Letter from 25 figures of Soviet science, literature and art to Leonid Brezhnev against the rehabilitation of Josef Stalin () known as the Letter of the Twenty Five () is an open letter from figures of science, literature and art, written on February 14, 1966 to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev about the inadmissibility of "partial or indirect rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin".
According to the authors of the letter, "in recent times, in some speeches and articles in our press, tendencies have emerged that are aimed, in fact, at the partial or indirect rehabilitation of Stalin." In connection with this, the authors of the message considered it their duty, on the eve of the 23rd Congress of the CPSU, to convey their opinion on this issue to the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev.
In the spring of 1966, Ernst Genry instructed Marlen Korallov to collect signatures for this letter from artists (this is how the signatures of Oleg Efremov, Marlen Khutsiev, Georgy Tovstonogov, Maya Plisetskaya, and Pavel Korin were obtained). Henry himself collected the signatures of famous physicists. As Sakharov recalled:
In their letter, the cultural figures expressed their "deep concern" about the possibility of a partial revision of the decisions of the 20th and 22nd Congresses, after, in the authors' opinion, "truly terrible facts about Stalin's crimes" became known:
To this day, we have not learned of a single fact, not a single argument that would allow us to think that the condemnation of the personality cult was in any way wrong. On the contrary, it is difficult to doubt that a significant portion of the striking, truly terrible facts about Stalin's crimes, confirming the absolute correctness of the decisions of both congresses, have not yet been made public.
They spoke of Stalin's responsibility for the deaths of countless innocent people, the country's unpreparedness for the Great Patriotic War, and the departure from Leninist norms in party and state life. Stalin, in the opinion of the authors of the letter, "perverted the idea of communism". And âÂÂany attemptâ to rehabilitate Stalin would have led to confusion âÂÂin the broadest circlesâ of Soviet society and youth, and would have complicated relations with the foreign intelligentsia and Western communist parties, who would have regarded it as "our capitulation to the Chinese".
Chairman of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny reported in a note to the Central Committee of the CPSU on March 15.
The dissemination of information about the letter led to the fact that on March 25, 1966, another 13 figures in science and culture also sent a letter to the Presidium of the Central Committee under the title "Letter of the Thirteen", expressing their support for the authors of the letter of the twenty-five. The authors of the message added that "the rehabilitation of Stalin in any form would be a disaster for our country and for the entire cause of communism".
There was no visible reaction to the letters from the authorities, but at the following XXIII Congress of the CPSU there was no revision of the decisions of the XX and XXII Congresses on the condemnation of the personality cult of Stalin.
In his speech at the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee stated: âÂÂRecently it has become fashionable... to seek out in the political life of the country some elements of so-called âÂÂStalinismâÂÂ, as a bogeyman, to frighten the public, especially the intelligentsia. We tell them: âÂÂIt won't work, gentlemen!âÂÂâÂÂ.
The letter of the twenty-five became one of the first political appeals signed by Academician Andrei Sakharov.