What kind of reforms did Khrushchev introduce and how did these reforms affect further changes in the Eastern Bloc?.
The beginning of Khrushchev's ambitious reforms may be considered the 20th congress of the CPSU (February 1956), which was followed by the exposure of crimes, committed by Stalin and his entourage, the beginning of mass rehabilitation of repressed people and the criticism of dictatorial governance. .
Congress made changes in the ideological concept of the party: sounded rejection of the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat was sounded and the thesis of "the state of the whole people".
Political and economic failures of previous decades were combined with the concept Stalin's cult of personality. .
Khrushchev marked four problems with this phenomenon:.
- Violations of law and mass repression;.
- Failures and subjective decisions of Stalin during World War II;.
- Breach of the principle of collective leadership in the Party;.
- Stalin's actions aimed to exalt his role in the history of the Party and the state.
From this, congress the rehabilitation process of the repressed people from the 1930's to the 1950's, had began and later had become massive and widespread. Millions of people were acquitted and returned from the camps. The 20th congress changed the whole political atmosphere in the country. Under its influence, a shift in the public consciousness at all levels: historical, ideological, social, psychological and moral had happened. The ongoing process of de-Stalinization affected the development of public opinion and the liberation from dogmatic stereotypes. The area of criticism had extended. Under the influence of the Khrushchev thaw, the generation of the sixties had emerged. They were people who accepted the fight to the cult of personality as the beginning of social regeneration. And one can see the increased influence of Western propaganda against the socialist countries of Europe.