On The Cult of Personality and Its Consequences

On The Cult Of Personality And Its Consequences

"On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" (Russian: «О культе личности и его последствиях») was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev made to the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. Khrushchev's speech was sharply critical of the reign of General Secretary and Premier Joseph Stalin, particularly with respect to the brutal purges of the Soviet military and Communist Party cadres which had particularly marked the last years of the 1930s. Khrushchev charged Stalin with having fostered a leadership personality cult despite ostensibly maintaining support for the ideals of communism.

The speech was a milestone in the Khrushchev Thaw. Superficially, the speech was an attempt to draw the Soviet Communist Party closer to Leninism. Khrushchev's ulterior motivation, however, was to legitimize and help consolidate his control of the Communist party and government, power obtained in a political struggle with Stalin loyalists Vyacheslav Molotov and Georgy Malenkov.

The Khrushchev report was known as the "Secret Speech" because it was delivered at an unpublicized closed session of Communist Party delegates, with guests and members of the press excluded. Although the text of the Khrushchev report leaked almost immediately, the official Russian text was published only in 1989 during the glasnost campaign of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

In April 2007, the British newspaper The Guardian included the speech in their series on "Great Speeches of the 20th Century".