Library:Khrushchev lied

Introduction. The Khrushchev school of falsification: "The 20th century's most influential speech"

The fiftieth anniversary of Nikita S. Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", de­livered on February 25, 1956, elicited predictable comment. An article in the London (UK) Telegraph called it "the 20th century's most influential speech." In an article the same day in the New York Times William Taub­man, whose biography of Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biogra­phy in 2004, called it a "great deed" that "deserves to be celebrated" on its anniversary.

Some time ago I reread Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" for the first time in many years. I used the HTML. version of the edition of the speech published in a special issue of The New Leader in 1962.² During my read­ing I remarked that the noted Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky, in his annotations to Khrushchev's talk, expressed his opinion that certain of Khrushchev's statements were false. For example, early in his speech Khrushchev says the following:

Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin.

Boris Nikolaevsky's note 8 to this passage reads:

This statement by Khrushchev is not quite true: Investigation of Stalin's terrorist acts in the last period of his life was initiated by Beria. ... Khrushchev, who now depicts himself as having well-nigh initiated the probe of Stalin's torture chambers, actually tried to block it in the first months after Stalin's death.

I remembered that Arch Getty wrote something very similar in his magis­terial work Origins of the Great Purges

Other inconsistencies in Khrushchev's account include an apparent confusion of Ezhov for Beria. Although Ezhov's name is mentioned occasionally, Beria is charged with as many misdeeds and repressions; however, the latter was merely a regional secretary until 1938. Further, many reports note that the police terror began to subside when Beria took over from Ezhov in 1938. Could Khrushchev have conveniently substituted Beria for Ezhov in his account? What else might he have blurred? At any rate, Beria's recent execution by Khrushchev and the leadership made him a convenient scapegoat. Khrushchev's opportunistic use of Beria certainly casts suspicion on the exactitude of his other assertions. (p. 268 n.28; emphasis'added Gf)

So I suspected that today, in the light of the many documents from for­merly secret Soviet archives now available, serious research might dis­cover that even more of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin were false.

In fact, I made a far different discovery. Not one specific statement of "revelation" that Khrushchev made about either Stalin or Beria turned out to be true. Among those that can be checked for verifica­tion, every single one turns out to be false. Khrushchev, it turns out, did not just "lie" about Stalin and Beria - he did virtually nothing else except lie. The entire "Secret Speech" is made up of fabrications. This is the "great deed" Taubman praised Khrushchev for! (A separate, though much shorter, article might be written to expose the falsehoods in Taub­man's own New York Times Op-Ed article celebrating Khrushchev's meretricious speech).

For me, as a scholar, this was a troubling and even unwelcome discovery. If, as I had anticipated, I had found that, say, 25% or so of Khrushchev's "revelations" were falsifications, my research would surely excite some skepticism as well as surprise. But in the main I could anticipate accep­tance, and praise: "Good job of research by Furr", and so on.

But I feared - and my fears have been born out by my experience with the Russian-language original of this book, published in December 2007 -that if I claimed every one of Khrushchev's "revelations" was false, no one would believe me. It would not make any difference how thoroughly or carefully I cited evidence in support of my arguments. To disprove the whole of Khrushchev's speech is, at the same time, to challenge the whole historical paradigm of Soviet history of the Stalin period, a para­digm to which this speech is foundational.

the most influential speech of the 20th century - if not of all time - a complete fraud? The notion was too monstrous. Who would want to come to grips with the revision of Soviet, Comintern, and even world history that the logic of such a conclusion would demand? It would be infinitely easier for everyone to believe that I had "cooked the books," shaded the truth - that I was falsifying things, just as I was accusing Khrushchev of doing. Then my work could be safely ignored, and the problem would "go away." Especially since I am known to have sympa­thy towards the worldwide communist movement of which Stalin was the recognized leader. When a researcher comes to conclusions that sus­piciously appear to support his own preconceived ideas, it is only prudent to suspect him of some lack of objectivity, if not worse.

So I would have been much happier if my research had concluded that 25% of Khrushchev's "revelations" about Stalin and Beria were false. However, since virtually all of those "revelations" that can be checked are, in fact, falsehoods, the onus of evidence lies even more heavily on me as a scholar than would ordinarily be the case. Accordingly, I have organized my report on this research in a somewhat unusual way.

