HIS 1111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Georgy Malenkov, Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrentiy Beria

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: History
• Course: HIS 1111
• Professor: Thomas Boogaart

Document Summary

Death of stalin 1953: establish continuity and legitimacy for the party. Liberalised the system and made himself open to criticism. Turning point: the 1956 budapest uprising: khrushchev crushed hungarian democracy. Khrush(cid:272)he(cid:448)(cid:859)s fall: destali(cid:374)izatio(cid:374)(cid:859)s contradictions, how could you liberalise and maintain power at once, questio(cid:374)s a(cid:271)out khrush(cid:272)he(cid:448)(cid:859)s leadership, 1962 cmc, crimean vacation, brezhnev plot. Brezh(cid:374)e(cid:448)(cid:859)s st(cid:455)le of rule (cid:449)as to a(cid:448)oid ruffli(cid:374)g a(cid:374)(cid:455) feathers. Did not allowed dissident as khrushchev did, however, he did not rule by terror. Co(cid:374)ti(cid:374)ued (cid:449)ith khrush(cid:272)he(cid:448)(cid:859)s ge(cid:374)eral idea of (cid:271)uildi(cid:374)g so(cid:272)ialis(cid:373), ho(cid:449)e(cid:448)er he (cid:449)ould (cid:374)ot tou(cid:272)h the central flaw that khrushchev had discovered. Structural causes: weakness of key communist institutions, chronic economic inefficiency. Inability to keep up with the usa in terms of the cold war. Proximate causes: failure of gorbachev to reform the soviet economy, willingness to let the empire dissolve rather than use military intervention. Pressure of the cold war superpower: escalating society military spending, abm treaty, gor(cid:271)a(cid:272)he(cid:448)(cid:859)s u(cid:374)ilateral disar(cid:373)a(cid:373)e(cid:374)t 1(cid:1013)(cid:1012)(cid:1012) 1989.