O Kulcie Jednostki I Jego Nastepstwach: Referat I Sekretarza KC KPZR tow. N. S. Chruszczowa na XX Zjezdzie Komunistycznej Partii Zwiazku Radzieckiego (The Personality Cult and its Consequences)
Warsaw, Poland: Wydane przez Komitet Centralny Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej, 1956.
First edition, second impression of Khuruschev's famous "Secret Speech" denouncing the cult of personality around Joseph Stalin and thereby launching a period of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Bloc. 95, [1] pp. Bound in publisher's wraps. Text in Polish. Very Good, wraps toned and lightly worn, faint diagonal crease to rear wrap, faint marginal dampstaining to contents. Uncommon. Copies of this text (translated from the original Russian) circulated amongst Communist Party members in Poland (then under the thumb of the USSR), but it would not be published in Russia until 1989, so scandalous was its content. The second impression (of two in the first edition) does not have the recorded interjections and crowd reaction in the first impression, but it does have extra supplementary material by Lenin and Stalin not contained in its predecessor. Far from staying a secret, within two weeks of its publication it was being heralded in the West and translated into multiple languages. It would inspire abortive revolutions in Poland and Hungary that year-- the Soviet crackdown on the latter revolution creating deep divisions within communist and socialist groups worldwide for decades-- and eventually American band Living Colour to write their hit song "Cult of Personality" in 1988.
Price: $5,000