Critical Review: A History of Postwar

Country both economically and socially, Pethybridge suggests if Stalin had lived he

would not have had to make these changes as his power was secure due to being a

“hero of the mightiest war ever fought and could afford to be set in his ways.”  While

Pethybridge suggests that if Khrushchev wanted to hold onto his newfound power

he had to embrace de-Stalinization other historians argue that Khrushchev wanted to

make these changes in order to begin the “transformation of the Soviet Union into a

prosperous and enlightened society.”  Other historians agree with Pethybridge’s

view that he Only made these changes to survive this view is backed up by the limited

reforms that Khrushchev actually made and they also believe that complete de-

Stalinization was not achieved until Michel Gorbachev gained power. In

Pethybridge’s conclusion of “A History of Postwar Russia”, he puts forward three

possible reasons behind one of Khrushchev’s planed reforms to make the party more

democratic by reforming  party rules.

one to prevent the recurrence of a personality cult, i.e. Stalin, two to promote

young men and root out old party leaders, three to stop family circles

forming.

He goes on to suggest that these new reforms left “loopholes through which he could maintain his grip over the rank and file.” Donald filtzer supports this argument suggesting that Khrushchev only challenged “some features of the system but not the system itself.” He suggests that he did this because he was a product of the soviet system and he “owed” his position to the system he goes on to state “who was going to de-Stalinise the de- Stalinisers.” This point is very useful and backs up Pethybridge’s argument that there was no way that somebody who had helped and supported Stalin while he ruled the country would want to reform it to be a democratic and freer country, and any reforms that were made were only superficial and done for survival and not out of a desirer to make the Soviet union a freer and fairer country.

In “A History of Postwar Russia” Pethybridge’s suggests that Khrushchev’s new direction in his foreign policy prompted the European states under the control of the Soviet Union to seek concessions and a relaxation of the control it received from the Soviet Union. Pethybridge accesses that this new direction of relaxing the Stalinist control over European states, “Completely changed relationship between the Soviet Union and the European Communist camp.” And goes on to suggest that it took the “Hungarian revolution of 1956 to shake of the weight of the Stalinist past” and then other countries began to seek concessions. Filtzer supports this view, he talks of the “easing of the Soviet Union’s heavy-handed control over Eastern Europe” and of how this easing prompted these states to seek concessions. Filtzer also talks a lot about Khrushchev secret speech that denounced Stalin’s rule and his crimes. He suggests that this speech was not quite a secret as it was supposed to be, prompted the European countries under soviet rule to attempt to other throw the Stalinist style leaders that were put in control by Stalin. Filters talks about the need to “act quickly to easy the social tensions caused by the mini-Stalin’s still in power in Poland, Hungary…and other communist regimes.” While Filtzer puts a heavy focus on the repercussions of the “secret speech” and the change in the relationship between the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Pethybridge only felt that the “secret speech” only warranted a small mention in his book and put the change in the relationship between the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe down to a general relaxation in the Soviet Unions rule. Crankshaw also talks extendedly about the repercussions that the “Khrushchev denunciation” of Stalin’s rule prompting “unthinkable rebellion against the might of Soviet Russia.”

In conclusion Pethybridge’s book “A History of Postwar Russia” gives good general overview of the events that took place in post-war Russia, it focus’s heavily on the differences in the style of leaderships between Stalin and Khrushchev. Pethybridge’s approach to writing this book was that of a systematic approach moving through from Stalin’s rule up to the twenty second Party Congress This book fits in to the historiography of the period, talking about the relaxation and de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union. However it does have some contrasting views of how and why this de-Stalinization took place. These differences in opinion can be put down to the difficultly of obtaining reliable information and facts on the Soviet Union at this time. In the introduction to his book Pethybridge talks about the difficulties of writing on his chosen subject.

This was not an easy book to write. Contemporary history presents many pitfalls to    anyone rash enough to record it; Soviet history incurs extra hazards. In the first place fewer sources are obtainable than in the case of other countries; Secondly, valuable soviet sources appear months or even years after the event (Khrushchev secret speech on Stalin at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 is the most famous example); thirdly, the present state of international politics induces both Communist and Capitalist governments to distort the true face of Soviet Russia.   

The fact that this book was first written in 1966 also affects its reliability and accuracy, as since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 many documents and facts have come out about post-war Russia. If you take in to account when this book was written and the constraints placed on the author when attempting to obtain facts this book gives a good and full account of the events that took place at this time in Russian history. Also the other books that have been mentioned in this review were all written much later and some after the collapse of the Soviet Union therefore more information was available to their authors. So in conclusion this book gives a good and thorough account of the events that took place in the years that followed the Second World War in Soviet Russia.

Bibliography

Cohen, S, The Soviet Union Since Stalin, 1980

Crankshaw, E, Khrushchev’s Russia, 1964

Filtzer, Donald, The Khrushchev era, 1993

Heller, A, From Yalta to Glasnost, 1990

Pethybridge, R. W, A History of Postwar Russia, 1966

Taubman, W, Khrushchev: the man and his era, 2003

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