On February 14, 1956, Khrushchev delivered a secret report to the congress of the Soviet Communist Party, which shocked people like a bombshell and set off a great disturbance in the international political circle, bringing historic changes to the International Communist Movement. If it’s a “secret report”, why is it known to the whole world? Now how should we evaluate this report? Does it make sense for some to call Khrushchev a traitor and cut down the flag?
When Stalin died on March 5, 1953, his successor became the focus of the world’s attention. On March 6, Malenkov was appointed first secretary of the Party and chairman of the Council of Ministers. On March 14, Khrushchev took over as First Secretary of the party, which Malenkov had not yet taken; On 26 June, Beria, vice-president of the Council of Ministers and Minister of the Interior, was arrested and executed immediately…
Of all the dramatic events, beria was the most shocking. During his decades as head of the Soviet Secret police (the Interior Ministry), Beria was responsible for numerous miscarriages of justice, causing the Soviet people to ponder as they congratulated the devil on his downfall. In particular, Khrushchev, who directly decided to get rid of Beria, often fell into painful thinking when he reviewed the unjust cases with shocking materials — why did Beria get promoted because of his numerous evils? Stalin may not have known about the unjust cases of ordinary cadres and masses, but would Beria dare to attack the unjust cases of senior cadres without Stalin’s approval? Why is it that of the countless people who have been arrested, no one has been acquitted? Why is it that of the countless prisoners who have been imprisoned, not a single one has ever been released from prison? Obviously, it is a man-made injustice, why not a single can be rehabilitated……
Khrushchev was restless. To find out, Khrushchev felt, “it is necessary to lift the curtain a little further, to see how many people were arrested, what methods were used in the interrogation, and on what evidence were they arrested and executed in the first place?
So, at a meeting in 1954, he proposed an investigation into the major cases under Stalin, in order to get to the bottom of beria’s problems, and to have a clear account of the parties. But there are those in the Central Bureau who disagree, and those who lack enthusiasm, who argue that there is much more important work to be done and that too much attention to history is a waste of time, harmful and not helpful.
Khrushchev to insist on your point of view, he said, the communist party prepares to hold the first time after Stalin’s death and the national party congress, the new collective leadership is necessary to prove he can bear the responsibility of the party and the state, it is need to know exactly what happened in the Stalin period, Stalin is what motivation to make a decision to all kinds of problems, especially about all arrested people is how to make a decision. “We are responsible not only for what happened while Stalin was alive, but also for the problems caused by his policies, which are still very clear to us today,” he said explicitly.
As a result of Khrushchev’s efforts, the meeting of the Central Presidium finally decided to set up a committee chaired by Bosbelov to investigate problems related to the Stalin era. Investigating the archives and documents stored in the Ministry of The Interior, the Commission soon discovered that over a long period of time there had been a massive and appalling violation of the socialist legal system, the making of false and unjust cases, and the deaths of many innocent people. Some of these facts were already known to Khrushchev, others unknown to him.
When the committee presented Khrushchev with its report, the first thing he saw was a list of the fate of the 139 central committee members and alternate members elected at the congress in 1934. Eighty-three of them, or 59.7 percent, were arrested and shot. Of these, 49 members of the CPC Central Committee were executed, accounting for 69 per cent of the 71 members.
Khrushchev was well aware that the Party constitution adopted at the 17th National Congress of the COMMUNIST Party stipulated that “in the event of such an extreme measure as expulsion from the Party of the Central Committee, alternate members, and party supervisory members, a plenary session of the Central Committee must be convened, and all alternate members and supervisory members of the Central Committee must also be convened at the plenary session.” “A central committee member or alternate member may be expelled from the Party only when two thirds of the members responsible for such plenary meetings of party cadres deem it necessary,” it said. In fact, Stalin had most of the central Committee shot without discussion.
Khrushchev turned to a second document, which read that there were 1,966 delegates to the 17th Congress, of whom 1,108 were arrested and shot for counter-revolutionary crimes, accounting for 56 percent of the total.
