The Gorbachev Foundation holds a Round Table on the 50th anniversary of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

     On February 15, the Gorbachev Foundation held a Round Table on the 50th anniversary of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Round Table discussion was organized by the Gorbachev Foundation and the Znamya magazine.
     Opening the discussion, Mikhail Gorbachev said that the 20th Congress of the CPSU not only gave a principled assessment of Stalin’s personality cult; it also made a serious review of the principles according to which the country was run and of the processes which related to the foundations of our life in general, including the issue of democracy. Ten years ago the Gorbachev Foundation held a serious discussion on this subject. Today “you and I are witnessing the renaissance of the image of the leader, Joseph Stalin. It looks formidable both in literary works and in motion pictures. Thus, now we see the image of a completely different person. And most importantly, we still cannot drive Stalinism, this disease, out of ourselves.” Therefore the 50th anniversary is a good occasion to once again recall the lessons of the 20th Congress and the lessons of our own history.
     The place of the 20th Congress in the Soviet history, its importance for the process of de-Stalinization, the personality of Nikita Khrushchev and his controversial policies, neo-Stalinism of the Brezhnev era, and parallels between the “thaw” and Perestroika were discussed by Nodar Simoniya, Grigory Vodolazov, Boris Slavin, Dmitry Maslov, Vadim Medvedev, Fedor Burlatsky, and Viktor Sheinis. Some interesting historical facts related to the period of the 20th Congress, namely to preparation of Nikita Khrushchev’s report, activities of the Shvernik Commission, and amnesty of 1953, were cited in the presentations by Yury Aksyutin, Grigory Pomerants, and Zorya Serebryakova. Zorya Serebryakova stressed that “the experience of the “thaw” and particularly of Perestroika refutes assertions that morality is absent from politics.” Vladimir Ryzhkov in his speech made an emphasis on the significance of the 20th Congress for the present day, the more so that the 50th anniversary of the Congress provides an occasion to once again reflect on the relationship between the government and the society at the present day. The theme of a link between the 20th Congress and the present day was explored in the presentation by Boris Dubin titled “The 20th Congress and the Public Opinion,” in which he showed the shifts that took place over the past ten years in the attitudes of the Russian public towards the figure and the activities of Stalin, towards Khrushchev’s “thaw,” and Perestroika. Citing the findings of opinion surveys, he confirmed the existence of the trend of neo-Stalinism, which was referred to at the Round Table meeting.
     Marietta Chudakova, Aleksey Berelovich, Sergey Chuprinin, Natalia Ivanova, Igor Vinogradov, and Marlen Khutsiyev reflected on the fortune of the Russian culture and the life of an artist after the 20th Congress, on the new type of a person, on the “thaw” period and Perestroika, and on personal experience of an artist from the generation of the 60s.
     Verbatim record of the Round Table discussion in the Russian language will be posted at the Web site of the Gorbachev Foundation.
     Proceedings of the Round Table meeting will be published as part of the Gorbachev Readings project.