Excoriating Stalin, Criticizing Mao: Entangled Reevaluations of the Past in the 1950s Soviet Union and 1970s/80s China.

This article examines the intertwined yet distinct processes of Soviet de-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev in 1956 and China’s reassessment of Mao Zedong’s legacy led by Deng Xiaoping beginning in 1978. Both Communist Parties confronted the traumatic legacies of Stalin’s and Mao’s authoritarian rule, cults of personality, and arbitrary violence to initiate reforms aimed at regime stability, but their approaches differed significantly in content, form, and political context. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) studied the Soviet experience critically, using it as a negative example to avoid the social turmoil caused by Khrushchev’s secret speech, while simultaneously adapting some Soviet concepts to frame Mao’s legacy more positively and preserve Mao Zedong Thought as a source of legitimacy. This comparative analysis highlights how memory politics in authoritarian Marxist regimes are shaped by mutual influence, ideological considerations, and the imperative to maintain party rule, revealing complex transnational and diachronic entanglements rather than simple models of copying or opposition.