[MUSIC] Khrushchev was the last Soviet leader who unquestionably believed in the Marxist promises of the possibility of building a just and rationally-constructed society. And consequently he was disturbed by the inefficiencies and inequalities which existed during the Soviet system. And, of course, he blamed Stalin for what went wrong, and took for granted when the Stalinist methods, Stalinist system is disintegrated the Soviet Union will be able to build a better society. And he genuinely believed in the possibility of that society and the superiority of communism as an economic political system as opposed to capitalism. And hence, his famous saying, we will bury you. And this, in the West, was interpreted at the time, that we are going to come and hit you over the head and then bury you. While, unquestionably, what Khrushchev had in mind is, we will be there at your funeral when capitalism proved to be incompetent and collapsing. And we will be there to see your demise. Much followed in his behavior from these genuine commitment to his ideology. One was the denunciation of Stalin and the consequences. The consequences for him, personally, were rather unpleasant. His fellow leaders believed that this endangered the solidity, the security of the socialist system,.which, in fact, reasonably could be argued. And, of course, it created the revolutionary wave in Eastern Europe. First in Poland then in Hungary, which had embarrassing consequences for the international communist movement. And so his fellow leaders conspired against him. In 1957 the politburo got together and decided to remove Khrushchev from his position as first secretary of the party. Khrushchev, however, insisted that this must be done legitimately and only the Central Committee can remove him. And he had the help of Comrade Zhukov, the great military leader, and got airplanes to bring together to Moscow the Central Committee and then he prevailed. This was the first attempt that the Soviet leaders wanted to remove the supreme leader in what seemed to them as a legitimate way. But this time Khrushchev prevailed. However in the new era, unlike at the time of Stalin, the conspirators, in quotation mark, were not killed. Arguably, they faced even more difficult situations. Molotov was sent to be ambassador in Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. Valinkov became the head of a cement factory somewhere in Siberia. But these people survived in the Khrushchev era. The leaders came to a realization that it's not good to kill one another because it can have unpleasant consequences. So Khrushchev succeeded in de-Stalinization and introduction of a degree of freedom in literature. [FOREIGN] stories, for example, could be published and interesting articles could be published in the so-called thick journals. Films could be made which could be perceived as critical of the fundamentals of the existing regime. Well, Khrushchev's luck was running out. Khrushchev's luck was running out, inasmuch as in 1963, the harvest was bad, there was shortage of bread. Khrushchev suffered some difficulties in his foreign policy and Khrushchev introduced reforms which was perceived by his fellow leaders as directed against them. These reforms were occasion by Khrushchev's genuine belief in equality, in as much as the Soviet system, the inequality has remained substantial. Meaning that party figures were able to provide for the next generation, various advantages getting into universities. And the elite could reinforce itself and retain its power. And in order to contravene this, Khrushchev introduced the reform that every graduating high school student must work a year, or two or three years, before he can be accepted at the university. Well, one can see the reason for such a reform. On the other hand, it was rather irrational in as much as a budding, young mathematician would have to go and work in a factory and thereby lose his most creative years. Was not exactly the right thing. And this really upset their parents who thought that their son deserved better. Further reform of this kind. He was disturbed that the regime is able to perpetuate itself, and therefore introduced that in every year one third of the party leadership, not at the very highest level but the lower level, has to be renewed and new people must be brought in. Further introduced the reform that the agriculture section of the party, that is party officers who were engaged in controlling agriculture, versus those who were engaged in industry, should be separated. Bifurcating the party for industrial versus agricultural segments. This was regarded as something irrational. So was the idea, which I mentioned before, the 100 industrial regions for the country. And the elite was his fellow leaders, were unhappy about the constant reforms, the hair-brained schemes. And consequently, in 1964, they got together, and this time legitimately decided to remove Khrushchev and his place was taken by collective. Once again, just like after death of Stalin, what we need, what is proper is a collective leadership. The collective leadership is made up by Kosygin who became Prime Minister, Podgorny, who became the President of the country, which in the Soviet scheme of things was not a very significant office, and the First Secretary of the party, Brezhnev. Again, that Soviet type system necessitates one person and then fairly quickly it was Brezhnev who emerged. And while at first it was Kosygin who negotiated with foreign leaders, a year or two later it was Brezhnev and Kosygin who retained his job. But clearly it was Brezhnev who emerged. And the small scale personality cult grew up around Brezhnev and his collective, enormously boring speeches were published. And his role in the Second World War, which was actually quite minimal, was played up as showing his leadership. Well, what came about, which lasted for a long time, from 1964 to, in fact, to the days of Gorbachev, was that security of the cadres. It came to be a very, what they wanted they achieved, stability. Party officers remained in their office, competent or not competent, for a long time. The Soviet leadership came to be made up by old people, people in their late 70s and 80s. Gromyko was the longest-serving foreign minister anywhere in the world. [FOREIGN], the idea that we are building a superior society was not the stressed so much. But the prevailing slogan was real existing socialism, implying that this is it. This is what you get. Now the economic reforms in agriculture and industry continue. That is, not all of Khrushchev's changes were taken back. And indeed, increased standard of living lasted until the early mid 70s. The Soviet Union greatly profited from the oil crisis, which followed by the Middle Eastern wars. The Soviet Union came to be the largest oil producer in the world, and thereby it was able to accumulate convertible currency. And remarkably used the convertible currency go buy grain abroad in order to increase, improve the diet of the Soviet people. Now the Brezhnev era was the loss of idealism, the loss of belief that we are on the verge of the Great Society and what comes with it was corruption. Well, corruption has always been present. Corruption has existed in the czarist Russia. Corruption existed during the Stalin era. Corruption exists everywhere, in particular where it's constant shortages. Where the only way that the factory manager can fulfill the quota is by doing something good for his fellow industrial chief in exchange for something else. However, the corruption in the Brezhnev era reached a proportion which was spectacular. Brezhnev himself had a passion for ancient cars and he accumulated a garage of cars. His daughter had a lover who was a circus performer, accumulated money in Swiss currencies in foreign bank accounts. But especially in the caucuses, especially in Central Asia. Local party chiefs who did not have to worry about openness, publicity which did not exist. And they set a pattern, their party leaders in Central Asian Muslim Republics, they set up their torture chambers to deal with their opponents. And this is taken for granted, the degree of corruption, which of course will have long-term consequences. And Brezhnev himself toward the last five years of his life became a laughing stock. He had to be helped to walk to the podium. His speeches were not photographed because of embarrassment. So he and his fellow leaders came to be as, Metaphors for a system in its senescence. And then when the oil crisis was overcome and the Soviet Union, which benefited so much from the high price of oil was no more, the economy was less and less able to keep up with the demands of modernity. That is, methods which made sense at a certain level of development and could produce high growth rate, made less and less sense in a more sophisticated economic system. That is, it was one thing to produce as much steel as quickly as you can by investing all your scarce resources rather than coming up with computer programs. And what the Soviet people and the Soviet leadership understood, that it's not only we are falling behind industrial Europe and especially the Unites States, but South Korea is doing better than we do. And there is the Singapore. And a gradual understanding that we are not able to raise the standard of living of the people. And consequently a lack of faith, a lack of belief in what they were doing, was becoming increasingly present among the Soviet political elite. [MUSIC]
