struggled to acquire the minimum for a decent existence and then preserve it at all costs. Communism became an ever more ghostly aim, receding into an infinite future, whereas victory in 1945 was a definite and remarkable achievement. In subsequent decades, that victory, rather than the 1917 revolution, became the party’s chief claim to popular support. Messianism was increasingly directed to a past event rather than a future one.

The USSR after Stalin

Stalin died in 1953. His legacy created huge difficulties for his successors. They knew that if another Stalin were allowed to emerge, they would probably be among his first victims. They acted quickly to bring the security police – now renamed the KGB – under the control of the Central Committee, so that it could no longer strike unrestrainedly against the nomenklatura elite.

More than that, however, they realized that mass terror was not in the long term a viable system of rule. But how could they keep control without it? Moreover, without revealing the truth about Stalin’s crimes, how could they restrain terror in the future?

In the event, the new party first secretary, Khrushchev, decided on a limited revelation of the truth. At the 20th party congress in 1956, he denounced Stalin’s repression of leading members of the nomenklatura elite and the deportations of nationalities. But he ignored the dekulakization and the famine of the 1930s – implying that these were entirely acceptable. Both what Khrushchev said and what he left unsaid were to become objects of heated controversy over the next decade, mostly in private and in the underground. What was crucial was that he had irrevocably destroyed the party’s façade of unique and total rectitude. If it had made such terrible mistakes and committed such terrible crimes in the past, where was the guarantee it could not do so again? Many long-term prisoners were released from labour camps, but the rehabilitation of those unjustly arrested proceeded haltingly and eventually petered out. Stalin’s ghost hung over everybody.

Khrushchev aimed to regain the population’s trust by offering them growing material prosperity. He re-emphasized the party’s millennial aims: at the 22nd party congress in 1961, he announced that by 1980 the Soviet Union would overtake the USA in industrial output and thereby create ‘the material prerequisites for communism’. Antagonistic social relationships had already come to an end, he claimed, and there was therefore no further need for the state as an organ of repression; it would ‘fade away’ and be replaced by the party as an agent of popular self-government. Khrushchev attempted to democratize the party by limiting the tenure of party secretaries at all levels and stipulating that they should be elected by secret ballot. This infuriated senior officials who since the death of Stalin had become accustomed to regarding their posts as more or less freehold entitlements. It was one reason why Khrushchev fell in 1964, dismissed by the Central Committee.