The years between the Nineteenth and Twentieth Party Con gresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union comprise one of the most eventful periods in the history of the USSR. It opened with the first CPSU gathering in 13 years at a time when the Soviet Union was beset by serious domestic and foreign difficulties and was passing through a transitional period in its development. It witnessed the death of J. V. Stalin who had exercized unquestioned authority for a quarter of a century; it ...