I know historical hindsight is 20/20, but how did no one bully this guy into giving up his moronic "de-stalinisation" policy? Like the SU was built by Stalin and now suddenly hes satan incarnate? No wonder SU citizens lost faith in the party over time, how can you trust a bunch weather vanes?
looking at the evidence for a purge not catching the guy who turned out to be a problem: what if we tried again and the bad guy was even more in charge of the direction this purge could take? have we considered that maybe soviet purges were not best practices?
nah, purges are a necessary thing. reactionaries and revisionists will always be entering the party, as seen with kruschev and gorbachev, so there must be ways to eliminate them if necessary. I dont think though that they need to be violent, just demotions or firing works plenty fine.
if Khrushchev's allies were silenced before he could use them, then he wouldn't have been much of a problem anyway.
i'm not criticising the idea of kicking people out of parties, i'm talking about the executions of innocent party members and military officers that was allowed to happen. without a structural change to the forms of party security and discipline, there is no reason to believe the same dysfunctional tool would be successful if applied again.
Yeah in hindsight the purges have to be regarded as a failure. I personally think that the only way to save the Soviet Union would have been to massively increase political participation, turn the CPSU into a dynamic and constantly growing political organization so you can have a better talent pipeline into top offices, instead of getting stuck with a bunch of old guys for a long time and then Gorbachev.
Removed by mod
I removed the tracking from your link since the mod didn't like that, part 1 part 2 part 3, I'll watch these when I get the chance.
oh so thats what happened lol