Nikita Khrushchev, Secretary of the CPSU, on the rostrum of the 20th Congress, systematically destroyed Stalin’s image in the so-called “Secret Speech”: he denounced Stalin, his predecessor, as having committed “gross abuse of power,” “cruel and inhuman torture,” “mass deportations and the murder of thousands of people without trial,” using very simple methods: “beating, beating, and beating again.” The Secret Speech sparked unrest in Poland and revolution in Hungary.
