WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

It would later be called the secret speech.

But on February 25, 1956, a cold morning in Moscow, no one knew what to expect. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev stood before the

20th Congress of the Communist Party and did the unthinkable. It was an absolute dead silence

for all four hours. Khrushchev spoke of the annihilation of Soviet military commanders before the Second World War.

He excoriated the lying, the vindictiveness of his predecessor.

And he quoted Vladimir Lenin at length, who also had had grave concerns about the man

who later led the Soviet Union through

the devastations of World War II. Lenin had hoped that the Soviets might have replaced

that man with someone who differed in, quote, only one quality, namely greater tolerance,

greater loyalty, greater kindness, and more considerate attitudes towards

the comrades, Khrushchev recounted.

For four hours, Nikita Khrushchev systematically tore down the legacy of a man who many

in the audience listening to Khrushchev had loved.

He denounced Joseph Stalin.

This is On Point.

I'm Megyn Chakrabardi.

Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union for almost 30 years, from 1924 until his death in 1953,

a period which included the catastrophe of World War II

when more than 20 million Soviet civilians and soldiers died

holding back Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

I think that our party has proved, I'd like,

...