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I do also like what Carlos Martinez had to say about this topic in his book The End Of The Beginning: Lessons Of The Soviet Collapse. Sorry if what he says is redundant but I like the quotes he adds.
[Khrushchev’s] methods, however, were disastrous. It should have been possible to make political changes without launching a severe frontal attack on Stalin and all that he represented. Stalin was the most prominent Soviet leader from 1924 until his death in 1953. In other words, Stalin led the USSR for twenty-nine of the thirty-six years of the USSR’s existence. To criticize him so harshly, to tear down a personality cult so suddenly, meant to cast doubt on the entire Soviet experience to that point it meant to delegitimize the extraordinary achievements of the CPSU and the Soviet people during the Stalin era. Even Vladislav Zubok – an anti-Stalinist by any measure – observes that ‘the destruction of Stalin’s cult wounded the Soviet ideological consensus’.
The situation demanded a more balanced, nuanced assessment of the Stalin period (although we should note in passing that, even now, such a thing is rare). The post-Mao leadership in China had criticisms of Mao that were not entirely dissimilar to the Khrushchev leadership’s criticisms of Stalin. Some of the changes they introduced had parallels with those envisaged by Khrushchev. And yet it did not occur to the Chinese leadership to try to destroy Mao’s legacy. Deng Xiaoping made an insightful comment on this subject in an interview given to the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci in 1980,
We will make an objective assessment of Chairman Mao’s contributions and his mistakes. We will reaffirm that his contributions are primary and his mistakes secondary. We will adopt a realistic approach towards the mistakes he made late in life. We will continue to adhere to Mao Zedong Thought, which represents the correct part of Chairman Mao’s life. Not only did Mao Zedong Thought lead us to victory in the revolution in the past it is – and will continue to be – a treasured possession of the Chinese Communist Party and of our country. That is why we will forever keep Chairman Mao’s portrait on Tiananmen Gate as a symbol of our country, and we will always remember him as a founder of our Party and state. . . . We will not do to Chairman Mao what Khrushchev did to Stalin.
Nearly four decades later, Mao’s portrait still occupies pride of place on Tiananmen Gate.
Khrushchev’s speech created widespread confusion and doubt anger, in some places. A report from 2015 on a recently rebuilt statue of Stalin in the village of Eski Ikan, Kazakhstan, contains a thought-provoking quote from a Second World War veteran who, along with his fellow villagers, had resisted attempts by the local authorities to dismantle Stalin’s statue in the late 1950s in the wake of Khrushchev’s speech,
We fought the Nazis with the battle cry ‘For the Homeland! For Stalin!’, and they wanted to pull down the statue. Over our dead bodies, we said. We stood firm, and we won.
