The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. As the Soviet Union’s only ruling party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) made brilliant achievements during its eventful history of over 90 years, but in the end—in a regrettable turn of events—it left the stage of history. Although scholars and Marxist theorists alike have yet to reach a consensus on the causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the CPSU, it is clear that historical nihilism within the CPSU dealt a fatal blow to its rule. China is currently the largest socialist country in the world; studying the errors in and lessons of the CPSU’s handling of historical issues, which can serve as a cautionary example, is important for the strengthening of socialist ideology and adherence to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

I. The development of the countercurrent of historical nihilism within the CPSU

The second half of the twentieth century saw two upsurges of historical nihilism in the CPSU. Under the pretext of “re-evaluating history,” these movements—championed by Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev respectively—misrepresented, attacked, and slandered CPSU leaders and even repudiated the October Revolution and the achievements of Soviet socialism.

(1) The first upsurge of historical nihilism within the CPSU

The first upsurge of historical nihilism in the CPSU began at the end of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, when Khrushchev gave a four-hour-long “secret speech” entitled “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,” which subjected Joseph Stalin to a great “trial,” ruthlessly criticizing his character and cooking up charges against him to obliterate his achievements. Khrushchev’s “secret speech” set a precedent of repudiating the CPSU’s history and rang up the curtain on the first wave of historical nihilism within the CPSU. “In the late 1950s, after Khrushchev consolidated his position as the chief leader of the Party and the government, this fighter against the cult of personality turned around and started his own personality cult.”¹ After taking power, Khrushchev became increasingly self-aggrandizing while criticizing Stalin, and a nihilistic campaign against Stalin was launched in the CPSU, with the sacred image of Stalin in people’s hearts completely torn apart. As Chairman Mao commented, “Khrushchev’s secret speech against Stalin not only lifted the lid, which was good, but also stirred the pot, which shocked the whole world.”² The 20th Congress of the CPSU shook the entire communist movement to its foundations. Anti-communist and anti-socialist political activities emerged at some universities and research institutes, and there were even slogans of “Down with the Communist Party” and “Down with the Soviets” shouted at marches.³ Historical nihilism did not analyze the Stalin model in a dialectical manner and simply equated him with the cult of personality, repression, and concentration camps, even seeing him as a tyrant. In fact, “Soviet people who had firsthand experience of the Stalin era emphatically affirmed Stalin’s great contributions, but they also personally suffered the bitter consequences of his errors in the Great Purge and his insufficiently democratic, even overbearing leadership style.”⁴

When Leonid Brezhnev came to power, however, he selectively ignored Stalin’s errors and stressed only his achievements, going from one extreme to another. Brezhnev mounted a full defense of Stalin and of the CPSU’s history and did not treat them dialectically. This kind of one-sided assessment of history had exactly the opposite effect, which exacerbated the spread of “de-Stalinization” in theoretical circles. In the later years of the Brezhnev era, the caliber of CPSU members declined, and they became increasingly divorced from the masses. Gripped by unfounded optimism, they announced only good news to the people and withheld negative information. The CPSU grew complacent and became stuck in a rut, its way of thinking gradually hardening. Bureaucracy and dogmatism were the order of the day, and problems such as cadre corruption and the degeneration of the privileged class threatened to spiral out of control.

