Neo-Stalinism - Soviet Union

Soviet Union

In February 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced the cult of personality that surrounded his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, and condemned crimes committed during the Great Purge. In 1956 Khrushchev gave a four-hour speech condemning the Stalin regime. Historian Robert V. Daniels holds that "neo-Stalinism prevailed politically for more than a quarter of a century after Stalin himself left the scene," Following the Trotskyist comprehension of Stalin's policies as a deviation from the path of Marxism-Leninism, George Novack described Khrushchev's politics as guided by a "neo-Stalinist line," its principle being that "the socialist forces can conquer all opposition even in the imperialist centers, not by the example of internal class power, but by the external power of Soviet example," explaining that

"Khrushchev’s innovations at the Twentieth Congress. . . made official doctrine of Stalin’s revisionist practices the new program discards the Leninist conception of imperialism and its corresponding revolutionary class struggle policies."

American broadcasts into Europe during the late 1950s described a political struggle between the "old Stalinists" and "the neo-Stalinist Khrushchev."

In October 1964, Khrushchev was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, who remained in office until his death in November 1982. During his reign, Stalin's controversies were de-emphasised. Andres Laiapea connects this with "the exile of many dissidents, most notably Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn," though whereas Laiapea writes that "he rehabilitation of Stalin went hand in hand with the establishment of a personality cult around Brezhnev," the political sociologist Victor Zaslavsky characterizes Brezhnev's period as one of "neo-Stalinist compromise," as the essentials of the political atmosphere associated with Stalin were retained without a personality cult. According to Alexander Dubček, "The advent of Brezhnev’s regime heralded the advent of neo-Stalinism, and the measures taken against Czechoslovakia in 1968 were the final consolidation of the neo-Stalinist forces in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, and other countries." Brezhnev described the Chinese political line as "neo-Stalinist." American political scientist Seweryn Bialer has described Soviet policy as turning towards neo-Stalinism after Brezhnev's death.

Mikhail Gorbachev took over in March 1985. He introduced the policy of glasnost in public discussions – in order to liberalize the Soviet system. The full scale of Stalinist repressions was soon revealed, and the Soviet Union fell apart. Still, Gorbachev admitted in 2000 that "Even now in Russia we have the same problem. It isn't so easy to give up the inheritance we received from Stalinism and Neo-Stalinism, when people were turned into cogs in the wheel, and those in power made all the decisions for them." Gorbachev's domestic policies have been described as neo-Stalinist by some Western sources.