Change accelerated in 1956. By then, the earthy and loquacious Nikita Khrushchev had triumphed in the power struggle that followed Stalin's death. Born in 1894 to an impoverished peasant family and barely educated, Khrushchev, who had begun to work at the age of fourteen, was a beneficiary of the party's policy of recruiting and promoting workers such as he. Proud of the revolution's accomplishments, Khrushchev sought to reignite its enthusiasms and end Stalin-era violence. His moment came at the end of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party in February 1956. Speaking before a stunned audience in a closed session, Khrushchev openly criticized aspects of Stalin's rule for the first time. Deploring the terror of the late 1930s, Khrushchev detailed the arrest, torture, and forced confession of loyal party members. Stalin, he declared, facilitated the use "of the cruelest repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations." Khrushchev challenged the idea that genuine "enemies" had threatened the system. "Many entirely innocent individuals—who in the past had defended the party line—became victims.”