Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Khrushchev decried the cult of personality that Stalin had built around himself. . . . Khrushchev claimed that the seemingly infallible leader had in fact been a despot guilty of crimes against the Soviet people. No wonder delegates were stunned and amazed. Thousands of prisoners were released from the Gulag and statues of Stalin were removed.… The turning point came when Khrushchev sent troops into Hungary, declaring he was a Stalinist in his determination to fight against the class enemy." [1001 Days]