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Episode details

World Service,24 Feb 2011,10 mins

Khrushchev's Secret Speech

Witness History

Available for over a year

Before 1956, Josef Stalin had always been portrayed as a hero of the Soviet Union. Then, in a secret speech to a Communist Party conference, his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced him as a brutal and paranoid tryant. Witness hears from Russians who remember the speech and the shock it caused.

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