(2) The second upsurge of historical nihilism within the CPSU

The second upsurge of historical nihilism within the CPSU occurred during the Gorbachev era. Gorbachev launched a campaign to “re-evaluate history” and directed its attack at CPSU leaders and Soviet socialism. From discrediting individuals like Stalin and Lenin to repudiating the whole Soviet socialist system and even Marxism, the movement was unprecedented in its scale and scope, affecting culture, politics, and the economy. In the 1980s, the Soviet economy all but stagnated, with material well-being reaching a nadir. The political system faced severe challenges, and reform was imperative. Gorbachev thought that the socialist system of the Soviet Union was politically “totalitarian,” economically “high-handed,” and culturally “bureaucratic.” Reform, then, entailed breaking the monopoly and demolishing everything—that is, a fundamental remodeling of the long-established edifice of Soviet socialism on the pattern of Western democratic socialism. As Zbigniew Brzezinski notes in The Grand Failure, in a May 1987 conversation with János Kádár, leader of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, Gorbachev said, “The totality of Soviet experience since 1929 had been wrong. … No less than three quarters of the Soviet practice was discredited and should somehow be repudiated or corrected.”⁵ Finding it difficult to alter the economic system, Gorbachev started with the political system. The “openness, democratization, and social pluralism” that he emphasized at the 19th All-Union Conference of the CPSU in 1988 became a powerful weapon for revealing the “dark side” of Soviet socialism, and a trend of “overturning original verdicts” swept through Soviet society. For example, the last czar, Nicholas II, was described as a wise monarch, while the press condemned the Bolshevik “atrocities.” Gorbachev rashly advocated absolute freedom of the press, which enabled supporters of liberalization to use historical nihilism to denigrate the CPSU’s history, leading to rampant liberalization in Soviet society.

In May 1989, the Soviet Union held its first Congress of People’s Deputies, whose scale, influence, and extent of democratization and openness far exceeded those of any precedent in Soviet history. “This congress was characterized by plain speaking: deputies bluntly pointed out the difficulties facing the country and the mistakes that the leadership had made, while leaders admitted to many shortcomings and faults in their reports.”⁶ “Although a large number of deputies made pertinent remarks, quite a few vehemently attacked the CPSU, the KGB, and the Soviet systems, and their opinions were not duly refuted. In particular, even though most of the members and candidate members of the Politburo and members of the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee were people’s deputies, they did not say a word during the congress, which dissatisfied the masses outside the congress.”⁷ Historical nihilism maliciously slandered CPSU leaders, with the revilement and demonization of Stalin reaching a peak, and ruthlessly vilified and denigrated the CPSU’s history, sensationalizing its dark chapters. The Soviet elite lost faith in socialism. Renowned sociologist Tatyana Zaslavskaya abandoned her belief in socialism and thought that mature capitalism had “socialist features.”⁸ After leaving the CPSU, former government official Ivan Silayev said, “I myself am completely different from the person I was in the ’70s. … We favor the privatization of property … We favor private property of both land and industrial enterprises.”⁹ “In 1989, institutions of higher learning in the Soviet Union cut many traditional social science courses. ‘History of the CPSU’ was replaced with ‘Twentieth-Century Social and Political History,’ ‘Scientific Communism’ was replaced with ‘Issues in Modern Socialism,’ ‘Marxist-Leninist Philosophy’ was replaced with ‘Philosophy,’ and ‘Marxist Ethics and Aesthetics’ was replaced with ‘Ethics and Aesthetics.’”¹⁰ In the late 1980s, the State Committee for People’s Education of the Soviet Union completely abolished courses on Marxism-Leninism at institutions of higher learning, radically repudiating the socialist system. The historical nihilism movement reached its apogee and raged like a prairie fire. The program statement of the 28th Congress of the CPSU in 1990—“Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism”—marked Gorbachev’s departure from Marxism-Leninism and the CPSU theorists’ rejection of historical materialism; instead, they tried to understand and explain history through abstract humanitarianism. A humane, democratic socialism thus replaced Marxism as the leading ideology of the Soviet Union, which brought the country to the brink of total collapse and which led it on a wrong, irreversible path.

II. The harm of historical nihilism to the CPSU

“To destroy a nation, it is essential to first erase its history.”¹¹ The CPSU repudiated its own history “with its own hands,” which allowed historical nihilism to run rampant both inside and outside the Party and evolve into a raging current of political thought with ideological demands. The CPSU was powerless to ward off the countercurrent of historical nihilism within or nihilistic attacks from outside the Party, and the failure triggered a domino effect that swept across various Eastern European countries and profoundly damaged the international communist movement, as would be evidenced by the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union’s disintegration.

