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De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality and Stalinist political system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in 1953. The central Soviet strongmen at the time were Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Ministry of the Interior; Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; and Georgi Malenkov, Premier of the Soviet Union.

De-Stalinization spelled an end to the role of large-scale forced labor in the economy. The process of freeing Gulag prisoners was started by Beria, but he was soon removed from power. Khrushchev then emerged as the most powerful Soviet politician.

At a speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences to the closed session of the Twentieth Party Congress of the CPSU, February 25, 1956, Khrushchev shocked his listeners by denouncing Stalin's dictatorial rule and cult of personality. He also attacked the crimes committed by associates of Lavrentiy Beria.

Khrushchev's drive to expunge Stalin's influence from the public sphere continued through the late 1950s. His efforts were marked by the removal of Stalin's name from cities, landmarks and facilities which had been named or renamed after him; given momentum by these public renamings, the process of de-Stalinization peaked in 1961 during the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Two climactic acts of de-Stalinization marked the meetings: first, on October 31, 1961, Stalin's body was removed from its mausoleum in Red Square and reburied;^[1] and second, on November 11, 1961, the "hero city" Stalingrad was renamed to Volgograd.^[2]

As part of the de-Stalinization push, many other places bearing Stalin's name were either renamed or reverted to their former names. These included even capital cities of the Soviet republics and territories: Stalinabad, capital of the Tajik SSR, was renamed "Dushanbe" and Staliniri, capital of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, was renamed "Tskhinvali".

[edit] See also

• Kureika

[edit] References

1. ^ CNN Interactive - Almanac - October 31, CNN, http://www.cnn.com/almanac/9810/31/#today, "(October 31) 1961, Russia's de-Stalinization program reached a climax when his body was removed from the mausoleum in Red Square and re-buried." 
2. ^ Reuters (1961-11-11), "Stalingrad Name Changed", The New York Times, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F2091FFD355912738DDDA80994D9415B818AF1D3, "MOSCOW, Saturday, Nov. 11 (Reuters) -- The "Hero City" of Stalingrad has been renamed Volgograd, the Soviet Communist party newspaper Pravda reported today." 

[edit] See also

• History of the Soviet Union (1953-1985): De-Stalinization and the Khrushchev era
• Rehabilitation (Soviet)
• Khrushchev Thaw
• List of places named after Joseph Stalin

v • d • e Joseph Stalin Politics Early life · Russian Revolution, Russian Civil War, and Polish-Soviet War · Rise · The Stalin Era as Soviet Leader · Collectivization in the Soviet Union · World War II · Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact · Winter War · Occupation of the Baltic states · Soviet invasion of Poland · German–Soviet Axis talks · Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact · Tehran Conference · Yalta Conference · Potsdam Conference · Cold War · Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship · Eastern Bloc · Tito–Stalin split Concepts Stalinism · Neo-Stalinism · Socialism in One Country · Socialist realism · Stalinist architecture · Aggravation of class struggle under socialism · Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature Controversies Great Purge · Holodomor · Gulag · Decossackization · Population transfer in the Soviet Union · Forced settlements in the Soviet Union · Soviet war crimes · Rootless cosmopolitan · Doctors' plot · Moscow Trials · Allegations of antisemitism · NKVD prisoner massacres · Katyn massacre · Nazi–Soviet population transfers · Soviet Census (1937) · Soviet deportations from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina · Operation North · Mingrelian Affair · Leningrad Affair · Lysenkoism · Censorship of images in the Soviet Union · Operation Lentil (Caucasus) · Operation Priboi · Vinnytsia massacre · Kurapaty · Nazino affair · Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union · Purge of the Red Army in 1941 Works Ten Blows speech · Alleged August 19, 1939 speech · Falsifiers of History · Stalin Note De-Stalinization Pospelov Commission · De-Stalinization · Rehabilitation (Soviet) · Khrushchev Thaw · On the Personality Cult and its Consequences · Gomulka thaw · Soviet Nonconformist Art · Shvernik Commission Criticism Stalin Epigram · Lenin's Testament · Leon Trotsky · Ryutin Affair · Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · Vladimir Bukovsky · Andrei Sakharov · Anti-Stalinist left Remembrances Stalin Monument in Budapest · Stalin's Monument (Prague) · Joseph Stalin Museum, Gori · List of places named after Joseph Stalin · Yanks for Stalin · Stalin Prize · Stalin Peace Prize Family Besarion Jughashvili (father) · Ketevan Geladze (mother) · Ekaterina Svanidze (first wife) · Yakov Dzhugashvili (son) · Konstantin Kuzakov (son) · Nadezhda Alliluyeva (second wife) · Vasily Dzhugashvili (son) · Svetlana Alliluyeva (daughter) Category

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