ABSTRACT

Nothing illustrates more vividly the ambivalent nature of Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization than the fate of Soviet historiography in his time. Stalin’s death, and especially Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in his Secret Speech at the 20th Party Congress (1956), had emboldened professional historians to critique historical writing. They did so within the bounds of official Marxism-Leninism, but even this was too threatening for Khrushchev and his circle. Fearful of unleashing the floodgates of historical revisionism, initial attempts to revisit and reinvigorate Soviet history were soon quashed by the party leadership. But the 20th Party Congress had spurred a rethinking of historiography that had a momentum of its own, which was to be given renewed, if short-lived, impetus by the 22nd Party Congress. It would take the removal of Khrushchev himself in October 1964 by the neo-Stalinists around Leonid Brezhnev to deliver a decisive blow to historical revisionism. This chapter will examine historiographical developments, chiefly among professional historians, and their interaction with the political processes of the Khrushchev period.