Khrushchev : The Man and His Era

by William Taubman

William Taubman's brilliant biography of one of the key figures of the Soviet Union is a study in contrasts -- how the boy from a peasant background rose to the heights of power; how a single-minded, ambitious political player survived twenty years under Stalin; how he opened up to the West after Stalin's death and yet brought the world close to oblivion in the Cuban Missile Crisis. What emerges is a fascinating picture of a man constantly torn between benevolence and malevolence -- a man who made himself cultured and yet who could never really escape his image as a bullying country bumpkin (most famously demonstrated by his interruption of Macmillan's speech to the UN in 1960 by banging his shoe on the table -- the urbane Macmillan responded, 'Mr President, perhaps we could have a translation, I could not quite follow'). William Taubman has previously edited collections of Nikita Khrushchev's speeches and reminiscences and is completely immersed in this subject -- his biography is likely to remain the standard work for years to come.

Genres: Biography, History, Russia, Nonfiction, Politics, Russian History, Soviet Union

896 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“For taken in its entirety, [Nikita Khrushchev’s] life holds a mirror to the Soviet age as a whole. Revolution, civil war, collectivization and industrialization, terror, world war, cold war, late Stalinism, post-Stalinism – Khrushchev took part in them all. What attracted so many men and women to revolution and communism? What kept them loyal after the terrible bloodletting began? What led at least some of them to break with their own past and try to reform the regime? Finally, what frustrated and defeated them, bringing on a long era of stagnation followed by the fall of the Soviet Union itself? Khrushchev’s biography can provide at least some of the answers…In some ways Khrushchev was the archetypical Soviet man, but he was also unique. Countless workers and peasants rose through the ranks after the revolution, but he climbed to the very top. While most of his Kremlin colleagues became impersonal cogs in the Stalinist machine, he somehow retained his humanity…His most important foreign and domestic policies were also exceptional, ranging from his denouncing of Stalin to secretly installing missiles in Cuba to suddenly removing those rockets so as to end the nuclear confrontation that his own reckless gamble had provoked…”
- William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era

How do you follow up an act like Joseph Stalin, who spent thirty years as the General Secretary of the Communist Party, who ruled the Soviet Union as a dictator, who killed millions of his own people through ruthless collectivization schemes and purges, who imprisoned millions more, who ushered his country through the Second World War, and who formed a nation powerful enough to rule half the world?

Well, to start, you can bang your shoe on the table at the United Nations.

Following Stalin’s death in 1953, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev assumed his role as head of the Communist Party. Initially part of a power-sharing agreement, the perpetually-underestimated Khrushchev managed to outmaneuver his rivals to become an autocrat in his own right, making decisions with little regard for the input of others.

For over a decade, Khrushchev ruled the Soviet Union, during which time he denounced Stalin in his famous “secret speech,” enacted numerous reforms, crushed the Hungarian Revolution, oversaw the building of the Berlin Wall, then took the world to the brink of an all-out nuclear exchange by attempting to sneak intermediate range ballistic missiles into Cuba.

And on October 12, 1960, during a plenary meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, he allegedly took off his shoe and banged it on his desk.

***

According to William Taubman’s excellent Khrushchev, there is some indication that Khrushchev’s shoe-banging might only be myth. While cameras caught him slamming his fists like a hungry child, there are no photos of the offending shoe. Ultimately, Taubman chooses to accept the legend – for reasons he explains in a lengthy endnote – but whether or not it occurred, it is in fitting with Khrushchev’s bellicose style of leadership.

Though anyone following directly in Stalin’s bloodstained footsteps would be worthy of scrutiny, Khrushchev is a fascinating figure in his own right. Born of humble origins, inconsistently educated, thoroughly aware of his own limitations, Khrushchev took advantage of the chaos of revolution to climb to unbelievable heights. Fully implicated in Stalin’s vast crimes, he nevertheless had enough of a conscience to at least feel guilty about them, and to try to undo some of the damage. During his time on the summit, he freed or rehabilitated millions of people, loosened restrictions on the arts, and attempted to increase agricultural production. More infamously, he nearly started a nuclear war by enacting his own rendition of Richard Nixon’s “madman theory,” trying to avoid an atomic clash by bluster and threat.

In short, Khrushchev is a character fully capable of supporting a major biography, and Taubman gives him his due.

***

With the exception of the opening scene – in which Khrushchev is ousted – and a chapter devoted solely to a survey of his foreign policy, Khrushchev proceeds chronologically, from birth to death, and all the stops in between.

No single-volume biography can ever hope to capture an entire eventful life, but Taubman’s work does an extraordinary job of covering a huge swath of it. The key principle – difficult to achieve – is balance, and it is present here. Taubman gives us both the personal and the political, and describes not only what his subject did, but what he thought about it.

At 651-pages of text, this is a hefty tome. Even so, space limitations mean that we don’t learn all that much about the other people in Khrushchev’s life. Furthermore, though the subtitle promises a look at Khrushchev’s “era,” the focus stays mostly on the man himself. That’s a tradeoff, of course, but a worthy one, as Taubman marvelously captures Khrushchev’s oft-outsized presence.

***

Published in 2003, during a period when the necessary archives were mostly open, Khrushchev is a genuine work of scholarship. Taubman is a Soviet expert, apparently speaks Russian, and has personally interviewed a number of participants. His research and effort are fully document in 134-pages of endnotes, many of them annotated.

