Posted on 02/24/2006 3:18:28 PM PST by lizol
The speech Russia wants to forget
By Tim Whewell BBC News
It was a speech so shocking that even 50 years on, Nikolai Baibakov refuses point-blank to describe what he heard that day - a devastating attack on the man he worshipped above all others.
The retired Communist Party official, now 91, can reel off scores of statistics of industrial production and oil extraction in the 1950s.
But he tries every stratagem to avoid recalling the cataclysmic event to which he is one of the very few surviving witnesses.
It was the secret final session of the 20th party congress on 25 February 1956, at which the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev demolished the reputation of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin.
Eventually, between gritted teeth, Baibakov concedes: "Maybe there were individual incidents of repression, but what Khrushchev denounced Stalin for, that never happened... Khrushchev just said those things to try and give himself more authority as a leader."
It is hard to exaggerate the impact Khrushchev's speech had in 1956, just three years after the dictator's death. Stalin's embalmed body was lying beside Lenin in the mausoleum on Red Square, and most Soviet citizens regarded him as little less than a god.
Torture
Many political prisoners had returned from the camps - though hundreds of thousands remained there. And Kremlin leaders were already referring to the "cult of the individual" that flourished during Stalin's rule.
But there had been nothing to prepare the 1,400 delegates of the Congress for the bitter tone and detail of the four-hour report that Khrushchev delivered behind locked doors on 25 February.
He talked of how thousands of innocent people had been tortured into confessing to crimes they never committed - and he said Stalin was personally responsible.
"He called in the interrogator, gave him instructions, and told him which methods to use, methods that were simple - to beat, beat, and once again, beat."
He described how Stalin ordered the murder of many of the Soviet Union's leading generals on the eve of World War II, his "monstrous" deportation of whole peoples to other parts of the country - and even how he was responsible for the ruination of agriculture.
No discussion
The delegates listened in stunned silence.
According to Khrushchev's biographer William Taubman, "Nobody said anything. They were uncertain even of looking each other in the eye, of revealing a gut instinct, which they shouldn't."
And in a society still dominated by fear, many of the millions of ordinary members of the Communist Party and Young Communist League who heard the text of the speech read out to them at specially-convened meetings in the following weeks reacted in the same way.
Even if they had wanted to debate the sensational revelations, it would not have been allowed.
Each meeting began with the stern warning, "There will be no discussion, comrades - and no notes may be taken!"
And lest anyone try to spread the contents of the speech more widely, the red brochures with the text were all gathered up afterwards and returned to party headquarters.
Khrushchev's speech was considered so incendiary that it was not published in Russia until 1988, when Mikhail Gorbachev's "glasnost" policy allowed a re-examination of Stalin's crimes.
Stalin rehabilitated
But that re-examination was short-lived. Because as the Soviet Union collapsed, the rehabilitation of Stalin's victims began to be overshadowed by the rehabilitation of Stalin himself.
Now, after 15 years when many Russians have faced growing impoverishment and watched the decline of their country's power and prestige, they have begun to imagine the Stalin era as a time of discipline, order - and glory.
"The only people who thought Stalin was a criminal were the people he obstructed - the people he prevented from robbing the state," says historian Gennady Varakuta, reflecting a widespread belief that the corruption that plagues Russia today was dealt with severely and decisively in the 1930s and '40s.
Varakuta is one of many who now claim Khrushchev denounced his predecessor either because he was terrified that he himself might be accused of complicity in his crimes or - for even narrower motives of revenge - because Stalin had supposedly had Khrushchev's son Leonid executed for treason during World War II.
In fact, the story of the execution, and the treason, have been disproved by several official documents. But it is regularly repeated in an effort to discredit Khrushchev himself.
Changing mood
Varakuta's views are hardly surprising - he is the son-in-law of Leonid Brezhnev, the man who overthrew Khrushchev in 1964.
But his admiration for Stalin is widely shared in today's Russia.
In a poll by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre at the end of last year, 20% of respondents described Stalin's role in Russian history as "very positive" and 30% as "somewhat positive".
There are proposals to erect statues to the former dictator in several provincial towns - and Russian state TV is reported to have cancelled plans for a special documentary on the anniversary of the secret speech.
Khrushchev's daughter Rada, now 76, has watched the changing mood in the country and she is not surprised.
She does not directly blame President Vladimir Putin for fostering the new wave of neo-Stalinism, but she does not believe it could happen without some official approval.
"I don't feel they want very much to mark this date, the anniversary of one of the main events of our history," she says.
"One of my friends wanted to make a film about it, but then he was told, 'It's safer not to'. Then the only references I hear on the radio to my father are comic ones - the idea, for example, that he put a tax on every apple tree.
"And if that's what young journalists are thinking, I conclude it's because that's how someone wants them to think."
Putin can't turn back the clock.
My High School History Books had Stalin as a Good Guy
Doesn't sound like Putin will have to touch the clock.
Mine too, but then again the extent of the history books education on WWII was:
Allies good, Axis bad.
lol
Good thing as a kid I took a little inititive and read books about WWII on my own.
Me Too
"There will be no discussion, comrades - and no notes may be taken!"
Like a DNC staff meeting...
You seem to be suggesting that
A crime is a crime, no matter who commits it.
How utterly naive.
;^)
Then send a bill to your survivors for the cost of the ammunition.
Ping
But he certantly will try to.
So they're trying to rehabilitate Stalin, eh? Is that right? Just like the 'rats try to diminish Reagan's optimism and just like the press tries to glorify FDR's and LBJ's socialist visions...why am I not surprised?
