p39--In response to what Stalin saw as the terrible threat from Tito’s regime, he intensivied seaches for real and potential saboteurs--secret police became very strong--no one was safe

Purges and Witch-Hunts

p40--show trials in the Eastern States--advisors sent over from Russia to help--***Stalin had to maitain a "perpetual state of national emergency and fear, conspiracies had to be continously invented and unmasked"--no one was safe--used to keep the population in line

p41--Terror used to control the populace when economic and social plans failed to satisfy them

p42--Some of the confessions were extorted because the people themselves belived the part was greater than them and must be saved.

p43--atmosphere in the states was terrible--trials showed that any citizen could be executed--people did exhibited excess amounts of loyalty--propoganda

p44--"objective" i.e., potential ability to be against the state counted just as much as actual treason

p44--1950s stalin becomes upset about the Jews--They had to prove his worldwide conspiracy theory so they could not be aquitted.

p46--"The terrorist pedagogy toally suppressed cirtical attitudes and mad obedience the golden rule of survival."

Tito’s Challenge and the Breakdown of Monolithic Rule

p47--1948-49 Since they had a special role in fighting agains the Nazis they felt they deserved to rule themselves--first party to ever split from stalin--national communism--Stalin failed to realize that Tito had managed to get the Yugoslavian people behind him in a nationailstic way--gave him strength--people didn’t understand why Stalin was upset because Tito went as far or further in nationalization/industrialization/repression--went further even to try and satisfy Stalin

p48--At first Tito thought it was all a misunderstanding--later he had to repress those who followed the Cominform’s calling to destroy Yugoslavia--instituted "self-managment" in the factories more to get popular support than for effeciency--he wanted to reform communism in a way different from Stalin--but he was no democrat

p49--Tito’s allowing the workers to make decisions conviced Stalin even further that he had abandoned communism--but Tito kept the party in control and had strict censorship--wanted a different but less repressive version of the one-party system

The East European Stalinists

p50--Eastern Europe in the 1950s all the states (except Czech and Yugo) cronic lack of mass support, "millions of party members but very few committed communists, bounless and uncontional loyalty to the Soviet Union and to Stalin personlly"--even Tito didn’t initially question Stalin’s claim to dominate world communism--p51--anti-intelectualism derrived from the cricism of intellectuals

p52--The party elite belived what they were doing was right and historically invetiable--ignored any bad signs

Nikita Khrushchev and the "New Course"

p55--Khrushchev’s new policy of reconcililation with Tito was hard for the other Eastern leaders who had staked much on his destruction earlier--Stalin’s death made things unstalbe in GDR, raise quotas, strikes, repression--first of several revolts agains the Soviets and Russia--both political, social, and natinalistic revolts

p56--Eastern leaders tried to slow down the rate of change--they knew they couldn’t avoid the "thaw" but they could at least slow it down

p57--1955 Warsaw Pact--unifies the Eastern states--particulary CMEA which did so economically by through "specialization in industrial productin"

The Twentieth CPSU Congress: The Anti-Stalin Bombshell

p58--Khrushchev’s "secret speech" Feb 1956--wanted to relegititamize communism by getting rid of Stalin’s evils and to make him the man doing it--also to point out those he thought were bad communists--p59--still wanted to keep the one party system--goes to revolutionary de-stalinization in russia and in the eastern bloc countries--particularly hungary and poland

The Polish Crisis of 1956

p61--March 1956--Polish communist leader Boleslaw Bierut death leads to a power struggle

p62--Catholosism was a strong force in Poland--initially they had to doeal with (durring the first decade) nationalism and lack of Marxist-Leninist ideology--1956 discussion cubs--popular opinion--civil society re-emerges--Split the polish party elite in two--new leader Gomulka didn’t do much to liberalize Poland--1957 purges against revisionist intellectuals--not a de-stalinization--at first he looked mildly revolutionary, but turned out not to be at all

Freedom Reconquered: Imre Nagy and the Hungarian Revolution

p69--Initially Eastern revisionist reforms didn’t include the desire to overthrow the government--within the status quo--but it failed in this

p70--The Hungary 1956 revolution was the first one where the people fought out violently against their opressors out of frustration with the Communist system.