Despite its academic pedigree, however, Khrushchev is genuinely, enjoyably readable. With the exception of Stalin and the Cuban Missile Crisis, I know next to nothing about the Soviet Union. Thus, when I picked this up, I figured I might struggle with unfamiliar names, unfamiliar settings, and with the byzantine nature of Communist Party politics. From the first page, though, I was swept along by the narrative. Taubman has a smoothly flowing prose style that nicely melds the larger overview with smaller, more detailed scenes.

More than that, Taubman goes out of his way to be accessible. Each chapter – which is date-stamped – starts with an overview of what is going to be covered, providing a helpful outline. While this makes for a certain amount of repetitiveness, it is of the best kind, as it kept me from getting lost, and also helped me to retain information.

Having read a lot of history books, I’ve lost count how often authors – especially those with professorships – treat their chosen specialties as an elite sort of club, throwing up intellectual barriers to entry. Taubman, on the other hand, unrolls the red carpet, welcoming you into Nikita Khrushchev’s universe and beckoning you to look around.

***

For me, the bottom-line metric for biographies is whether I can imagine what it’d be like to stand in that person’s presence. Khrushchev undoubtedly checks this box. If I were to travel backwards to the past, or if Khrushchev were to return to life, and if our time-warping pathways intersected, I feel like I’d know exactly how our meeting would go. There would be drinking, back-slapping, dirty jokes, peasant parables, cursing, shouting, and some threats. I would be fully prepared to meet an erratic and vulnerable man with boundless ambitions but strictly-bounded abilities, a man with blood on his hands but a deeply troubled soul, a man whose best ideas were undone by an unerring failure to communicate them in a way that did not alienate everyone who heard them.

[Brett C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was consistently impressed with this biography. The writing was well-developed and the content was well-researched. Nikita Khrushchev grew up a peasant and in rural poverty yet managed to climb to the apex of the Soviet hierarchy. His story is an interesting one and all the details along the way are anything but boring. His involvement in the Russian Civil War, the Ukrainian repression and forced famine of the 1930s, World War II, and surviving alongside Stalin are all incredibly interesting.

Yet his dismissal left him feeling isolated, suffering from depression, and unfulfilled in his duties to leading the Soviet people. His memoirs even mentioned his suicidal thoughts as the result of being placed into obscurity, pg. 641 (which is something I never knew). His life was reduced to "No one needs me now." "What am I going to do without work?" pg. 621. Even his funeral was minimalized and the cemetery had a sign posted "Cemetery Closed For Cleaning" the day of his burial.

Scholars have labeled him the buffoon, Stalin's pet, or the peasant simpleton. Yet he worked his way up the ladder, miraculously survived the Stalin regime, and became the the leader of the Soviet Union.

This was a really good book in my opinion. This book also gives a lot of detail and information about the Ukraine, Ukrainianization vs Russification, and the Ukrainian politics (Ukrainian Central Committee, Ukrainian Communist Party) which I thought was good.

I enjoyed reading this one. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Russian/Soviet politics and history. Thanks!

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 4 out of 5]

شناخت ما از اتحاد جماهیر شوروی معمولا به ایجاد آن ویا شناخت افراد مهم و نقش آنان در تاسیس حزب و سپس کشور شوروی همانند لنین ، استالین یا تروتسکی محدود شده ، غالبا از جانشینان استالین ، نیکیتا خروشچف و سپس برژنف یا چندان نمی دانیم یا همان تصور کلیشه ای ساخته غرب را از آنان داریم . افرادی همانند یوری آندره پوف و کنستانتین چرنینکو هم در سایه دوران زمامداری گورباچف و تحولات بسیار عمیق آن زمان کاملا نادیده گرفته شده اند . ویلیام تابمن در کتاب خروشچف و عصر او کوشیده نگاهی هم به خروشچف ، هم به شوروی و هم جهان در عصر او بیاندازد .

