On 10 January 1948, more than 70 composers, musicians and music lecturers were summoned to a three day conference in the Kremlin, to be lectured by the communist party's chief ideologist Andrei Zhdanov on how to write music. As one of the main speakers, Khrennikov backed the party line, and attacked all three of the greatest composers present, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev and Khachaturyan. Years later, he defended his behaviour by telling a BBC correspondent: "They told me - they forced me - to read out that speech attacking Shostakovich and Prokofiev. What else could I have done? If I had refused, it would have been curtains for me."