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Events on Saturday 25 February 1956 1
1956Khrushchev delivers the Secret SpeechKhrushchev denounces Stalin's crimes to the party congressSoviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech to a closed session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party denouncing Joseph Stalin's cult of personality and crimes. The speech was not published in the USSR but its contents spread quickly abroad. It marked the beginning of de-Stalinization and unsettled communist parties worldwide.