p71--Imre Nagy had been premiere for 2 years--granted msome freedom to the intellecutals--refused to give it up when Nagy was demoted in 1955 after 2 years

p71--for a revolution: communist elites must be split on some issue (Stalinist hard-liners/Nagy), erosion of party authority (secret speech)--Nagy said that Marxism had to adjust to the realities of life and that the party was becoming a dictatorship

p72--like all reformists he failed to note that the causes of these problems stemmed from Marxisms belief in its own historic iniveitablility and correctness

p73--party leaders could not deal with this--Moscow wasn’t helping with it’s de-stalinisization line--acted erratically Rakosi rehabilitated a show trial victim and then got kicked out brining Ernö Gernö into power--Communist party failed to arouse any popular support

p74--23 October 1956 spontaneous riot of hundreds of thousands of citizens in Budapest demanded the establishment of a state of law, punishment of Rakosi, reappointment of Imre Nagy as Prime Minister, removal of secret police, withdrawl of Soviet troops--Gerö shoot at the demonstrators--ousted-Nagy and kadar elected--Nagy recognized that the citizens wanted more than reform--that they wanted to start from scratch

p75--Russia said it would not intervien---several days later it did---31 October Nagy announced negotionations to withdrawl from the Warsaw Pact--1 Nov decalred its neutrality--4 Nov Russia invades--June 1958 Nagy tried and convicted and executed--Kadar helped the communists and got back into power

p77--Kadar’s regime made people remember with nostalgia Nagy’s revolution

p78--Nagy’s revolution showed that it was possible to topple a totalitarian regime from inside--first break with the Yalta and Potsdam agreements--tens of thousands executed or jailed, hundreds of thousands exiled, intllegencia "bled white"--Tito eventually rejected the Nagy regime as "premature" under intense soviet pressure

p80--Kadar 1962 tries to increase living standard by encouraging limited private buisness-- "goulash soclialism"--March 1963 general amnesty--political prisoners released--demanded that its citizens not criticize the soviet union

Attempts at Autonomy: Desatellitization and De-Staliniization in Romania and Albania

p80--Gheorghiu-Dej removed pro-Khrushchev supporters from the party, large purges, got the Russian army out of Romania in June 1958 to PREVENT further de-stalinization--ultimately Stalinist--industrialization/collectivization completed 1962--now wanted "the completion of socialist construction"

p81--1960 Enver Hoxha (leader of the Albanian Communist party) criticized Khruschev for his de-stalinization--said it was destroying communism--economic embargo against Albania--Chinese help out--Albania out of the Eastern bloc

p82--Romania started working with Tito to advocate no Russian interference in independent states--stayed neutral with the Chineses/Russian conflict

p83--1964 started turning the Romanian communism into a nationalistic party--still very stalinist-- Gheorghiu-Dej feared that the anti-Stalinist sentiment would put him out of office

p84--Gheorghiu-Dej died in 1965--followed by Nicolae Ceausecu--de-Stalinized only so he could take more power--personal dictatorship

Bulgaria: The Faithful Ally

p85--Todor Zhivkov used Khrushchev’s de-stalinization confusion to get to the top, and then used Khruschev’s anti-intellectual back swing to keep himself there--weak power base, though--then tried to pacify Soviet leaders until they stopped supporting him in 1989

Conclusions

p85--Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization shocked and affected all Easter Euorpean countries--at least initially a looseing of party control--national communism movements became very appealing--rise of revisionists

p87-- Brezhnev’s "Developed Socialism"-- "supposedly a stable political system based on a dynamic economy and social concensus"-- but really just based on "political immobility, widespread apathy, and mas resignation to a status quo percived as marginally less horrible than the Stalinist period."

p87--***--the rulers provided the ruled with a"protectvie shield of social beneits" and the ruled "reounce[ed] their right to rebel agains an inherently unjest system"--prevarious because the rulers had no legitimacy--if they failed to provide the goods they would be toppled--the leaders only used Communism to keep their power--they didn’t belive in it as the older generation had