The Era of Khrushchev Is Here.
A year ago I drew a metaphor between the stagnation of Europe and the stagnation of the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev. It must have had some validity, since Niall Ferguson recently drew a parallel between the late Soviet Union and the current state of the ‘West’. Sadly, a year on, the metaphor is still alive: Europe is still stagnating, deindustrialising, while still enjoying enviable living standards and relative political calm. … But the signs of trouble are on the front pages of every major newspaper, and even the EU is feeling the pressure of change….
One of the reasons for the sudden urge for change is the dramatic shift in the US.
Following the re-election of Donald Trump, the US has entered a new era that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Khrushchev era.
The Era of Khrushchev
After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev became the supreme leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin left a terrible legacy, despite having won the world war, expanded the Soviet Union and created an empire that included a number of satellite states in Eastern and Central Europe. The Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse. The legitimacy of the terror state depended on the fearsome presence of Stalin. Living standards were very low and shortages made life difficult. Khrushchev, one of Stalin’s henchmen, knew that the empire needed reform to avoid collapse.
Khrushchev knew that reform would not be easy. The Stalinist legacy was guarded by a well-built power machine of party apparatchiks, bureaucrats, secret police cadres and a deep-rooted belief in Stalin’s greatness. Khrushchev’s strategy was to expose some of Stalin’s heinous crimes and their tragic consequences, which cost millions of lives. The great event of Stalin’s defilement was the XXth Congress of the Communist Party in 1956 in a secret speech delivered at the Congress. The secret speech was leaked and soon became known throughout the world. The speech caused quite a shock among communists, while those who hated and feared the communist regime felt that history had vindicated them. But it served Hruscov’s purpose. It fatally weakened the Stalinist faction and allowed a reform programme of the socialist regime to begin.
Khrushchev was not a Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist. He did not want to dismantle the Soviet empire, nor did he want to end state ownership of the means of production and state planning. He was simply looki
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