The year 1956 was the culmination of the political career of
the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It happened during the 20th Communist
Party Congress, at a time when Stalin's portraits still adorned offices
and his statues overlooked every other square across the nation. And still,
the term "personality cult" was increasingly cropping up in major
newspapers and political writings, all saying that idolizing the leader
contradicted the very spirit and the letter of Marxism-Leninism. Already
during a preliminary discussion of his report to the congress, Khrushchev
suggested including in a special chapter on the personality cult only to
be turned down by most of the other members of the Central Committee. Unfazed
by the setback, Khrushchev, still went ahead with his famous Secret Report
on February 25 laying bare many theretofore unknown details of Stalin's
Great Terror. Naturally enough, Khrushchev put the blame fully on Stalin's
doorstep painstakingly downplaying his own role in the purges. Overall,
he tried to underscore the ruinous effect the purges had had on the party
and state apparatus. The speech dropped a real bombshell! To avoid a public
uproar, the delegates decided to keep the content of Khrushchev's report
under wraps, but the rumor started spreading like brushfire all across
the country…
The denunciation of Stalin's crimes rattled the more hard-line
East European leaders and triggered a wave of public discontent in Poland
and Hungary. In autumn the situation in Hungary came to a head with people
rioting in the streets against the Communists and demanding an end to their
country's dependence on the Soviet Union. Young people and former soldiers
were active in Budapest and other cities setting up armed units and, shortly
after, the rebels were fully in control of the nation's capital. Seriously
alarmed by what was going on, the Soviet leaders, sent tanks rolling into
the city where thousands of Hungarians and Soviet troops died in street
battles which stretched out well into the winter…
Meanwhile, things started getting sour also in the Middle East
where the Egyptian President Gamal Abd-Al Nasser demanded the handover
of the British-controlled Suez Canal. To offset the Western influence in
the region, Nasser started seeking the friendship of the Soviet Union.
During the fall, Britain, France and Israel launched a joint military operation
to topple Nasser and bring back their military bases and the Suez Canal
which had already been nationalized by the Egyptians. When the popular
revolt broke out in Hungary, the allies decided the time was right for
them to strike, but the whole plan fell through after the Soviet Union
demanded an immediate end to the trilateral aggression against Egypt and
warned it would not prevent volunteers joining in the fray. Britain, France
and Israel got the hint and quickly withdrew their troops thus signaling
the start of a very important shift in the Soviet policy in the Middle
East. Before the conflict, the Soviet Union favored the creation of two
separate states in Palestine - one for the Jews and one for the Arabs,
giving more preference to Israel in the hope that it would help counterbalance
the British influence in the region. Those hopes never came true though,
and, viewing Israel as just another proxy for the United States, the Soviet
Union started mending fences with the Arabs. Nasser's government was saved
and Soviet-Egyptian friendship strengthened and lasted for a whole 15 years…
The outstanding German author, stage director and poet Berthold
Brecht died and, in the same year of 1956, one of the world's the greatest
tennis players of all time, Bjorn Borg was born in Sweden. He later became
a five times winner of Wimbledon and boasted six wins at the French Open.
In 1956 the Oscar-winning American actress Grace Kelley gave up a very
fast moving career in Hollywood to marry Prince Renier III of Monaco. In
Britain, Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake launched the pop art movement
of young artists who combined popular advertising, cinema and television
images series to create a virtually new art form. In the United States,
physicist and gene researcher William Shockley won the Nobel Prize for
his invention of the transistor.
Also in 1956, the first edition of the Guinness Book of World
Records came out in the United States, one year after the series were originally
launched in London. The whole idea to publish the book came on November
10, 1951 when Sir Hugh Beaver, the head manager of the Guinness beer company
was hunting with friends out in southeastern Ireland. At one point they
started arguing about the fastest-flying bird around and Sir Hugh thought
that hundreds of other such things were apparently being discussed in all
the 80,000-plus pubs across England and Ireland and that there was not
a single book of records in existence. The Guinness Book of World Records
publishing company eventually opened at 107 Fleet Street in London and
the first 198-page edition came out in 1955. More than 65 million copies
were sold worldwide by 1990 which made 182 stacks each the size of Mt.
Everest .
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series
of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
BACK TO MAIN PAGE
