Introduction

For the most part, this debate has focused on the significance of the 1956 Secret Speech denouncing Stalin, and the most obvious political characteristics of the regime: continuing use of repression, though in a milder form; a flourishing but heavily circumscribed cultural scene; selective restoration of nationality rights; public consultation without any real democracy; and so on. While these questions remain central, the recent research presented in this book and its companion volume, Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev, makes it possible to address the question of Khrushchev’s place in the history of the Soviet Union from a variety of different angles.