A Soviet Leader Repudiates Stalin

Following the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin directed its efforts toward rebuilding its infrastructure and, through military and economic means, competing with capitalist-aligned nations for global influence during the Cold War. Stalin’s death in 1953 signaled the end of an era and occasioned a flurry of political repositioning. Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) emerged as leader of the Communist Party and, later, premier of the Soviet Union’s government. During the February 1956 Communist Party Congress, Khrushchev gave his famous “Secret Speech,” a dramatic repudiation of Stalin and his “cult of personality.” The speech, excerpted here, indicated not only a shift in domestic Soviet policy, but also a tacit break with Communist countries like China that had followed the USSR’s Stalinist example.

Comrades! In the Party Central Committee’s report to the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, and earlier at plenary sessions of the Party Central Committee, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual leader and its harmful consequences.

After Stalin’s death the Party Central Committee began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior.

Such a belief about a man — specifically about Stalin — was cultivated among us for many years.

The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin’s life and work. Concerning Stalin’s merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. Stalin’s role in the preparation and execution of the socialist revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the Party now and in the future — [we are concerned] with how the Stalin cult gradually grew, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of Party principles, of Party democracy, of revolutionary legality.

Because not all as yet realize fully the practical consequences resulting from the cult of the individual leader, the great harm caused by the violation of the principle of collective direction of the Party, and because immense and limitless power was gathered in the hands of one person, the Party Central Committee considers it absolutely necessary to make the material pertaining to this matter available to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Allow me first of all to remind you how severely the founders of Marxism-Leninism denounced every manifestation of the cult of the individual leader. In a letter to the German political worker Wilhelm Bloss, Marx stated: “Because of my antipathy to any cult of the individual, I never made public during the existence of the International the numerous addresses from various countries which recognized my merits, and which annoyed me. I did not even reply to them, except sometimes to rebuke their authors. Engels and I first joined the secret society of Communists on the condition that everything making for superstitious worship of authority would be deleted from its statutes. [Ferdinand] Lassalle subsequently did quite the opposite.”

Some time later Engels wrote: “Both Marx and I have always been against any public manifestation with regard to individuals, with the exception of cases when it had an important purpose; and we most strongly opposed such manifestations as during our lifetime concerned us personally.” . . .

Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation. This was especially true during the period following the 17th Party Congress, when many prominent Party leaders and rank-and-file Party workers, honest and dedicated to the cause of communism, fell victim to Stalin’s despotism. . . .

Stalin originated the concept “enemy of the people.” This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proved; this term made possible the use of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. This concept, “enemy of the people,” actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one’s views known on this or that issue, even issues of a practical nature. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, contrary to all norms of current law, was the “confession” of the accused himself; and, as subsequent investigation has proved, “confessions” were obtained through physical pressures against the accused.

This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality, and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the Party line, became victims.

We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the Party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula “enemy of the people” was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals. . . .

Stalin . . . used extreme methods and mass repressions at a time when the revolution was already victorious, when the Soviet state was strengthened, when the exploiting classes were already liquidated and socialist relations were rooted solidly in all phases of national economy, when our party was politically consolidated and had strengthened itself both numerically and ideologically. It is clear that here Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality and his abuse of power. Instead of proving his political correctness and mobilizing the masses, he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the Party and the Soviet government. . . .

[Khrushchev details the purging and execution of members of government in the 1930s and 1940s, using secret police archives to argue for Stalin’s murderous misuse of power.]

All the more monstrous are the acts, initiated by Stalin, which are gross violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationalities policy of the Soviet state. We refer to the mass deportations from their native territory of whole nations, including all [their] Communists and Young Communists, without any exception; this deportation action was not dictated by any military considerations.

Thus, already at the end of 1943, when there occurred a permanent breakthrough on the fronts of the great patriotic war benefiting the Soviet Union, a decision was taken and carried out concerning deportation of all the Karachai from the lands on which they lived. In the same period, at the end of December 1943, the same lot befell the whole population of the Kalmyk Autonomous Republic. In March 1944, all the Chechen and Ingush people were deported and the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was liquidated. In April 1944, all Balkars were deported to faraway places from the territory of the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Republic and the republic itself was renamed the Kabardian Autonomous Republic. The Ukrainians avoided this fate only because there were too many of them and there was no place to which to deport them. Otherwise, he would have deported them too. . . .

Not only no Marxist-Leninist, but also no man of common sense can grasp how it is possible to make whole nations responsible for inimical activity, including women, children, old people, Communists and Young Communists, to use mass repression against them and to expose them to misery and suffering for the hostile acts of individual persons or groups of persons. . . .

Comrades! The cult of the individual caused the employment of faulty principles in Party work and in economic activity; it brought about gross violation of inner-Party and Soviet democracy, sterile administration by fiat, deviations of all sorts, covering up of shortcomings, and varnishing of reality. Our country gave birth to many flatterers and specialists in false optimism and deceit. . . .

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 traveled anywhere, did not meet city and collective farm workers; he did not know the actual situation in the provinces.

