Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave his famous "Secret Speech" otherwise entitled "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" on this day in 1956. Khrushchev's speech was sharply critical of the rule of the deceased former leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin with respect to his abuse of power, his mass terror purges and his fostering of a leadership cult of personality. This speech caused shock and disillusionment throughout the Soviet Union and the surrounding Communist bloc nations, harming Stalin’s reputation and the perception of the political system and party that had enabled him to gain and misuse such great power. There were reports that some of those present suffered heart attacks and others later committed suicide due to shock at the revelations of Stalin's use of terror. Several people became ill during the speech and had to be removed from the hall. In the West, the speech politically devastated Leftists; the Communist Party USA alone lost more than 30,000 members within weeks of the publication of the speech.

The speech gave rise to the Khrushchev Thaw, a period from the mid-50's to the mid-60's when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were relaxed, and millions of political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and peaceful coexistence with other nations.