Abstract:
Historians have previously analysed the crisis that gripped Western Communist
parties in 1956 in response to Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin at the Twentieth
Soviet Congress and the subsequent events in Poland and Hungary within a political
and institutional frame. This thesis provides a more personal analysis of those events
by examining and comparing the motivations and experiences of Communists who
left the Communist Party of New Zealand (CPNZ) and the Communist Party of the
United States of America (CPUSA) in the wake of the events of 1956. It uses
autobiographies, memoirs, letters, oral histories, periodicals and archival sources to
reveal the complex emotions and motivations which turned previously loyal Party
members into ex-Communists. Through its comparative focus, the thesis also
explores the different ways the CPNZ and CPUSA dealt with dissent, challenging the
concept of the monolithic party and providing new insight into Communist Party
organisations and the response of their leadership cadres to dissent and reformist
pressures.
This thesis explores the reasons why the events of 1956 resulted in a mass exodus
which cost the CPNZ twenty-five percent of its membership and the CPUSA seventyfive
percent of its members. It explores the responses of Communists in both parties
to the revelations of Stalin’s crimes and their participation in hitherto unprecedented
discussions and dissent. It examines the ways disillusioned Communists reassessed
their political pasts, their present affiliations and traces their evolution into becoming
ex-Communists. It then examines what ex-Communists faced in the transition to life
outside the Party. In doing so, this thesis fits into an emerging scholarship that
employs a more personal frame when approaching Communist history. It
acknowledges the agency of individual Communists as they grappled with the
consequences of de-Stalinisation, challenging narratives which portray Communists
as Soviet automatons and subsume their experiences within the institutional history of
the Party. The comparative focus of the thesis highlights the differences in national
context and leadership responses which resulted in a much higher rate of attrition for
the CPUSA than the CPNZ.
