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Admin moved page How did Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech condemning Stalin become public? to How did Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech condemning Stalin become public
[[File:Nikita Khrusjtsjov.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|Nikita Khrushchev in 1961]]__NOTOC__
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.
====Eisenhower leaked Secret Speech to the New York Times====
[[File:Dwight_D._Eisenhower,_official_photo_portrait,_May_29,_1959.jpg|left||thumbnail|250px|President Dwight Eisenhower]]
Khrushchev’s speech was supposed to be private. It was intended only for internal Communist Party consideration, but word of the events unfolding at the Twentieth Party Congress quickly traveled across the Iron Curtain. In addition to the rumors of what had been said, Israeli intelligence officers obtained a copy of the complete speech and shared it with the Eisenhower Administration. Reactions varied. U.S. CIA chief, Allen Dulles, struck by the unexpected reversal in policy espoused in the speech, wondered if Khrushchev had been drunk and speaking extemporaneously. After an internal debate in the CIA, Dulles suggested to his brother and Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, that the United States leak the speech to the press. Eisenhower agreed, and it was sent to the New York Times.
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====Secret Speech led to crisis in Eastern Europe====In the immediate aftermath of the speech, the course of de-Stalinization suited U.S. interests, as the internal crisis that was expected to emerge out of the shift in policy temporarily paralyzed the Soviet Union. The Eisenhower Administration watched, but did not interfere, as the speech became the impetus for a series of grassroots movements demanding democratic reforms inEastern in Eastern Europe. Protests broke out in Poland and Hungary in the summer and autumn of 1956, both with tragic consequences. In Poland, the Communist Party leadership proved uncertain how to address the demonstrations, and overreacted by sending in a military force to put down the protest. The situation in Hungary was even more extreme and month-long demonstrations ended with Soviet military intervention and thousands of casualties. In Asia, Communist leaders in the People’s Republic of China and Vietnam expressed grave doubts about the reforms indicated by Khrushchev.
====Conclusion====
Although Khrushchev played a role in shutting down the rebellions in the Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, he followed up on his address to the Twentieth Party Congress by continuing to advocate reforms and increased cooperation with the West. As a result, there were early signs of détente in the late 1950s, even though progress was delayed first by the U-2 incident and later by the Cuban Missile Crisis.
* Republished from [https://history.state.gov/| Office of the Historian, United States Department of State]
* Article: [https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/khrushchev-20th-congress| Khrushchev and the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party, 1956]
