National Communism and Popular Revolt in Eastern Europe [antikvár]

Foreword IN 1956, AFTER YEARS of presenting to the world the appearance of disciplined conformity, the international Communist movement, in the Soviet orbit and abroad, was obviously being subjected to internal strains. While the decision by the Soviet leaders to make an attack on the "cult of personality" was certainly not the only cause of these strains—more likely it was itself a symptom of malaise—it is true that the more spectacular happenings of the year are associated with this question of "de-Stalinization." At the important 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, held in February, 1956, public criticism of Stalin was relatively circumspect and restrained—though the intent was clear—^but in his secret speech, made before a closed session of the Congress, Nikita S. Khrushchev delivered himself of a bitter indictment of the late dictator.^ Rumors of this speech began to circulate abroad in the early spring, and on June 4 the United States Department of State released a text of it. The marked repercussions which the public appearance of this report produced in the Communist Parties of Western Europe and the United States are the subject of The Anti-Stalin Campaign and International Communism: A Selection of Documents (edited by the Russian Institute of Columbia University; New York, Columbia University Press, 1956). The repercussions were also felt in the Communist Parties of Eastern Europe, although in some of them, notably the Polish Party, criticism of Stalinism and Soviet interference had appeared well before the 20th Party Congress. The present selection of documents, a sequel to The Anti-Stalin Campaign, deals with developments, cjjiefly in Poland and Hungary, from the time of the 20th Party Congress through 1 A translation of the proceedings of the 20th Party Congress, including the secret Krushchev report, will appear shortly as Current Soviet Policies—II, edited by The Current Digest of the Soviet Press.