مشخصات کتاب
کتاب تابمن توسط فریدون دولتشاهی ترجمه شده و نشر اطلاعات آن را منتشر کرده . کتاب به چاپ دوم رسیده و 946 صفحه دارد . صفحات کتاب کاهی بوده و چسب و شیرازه چندان قوی برای نگه داشتن کتابی با چنین حجم را ندارد . از این رو هنگام خواندن باید کمی مواظب بود تا کتاب آسیب نبیند . اما از آن جا که قیمت کتاب تنها 25000 تومان است جای چندانی برای شکایت وجود ندارد . ترجمه و ویرایش کتاب گرچه اشکالاتی نسبتا کوچک در آن دیده می شود اما روان و قابل قبول است . کتاب تابمن در سطح جهانی هم اثری کاملا شناخته شده است و جایزه پولیتزر برای بیوگرافی در سال 2004 را دریافت کرده است .
و نیکیتا خروشچف
تصویری که غرب از خروشچف ساخته ، مردی خشن ، بی ادب و دلقک است که مشهورترین کار او کوبیدن کفش خود به میز سخنرانی در سازمان ملل بوده ، بیشتر تصاویرهم نیکیتا را در حالی نشان می دهد که مشت خود را به علامت پیروزی به آسمان برده ، گویی که دن کیشوت وار در حال ضربه زدن به آسمان است . اما داستان خروشچف بسیار پیچیده تر از تصویر کلیشه ای بوده که غرب از او ساخته ، او مجموعه ای از بردها و شکست ها ، تلاش ها و ناکامی ها در مقیاسی بسیار عظیم بوده .
میراث و دستاورد بسیار بزرگ و البته ستودنی خروشچف ، تلاش او برای استالین زدایی از شوروی و نشان دادن سیمایی انسانی هم از خود که در جنایات آن دوره دست داشته و هم از کمونیسم بوده . تلاش جسورانه و البته ناقص و شاید هم بی پشتوانه او را که در ظاهرمی توان موفق اما در باطن کاملا شکست خورده دانست راه را برای اصلاح گران بعدی مانند گورباچوف باز کرد ، گرچه که بسیار دیر شده بود . به همین ترتیب شکست خروشچف در اصلاحات ساختاری به بن بستی انجامید که گویا دیگر قابل گشایش نبود .
زندگی پر ماجرای خروشچف را می توان آینه تمام نمای شوروی دانست . رد پای اورا در تمامی مراحل مانند انقلاب و جنگ داخلی ، اشتراکی سازی و صنعتی کردن ، زندگی در سایه ترور استالین ، جنگ جهانی و جنگ سرد ، استالینیسم و تلاش برای گذر از آن و انبوهی دیگر از رخ دادهایی حیاتی می توان دید . از این رو تابمن وظیفه ای سخت ، دشوار در گردآوری انبوه اطلاعات و نوشتن کتاب داشته است .
خروشچف و عصر او
کتاب را می توان به چهار بخش اصلی تقسیم کرد : دوران کودکی و جوانی خروشچف ، خروشچف در کنار استالین ، زمامداری ده ساله خروشچف و کنار زدن تمامی رقبا و کودتا ، برکناری ، تنهایی و مرگ .
تقریبا تمامی بخشهای اصلی کتاب ، انبوهی قسمت های فرعی دارد که به هیچ شکل آنها را نمی توان کم ارزش دانست . برای نمونه ، سقوط رومانوف ها ، انقلاب 1917 ، جنگ داخلی و چگونگی پیشرفت نیکیتا خود داستان عظیمی ایست که تقریبا 300 صفحه کتاب را در بر می گیرد .
پیشرفت خروشچف در زمان استالین و رابطه او با ارباب ، رییس و سلطان کرملین را می توان از جالب ترین و جذاب ترین قسمت های کتاب دانست . نقش خروشچف در صنعتی سازی ، اشتراکی سازی و جنگ جهانی دوم و البته رابطه بسیار پیچیده و خطرناک او با استالین هم در همین بخش قرار می گیرد . همین رابطه خاص بوده که خروشچف را شریک جنایت های بزرگ استالین کرده . مولوتف تعداد قربانیان تصفیه حساب های خروشچف را در اوکراین 54000 نفر دانسته . به همین ترتیب او نقشی بسیار مهم اما نه مستقیم در فرستادن صدها هز��ر سرباز روسی به میدان جنگ در کیف و خارکف داشته ، نبردهایی که به مسلخ گاه نیروهای روس با تلفات باورنکردنی چند صد هزار نفر تبدیل شد .
اما خروشچف تنها ماشین امضا اوامر و دستورات استالین نبوده ، آن گونه که تابمن نوشته او بارها تلاش کرده تا ماشین کشتار استالین را کُند کرده تا از تعداد قربانیان بکاهد . او حتی در چندین مورد با شهامت با تصمیمات استالین مخالفت کرد . شجاعتی که در دیگر اعضای بلند پایه حزب مانند مولوتف ، کاگانویچ و مالنکف هیچ گاه دیده نشده . چندان هم مشخص نیست که شجاعت و شهامت در مخالفت با استالین تا چه اندازه در نجات دادن جان ملت موثر بوده .
تابمن خواننده را با خود به محافل خصوصی استالین می برد ، جایی که دیکتاتور تصمیم گرفته احتمالا ترتیب تمام سران حزب ، کاگانویچ ، مالنکف ، میکویان ، مولوتف و خروشچف را بدهد . نویسنده فضا سنگین ضیافت های استالین را ترسیم کرده ، او افراد را مجبور به نوشیدن تا بیشترین حد ممکن می کند . مهمانی استالین گرچه به سبب اصرار او به رقص و نوشیدن های مکرر ، حالتی کمدی پیدا کرده اما باید آنرا بیشتر تراژدی دانست . خودداری هریک از افراد از نوشیدن و یا رقصیدن می تواند به بهای جان افراد و خانواده های آنان تمام شود . نیکیتا که خود مجبور بوده برقصد گفته وقتی استالین می گوید برقص ، یک مرد عاقل حتما می رقصد !
نویسنده سپس به حوادث پس از مرگ استالین پرداخته ، جایی که خروشچف با وجود آنکه نقش اساسی در سقوط بریا و اعدام او داشته اما آشکارا از جانب مالنکوف ، مولوتف و دیگران دست کم گرفته می شده اما در پایان معلوم شد که این روستایی زاده نه چندان مودب است که از دیگران تیزبین تر ، پرجنب و جوش تر و قاطع تر بوده .
بزرگترین و شجاعانه ترین کار خروشچف که هم آینده شوروی و هم آینده جهان را تغییر داد سخنرانی طولانی و تاریخی او در محکوم کردن استالین بوده . اقدام متهورانه خروشچف میلیونها نفر را از گولاگ ها نجات داد واز هزاران نفر اعاده حیثیت و جایگاه او را در حزب تقویت کرد .
جهان در زمان خروشچف که مصادف با آیزنهاور ، کِندی و جانسون بوده را می توان اوج جنگ سرد دانست ، بحران کانال سوئز ، بحران موشکی کوبا که جهان را تا آستانه جنگ جهانی برد ، سقوط هواپیما جاسوسی آمریکا در خاک روسیه تنها بخشی گرچه بسیار مهم از رخ داد های آن دورا ن هستند . نویسنده سیاست خروشچف را بلوف درمانی دانسته ، او که می دانسته شوروی از نظر تکنولوژی موشکی و صنعت هوانوردی به هیچ شکل حریف آمریکا نبوده تلاش می کرده تا این فاصله را با بلوف پُر کند . در حالی که آمریکا از طریق ژاپن ، ترکیه ، یونان ، ایتالیا و فرانسه دسترسی آسان به خاک شوروی داشته اما شوروی هیچ گاه قادر به تهدید مستقیم خاک آمریکا نبوده . از این رو پایگاه موشکی در کوبا برای خروشچف اهمیتی فوق العاده داشته است اما زمانی که او با تهدید سخت کندی روبرو شد از ادعاهای خود عقب نشینی کرد .
تابمن کتاب خود را با کودتای سال 1964 به رهبری برژنف شروع کرده ، کودتایی که به برکناری خروشچف انجامید . او سپس به عقب باز گشته و ضمن بیان بخشهای مختلف کتاب ، شخصیت خروشچف را هم بررسی کرده . نیکیتا سال 1964 با شخصیت خود در سالهای پیش بسیار متفاوت بوده . او غیر قابل پیش بینی و به شدت تند خو شده بود و مخالفت با او نه مانند استالین به محو شدن طرف اما به برکناری او منجر می شد . تابمن نتیجه گرفته که خروشچف به کیش شخصیتی که خود سعی در زدودن آن داشته گرفتار شده بود .
نویسنده بخش آخر کتاب خود را به خروشچف پس از برکناری پرداخته . او در پایان زندگی خود سخت ناراحت و متاثر بوده . خروشچف خود را فردی می دانست که دستانش تا آرنج به خون آلوده شده . تابمن با بیان خاطره ای از خروشچف نتیجه گیری کرده که او حتی به سوسیالیسم هم دیگر ایمان ندارد ، او سوسیالیسم را همانند آبی می داند که گرچه نوشیده می شود اما دفع نمی شود ، سوسیالیسم حتی ادرار هم نیست ، کاملا هیچ است .
تابمن گرچه هیچ گونه قضاوتی نسبت به خروشچف نکرده ، اما میراث او را سخت مهم و اثر گذار دانسته ، از نگاه تابمن تلاش های خروشچف گرچه ناقص و بی نظم بودند اما یک جامعه مدنی نوپا در گورستانی که استالین ایجاد کرده بود شکل داد .
کتاب عظیم تابمن با یاد آوری یاد و خاطره خروشچف در دوران گورباچف و کوشش های گورباچف برای ادامه راه خروشچف با کمک و درس گرفتن از اقدامات او پایان می گیرد . تابمن کتاب خود را هم در عرصه سیاست و هم در زندگی شخصی و آداب و اخلاق های پیچیده خروشچف هم گام و هماهنگ پیش برده و در پایان سیمایی از خروشچف نشان داده که با تصویر کلیشه ای او سخت متفاوت است .

[Dmitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.”
- Joseph Stalin

“When Stalin says dance, a wise man dances.”
- Nikita Khrushchev

“As Stalin lay dying his son Vasily screamed at Beria and the others: ‘You bastards, you murdered my father!’ Beria later told the Politburo, ‘I did away with him and saved all of us.’” - ‘Molotov Remembers’, from conversations in 1969

“His face altered and became dark. His lips turned black and his features unrecognizable. At what seemed like the very last moment he opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance, insane or perhaps angry, and in fear of death. He suddenly lifted his hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse upon us all. After a final effort his spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh.” - Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana at his deathbed, 1953

“Beria wants the police for the purposes of destroying us, and he will do it too if we let him. No matter what happens we cannot allow him, no matter what!” - Khrushchev, 1953

“Following Presidium directives, that dictated the verdict in advance, the judicial panel declared Beria and his men guilty and sentenced them to be shot in the same room where the trial was held. After the sentence was pronounced guards removed Beria’s prison shirt, tied his hands and attached the rope to a wooden board designed to shield witnesses from ricocheting bullets. Beria tried to speak and was gagged with a towel. He was dispatched by a three star general who fired directly into his forehead.” - Eyewitness to Beria’s trial and execution, 1953

“Khrushchev spoke with agitation and emotion. His hatred for Stalin was visible as he held him accountable for the disastrous defeats in Kiev and Kharkiv in 1941 and 1942. ‘He was a coward! He panicked. Not once during the war did he go near the front.’ Presidium colleagues sat stony faced. Khrushchev taunted Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich and Viroshilov, and demanded they explain their behavior. None of them uttered a word during or after the speech. ‘You’re old and decrepit now! Can’t you find the courage to tell the truth about what you saw with your own eyes?’ - Eyewitness to Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in a closed 20th Party Congress meeting, 1956

“That night, after his ouster, Khrushchev called Mikoyan, and said: ‘I'm old and tired. Let them cope by themselves. I've done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he didn't suit us anymore and suggesting he retire? Not even a wet spot would have remained where we had been standing. Now everything is different. The fear is gone, and we can talk as equals. That's my contribution. I won't put up a fight.’” - 1964, as told by Khrushchev’s son, Sergei in his 1991 memoirs

************

William Taubman begins this Pulitzer Prize biography of Nikita Khrushchev on the eve of his downfall, recalled from vacation in 1964 following elevation to First Secretary of the Communist Party after Stalin’s death in 1953. He was an old school Bolshevik who backed Stalin during the purges and famines of the 30’s, WWII horrors of the 40’s, overcoming rival’s aspirations. He denounced prior policies of political and intellectual suppression but increased Cold War tension in the 50’s. Inexplicably he ignored warnings from friends and family about his imminent overthrow by Brezhnev.

