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In February, 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev made a secret keynote address to a private group of international communist leaders at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He used his speech to make unexpected and unprecedented condemnations of the policies and excesses of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, setting off a chain of reaction that led to calls for reform in Eastern Europe and a new policy in the Soviet Union for dealing with the West.
After Stalin died in 1953, four men joined together to lead the country: Georgi Malenkov, Lavrenti Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Nikita Khrushchev. As head of the KGB, Beria was perceived as a threat to the other three, and they arranged for his execution. As Soviet Premier in 1953, Malenkov oversaw the first signs of the Soviet “peace offensive,” in which a series of overtures to the West indicated the beginning of a change in party policies. By 1955, however, Khrushchev had consolidated his power, forcing Malenkov to resign as Premier due to his close ties with Beria, and Khrushchev emerged as the sole leader.
