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The text confirms the general outline leaked at the time, describing how—passionately and sometimes weeping—Khrushchev tore aside the curtain of Communist propaganda that has veiled the late Joseph Stalin's long reign of terror (TIME, March 26 et seq.). It also adds many fascinating details:
Congress, 98 persons (i.e., 70%) were arrested and shot [indignation in the hall]. The same fate met . . . the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of the 1,966 delegates with voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested . . ."
THE FAKED TRIALS
As an example of how Stalin's interrogators faked the evidence in the great conspiracy trials of 1937, Khrushchev recited the case of Party Member Rosenblum: "When Rosenblum was arrested, he was subjected to terrible torture during which he was ordered to confess false information concerning himself and other persons. He was then brought to the office of Zakovsky [chief interrogator], who offered him freedom on condition that he make before the court a false confession fabricated in 1937 by the NKVD concerning sabotage, espionage and diversion in a terroristic center in Leningrad. With unbelievable cynicism Zakovsky told about the vile mechanism for the crafty creation of fabricated 'anti-Soviet plots.' . . . 'You yourself [he told Rosenblum] will not need to invent anything. The NKVD will prepare for you a ready outline for every branch of the center; you will have to study it carefully and to remember all questions and answers which the court might ask . . . Your future will depend on how the trial goes and on its results. If you begin to lie and testify falsely, blame yourself. If you manage to endure it, you will save your head, and we will feed and clothe you at the government's cost until your death.' "
DAYS OF SUSPICION
"Stalin was a very distrustful man, sickly suspicious; we knew this from our work with him. He could look at a man and say: 'Why are your eyes so shifty today?' Or, 'why are you turning so much today and avoiding looking at me directly in the eyes?' The sickly suspicion created in him a general distrust even toward eminent party workers whom he had known for years. Everywhere and in everything he saw 'enemies,' 'two-facers' and 'spies.' "
THE RED ARMY PURGE
"Stalin's annihilation of many military commanders . . . beginning literally at the company and battalion commander level and extending to the higher military centers [brought] grievous consequences . . . Large scale repression undermined military discipline because for several years officers of all ranks and even soldiers in the party and Komsomol cells were taught to 'unmask' their superiors as hidden enemies . . . During this time the cadre of leaders who had gained military experience in Spain and in the Far East was almost completely wiped out . . ."
JEALOUSY OF ZHUKOV