1956-2-25 Khrushchev Denounces Stalinism

1956-2-25 Nikita Khrushchev ‘secret speech’ announcing de-Stalinization - HiPo > .

On 25 February 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered his ‘secret speech’ in a closed session at the end of the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Officially called ‘On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences’, Khrushchev’s speech was a vehement denunciation of Stalin’s abuses of power and his creation of a personality cult. It therefore laid the foundation for his wide-reaching de-Stalinisation campaign.

The speech signalled a dramatic reversal of Soviet policy, which Khrushchev said had come about due to Stalin’s misinterpretation or misrepresentation of Marxist-Leninist doctrine. The ‘secret speech’ allowed Khrushchev to distance himself from the worst crimes of Stalin’s rule, even though he himself had been responsible for thousands of deaths. Additionally, and of great significance, Khrushchev also advocated a policy of ‘peaceful coexistence’ with the West rather than continue Stalin’s policy of preparing for an inevitable war.

Although the full details of the speech were only supposed to reach the public gradually, rumours of its contents spread quickly. Israeli intelligence officers obtained a full copy of the speech and passed it to the United States government who leaked it to the press at the start of June. Although Khrushchev had already begun to implement de-Stalinisation by this point, the printing of the speech in the New York Times on 5 June dictated demands for a faster pace of change in Eastern Europe.

Large-scale change was, however, still slow. Although Poland’s government granted some concessions in October, the situation in Hungary ended very differently.