English rendering of PM's address in the 130th Episode of 'Mann Ki Baat' on 25.01.2026 https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2218405&RegID=3&LID=1
English rendering of PM's address in the 130th Episode of 'Mann Ki Baat' on 25.01.2026 https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2218405&RegID=3&LID=1
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(Transcript- Continued) When my little sister went to her first day of school, in fact, he called her to wish her a good beginning of her future working life because that was something that he believed she was studying. She was six years old but she got sent on her way to be a great contributor to the Soviet State. He rises rapidly through the Party, from the provinces of the Ukraine to the center of power. My father was elected in the delegates to one of the Communist Party Congress. In 1925, he travelled to Moscow. And he saw Stalin. [Khrushchev translation] I was immediately fascinated by Stalin. We had been invited to Moscow, young Party members from Donetsk, and we had our photograph taken with him. He was very amusing, and he exuded great humanity. We were incredibly pleased we had the chance to talk to him. He quickly saw the light and became a Stalinist. A few years later Khrushchev begins to study at an elite Moscow school. Via one of the other students he gains access to supreme power. [Taubman] When he was at the Industrial Academy, Khrushchev did indeed befriend Stalin's wife, who, apparently, praised him to Stalin. Khrushchev, by that point, was the Party Secretary of the Industrial Academy. Khrushchev later would say that this was his "lucky lottery ticket." A... dream come true. This lottery galvanizes his career. By 1933 he is already Moscow Party Secretary.[Nina Khrushchev] He believed that Stalin couldn't be wrong and Khrushchev as a chief of Moscow Communists sitting next to Stalin, you could see the adoration in his face. I mean, he just adores that great leader. He finally got a chance to sit next to that great man. He also played a role, which helped him to rise.
And the role was of a kind of court jester in Stalin's court.
Khrushchev was a simple man in the sense that he was uneducated and he played that up. And I think that had the effect of... lulling Stalin's suspicions and vigilance. [applause] In Stalin's court everybody was suspicious of everybody else. But Khrushchev seemed to be safe. He was a safe choice. And I think that one of the things that allowed Khrushchev
to play the fool so effectively was that, in some ways, he was a fool.
And we learned later in life, when he becomes the Soviet leader, that he does some foolish things. While Khrushchev is in charge, the Moscow metro is constructed, magnificent buildings are built. The metropolis gains a new face, all in honor of the dictator. But Nikita Khrushchev pays a high price for this proximity to Stalin. The great purges started when my father was the Party Secretary of Moscow Committee, it was under 1934. Of course, if you're part of the leadership you have to be involved. [Khrushchev recording plays] [Khrushchev translation] In those days millions of people had been arrested and thrown into Stalin's prisons. But we had so much respect for him that we simply didn't dare do anything about it. At the same time, we had started to have doubts. Is it all true? Were there valid reasons for all the arrests and death sentences? Was everything above board? But we were afraid to confront the truth, afraid to raise that curtain and look the truth in the eye. At the end of his life, Khrushchev said he had blood up to his elbows. He had signed death warrants for many people. By the time the purges began, it was too late to try to back out or he would have been eliminated.
[train whistles] [narrator] Millions of people are arrested, exiled to Siberia,
murdered. In 1938 Nikita Khrushchev becomes Party Secretary in the Ukraine
at the height of Stalin's purges. He told it was like after Mongolian invasion.
Everything was empty. All these party committees were empty. Everybody was arrested. Stalin's henchmen don't even spare Khrushchev's closest associates. Suddenly his assistants were being arrested. And he says, "Well, I thought that they were upstanding communists and now I'm told that they were not." Especially under the Stalin regime, you find explanations that, "Well maybe I'm wrong because how the great leader could be?"
He continued to be loyal to Stalin and impressed by Stalin and glad to be in Stalin's inner circle. [airplane engines whine] After the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, Khrushchev is put in charge of annexing Eastern Poland. Over 100,000 people are arrested, tens of thousands murdered.
tens of thousands murdered. Khrushchev never publicly regretted it.