The entire book is divided into two separate but interrelated sections.

In the first sections, consisting of Chapters 1 through 9, I examine each of the statements, or assertions, that Khrushchev made in his report and that constitute the essence of his so-called "revelations." (to jump ahead a bit, I note that I have identified sixty-one such assertions).

Each of these "revelations" is preceded by a quotation from the "Secret Speech" which is then examined in the light of the documentary evi­dence. Most of this evidence is presented as quotations from primary sources. Only in a few cases do I quote from secondary sources. I have set myself the task of presenting the best evidence that I can find, drawn in the main from former Soviet archives in order to demonstrate the false character of Khrushchev's Speech at the 20th Party Congress. Since, if interspersed with the text, long documentary citations would make for difficult reading, I have only briefly referred to the evidence in the text

and reserved the fuller quotations from the primary (and occasionally secondary) sources themselves in the sections on each chapter in the Appendix..

The second section of the book, Chapters 10 through 12, is devoted to questions of a methodological nature and to a discussion of some of the conclusions which flow from this study. I have given special attention to a typology of the falsehoods, or methods of deception that Khrushchev

employed. A study of the "rehabilitation" materials of some of the Party leaders named in the Speech is included here.

I handle the references to primary sources in two ways. In addition to the traditional academic documentation through footnote and bibliography I have tried wherever possible to guide the reader to those primary docu­ments available either in part or in full on the Internet. All of these URL references were valid at the time the English language edition of this book was completed.

In a few cases, I have placed important primary documents on the Inter­net myself, normally in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. In a few cases this has made it possible for me to refer to page numbers, something that is either clumsy or impossible if using hypertext markup language (HTML).

In conclusion I would like to thank my colleagues in the United States and in Russia who have read this work in its earlier drafts and given me the benefit of their criticism. Naturally, they bear no responsibility for any errors and shortcomings that remain in the book despite their best efforts.

My especial gratitude goes to my wonderful colleague in Moscow, Vladi­mir L'vovich Bobrov. Scholar, researcher, editor, and translator, master of both his native Russian and English, I would never have undertaken this work, much less completed it, without his inspiration, guidance, and assistance of all kinds.

I will be grateful for any comments and criticisms of this work by read­ers.

The cult and Lenin's "testament"

The cult

Khrushchev:

"Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of the party at the 20th Congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences. After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows this well. At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future - with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality."

This Speech is often referred to as one of "revelations" by Khrushchev of crimes and misdeeds done by Stalin. The issue of the "cult of personality'', or "cult of the individual", around the figure of Stalin was the main subject of the Speech. Khrushchev did not "reveal" the existence of a "cult of personality" itself. Its existence was, of course, well known. It had been discussed at Presidium meetings since immediately after Stalin's death.

Yet Khrushchev does not specifically state at the outset that Stalin promoted the "cult''. This was clearly deliberate on Khrushchev's part. Throughout his speech Khrushchev implies - or, rather, takes it for granted - what he ought to have proven, but could not: that Stalin himself fostered this cult in order to gain dictatorial power. In fact, throughout his entire Speech, Khrushchev was unable to cite a single truthful example of how Stalin encouraged this "cult" - presumably, because he could not find even one such example.

Khrushchev's whole speech was built on this falsehood. All the rest of his "revelations" were fitted within the explanatory paradigm of the 'cuIt" around himself which, according to Khrushchev, Stalin created and cultivated.

This study will show that virtually all of Khrushchev's "revelations" concerning Stalin are false. But it's worth mentioning at the outset that Khrushchev's explanatory framework itself - the notion of the "cult" constructed by Stalin and as a result of which the rest of his so-called "crimes" could be committed with impunity - this is itself a falsehood. Not only did Stalin not commit the crimes and misdeeds Khrushchev imputes to him. Stalin also did not construct the "cult" around himself. In fact, the evidence proves the opposite: that Stalin opposed the disgusting "cult" around himself.

Some have argued that Stalin's opposition to the cult around himself must have been hypocrisy. After all, Stalin was so powerful that if he had really wanted to put a stop to the cult, he could have done so. But this argument assumes what it should prove. To assume that he was that powerful is also to assume that Stalin was in fact what the "cult" absurdly made him out to be: an autocrat with supreme power over everything and everyone in the USSR.

