The Twilight of Thaw

(Picture: wikiwlh)

(30.-31.10.2022) Few political speeches in history might have had a bigger impact than this one: with Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of international communism, on Saturday, 25 February 1956, embarking on de-Stalinization, by lifting a bloody, bloody cloth from some of Stalin’s crimes (into which Khrushchev had been involved himself), by giving the so-called ›Secret Speech‹ at the XX. Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, held at the Grand Kremlin Palace, the communist project got a blow from which it probably never did fully recover. Because – if Stalin had been a bloody butcher, everyone who had identified with Stalin was discredited, too, and from now on. And many had, and the news – for many it was not really news – was coming from the now-leader of international communism. It was coming from above. Did this mean that also communism, as a project, was discredited now, and from now on? This was the question; and history shows that it probably was, at least to a large degree, a degree unseen, but already feared in 1956.
Although few political speeches in history might have had a bigger impact than this one, some questions as to the so-called ›Secret Speech‹ still remain today, and one seemingly marginal question we would like to address here: when exactly, at what time of day, did Khrushchev actually embark on de-Stalinization? Because two traditions have persisted to the present day: the older tradition has it that Khrushchev had started speaking ›shortly after midnight‹, thus in the very early hours of February 25; and few seem to have had a problem to accept that, probably because a dark, dark matter, and especially a secret matter had to be addressed at night, during the night (the speech did take several hours), and thus would belong, to the cultural history of night. But another tradition has it now that the speech actually was given at a normal morning session, thus actually during the day, and the speaker might have finished roughly at lunchtime, or in the early afternoon. The haziness of history is sometimes rather remarkable. But we are trying to clarify things here as good as we can.

Khrushchev speaking at the XX. Party Congress, but of the secret session no picture does seem to exist

The Nocturnal Tradition

The ›nocturnal tradition‹, as I would like to call it, is the tradition initiated publicly by the New York Times, which, after reporting briefly on the ›Secret Speech‹ already in March of 1956, published the speech on 5 June 1956 (with the article being dated a day earlier), with the introduction stating that Khrushchev had spoken during a secret session on February 24 and 25. Since this session must have begun in the late evening (shortly before midnight), as one can conclude (because the speaker continued on the next day), the event was from now on framed as a nocturnal affair: something that had started at around midnight, and something that had been meant to stay a secret. And since the speech was actually quite long, one could also assume that it ended roughly at dawn.
It is not necessary to study the nocturnal tradition at length here. Many historians seem to have simply accepted the narrative, or the framing of the event (or they must have had similar informations), with one example being Roy Medvedev. And the nocturnal tradition still lives on, as for example can be seen in one recent Khrushchev biography (not the one by William Taubman), or in the English Wikipedia. But the tradition, in all likelihood is not correct factually, even it is true that in the very late evening of February 24 elections still did take place at the party congress, and even if one could easily assume that the ›Secret Speech‹ simply had been what had happened next, after the foreign delegees had been asked to leave the hall.
But how do we know that the nocturnal tradition, in all likelihood, is false, and that the ›Secret Speech‹ was actually given in a morning session?

Picture from a documentary on the year of 1956, which is visualizing the time of day (or night) the ›Secret Speech‹ was given (in the Grand Kremlin Palace, with the commentary stating ambiguously (in the film) that it did take place in the ›early morning hours‹ (picture: youtube.com; ARTE)

The ›Morning Session‹ Tradition

While it is not quite clear when exactly the nocturnal tradition was being challenged for the very first time, one can easily see that, in parallel to the nocturnal tradition a ›Morning Session tradition‹ does exist (see for example the German Wikipedia), and one can assume that during the 1990s – by way of interviewing various participants of the secret session – the matter must have been clarified. Still, it seems that historians rather stay reluctant even today to address the matter (because here, on this page, the matter is actually being discussed explicitly for the very first time). Even Khrushchev biographer William Taubman, who actually clarifies the matter, does so rather implicitly, in passing-by (and without referring to the obvious haziness of historiography). But we would like to quote his clarification here (which is based on an interview with Khrushchev aide Pyotr Demichev (see page 722, note 42 of Taubman 2005; the following quote is from p. 281f.):

»At ten that same evening [of February 24, which was a Friday] Khrushchev called in his aides, Grigory Shuisky and Pyotr Demichev, dictated additional passages to a stenographer, who reportedly broke into tears in the middle of one of them, and ordered the final text brought to him the next morning, February 25.«

And we can conclude that the text of the so-called ›Secret Speech‹ must have been finalized during the night, but according to this rather specific oral testimony, was brought to the actual speaker in the next morning, which was a Saturday, a beautiful day, according to a foreign attendee of the party congress, who, however, was excluded from the secret session, and did spend the day with sightseeing in Moscov instead, hearing from authorities that, allegedly, it was too cold a day for a demonstration to take place on Red Square.
Thus the matter seems clear, but other questions still remain: was the ›Secret Speech‹ also recorded on tape? One historian, Jurij Aksjutin, seems to believe so (see Aksjutin 1995, p. 48), and in case such recording would one day be found, one would also be able to check or to challenge the various accounts on how the hall, the session, the listeners reacted to the text as well as to Khrushchev’s performance: did someone, or did even the audience laugh at one point (as has been suggested), or was everything met with silence, due to shock? Reportedly there was one interruption, and all must have ended – not at dawn, but rather at lunchtime or in the early afternoon.

Selected Literature:
Vladimir Naumov, Zur Geschichte der Geheimrede N. S. Chruščevs auf dem XX. Parteitag der KPdSU, in: Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte 1 (1997), p. 137-177;
Jurij Aksjutin, Der XX. Parteitag der KPdSU, in: Jahrbuch für historische Kommunismusforschung 3 (1995), p. 36-68;
William Taubman, Khrushchev. The Man and his Era, London 2005 [2003];
Jean-Jacques Marie, Le rapport Khrouchtchev, Paris 2015

As in the Grand Kremlin Palace itself (compare picture above)
it was also only Lenin who presided – on this 1956 Soviet stamp
dedicated to the XX. Party Congress…

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