№ 5 - 2005
Titov K.V.
“Contrat social” а la Khrushchev (The Report “On Personality Cult and Its Consequences” as Supreme Power’s Contract with Nomenclature)

The article is aimed at substantiating the thesis that N.S.Khrushchev’s report at a closed session of the 20th congress of the CPSU was in fact draft political contract proposed by the claimant upon supreme power to the claimants upon the role of the ruling class. Proceeding from the occurrence frequency analysis of the report’s fragments corresponding to the three “lines” of accusations brought against Stalin (violation of the principle of collective leadership in the party; mass repressive measures; assuming all the merits in so far as “the cause of socialist construction” and the victory over fascism are concerned), the author demonstrates that so far as the first two positions are concerned, it was first of all the superior nomenclature which figured in the report as the “party that had suffered”, to which the “invitation into the power” was exactly addressed and which was given guarantee of inviolability. In the author’s estimation, the conclusion of this contract proved to be the first step toward the conversion of the nomenclature into the “ruling elite”, which event undermined the foundations of the Soviet regime and led it in the long run to its breakup.