As he rolled down, the blood of the dead, one by one, splashed before him, and smote upon his conscience. Six members of the politburo, elected at the 14th Congress, were shot. The wrongful deaths in the army were equally distressing: three of the five marshals were shot, three of the four first-rank commanders were shot, all 12 commanders of the second-rank group army were shot, 60 of the 67 regimentals were shot, and almost all the 35, 000 excellent commanders of divisions and brigades were shot or sent to Labour camps. “Leningrad anti-party group case” “doctor’s murder” and make a large number of survivors of the cadres and the masses suffered persecution. Stalin, it was said, could kill someone for a wrong step, a wrong action or a wrong look. At that time, people’s greatest happiness was to go to work in the morning and come back safely in the evening.
The information provided by the commission of inquiry shows that the alleged crimes of which the victims were coerced were almost entirely fabricated! The most typical case is that of Mr Aiher. The Alternate politburo member Was a Bolshevik elder who joined the party in 1905. In April 1938, he was falsely accused of joining a counter-revolutionary organization and arrested without acknowledgement by the Soviet attorney-general. On October 1, 1939, he submitted a petition to Stalin denying all the charges against him and demanding a new investigation of the case. But there was no reply. On Oct. 27, Aher filed a second, tearful petition: “… On 25 October, I was informed that the case had been concluded and given access to the verdict, which I could not accept. If I were guilty of one per cent of the crimes imposed upon me, and were sentenced to death, I would not write this petition to you. Yet I have committed no crime against me, there is not a stain on my soul, in all my life I have never once lied to you, and I will not lie now when my feet are on the grave. The material in my case is the result of sheer provocation and calumny, a classic example of a violation of the foundations of the legal order of the revolution…
“I have committed a grievous crime against you, the most shameful thing of my life, which is that I confess myself engaged in counter-revolutionary activities. The truth of the matter is that Ushakov and others tortured me. They refused to straighten out my bent ribs and forced me to confess when I was in great pain. Unable to resist the punishment, I have given a confession that condemns not only myself but others as well.
“I have by no means betrayed you, nor the Party, and I know that I am on my way to death, through the vile evils of the party’s enemies and those who have provoked and fabricated me.”
The second complaint was as dead as the first. On February 2, 1940, when he was brought into court for the last time, he said: “In the whole of my so-called confession, I wrote not a word except the name which forced me to sign. I was tortured from the time of my arrest, and I gave in to the pressure of the judge in charge of the trial, to write these ridiculous statements… To the court, to the party, to Stalin, I declare that I am innocent, that I have absolutely nothing to do with any conspiracy, that all my life I have firmly believed in the correctness of the party’s policies…”
The appeals of blood and tears did not move Stalin. On February 4, He was ordered to be shot.
Khrushchev also opened the proceedings of the supreme military Tribunal compiled by the Commission of Inquiry and found that the wrongful death of An alternate politburo member and chairman of the Central Supervisory Commission, Ruzultak, was almost identical to Aykh’s. The decisions of these senior cadres, neither the interior Ministry nor the supreme military Court, had final authority and had to be approved by Stalin. Khrushchev then turned to the numerous “comrade Stalin” cases of the former interior minister, Yerov, with “consent” on almost every list. “Joo Stalin, Vi Molotov”. The later evil-doer was shot by Stalin, but the vast number of wrongful convictions he handled sank to the bottom of the ocean.
In just one year, from 1937 to 1938, Stalin approved 3,831 lists of leading cadres to be executed by firing squad, according to the investigation. Over the 20 years from 1931 to 1953, the list went beyond hundreds of thousands to millions!
One unjust case after another struck Khrushchev’s heart with grief and indignation. A bold idea gradually became clear: to expose and criticize Stalin, to do justice to the countless victims! And decisive action must be taken at the upcoming party Congress!
The twenty communist Party congress opened on February 14, 1956. Khrushchev made a concluding report, followed by a speech at the Conference, in which everyone agreed with the line of the Central Committee. As the closing date drew near, Khrushchev became increasingly uneasy. ‘He thought.’ All this is a matter of form, but then what? Hundreds of thousands of people shot will still haunt our consciences. These included two-thirds of the central committee members elected by the 17th Party Congress, when almost all of the politically active party members were shot and suppressed. If not now, when? Action must be taken to persuade the Officers to agree to resolve this issue at this conference.”
