Secret Speech denouncing Stalin.- Khrushchev (Nikita Sergeyevich) O Kulcie Jednostki I Jego Nastepstwach, first edition, first issue, original paper wrapper, ink-stamp '3083' to upper cover, minor creasing to spine, light sunning to edges, 8vo, Warsaw, Marzec, 1956.

⁂ Rare and important copy of the first issue of Khrushchev's speech, given to a closed session of Communist Party delegates on 25 Feburary 1956, in which he openly denounced the deceased dictator Joseph Stalin (who died in March 1953). "Khrushchev recalled Lenin's Testament, a long-suppressed document in which Vladimir Lenin had warned that Stalin was likely to abuse his power, and then he cited numerous instances of such excesses" (Encyclopaedia Britannica Online). This Polish translation of the speech was the only version that circulated during the Cold War, the official Russian text being unknown until its publication in 1989. The CIA counterfeit edition, with false imprint Moscow 1959, was in fact a translation into Russian from the present Polish text, which was smuggled out of Moscow and leaked, via Israel, to the USA.