Succession and "Secret Speech"
"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed...contrary to his concepts."
-Nikita Khrushchev, in his 'Secret Speech', February 1956
The Speech
On February 25, 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, Joseph Stalin’s successor, delivered his Secret Speech, denouncing Stalin for his apparent transgressions and providing details regarding the Great Terror, the unpreparedness of the Soviet Union upon the Nazi invasion in June 1941, and several other issues that he attributed to the establishment of a Stalinist 'cult of personality' during the dictatorial leadership of Joseph Stalin.
Video from WPA Film Library.
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"After Stalin’s death, the Central Committee began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years." -Nikita Khrushchev, in his 'Secret Speech', February 1956 |
"Khrushchev’s audience heard him in almost complete silence, broken only by astonished murmurs. The delegates did not dare even to look at each other as the party secretary piled one horrifying accusation on another for four solid hours. At the end there was no applause and the audience left in a state of shock."
-Richard Cavendish, History Today author
Impacts of the Secret Speech
The Secret Speech was the turning point in opening up the Stalinist past to critical examination, sending shock waves throughout the communist world.
"Stalin was an international figure. We told them, 'it wasn't just your Russia that he influenced, but also eastern Europe and other countries.'" -Shi Zhe, delegate to the 20th Party Congress |
Video from YouTube.
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"When the information about the speech started coming out— and they were pretty drastic uncoverings of Stalin's crimes of the gulags, of millions and millions of people who went to prison during Stalin's regime— the nation was stunned. It was an anxiety. It was not happiness that we uncovered the truth about ourselves. Not so much fear, but just absolute anxiety."
-Nina Khrushcheva, granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev
Video from YouTube.
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"...there was profound disorientation caused by discrediting the man who had formed the emotional-symbolic core of the communist movement for 30 years, and on whose worship a whole generation had been reared; what the Soviet leaders were doing might be compared with telling a Christian audience that while the doctrine and institutions of the church were still sacred, Christ himself was a despicable imposter." "Soviet sources now say some were so convulsed as they listened that they suffered heart attacks; others committed suicide afterwards." |
"...it [the Secret Speech] shook the population, and particularly its elite segments, from that torpor and passivity which the long years of obscurantism and tyranny had induced, and promoted a degree of rationalization of institutions, ideology and policies that was both made possible, and urgently required, by the country's economic and educational progress."
-T.H. Rigby, author of The Stalin Dictatorship