KHRUSHCHEV’S “SECRET SPEECH” AT THE TWENTIETH PARTY CONGRESS, 1956 term paper

On 24 February 1956, in a secret address to the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev, secretary of the Communist Party, stunned his audience by exposing the crimes of Josif Stalin. Stalin ruled the Soviet Union from 1929 until his death in 1953. Although he did not invent the police state, Stalin systematically used police and terror to destroy all opposition to his rule within the Soviet Union. Perhaps the single most grotesque example of Stalin’s policy was his starvation famine of the Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of 5 million Ukrainian peasants. Stalin’s drive to consolidate power in the Soviet Union and to establish his brutal dictatorship resulted in the deaths of more than 10 million people.

Although Khrushchev did not describe Stalin’s crimes in detail, his speech was the first official, public admission that Stalin had perpetrated an immense reign of terror against his own people and that he had indeed slaughtered millions of Soviet citizens. In his speech, Khrushchev not only condemned Stalin’s dictatorship, which he euphemistically called “the cult of the individual,” but also suggested that members of the all-important Politburo of the Communist Party’s Central Committee failed to check the excesses of Stalin’s dictatorship. To prevent any further abuses Khrushchev called for the eradication of “the cult of the individual,” a return to the Leninist principles of service to the workers, and a collective leadership within the Communist Party, “characterized by the wide practice of criticism and self criticism.”

Khrushchev’s speech accelerated his own consolidation of power within the Soviet Union and resulted in the removal of old guard Stalinists from the government. Millions of political prisoners in the Soviet Union were released. Khrushchev’s speech, however, inadvertently raised the hope of reform and a loosening of Soviet control in eastern Europe. Wladyslaw Gomulka came to power in Poland in the summer of 1956, where he initiated modest reforms, but only after pledging loyalty to the Soviet Union. Imre Nagy, who came to power in Hungary in October 1956, refused to obey Khrushchev, and as a result Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian Revolution, killing 3,000 Hungarians. Khrushchev’s speech announced a thaw in the Cold War and his intention to seek better relations with the United States. It was not well received in China. Mao Zedong, China’s communist leader, did not approve of Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful coexistence and considered Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin an attack on his own Stalinist style of leadership. Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin signaled the opening round of a serious rift in Sino-Soviet relations, one that would result in a complete break between the two countries by 1960.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Investigate the crimes of Josif Stalin and write a paper explaining why Khrushchev would condemn Stalin for promoting “the cult of the individual.”
2. Read Khrushchev’s speech and compare it to Mikhail Gorbachev’s 6 February 1990 speech (see Suggested Sources) asking the Communist Party to give up its role as the only political party in the Soviet Union. Based on these two speeches, how would you compare these two Soviet leaders?
3. Write a paper on Khrushchev’s policy of “peaceful coexistence” with the West in which you evaluate the reception of the policy by the West.
4. Known for his rough, earthy humor, Khrushchev always drew a big audience when he visited America. Do a research project on his diplomatic style and special brand of humor during his American visits.
5. Investigate Khrushchev’s role in repressing the Hungarian uprising of November 1956. To what extent does he bear responsibility for the decision to crush the Hungarians?
6. Despite Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin, there are many in Russia today who still revere Stalin. Write a paper on the current ideas of Russians about Stalin.
Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “The 1917 Russian Revolution” (#10), “Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932 (#23), “The Hungarian Revolution, 1956” (#53), “The Sino-Soviet Split, 1959–1969” (#60), and “The Breakup of the Soviet Union, 1991” (#91). Search under Leonid Brezhnev and Alexis Kosygin.

SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Gorbachev, Mikhail. “Address to the Communist Party.” New York Times, 6 February 1990, A16.

Khrushchev, Nikita S. “Address to the Twentieth Party Congress.” Congressional Record, 84th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1956), CII, 9389–403. This is the full text of the speech and the best starting point for research.

———. Khrushchev Remembers. Translated and edited by Strobe Talbott. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970. A well-edited collection of Khrushchev’s memoirs and speeches.

Secondary Sources

Burnt by the Sun [videorecording]. Culver City, Calif.: Columbia TriStar Home Video , 1995. The best film on how ordinary Russians endured the crimes of Stalin.

Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: A Reassessment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. The most accessible treatment of Stalin’s part in the Purges.

———. Stalin: Breaker of Nations. New York: Viking, 1991. A solid biography of Stalin by a premier Soviet scholar.

Dallin, Alexander, ed. The Khrushchev and Brezhnev Years. New York: Garland, 1992. A good collection of articles examining Khrushchev’s political strategies.

Khrushchev, Sergei. Khrushchev on Khrushchev: An Inside Account of the Man and His Era. Edited and translated by William Taubman. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990. Written by his son, who is now an American citizen, these are candid reflections on Khrushchev’s failures and achievements.

Richter, James G. Khrushchev’s Double Bind: International Pressures and Domestic Coalition Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. A careful analysis of Khrushchev’s political career. Zubok, V. M., and Constantine Pleshakov. Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996. The best account of how Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin assisted his rise to power.

World Wide Web

“The National Security Archive.” http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv. Key documents for the Khrushchev period.