Why did attitudes

1
Why did attitudes policies change in the 1950s?

• The Thaw

2
? Your task

• Read p.56-7 of Modern World History and take
  notes under the following headings
• The death of Stalin
• Changes under Khrushchev
• Reaction of the West
• Reaction among satellite states

3
The death of Stalin

• Dictator from 1920s-1953
• Cruel, oppressive regime, enforced by use of
  secret police
• Universal relief at his death

4
Changes under Khrushchev

• 1956, Khrushchev gave secret speech denouncing
  Stalin to Communist Party at 20th Party Congress
• Ordered demolition of monuments to Stalin
  (statues pulled down, cities renamed, Stalins
  body removed from Kremlin)
• Process of change called destalinisation
• 1956, visit to Warsaw, K. indicated that Polish
  people should be allowed more freedom

1959 Russian cartoon showing K. drilling through
a snowman. What do you think the artist is trying
to say?
5
Reaction of the West

• Western countries liked Khrushchevs change of
  policy
• Leaders of USSR USA met in 1955 and 1960
• Reduction in Cold War tensions nicknamed The
  Thaw

6
Reaction among satellite states

• Destalinisation encouraged calls for greater
  freedoms and economic change
• 1956 protests in Poland over rising food prices
  ruthlessly suppressed by Red Army
• 1956, Red Army put down anti-Communist uprising
  in Hungary at cost of 30,000 lives
• 1961, Communists built Berlin Wall dividing East
  West and shot people leaving E.Germany
• Led to end of The Thaw

7
What were the main reasons why the Thaw ended
by the early 1960s?
8
Nikita Khrushchev

• Born 1894, son of a coal miner
• Fought in Red Army during Civil War
• Worked for Communist Party in Moscow and received
  Order of Lenin for work on Moscow Underground
• 1949, appointed to run Soviet Agriculture
• Khrushchev emerges as new leader of Soviet Union
  following Stalins death in 1953
• 1962, took country close to nuclear war during
  Cuban Missile Crisis
• Forced into retirement in 1964 (died 1971)