The 20th Congress of the CPSU: A Change of Eras, Lessons, and Consequences. RUSO Round Table in Pravda

A roundtable discussion dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the 20th Congress of the CPSU was held at the Pravda newspaper. Representatives of the All-Russian Movement "Russian Scientists for Socialism" (RUSO) participated. A heated and fundamental discussion took place about the causes and consequences of the secret report "on the cult of personality" released at the congress.

I.N. Makarov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the Central Council of the Russian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (RUSO ), emphasized that February 1956 marked a turning point in the history of the Party and the Soviet Union. While the consequences of N.S. Khrushchev's "secret" report "on the cult of personality" are often discussed, it is equally important to analyze what preceded it.

The very term "personality cult" was used in Khrushchev's report with reference to a letter from Karl Marx to Wilhelm Bloss, in which he spoke of his "hostility to any personality cult," since the necessary citation could not be found in Lenin's works. Paradoxically, none other than I.V. Stalin, sharply criticizing the publication of "Stories about Stalin's Childhood," wrote to the publisher: "The book tends to instill in the minds of Soviet children (and people in general) a cult of personalities, leaders, and infallible heroes," Stalin wrote in 1938. "This is dangerous, harmful. The theory of 'heroes' and 'crowds' is not a Bolshevik theory, but a Socialist Revolutionary theory." The book's print run was destroyed.

Igor Nikolaevich also recalled that G.I. Malenkov, the day after Stalin's funeral on March 10, 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, stated: "We had major abnormalities, much was along the lines of the personality cult" and emphasized: "We consider it imperative to end the policy of the personality cult."

So Khrushchev turned out to be only the third critic of the “cult of personality.”

L.P. Beria, according to Konstantin Simonov, already declared in the spring of 1953 that he was renouncing the leader and "intending to tell the whole truth about him." A group led by Khrushchev later took advantage of Beria's "predecessor."

I.N. Makarov quoted the resolution of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, "On the Restoration of Full Historical Justice in Relation to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin": "In July 1953, at the plenum of the Party Central Committee, these plans were met with resistance from Andrei Andreevich Andreyev, Ivan Fedorovich Tevosyan, and other comrades. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov persistently and convincingly expressed his rejection of attacks on I.V. Stalin."

Molotov later acknowledged Stalin's mistake in failing to prepare his successor, and that "Khrushchev was no accident," while there was disunity among his opponents. Molotov himself was consistently discredited in 1954–1955 and ultimately accused of "revisionism."

As early as late 1953, Khrushchev ordered the collection of material on mass repressions. A memo dated February 1, 1954, signed by Prosecutor General R. Rudenko, Minister of Justice K. Gorshenin, and Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov, stated that since 1921, 3,777,380 people had been convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes, including 624,980 sentenced to death.

Thirty years later, already on Gorbachev’s orders, the KGB of the USSR re-examined these figures: in 1930–1953, “sentences and decisions were passed against 3,778,234 people accused of counterrevolutionary and state crimes, of whom 786,098 were executed.”

In his "secret" report, Khrushchev insisted: "The terror turned out to be, in fact, directed not against the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes, but against honest cadres of the Party and the Soviet state, who were accused of false, slanderous, and senseless accusations of 'duplicity,' 'espionage,' 'sabotage,' the preparation of fictitious 'assassination attempts,' and so on." This thesis was adopted by all of Khrushchev's propaganda.

But not everyone agreed. I.N. Makarov quoted an excerpt from a letter to the newspaper Pravda from Dudchenko, a Rostov-on-Don commodity expert and a member of the CPSU since 1943: "All my doubts and hesitations about the correctness of the policies of certain leaders began with the 20th Congress, and more specifically, with the exposure of Stalin. I, like all the people, was raised throughout my life in the spirit of love for Stalin. In Stalin, the Soviet people had their leader and teacher... Who raised us to love Stalin? First and foremost, his comrades—Khrushchev, Bulganin, and others. We trusted them. Take any article of theirs before the 20th Congress; it began with Stalin's name and ended with Stalin's name."

Thousands of similar letters arrived at various party and government agencies.

