1956: Communism Renewed?

  • Geoffrey Swain
  • Nigel Swain
Chapter
Part of the The Making of the Modern World book series (MMW)

Abstract

Between 1953 and 1956 the twin processes of de-Stalinisation and Soviet-Yugoslav rapprochement opened up the possibility of renewal for the communist states of Eastern Europe. With Khrushchev pressing the East European leaders to undo the injustices of the purge trials, and Tito urging them to adopt the Yugoslav system of workers’ councils, there were moments when it looked as if a very different style of communism might emerge.

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Notes

  1. 1.
    R. Service, ‘The road to the Twentieth Party Congress: an analysis of events surrounding the Central Committee Plenum of July 1953’, Soviet Studies, 1981.Google Scholar
  2. 4.
    F. Vali, Rift and Revolt in Hungary (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), p. 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. 6.
    I. Nagy, On Communism: in Defence of the New Course (London, 1957), p. 207ff.Google Scholar
  4. 9.
    For the limitations of Malenkov’s economic reforms, see A. Nove, An Economic History of the USSR (London, 1969), p. 322ff.Google Scholar
  5. 10.
    V. Dedijer, Novi prilozi za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita, vol. III (Belgrade, 1984), p. 550ff.Google Scholar
  6. 17.
    P. Zinner (ed.), National Communism and Popular Revolt in Eastern Europe (New York, 1956), p. 9. Khrushchev confided his problems in overcoming opposition within the Communist Party Presidium to the Yugoslav ambassador Veljko MičunovićGoogle Scholar
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  8. 19.
    For Tito’s secret links with Gheorghiu-Dej, see Dedijer, Novi Prilozi, p. 546; for the Yugoslav glee at the downfall of Chervenkov, see J. F. Brown, Bulgaria under Communist Rule (London, 1970), p. 67.Google Scholar
  9. 30.
    Vali, Rift and Revolt, p. 261ff; M. Molnar, Budapest: 1956 (London, 1971), p. 122ff.Google Scholar
  10. 32.
    Lomax, 1956, p. 148ff.; Molnar, Budapest, pp. 174–5; for Tito’s message to Gero and Kádár concerning workers’ councils, see G. Ionescu, The Break-up of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe (London, 1965), p. 76.Google Scholar
  11. 38.
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  12. 43.
    T. Toranska, ONI: Stalins Polish Puppets (London, 1987), p. 183;Google Scholar
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  14. 45.
    For the purge in the GDR, see G. H. Hodos, Show Trials: Stalinist Purges in Eastern Europe, 1948–54 (New York, 1987), p. 113ff.Google Scholar
  15. 48.
    R. A. Remington, The Warsaw Pact (Massachussets, 1971), p. 18. The text of the Warsaw Pact is given in Keesings Contemporary Archives, p. 14251.Google Scholar
  16. 49.
    G. Ionescu, Communism in Romania: 1944–62 (Oxford, 1964), p. 268, p. 272.Google Scholar
  17. 52.
    J. D. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party from Blagoev to Zhivkov (Stanford, 1986), p. 115ff. A very brief flowering of the liberal press in Czechoslovakia was confined to the spring of 1956;Google Scholar
  18. see F. L. Kaplan, Winter into Spring: the Czechoslovak Press and the Reform Movement, 1963–8 (New York, 1977) p. 28ff.Google Scholar
  19. 53.
    Djilas’ article appeared in the New York socialist paper, The New Leader. Extracts are reproduced in M. Lasky (ed.), The Hungarian Revolution: a White Book (London, 1957) p. 270.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Geoffrey Swain and Nigel Swain 1993

Authors and Affiliations

  • Geoffrey Swain
  • Nigel Swain

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