He knew the countryside and agriculture only from films. And these films had dressed up and beautified the existing situation in agriculture.

Many films pictured collective farm life as if the tables bent under the weight of turkeys and geese. Evidently Stalin thought that it was actually so. . . .

Stalin cut himself off from the people and never went anywhere. This lasted tens of years. The last time he visited a village was in January 1928, when he visited Siberia in connection with grain deliveries. How then could he have known the situation in the provinces?

And when he was once told during a discussion that our situation on the land was a difficult one and that the livestock situation was especially bad, . . . Stalin proposed that the taxes paid by the collective farms and by the collective farmers should be raised by 40,000,000,000 rubles. According to him, the peasants were well-off and the collective farmer would need to sell only one more chicken to pay his tax in full.

Imagine what this would have meant. Certainly 40,000,000,000 rubles is a sum which the collective farmers did not realize for all the products which they sold to the government. In 1952, for instance, the collective farms and the collective farmers received 26,280,000,000 rubles for all their products delivered and sold to the government.

Did Stalin’s position rest, then, on data of any sort whatever? Of course not.

In such cases facts and figures did not interest him. If Stalin said anything, it meant it was so — after all, he was a “genius,” and a genius does not need to count, he only needs to look and can immediately tell how it should be. When he expresses his opinion, everyone has to echo it and to admire his wisdom. . . .

Comrades! If today we sharply criticize the cult of the individual leader which was so widespread during Stalin’s lifetime and if we speak about the many negative phenomena generated by this cult which is so alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, various persons 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 hypnotized by the cult of the individual leader, 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 people in the development of Soviet society.

The socialist revolution was accomplished by the working class and the poor peasantry, with the partial support of the middle peasants. It was accomplished by the people under the leadership of the Bolshevist party. Lenin’s great service consisted in that he created a militant party of the working class; he was armed with Marxist understanding of the laws of social development and with the science of proletarian victory in the struggle with capitalism, and he steeled this party in the crucible of the revolutionary struggle of the masses of the people. During this struggle the Party consistently defended the interests of the people, became their experienced leader, and led the working masses to power, to the creation of the first socialist state.

You remember well Lenin’s wise words that the Soviet state is strong because of the awareness of the masses, because history is created by the millions and tens of millions of people.

Our historic victories were attained thanks to the organizational work of the Party, to the many local organizations, and to the self-sacrificing work of our great people. These victories are the result of the great drive and activity of the people and Party as a whole; they are not at all the fruit of Stalin’s leadership, as was pictured during the period of the cult of the individual leader.

If we are to consider this matter as Marxists and as Leninists, then we must state unequivocally that the leadership practice which came into being during the last years of Stalin’s life became a serious obstacle in the path of the development of Soviet society.

Stalin often failed for months to take up exceedingly important problems — the solution of which could not be postponed — concerning the life of the Party and state. During Stalin’s leadership our peaceful relations with other nations were often threatened because one-man decisions could and often did cause great complications. . . .

Comrades! We must resolutely abolish the cult of the individual leader once and for all; we must draw the proper conclusions concerning both ideological-theoretical and practical work.

It is necessary for this purpose:

First, in a Bolshevist manner to condemn and to eradicate the cult of the individual leader as alien to Marxism-Leninism and not consonant with the principles of Party leadership and the norms of Party life, and to fight inexorably all attempts at bringing back this practice in one form or another.

To return to and actually practice in all our ideological work the very important Marxist-Leninist theses about the people as the maker of history and the creator of all mankind’s material and spiritual benefits, about the decisive role of the Marxist party in the revolutionary struggle to change society, about the victory of communism.

In this connection we shall be obliged to do much to examine critically from the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint and to correct the widespread, erroneous views connected with the cult of the individual leader in the spheres of history, philosophy, economics and other sciences, as well as in literature and the fine arts. It is especially necessary that in the immediate future we compile a serious textbook of the history of our party, edited in accordance with scientific Marxist objectivism, a textbook of the history of Soviet society, a book pertaining to the events of the Civil War and the great patriotic war.

Secondly, to continue systematically and consistently the work done by the Party Central Committee during the past years, work characterized by scrupulous observance — in all Party organizations, from bottom to top — of the Leninist principles of Party leadership; characterized above all by the main principle, collective leadership; characterized by observance of the norms of Party life described in the Statutes of our party; and, finally, characterized by wide practice of criticism and self-criticism.

Thirdly, to restore completely the Leninist principles of Soviet, socialist democracy, expressed in the Constitution of the Soviet Union; to fight willfulness of individuals abusing their power. The evil caused by acts violating revolutionary socialist legality which accumulated over a long period as a result of the negative influence of the cult of the individual leader must be completely corrected.

Comrades! The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has manifested with new strength the unshakable unity of our party, its cohesiveness around the Central Committee, its resolute will to accomplish the great task of building communism.

Khrushchev Speaks: Selected Speeches, Articles, and Press Conferences, 1949–1961 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963), 207–265.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS