Destalinisation

• Nobody wants to openly critique Stalin

  • 1953 - 1956
  • silent - policies were reversed in secret
  • Thousand of gulag prisoers released and rehabilitated
• end of 1955 :

  • Sets up commission to ‘investigate’ what occurs under Stalin
  • Report in 70 pages
  • 1.9 million arrested for conspiracies - 1935 to 40
  • just over 688,000 were shot
  • all the conspiracies were fabricated
  • as he joined in 1939 hes not implicated as the rest of the Polit beureau members
• khrushchev - need courage to tell the truth

  • proposed a speech at party congress