de-Stalinization, political reform launched at the 20th Party Congress (February 1956) by Soviet Communist Party First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev that condemned the cult of personality and the crimes committed by his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, destroyed Stalin’s image as an infallible leader, and promised a return to so-called socialist legality and Leninist principles of party rule.

These reforms were started by the collective leadership which succeeded him after his death on 5 March 1953, comprising Georgi Malenkov, Premier of the Soviet Union; Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Ministry of the Interior; and Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

With the death of Stalin in 1953, however, Nikita Khrushchev assumed control over the Soviet Union. At the 20thCPSU, which has been largely considered the most important congress following the death of Lenin, Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders began pushing for decentralization of power within the Soviet Union.

Nikita Khrushchev assumed leadership of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Khrushchev served as a General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as a Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964.