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Government in the USSR - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Georgy Malenkov who was the head of the Soviet Government with his powerbase being the Soviet State
      - Beria who was the head of the Secret Police. His powerbase was the MVD
      - Khrushchev had the Party as his powerbase
  - - - Causes
        
        Partly to calm the fear of his rivals that he would use MVD against them just as Stalin had
      - There were several reform he made particularly to the Gulag
        
        Amnesty for non-political prisoners serving short sentences
        
        Would be extended to some counter revolutionaries
        
        A party commission was set up to investigate past execution and many communists were rehabilited on the basis of forced confession
        
        Gulag labour was no longer used as slave labour to build factories and mine resources which meant that the MVD lost lots of its economic power
      - This removed much of the power of the MVD
    - - He introduced two reforms to give the republics some more representations
      - All senior Party officials had to speak in the language of the republic they worked
      - All official publication have to available in the languages of the republics not just Russian
  - - - He appointed his own supporters and removed Stalin's supporters to gain power
      - Replace half of all regionals secretaries and 44% of the central committee
    - - Khrushchev began attacking the State bureaucracy to remove the power of Malenkov
      - The plan was to devolve power from the Soviet Government to the republican government
      - By mid 1954 he began restructuring by cutting the number of central Soviet Ministries from 55 to 25 and it meant that the amount of Soviet Industry controlled by the government dropped to 44% from 68%
      - This combined with the apparent success of the Virgin Lands Scheme led to Malenkov losing his position and an Ally of Khrushchev being appointed
  - - - Removeing the cult of personality
      - Ending the terror
    - - The First step in destalinisation was destroying the cult of Stalin
      - the Secret Speech was a speech that Khrushchev gave the 12th party congress in 1956 where he criticised the cult of personality
        
        He argued that Stalin had set himself up as a dictator and robbed the party of its leading role. he also said that without the wisdom of the party he had created great mistakes such as purging the Red army just prior to WW2
        
        K also revealed the fact of the brutal Terror and the extent of it
        
        Critically he did not critise communist ideology or the system that Stalin had set up such as collectivisation and central planning
    - - Other communist government followed suit for example in Hungary and Poland. Students and artists in Hungary used the opportunity to start a revolution and elected a prime minister but this was crushed by Soviet Troops sent in
      - Some leak to the public about Stalin led to some questioning the legitimacy of Communist rule and there were even some demonstrations but these were repressed
      - Khrushchev also backtracked and said the people were not ready for it and so radical de-Stalinisation came to an end
  - - - Increase the participation of workers in the government
      - Expansion of Party membership to 11 million in 1964. 60% of the party were workers
      - Introduced fixed terms for senior communists so they were regularly replaced
    - - abolished some of the central ministries that oversaw the economy devolving the power to 105 economic councils
      - Moved the ministry of Agriculture from Moscow to make it closer to the field
- - - - The top two jobs would not be occupied by the same people
      - They would divide key posts in the government roughly between the two of them
      - Party and state officials would keep their jobs for a long time to promote stability and prevent the possibility for patronage
  - - - As it was very unlikely to be fired or to be promoted many officials began using their positions to enrich themselves for example selling good on the black market