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What was the real meaning of de-Stalinization, from social point of view? Historical Stalinism as definite composition of principles of business life of the country, population, administration, ideological treatment, bringing up and educating of people of the country, etc. played a great historical role. In extremely difficult circumstances of the country ruined by revolution and war, Stalinism built the base for communistic social organization and protected them from outer attacks.
But it played out and became an obstacle for normal functioning of the country and its further evolution. Some forces and opportunities for overcoming of this crisis appeared with the purpose of rising on a new level of communist evolution. As a result of Stalin's Cultural Revolution a human factor of the country suffered qualitative changes. In sphere of administration and power a state apparatus of officials was formed together with over-state apparatus of Communist Party, which was more effective than Stalin's autocracy.
Level of state ideology stopped corresponding to increasing educational level of population. In other words, destalinization was carried out like natural process of maturation of Russian communism, taking of its routine form. Stalin's style of administration was voluntarism: the highest power forced the dependents to live and to work the way the power wanted. In fact, a real fight against Stalinism began even in Stalin's years, long before famous speech of Khrushchev at XX Meeting of Communist Party took place.
That fight was deep inside of soviet society and there are many historical facts indicating that even Stalin himself realized the necessity of changes. Khrushchev successfully used proclaimed de-Stalinization, which has already begun in USSR, in personal interests and, in one hand, he welcomed the process of de-Stalinization, in another hand, he did everything possible to control it. For 14 years he was one of Stalin's team member and he was carrying out de-Stalinization in Stalin's own voluntarism way. As his predecessor, Khrushchev implemented a great amount of reforms: first of all, in education, in labor and administrative policies, but the majority of them were superficial changes which were necessary to be undertaken after the times of Stalin's terror, and reestablishing of people trust to each other and bodies of administration. Even his famous agricultural reformations mostly failed in five-six years because the decisions were frequently made without proper researching or planning of the results and prediction of possible consequences in long term.
Symptomatic of the country's economic problems was ruining in 1963 of Khrushchev's special seven-year economic plan, two years short of its fulfillment. As a result, all the establishments of economic, social and ideological system of Soviet Union, formed and developed by Stalin, kept the country in continuing success and brought USSR to outstanding achievements in global level. Khrushchev has left a lot of unsolved problems, but he was not the only person, totally responsible for this. He made attempts to inject some elements of democracy into the system not by the price of repressions and new victims.
He created a new clear system of judgment and so called bureau courts, which worked for many years in USSR. But the majority of decisions which proved to be lethal for social ideology of USSR were made at Khrushchev and Brezhnevs times, indicating their weak opportunities as leaders of the country. Strong system of administration and management represented by members of Communist Party, who were thoroughly selected by Stalin's repressions, still worked at Khrushchev's times, but became more and more opened to making democratic discussions. Withdrawal of Khrushchev and replacing him with Brezhnev was carried out like a good play in a good theatre. Khrushchev's upheaval was first of all in social policy, but Brezhnevs upheaval was only for higher levels of power. Brezhnevs style of administrating proved to be accommodative: the Highest Power did not try with strategic and political reformations, it tried to accommodate to objective circumstances already existing in the country.
One more feature of brezhnevs administrative-bureaucratic system was growing more and more powerful and taking place of Stalin's autocracy. One more feature the apparatus of Communist Party became the main basis, the core and skeleton of whole system of power and administration. Brezhnevs times are characterized with the principle of stability of the manpower, his main reforms were connected with militarization of soviet economy, and the most terrible results of these changes were incredibly increased corruption, especially in bodies of administration and growing abyss between highest and lowest social levels of people. From sociological point of view, Brezhnevs times were just continuation of Khrushchev's period, but without extremism and adventurism of the latter. Policy of Communist Party of Brezhnevs times, directed onto being in command of intellectual elite of society, controlling it and dominating over it, can historically be considered as tendency to refer back to Stalin's methods of administrating. Even after actual death of Stalin, Stalinism was not totally collapsed, as nowadays anti-Stalinist's and anti-communists try to prove.
It changed its form and remained as autocracy of communist leaders and power, playing its important role in soviet society. Stalin had a sheer imperial political way of thinking, and he began creating a great empire with strong national principles, which, unfortunately, were not totally supported with wise and sagacious decisions of his successors. Khrushchev, together with denunciation and rejecting of Stalin's autocracy principles rejected also national ideas in many aspects, later on Brezhnevs administration demonstrated understanding of Stalin's intentions of creating a great nation. Summarizing the above, we can say that attempts of Stalin's successors to undertake reforms were mainly short-termed solutions. The fundamental changes were rarely brought up and mostly failed due to leftovers of Stalinism in Communist Party, which was mostly the lack of trust between party members- the paranoia of being tested by others to reveal personal thoughts and then be possibly punished for it. This feature of Stalin and post-Stalin times remained in minds, and became an obstacle for futher development of USSR and improvements in its social system.
REFERENCES "The Structure of Soviet History" Edited by Ronald Gregory Suny
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