Northern (N): Soviet Union (NS). Internal Political Situation

A file containing documents relating to Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Documents in the file include the United States State Department's text of and response to the speech; a note of Soviet decrees abolishing the Ministry of Justice and devolving powers to the Soviet republics; and a paper discussing the implications of the Secret Speech on Soviet domestic and foreign policies. Subjects discussed in the file include the resignations of Vyacheslav Molotov as Soviet foreign minister and of Lazar Kaganovich as Chairman of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers on Questions of Labour and Wages; comments from the British ambassador in Moscow on the lack of Soviet press coverage of the Secret Speech; commentary on a Pravda article on the elimination of the cult of the individual; and a report of the NATO Council's discussion of the speech.