and UK films about the war... having some contemporary significance, in the light of the tensions between the West and the Soviet Union." The New York Times''' critic dubbed it as a "deafening blend of historical pageantry and wishful thinking... directed as if his (Chiaureli's) life depended upon it" and – in what author David Caute claimed was the worst condemnation which could be leveled at it in the day – that it had a "Hollywood-style plot". He also disapproved of the historical veracity of the Yalta Conference scene, while John Howard Lawson, recently released from prison, praised it as an authentic depiction of events. Officials in Artkino, the picture's US distributor, claimed the film was "already witnessed by 1.2 million people" in the United States by 9 June 1952, a day after its release there. De-Stalinization Stalin's death in March 1953 signaled a sharp turn in the politics of the Eastern Bloc. After Beria was arrested, Chiaureli was instructed by the new rulers to leave Moscow. The Fall of Berlin was withdrawn from circulation. A directive of the Soviet Film Export Bureau to halt its screening reached East Germany in July. During the summer of 1953, the scene featuring Aleksei Ivanov dining with Stalin and the other Soviet leaders in Moscow was edited out from all available copies; author Richard Taylor attributed this to the appearance Beria's character had there. In the post-1953 version, Ivanov is introduced to Stalin, and is then shown strolling with Natasha in the wheat field. On 25 February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech condemning Stalin's cult of personality in front of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the midst of it, he told the audience: "Let us recall the film, The Fall of Berlin. Here only Stalin acts. He issues orders in a hall in which there are many empty chairs. Only one man approaches him to report something to him – it is Poskrebyshev... And where is the military command? Where is the politburo? Where is the government? What are they doing, and with what are they engaged? There is nothing about them in the film. Stalin acts for everybody, he does not reckon with anyone. He asks no one for advice. Everything is shown to the people in this false light. Why? To surround Stalin with glory – contrary to the facts and contrary to