During a break in the congress, Khrushchev found only the presidium in the lounge and seized the moment to make his case: “What shall we do with all those who have been arrested and purged? The conference was about to close, and we were all about to disperse again, without saying a word about the abuses of power under Stalin. It is now known that those who were persecuted during the crackdown were innocent. We have proved beyond all dispute that they are not enemies of the people. They are loyal comrades, loyal to the Party, loyal to the revolution, loyal to Lenin’s cause, and committed to building socialism in the Soviet Union. We can no longer keep people in exile or in concentration camps. We should find a way to get them back!”
Before Khrushchev had finished speaking, all the people present were shocked. Wasn’t this “treachery”? Some voiced fierce opposition. Voroshilov had the strongest reaction: “How can you say such things? You think you can get away with all that stuff at the convention? Have you ever wondered what effect this will have on the prestige of our party and country? You cannot keep your speech a secret. If you let it out, point your finger at us. What role do we play, and how do we explain it to people?”
Karganovitch and others supported Voroshilov’s opinion. Khrushchev was unmoved. “Even from your point of view,” he said, “I still think it is impossible to cover everything up. Sooner or later someone will come out of prison and concentration camps and return to the city and tell their story to relatives, friends, comrades and everyone back home. The country and the party will find out that people have spent 10 to 15 years in prison — and for what? No why! The accusation against them was fabricated! If they had been tried, the grounds for prosecuting them had been imagined out of thin air! I ask you to think again, on the other hand, that we are presiding over the first party congress since Stalin’s death, and therefore it is our duty to be frank with the delegates about all the actions of the party leadership of the era. We have given an account of our actions in the period after Stalin’s death, but as members of the Central Committee during Stalin’s life, we should also give an account of that period. How can you pretend not to know what happened?”
After looking around at everyone present, Khrushchev said excitedly, “I ask you to support me. The convention was drawing to a close and the delegates were about to disperse. When we go back, the recently released criminals will soon be coming home and telling the people what happened to them. At that point, of course, the delegates to the Assembly will ask: ‘How is this possible? Why did you not tell us these appalling things at the twentieth Congress? Why do you cover it up? They have a very reasonable question, and well have nothing to say. We must tell the Congress what we know!”
Voroshilov and Kaganovic again objected. They thought, “If we do what Khrushchev wants, the leaders will be blamed! The congress had the power to hold those present accountable for what had happened under Stalin! Because we were all in a position of leadership, and even if we didn’t know something, we were still punished for it!” Voroshilov et al. Be swayed by considerations of gain and loss, selfish mentality on behalf of the majority of senior cadres at that time the idea.
Khrushchev went on: “There are people who do not know a great many things, and we do not care about them because we have formed a system in which people tell you what they want you to know and do not care about anything else. But not everyone is in this position. Some know about it, some even get their hands dirty in some cases. But in spite of our varying degrees of responsibility for these things, As a member of the Central Committee since the 17th National Congress, I am prepared to accept some of my responsibility to the Party, even if the party believes that all the leaders of the period when arbitrary practices were imposed on the Party under Stalin were to blame.” He went on to say: “The crime has been committed, and the people will find it necessary; If we keep quiet, they will ask questions later, and we will be judged! I don’t want that to happen, and I don’t want that passive acceptance of responsibility. I’d rather ask the question now! ‘
Khrushchev continued, seeing that some were still hesitating: “There comes a time in any man who has committed a crime when an early confession brings him clemency, if not complete pardon. If we are to fully account for Stalin’s abuses, there is no better time than now. By the twenty-first it will be too late!”
The presidium reluctantly agreed to do a report on Stalin’s abuses of power because of Khrushchev’s intransigent rework. Khrushchev suggested that Posbelov should do the report, because he was the head of the investigative committee. But the rest of the presidium objected, and they asked Khrushchev to make the speech. Khrushchev explained, “How can I make a new report now that I have made a summary report and made no mention of the Posbelov material?”
But some insisted, on the grounds that a report by Bosbelov, the secretary of the Central Committee, would make people wonder: Why did Khrushchev say nothing about it in his concluding report? Why does Bosbelov now propose such an important thing? Could it be that Khrushchev didn’t know about it or did he know about it? Why did he pay so little attention? It raises the question of whether the leaders are not united.
Khrushchev saw reason and agreed to give his own report. At the same time asked Bosbelov to rewrite the investigation report into a conference speech. Later, Bosbelov led the staff around the clock, finally before the close of the conference to draft Khrushchev for the secret meeting of the report on the Cult of Personality and its Consequences.