Stalin's Opposition to the Cult

Stalin protested praise and flattery directed at himself over and over again over many years. He agreed with Lenin's assessment of the "cult of the individual'', and said basically the same things about it as Lenin had. Khrushchev quoted Lenin, but without acknowledging that Stalin said the same things. A long list of quotations from Stalin is given here in evidence of Stalin's opposition to the "cult'' around him. Many more could be added to it, for almost every memoir by persons who had personal contact with Stalin gives further anecdotes that demonstrate Stalin's opposition to, and even disgust with, the adulation of his person.

For example, the recently-published posthumous memoir Stalin. Kak Ya Evo Znal ("Stalin As I Knew Him," 2003) by Akakii Mgeladze, a former First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party later punished and marginalized by Khrushchev, the author often comments on Stalin's dislike of the "cult" around him. Mgeladze, who died in 1980, recounts how Stalin wished to suppress any special celebration of his 70th birthday in 1949 and acceded to it with reluctance only because of the arguments made by other Party leaders that the event would serve to unite the communist movement by bringing together its leaders from around the world.

Stalin was more successful in preventing others in the Politburo from renaming Moscow "Stalinodar" (= "gift of Stalin") in 1937. But his attempt to refuse the award of Hero of the Soviet Union was thwarted when the award, which he never accepted, was pinned to a pillow which was placed in his coffin at his death.

Malenkov's Attempt to Call a CC Plenum Concerning the "Cult" April 953

Immediately after Stalin's death, Malenkov proposed calling a Central Committee Plenum to deal with the harmful effects of the cult. Malenkov was honest enough to blame himself and his colleagues and reminded them all that Stalin had frequently warned them against the "cult'' to no avail. This attempt failed in the Presidium; the special Plenum was never called. If it had been, Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" could not have taken place.

Whether Khrushchev supported Malenkov's proposal or not - the evidence is unclear on this point - he was certainly involved in the discussion. Khrushchev knew all about 'Malenkov's attempt to deal with the "cult" openly and early on. But he said nothing about it thereby effectively denying that it had occurred.

July 1953 Plenum - Beria Attacked for Allegedly Opposing "Cult"

At the July 1953 Plenum, called to attack an absent (and possibly already dead) Beria, a number of the figures blamed Beria for attacking the cult. Khrushchev's leading role at this Plenum and in the cabal of leaders against Beria shows that he was complicit in attacking Beria and so in supporting the "cult" as a weapon with which to discredit Beria.

Who Fostered the "Cult"?

A study of the origins of the "cult" is beyond the scope of this article. But there is good evidence that oppositionists either began the "cult" around Stalin or participated eagerly in it as a cover for their oppositional activities. In an unguarded moment during one of his ochnye slavki (face-to-face confrontations with accusers) Bukharin was forced to admit that he urged former Oppositionists working for Izvestiya to refer to Stalin with excessive praise, and used the term "cult" himself. Another Oppositionist, Karl Radek, is often said to have written the first full-blown example of the "cult", the strange futuristic Zodchii Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva­ ("The Architect of Socialist Society"), for the January 1, 1934 issue of lzvestiya, subsequently published as a separate pamphlet.

Khrushchev and Mikoian

Khrushchev and Mikoian, the main figures from the Stalin Politburo who instigated and avidly promoted the "de-Stalinization" movement, were among those who, in the 1930s, had fostered the "cult" most avidly. If this were all, we might hypothetically assume that Khrushchev and Mikoian had truly respected Stalin to the point of being in awe of him. This was certainly the case with many others. Mgeladze's memoir shows one example of a leading Party official who retained his admiration for Stalin long after it was fashionable to discard it. But Khrushchev and Mikoian had participated in the Presidium discussions of March 1953 during which Malenkov's attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum to discuss the "cult"' had been frustrated. They had been leaders in the June 1953 Plenum during which Beria had been sharply criticized for opposing the "cult" of Stalin. These matters, together with the fact that Khrushchev's "revelations" are, in reality, fabrications means there must be something else at work here.

Lenin's "testament"

Khrushchev: Fearing the future fate of the party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was necessary to consider the question of transferring Stalin from the position of the Secretary General because of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that he does not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, that he is capricious and abuses his power. In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: 'After taking over the position of Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.'

