Khrushchev, Bush, and a Day in 1956
cn | 24 February, 2006 14:40Fifty years ago this week (February 24th or 25th, depending on who you ask) Nikita Khrushchev, then the First Secretary of the Communist Party, delivered a speech to a closed session of the Twentieth Party Congress. It was quickly leaked to the public.
The significance? In that speech Khrushchev railed against the crimes of Stalin and the practices of the Soviet regime under Stalin, in which Khrushchev was a high-ranking participant.
The relevance? I wonder if and when such a speech will take place in the current era as, perhaps, a starting point in reconciling the get transgressions of the current American government.
Though I don't wish to suggest that the current regime is comparable to Stalin's, but they share many subtleties as highlighted in Khrushchev's speech. Here are some excerpts (boldface added by CN):
We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly [the crimes of the Stalin era] 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.
...
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.
...
As facts prove, Stalin, using his unlimited power, allowed himself many abuses, acting in the name of the Central Committee, not asking for the opinion of the Committee members nor even the members of the Politburo, or even inform them ... Using Stalin’s formulation, namely, that the closer we are to Socialism the more enemies we will have
...
...the number of arrests based on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes grew 10 times between 1936 and 1937. ... Confessions of guilt were gained with the help of cruel and inhuman tortures ... when they retracted their confessions before the military tribunal [no one was told] ...
The speech became a seminal moment in the history of the USSR. It speaks not only of the repression machine of Stalin, but also of the submissive nature of the rest the political establishment.
With the quiet movement toward repression the the U.S., a public discussion of Khrushchev's speech on its 50th birthday has never been more relevant.
Excerpts taken from this site and this site.
Another interesting article by Nina Khrushchev - Nikita's great-granddaughter - can be found here at courant.com
Posted in
Ethics, Politics, World Culture/Travel .
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