1910’s
Khrushchev grew up in extreme poverty in southern Russia where people couldn’t afford shoes and lived in mud huts. From a peasant childhood he moved at age fourteen to an industrial region in Ukraine where his father was a miner. Men lived in barracks without running water; Khrushchev went to work at a factory as a metal fitter. By age twenty he was married and successful, skilled enough to avoid WWI service, and became active in left wing politics as a strike organizer. After the Tsar’s abdication in 1917 civil war broke out in Russia and Khrushchev joined the Bolshevik party.

1920’s
The White Army exploited miners and factory workers in Ukraine as the Bolsheviks seized peasants grain. Khrushchev became a top political leader in the Red Army until the war ended in 1920. Disease and famine caused more deaths than both wars had by 1922. After Lenin’s stroke a split began between Stalin and Trotsky, who was deposed and exiled. Khrushchev was a Party hack in Donbas, Kharkiv and Kiev, investigating bourgeois crimes like sabotage, espionage and opposition, and signing death warrants for wrong thinking. Moscow impressed, he quickly climbed the Party ladder.

1930’s
During the decade Khrushchev was a protege of Kaganovich, Stalin’s enforcer, assisting in a holocaust that wiped out ten million farmers and purged thousands of Party members to gulags or execution. Farm collectivization in 1932 created a famine, starving another five million. In 1937 he was made Party boss of Ukraine where arrests and deaths continued. High level leaders were tried in 1938, among them Bukharin accused of trying to murder Lenin, Stalin and poisoning the writer Gorky. Khrushchev survived the Red Terror because he wasn’t a member of the inner circle until after 1939.

1940’s
As Hitler invaded Poland Khrushchev took over the western Ukraine and Belarus and held faked referendums to join the Soviet Union. A million ethnic Poles and Jews were deported or shot before Russian defeats in Kiev and Kharkiv. Stalin and Khrushchev were at odds with commanders, pressing for impossible goals until Zhukov’s 1943 victories in Kursk and Stalingrad. Khrushchev returned to Kiev to restore the Soviet rule. In 1946 Ukrainian revolts and famines resumed. State grain quotas reduced peasants to cannibals. Promoted to Moscow Party Leader, he left the Ukraine during 1949.

1950’s
Khrushchev joined the Central Committee as Stalin’s health declined. Molotov fell out of favor, but Beria and Malenkov held on. On Stalin’s death in 1953 they seized control of the Presidium and police. Khrushchev arrested them with help by Zhukov and Brezhnev. Denunciation of Stalin in 1956 led to revolts in Eastern Europe and crushing of the Hungarian Revolution. Reforms were passed to wash blood from Party hands, prisoners released, censorship relaxed. Invasion of the Suez Canal by Britain and France was defused. Sputnik 1 was launched in 1957 to Western astonishment and concern.

1960’s
In 1960 the USSR shot down a US spy plane and captured it’s pilot, ending talks for detente with Eisenhower. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop dissidents fleeing to the West. A 1962 Cuban missile crisis nearly lead to war. Khrushchev made a deal with Kennedy to disarm Cuba in exchange for the removal of US missiles in Turkey. A nuclear test ban was achieved in 1963. Military cuts and foreign policy blunders gave Brezhnev an excuse to plot overthrow of Khrushchev in 1964 and repeal his reforms. Repression didn’t return to the level during Stalin’s time, so some progress had been made.

Khrushchev tried to recast himself as a reformist in memoirs but shows he was the sort of sycophant and apparatchik that made Stalin possible. Khrushchev fought his conscience at times yet was unable to restrain his ambition and ideology. He suffered an inferiority complex, due to his impoverished background and lack of education, but saw he could use it to advantage by projecting the image of a proletarian bumpkin. After Stalin’s death it was easier to blame everything on him. This is a detailed biography at 650 pages but Taubman has a fluid writing style and gives a clear picture of Soviet politics.

[Darya Silman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A complete biography of Nikita Khrushchev, a man, politician, and husband.

The book Khrushchev (in other editions, Khrushchev: The Man and his Era) by William Taubman doesn't need an introduction to people studying Soviet history. From a poor peasant boy to the representative of the biggest country in the world, Khrushchev's life reflected the domestic and international perturbations Russia was going through during the Soviet period. Based on the vast array of materials: archives, correspondence, interviews - the book leaves no possibility for future scholars to add a new revelation to Khrushchev's biography; scholars can only illuminate this or that point in the existing narrative. The book shows a man in whose character so many contrasts were so starkly intertwined: both true believer and cold-eyed realist, opportunistic yet principled in his own way, fearful of war while all too prone to risk it, the most unpretentious of men even as he pretended to power and glory exceeding his grasp, complicit in great evil yet also the author of much good.

I regret only one thing, the absence of the shorter version. When two years take up to 30 pages of text and the author goes into remarkable detail, it's hard to absorb information all at once. The book is meant to be studied and revisited, especially considering the long list of source materials that can be used for further research.

