 The death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 and the resulting de-Stalinization and the Khrushchev Thaw prompted debates about fundamental issues throughout the entire Eastern Bloc.In the summer of 1955, 5th World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Warsaw, Poland.Designed to be a vast propaganda exercise, a meeting place for Eastern European communists and their comrades from Western Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.