Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ denouncing Stalin (1956)

After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev was one of several party leaders who jockeyed for the Soviet leadership. In February 1956 Khrushchev, by now established as leader, delivered a speech titled “On the Cult of Personality and its consequences” to the Communist Party Congress. In this address, dubbed the ‘Secret Speech’, Khrushchev condemned Stalin’s use of oppression and brutality, attacked the Stalin personality cult, questioned Stalin’s leadership during World War II and accused his predecessor of economic mismanagement:

“Facts prove that many abuses were made on Stalin’s orders, without reckoning with any norms of Party and Soviet legality. Stalin was a very distrustful man, sickly suspicious. We know this from our work with him. He could look at a man and say: “Why are your eyes so shifty today?” or “Why are you turning so much today and avoiding to look me directly in the eyes?” The sickly suspicion created in him a general distrust even toward eminent Party workers whom he had known for years. Everywhere and in everything he saw ‘enemies’, ‘two-facers’ and ‘spies’. Possessing unlimited power, he indulged in great wilfulness and stifled people, morally as well as physically. A situation was created where one could not express one’s own volition.

When Stalin said that one or another should be arrested, it was necessary to accept on faith that he was an ‘enemy of the people’. Meanwhile, Beria’s gang, which ran the organs of state security, outdid itself in proving the guilt of the arrested and the truth of materials which it falsified. And what proofs were offered? The confessions of the arrested, and the investigative judges accepted these ‘confessions’. And how is it possible that a person confesses to crimes which he has not committed? Only in one way –because of the application of physical methods of pressuring him, tortures, bringing him to a state of unconsciousness, deprivation of his judgment, taking away of his human dignity. In this manner were ‘confessions’ acquired…

Thus, Stalin sanctioned in the name of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party the most brutal violation of socialist legality, torture and oppression, which led as we have seen to the slandering and to the self-accusation of innocent people…

Comrades! The cult of the individual caused the employment of faulty principles in Party work and in economic activity. It brought about rude violation of internal Party and Soviet democracy, sterile administration, deviations of all sorts, cover-ups of shortcomings, and varnishings of reality. Our nation bore forth many flatterers and specialists in false optimism and deceit.

We should also not forget that, due to the numerous arrests of Party, Soviet and economic leaders, many workers began to work uncertainly, showed overcautiousness, feared all which was new, feared their own shadows, and began to show less initiative in their work…

Stalin’s reluctance to consider life’s realities, and the fact that he was not aware of the real state of affairs in the provinces, can be illustrated by his direction of agriculture. All those who interested themselves even a little in the national situation saw the difficult situation in agriculture, but Stalin never even noted it.

Did we tell Stalin about this? Yes, we told him, but he did not support us. Why? Because Stalin never travelled anywhere, did not meet city and kolkhoz workers. He did not know the actual situation in the provinces. He knew the country and agriculture only from films. And these films dressed up and beautified the existing situation in agriculture. Many films pictured kolkhoz life such that tables groaned from the weight of turkeys and geese. Evidently, Stalin thought that it was actually so.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin looked at life differently. He always was close to the people. He used to receive peasant delegates and often spoke at factory gatherings. He used to visit villages and talk with the peasants. Stalin separated himself from the people and never went anywhere. This lasted ten years. The last time he visited a village was in January 1928, when he visited Siberia in connection with grain procurements. How then could he have known the situation in the provinces? …

Comrades! If we sharply criticise today the cult of the individual which was so widespread during Stalin’s life, and if we speak about the many negative phenomena generated by this cult (which is so alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism), some may ask: How could it be? Stalin headed the Party and the country for 30 years and many victories were gained during his lifetime. Can we deny this? In my opinion, the question can be asked in this manner only by those who are blinded and hopelessly hypnotised by the cult of the individual, only by those who do not understand the essence of the revolution and of the Soviet state, only by those who do not understand, in a Leninist manner, the role of the Party and of the nation in the development of the Soviet society.”