We must interrupt this quotation to note an important fact. Khrushchev here attributes to Lenin the accusation that Stalin "abuses his power." In reality, Lenin wrote only that he was "not cetain whether he [Stalin] will be always able to use this power with the required care." There is nothing in Lenin's words about accusing Stalin of "abusing his power."

Khrushchev continues: This letter - a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin's "testament" - was distributed among the delegates to the 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich"s anxiety concerning the party, the people, the state, and the future direction of party policy. Vladimir Ilyich said:

Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.

'This document of Lenin's was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety. Comrades! the Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his "testament." These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia to [Lev B.] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read those documents:

Lev Borisovich! "Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in the party. During all these 30 years I have never heard from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of the party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigorii [E. Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a living person and my nerves are strained to the utmost." N. KRUPSKAIA

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half.months, in March 1 923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

TO COMRADE STALIN: COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV

Dear Comrade Stalin! You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Karnenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me; and I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. 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. SINCERELY: LENIN March 5 1923

(commotion in the hall.) "Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia ­ whom the party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the party since its creation - 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."

The document in question was not widely "known in the party history as Lenin's 'Testament"'. Khrushchev took this term from Trotsky, who wrote a book with that tide in 1934. It had never been known as such in the Bolshevik Party except among oppositionists. In fact there is a history to the very use of the term "Lenin's Testament" - one that does not reflect well on Khrushchev.

In 1925 Trotsky, in a sharp criticism of Max Eastman's book Since Lenin Died, had explicitly repudiated Eastman's lie that Lenin left a "testament" or "Will." Along with the other members of the Politburo, Trotsky said that Lenin had not done so. And that appears to be correct: there is no evidence at all that Lenin intended these documents as a "testament" of any kind. Then, in the 1930s, Trotsky changed his mind and began writing about ''Lenin's Testament" again, this time as a part of his partisan attack on Stalin. Therefore Khrushchev or, more likely, one of his collaborators, must have taken this usage from Trotsky - though they would never have publicly acknowledged doing so.

Other aspects of Khrushchev's speech are similar to Trotsky's writings. For example, Trotsky viewed the Moscow Trials as faked frame-ups - naturally enough, because he was an absent co-defendant in them. AIthough the first Moscow Trial defendant, Akbal Ikramov of the March 1938 "Bukharin" Trial, was not officially "rehabilitated" until May 1957, after the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev did deplore the executions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotskyites in the Secret Speech. This constituted at least an implicit declaration of their innocence, since their punishment would not be considered too harsh for anyone really guilty of the crimes to which they confessed in 1936.

But in fact the whole tenor of Khrushchev's speech, which blamed Stalin alone for derailing socialism through immense crimes of which Khrushchev held him alone responsible, was identical to Trotsky's demonized portrait of Stalin. Trotsky's widow recognized this fact, and applied for the rehabilitation of her late husband and within a day of the "Secret Speech". The fact that Natalia Sedova-Trotskaia learned of the supposedly "secret" speech immediately it happened suggests that the Trotskyites may have still had high-level informants in the CPSU.

There are good reasons to suspect that Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5, 1923 may be a forgery. Valentin A. Sakharov has published a major scholarly book on this subject on this thesis with Moscow University Press. His general argument is outlined in several articles of his and in reviews of the book.

There is no question that at the time Stalin himself, and everybody who knew about it, believed that it was genuine. But even if genuine, Lenin's letter to Stalin of March 5 1923 does not show what it has often been assumed to show - that Lenin was estranged from Stalin. For less than two weeks later his wife Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaia (called "c(omrade) Ul'ianova (N.K.)" in this exchange) told Stalin that Lenin had very insistently asked her to make Stalin promise to obtain cyanide capsules for him, in order to end his great suffering. Stalin agreed, but then reported to the Politburo on March 23 that he could not bring himself to do it, "no matter how humane it might be."

These documents were quoted by Dmitrii Volkogonov in his very hostile biography of Lenin. Copies of them remain in the Volkogonov Papers in the Library of Congress. There is no doubt about their authenticity. Lidia Fotieva, one of Lenin's secretaries, had made a note in 1922 that Lenin had told her he would request cyanide capsules if his illness progressed beyond a certain point.

Therefore, even if Lenin's letter of March 5, 1923 be genuine - and Sakharov's study calls this into serious question - Lenin still trusted and relied upon Stalin. There was no estrangement between them.

