Political rehabilitation

Political rehabilitation is the process by which a disgraced member of a political party or a government is restored to public respectability and thus political acceptability. The term is usually applied to leaders or other prominent individuals who regain their prominence after a period in which they have no influence or standing, including deceased people who are vindicated posthumously. Historically, the concept is usually associated with Communist states and parties where, as a result of shifting political lines often as part of a power struggle, leading members of the Communist Party find themselves on the losing side of a political conflict and out of favour, often to the point of being denounced, imprisoned or even executed.

These individuals may be rehabilitated either as a result of capitulating to the dominant political line and renouncing their former beliefs or allegiances to disgraced leaders, or they may be rehabilitated as a result of a change in the political leadership of the party, either a change in personnel or a change in political line, so that the views or associations which caused the individual, or group of individuals, to fall into disgrace are viewed more sympathetically.^{[citation needed]}

Well-known figures who have been rehabilitated include Deng Xiaoping who fell into disgrace during the Cultural Revolution for being a "third roader" but was rehabilitated subsequently and became paramount leader of the People's Republic of China; and Russia's last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, who were all shot dead by Bolshevik revolutionaries in July, 1918, but were rehabilitated by the Russian Supreme Court on 1 October 2008.^[1]