(1) It defamed leaders, ridiculed heroes, and distorted the image of the CPSU

The 20th Congress of the CPSU set off a “de-Stalinization” movement in Soviet society. Under the pretext of combating the cult of personality and re-evaluating Stalin, theorists and historians of the CPSU eagerly portrayed Stalin in a nihilistic way. “They did their utmost to demonize Stalin, putting him on a par with Hitler, and willfully exaggerated the errors and the number of victims of the ‘Great Purge.’”¹² Liberal intellectuals arbitrarily disparaged Stalin on the basis of subjective assumptions and made vicious, insulting remarks about him in an effort to obliterate his great achievements. His “errors” and faults were staggeringly blown out of proportion, and he was portrayed as a tyrant, a demon, a treacherous, devious person, and a heinous “murderer.” Statues of Stalin were smashed, and the remains were defiled. “At the time, anyone who could write was smearing Stalin’s name. … Whoever was the first to denounce Stalin would be a hero.” ¹³ After Stalin, historical nihilism directed its attack at Lenin, who was labeled a Nietzschean manipulating the will to power. Rumors spread that Lenin was “an agent of the German kaiser.” His “crimes” were enumerated, such as ordering the execution of the czar and his family, betraying Russian interests to Germany, and having an indulgent private life. The flaws and “errors” of CPSU leaders were thus infinitely magnified, and their authority was waning by the day. Historical nihilism’s efforts to tarnish the image of CPSU leaders essentially represented a denial of the achievements of the Soviet socialist revolution in the name of “reflecting on history.”

Similarly, revolutionary heroes were wantonly vilified and vulgarized for popular entertainment. “Under the pretense of ‘declassifying history,’ some liberal writers and political commentators … smeared and distorted the image of CPSU leaders and Soviet Red Army heroes.”¹⁴ For example, heroes of the Great Patriotic War such as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and Alexander Matrosov were slandered, vilified, and ridiculed. The CPSU had wanted to stimulate enthusiasm for reform by correcting historical mistakes, but it ultimately lost control and caused irreparable damage to its own image.

(2) It misrepresented history, distorted facts, and sowed confusion in the minds of the Soviet people

Historical nihilism within the CPSU eroded the Party’s legitimacy to hold power. Khrushchev’s total repudiation of Stalin shattered the unified value system of the Soviet people and sowed confusion in people’s minds, eroding their faith in socialism and confidence in the socialist system. Such repudiation of the Party’s supreme leaders ultimately evolved into the complete repudiation of the CPSU-led revolution and the Party’s political legitimacy. “The CPSU’s degeneration was a long and complicated process, at the forefront of which was the Party’s ideological confusion.”¹⁵

“After Gorbachev’s ‘reform’ turned into ‘redirection,’ the CPSU fell into ideological confusion and became disorganized, with factionalism running rife both inside and outside the Party.”¹⁶ Gorbachev’s “humane, democratic socialism” was in the same vein as Khrushchev’s modern revisionism: he believed that repudiating the Soviet Union’s socialist history was a prerequisite for reforming Soviet socialism. His glasnost campaign set off a wave of “historical reflection” in Soviet society, which “focused on ‘exposing the dark chapters of Soviet history’ with the aim of casting doubt on history and repudiating the past. All of a sudden, a large number of films, TV programs, and writings that defamed Lenin and reviled Stalin appeared in the Soviet media. They repudiated agricultural collectivization, repudiated industrialization, equated the October Revolution with ‘violence and crime,’ and called the Soviet socialist system ‘totalitarianism,’ ‘alienated, deformed socialism,’ and ‘barracks socialism.’ The result was that the CPSU became a villain of historic proportions, and the Soviet system became the root of all evil.” The Soviet propaganda department, too, had fallen. “With the connivance of Gorbachev, Alexander Yakovlev, a member of the Secretariat of the CPSU and head of the Central Committee’s propaganda department, loosened control over public opinion and encouraged the public to critically examine the ‘dark side’ of the CPSU and of Soviet socialism, so as to uncover ‘gaps’ in Soviet history.”¹⁷ Historical nihilism focused solely on secondary trends and ignored principal trends, cherry-picked historical materials and took them out of context to present a partial view, deliberately amplified historical fragments, made baseless interpretations and assumptions, and tailored history to fit a particular narrative, turning serious history into a caricature. Soviet historians and theorists abandoned the basic positions of Marxist historical materialism, willfully overturned established conclusions about CPSU history, and denied the inevitability of the October Revolution. Historical nihilism spread from the study of history to the arts, engulfing Soviet literature. Publishing works full of insinuations, some authors spearheaded the advance of historical nihilism and considered it fashionable to portray CPSU history and Soviet socialism in a nihilistic way. The misinterpretation, distortion, and desecration of history was thus an ever-rising tide that ultimately turned into a shocking deluge.

