In the USSR, the dictator Joseph Stalin died and Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev (1953) took his place. Khrushchev later took sole control of the USSR. Khrushchev's Secret Speech marked a period of de-Stalinization and Khrushchev tried to undo many of the things Stalin did (such as the Gulag prison camps and 'cult of personality').