Excerpts from the Historic Secret speech

KHRUSHCHEV'S DENUNCIATION OF STALIN

The most sensational event in recent Communist history was Nikita Khrushchev's three-hour secret address to the 20th Congress of the party in February. Ever since, Western intelligence agents have been trying by every means to get a copy of the text. The U.S. State Department at last succeeded.

LENIN'S WARNING TO STALIN

KHRUSHCHEV began his denunciation of Stalin by revealing two suppressed letters. One was written by Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, to Lev Kamenev, chief of the Politburo: "I beg of you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats [by Stalin]." Lenin wrote direct to Stalin: "You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her ... I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me ... I ask you therefore that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us." (Says the transcript at this point: Commotion in the hall.)

Khrushchev went on: "Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life ... we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character."

ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE

"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 usage 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 those of a practical character. The formula 'enemy of the people' was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating [those] who opposed the party line."

BERIA'S FUNCTION

"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 'confessions' were acquired."

THE STATISTICS OF TERROR

Khrushchev said that a party commission had made a study of the 1937-38 purge of the Central Committee: "It was determined that of the 139 members and candidates of the party's Central Committee who were elected at the 17th

The text confirms the general outline leaked at the time, describing how--passionately and sometimes weeping--Khrushchev tore aside the curtain of Communist propaganda that has veiled the late Joseph Stalin's long reign of terror (TIME, March 26 et seq.). It also adds many fascinating details:

Congress, 98 persons (i.e., 70%) were arrested and shot [indignation in the hall]. The same fate met . . . the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of the 1,966 delegates with voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested . . ."

THE FAKED TRIALS

As an example of how Stalin's interrogators faked the evidence in the great conspiracy trials of 1937, Khrushchev recited the case of Party Member Rosenblum: "When Rosenblum was arrested, he was subjected to terrible torture during which he was ordered to confess false information concerning himself and other persons. He was then brought to the office of Zakovsky [chief interrogator], who offered him freedom on condition that he make before the court a false confession fabricated in 1937 by the NKVD concerning sabotage, espionage and diversion in a terroristic center in Leningrad. With unbelievable cynicism Zakovsky told about the vile mechanism for the crafty creation of fabricated 'anti-Soviet plots.' . . . 'You yourself [he told Rosenblum] will not need to invent anything. The NKVD will prepare for you a ready outline for every branch of the center; you will have to study it carefully and to remember all questions and answers which the court might ask . . . Your future will depend on how the trial goes and on its results. If you begin to lie and testify falsely, blame yourself. If you manage to endure it, you will save your head, and we will feed and clothe you at the government's cost until your death.' "

DAYS OF SUSPICION

"Stalin was a very distrustful man, sickly suspicious; we knew 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 looking at 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.' "

THE RED ARMY PURGE

"Stalin's annihilation of many military commanders . . . beginning literally at the company and battalion commander level and extending to the higher military centers [brought] grievous consequences . . . Large scale repression undermined military discipline because for several years officers of all ranks and even soldiers in the party and Komsomol cells were taught to 'unmask' their superiors as hidden enemies . . . During this time the cadre of leaders who had gained military experience in Spain and in the Far East was almost completely wiped out . . ."

JEALOUSY OF ZHUKOV

"After the war Stalin began to tell all kinds of nonsense about Zhukov, among other things the following: 'You praised Zhukov, but he does not deserve it. It is said that before each operation at the front Zhukov used to behave as follows: he would take a handful of earth, smell it and say, "We can begin the attack," or the opposite, "The planned operation cannot be carried out." ' ... It is possible that Stalin himself invented these things for the purpose of minimizing the role and military talents of Marshal Zhukov."

WARTIME DEPORTATIONS

"Monstrous are the acts whose initiator was Stalin ... the mass deportations from their native places of whole nations, together with all Communists and Komsomols without any exception; this deportation action was not dictated by any military considerations. At the end of 1943 a decision was taken and executed to deport all the Karachai from the lands on which they lived. In the same period, the same lot befell the whole population of the Autonomous Kalmyk Republic. In March 1944 all the Chechen and Ingush peoples were deported and the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was liquidated. In April 1944 all Balkars were deported to faraway places. The Ukrainians avoided meeting this fate only because there were too many of them and there was no place to which to deport them."

THE LATER STALIN

"After the war Stalin became even more capricious, irritable and brutal; in particular, his suspicion grew. His persecution mania reached unbelievable dimensions . . . This un believable suspicion was cleverly taken advantage of by the abject provocateur and vile enemy Beria, who had murdered thousands of Communists and loyal Soviet people . . . The question arises . . . Why did we not do something earlier, during Stalin's life, in order to prevent the loss of innocent lives? It was because Stalin personally supervised [the purges], and the majority of the Politburo members did not at the time know all of the circumstances . . . and could not therefore intervene."

