Stephen Kotkin

So here we have the experience of going through the horrors, then having those horrors publicly denounced

Within the party, the secret speech is not published in Soviet newspapers, but it's discussed at party meetings in all locales.

So within the party, there's a public dimension to this.

All party members become familiar with Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin.

So they experienced the horrors in many cases firsthand.

They enacted the horrors in many cases themselves.

They then see this denounced as horror and they get facts that they didn't know.

They get a big picture view back onto this.

And instead of saying, oh my God, this system is evil.

We made a big mistake.

We have to undo state ownership of property.

We have to undo collective farms.

We have to undo the dictatorship.

Instead of saying that, they say, oh, we get a chance to do it right this time without the evil Stalin who messed it all up.

And so the Khrushchev thing, the revelation of the horrors, the denunciation of the horrors, ironically, gives you the second wind belief in the system that's going to last right through Gorbachev, who's a Khrushchev-era baby.

We have this with Xi Jinping.

If you know the story of his father and of his own upbringing, they suffer massively through Mao's regime and the Cultural Revolution.

They're purged, they're humiliated.

And yet, instead of saying, this system is horrible, if I ever get power, I'm going to undo this system, which was so unjust to me and my family.

Instead of that, they say, let's make this better.