Secret Speech
비밀연설
A report 'On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences' delivered by Nikita Khrushchev at a closed session of the 20th Congress of the CPSU on 25 February 1956. It was the first official speech to publicly denounce Stalin's Great Purge, torture and forced confessions, wartime command failures, mass deportations of entire nationalities, and the cult of personality. Classified as 'not for publication,' the full text reached the West within weeks and was not published in the USSR until 1989. The speech launched the Khrushchev Thaw and de-Stalinization, sending shockwaves through the Eastern Bloc and world communist movement.
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Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) comprehensive article on the speech, its background, content, circulation, and impact
- britannica.com Britannica entry detailing the speech's date, context, key criticisms of Stalin, and consequences for the Soviet bloc
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian-language article covering the Pospelov Commission preparation, the closed-session atmosphere, eyewitness accounts, and the speech's role in launching the Thaw