WI: Khrushchev Is A Democratic Socialist

What if Khrushchev was much more anti-Stalinist and democratic socialist? Would he still have been taken down by Brezhnev in 1964? Would Soviet-US relations worsen or get better?
 
Khruschev was taken down for being Khruschev, rash, impulsive, and talking a big talk that was making the Soviets look stupid.
 
If he had been a dem-soc he would have been purged at some point by Uncle Joe, or would have kept his damn mouth shut and abridged his principles for power.

Soviet Union, past the point of Lenin and Stalin, probably cannot into democracy. Gorbachev happened after Khrushchev, the Brezhnev years and Afghanistan, by which point the Union was weak enough to allow room for a reformer to come in.
 
The perfect time for Khrushchev to come out is as a socialist humanist over 1956. This would involve forming a bloc with Mikoyan and Zhukov and preemptively purging the anti-party bloc during a major revolutionary crisis.

I suppose, if Khrushchev were a socialist humanist at heart, that the 1955 sacking of Imre Nagy would have been seen as an attack on himself, and that the Secret Speech would have been used to mobilise a potential pre-emptive strike on the anti-party bloc.

All in all it would make for a revolutionary situation in 1956 across Poland, Hungary and the USSR.

And it is as likely as porcine aviation.

yours,
Sam R.
 
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Cook

Banned
What if Khrushchev was much more anti-Stalinist and democratic socialist? Would he still have been taken down by Brezhnev in 1964? Would Soviet-US relations worsen or get better?

I think you need to be more definite as to what differences in Khrushchev’s policies you are considering. Khrushchev wasn’t removed from power because of his anti-Stalinism; Khrushchev’s expansion of the Central Committee and appointment of new personnel meant that by 1957 the Stalinists made up a minority. It was Khrushchev’s ‘reckless adventurism’, risking nuclear war with the United States by sending missiles to Cuba, a decision taken by him largely without consultation with associates (seen by those associates as a return to Stalinist ways) that was the principal reason for his overthrow. Another example of his erratic decision making without consultation were his overtures to West Germany, where he talked of the ‘spirit of Rapallo’ (the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo, between the Weimer republic and Soviet Union, had ended the post Brest-Litovsk animosity and led to close ties between the two states) and discussed reunification of Germany (sacrificing East Germany in the process) in return for German neutrality and an end to tensions with the west.
 
Well, sorry I was a bit vague, but would've he been chosen after Stalin if he was a democratic socialist and made an alliance with Mikoyan and Zhukov?

EDIT: Sorry, meant Zhukhov.
 
What if Khrushchev was much more anti-Stalinist and democratic socialist? Would he still have been taken down by Brezhnev in 1964? Would Soviet-US relations worsen or get better?

As it was, in 1957 the "Anti-Party Group" almost overthrew Khrushchev, in part because of a feeling that he had "gone too far" in his criticism of Stalin in 1956. If he had gone further in a reformist direction in 1956, he would probably have been overthrown, with virtually nobody on the Presidium to support him except Mikoyan.
 
When Zukhov become a democratic socialist?

If you meant "When did Zhukov become a democratic socialist?" he didn't. But his advice in the October/November Political Committee meetings of the Central Committee indicate clear hesitation over repressing Hungary's workers councils. Not like Mikoyan ringing home with reports, "This is great! Everything's awesome" from the ground, but enough to indicate that Zhukov was movable in the PC and was open to workers' control. And Zhukov did assist against the anti-party bloc.

If we postulate that the Hungarian party's composition was more or less identical with other parties, then we can assume that similar leadership level figures to Nagy, and much more importantly the circle surrounding Nagy may exist in the Soviet Union. Mikoyan's reports to the PC indicate that this is moderately likely.

yours,
Sam R.
 
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