I want the book's future readers to remember that whatever was going on on the grand scale, Soviet people were first and foremost people, with their little desires for peace and new pair of shoes. They believed in the regime's righteousness as people nowadays believe in democracy or liberalism. Many soviet citizens fought in WW2 to protect the homeland. Many, even dissidents of the 60s, loved their country.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Stalin

William Taubman’s biography of Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev took decades to write and takes the story of Russia up to the 1960s. The Revolution is a distant memory, Stalin is dead and the Cold War is in full swing. How do we look back and remember this larger than life character at the helm of this despotic and flawed USSR? Well as Taubman reveals, with difficultly to top the scales either way. Not the evil dictator that Stalin was, but at the same time blood was flowing all over his hands and shirt. A member of the politburo from the Stalin era, he knew and was complicit in the terror. When he was first secretary of in Ukraine, more than 50,000 people political prisoners perished. Over 100,000 more were arrested.

Taubman’s Khrushchev to me comes across as almost a cartoon villain. Loud, dramatic, full of crazy schemes and witty, but low brow remarks. It is not endearing picture, even if the author admits he had ‘special affection’ alongside disdain for the man. It seems that many of his contemporaries weren’t close to him. Albeit this is Soviet Russia and a man who was removed from power. So there is a lot of backtracking and distancing for survival to take into account. A man who was not academic or cultured, was not good a diplomacy or leadership. He understood how to bark orders and really carried his peasant upbringing with him for the rest of his life. He was also a man of contradictions, he clearly felt bad about the huge death tolls, and denounced Stalinism in his secret speech, but the gulags continued under his watch. He was also conducted about the Orthodox religion, doing the cross signs at his mothers grave, but unceremoniously ensuring his first wife’s body didn’t pass through the church to reach the graveyard, instead being lifted over a wall.

Khrushchev was however intelligent, practical and a quick learner. Joining the Bolsheviks he was picked out by Stalin and eventually rose to prominence. The brainchild of the metro in Moscow and a formidable leader in WWII are two great achievements. However, the most amazing and unforeseen accolade occurred in 1953 when he outmanoeuvred his political rivals to become the undisputed leader of the USSR. From there he denounced Stalinism and recognised the need for reform. This brought stability and the 03:00 hour knock at the door became almost extinct. However he made huge errors. Taubman describes the secret speech as the ‘most reckless and brave thing he ever did’. But it broke his relationship with the communist party, which never recovered. The Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which he caused and ended in his defeat was an amazing faux pas of diplomacy, one still wonders ‘what was he thinking?’ Almost disastrous was his inability to work with Mao Zedong of China which split the communist world in two.

This book is without doubt the most comprehensive on Khrushchev in the English language and it is hard to see another knocking it off it’s pedestal for a long time. Khrushchev’s personality, ideology shine through in a well built backdrop of the politics of the time. Taubman touches on the personal Khrushchev, which was great, as the man behind the persona is understood. Who he was as a son, husband, father and what he liked to do privately are all addressed in a effective way. Amazingly only two periods in Russian history in the 20th century are looked on in a positive way, the reigns of Tsar Nicholas II and Nikita Khrushchev. Even if this survey is misleading, the essential idea is there. Things weren’t all bad under Khrushchev and he set the ball in motion to allow Gorbachev’s reforms of the 1980s.

For Cold War Russia, large than life characters, the space race and life after Stalin this is a great book and a great biography. My one criticism is that I felt myself getting bored near the end and wanted the book to finish. But it is pitched at the right level and isn’t too long for the subject. A good solid biography.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The war [WWII] traumatized Khrushchev: It drove him to smoke and to drink; it commanded more attention in his memoirs than almost any other subject, but he couldn’t bring himself to read others’ war memoirs in retirement. Yet the same war added several more medals to his collection.

This was a well paced and meticulously researched biography that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. The lengthy section on the Cuban Missile Crisis was absolutely superb and the section on Khrushchev’s downfall was equally superb and surprisingly sentimental — enough to feel sorry for the man who unwittingly did more than anyone to bring the world to the brink of Nuclear War and left us with the disturbing legacy that is the Nuclear Arms race.

Nikita Khrushchev was born a hundred miles south of Moscow in April of 1894. He lived with his mother and grandparents during his youth while his father worked in the mines. When Khrushchev turned fifteen he traveled more than 200 miles to work alongside his father in the mines and continued as a miner for several years.

In 1914 came WWI. Khrushchev managed to avoid the fighting and joined the Communist Party in 1918. He then quickly rose through the ranks and became Stalin’s man in charge of Moscow in the 1930’s and then in Ukraine in the 1940’s. During WWII he served as a commander and even fought at Stalingrad, though it horrified him.

Upon Stalin’s death in 1953 Khrushchev assumed the leadership of the Soviet Union — outmaneuvering the other shocked candidates. From the get go he aimed to distance himself from the famines of the Stalin era and to be more approachable with the people. But he also wanted to promote military prowess and especially technology. He was not known as much of a planner but under his leadership the Soviet Union of the 1950’s did achieve quite a bit in weapons research and actually eclipsed the U.S. in the initial phase of the Space Race.

Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union for twelve years — the period we now consider to be the height of the Cold War. His reign ended less than two years after his humiliating capitulation to Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Politburo never forgave him for that embarrassment. He was forced into retirement and was stripped of his prized dacha on the Black Sea and his car. While he was given a pension, Khrushchev was not allowed to be written about it in the Soviet Press. He died six years later in 1971, a frustrated man.

