Excerpt from "Crimes of Stalin Speech"

Published in A Treasury of the World's Great Speeches, published in 1954

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

On the night of February 24, 1956, during the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party being held at the Kremlin, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) ordered a select group of delegates to a secret meeting under tight security. The Kremlin was a centuries-old fort in Moscow that was used as the headquarters of the Communist Party. As the delegates approached...