50 years since "On the Cult of Personality" speech

[anhinga_anhinga]

50 years ago Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev delivered the secret speech "On the Cult of Personality" at the XX Congress of CPSU. Here is its English translation:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1956khrushchev-secret1.html

An anniversary to remember...

(the Russian version: http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/HRUSHEW/kult.txt)

Comments

[cema.livejournal.com]

Indeed. A beginning of the end.

[anhinga-anhinga.livejournal.com]

More importantly, the difference between Stalin's and post-Stalin's USSR is larger, than the difference between post-Stalin's USSR and the United States, for all practical purposes...

That was the really radical part of the transition, 1991 is tiny in comparison...

[ygam.livejournal.com]

You're right.

[cema.livejournal.com]

It may seem so now, but it did not appear this way at the time. And I do not agree. The real change was not in 1991 but earlier (1989-1990) when the total idelogization of life dissipated. Events of 1991 (the putsch, the dissolution of the USSR) simply confirmed the change.

[anhinga-anhinga.livejournal.com]

OK, let's say, the transition of 1953-56 was huge, compared to the transition of 1986-1991.