The most important change, however, was crypto-de-Stalinization—a cautious repudiation of the ‘cult of personality’ that commenced immediately after Stalin’s death. The initiative came from above, not below. Not that all in the leadership supported such measures; Stalin’s henchmen, such as Voroshilov and Kaganovich, themselves deeply implicated, remained inveterate foes of de-Stalinization. Apart from some early veiled critiques (for example, Malenkov’s comment about ‘massive disorders’ under the ‘cult of personality’), the principal sign of Stalin’s ‘disgrace’ was sheer silence about the leader. For example, the regime declined to ‘immemorialize’ Stalin by renaming the Komsomol in his honour, dropped plans to transform Stalin’s ‘near dacha’ into a museum, and let 1953 pass without mention of the ‘Stalin prizes’ or the customary celebration of his birthday. Servile quotations from Stalin quietly disappeared; authors who persisted were roundly criticized for ignoring Marx and Lenin. The silence did not go unnoticed; in July a party secretary in Moscow wrote to Khrushchev to enquire ‘Why have editorials in
Why did Stalin’s closest associates decide to demote the Leader to a non-person? Apart from a desire to distance themselves from Stalin’s (and their own) crimes, de-Stalinizers had several motives. Zealous ‘de-Stalinizers’ (including Khrushchev) were zealous communists: they denounced the cult for its voluntarism and for crediting Stalin, not the party or people, for the great achievements of industrialization and victory over fascism. That is why, for example, authorities decided to interdict a poem by A. Markov that failed to show the people as the ‘creative force in history’ and assigned ‘the main place in the poem’ to Stalin, who is ‘shown in the spirit of the cult of personality’. In a memorandum of 27 April 1953 the philosopher G. A. Aleksandrov denounced the cult and opposed reprinting the Stalin biography—partly because of its ‘many factual inaccuracies and editorial mistakes’, but mainly because of its ‘populist-subjectivist view on the role of the individual and especially of leaders in history’ and because of its failure ‘to elucidate sufficiently the role of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the struggle of the Soviet people for socialism and communism’. Khrushchev similarly complained that Stalin had been ‘a demigod’, who ‘was credited with all accomplishments, as if all blessings came from him’.
Zealous de-Stalinizers, moreover, had personally experienced Stalin’s fearsome tyranny. Close family members of Stalin’s top associates were counted among his victims—kinsmen, even immediate family members, of members in the Politburo. Postwar campaigns like the ‘Leningrad affair’ swept away top figures in the party, leaving many others feeling profoundly vulnerable. The philosopher Aleksandrov himself had been a victim of the ‘anti-cosmopolitan’ campaign: after A. A. Zhdanov denounced his history of Western philosophy (for exaggerating West European influence on Marxism) in June 1947, Aleksandrov was replaced as ideological watchdog by M. A. Suslov. In Stalin’s final years top aides grew fearful that the dictator had new designs on them; according to Khrushchev, only the dictator’s death prevented him from carrying out plans to arrest Molotov and Mikoyan.
Khrushchev himself had reason to fear the ageing tyrant. The most dramatic incident involved Khrushchev’s proposal to increase agricultural output by merging kolkhozy into larger ‘agrocities’. He advertised this idea in a
Khrushchev and his supporters also addressed the question of the cult’s victims and initiated a cautious rehabilitation, beginning first with élite figures. A typical early case involved I. M. Gronskii, a former editor of
