Dietrich / TheTwilightOfThaw2

The Twilight of Thaw 2

(7.6.2023) This contribution completes the investigation into the question of when exactly Nikita Khrushchev did deliver his notoriously famous ›Secret Speech‹ at the XX. Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956, which means: at what time of day or night. It is the ›Morning Session Tradition‹ that probably will prevail historically, and not the ›nocturnal‹ tradition. And we will see here who (probably) did start and establish this tradition. (My earlier contribution on The Twilight of Thaw is reproduced below.)

1) The ›Morning Session‹ Tradition: Determining a Genealogy

We encounter the assertion that Khrushchev delivered his speech on Saturday, 25 February 1956, in a morning session that was scheduled to begin at 10 o’clock, in the German Wikipedia, which, however does not provide a source. As we remember, it had been the New York Times which had initiated a tradition which I had called the ›nocturnal‹ tradition, according to which Khrushchev had spoken at night and into the early morning hours of February 25. But as I stumbled over a book by one of the most respected Cold War experts on the Soviet Union, namely by Wolfgang Leonhard (see large picture on the left), I can clarify now that the ›Morning session tradition‹ did exist already in 1959.
In his 1959 book Kreml nach Stalin (see reference below; also in English translation) Leonhard did not discuss the ›nocturnal‹ tradition at all, but states, on p. 179 (and again on p. 202), that ›the event‹ took place at ten o’clock (in the morning). And, as we also recall, this tradition was also confirmed by the Khrushchev-biographer William Taubman in recent years.

2) The Source

While the monograph by Leonhard can be called, by today standards, a most solid classic monograph on the years of de-Stalinization, which, of course has to be read along with the more modern literature, it also and at the same time can be called: an interesting source in itself (since Leonhard offers many personal views and insights, beyond the mere representation and analysis of Soviet history), it is not quite clear who might have been the source for Leonhard. Who did provide him with the information, as to the schedule of the XX. Party Congress finale?
Since Leonhard’s analysis of the ›Secret Speech‹ was also informed by the exiled Menshevik historian Boris Nicolaevsky (see p. 181; and see also small picture above), it might be that the information was coming from Nicolaevsky of from comparable sources. It is noteworthy that, in hindsight, Leonhard, whose biography is a most colorful one, seems to have been extremely well informed as to what was going on in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, and that, in 1955 (see p. 119), he had seen it coming that what he called a ›silent‹ de-Stalinization was likely to turn into a more ›stormy‹ one (which was exactly what was to happen in 1956, after Khrushchev had delivered his speech).

3) From ›Silent‹ to ›Stormy‹ De-Stalinization: a Poem

A charming feature of Leonhard’s book is that the author, in passing by, relates and quotes from poems, inspired by ›stormy‹ de-Stalinization and by the period known as ›Thaw‹, and one of these (rather little known) poems (quoted on p. 236) is by poet Robert Rozhdestvensky (see picture on the left), and called (in Leonhard’s translation) Morgendämmerung (Dawn). An English translation of what seems to be a somewhat different version can be found here, where the poem’s title is – Morning.

Selected Literature:
Wolfgang Leonhard, Kreml ohne Stalin, Frankfurt a.M. etc. 1962 [1959]

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The Twilight of Thaw

(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.

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?

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

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Caspar David Friedrich in His Element 2

Robert Schumann and the History of the Nocturne

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