(3) It eroded faith and values and led to the CPSU’s loss of ideological control

Historical nihilism “eroded the foundation for socialism’s legitimacy, nullified the value of Marxism-Leninism as a guiding principle, and therefore caused a total ideological collapse.”¹⁸ Why was historical nihilism so destructive? It was because “ideology embodies the core values on which a system depends; destroying an ideology amounts to overturning a system.”¹⁹ If CPSU members had discredited their own socialist practice, then what justifications did they still have for remaining as leaders of the country?

Seeing Marxism as an imported foreign ideology not suited to Russia’s conditions, historical nihilism claimed that it was the root of the “evil” that was Soviet socialism in order to attack the CPSU and the Soviet Union. “As disillusion pervaded Soviet society and the ‘idol’ in the hearts of the Soviet people crumbled, Soviet society, politics, and public opinion became fraught with emotion. The second half of the 1980s witnessed a surge of various anti-Marxist ideas as the CPSU completely lost control of ideology, which severely undermined the ideological and political foundations of the Party and the socialist system, and Gorbachev’s reform lost its direction.”²⁰ “After 1989, bourgeois academic views proliferated, and reviling Marxism, blaming socialism, and vilifying the CPSU became the most fashionable ‘theory,’ with the most vociferous critics becoming celebrities and ‘theorists.’ Various bourgeois and petit bourgeois academic thought and religious teachings swept the academic world, which spurned only Marxism-Leninism. An unprecedented catastrophe befell Marxism.”²¹ “What was serious about the problem was not only that hostile forces used ‘democratization’ and ‘openness’ to launch savage attacks on Marxism and socialism, but that even CPSU leaders, especially Gorbachev, tolerated, connived in, supported, enjoyed, and even participated in the anti-Marxist chorus themselves. They let bourgeois ideas, values, and worldviews completely occupy all fronts, including the press, social sciences, and literature and arts. Marxism, socialism, collectivism, and patriotism were ignored, rejected, and ridiculed. It was precisely this erroneous attitude of CPSU leaders toward ideological work that led to the rapid collapse of the socialist cause and the Party’s cause.”²²

Historical nihilism has great power to swallow and absorb the mainstream ideology, and a sense of nothingness overwhelmed the Soviet people, who were stuck in the mire of historical nihilism, lost and anxious, their faith and values having disintegrated. The “new view on history” informed by historical nihilism displaced historical materialism among the Soviet people and eroded the foundation of their value system, bringing it to the brink of collapse and bringing the spiritual crisis to its worst point. Disillusion and disorientation resulted in an ideological vacuum and spiritual emptiness, and all authority was rendered meaningless. Endless nihilism tore up the social fabric and bred rejection of Soviet socialism and skepticism about communism. The CPSU lost popular support, lost its vitality, lost its political legitimacy, and lost control of ideology. “Disenchanted with the ideal of communism and pessimistic about the CPSU’s future, large numbers of members left the Party, whose membership plummeted from 19 million to 15 million—the 1973 level.”²³ Historical nihilism—peddling nihilism, negation, uncertainty, facetiousness, and deconstruction—erupted with great force and deprived the CPSU of ideological control. It fundamentally undermined the CPSU’s position as the ruling Party, challenged its legitimacy to hold power, chipped away at the ideological pillar of Soviet socialism, and shattered the Soviet people’s faith in communism.

