against the principal masses in the countryside". Nikita Khrushchev in his Secret Speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 argued that it was "a theoretical justification of the mass terror policy". Historian Timothy Snyder has argued that the theory served the Stalinist regime both as self-justification for the failures of its policies of collectivization (which were to be blamed on saboteurs rather than on the implementation of the programme) and as an ideological tool for the continuation of mass repression: Similarly, György Lukács criticized the theory in 1968 as non-Marxist and as a vehicle to serve Stalin's tactical maneuvers: See also Cult of personality Cultural Revolution Maoism Socialism in one country Stalinism References Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Maoism Marxism–Leninism Political repression in the Soviet Union Political repression in China Joseph Stalin Soviet internal politics Stalinism