Nikita Khrushchev – 1956, Moscow, Russia – Speech Criticizing Stalin’s Rule
Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of deceased Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin’s rule during the 20th Congress of the Communist Party became an essential building block in the de-Stalinization of the Soviet bloc. Nicknamed “Khrushchev’s secret speech,” it was delivered in 1956 in front of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party.
In it, Khrushchev criticized the purges Stalin used to terrorize party members and the way he built a “cult of personality” as a dictator. The speech, although met with applause and ushered the Soviet Union’s return to a more Leninist model of leadership, led to a decrease in the membership of the United States’ communist party.
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