The Politburo and Soviet History (Spring 1985–Spring 1988)

Abstract

In the first eighteen months after Gorbachev’s appointment the Politburo took a cautious or even conservative attitude to Soviet history. In May 1985, in his speech on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of victory in the second world war, Gorbachev proclaimed that ‘the gigantic work at the front and in the rear was led by the party, its Central Committee, and the State Committee of Defence headed by the General Secretary of the CC CPSU(b) [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)] Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin’, and this statement was greeted with prolonged applause.1 Four months later he unstintingly praised Stakhanovism at the meeting celebrating the 50th anniversary of Stakhanov’s record shift in the coal mines.2