On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences: Difference between revisions

The speech was shocking in its day. There are reports that the audience reacted with applause and laughter at several points.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/06/world/soviets-after-33-years-publish-khrushchev-s-anti-stalin-speech.html|title=Soviets, After 33 Years, Publish Khrushchev's Anti-Stalin Speech|work=New York Times|author=Francis X. Clines|date=6 April 1989|accessdateaccess-date=29 February 2016}}</ref> There are also reports that some of those present suffered heart attacks and others later committed suicide due to shock at the revelations of Stalin's use of terror.<ref>{{cite AV media|title=From Our Own Correspondent|publisher=BBC Radio 4|date=22 January 2009}}</ref> The ensuing confusion among many Soviet citizens, bred on the [[panegyric]]s and permanent praise of the "genius" of Stalin, was especially apparent in [[Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic|Georgia]], Stalin's homeland, where the [[1956 Georgian demonstrations|days of protests and rioting]] ended with the Soviet army crackdown on 9 March 1956.<ref name="Suny">[[Ronald Grigor Suny]], ''The Making of the Georgian Nation''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994; pp. 303–305.</ref> In the West, the speech politically devastated the organised left; the [[Communist Party USA]] alone lost more than 30,000 members within weeks of its publication.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/29/opinion/sunday/when-communism-inspired-americans.html|title=When Communism Inspired Americans|author=Vivian Gornick|newspaper=New York Times|language=en|access-date=1 May 2017|date=29 April 2017}}</ref>