5 stars. As far as biographies go this is about as good as it gets — particularly for a subject that I initially had little interest in.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

For many of us “Russian common-man” Nikita Khrushchev was the first human face of Soviet leadership – Lenin a grainy figure from newsreels or a corpse on display in a tomb; Josef Stalin a phantom figure seen with FDR and Churchill in pictures. In one news-clip breath Khrushchev was grinning gap-toothed from one jug-ear to the other, and in the next moment slamming his shoe down on his desk at the UN. (Or did he?) To label Mr. Khrushchev mercurial is an understatement. He was a bundle of insecurities; who far too often acted before thinking, rashly believing hubris was the antidote for any confrontation. Khrushchev was the proverbial bull who traveled with his own china shop, yet he could also be as contrite as a small child – this Jekyll and Hyde personality a dangerous combination during the Cold War.

This Soviet-style rags-to-riches story of Khrushchev’s life and times is presented here in detail and is in a word – compelling. The author combines anecdotes, first-hand accounts and the historical record; providing analysis when appropriate – including highlighting contemporaneous newsreel footage which I found fascinating. Many of the chapters begin with a summary before detailing the topic at hand – something this reader found invaluable. This is a cradle to grave biography in the best sense of the term.

Some highlights. Considered a blustering, uneducated, stumpy “peasant”, Khrushchev somehow not only survived Stalin’s purges, but succeeded him as head of the Soviet Union, besting the likes of Beria – head of the nefarious KGB - and General Zhukov – the Russian military victor of World War II. This is a story in and of itself, dispelling any thoughts that Khrushchev was “simple” or “dumb”.

Khrushchev was personally much closer to Stalin than at least this reader knew – the relationship between the two men complicated and one that haunted Khrushchev continually after Stalin’s death in 1953. (He was not alone – Stalin cast a very long and enduring historic shadow, haunting communists and capitalists alike.) In 1956, once in power, Khrushchev delivered his “secret speech”, blasting Stalin and denouncing his –ism.

Initiating the Berlin crisis, Khrushchev then seemed to be led into the building of the infamous “Wall” by East German General Secretary Walter Ulbricht. Khrushchev intimidated JFK at Vienna in 1961 and then riding this wave of adrenaline, brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 – this covered in detail here. During the late 1950’s and early 1960’s his word was literally law in the USSR, affecting millions of his citizens, while driving global events, as world leaders such as Eisenhower, JFK, Macmillan, De Gaulle and Mao scrambled in reaction to Khrushchev’s “mood swings”.

All this and much more is covered here. Highly recommended.

[Helga Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a well researched comprehensive Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Khrushchev. Khrushchev was a complex common man who rose far beyond his competence level. This was remarkable as he lacked in education, read little and wrote less. In spite of this, he wanted to improve the Soviet system for everyone, by implementing reforms and reduce corruption. K’s life and career extended from the revolution, civil war, famine, industrialization, Stalinism, world war and the cold war. He was complicit in Stalin’s crimes but retained his humanity by condemning Stalin. He thought that Stalin had perverted the Marxist-Leninist ideology and Soviet political system.
K attempted to reform communism after he took control of the party leadership and awkwardly attempted to ease the cold war. He made promises to surpass the west in many ways with his tremendous power and then ousted to lose much.
The insights about Russia and the man were fascinating. Taubman paints an in depth portrait of K’s achievements and failures. It is a must read for everyone.

[Aaron Million · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exhaustively researched biography about an almost-forgotten leader of Russia's past. Taubman really has command of his material throughout the book; the copious notes section at the back is almost another book in itself. When considering how secretive, paranoid, and suspicious Russia is of any Westerner, it is somewhat of a miracle that Taubman was able to locate as many sources of research as he did, and get quite a few people to agree to on-the-record interviews.

The book starts out with Khrushchev's ouster as Soviet Premier in October 1964. It then goes back to his birth in 1894. The book gets better as it goes on; early on in Khrushchev's life there was really nothing out of the ordinary to speak of. It becomes necessarily grim during the chapters focusing on the period from the Revolution in 1917 up until Khrushchev is able to eventually assume power after Stalin's death in 1953. It is appalling and immensely sad to read about thousands and thousands of innocent people being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and executed all for no reason other than Stalin wanted them dead. Khrushchev was really no better than any of his colleagues during this timeframe - signing off on whatever documents needed to be signed off on in an effort to save themselves from Stalin's wrath.

Taubman is especially good in relating Khrushchev's rise to power in the 1950s, his mismanaged foreign relations - especially with the U.S. and China, and the many reasons behind his ultimate removal from power. The chapters on his relations with Kennedy, and then the Cuban missile crisis are especially good.

I would give this book four stars instead of three except for the following: 1) I thought that Taubman probably could have dispensed with some of the minutiae of Khrushchev's early life, 2) there are several typos throughout the book, 3) Taubman never mentions the death of Khrushchev's mother - I would think that would merit a few sentences somewhere, and 4) he really does not talk much at all about Khrushchev's relationship with his third (and by far the longest and most important) wife Nina.

[Alan Tomkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding! Epic in scope, meticulously researched and sourced, this beautifully written book is more than a biography of Nikita Sergeivich Khrushchev, it is an in depth history of Soviet government from an inside perspective. I found it thoroughly fascinating. Khrushchev is perhaps best known for banging his shoe on the podium at the UN and for being JFK’s adversary during the Cuban missile crisis, as well as denouncing his predecessor Stalin and rehabilitating 20 million of Stalin’s victims (most of them posthumously, of course.) As revealed in these pages, Khrushchev was a “complicated” man. He was crude and vulgar, ill-spoken, clever, extremely hardworking, cunning, humorous and funny, often obliviously hypocritical, prone to blustering and bullying, and a devoted Marxist-Leninist. He was constantly underestimated by his communist fellows, which he turned to his advantage as he rose to the top. None of the Soviet leaders were likable people, and the fact that they callously controlled the fate of millions of their citizens is revolting and despicable. It was an evil government, without a doubt. Yes, a backward and impoverished Russia was transformed into an industrialized super power in just a few decades, but the human cost was horrendous. The author vividly recounts it in grim detail, with the amazing life of Khrushchev at the center of it all. I consider this book to be essential reading for history buffs interested in the twentieth century. Highest recommendation.