F.S. Sanakoyev , First Secretary of the South Ossetian Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia from 1973 to 1988 and a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 9th, 10th, and 11th convocations , proposed viewing the historical role of the 20th Congress of the CPSU not simply as the exposure of a personality cult, but as the consequence of Stalin's grave mistake. In his view, the beginnings of this story were laid long before the Congress, during N.S. Khrushchev's studies at the Industrial Academy, where he became closely acquainted with Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Khrushchev managed to lavish her with attention, and she, sincerely believing in his integrity, began to recommend him to her husband. However, Alliluyeva was unaware of what many knew: Khrushchev never actually worked in a mine, despite creating the image of a proletarian miner. Stalin, who valued his wife's opinion and took into account the complex nature of their relationship, did not interfere with her requests, which gave Khrushchev a career springboard.

Another key factor that shaped Khrushchev's deep resentment was the tragic fate of his son Leonid, a pilot who went missing during the Great Patriotic War. F.S. Sanakoev suggests that this sparked a personal conflict that later erupted at the Party Congress.

Speaking about Khrushchev as a leader, the speaker emphasized his lack of literacy and theoretical training, which led to serious conflicts, including ideological discussions with the CPC, a denial of Chinese characteristics, and even armed clashes with China. While acknowledging that Stalin, too, had shortcomings and mistakes, as evident from the Politburo minutes, F.S. Sanakoyev urged us not to forget the most important thing: it was under Stalin that the greatest victories were won and grandiose plans were implemented, changing the lives of all the peoples of the USSR for the better. This, he concluded, is precisely why Georgian youth protested the unfounded accusations against the leader.

Ya. I. Listov, historian and publicist, member of the Presidium of the Central Council of the RUSO , recounted how the preparation of Khrushchev's report for the 20th Congress met with serious resistance within the Presidium of the Central Committee. As early as February 9, 1956, during the discussion of the Pospelov Commission's report on the repressions, a heated debate erupted: Anastas Mikoyan demanded the addition of shocking facts, while Vyacheslav Molotov, supported by Kaganovich and Voroshilov, insisted that while acknowledging Stalin's mistakes, his colossal service to the country could not be diminished. However, a new wave of protégés, led by A. B. Aristov, supported Khrushchev.

The decision regarding the report itself was made during the congress. On the evening of February 24, at an emergency meeting of the Presidium, Khrushchev outlined his report in outline form, which he subsequently revised several times. The following day, February 25, the delegates were informed of an additional closed session after the congress had formally concluded. This session was not attended by any invited or foreign guests. It is noteworthy that even before the secret report was read out, Khrushchev had received signals of a negative reaction: Allied and foreign delegations, particularly the Czechoslovakian one, condemned the tone of Mikoyan's speeches and warned that this abrupt shift in the assessment of Stalin, a figure respected throughout the global movement, played into the hands of the bourgeoisie.

Khrushchev ignored these warnings, as his goal was not to protect the rehabilitated members (which had already been going on before the Congress), but to discredit the old Politburo members and eliminate political rivals. In violation of the Presidium's decision to keep the report confidential, he handed copies to representatives of the socialist countries, Italy, and France, with a formal return stamp. The document was immediately leaked to the New York Times and published in Europe by underground anti-Soviet organizations. The Western reaction was immediate: Israeli politician D. Ben-Gurion predicted that the USSR would cease to exist within 20 years, and CIA founder A. Dulles called the report the greatest tool in the fight against communism.

The communist movement split. Eurocommunism was born, and Palmiro Togliatti declared the cult of personality a product of the entire Soviet system. Crises erupted in Poland and Hungary, exacerbated by Khrushchev's interference in the personnel decisions of foreign parties. Within the USSR itself, the true history of the October Revolution was ideologically taboo for decades, leading to the indoctrination of young people in an anti-Soviet spirit.

Zh. T. Toshchenko, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philosophy, and Professor , urged that the significance of the 20th Congress of the CPSU should not be reduced solely to the discussion of the report on the cult of personality, recalling that it addressed many other crucial issues that shaped the country's development. He emphasized the positive context of the era: in the 1950s, the national economy demonstrated high growth rates of 10-12 percent. People were inspired by the monumental achievements—the development of virgin lands, the beginning of mass housing construction, which allowed millions of families to move from basements and barracks to individual apartments, and the first steps toward the large-scale development of Siberia and the Far East.

