Re-emergence of public opinion in the Soviet Union: Khrushchev and responses to the secret speech

Karl Loewenstein

Europe-Asia Studies, 2006, vol. 58, issue 8, 1329-1345

Abstract: This contribution examines the way that the surprise of Khrushchev's secret speech forced the Soviet party leadership to acknowledge public opinion. Before 1956, the Soviet state paid lip service to the idea of public opinion, but paid no attention to it. The outpouring of emotion and argument after the twentieth party congress made policy makers take notice. In meetings throughout the country, Soviet citizens asked hard questions and raised criticisms of the regime. By the end of 1956 however, the party authorities reasserted themselves and denied the legitimacy of outside input in public debates. Khrushchev and the others realised that the emerging public opinion was incompatible with their belief in the leading role of the Communist party.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09668130600996572 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ceasxx:v:58:y:2006:i:8:p:1329-1345

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ceas20

DOI: 10.1080/09668130600996572

Access Statistics for this article

Europe-Asia Studies is currently edited by Terry Cox

More articles in Europe-Asia Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().