Reform In The Khrushchev Era

7 Pages 1633 Words

Soon after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 Nikita Khrushchev positioned himself as the new leader of the communist party in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev’s rise to power was well executed and had strikingly similar characteristics to that of Stalin’s rise to power. “Like Stalin he climbed to power on the back of a party and proved himself a master of political infighting” (McCauley 216). Khrushchev saw a nation suppressed by the years of fear and terror inflicted through the dictatorship of Stalin. He wanted to improve all aspects of the Soviet Union and would attempt to accomplish this through a series of reforms. Although he showed great political power in his rise to power his political insecurities were exploited once he was at the top. “His personal style of leadership was acceptable in an underdeveloped country but the Soviet Union of his day had outgrown him” (McCauley 220). His inability to thoroughly evaluate and foresee consequences led to the ineffectiveness of his reforms. He simply tried to do too much too fast with little knowledge of the fundamental problems. Martin McCauley states in his book Khrushchev and Khrushchevism, “Khrushchev could not grasp the root causes of the deficiencies he was attempting to eliminate. Since his conceptual grasp was faulty his solutions were also flawed” (28). As a result, his lack of political savvy when dealing with reform led to great opposition within the system. In order to fully understand the limitations of Khrushchev’s efforts it is beneficial to look at his major reforms in agriculture, industry and his administrative reorganizations.
When Khrushchev took power it was clear that his major concern was geared towards the improvement of the agriculture sector. Khrushchev viewed the best way to improve living standards was to focus on food production. He believed the best way to increase output was to expand the area to be cultivated. The Virgin Lands campaign wa...