Among the latter were Kopelev, Gnedin, Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov and many others.
It was not possible to organize discussion of Stalinism within the CPSU. ‘Attempts by individual Communists to continue discussion of the problem of the “cult of personality” were cut off’, writes Roy Medvedev.64 But the questions did not go away, and even if the fact that, as Shatz puts it, Khrushchev had ‘offered a most “un-Marxist” interpretation of a quarter-century of Soviet history’65 might remain unappreciated among the intelligentsia, nevertheless the incompleteness of Khrushchev’s explanations and interpretations was obvious. Bukovsky wrote:
Khrushchev seemed to think that he had explained everything, that he had given answers to all the questions. According to Khrushchev, they had got to the bottom of it, released the innocent, spoken well of the dead, and life could go on. But for us, and especially for my generation, the questions were only just beginning.66
The spring of 1956 — when, throughout the country, Khrushchev’s ‘secret’ report was being read to hundreds of thousands of listeners — was a time of questions, hopes and illusions. Hopes rose sharply and the public’s expectations quickly clashed with the plans of the leadership. For Khrushchev’s group at the top, the Twentieth Congress marked the conclusion, as it seemed to them, of the necessary process of liberalization. For those who heard the ‘secret’ report it marked the beginning of that process. The hopes and expectations of the intellectuals could not be approved and they consequently became undesirable in the eyes of the statocracy, for there was danger that further demands would be put forward. And that was what happened. During the stormy discussion of Khrushchev’s report in the Writers’ Union such proposals were advanced as a freer system of election, a public investigation of Stalin’s doings, and so on. As before, the left-wing intellectuals looked for fresh steps towards liberalization to be taken by the ruling statocracy themselves, but even so they did not want to linger and stand still. R. Orlova said:
The days we are now living through remind me of the days right after October — there is the same mass-meeting type of democracy. Everybody wants to speak. Those who have long held their tongues. And those who long spoke nothing but lies. And those who sincerely believed and who are now being told they believed in lies. People are coming to an accounting with their own consciences… But we can’t allow ourselves the luxury of resting at this stage.67
The criticism of the past — begun very cautiously and inconsistently at the top, as Pomerantsev also thought — met with active support from below which was not welcomed by the men at the top. The ‘Movement of Solidarity’ with the Twentieth Congress, the appearance of the writings of Pomerantsev and Dudintsev, the verses of Yevtushenko, Okudzhava and others, came as a surprise — an unpleasant one — to Khrushchev. As Roy Medvedev writes, he ‘was not yet ready to lend his active support to the thaw.’68
A feeling of rejection determined the mood of the intelligentsia. ‘Rejection of what has been or is being outlived’, wrote the critic V. Kardin, ‘is natural, healthy and, above all, necessary. It frightens only those who are being rejected.’69 The rebellious youths in Viktor Rozov’s plays really were ‘typical representatives’ of a new generation and a new epoch. These ‘rebellious youths’ soon became a serious political problem. In 1956 an oppositionist student movement began to take shape which could no longer express itself within the bounds of ‘permitted criticism’. The exposures at the Twentieth Congress produced in wide circles of the population, as Roy Medvedev acknowledges, ‘confusion, bewilderment and disillusionment’.70 For those who had known at least part of the hidden truth, the Congress was proof that the ruling group might give up lying and become sincere, while for those who had known nothing previously the Congress revealed, on the contrary, that the rulers were dishonourable and capable of lying. This resulted in distrust of the upper circles by the lower orders, a feeling which found expression mainly in political apathy. Whereas for the intelligentsia the ‘secret report’ signified hope for change, for millions of workers and peasants who, earlier, had blindly believed the official propaganda, it was a shock. The students, being an intermediate stratum between the intellectual ‘elite’ and the working masses, were gripped by the intelligentsia’s enthusiasm, yet at the same time, like the lower orders, felt acute disappointment with the system that had deceived them. Consequently, they set about forming oppositionist organizations with a revolutionary tendency. David Burg writes:
In 1956–1957, after the XX Congress, opposition elements within the institutes and universities began to wage an open battle against Komsomol leadership. They sought, first of all, to gain freedom of criticism and expression and second to introduce a degree of intra-Komsomol democracy that would make the Komsomol a truly representative organization with an honestly elected leadership. Freedom of expression was in fact gradually achieved at that period by a kind of procedure of protestation, and extraordinarily sharp critical comments were heard more and more commonly at meetings.71
On 9 August 1956 Komsomolskaya Pravda reported what had happened at a seminar on the documents of the Twentieth Congress held in Taganrog Radio Engineering Institute. Two students were expelled for asking what the teachers considered ‘improper’ questions. In August 1956 the momentum of the Congress was still strong, and the fears aroused by the ‘Polish October’ and the Hungarian Revolution were yet to come. The wave of de-Stalinization had still not abated. The expelled students were readmitted, and the newspaper defended them. True learning, said Komsomolskaya Pravda, cannot progress ‘without disputes, without thought’; it is not possible to ‘protect’ Marxism from questions and suppose that it can be studied like ‘God’s laws’.72 Such statements in newspapers merely poured oil on the fire of opposition. The first unofficial publications appeared, with ‘odd names’ like Heresy, Fresh Voices, Phoenix, Boomerang and Cocktail. In Leningrad a group of students launched a journal called Kolokol [The Bell]: it is interesting that towards the end of the Khrushchev era another attempt to establish a journal with this historic name was made in Leningrad, under the editorship of V. Ronkin and S. Khakhaev. At this time, however, the students tried to make use of legal forms of work: ‘They… made a point’, Bukovsky recalls, ‘of attending official Soviet lectures and discussions, where they would speak up, ask questions and start genuine arguments on real issues.’73
Besides unofficial samizdat there appeared what might be called ‘official’ or, more precisely, ‘institutionalized’ samizdat: ‘Wall newspapers began to print “undesirable” articles,’ writes Burg. ‘In official literary conferences literary enthusiasts began to raise subjects formerly discussed only among intimate friends — for example, the question as to whether Soviet literature was basically truthful.’74 But the students became especially agitated during the revolution in Hungary. A Komsomol meeting in Moscow University was turned into a meeting of solidarity with the government of Imre Nagy. Leaflets appeared, and groups began to be formed with organizers like Pimenov and Krasnopevtsev and theoreticians like Krylov, Cheshkov and Sheynis.