Stalinization, de-Stalinization, and re-Stalinization. 1953 behind the “Iron Curtain”

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present the changes that took place after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 in the Soviet Union and in some countries included in its “external empire”. The “Iron Curtain”, which divided the world into two parts, began to shift after the Generalissimo’s death and revealed differences in the approach of individual countries to the „new course” announced by Stalin’s successors. In some countries, the death of the Kremlin dictator began changes in the policy of the time, in others the methods characteristic of Stalinism were continued, which meant the activity of an all-powerful apparatus of repression seeking real and imagined “enemies”, the central authority of unlimited power with mass terror and striving for total control of citizens and all manifestations of social life. The text presents the most important elements of the policy of the Communist parties in the Soviet Union, GDR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria in 1953 which were consistent with the process of re-Stalinization, characterized by similarity to governments during the dictator’s life and de-Stalinization, that is, the reversals of methods and tools known in the Stalinism period.