Politics and History In The Soviet Union

Historiography in the mid-twentieth century USSR was charged to an unprecedented degree with the functions of legitimizing political institutions perpetuating established mores and mythology and rationalizing official policies. The specific claims of Marxist-Leninist doctrine placed the Soviet historian -- required to serve as scholar high priest and political functionary often caught between the conflicting pressures of ideological orthodoxy and liberalization -- under special tensions. This book presents a detailed analysis of Soviet historiography of the Communist Party in the USSR after Khrushchev's secret speech denouncing Stalin through the Twenty-third Party Congress (roughly 1956-1966). The author uses source materials that she spent a number of years reading and translating -- Soviet mass-edition texts and pamphlets scholarly monographs articles in historical journals and the popular press -- to construct a schematic chronology of developments in political history and related political events under Khrushchev and his immediate successors.