According to Volkogonov (and others), In the morning of December 24 Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin discussed the situation. They did not have the right to force their leader [Lenin] to be silent. But care, foresight, the greatest possible quite, were essential. A decision was taken:

1. Vladimir Ilich is given the right to dictate daily for 5- 10 minutes, but this must not be in the form of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilich must not expect answers to these notes. No meetings are allowed.

2. Neither friends nor family are permitted to communicate anything of political life to Vladimir Ilich, so as not to thereby present materials for consideration and excitement.

According to Robert Service (Lenin), Lenin suffered senous "events" (probably strokes) on the following dates:

• May 25, 1922 - a "massive stroke" (p. 443);

• December 22-23, 1922 - Lenin "lost the use of his whole right side" (p.461 );

• The night of March 6-7, 1923 - Lenin "lost the use of the extremities of the right side of his body." (pp. 473-4).

On December 18 the Politburo put Stalin in charge of Lenin's health and forbade anyone to discuss politics with him. Krupskaia violated this rule and was reprimanded for it by Stalin, on December 22. That very night Lenin suffered a serious stroke.

On March 5, 1923 Krupskaia told Lenin that Stalin had spoken rudely to her back in December. Incensed, Lenin wrote Stalin the famous note. According to Krupskaia's secretary V. Dridzo, whose version of this event was published in in 1989, it happened this way:

"Now, when Nadezhda Konstantinovna's name and Stalin's relationship with her is more frequently mentioned in some publications, I wish to tell about those matters I know for certain. Why was it only two months after Stalin's rude conversation with Nadezhda Konstantinovna that V.I Lenin wrote him the letter in which he demanded that Stalin excuse himself to her? It is possible that I am the only one who really knows how it happened, since Nadezhda Konstantinova often told me about it. It happened at the very beginning of March 1923. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilich were talking about something. The phone rang. Nadezhda Konstantinovna went to the phone (in Lenin's apartment the phone always stood in the corridor). When she returned Vladimir Ilich asked her: 'Who called?' - 'It was Stalin, he and I have reconciled.' - 'What do you mean?' And Nadezhda Konstantinovna had to tell everything that had happened when Stalin called her, talked with her very rudely, and threatened to bring her before the Control commission. Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked Vladimir Ilich to pay it no mind since everything had been settled and she had forgotten about it. But Vladimir Ilich was adamant. He was deeply offended by I.V. Stalin's disrespectful behavior towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna and on March 5 1923 dictated the latter to Stalin with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev in which he insisted that Stalin excuse himself. Stalin had to excuse himself, but he never forgot it and did not forgive Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and this had an effect on his relationship with her."

The next day Lenin had a further serious stroke.

In each case Lenin had a stroke shortly after Krupskaia discussed political matter with him - something that as a Party member, she was not supposed to do. This cannot have been a coincidence, for Lenin's doctors had specifically warned against getting Lenin upset about anything. So it seems more than possible that, in fact, it was Krupskaia's actions that precipitated Lenin's last two serious strokes.

As one of Lenin's long-time secretaries Lidia Fotieva said,

Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not always conduct herself as she should have done. She might have said too much to Vladimir Ilich. She was used to sharing everything with him, even in situations when she should not have done that at all ... For example, why did she tell Vladimir Ilich that Stalin had been rude to her on the telephone? . . .

Incidentally, when Stalin's wife committed suicide in 1932, Krupskaia wrote the following letter of consolation to Stalin, which was published in Pravda on November 16, 1932:

Dear Iosif Vissarionych: "These days everything somehow makes me think about you, makes me want to hold your hand. It is hard to lose a person who is close to you. I keep remembering those talks with you in Ilich's office during his illness. They gave me courage at that time. I press your hand yet again." N. Krupskaia.

This letter shows once again that Stalin was not estranged from Lenin's wife after the December 1922 dispute.

Stalin was held in very high esteem by all those in Lenin's household. The writer Aleksandr Bek wrote down the reminiscences of Lidia Fotieva, in which she said:

"You do not understand those times. You don't understand what great significance Stalin had. Stalin was great . . . Maria Il'inichna [Ul'ianova, Lenin's sister] during Vladimir llich's lifetime told me: 'After Lenin, Stalin is the most intelligent person in the party ... Stalin was an authority for us. We loved Stalin. He was a great man. Yet he often said: 'I am only a pupil of Lenin's.' "(In Bek, op.til.)

