Khrushchev: On the Cult of Personality

In 1956, at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev gave a speech On the Cult of the Individual defaming Stalin. It began by accusing Stalin of creating a personality cult, then accused him of various evil deeds in a historical nihilist attempt to 'blackwash' Stalin's era.

The speech was strategically placed on the last day so that it could not be debated or voted on by the Congress. Copies were then distributed to national and local Party meetings, treating it as accepted fact. It was then leaked by an Israeli spy to the Western press, which (under CIA direction) labeled it as the Secret Speech to make it appear more sensationalist and as an admission of guilt by communists, rather than a partisan denigration by Khrushchev against Stalin.

Use by revisionists

The speech was used to advance historical nihilism.

After the 20th Congress, in an ultra-narrow circle of our closest friends and associates, we often discussed the problems of democratization of the country and society. We chose a simple - like a sledgehammer - method of propagating the "ideas" of late Lenin. A group of true, not imaginary reformers developed (of course, orally) the following plan: to strike with the authority of Lenin at Stalin, at Stalinism. And then, if successful, - to strike with Plekhanov and Social Democracy - at Lenin, and then – with liberalism and "moral socialism" - at revolutionarism in general... The Soviet totalitarian regime could be destroyed only through glasnost and totalitarian party discipline, while hiding behind the interests of improving socialism. ... Looking back, I can proudly say that a clever, but very simple tactic - the mechanisms of totalitarianism against the system of totalitarianism – has worked.

- Alexander Yakovlev, senior advisor to Gorbachev

Effect on communists

Although it has been debunked today, at the time most communists believed it, because Khrushchev appeared to be an honest communist. This led to massive self-criticism by communist parties around the world, where they were pressured by Moscow to "admit" their "Stalinist" mistakes, essentially saying Trotsky was correct. This was huge material for anticommunists, and immediately caused mass exodus of members from communist parties in the West.

Soviet Union

Communists in the Soviet Union, especially in Georgia and Russia, protested against the defamatory speech, claiming that the Soviet leadership had betrayed the people. Soviet troops violently broke up the protests, killing some in Georgia.

Poland

Polish communist leader Boleslaw Bierut mysteriously dropped dead in Moscow after the speech. It is speculated that Khrushchev killed him.

The Speech led to the bourgeois-backed liberal Poznan Protests in Poland.

Hungary

With the communists weakened by the speech, in 1956 Stalinist leader Matyas Rakosi was forced to fully resign by Khrushchev. (3 years earlier, Beria had forced him to partly resign.) In his place, Moscow promoted Imre Nagy.

Imre Nagy, a liberal "socialist", would later allow CIA thugs to cross into Hungary and start the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, where they lynched communists and Jews, and the USSR was forced to invade.

See also

• Historical nihilism
• Nikita Khrushchev

Full text

• Marxists.org https://www.marxists.org/archive/khrushchev/1956/02/24.htm