Domestic Policies
HIn 1953 Khrushchev reduced
the power of the political police.
HMany inmates of the Gulag
camps were freed in 1954
HTribunals restored the
reputations of many of those murdered under Stalin.
HAt the 20th Party Congress,
Khrushchev delivered an address to a
closed meeting of the delegates asserting that Stalin had replaced the legitimate Soviet leadership with a
“personality cult” and
that this had done harm to the party and the country.
HThe “secret speech,” soon
leaked out to the press and stunned many
Communists in the USSR and throughout the world.
HKhrushchev proceeded to
implement a policy of de-Stalinization.
–portraits of the late
dictator were removed from public places
– institutions and localities bearing his name
were renamed
– textbooks were rewritten to deflate his
reputation.
–Stalin’s body was removed
from the mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow
where it had rested beside that of Lenin.