18 June 1957 - The Anti-Party Group is Arrested by the Kruschevites

[AgentSonya]

The Anti-Party Group (Russian: Антипартийная группа, tr. Antipartiynaya gruppa) was a Stalinist group within the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that unsuccessfully attempted to depose Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Party in June 1957. The group, given that epithet by Khrushchev, was led by former Premiers Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov and former First Deputy Chairman Lazar Kaganovich. The group rejected both Khrushchev's liberalization of Soviet society and his denunciation of Joseph Stalin, and promoted the full restoration and preservation of Stalinism.

The members of the group regarded Khrushchev's attacks on Stalin, most famously in the Secret Speech delivered at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 as wrong and hypocritical, given Khrushchev's complicity in the Great Purge and similar events as one of Stalin's favorites. They believed that Khrushchev's policy of peaceful coexistence would jeopardize struggle against capitalist powers internationally.

By 1957 Nikita Khrushchev was in a relatively secure position as first secretary of the Communist Party. Several years earlier he had outmaneuvered Georgii Malenkov for party leadership by stressing the need to continue developing heavy industry and increasing military expenditures, policies that appealed to core constituencies of the party. He also built via the power of appointment an extensive network of loyal clients in the central apparatus and regional party organizations. He had weathered the storms of the previous year in eastern Europe occasioned by destalinization, and could point to the success of his Virgin Lands scheme that had brought millions of new acres under cultivation.

Now determined to liberalise the economy, decentralise economic planning, Khrushchev embarked on a radical restructuring of economic administration. In February he announced the abolition of most central industrial ministries and the creation of 107 regional economic councils (sovnarkhozy) corresponding to the territorial divisions of oblasts and autonomous republics. Intended to bolster regional party leaders’ participation in and supervision over economic decision-making, the “Law on Further Improving the Organization of Management of Industry and Construction” was passed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on May 10, 1957.

Stung by the implications of this decentralization program, Viacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich and several other Stalinist stalwarts confronted Khrushchev at a meeting of the party’s Presidium in late June. They accused him of sowing disunity in the party, promoting his “cult of personality,” and otherwise acting irresponsibly. However, Khrushchev parried this attempt to oust him as first secretary in favor of Nikolai Bulganin by calling an extraordinary session of the Central Committee. Thanks to Georgii Zhukov, the Minister of Defense who arranged military transport to bring Khrushchev’s supporters to the capital, the majority in the Central Committee turned the tables on Khrushchev’s critics by denouncing them as an “anti-Party group” and confirming him in office. The conspirators were forced to resign from the Presidium and assume minor posts in the state bureaucracy. Zhukov was rewarded for his support by being upgraded from a candidate to full member of the Presidium, but in October 1957 he was removed from office and sent into retirement, undoubtedly because he had come to represent a threat to party oversight of the military.

[JoeySteel]

Zhukov came down on side of the Kruschevites

Molotov was supported by Kaganovich and Malenkov and these three formed the core of a growing opposition to Khrushchev on the Presidium. Throughout these disputes Zhukov remained a staunch supporter of Khrushchev’s. As he later recalled: “Personally, I thought that Khrushchev’s line was more correct than that of Kaganovich and Molotov, who stuck to the old dogmas and did not want to change in accordance with the spirit of the times.”
Khrushchev’s power struggle with Molotov came to a head following a speech given by the Soviet leader in Leningrad in May 1957 in which he pledged that the USSR would overtake the United States in the production of meat, butter, and milk within a few short years. This entirely unrealistic target was announced by Khrushchev without consultation and asserted a style of decision-making that threatened to usurp the power and prerogatives of the Presidium. In short, the post-Stalin collective leadership was being subverted by the emergence of a new boss. This development was unwelcome to a majority of Presidium members, including Bulganin and Dmitry Shepilov, Molotov’s short-lived successor as foreign minister (he had been replaced by Gromyko in February 1957).
With a majority of full (voting) members of the Presidium on their side the Molotov group attempted a coup against Khrushchev. On June 18 the conspirators lured Khrushchev to a meeting, supposedly of the Council of Ministers but which metamorphosed into an impromptu gathering of the Presidium. Khrushchev was not without his supporters and he managed to fend off the demand that he resign immediately as party leader. Zhukov and Mikoyan were his strongest backers. Indeed, before the meeting Zhukov had rebuffed an attempt by Malenkov to recruit him to the conspiracy. According to Zhukov, Khrushchev was confused and demoralized at the Presidium meeting and it was only his support that saved the day. “Georgy, you have saved the position,” Zhukov recalled Khrushchev telling him, “only you could do it. I will never forget that.” 46

With Zhukov’s help Khrushchev arranged military transport for Central Committee members to fly to Moscow to demand the convening of a full Central Committee plenum. By day three of the Presidium meeting the Molotov group—dubbed the “antiparty group” by their opponents—were forced to agree to a Central Committee meeting to decide on Khrushchev’s leadership. 47 The 200 or so members of the Central Committee had been elected at the 20th Party Congress and were overwhelmingly pro-Khrushchev. At the plenum from June 22 to 29 the members of the so-called antiparty group found themselves in a tiny minority and Zhukov was at the forefront of the attack on Molotov and his co-conspirators. The first speech at the plenum was made by Khrushchev’s ideology chief, Mikhail Suslov, but thesecond came from Zhukov, who launched a ferocious attack on the antiparty group focused on their culpability for the crimes of the Stalin era.

Zhukov revealed to the plenum that between February 27, 1937, and November 12, 1938, Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich had personally sanctioned 38,679 political executions. On one day alone November 12, 1938—Stalin and Molotov signed death warrants for a list of 3,167 people. “I don’t know whether they even read the list,” commented Zhukov. After giving more details of killings, Zhukov concluded: “I think it is necessary to discuss this question at the Plenum and to demand from Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov an explanation for their abuse of power.” Zhukov’s intervention notwithstanding, the crimes of the Stalin era did not become a major theme of discussion, not least because it raised too many uncomfortable questions about Khrushchev’s role in those events.

Zhukov did not speak again at the plenum but he did make numerous interjections, often working in tandem with Khrushchev to heckle the members of the antiparty group when they spoke. “Speak about the responsibility for the criminality, for the shootings,” he demanded of Kaganovich. “This is the most important question.” He seems to have taken particular pleasure at the discomfort of Bulganin, who had supported the antiparty group at the Presidium but now tried to explain away his actions. At one point during Bulganin’s speech Zhukov began to interrogate him and told him not “to twist things around if you want to be an honest man.” Reading the transcript of the plenum Zhukov comes across as someone who was enjoying himself. 48 The result of the plenum was a foregone conclusion. Molotov, Malenkov, and Kaganovich were stripped of their government posts and expelled from the Presidium and the Central Committee.

Molotov was subsequently exiled to the ambassadorship of the People’s Republic of Mongolia while Malenkov was sent to direct a power station in Kazakhstan and Kaganovich became manager of a potash factory in the Urals. Bulganin escaped with a censure but he was soon ousted as prime minister by Khrushchev, who took the post himself. The plenum was undoubtedly a great triumph for Khrushchev but Zhukov was the real star of the show. His reward was promotion to full membership of the Presidium.

- Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin's General, p231