At the same time, Zhan Terentievich noted that the criticism of the personality cult voiced at the congress was far from unanimously received. It was after the 20th Congress that the phenomenon of the "sixties" emerged among young people.

He proposed looking at Stalin's personality in a broad historical context, placing him on a par with such ambiguous and contradictory figures as Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great, who should be assessed not by individual mistakes or character traits, but by the totality of the results they achieved.

L.N. Dobrokhotov , Advisor to the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Philosophy, and Professor at Lomonosov Moscow State University, emphasized that the CPRF's materials dedicated to assessing the 20th Congress are distinguished by their scholarly balance and commitment to historical truth, defending the honor and dignity of Russian history. He agreed that the significance of the Congress cannot be reduced to a mere critique of the personality cult, as it discussed both the achievements and the country's long-term development goals. However, in his opinion, Khrushchev's report inflicted unimaginable damage on the international communist movement and the CPSU, and ultimately predetermined the fate of the Soviet Union. This was the starting point for the ideologists of perestroika, led by A.N. Yakovlev, who subsequently embarked on the outright destruction of communist ideology, the party, and the state.

Touching upon the phenomenon of the "sixties generation," Leonid Nikolaevich noted its heterogeneity: among them there were indeed many talented and sincere people who maintained Soviet convictions, but, on the other hand, it was precisely from this environment that ardent anti-Sovietists subsequently emerged.

The negative political and historical consequences of the 20th Congress were enormous. It led to a severe conflict with the Communist Party of China, escalating to armed conflict between the fraternal countries, and also to a rupture with the Albanian Party of Labor. Khrushchev's report became the kindling that ignited the bloody events of 1956 in Hungary, orchestrated with CIA participation. A similar process unfolded in Czechoslovakia, where the organizers of the 1968 coup d'état also actively used Khrushchev's materials. L.N. Dobrokhotov cited research by American scholars, who, he claimed, concluded that Khrushchev's accusations were false.

Speaking about Stalin himself, Leonid Nikolaevich suggested that at the end of his life, he may not have had the health or time to discern the true nature of people like Khrushchev, Malenkov, or Beria, who, swearing personal loyalty, ultimately betrayed both the party and the country.

L.N. Dobrokhotov concluded his speech with a historical retrospective, recalling that an era of revolutionary change is never without its excesses. He drew a parallel with the Great French Revolution, which the world recognizes as a giant step forward, despite the terror that accompanied it. In France, it is celebrated with military parades. Against this backdrop, the Great October Socialist Revolution is an even more significant event, and acknowledging its difficult chapters should not obscure the most important point: no revolution in world history has been without violations of the law and repression, as Lenin himself emphasized.

M.V. Kostina, Secretary of the Central Council of the SKP-CPSU, Associate Professor at the Kaluga Branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and PhD in Sociology , drew on survey data to focus on how, decades after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Russian public opinion views Stalin and the significance of the Congress itself. She noted that the population generally has a positive assessment of Stalin's role in history. She cited a Levada Center poll (designated a foreign agent) conducted to coincide with the anniversary of the Congress as an example. The very wording of the question, however, already contained a negative assessment, referring to "condemnation of the personality cult" and "repression." Nevertheless, 46% of respondents gave Stalin an entirely positive or mostly positive assessment, while only 22% gave a negative one, and 30% were undecided.

M.V. Kostina recalled the scandal surrounding the "Name of Russia" project in 2008, when Stalin unexpectedly emerged as the winner of a ratings vote on the Rossiya television channel. To prevent his victory, manipulation was used, resulting in Alexander Nevsky being declared the winner, Stolypin being given second place, and Stalin being awarded only third place. However, alternative polls conducted by public organizations showed that the voting results were distorted: Stolypin's image as a great historical figure is virtually absent from the public consciousness, while Stalin's image is strongly associated with industrialization, victory in the Great Patriotic War, and the country's post-war reconstruction.

The speaker emphasized a consistent trend. While in 1994, 27% of respondents had a positive opinion of Stalin, while 47% had a negative one, today these figures have changed dramatically: 63% view him positively, while only 8% have a negative one. For many Russians, he has become a symbol of social justice, genuine equality, and respect for the common working man.

