I feel like if the USSR had avoided Gorbachev and his bloc's bullshit we probably wouldn't be having that conversation and would probably see Khrushchev as a forgettable, minor figure with bad but ultimately inconsequential policies. It's the fact that Khrushchev's reforms ultimately led to Gorbachev (and the material conditions that created his base of support in the liberal-leaning academics and Soviet equivalent of the PMC) that makes him so infamous today.
To put it another way, if Khrushchev's actions didn't have the consequences they did, we wouldn't care enough to argue whether he was a net good or bad. And hell, maybe in ten or fifteen years we'll have stopped caring about Deng because everything will have worked out in the end, or maybe we'll have conclusively decided that just like Khrushchev he was the defining turning point where China's course really changed for the worse.
Khrushchev calling for an end to the dictatorship of the proletariat at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union certainly did not help either. The fact that he was even allowed to get away with that revealed that significant ideological decay was already present within the party far before Gorbachev became General Secretary. His denouncement of Stalin also arguably contributed to the corrosion of a Soviet identity which helped precipitate the rise of nationalism throughout the Soviet Republics that played a role in the Soviet Union's dissolution. People can also say what they want about Deng (his foreign policy was absolute garbage in true Sino-Soviet split fashion and his "One country, two systems" policy was arguably too lenient), but he did famously call out Gorbachev as an idiot for continuing to dissolve what was left of the DotP via Glasnost and Deng did defend Mao's legacy despite acknowledging what he perceived to be some of his mistakes later in life. Deng Xiaoping also established ideological discipline within the party with the Four Cardinal Principles that are not up for debate within the CPC:
The principle of upholding the socialist path
The principle of upholding the people's democratic dictatorship
The principle of upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China
The principle of upholding Mao Zedong Thought and Marxism–Leninism
Mao is a hero, but he made mistakes and we need to move forward is pretty dramatically diferent from Stalin was a criminal and we need to move forward.
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I feel like if the USSR had avoided Gorbachev and his bloc's bullshit we probably wouldn't be having that conversation and would probably see Khrushchev as a forgettable, minor figure with bad but ultimately inconsequential policies. It's the fact that Khrushchev's reforms ultimately led to Gorbachev (and the material conditions that created his base of support in the liberal-leaning academics and Soviet equivalent of the PMC) that makes him so infamous today.
To put it another way, if Khrushchev's actions didn't have the consequences they did, we wouldn't care enough to argue whether he was a net good or bad. And hell, maybe in ten or fifteen years we'll have stopped caring about Deng because everything will have worked out in the end, or maybe we'll have conclusively decided that just like Khrushchev he was the defining turning point where China's course really changed for the worse.
Hot take: Stalin ruined everything by dying.
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Khrushchev calling for an end to the dictatorship of the proletariat at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union certainly did not help either. The fact that he was even allowed to get away with that revealed that significant ideological decay was already present within the party far before Gorbachev became General Secretary. His denouncement of Stalin also arguably contributed to the corrosion of a Soviet identity which helped precipitate the rise of nationalism throughout the Soviet Republics that played a role in the Soviet Union's dissolution. People can also say what they want about Deng (his foreign policy was absolute garbage in true Sino-Soviet split fashion and his "One country, two systems" policy was arguably too lenient), but he did famously call out Gorbachev as an idiot for continuing to dissolve what was left of the DotP via Glasnost and Deng did defend Mao's legacy despite acknowledging what he perceived to be some of his mistakes later in life. Deng Xiaoping also established ideological discipline within the party with the Four Cardinal Principles that are not up for debate within the CPC:
Mao is a hero, but he made mistakes and we need to move forward is pretty dramatically diferent from Stalin was a criminal and we need to move forward.