"A "Stalinist" rebuttal of Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" from the CPUSA"

“I remember President Kennedy once stated... that the United States had the nuclear missile capacity to wipe out the Soviet Union two times over, while the Soviet Union had enough atomic weapons to wipe out the United States only once... When journalists asked me to comment... I said jokingly, "Yes, I know what Kennedy claims, and he's quite right. But I'm not complaining... We're satisfied to be able to finish off the United States first time round. Once is quite enough. What good does it do to annihilate a country twice? We're not a bloodthirsty people.”

“A man emaciated by a grave illness is at first treated by doctors gradually. Food is administered to him in small doses. If more is administered to the patient, it might kill him. And so we want to begin disarmament not with a full dose, although we are prepared even for a full dose. I have said already that the Western powers greatly distrust us. We, too, do not trust them in everything. And so, in order not to destroy a thing which is of great and vital importance to mankind, disarmament, we suggest to begin not with a cardinal but with a gradual solution to disarmament problems.”

“We must affirm that the part had fought a serious fight against the Trotskyistes, rightists and bourgeois nationalists, and that it disarmed ideologically all the enemies of Leninism. This ideological fight was carried on successfully, as a result of which the party became strengthened and tempered. here Stalin played a positive role.”

“If you start throwing hedgehogs under me, I shall throw a couple of porcupines under you.”

“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.”

“When it is a question of fighting against imperialism we can state with conviction that we are all Stalinists. We can take pride that we have taken part in the fight for the advance of our great cause against our enemies. From that point of view I am proud that we are Stalinists.”