that's not change, that's more of the same

The textbook makes the point, on several occasions, that Khrushchev believed Stalin to have been overzealous and overly repressive. As a result of Stalin’s brutality many Soviets wanted reform. Coming to power in 1956, a whole three years after Stalin died, Khrushchev gained control of the Communist party and attempted to appease the masses, while of course, protecting the party. New freedoms were available, which meant that maintaining absolute control over the country, like Stalin had, would be much more difficult. After Khrushchev took power thousands were release from the Soviet prison camps. This new reform, when scrutinized, proved to be a façade; Alexander Solzhenitsyn was released after 8 years in a prison camp; he had been sent there originally because of a letter he wrote criticizing Stalin. Once he was released he started working on a book, reflecting on his own experience in a gulag. This book was published in 1973, twenty years since Stalin died; yet Solzhenitsyn was arrested a year later for treason. For publishing his victimization at the hands of his own government, and emphasizing a point made by Khrushchev himself, Solzhenitsyn was exiled for treason. That this happened shows that in those twenty years since Stalin’s death, no social progress was made.