In March 1956, the new leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, shocked the communist world. In an initially “secret speech” to the Communist Party, he issued a lengthy, unflinching denunciation of crimes committed by Stalin.1 Stalin had been unprepared for World War II, he claimed. He tortured his own comrades and forced them into confessing to crimes they had never committed, as an excuse to have them shot and secure his grip on power.
