In March 1953 Iosif Stalin died.[21] For the next two years there had been struggle for power among the elite. The victor of that inner-party struggle was Nikita Khrushchev. The new Soviet leader was much more liberal than Stalin. He condemned his former patron’s rule of terror and started a liberalization campaign, which came to be known as de-Stalinization or the thaw.
The thaw was characterized by the relaxation of ideological control in the sphere of culture. The weakening of ideological pressure led to the revival of national cultural life in all Soviet republics, including Ukraine. Some Ukrainian cultural figures, repressed in the 1930s, were rehabilitated. Millions of GULAG prisoners were released and returned home. The Ukrainian language and culture got a fresh breath and produced such a phenomenon as “the sixties group” (shistdesiatnyky). This group included writers, film directors, artists, poets, composers and other cultural figures who tried not only to glorify the Soviet regime but also to introduce some non-ideological innovations in their fields of cultural activity. They also tried to renew traditional Ukrainian cultural values and to defend the Ukrainian language against Russification.
The life of peasants was significantly eased during the Khrushchev period. Peasants were given passports and pensions. Their wages increased and they also started to pay fewer taxes. To enlarge the quantity of grain Khrushchev launched the so-called Tselina program. That was an attempt to solve the food problem by extensive way. Dozens of thousands of young Ukrainians enthusiastically responded to the Party’s call and went to Kazakhstan, Western Siberia, and Northern Caucuses to cultivate virgin lands.
Khrushchev also tried to significantly improve the living standards of Soviet citizens. He launched an extensive building program. Millions got new apartments in the so-called khrushchevki (the type of an apartment building). Salaries and wages of ordinary people rose substantially. Many families now could allow having such unthinkable in Stalin’s time goods as washing machines, refrigerators, type-recorders, and TV-sets.
Since the rate of growth of Soviet industry was the highest in the world, Khrushchev decided to announce in 1961 that the Soviet Union would catch up with America soon and build a communist society by 1980. The Soviet leader did not understand that the West was experiencing a technological revolution which was characterized by quality and not by quantity (as was the Soviet case). Thus, his announcement was purely utopian and produced numerous anecdotes.
Khrushchev was a very controversial leader. Besides his merits, he is noted for numerous mistakes. He reduced peasants’ private plots (ohorody) by half and thus diminished the number of agricultural products at city markets.[22] As a result of Khrushchev’s famous corn idea, collective farms were forced to plant corn everywhere. A lot of fertile land was used for corn instead of grain.[23] Thus, the Soviet Union started to import grain instead of exporting it. Taxes were imposed on citizens who kept cattle. That measure sharply reduced the amount of meat and milk in the country. Food shortages appeared in cities and towns. Due to Khrushchev’s atheistic campaign about 50 percent of churches disappeared. Many architectural religious masterpieces were destroyed.
Several inconsistent structural reforms were carried out in industry and the party. These reforms came down into history as Khrushchev’s chekharda. They contributed to a significant slowdown of economic growth at the end of his rule. The most irritating for the party hierarchy was a reform of rotation. The reform put the careers of many party bosses at risk, since it did not allow them to occupy important state positions for more than a certain number of years. This reform was designed to enliven the party apparatus but it only scared the party leaders who were afraid of loosing their jobs. Thus, it did not look surprisingly that the party elite decided to remove Khrushchev from power. On October 14, 1964, at the party plenum, Khrushchev was forced to resign. Leonid Brezhnev became the party’s leader.
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