OTD: Stalin thrown under a bus by Khrushchev. A Buffs in Brief special #1

Was this the most reckless speech in modern political history?

In February 1956, at the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev delivered a four-hour address that stunned the room — and reshaped the communist world.

Behind closed doors, in what became known as the “Secret Speech,” Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin for terror, deportations, purges and catastrophic leadership. Delegates reportedly turned ashen. Some were physically ill. Others feared the knock of the KGB.

But was this genuine moral reckoning — or a calculated power move?

In this inaugural Buffs in Brief, Antonia and Roger break down:

• Why Stalin’s system depended on terror

• Why 2.5 million people were still in the Gulag in 1953

• How Khrushchev outmanoeuvred rivals like Lavrentiy Beria

• Whether communism could survive without random repression

• How the speech sparked upheaval from Poland to Hungary

• Why it helped trigger the “Thaw”

Within months, the speech was published in the New York Times. The spell of Stalinism was broken — but the consequences were explosive.

This was not just a political gamble. It was a moral one.

And it changed the Cold War forever.

• To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause – Benjamin Nathans

• Khrushchev: The Man and His Era – William Taubman

This is Buffs in Brief — sharp, punchy history you can finish before the washing-up’s done.

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📚 Books Mentioned

• To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause – Benjamin Nathans

• Khrushchev: The Man and His Era – William Taubman