Even that hope was brutally crushed in 1956. Before a world-wide audience, the Soviets sent tanks into Hungary to stifle demonstrations by students and workers—thus demonstrating just how strong was their commitment to humanity. And, more devastatingly, Nikita Khrushchev acknowledged publicly what many in the West had long charged—that Joseph Stalin’s regime had slaughtered tens of millions of human beings, staggering numbers that made the National Socialists’ efforts seem amateurish in comparison.
