More than 50 years ago, a Soviet Party leader, Nikita Khruchev, publicly critiqued Stalin. Many of those who attended the conference remembered “death-like” silence that covered the conference hall. It was February 25, 1956.
That day, delegates of the XX Party Session were unexpectedly called up for a closed meeting. When Khruchev went on a podium and started his speech many could not believe it, many where deeply shocked. Without any warning or pre-face, Khruchev unleashed furious words at the Stalin, the great Leader who guided the Soviet Union through the whole Second World War and died three years earlier. According to Khruchev’s report he was a despot and murderer. It took Khruchev four hours to finish, during which he blamed Stalin for creating a cult of his personality and cruel treatment of his opponents.

That was his report, and it signaled the end of terror and re-orientation of the Soviet Union’s course. In the West, many considered Khruchev’s words as an act of bravery and beginning of new and more liberal approach. However, there are some reports in Russia, that Khruchev’s speech was rather an attempt to cover up his own wrongdoings.

Yuri Zhukov, a historian with the Russian Science Academy, thinks that Khruchev blamed everything on Stalin because he was soaked in blood of innocent people himself. Zhukov’s theory is based on recently declassified Soviet archives.
In the Politburo archives, Zhukov found a telegram send by Khruchev, who after becoming a Leader of Ukraine in 1938, asked Politburo to authorize execution or arrest of more than 33 thousand people. Soon after that, there was a massive “clean up” of the “undesirable” elements. A year earlier, when Khruchev was a head of the Moscow district, he asked an authorization to execute 8.5 thousand “traitors” and to sent almost 33 thousand to the concentration camps. “Those persecutions where real and had been done because Khruchev authorized them”, says Zhukov. Overall, according to the documents found in the Politburo archives, Khruchev was seeking the authorization to execute or arrest about 70 thousand people in the 1930’s.

Young Russian intellectual Dima Bykov says that Khruchev was an assiduous Stalin’s server. “When I was a teacher, talking about Khruchev’s speech I used the following analogy, “Imagine Gimmler, making antifascist speech on a meeting of the Nazis after the Hitler’s death.”

And though there is a huge debate going on regarding Khruchev’s role in this whole thing, Nikita Khruchev, his grandson, thinks that: “while there are many controversial documents existing regarding his grandfather, the fact that he had guts to expose Stalin, was his personal act of bravery. It meant that he defeated Stalin inside of him.”

At the same time, Bykov calls Khruchev a brave person who admitted that he made mistakes and tried to conduct reforms but did not have enough will to completely destroy the whole system.

Written using materials from Inopressa.ru

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