Russian Communist Party declares Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’ denouncing Stalin personality cult a ‘mistake’

At a party congress in the Moscow region on Saturday, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) adopted a resolution declaring Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s speech denouncing the cult of personality around Joseph Stalin to have been a mistake, according to state media.

The resolution states that Khrushchev’s speech, “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences," delivered behind closed doors at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, should be “regarded as a mistake and as politically biased.”

Russia’s Interfax news agency published excerpts from a draft of the resolution. According to the draft, Khrushchev’s speech “contains falsified facts and false accusations against J. V. Stalin, distorting the truth about his role in the leadership of the state and the party.”

The draft also said the party plans to urge Vladimir Putin to restore the historical name Stalingrad to the city of Volgograd and the surrounding Volgograd region.

KPRF deputy chairman Dmitry Novikov said the party prepared the resolution in an effort to restore “the full historical truth about an outstanding figure in Russian and world history — Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.”