L.G. Baranova-Gonchenko, Advisor to the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for Culture, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, member of the Union of Russian Writers, and Acting Chair of the Presidium of the "Russian Lad" movement , focused on the cultural and ideological consequences of the 20th Congress, calling for a rethinking of Stalin's legacy, particularly in cinema. She recalled that even at the Congress itself, such masters as Mikhail Sholokhov criticized writers for their disconnect from the life of the people, from the village. To counter this disconnect, she suggested turning to the best films of the Stalin era—"The Swineherd and the Shepherd," "The Kuban Cossacks," "The Tale of the Siberian Land," and others. These films present that very romanticized yet inspiring panorama of life, that "Stalinist paradise" that the victorious people needed as a reward and as the embodiment of their dream of happiness. In this context, Stalin's toast "For the Russian people!" takes on special significance, in which the Russian national idea found its form and meaning, finding its dimension in the unity of the working people, in the code of honor of the family living "not for itself."

L.G. Baranova-Gonchenko believes that Khrushchev arbitrarily decided to eliminate this very semantic content of the Russian idea at the 20th Congress, just as he waged a campaign against Russian Orthodoxy. To support her argument, she quoted the Belarusian poet Mikhail Shelekhov, who wrote that it was Stalin's path of collectivism and statehood that allowed the country to endure and win the war, while the "American" farmer-oriented path that Stolypin dreamed of would have led to collapse. This was our only true path, and there is nothing to be ashamed of.

The congress's cultural consequences were complex and ambiguous. On the one hand, powerful village prose emerged—Fyodor Abramov, Valentin Rasputin, Vasily Belov—but their work, according to Larisa Georgievna, developed rather in defiance of the "thaw" liberalism, and many of them lacked Sholokhov's ability to rise to the understanding of historical necessity that the Civil War had given him. Another tragic consequence was the emergence of Solzhenitsyn in literature and Tvardovsky's evolution from the "Tyorkin" of the war years to "Tyorkin in the next world."

L.G. Baranova-Gonchenko devoted a special place in her speech to the fate of Russian poetry. Against the backdrop of the loud pop poetry of Yevtushenko, Voznesensky, and others, thundering from stadiums, existed the "quiet lyricism" of Nikolai Rubtsov, Yuri Kuznetsov, Stanislav Kunyaev, and Anatoly Peredreev. This poetry, rooted in their native land, was virtually unheard by the general public, but it was this poetry, published in the magazine "Nash Sovremennik," that, according to the speaker, became the hallmark of Russian poetry in the second half of the 20th century.

A landmark event in the struggle for this legacy was the discussion "Classics and Us," organized in 1977. For the first time in more than twenty years since the congress, Russian Soviet patriots openly discussed how classical literature had become a battleground for a "third world war" against Russian consciousness. The discussion's participants were accused of rehabilitating Stalin's legacy, while liberals claimed that both the authorities and the "naturna" writers had been indoctrinated by Stalin in the spirit of great-power ideology. Concluding her speech, L.G. Baranova-Gonchenko emphasized the fatal continuity: the anti-Stalinist fervor that began at the 20th Congress inevitably evolved into the open anti-Leninism of our time, and those who supposedly defended the purity of Lenin's ideas then today denounce them, along with the names of both leaders.

A.I. Aganin, a member of the Presidium of the Central Council of the Russian Communist Party (RUSO) and a PhD in physics and mathematics , examined the preconditions and consequences of the 20th Congress of the CPSU in the context of the power struggle and the shift in the economic model that began during Stalin's lifetime. He recalled that in the late 1940s, Stalin developed plans to reorganize the party's governance, seeking to free the party from economic functions, transfer them to the People's Commissariats, and focus on building an alternative global economic system. By the 19th Congress in 1952, the leadership had lost theorists of Zhdanov's stature; pragmatists dominated. Despite Stalin's request to relieve him of his party duties, the plenum rejected it. By early 1953, Stalin had drafted a decree transferring the post of head of government to Panteleimon Ponomarenko, his trusted ally. However, his death prevented the plan from being implemented, and the document was archived by his "heirs."

After the leader's death, a "troika" emerged consisting of Malenkov, Beria, and Khrushchev—organizers lacking strategic vision and theoretical training. This led to the curtailment of Stalin's economic plans and the onset of a bureaucratic struggle. The 20th Congress, which was supposed to be a routine summing up of the situation, marked a change in eras. In his report, Khrushchev, concealing his theoretical weaknesses, made a number of errors, but the main blow came on February 25 at a closed meeting with his "secret report" on the cult of personality. A.I. Aganin emphasized that Khrushchev was not the author of the criticism of Stalin—the methodological foundation had been laid by Malenkov back in 1953, but it was Khrushchev's delivery that transformed the report into a false and provocative instrument.

The consequences of this move were catastrophic for the international communist movement: the liquidation of the Information Bureau, the freezing of the Warsaw Pact, and a split with the Communist Parties of China and Albania, which perceived Stalin's criticism as a blow to their shared heritage and interference in their internal affairs. A "communist multi-party system" emerged, and the influence of communist parties worldwide weakened. Aganin directly linked these events with the subsequent collapse of the socialist system. In conclusion, he welcomed the resolution of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which officially recognized Khrushchev's report as erroneous, politically biased, and containing false accusations against Stalin, and called on the SKP-CPSU to adopt a similar document to restore historical justice.

I.M. Bratishchev, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Council of the Russian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Doctor of Economics , views the 20th Congress of the CPSU as a catalyst for large-scale economic and social transformations, emphasizing that many of the initiatives attributed to Khrushchev had earlier origins. He noted that Malenkov himself began the fight against the personality cult, while ideas about virgin land development and the benefits of corn were voiced long before Khrushchev, who, with his boundless energy, often carried other people's ideas to extremes.

The congress adopted a policy of expanding the rights of the Union republics in economic management, which entailed a series of administrative restructurings and reforms. The production functions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were eliminated, the system of forced labor was abolished, and industrial cooperatives were nationalized. Planning underwent multiple reorganizations: from 1955 to 1965, the structure of Gosplan changed five times. In the social sphere, the most important steps were the return to free education in universities and high schools, as well as the adoption of a law on state pensions, which streamlined disparate legislation and increased payments by 50% to 200%.

The economic strategy of the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1956–1960) emphasized new technologies, automation, and nuclear energy, necessitating the creation of a Ministry of Instrument Engineering. At the same time, grandiose projects were underway: the development of virgin lands and the electrification of railways. The 1957 reform of industrial and construction management transferred authority to economic councils, but caused chaos within the system. The Sixth Five-Year Plan was effectively abandoned, giving way to the Seven-Year Plan (1959–1965), which set an ambitious goal: to catch up with and surpass developed capitalist countries in per capita production through scientific and technological progress.

Igor Mikhailovich summarized that all post-war economic reforms in the USSR, including Khrushchev's, were attempts to resolve the fundamental contradiction between state needs and the individual demands of citizens, and this dilemma remained unresolved until perestroika.

L.V. Ermolaev, Advisor to the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, Honorary Prosecutor of the CIS countries, and State Justice Counselor of the Second Class , characterized the 20th Congress as voluntaristic and anti-Soviet, and called Khrushchev's secret report provocative. He emphasized that no one denies the violations of socialist legality that occurred during that period. However, in his opinion, catastrophic consequences could have been avoided if the criticism had been presented in a balanced manner, as the Chinese comrades did with Mao Zedong, rating his performance 70 percent positively and only 30 percent negatively.

L.V. Yermolaev noted that attempts to completely deny the existence of repression are sometimes encountered within the party, but this is a rare and extreme position. He recalled G.A. Zyuganov's words that the CPRF does not condone illegal repression and abuse, but that the great Soviet era is unimaginable without Leninist-Stalinist modernization, and that this modernization constitutes its historical meaning. The speaker noted that if the Communist Party comes to power, it will not tolerate lawlessness, and repression will be used only against lawbreakers.

A.L. Kruglikov, Deputy Chairman of the Central Council of the Russian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Doctor of Historical Sciences, and Professor , drew a direct line from the 20th Congress to the collapse of the Soviet Union, citing the authority of American politician Henry Kissinger, who in his book "Diplomacy" called Khrushchev the forerunner of Gorbachev and the starting point of the collapse of communism. The speaker stated that world history knows of no more prolonged and persistent campaign to denigrate a political figure than the anti-Stalinist campaign unleashed 70 years ago.