I think the poll that is quoted actually asked Russians if they had a favorable opinion of Stalin's role during WWII. I've seen other polls conducted over there (on Echo of Moscow radiostation, for example) that show an overwhelming majority of Russians think Stalin was a thug, villian, murderer, etc. "Echo of Moscow" has a fairly young to middle age audience. Polls conducted by the institute cited in the poll focus more on old timers. The old timers are having trouble believing that the person they were told was a big Hero actually wasn't. The still gripe about the Khokhol (insulting term for a Ukrainian) who gave away the Crimeria to the Ukraine SSR (Kruchshev), so you know they're not going to be criticizing Stalin (although most of today's problems in that region stem from Stalin's "Bitter Pill" - forced relocation, whole ethnic groups exiled, etc.)
BTW, Russian television is now showing a mini-series called "Zona" which is about the GULags. It pulls no punches (Solzhenitsyn is a consultant) and is the highest rated show right now.
I like 'Echo Moskvy', too, but I think all ages listen and call in, depending on the topic. Here's an interesting snippet (May 5th, 2005):
(SNIP)
SAMUEL: I voted for the investigation. My name is Samuel. Unfortunately, I'm 70, and I'd like to live until the 20th congress of 'United Russia', when we find out the whole truth. Earlier than this, unfortunately, it won't happen.
M. GANAPOLSKY: The 20th?
SAMUEL: I was 20 during the 20th congress. When I was 10 I looked upon Stalin as if he was my own father. By the way, whenever I see his picture nowadays, my childhood comes back to me. That's how the putinists are going to look at Putin's portrait.
M. GANAPOLSKY: What would you like to say to those who are in the studio?
SAMUEL: The same thing that it we could've told Bukharin's relatives in 1937. It's a bad deal, boys.
(SNIP)
TATIANA: I agreeable with you 100%, on your summation of what's going on in our country, that we're letting ourselves, as you put it, get screwed, and this is the same at every level, and in the hospitals, and absolutely everywhere. Certainly, I voted for a continuation and I think that it's not just this that's hard, but also Beslan, and how they take care of the retirees. It's terrible and everyone keeps quiet. When I turn to my fellow workers and I say, guys, we can't put up with this, they say what do you mean 'we', but my hands are also tied, and my legs, because if I say that I'm retired, I'll get fired.
M. GANAPOLSKY: I thank you. We have to finish up. I thank everyone who called in and supported this position. I'd like once again to express my sympathy to you, and say that life seems to have turned out so that you are now at the leading edge, but that's such an old phrase, at the leading edge of the defense of human rights. True, everything has turned out poorly. I'd also like to tell you that numerous words of support have come to us on the pager, and words of sympathy, and words of admiration. God grant that all of this is finished not at the 20th congress of the 'United Russia', but a lot sooner. Thank you very much. I wish you good health.
He described how Stalin ordered the murder of many of the Soviet
Union's leading generals on the eve of World War II, his "monstrous"
deportation of whole peoples to other parts of the country - and even
how he was responsible for the ruination of agriculture. <<<
The above is what I think of, when I think of our open borders and the millions coming across them.
Thank you for the info on the "Echo of Moscow", some do get the real picture, others will never do so.
There is certainly more to this silence than just the political gut feeling to avoid issues that remain divisive and might damage his popularity in some marginal groups. The main guideline of the "de-Stalinization" campaign launched by the 20th Congress was against the super-concentration of power in one pair of hands -- and that is exactly what Putin has been doing since arriving at the Kremlin. A carefully orchestrated PR campaign has sought to prove that this style of governance suits Russia the best, so now 57% of Russians are sure that the country needs a determined leader who could rule with a "firm hand" (Newsru.com, February 25). This opinion ties logically with others: 47% of respondents have a generally positive view of Stalin and 21% perceive him as a "wise statesman" (Vedomosti, February 14).
The main target of Khrushchev's emotional condemnation was the KGB, which had been the main instrument of repression. Putin, in recent weeks, has been busy strengthening the role of the FSB, the direct and proud successor of the all-penetrating structure created by Felix Dzerzhinsky and empowered by Lavrenty Beria. The shadows of these "founding fathers" were probably present at the annual meeting of the FSB top echelon where Putin expressed his full satisfaction with their work, praising particularly the success in countering espionage (Nezavisimaya gazeta, February 8). He was far more generous with praise to his former colleagues than to the system of law enforcement that, according to his address to the session of the General Prosecution Collegium, was unable to check the "alarming trends" in crime growth (Vremya novostei, February 6). Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, nevertheless, apparently feels quite safe in his job, as he proved his loyalty beyond a doubt by making the criminal case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his colleagues.
These declarations and evaluations were followed by a potentially very significant presidential decree, "On Measures in Countering Terrorism," since the main initiative among these measures was the creation of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee under the chairmanship of FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev (Lenta.ru, February 17). This Committee will include representatives of all military and paramilitary structures, from the General Staff to the Ministry of Emergencies, and will be served by the Federal Operational Headquarters with a staff of 300 officers that would constitute a separate unit in the FSB structures. The State Duma, always very attentive to signals from the Kremlin, has urgently approved legislation that provides a formal mandate for the new bodies (Lenta.ru, February 22). It is quite obvious that terrorism has not suddenly acquired new scale or urgency that would require large-scale counter-measures. The newly created Committee might in fact have very little to do with the threat of terrorism but quite a lot to do with the struggle for influence and power between the key "power structures." The FSB has accepted the main responsibility for fighting terrorism (which it carefully denied during the crises in Beslan and Nalchik) and thus secured for itself the dominant position vis-à-vis the Ministry of Interior and every other state authority (Kommersant, February 17). - LINK
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