STALIN THE IGNORANT

"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. He knew the country and agriculture only from films. Many films so pictured kolkhoz [collective] life that the tables were bending from the weight of turkeys and geese. Evidently Stalin thought that it was actually so. The last time he visited a village was in January 1928. How then could he have known the situation in the provinces?"

LITTLE FINGER & TITO

"I recall the first days when the conflict between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia began artificially to be blown up ... I was invited to visit Stalin who, pointing to the copy of a letter lately sent to Tito, asked me, 'Have you read this?' Not waiting for my reply, he answered, 'I will shake my little finger--and there will be no more Tito. He will fall.' "

THE DOCTORS' PLOT

"Let us also recall the affair of the doctor-plotters. Actually there was no affair outside the declaration of the woman doctor Timashuk, who was probably influenced or ordered by someone--after all, she was an unofficial collaborator of the organs of state security--to write Stalin a letter in which she declared that doctors were applying supposedly improper methods of medical treatment. Such a letter was sufficient for Stalin to reach an immediate conclusion that there are doctor plotters in the Soviet Union. He issued orders to arrest a group of eminent Soviet medical specialists. He personally issued advice on the conduct of the investigation. He said that the academician Vinogradov should be put in chains; another one should be beaten. Present at this Congress as a delegate is the former Minister of State Security Ignatiev. Stalin told him curtly, 'If you do not obtain confessions from the doctors, we will shorten you by a head.' Stalin personally called the investigative judge, gave him instructions, advised him on which investigative methods should be used; these methods were simple--beat, beat, and again beat. Shortly after the doctors were arrested, we members of the Politburo received protocols with the doctors' confessions of guilt. After distributing the protocols, Stalin told us, 'You are blind like young kittens; what will happen without me? The country will perish because you do not know how to recognize enemies.' "

LET VOROSHILOV SPEAK UP

Stalin commissioned and improved upon films, books and pictures glorifying himself. "Stalin loved to see the film The Unforgettable Year of 1919, in which he was shown on the steps of an armored train and where he was practically vanquishing the foe with his own saber. Let Kliment Voroshilov, our dear friend, find the necessary courage and write the truth about Stalin; after all, he knows how Stalin had fought."

"Because of his extreme suspicion, Stalin toyed also with the absurd and ridiculous suspicion that Voroshilov was an English agent [Laughter"). A special tapping device was installed in his home to listen to what was said there."

WHERE TO NEXT?

"Some comrades may ask us: Where were the members of the Politburo? Why did they not assert themselves? In the situation which then prevailed, I often talked with Nikolai Bulganin; once when we two were traveling in a car, he said: 'It has happened sometimes that a man goes to Stalin on his invitation as a friend. And when he sits with Stalin, he does not know where he will be sent next, home or to jail.' "

STALIN'S LAST DAYS

"It is not excluded that had Stalin remained at the helm for another several months, Comrades Molotov and Mikoyan would probably have not delivered any speeches at this Congress. Stalin evidently had plans to finish off the old members of the Politburo. "Comrades! In order not to repeat errors of the past, the Central Committee has declared itself resolutely against the cult of the individual . . . We cannot let this matter get out of the party, especially not to the press. We should not give ammunition to the enemy; we should not wash our dirty linen before their eyes."

STALIN, THE WAR HERO

"During the whole war Stalin never visited any section of the front or any liberated city, except for one short ride on the Mozhaisk Highway during a stabilized situation at the front. To this incident were dedicated many literary works full of fantasies of all sorts and so many paintings."

GLOBAL PLANNING

"After the war began, the nervousness and hysteria which Stalin demonstrated, interfering with actual military operations, caused our army serious damage . . . When there developed an exceptionally serious situation for our army in 1942 in the Kharkov region ... I telephoned Vasilevsky [Chief of Staff] and begged him: 'Alexander Mikhailovich, take a map and show Comrade Stalin the situation which has developed . . .' We should note that Stalin planned operations on a globe. Yes, comrades, he used to take the globe and trace the front on it ... [But] Stalin didn't want to hear any more arguments on the matter. I telephoned to Stalin at his villa . . . but Stalin did not consider it convenient to raise the phone and stated that I should speak to him through Malenkov [then Stalin's secretary], although he was only a few steps from the telephone. After 'listening' in this manner to our plea, Stalin said, 'Let everything remain as it is!' And what was the result of this? The Germans surrounded our army concentrations and consequently we lost hundreds of thousands of our soldiers. This is Stalin's military 'genius'; this is what it costs us."

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