Why was it so diffucult for the Soviet system to distance itself from “Stalinism”? What kind of role did ideology play in Khrushchev-era political choices? How did Otto Kuusinen´s political thinking compare with both contemporary and classical Marxist currents? These are the questions the author will illuminate in the present study, which is based on rare CPSU archives materials.

At the heart of the work stands full Presidium member and Central Committee Secretary Otto Kuusinen´s (1881–1964) “reform platform”: it is composed of private memoranda he drafted for Nikita Khrushchev in 1957–1961. Preceeding Mikhail Gorbachev´s perestroika by some thirty years, the former Social Democrat-turned-Communist and veteran Comintern functionary wished to reform the Soviet system by replacing “Stalinist” hypercentralisation and arbitrariness by a system of “socialist democracy”, hence making the regime more popular and predictable both domestically and internationally.

Kuusinen approached the issue from a theoretical perspective. To his mind permanent, concrete political changes in the character and methods of communist rule could only be achieved by first legitimising them ideologically. Here his main instrument was the state concept. If Kuusinen had had his way, the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat would have been announced at the 40th celebrations of the October Revolution in 1957, and the forthcoming CPSU programme would have become the document whence the Bolsheviks would draw the practical conclusions from this abolition and present a concrete plan for democratisation. Alas, the still influential conservative sections of the Party ideological establishment shared Kuusinen´s belief in the power of Marxism-Leninism, but not his desire to what now looks like a failed attempt to renew a basically unreformable system.

Why was it so diffucult for the Soviet system to distance itself from “Stalinism”? What kind of role did ideology play in Khrushchev-era political choices? How did Otto Kuusinen´s political thinking compare with both contemporary and classical Marxist currents? These are the questions the author will illuminate in the present study, which is based on rare CPSU archives materials.

At the heart of the work stands full Presidium member and Central Committee Secretary Otto Kuusinen´s (1881–1964) “reform platform”: it is composed of private memoranda he drafted for Nikita Khrushchev in 1957–1961. Preceeding Mikhail Gorbachev´s perestroika by some thirty years, the former Social Democrat-turned-Communist and veteran Comintern functionary wished to reform the Soviet system by replacing “Stalinist” hypercentralisation and arbitrariness by a system of “socialist democracy”, hence making the regime more popular and predictable both domestically and internationally.

Kuusinen approached the issue from a theoretical perspective. To his mind permanent, concrete political changes in the character and methods of communist rule could only be achieved by first legitimising them ideologically. Here his main instrument was the state concept. If Kuusinen had had his way, the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat would have been announced at the 40th celebrations of the October Revolution in 1957, and the forthcoming CPSU programme would have become the document whence the Bolsheviks would draw the practical conclusions from this abolition and present a concrete plan for democratisation. Alas, the still influential conservative sections of the Party ideological establishment shared Kuusinen´s belief in the power of Marxism-Leninism, but not his desire to what now looks like a failed attempt to renew a basically unreformable system.