III. Lessons

“Why did the Soviet Union collapse? Why did the CPSU fall? One important reason lay in the intense ideological struggle. With the complete repudiation of the Soviet Union’s history and the CPSU’s history and the denouncement of Lenin and Stalin, historical nihilism plunged Soviet ideology into chaos, paralyzed Party organizations at various levels, and deprived the Party of its leadership of the armed forces. In the end, such a great Party as the CPSU just came crashing down, and such a great country as the Soviet Union just fell to pieces. This is a cautionary tale!”²⁴ “The prelude to the rapid disintegration of the Soviet state was the unraveling of the CPSU’s ideological underpinnings and of the CPSU itself, after which the Soviet Union as a new model of society and ideological state could no longer exist. The communist ideology and Marxist-Leninist theories did not take roots in people’s minds simply as a conceptual system, moral obligations, or a standard mode of behavior. This ideology was not only proved by reality, but also formed the political and socioeconomic structures of the state.”²⁵ Marxist ideology was the beating heart of a socialist state like the Soviet Union, and the edifice of Soviet socialism collapsed as soon as this heart failed.

It is crucial to prepare for danger in times of peace. The collapse of the CPSU and the Soviet Union serves as a cautionary example for China, underlining the importance of ideological security. We must draw profound lessons from that example, firmly resist and guard against the erroneous ideological trend of historical nihilism, uphold a Marxist stance, perspective, and approach in treating our own history and culture, and consolidate Marxism’s position as our guiding ideology.

(1) Cultivate and practice the core socialist values and consolidate Marxism’s position as our guiding ideology

The core socialist values are the common values pursued by Chinese people today and act as a cohesive force in Chinese society. Composed of national, social, and individual values, they guide ideological trends in society and help prevent and check the spread of historical nihilism. We must maximize the core socialist values’ role as ideological and moral guidance, integrate the core socialist values into people’s daily lives, promote the spirit of the nation and of the times, and extensively launch themed programs that promote patriotism and citizens’ moral education, so as to induce in the people conscious vigilance against and opposition to historical nihilism. China’s excellent traditional culture is the root and soul of the Chinese people, and it possesses intrinsic immunity to historical nihilism: it has, for example, the moral values of “integrity and righteousness,” the patriotism of “repaying the country with the utmost loyalty,” the political philosophy of “taking the people as the basis,” the ideal of “great harmony and unity,” and the sense of public duty reflected in the saying that “the rise and fall of the nation concerns everyone.” When it comes to the traditional culture of the Chinese nation, we can neither blindly boast about it nor forget our own roots; we should embrace what is good and reject what is bad, discarding elements that have fallen behind the progress of the times. In other words, we should adhere to the principles of making the past serve the present, sifting the old and bringing forth the new, and putting into practice what has been learned. We must carry on and promote the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation, stimulate cultural vitality, and strengthen cultural self-confidence.

“The ideology of a socialist society has Marxism as its guiding principle. Any wavering from or relaxation of the guiding principle could cause the ideology to lose cohesiveness and thus lose its direction.”²⁶ “The victories of the working-class parties in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe began in the realm of ideology first of all, and their failures also began with their loss of the ideological edge. They had for a long time deviated from Marxist doctrines before finally abandoning them, which was an important cause of their loss of political power.”²⁷ Marxism is the theoretical foundation for a communist party’s legitimacy as the ruling party. We must resolutely uphold and further develop Marxism and prevent it from becoming dogmatic or rigid. A period of social transition usually sees various ideological trends burgeon. In the new era, historical nihilism has manifested itself in new forms in China, such as oblique criticism of China’s path of socialism through reference to the Soviet Union’s collapse, wholesale repudiation of Mao Zedong and the Mao era through wholesale repudiation of Stalin and the Stalin model, and denigration of the achievements of socialism with Chinese characteristics since the reform and opening up. We must actively guard against and firmly counter the encroachment of historical nihilism; maintain confidence in our path, in our guiding theories, in our political system, and in our culture; ensure that China’s reform and opening up is always smoothly advancing towards socialism; and consolidate Marxism’s position as our guiding ideology.

