In foreign policy Stalin’s heirs faced another knot of difficult questions—from the Korean War and Maoist pretensions to the infernal ‘German Question’ and Tito’s challenge in Yugoslavia. Resolutions of these problems also had major domestic implications, above all for the military budget, which consumed an inordinate share of national income. Even the ‘official’ military budget of 1952 (a pale reflection of reality) revealed a 45 per cent increase since 1950. Clearly, a regime seeking to modernize its economy could ill afford to divert so many resources—capital, labour—to so unproductive a sector.
Historical scholarship on the post-Stalinist period is still in its infancy. Until recently most literature belonged to the genre of ‘Kremlinology’—a mélange of inferences and wild guesses based on party propaganda, diplomatic gossip, distorted statistics, and symbolic gestures. Recently, however, Russian authorities have declassified materials from the super-secret ‘Kremlin Archive’ (renamed ‘Presidential Archive’) and from the operational files of the Central Committee. This chapter draws heavily upon these materials. It aims to present a fresh portrait of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras—named after two men who symbolize two different approaches to salvaging Stalin’s legacy: reform and retrenchment. By the early 1980s, however, it was obvious that neither had worked.
Perils of Reform
The first decade after Stalin’s death was marked by change so profound that perceptive observers began to question the static ‘totalitarian’ model that still shaped Cold War policy towards the Soviet Union. That decade was an era of frenetic reformism not only in the political system but also in society, economy, culture, and nationality policy. It was also a time of excesses and errors, which Khrushchev’s critics attributed to his boorishness, his penchant for ‘harebrained schemes’, and his reckless search for panaceas. The ill-repute of the Khrushchev era was so intense that, in the days of perestroika, even reformers were loath to invoke his name or reconsider his strategies. In that sense, perhaps the worst legacy of Khrushchevism was not that reform failed, but that it deterred new attempts until it was too late.
The Struggle for Succession
On the evening of 5 March, two hours before Stalin’s death, his heirs met in the Kremlin to assign spheres of power. The most prominent appointments included Georgii Malenkov (Stalin’s heir apparent) as chairman of the Council of Ministers, Lavrentii Beria as head of the Ministry of Interior (reorganized to include the Ministry of State Security), and Viacheslav Molotov as Foreign Minister. After a bizarre incident involving Pravda (which published a self-serving photomontage of Malenkov, ostensibly without his knowledge), on 14 March Malenkov resigned as ranking secretary in the Central Committee and assumed leadership of the state apparatus. Power in the Central Committee now devolved on Khrushchev, who eventually (September 1953) assumed the title of ‘First Secretary’.
Initially at least, Khrushchev seemed an unlikely pretender for power: he did not even speak at Stalin’s funeral, an honour reserved for the big three—Malenkov, Beria, and Molotov. None the less, Khrushchev was the consummate party functionary, bore the imprimatur of a top-ranking Stalin aide, and had close ties throughout the party apparatus. He also had extraordinary sangfroid and the capacity to speak effectively; his role at the Central Committee plenums, in particular, shows a self-confident ‘apparatchik’s apparatchik’. But he also knew how to relate to the common folk; an incorrigible populist, he loved to visit factories and kolkhozy to see conditions for himself. Khrushchev had a genuine concern for popular welfare. As Ukrainian party secretary, in 1947 he had even had the temerity to resist Stalin’s unreasonable demands for grain deliveries that ignored crop failure and famine—an act of defiance that earned a furious Stalinist epithet of ‘populist’ and temporary replacement by L. M. Kaganovich. By the end of the year, however, Khrushchev was reinstated as Ukrainian First Secretary and subsequently, in December 1949, summoned to Moscow as a secretary of the Central Committee and First Secretary of the Moscow party committee.
Beria, with the vast forces of the Interior Ministry and secret police at his command, was the most formidable contender. Recent archival disclosures have shown that, whether from conviction or cunning, Beria suddenly struck the pose of ‘liberal’ reformer. Within days of Stalin’s death, he not only spoke of the need to protect civil rights but even arranged an amnesty on 27 March that released many prisoners (too many common criminals, in Khrushchev’s view), including some people associated with the élite (for example, Molotov’s wife, Mikoyan’s son, and Khrushchev’s own daughter-in-law). Beria also shifted the GULAG from his own domain and later proposed that it be liquidated ‘in view of its economic inefficiency and lack of prospects’. He also exposed some major fabrications in late Stalinism, most notably the ‘doctors’ plot’ (4 April) and also proposed to release 58,000 former ‘counter-revolutionaries’ from permanent exile. The security chief even challenged the policy of Russian predominance in non-Russian republics; heeding Beria’s recommendation, on 12 June 1953 the party leadership agreed to condemn various ‘distortions’, to replace officials who did not speak the local language, and to require the use of the local language in republican communications. Beria also took an interest in foreign affairs, proposing to allow a unified (but neutral) Germany and to seek a rapprochement with Yugoslavia.
United by fear if not principle, Beria’s adversaries called a meeting of the Presidium on 26 June 1953 and, in his presence, voted unanimously for his immediate dismissal and arrest. Shortly afterwards they convened a plenum of the Central Committee to discuss the ‘criminal anti-party and anti-state activities of Beria’. An opening address by Malenkov gave a vivid description of how Beria ‘put the Ministry of Interior above the party and government’, with the result that the ministry ‘acquired too great an influence and was no longer under the control of the party’. Malenkov also castigated Beria’s newfound liberalism (in particular, his mass amnesty of criminals and proposals for a radical change in policy towards Germany and Yugoslavia) and denounced his maladroit attempts to gather information on ‘shortcomings in the work of party organs’ and even to maintain surveillance on members of the Presidium. The second main address was delivered by Khrushchev, who reiterated the attack on Beria’s belated liberalism and bluntly accused the police of fabricating ‘many falsified cases’. Six months later Beria and five of his close associates were tried, pronounced guilty, and shot.