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Beria introduces Party Commission to investigate executions
The Party commission was set up to investigate past executions. The Commission rehabilitated 4620 communists who had been executed on the basis of forced confessions. Beria's reforms were to signfiicantly weaken the MVD in order to gain supporting trust, however this backfired as his rivals still were paranoid about his ruthless character and reputation, leading quickly to his removal and execution. -
Death Of Stalin
Stalin's death led to a struggle for power, as he had left no political Testament to indicate his successor. His death left a power vacuum within the party, due to his vast and iron fist control over it. Contenders for power were Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev. -
Beria Introduces Amnesty
Beria, in his attempts to reform the MVD, introduced an amnesty for non-political prisoners who were serving short sentences which was extended to counter-revolutionaries in order to calm the fears of his rivals and to deal with the increasing number of uprisings in gulags -
Beria Introduces the Two Measures
Beria introduced two measures that were designed to make republican governments more representative:
- Introducing a measure that requires senior party members to speak the language of their work republic.
- Ordered all official publications should be available in the languages of the republics as well as Russian -
Presidium decide Beria's removal
Khrushchev and Malenkov organised a plot to arrest and execute Beria. They held a meeting in the Presidium, Khrushchev accused Beria of handing Soviet secrets to the British Government and of crimes against the Soviet people. -
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The Duumvirate
Khrushchev and Malenkov decide to rule together effectively as a duumvirate after their planned arrest and removal of Beria from the party despite some of their ideological differences -
Virgin Lands Scheme
Khrushchev's biggest gamble: his agricultural experiment in Kazahkstan. -
Khrushchev review of Political prisoners
Khrushchev and Malenkov set up a special commission to review the cases of political prisoners who had been sent to the Gulags (similar to Beria) -
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Khrushchev starts backtracking on decentralisation
Due to the Seven Year Plan, Khrushchev introduced increased centralisation in order to solve the problems created by the sovnarkhoz reforms. However this only caused confusion within the planning system. -
Khrushchev's Secret Speech
Khrushchev presented his critique of Stalin in a secret session of the Twentieth Party Congress of 1956. -
End of de-Stalinisation
Due to its unpopularity especially among students and supporters of the Cult of Stalin, rapid de-stalinization came to a halt, called off by Khrushchev -
Khrushchev's Political Reforms : The Two Measures
In an attempt to democratise and decentralise the party, Khrushchev introduced two measure without the involvement of new elections.
- Allowed the expansion of Party membership, making it more democratic and representative
- Introduced fixed terms for senior Communists to ensure regular replacement.
Additionally, he also abolished some of the central ministries that oversaw the economy and devolved power to 105 newly created economic councils.
These reforms resulted in many lost jobs demotions -
Failed Coup to overthrow Khrushchev
In June 1957, a majority of the Presidium voted to replace Khrushchev, led by Malenkov. However Khrushchev sidestepped this, and consolidated his position by taking over as PM -
The Corn Campaign [FAIL]
Campaign to encourage Ukrainian farmers to grow maize. Hypothesis and idea originated from seeing the success of US farms. -
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The Seven Year Plan: The Light Industry
Khrushchev wanted to shift industrial focus from heavy industry to light industry to make it more consumer-focused and modern. However, the sheer success of Stalin's previous heavy industry, made this very hard to achieve and unrealistic. The products and goods from it were also very undesirable, untimely and useless to the people. This also extremely complicated relations with Khrushchev, as he had made multiple updated changes midway through the phase. -
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Khrushchev's Party Reforms
Khrushchev introduced some final major political reforms. This included the restart of De-Stalinization, and the inclusion of fixed 16-year terms for the Central Committee members. These party reforms split the party into two, agriculture and industry. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Khrushchev embarasses and humiliates himself on behalf of the Soviet Union in front of global superpowers such as the US