Khrushchev

Question 1

What position did Khruschev initially hold?

Answer 1

Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party

Question 2

How did Khruschev win the leadership struggle?

Answer 2

Economic debate- the Virgin Lands

Question 3

What happened at the 22nd party congress?

Answer 3

Stalin’s body removed from Lenin’s mausoleum, more direct and public condemnation of Stalin- blamed him for the unpreparedness of the Soviet Union when Germany attacked in 1941 and for inept leadership.

Question 4

the main elements of agricultural change under Khrushchev

Answer 4

Collective farms made larger (merging kolkhozes and sovkozes), effort to eradicate rural poverty, higher prices were paid for produce, Virgin Lands scheme. State employees given regular wage, annual holidays and sickness benefits

Question 5

Aim of the Virgin Lands scheme

Answer 5

Grain production increased by a third by cultivating unused land in Kazakhstan, Siberia and the Volga region

Question 6

Failure of Virgin Lands

Answer 6

Kazakhstan harvest failure 1963 and Russia forced to buy grain from the US

Question 7

impact of Khrushchev’s response in Hungary on Communism

Answer 7

Communist parties in Western Europe lost many members and declined in influence

Question 8

Poles under Khrushchev

Answer 8

Wanted greater freedoms after the secret speech- Khrushchev gave into their demands = far less oppressed e.g. peasants were allowed to leave collective farms to set up independent smallholdings and the Catholic church was once more allowed to teach religion in schools

Question 9

Khrushchev’s foreign policy

Answer 9

Peaceful coexistence

Question 10

Quotes from the secret speech

Answer 10

‘Stalin trampled on the Leninist principle of collective party leadership’

Question 11

impact of the secret speech in Russia

Answer 11

Younger, better-educated people pleased. Older people remained loyal to Stalin’s memory= four day protests in Tbilisi

Question 12

impact of the secret speech on Krushchev’s political position

Answer 12

Weaker- June 1957 Malenkov led Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and Bulganin in an (unsuccessful) coup

Question 13

impact of the speech in satellite states

Answer 13

Seemed to provide the chance to rebel against foreign domination. Unrest in Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Led to the Hungarian uprising

Question 14

heart attack after secret speech

Answer 14

Polish leader Bierut

Question 15

Khrushchev’s economic innovation

Answer 15

the sovnarkoz reform February 1957- enterprises were no longer under the authority of ministries but of regional councils. Plants would now obtain their supplies from within their region. Failed because competition still remained between regional councils

Question 16

New police structure

Answer 16

MVD in charge of internal policing, KGB in charge of external threats. Both were placed under direct administration of the party rather than an individual

Question 17

Khrushchev and Yugoslavia

Answer 17

Khrushchev met with Tito to re-accept Yugoslavia as a communist state

Question 18

Khrushchev and Hungary

Answer 18

Khrushchev sent 30,000 troops to deal with demonstrations, killing 20,000. Gero replaced with Nagy and Khrushchev promised Nagy and other European leaders more freedom, Nagy wanted to be out of the Warsaw pact. This coincided with the Suez Crisis which resulted in the prospect of Russia losing influence in the Middle East. Khrushchev sent troops back into Hungary and Nagy was replaced with the pro-soviet Kadar

Question 19

Khrushchev reforms to the bureaucracy

Answer 19

Imposed policies that reduced the bureaucracy’s special privileges: 1962 abolished the monthly bonuses that high officials routinely received

Question 20

Relationships with America

Answer 20

Attempted to negotiate peacefully during the Berlin crisis 1958-1961 e.g Geneva and Camp David summits in 1959 with Eisenhower. Deteriorated after U2 plane May 1960. 1961 Vienna conference with Kennedy failed to rebuild relationships, leading to the construction of the Berlin Wall

Question 21

Negative impacts of the Cuban Missile crisis

Answer 21

discredited Khrushchev’s commitment to his allies of Cuba and China

Question 22

Relationship with China

Answer 22

1958 Soviet union declined to provide China with military support in the conflict of Taiwan and USA. Sino-Soviet split in 1960 because of disagreements over Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful co-existence and the Soviet’s refusal to help China’s nuclear weapon build-up and to rectify the Russo-Chinese border

Question 23

Bold but rash economic promise

Answer 23

surpassing the total western output of dairy products within three years

Question 24

Failed agricultural reform

Answer 24

abolished Machine Tractor Stations but this now meant that peasants couldn’t afford machinery= agricultural stagnation in the 1960s

Question 25

Example of the end of censorship during the thaw

Answer 25

‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ which criticised the labour camps published in 1962

Question 26

How many political prisoners released?

Answer 26

2 million between 1953 and 1960

Question 27

Height of tension in Sino-soviet relationships

Answer 27

1960 when Khrushchev ordered the removal of all 1390 Soviet experts in China and the cancellation of all 257 joint technical projects

Question 28

Economic success

Answer 28

emphasis on consumer goods in the 7th five-year-plan caused consumer goods to increase by 60%

Question 29

Evidence Mao was willing to follow de-Stalinisation

Answer 29

100 flowers campaign

Spoke about Lenin at the 8th Party Congress but not Stalin

Question 30

Evidence Russia and China were united in 1956

Answer 30

Khrushchev consulted Mao before invading Hungary

Question 31

Housing

Answer 31

construction of self-contained ‘agro-towns’ for peasants but these were built cheaply and thus of a poor standard