Alexander Leonidovich characterized Khrushchev's speech as an example of Goebbels's lies, built on half-truths, which led to a tragedy whose consequences are still felt today. Referring to the works of historian Igor Froyanov, he drew parallels between the events of the 15th century (the struggle against the Judaizing heresy) and the 20th century, seeing in Russian history an invariable struggle between two principles: the indigenous, nationalist one, and the globalist one, oriented toward Western values. The campaign against Stalin, in his view, was not born of the people, but rather of those who held a globalist worldview—the descendants of Westernizers, Trotskyists, and those who later fled to the West. The people, as polls show, always treated Stalin with respect.

A.L. Kruglikov emphasized that the topic of illegal repressions was raised during Stalin's lifetime, and rehabilitations were carried out repeatedly. As evidence of the artificial inflated scale of the repressions, he cited specific figures for the Ulyanovsk region for all years of Soviet power, published in the 1990s: in just the decade of "peak lawlessness" (the 1930s), 7,638 people were convicted under political statutes, compared to 885 in the 1920s and only a handful in the post-war period. These figures, he argued, are consistent with the findings of Viktor Zemskov, a doctor of historical sciences who exposed the lies about the scale of the repressions.

The main blow of the 20th Congress, according to the speaker, was dealt to the very system of life of the Soviet state, where the overall profitability of the national economy allowed for the maintenance of certain unprofitable but socially significant industries. Khrushchev and his supporters began to destroy this balance, taking reforms to the point of absurdity, even splitting the party into "industrial" and "agrarian" regional committees. The mondialist principle was not eradicated, and during the perestroika period, its supporters gained full scope for their activities. Thus, A.L. Kruglikov noted, American politician Henry Kissinger was absolutely right: the collapse of communism and the destruction of the USSR began precisely with Khrushchev.

Yu. P. Sinelshchikov , member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, and PhD in Law , detailed the legal details of the tragic events of the late 1930s, for which N. S. Khrushchev, in his report, placed the blame entirely on I. V. Stalin and his entourage. Moreover, as was noted, the "whistleblower" himself not only personally participated in these events but was also far from a sincere advocate of strict adherence to socialist legality. Two little-known episodes from post-Stalin judicial practice were cited as examples.

Thus, when 15-year-old Arkady Neiland killed a woman and her young son during a robbery in Leningrad in January 1964, the court's decision, ordered by Khrushchev, came as a surprise to everyone: the teenager was sentenced to death. This decision contravened the criminal law of the RSFSR, which limited capital punishment to individuals aged 18 to 60. The Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR tried to convince Khrushchev of the invalidity of this decision, but he remained adamant. To circumvent the law, Khrushchev ordered the preparation of a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on a specific case involving the death penalty. The verdict provoked an extremely negative reaction from legal professionals.

Another criminal case that generated widespread public attention was that of a group of currency traders led by Yan Rokotov. In 1961, Rokotov was serving a prison sentence of eight years. That same year, Khrushchev ordered a review of Rokotov's case, noting the sentence's excessive leniency. The USSR Prosecutor General attempted to explain to Khrushchev that there were no grounds for a review and that the law was not retroactive, but was instructed to increase the sentence. The second court sentenced Rokotov to 15 years in prison, the maximum penalty stipulated by the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. When Khrushchev was informed of the new sentence, he ordered the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to urgently issue a decree "On Strengthening Criminal Penalties for Violating Currency Transaction Rules." Following this, a third retrial took place: Rokotov, Faibishenko, and Yakovlev were sentenced to death by firing squad under the law passed after their crime. The sentence was carried out.

At Khrushchev's instigation, a series of violations of socialist legality against the Russian Orthodox Church began. Unfounded persecution of the clergy and lay believers began, followed by trumped-up criminal cases against religious communities and individual clergy members. In January 1965, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a resolution "On Certain Facts of Violation of Socialist Legality in Relation to Believers," which led to an additional review of the cases and the overturning of many court decisions. A significant number of convicted believers were rehabilitated.