Both halves of the worldthe non-Communist and the Communistshook under the impact of First Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's no-longer-secret speech to the 20th Party Congress (TIME, June 11), but, whereas the non-Communists quickly absorbed the information given by Khrushchev, the Communists this week were still reeling.
Even those who had reason to know the truth about Stalin's reign were nevertheless startled by Khrushchev's brutally direct account of such monstrous crimes as the deportation of millions of people from their homelands, the futile and meaningless killing of thousands of party intellectuals, and the hideous...