And I don't think even privately regretted his role in the conquering of Western Ukraine. Of all the things that can be said of Khrushchev, this is one of the most damning because blood was shed and he himself cheered on the brutality. June 1941, Nazi Germany attacks the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev serves at the front in the Great Patriotic War, as it is now known.
He was a political commissar by the side of the commanding generals. First in Kiev, then at Stalingrad, later in Kursk. He was central to the conduct of the war, which of course, Stalin was directing from Moscow. At one point Stalin concluded that Khrushchev himself was guilty, along with the generals he fought with, of cowardice and of retreat. And at that point Stalin called him to Moscow and Khrushchev says in his memoirs, and I believe him, that he felt, Khrushchev felt that his fate was... his life was hanging by a thread. But in this situation Stalin forgave him. Again, the fact that he was Stalin's favorite, Stalin's pet, prevailed and Khrushchev survived. [newsreel announcer speaking Russian] [narrator] Khrushchev is in the Ukraine at the end of the war. He permits the people to acclaim him for liberating the province from the Germans. At the end of the 1940s, Josef Stalin orders Khrushchev back to Moscow. The dictator is at the height of his power.
At the end of the 1940s, Josef Stalin orders Khrushchev back to Moscow. The dictator is at the height of his power. It was very dangerous to discuss Stalin in any Soviet family. It was one hundred times more dangerous to discuss it at our level. Even my father told me, "Here, you see, this is the Kremlin telephone. If they would ring and you will pick up the phone and they told you it is from the Stalin's secretary, say nothing. Any words. Only answer 'I will find my father.'" He was afraid. Now Khrushchev is among those competing for power. These were some of the most horrendous years of what we sometimes refer to as "High Stalinism."
These were the years when the old man, Stalin, was growing older and even more suspicious, even more paranoid, if that's possible, than he had been before. Stalin was very lonely person. And he had some group of the close...
associated lieutenants. About five, six people who he invited... mostly every night. "Invite" is probably the wrong word, he would drag them to his dacha outside Moscow and stuff them with food and force drink upon them. And these sessions would go on into the early morning hours by which time they were drunk and fatigued and finally he would let them go. It was five, six lonely men, sitting each night at the same table, telling the same things, trying to make joke with each other. And sometimes, they... Stalin told "let's dance" and they danced, men with the men. [Taubman] One of the reasons he did this was for company, but another was his hope that drink would loosen their tongues just in case they had any conspiracies in mind. [Sergei Khrushchev] You have to be on the very alert. Be really prepared for everything. You never know from where you go. You go home, do they send you directly to the jail?
[narrator] Stalin's death is a liberation for his subjects. The dictator himself never arranged a successor; his fear of a possible rival was too great. And now Khrushchev's time has come. When Stalin died, he said about Lavrentiy Beria the chief of NKVD: "We have to do something, he will kill us all." Lavrentiy Beria. The most powerful man after Stalin. The way of ruling of Beria was through the Gulag and police and arrests and others. He personally did it. So my father tried to start the plot against him. [narrators] Khrushchev does deals and wins allies: he has a plan. Now his ability to get on with everyone pays dividends. And in this plot, this conspiracy against Beria, Khrushchev was the one had the guts and the courage to organize the conspiracy which eventuated in the arrest of Beria. Beria is executed, while other rivals are neutralized. Each successful leader becoming successful leader because he has intuition. And he must be decisive, not be afraid to take responsibility. And to act in the correct time. And this is the difference between loser and winner. The winner, the new master of the Kremlin, is Nikita Khrushchev. In 1956 Khrushchev holds the first Party Conference since Stalin's death. I knew nothing about the Secret Speech, so-called Secret Speech. Because my father didn't share this information with the family.
In a closed meeting, when there are no foreign guests and no records are kept, Khrushchev denounces Stalin‘s crimes.
For the first time in Soviet Russian history, somebody came out, the leader came out and said: We made mistakes, we apologize to the nation.
Khrushchev had the courage to denounce the man who had committed such horrors: a holocaust in the Soviet Union. He had the moral decency that remained to break with that man to denounce him and to try to de-Stalinize the Soviet Union.
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