Khrushchev was simply trying to make Stalin "look bad," rather than transmit any understanding of what went on.

It is obvious that Khrushchev took Lenin's letter to Stalin out of context, and in so doing he seriously distorted the situation. He omitted the fact that the Central Committee had instructed Stalin to make sure Lenin was isolated from political issues for the sake of his health. This prohibition explicitly mentioned "friends" and "domestic persons." Since Lenin's secretaries were not likely to violate a Central Committee directive, probably the term "domestic persons" was specifically intended to include Lenin's sister and Krupskaia, his wife. Stalin had criticized Krupskaia for violating this isolation.

Nor did Khrushchev mention Stalin's reply of March 7, 1923 to Lenin's note, or Lenin's later request to Stalin for poison. By omitting these facts, Khrushchev seriously distorted the context in which Lenin's note to Stalin of March 5 1923 occurred, and deliberately distorted Lenin's relationship with Stalin.

Khrushchev omitted the accounts of Lenin's sister Maria Il'inichna. Lenin's secretaries Volodicheva and Fotieva, and Krupskaia's secretary Dridzo, were still alive, but their testimony was not sought. He omitted the evidence that Krupskaia's actions in violating the CC's prohibition about getting Lenin upset may well have been the cause of two Lenin's strokes. He omitted the fact that, far from making any break with Stalin, two weeks later Lenin trusted only Stalin with the secret request to be given poison if he asked for it. Finally, he omitted Krupskaia's reconciliation with Stalin.

Khrushchev strove to depict Stalin in a bad light in this affair at all costs He showed no interest in what had really happened or an understanding of the events in their context.

Collegiality "trampled"

"Collegiality" in work

At several points in his speech, Khrushchev complains about Stalin's lack of collegiality and violation of collective leadership. Here is a typical passage:

"We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary ,to his concepts"

This very general accusation can be easily refuted, but only in similarly general terms, by citing the testimony of many others who worked with Stalin, some more closely than Khrushchev ever had. Marshal Georgii Zhukov had worked with him closely during the war, and testifies to Stalin's method of work. In the first quotation he obviously has the "Secret Speech" in mind and calls Khrushchev a liar. General Shtemenko says much the same thing.

According to Ivan A. Benediktov, long-time Minister for Agriculture, decisions were always taken collegially. Dmitrii T. Shepilov, by far Stalin's junior, did not work as closely with Stalin, but his anecdote is revealing. Even Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, contradicted himself and called Stalin's ability to change his own mind when faced with someone who disagreed with him and defended his viewpoint well, "characteristic."

Anastas Mikoian supported Khrushchev wholeheartedly and was very antagonistic to Stalin. Yet Mikoian complained that democracy and collective leadership were never achieved at any time under Khrushchev or Brezhnev.

It was Khrushchev himself who refused to lead collectively, and was removed in large part for that in 1964. It appears that Mikhail A. Suslov, who gave the main speech against Khrushchev, echoed in his wording both Lenin's "characteristics" letter about Stalin of 1922 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" attacks on the "cult" around Stalin. The irony could not have been lost on Khrushchev or his audience.

Stalin "morally and physically annihilated" leaders who opposed him

"Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."

There is not one single example, during Stalin's whole life, of his "removing" someone "from the collective leadership" because that person disagreed with Stalin. It is significant that Khrushchev himself does not even allege a specific instance.

Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee. He could be removed by the Central Committee at any time. His was only one vote in the Politburo and in the Central Committee. Stalin tried to resign from his post as General Secretary four times. Each time his attempt was rejected. The last such attempt was at the 19th Party Congress, in October 1952. It too was rejected.

Khrushchev and the rest not only could have opposed Stalin, but did in fact oppose him. Some examples are given below - for example, that of the taxes on the peasantry, wruch apparently came up in February 1953. None of those who opposed the tax increase were "removed from the leading collective" "morally annihilated" - whatever that means - or "physically annihilated.''

Although Stalin never removed anyone from the leadership for opposing him, Khrushchev did. Khrushchev and the others had Lavrentii Beria arrested suddenly on June 26, 1953, on false charges and without any evidence. Subsequently they had Beria killed, together with six others - Merkulov, Dekanozov, Kobulov, Goglidze, Meshik, and Vlodzimirskii ­ who had been close associates of his.

