Posted on 02/25/2006 4:47:32 AM PST by Pharmboy
FIFTY years ago today, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave a "secret speech" at the 20th Communist Party Congress that changed both his country and the world. By denouncing Stalin, whose God-like status had helped to legitimize Communism in the Soviet Bloc, Khrushchev began a process of unraveling it that culminated in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This great deed deserves to be celebrated on its anniversary.
But it is also a good time to ponder this question: What are we to think of a leader whose great deeds do not bring about the consequences intended? It is a question worth consideration by all leaders — particularly Khrushchev's current heir, Vladimir Putin, who has tried to bring his nation into the 21st century by wielding the autocratic hand of a 19th-century czar.
After all, Khrushchev sought to save Communism, not to destroy it. By cleansing it of the Stalinist stain, he wanted to re-legitimize it in the eyes of people not just in the Soviet sphere but around the globe. Yet within weeks after the secret speech, at Communist Party meetings called to discuss it, criticism of Stalin rippled way beyond Khrushchev's, including indictments not just of Stalin himself but of the Soviet system that spawned him. Others sprang to Stalin's defense, especially in his native Georgia, where at least 20 pro-Stalin demonstrators were killed in clashes with the police.
In Eastern Europe, the unintended consequences of Khrushchev's speech were even more shattering. A huge strike in the Polish city of Poznan in June was put down at a cost of at least 53 dead and hundreds wounded. Then, of course, the revolution in Hungary in October was smashed by Soviet forces, leaving more than 20,000 Hungarians dead.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Leave it to the NYT to NEVER write a column like this about Reagan, yet have to find SOME way to spin the end of the Cold War so that they can acknowledge it was a good thing but NOT as a triumph of the west.
I know it made your blood boil, but I think it's hilarious.
Yes...I think you are right. I should consider this more properly under "humor" and not be mad about it. But their nerve is breathtaking.
Yeah, well. We know the truth, as does history. As for the NYT: "the dogs bark, and the caravan moves on."
(steely)
Pathetic!
And don't forget. If you read about Stalinist Russia in the NY Times in the 40s and 50s, you would have been convinced of the greatness of the USSR and couldn't imagine anyone in the Politboro repudiating him.
Heck, the Times reporter won a Pulitiser.
There's yet to be a retration from the Times!
Of course not, dummy. The fall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980's could not possibly have been influenced by the great men and women of the US armed forces, the engineers and scientists that made SDI possible, the foresight and determination of President Reagan, the US economic machine that provided the money to totally outspend the Kremlin on defense, nor the power and persuasion of a nation of free people. It must have been a speech four decades earlier by a pouting Soviet dinosaur.
There was a similar piece in last week's Washington Post (Anne Applebaum, I believe) making many of the same points. But her take was that the "secret speech" was the inspiration for Mikhail Gorbachev (sp?) that ultimately led to his liberalizing reform of the Soviet Union. Again: no credit to the proactive policy or Reagan pressing our advantages and forcing the Soviets to give up. In an email to the author, I questioned: was Khruschev's speech before or after his ranting, shoe-pounding speech at the UN promising the Soviet Union would bury us? And would the Soviets have given up on their system had Jimmy Carter won a second term in 1980 followed by Teddy Kennedy in 1984 (please forgive me for scaring readers this Saturday morning with such wonderings).
Maybe Khruschev introduced a bit more openness into the Soviet Union with his blunt criticism of Stalin, but he was a Commie at heart and he and all who followed would have pressed their global expansion as far as possible if Reagan hadn't taken the strategic steps he pressed. And I'm sorry to any who might disagree: no Democrat leader had any role in Reagan's efforts... there was no support, there was no sympathy. Democrats thought Reagan was dangerous and his policies mis-guided -- and they'll have to live with that legacy for all the rest of their days.
Oh my! Talk about butterfly wings causing hurricanes. What pap.
This is Soviet revisionism at its best. He may not have done Stalinist puirges, but the claims the article makes are bogus. Nikita was interested in imporoving agriculture and came to America to see our farms, but he never could feed his people and we ended up selling them grain. As for housing, that too is a whitewash. Though they built some awful apartments, they were shoddy construction and completely inadequate. To the end people were sharing them with one room for a family. And, of course there is no mention of the KGB or Nikita pounding his shoe on a table during a UN address, like a nut. Aren't these the people always touting the right to dissent? They overlook the pogroms and political prisoners. UGH! This guy probably has tenure, too.
Mark
New York Pravada. Rewriting history to remove any memory of American greatness. They still can't let communism go. They still dream of the communist utopia during their acid flashbacks.
In my lifetime, I seem to remember the following events that indicate that the Cold War continued well past Khrushchev's speech in 1956: 1) Soviet intervention in the Congo (2960); 2) the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba and the ensuing crisis (1962); 3) Soviet sponsored insurrections in Latin America, culminating with the death of Ernesto Guevara in 1967; 4) massive Soviet military aid to the North Vietnamese communists against the US (1961-1975); 5) KGB assassinations of East European dissidents throughout Europe (1960s to 1980s); 6) the invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968); 7) the invasion of Afghanistan (1979). The Cold War fizzled while Ronald Reagan was president and due to his actions and ended in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. As usual, the NY Times is late by about 33 years and several US presidents.
As long as there is a NYT, puppies will learn to go outside, birds will live in clean cages and dead fish will never have to be naked.
Don't you find it interesting that, among the "consequences" of Khrushchev's speech the NYT wishes to "celebrate," immediately follows a list of the dead?
Wow...WaPo and the Times write similar crapola a week apart. Was there a CPUSA meeting that we don't know about?
As has been said, you can find more communists in the faculty clubs at Harvard and Yale (add Amherst) today than in Moscow.
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