The Unexpected Denunciation: The Reception of Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ in Britain

Abstract

This article investigates how Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ was received in Britain. It looks firstly at analyses of the Soviet Union that were current at the time of Stalin’s death: the Cold War school that effectively precluded the possibility of any serious reforms being implemented, and the school of thought that was expecting, especially after Stalin’s death, the implementation of a programme of far-reaching reforms. It then looks at the press coverage of the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party and the subsequent emergence of the ‘Secret Speech’. It shows the way that the differing schools of thought dealt with the speech and the changes announced at the congress, noting how they attempted to fit them into their theoretical schemas. It also deals with the response of the Communist Party of Great Britain’s leadership to the congress and speech and the way that this triggered a wave of criticism within the party membership. Finally, it concludes that the Cold War school greatly underestimated the capacity of the Soviet leadership to implement liberalising reforms, that those expecting far-reaching reforms were to be disappointed by their limited nature, and that the ‘Secret Speech’ and other events of 1956 were gradually to change the previously uncritical attitude of the Communist Party towards the Soviet Union.