Nor was Beria the only person in the leadership of the Party whom Khrushchev had removed for disagreeing with him. In July 1957 Khrushchev called a CC Plenum to have Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Shepilov removed from the leadership simply because they disagreed with his policies and had tried to get Khrushchev voted out of the Party leadership. Khrushchev's high-handedness was a main reason for his removal by the Central Committee in 1964.

Khrushchev and those who supported him needed to have some kind of explanation or excuse for failing to oppose Stalin in all his alleged "crimes" during all the years they shared the Party leadership with him. It seems that this - the threat of "annihilation" - became their alibi. Khrushchev evidently said many times that, if "they had tried to "restore Leninist norms to the Party," or to ask him to retire, "not even a wet spot would have remained of us. "

Others in the communist movement saw through this thin excuse: "when the Soviet leader Anastas Mikoian led the CPSU delegation to China to attend the CCP's 8th Congress in 1956, P'eng [te-huai] asked him face to face why it was only now that the Soviet party was criticizing Stalin. Mikoian apparently replied: 'We did not dare advance our opinion at that time. To have done so would have meant death.' To which P'eng retorted: 'What kind of a communist is it who fears death"

But of course the accusation itself was false.

Mass repressions generally

Khrushchev: "Worth noting is the fact that, even during the progress of the furious ideological fight against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others, extreme repressive measures were not used against them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the party were long since defeated politically - then the repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935- 1937 - 1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism - Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party - and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line."

Nothing in Khrushchev's speech was more shocking than his accusation that Stalin had instigated massive and unjustified repression against high-ranking Bolsheviks. We will examine his specific allegations below, and preface those remarks here by stressing a few basic points.

Khrushchev himself was responsible for massive repressions, possibly more than any other single individual aside from Nikolai Ezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to late 1938, who was certainly bloodier than anyone else. Unlike Stalin and the central Party leadership to whom he reported, but like Ezhov and many others, Khrushchev either had to know that many, probably the vast majority of those he repressed were innocent or, at the very least, that their fates were decided without detailed investigation.

Khrushchev was defending both Ezhov and Genrikh lagoda (Ezhov's predecessor as head of the NKVD) as late as February 1 1956, twenty four days before the ''Secret Speech". He reiterated this defense, though in somewhat more moderate terms, in the "rough draft" of his speech dated February 18, 1956. this is hard to explain unless Khrushchev were already trying to deny that any conspiracies had actually taken place, and therefore mat all those who had been repressed were innocent. Khrushchev did in fact take that position, though not till well after the 20th Party Congress. In his Speech Khrushchev claimed Stalin must have been responsible for all of Ezhov's repressions. He had to know this was false, since he had far more evidence at his disposal than we do today. It is clear from what relatively little we now have that Ezhov was guilty of huge illegal repressions.

Khrushchev was either candidate or full Politburo member during the investigations that established Ezhov's guilt. However, so were others, such as Mikoian, Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov. Mikoian was a close accomplice of Khrushchev's. But the acquiescence to Khrushchev's speech by Molotov, Kaganovich, and Voroshilov, though only temporary, can't be explained in the same way.

Khrushchev declared many executed Party leaders "rehabilitated", innocent, in defiance of the evidence we have today, after the release of a small fraction of the documents relating to them. Sometimes he declared them to have been innocent victims of unfounded repression a priori, even before the formality of a study of the evidence, Prosecutor's protest, and Supreme Court decision had been completed or even begun. The Pospelov Report was drawn up to provide evidence for Khrushchev that the Party leaders had been unjustly executed and came to foregone conclusions. It failed to consider a great deal of the evidence we know exists. Even as it stands it does not prove the innocence of the persons whose repression it studies.

All the evidence we presently have points to the existence of a widespread Rightist-Trotskyist series of anti-government conspiracies involving many leading Party leaders, both NKVD chiefs Iagoda and Ezhov, high-ranking military leaders, and many others. Broadly speaking, this is more or less the picture drawn by the Stalin government at the time, except that some vital details, such as Ezhov's involvement in the leadership of the Rightist conspiracy, were never publicly revealed.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Khrushchev himself may well have been a participant in this Right-Trotskyite conspiracy. Such an hypothesis makes sense of much of the evidence we have, but it is suggestive rather than conclusive. However, such a hypothesis would go far towards explaining Khrushchev's attack on Stalin, and even the subsequent history of the CPSU.