On February 24, 1956, the communist Party of The Soviet Union closed. That evening, the newly elected Central Committee held its first plenary session. Other delegates packed up and prepared to return the next day. However, just after the first plenary session, all the delegates received an urgent notice: immediately to the Kremlin meeting!
Western journalists and intelligence agents quickly became aware of the anomaly. They scrolled around the delegates’ quarters and the Kremlin, but could not get any information about what was going on. And when delegations from other countries’ communist and workers’ parties did not attend, the mystery deepened. They sent word to their superiors that the Communist Party was holding an extremely secret meeting of all twenty delegates. Most of the instructions were: do everything possible to find out what the conclave was all about!
The historic meeting of the world is about to begin in the Kremlin’s conference hall. Khrushchev strode excitedly to the rostrum, and the delegates clapped enthusiastically with questioning eyes. No sooner had the applause died down than Khrushchev said bluntly:
“Comrades, in my reports to this Congress on behalf of the Central Committee, in the speeches of many delegates to this Congress, and in past conferences, I have talked a great deal about the cult of personality and its harmful consequences.” Begins with a few words, make the delegates think the meeting related to critique a cult of personality, is also a cliche, but the following words to make everyone by surprise: “Stalin died, the CPC Central Committee’s policy is to thoroughly clarified in detail – September 11th will never allow a person to have the fairy as supernatural character of superman. We have also pointed out that this approach has not the slightest whiff of Marxism. This is to assume that such a person knows everything, understands everything, can think for everyone, can do anything, and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with his actions. Over the years, this cult of one individual, Stalin, has been nurtured among us!”
There was a commotion at the meeting. Not only because Of Khrushchev’s fierce rhetoric, but also because of Stalin’s name. This has never happened before. The delegates, accustomed to singing Stalin’s praises, stared and craned their necks.
Khrushchev glanced around the room and said, “The purpose of my report is not to make a comprehensive assessment of Stalin’s career and activities. Stalin’s achievements, while he was still alive, have been written in countless books, pamphlets and research papers on the subject, and a great deal of publicity has been given to the role that Stalin played in the course of the socialist revolution, as well as in the civil war and in the construction of our country. We are now concerned with a question of great importance to the Party now and in the future, namely, how Stalin’s personality cult grew slowly. And how, at a particular stage, this cult of personality has become the source of the most serious and profound damage to the party’s principles, inner-party democracy and the revolutionary legal order.”
“Given the general to the cult of various practical consequences as well as the consequences of damage to the party’s collective leadership and the lack of adequate understanding, considering on one hand concentrated huge unlimited power of the fact that the party central committee believes that in the communist party 20 big meeting information about this problem, it is absolutely necessary.”
At this point, Khrushchev noticed that the hall was so quiet that he thought people would be able to hear a fly flying through it. He repressed inner excited, spoke of Marx, Engels and Lenin criticism of personal cult, speak to the criticism of Stalin and Lenin concern about the fate of the party and the country, speak to Stalin to the destruction of the democratic centralism, and then the conversation turned to Stalin’s abuse of power, the party’s senior cadres take massive terror. “The Party central Committee keeps records of Stalin’s dictatorial attitude and methods towards many of the party’s cadres,” he declares. The party has now set up a commission of inquiry tasked with investigating the repression of most of the central committee members and alternates elected at the 17th Party Congress. The commission’s investigation into the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs showed that they had fabricated the case against the Communist Party and had falsely denounced it, in flagrant violation of the socialist legal order, resulting in the death of many innocent people. The findings suggest that many of the Party, Soviet and economic activists who were branded as enemies in 1937-38 were not enemies, spies or saboteurs, but often loyal Communists. They had been convicted, and on many occasions they had confessed to all falsehoods because they could not bear the savage torture. According to the investigation committee, 83 of the 139 central Committee members and alternate members elected at the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China were arrested and shot to death.”
The silence, which had been complete, seemed to have exploded like a bomb. The delegates stirred angrily, and some used violent words to express their shocked feelings. It took a long time for silence to settle down. When Khrushchev threw out Stalin’s mass miscarriages of justice, there was a flurry of activity.
More than two hours later, Khrushchev explained Stalin’s mistakes in the Great Patriotic War. Hitler’s success in the early stages of the war was due to Stalin’s rampant suppression and misdirection. He exclaimed, “Who won the great Patriotic War? Not Stalin, but the whole party, the Soviet government, our heroic army — his talented commanders and brave soldiers, and the entire Soviet people!” At this time, the first warm applause in the hall.