(2) Adhere to the methodology of historical materialism and form a scientific view of history through rational analysis

In today’s Chinese society, there is a nihilistic undercurrent in the form of vilification of Party leaders, which is a manifestation of historical nihilism’s struggle to undermine Marxism’s position as the guiding ideology. Under the pretext of “reflecting on the past,” historical nihilism seizes on setbacks in our Party’s history and launches one-sided attacks focusing solely on them without considering the overall context, completely rejecting Mao Zedong thought and even Marxism solely because of Mao’s mistakes in his later years, and disparaging the achievements of socialism and even the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics since the reform and opening up solely because of the “leftist” errors in the Cultural Revolution.

Whether or not we hold a correct view of history affects the fate of our nation. We must adhere to the methodology of historical materialism, seek truth from facts, and objectively and rationally examine history, basing conclusions on abundant and reliable historical sources. We must always uphold the guidance of Marxism and consider, analyze, and resolve historical questions from a Marxist stance, perspective, and approach. We must strengthen education in a historical materialistic view of Party history and Chinese history, evaluating the contributions and mistakes of revolutionary leaders against their historical contexts. Heroes are the backbone of a nation’s spirit; a hopeful people cannot do without heroes to look up to. We must actively confront and tackle head-on the vilification of revolutionary heroes such as Qiu Shaoyun, Dong Cunrui, and Huang Jiguang. Historical materialism is key to overcoming historical nihilism. It is important to let historical materialism guide historical research, to distinguish between essence and phenomena and between principal and secondary trends, and to respect the objectivity of history; only then can we eliminate the breeding ground for historical nihilism, dispel the falsehoods of historical nihilism, and form a scientific view of history through rational analysis.

(3) Promote the integrated development of traditional media and new media and firmly maintain predominance and influence in cyberspace

The rapid development of the internet, especially the rapid development of new media tools such as Weibo and WeChat—characterized by instantaneity, interactiveness, openness, dynamism, and shareability—has subverted the traditional unidirectional flow of information and transformed the mode of production and way of life in modern society. Breaking the hold of the traditional unidirectional mode of transmission, the rise of new media has caused “gatekeepers” to concede some of their influence. Historical nihilism has been wantonly peddled on Weibo and WeChat, and it easily goes viral and triggers a chain reaction by virtue of new media’s advantage in spreading information. The damage thus done is not to be underestimated.

In the age of new media, neutralizing the rampant spread of historical nihilism on the internet rests on governance but even more on wisdom. First of all, it is necessary to promote cooperation between traditional media and new media. We should fully utilize the professionalism and authority of traditional media and the instantaneity and openness of new media to voice the right views, voice the dominant melody, and spread positive energy, influencing how people think about and relate to the mainstream ideology in subtle and invisible ways. Second, it is important to enhance our capacity for cyberspace governance and strengthen the construction of the rule of law in cybersecurity. We should step up the supervision and regulation of film and television and introduce harsher penalties for spreading rumors and political misinformation, so as to counter the corrosive influence of historical nihilism and leave it nowhere to hide. Finally, we should come up with innovative ways to propagate the mainstream ideology. This means improving the capacity for and standard of ideological work in cyberspace to keep up with the times and take advantage of the characteristics of new media. We should create new content and forms to spread the mainstream ideology and incorporate the core socialist values through agenda setting, using microtexts, microimages, and microvideos to show the charms of the mainstream ideology in well-illustrated and expressive ways, which will help set a new trend of promoting the mainstream ideology and guide public opinion in a positive and healthy direction. In this way, we can firmly maintain ideological predominance and influence in cyberspace and win this war of ideology.