Khrushchev Thaw

Welcome to Russian History Retold.

Episode 363, The Khrushchev Thaw and the Fates of the People Returned from the Gulags, Part 2.

Last time, we began the series on what happened in the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin died in March 1953.

Today, we finish the story of what happened to all the people released from the gulags into Soviet society and what happened to the Khrushchev thaw.

I've added a couple of books to my repertoire for today's episode.

They include A History of Modern Russia by Robert Service and Yeltsin, A Life by Timothy Colton.

During the Khrushchev thaw, not only were people being released from the gulags, but many of those executed under Stalin's years were rehabilitated.

That number, according to Robert Service, was, quote, It is true that this good fortune came to most of Stalin's victims posthumously.

Last time, we traced Russification from the early expansion of the Slavs through the Tsarist and Soviet eras to the present.

Today, we turn to the Soviet Union's time after Stalin's death, the power struggle that produced the Khrushchev thaw, the release of prisoners from the gulags, and the difficult lives awaiting those who returned.

My principal sources for this episode are Exit Stalin, The Soviet Union as a Civilization, 1953-1991, and Stephen F. Cohen's deeply moving The Victim's Return, Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin, which includes haunting photographs and first-hand accounts of Stalin's victims and the officials who carried out the repression.

I will also draw upon William Taubman's Khrushchev, The Man in His Era, and Khrushchev Remembers, his autobiography, though his retrospective account must be treated with some caution.

The Khrushchev thaw and the release of prisoners from the gulags were closely connected, but they did not begin at exactly the same moment.

Releases started before the thaw fully emerged.

Khrushchev then accelerated the process and sustained it during his leadership.

These so-called criminals were often victims of Stalin's rules that would incarcerate people for stealing morsels of food while starving or factory workers who arrived late for work.

For sure.

Yeah, well, you know, this is the Khrushchev-Thaw era, and I was just reading earlier about that, you know, Bondarchuk is part of this younger generation of directors that's kind of replacing the Stalin-era directors of Soviet cinema.

And one thing that comes up to me

is that, you know, again, there's a lot cut from the book.