 As a result of the February plenum of 1957, which was seen as directly rebuffing many post-Stalin Soviet views, the Soviet leadership invited Hoxha to visit Moscow in April that year allegedly for consultations. Instead, Khrushchev called on Hoxha to rehabilitate and reinstate party members who had been sacked for their support of Yugoslavia and the theses of the 20th Party Congress; Hoxha refused. In response to this Khrushchev accused Hoxha of sectarianism and of being "hell-bent on pursuing Stalinist policies." Hoxha later recalled the meeting as follows: Khrushchev advised the Albanians to improve their relations with Yugoslavia, to which Hoxha replied, "We have always wanted to have good relations with Yugoslavia, but to put it bluntly, we do not trust the Yugoslav leaders, because they speak against the social system in our countries and are opposed to the foundations of Marxism-Leninism. In all their propaganda, they do not say one word against imperialism, on the contrary, [they] have joined the chorus of the Western powers against us." He once more said that the Yugoslav leadership failed to understand "any of its grave mistakes and deviations," to which Khrushchev replied that Yugoslavia did not betray Marxism – Leninism though it had "slipped" from its positions. "According to you," Khrushchev continued, "we ought to return to what Stalin did, which caused all these things we know about." The meeting became increasingly acrimonious and when the subject of rehabilitating disgraced Albanian politicians came up Khrushchev eventually concluded, "You are like Stalin who killed people," to which Hoxha replied, "Stalin killed traitors, and we kill them, too."
