intended, rather, to create opportunities for the
expansion of Soviet power and influence without
risking war.
Khrushchev was riding high in the winter of 1955.
At the Twentieth Party Congress, which assembled
in February 1956, he now made his boldest bid for
leadership, seeking the support of the Soviet party
and government elite in his famous ‘secret speech’.
In it he launched what he believed were artful and
hardly concealed attacks on Molotov, Malenkov
and Kaganovich, his rivals in the Praesidium. The
most sensational part of his speech was his denun-
ciation of Stalin’s despotism, of the crimes Stalin
and his close associates (by implication including
Molotov and Malenkov) had committed, such as
the murder in 1934 of Kirov, the first secretary
of the Leningrad party. Khrushchev graphically
spoke of the tortures and purges that followed;
he demythologised Stalin’s image as all-wise,
describing how he had miscalculated in June 1941
when the Germans attacked and how he had com-
pletely lost control for a time. He emphasised how
loyal members of the party, the state and the armed
forces had been wrongly arrested and shot. Stalin
had usurped the party; it was not the system or the
party that had been at fault, but Stalin’s lust for
power and his insane suspicions, which became
murderously manifest in 1934. Khrushchev was
careful not to attack the way the state had evolved
as such after Lenin’s death but placed all the blame
on Stalin and his associates, such as Beria. The
opposition to Khrushchev, led by Molotov, later
dubbed the ‘anti-party’ group, nevertheless sur-
vived until June 1957, when its final concerted
challenge failed.
In the same sensational speech Khrushchev
also fundamentally redefined the Soviet Union’s
external relations. The world had changed since
Lenin’s day, he declared. War was no longer
inevitable. The capitalist imperialists could now
be restrained by powerful social and political
forces, and aggression would receive a smashing
rebuff. The capitalist West would not rapidly
decay, though Khrushchev had no doubts about
the ultimate triumph of communism in the world.
Meanwhile there could be ‘peaceful coexistence’
between countries with different social systems.
Khrushchev was anxious to win over the socialist
Third World, especially India with its democratic
constitution, asserting that the socialist transfor-
mation of society need not be achieved by violent
revolutions but could also be brought about by
parliamentary institutions. He even hoped to allay
the hostility to communism of the socialist parties
of Western Europe and to help create a united
front of the working class. The Western European
nations were encouraged to dissolve their links
with the US, whose only purpose was to exploit
them.
To further these aims B and K, as they became
popularly known, continued their travels, visiting
Britain in April 1956. They stayed with their
entourage incongruously at the most aristocratic
of London hotels, Claridge’s, and then laid a
wreath on the tomb of Karl Marx. But the visit
was not a success, either publicly or in minister-
ial meetings. The shadow of the Middle East
hung over discussions with the prime minister,
Anthony Eden, who blamed the Russians for
encouraging Nasser and unbalancing the Middle
East by supplying the Egyptians with arms via
Czechoslovakia. Khrushchev’s sensational denun-
ciation of Stalin meanwhile was read with aston-
ishment and avid interest; the Western world
hoped that Soviet policy would now break with
the past altogether.
In Soviet-dominated central and Eastern
Europe the changes in Soviet policies since
Stalin’s death had spectacular repercussions.
Khrushchev’s efforts to make communism more
acceptable to the people, to restrain the arbitrary
abuse of power by the ‘little Stalins’ and by their
subservient party machines, resulted in popular
outbursts and demands for other freedoms the
Kremlin would not lightly concede: more national
independence and a loosening of the Soviet grip.
Paradoxically, the communist leaders in East
Germany, Bulgaria and Romania most disap-
proved of by Khrushchev for their rigid Stalinism
were the ones best able to keep control against
rising nationalism.