Included in the Appendix section below and online in Russia and English are:

• evidence of Khrushchev's massive repressions;

• excerpts from confessions by Iagoda, Ezhov, and Frinovskii (Ezhov's second-in-command) concerning their participation in the Rightist-Trotskyist conspiracy, in the separate section on Ezhov.

''Enemy of the people"

Khrushchev:

"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 proven; 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. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, .. confessions" were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent persons, who in the past had defended the party line, became victims. We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula "enemy of the people" was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Stalin certainly did not "originate the concept" The phrase l'ennemi du peuple was widely used during the great French Revolution. It was used by the writer Jean-Paul Marat in the very first issue of his revolutionary newsletter L' Ami du peuple in 1793. Subsequent use of the term derives Maxim from the French Revolution. It is famously the name of a play by Ibsen. Gorky used the term in his sketch 'The Tauride Chersonese" ("Khersones Tavricheskii") in the "Oath of the Chersonesers," a sketch published in 1897.

Because all the revolutionaries of 1917 tended to view the revolution in Russia through the lenses of the revolution of 1789, the term was used widely from the very beginning. Lenin used the term before the revolution. The Constitutional Democratic Party, called the "Cadets", which was the party of the rich bourgeoisie, was banned by the Council of People's Commissars on November 28 1917 as an "enemy of the people." It was signed by Lenin.

A locus classicus for the use of the term "enemy of the people" during the 1930s is the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People's Commissars of August 7, 1932, also known as "the law of the three ears." Here the term "enemy of the people" does not refer at all to oppositionists in the Party, but rather to the pursuit, within the bounds of legality, of thieves, robbers, and swindlers of various kinds. The law was signed by Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (the Legislative Branch), Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the Executive Branch), and Enukidze, Secretary of the CEC. Since he was not a leading member of either the Legislative or the Executive branches of the Soviet government Stalin did not sign it.

The phrase "enemy of the people" - in Russian Vrag Naroda - occurs about a dozen times in Stalin's works after the beginning of 1917. Khrushchev himself also used it frequently.

Zinoviev and Kamenev

Khrushchev:

"In his 'Testament' Lenin warned that 'Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident.' But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting."

By implication Khrushchev accused Stalin of having Zinoviev and Kamenev shot without justification. He sidesteps the whole issue of their confessions to serious crimes at their 1936 trial. This, of course, is the main issue.

Lenin was furious with Zinoviev and Kamenev for their "strikebreaking" activity near the Bolshevik Revolution. But of course their arrest and execution were not contemplated - they were not charged with involvement in assassinations at that time.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Zinoviev's and Kamenev's confessions were other than genuine. Evidence has emerged since 1991 that corroborates their confessions of guilt. The Russian government has so far refused to release the investigative materials of the case. We now have additional evidence of their guilt, however.

One such piece of evidence - at least, evidence that Stalin was convinced they were guilty, and just as convinced that their conspiracy really existed - is a private letter Stalin to Kaganovich, first published in 2001. It's clear from this letter that Stalin is reading the confessions of the defendants at trial and trying to learn and draw conclusions from them.

The section of Dimitriev's confession first published in 2004 is part of an investigative report sent to Stalin by Beria on October 23, 1938. Beria was in the process of rooting out NKVD men who had conspired to frame innocent people, mislead investigations, and aid the rightists Bukharin, Rykov and others to overthrow the government. the accused here, D.M. Dimitriev, had been the head of the NKVD in Sverdlovsk oblast. He refers directly to the interrogation of Kamenev's wife to which Stalin had referred, and so provides striking verification of the genuine nature of Stalin's letter to Kaganovich of August 23, 1936 printed among the documents in the appendix. It is completely consistent with a rightist plot.

Stalin's "arbitrariness" towards the party

The "cases" against party members and related questions

Stalin and the war

Of plots and affairs

Beria, his "machinations" and "crimes"

Ideology and culture

Stalin's last years in power

A typology of prevarication

The results of Khrushchev's "revelations"; falsified

The enduring legacy of Khrushchev's

Sources

• PDF version with copyable text (optical character recognition)