Finally, Khrushchev criticized Stalin’s personality cult. He accused Stalin of enjoying the cult of personality, wrote his own eulogizing articles for books, and ordered 33 tons of copper to be set aside to build a full-length statue of himself. “It is a testament to the great spiritual and political strength of our Party that we have thoroughly raised the issue of the cult of personality, which has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism, and that we want to eliminate its pernicious consequences,” he stressed. “Our Party will lead the Soviet people to new successes and victories along the Leninist road!”
The four-hour secret presentation ended with the delegates giving him “a stormy long ovation”. After the conference, western journalists and intelligence agents tried every means to get information about the conference. The CIA even set aside one million dollars for the campaign to get information, but nothing happened. For Khrushchev finally told the delegates: “We must take the question of the cult of personality very seriously. Please do not let it leak out of the party, and especially not to the newspapers. This is the reason why we discuss it in secret meetings. Don’t make weapons for the enemy, and don’t wash your dirty linen in public.”
However, as the situation changed, the report was transmitted to the leaders of the Eastern European Brothers. Because of the Polish secrecy, the report reached Israel, and Israel reached the United States, and the Eisenhower administration was so prized that Secretary of State Dulles said excitedly, “This is the atomic bomb that blew up the communist world!” He suggested the publication of Khrushchev’s secret reports. Newspapers, news agencies and radio stations in the United States soon published the secret reports, sending a powerful shock around the world.
Khrushchev’s secret reports did cause chaos in the socialist camp and a serious setback for the International Communist Movement. Anti-stalinism broke out in Poland and Hungary, and defections began in Western Europe. The secret reports enjoyed the support and support of the majority of the Soviet people. Because the report pushed down the mountains that had weighed on the Soviet people for decades, numerous unjust, false and wrong cases were cleared up, and numerous wronged people who died were laid to rest. Thousands of “prisoners” in concentration camps and penal colonies were able to return home and live a free life; More than 100 million People in the Soviet Union no longer have to live like a hell on earth, but can breathe freely the air of freedom!
Therefore, the vast grassroots cadres and the masses of the Soviet Union are in favor of secret reporting. A year later, in 1957, at a meeting of the Central Presidiums, Malenkov, Kaganovich, Molotov and others who were opposed to Khrushchev’s decision suddenly launched a revolt and demanded Khrushchev’s resignation by a vote of 7 to 4. Khrushchev, through Marshal Zhukov, hurriedly brought in central committee members from all over the country to hold a plenary session. The plenary session voted overwhelmingly in favor of Khrushchev. Instead, Malenkov and others were identified as an “anti-party group,” accused of “opposing the Central Line of the opposition and the policy of opposing the personality cult established by the Communist Party of Soviet Union.” Thus it can be seen that most of the central Committee members representing the grassroots cadres and the masses supported Khrushchev.
We often criticize Khrushchev for “whipping his corpse” and “burning his body for ashes” after Stalin’s death. In fact, Khrushchev’s action was also driven by public opinion. In October 1961, the communist party meeting, 22, a split and Lenin, under Stalin was jailed for 20 years of the old communist party member, said to the people scattered everywhere, live in her heart of Lenin, “conversation” with her many times, “yesterday, it seems that Lenin vividly stood in front of me, I had a word with him again, he said, let him lie in have made a lot of damage to the party’s things next to Stalin, is not happy, is to let people embarrassed.”
This kind is similar to “hold a dream” the dream talk, provoke the strong reaction that attends a meeting unexpectedly. The first secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Alexander Podgorny, suggested that the central government immediately remove Stalin’s body from Lenin’s tomb in Red Square. At the same time, the head of the Leningrad delegation also made this proposal; The First Secretary of Moscow Dmitri Jamichev expressed support: “The Moscow delegation to the Congress fully supports the proposal of the Ukrainian and Leningrad delegations. The lawlessness and bossiness of the Stalinist period are a thing of the past, but one cannot remain silent about it!”
The 22 congresses of the Soviet Union not only expelled Malenkov and others from the Party, but also made a major decision to remove Stalin’s body from Lenin’s tomb. Most of the brothers expressed support for these decisions.
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