[John Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Fascinating insights about the man and Russia. Khrushchev was born in 1894 and he was an eye witness to the Bolshevik Revolution, the two world wars, the cold war, the crisis in Berlin and the crisis in Cuba. A man of bluster, energy and high hopes for the communist dream, he helped bring the USSR down when he condemned Stalin, after his death, for the atrocities and false imprisonments of millions he suspected of standing in his way. Damage to the image of Stalin was something communism could not face and survive, especially when the system went bankrupt and agriculture and the economy were in tatters. William Taubman paints an in depth portrait of the Soviet Union and Khrushchev's achievements and failures. Surely this is a must read for everyone.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vivid, lively and readable biography of Khrushchev, a man known for his colorful, crude, and seemingly un-statesmanlike conduct. Taubman provides a good deal of insight into the man’s interesting personality, and the various traits that made him both obviously human and also rather repellant. The Soviet style of government can be understood in two different ways---authoritarian and centralized (Lenin and Stalin), with a strong and colorful leader at the top, and as a more corporate, Politburo-oriented system occupied by gray, listless old men that conformed to the drab and cautious culture of collective leadership. Khrushchev seems to be somewhere in the middle between these two extremes, if they can be called that.

Taubman’s Khrushchev is quite an interesting portrait: a hardscrabble industrial worker who seemed to have no natural talent, raised in a simple hut with dirt floor, with a compassion for humanity and a sincere desire to serve his country as he saw it. While he proved to be a skilled politician and easy to underestimate, his insecurity, over-the-top mannerisms, self-righteousness and inferiority complex made him quite suspect to the rest of the Party’s gray functionaries. He survived Stalin’s reign by playing the fool and getting everyone to underestimate him, then began his tenure as head of the Party by ousting Malenkov, foiling a coup attempt with Marshal Zhukov’s assistance, and working hard to bring down the mythical image of Stalin (who Taubman calls Khrushchev’s “mentor and tormentor”), as well as reducing the powers of the secret police, a feat coupled with his rather bold arrest and execution of the feared Beria, which revealed a cunning nobody had noticed before. He had a complicated relationship with Soviet intellectuals, assisting Solzhenitsyn in his work while blasting the work of Pasternak.

Khrushchev had no doubts about the communist system, yet favored a policy of peaceful co-existence, although his preference for this was tested during the U-2 incident, his reluctant approval of the construction of the Berlin Wall, and his deployment of nuclear missiles to Cuba without any real backup plan, something his political opponents were soon able to use against him (likewise, his support for nuclear forces at the expense of conventional forces cost him the support of the army establishment). He often seemed to adopt policies without fully weighing their implications, while his personality was erratic, over the top, coarse, boorish and bungling. Like Stalin before him, he had little respect for other communist statesmen, especially Mao (who considered Khrushchev a backward hick), providing another convenient club for Khrushchev’s enemies, and soon enough he fell from power (Taubman’s treatment of Khrushchev’s fall seems just a little thin and inadequate, however).

Khrushchev, Taubman writes, "might have made a better manager or engineer than a political leader. Although his native gifts sustained him during his rise to the top, they failed him when he was there. Yet they surely would have sufficed had he pursued his original dream of becoming an industrial engineer. Along the way, he would have received the higher education he craved and felt more confident, less driven to play the very role he was determined to transcend, that of a simple peasant muzhik whom even a paranoid Stalin could trust." Khrushchev's lack of a formal education would be one of his biggest regrets.

An accessible, well-written, well-researched and well-paced biography of an interesting and complex figure who seemed to have let power trump common sense, and whose erratic behavior, self-deception, and impulsiveness seemed to disqualify him as a statesman. Taubman relies heavily on psychoanalysis, so much of his portrait may be speculative, but Taubman’s Khrushchev is quite compelling compared to the colorless functionaries that came after him, and his portrait of the man never fails to fascinate or amuse.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cette biographie a bien merite son prix Pulitzer. Il est base sur des recherches approfondies et presente un analyse nuance de ce courageux chef Sovietique qui a mis fin aux pires abus de Stalinisme et qui a essaye d'ouvrir un dialogue avec les pays de l'ouest. Essentiellement le lecteur trouve un communiste pur et dur qui voulait le communisme soit humaine et qui etait convaincu que c'etait.

Khruschev a été une masse de contradictions. Ses études ont fini dans ses années adolescentes mais il a toujours attache une grande valeur a l'instruction et il a pousse son fils a faire un doctorat en physique. Il croyait fermement a l'Importance de la litterature a condition bien entendu qu'elle etait au service de la cause de l'etat communiste. Pour survivre il a fidelement rempli ses quotas de denonciatons et d'envois aux Goulag. Une fois chef du pays, il a liberé les prisoniers et fermé les Goulags.

S'il était un homme de bonne volonté, Kruschev était aussi un produit du systeme communiste; c'est à dire il etait d'une ignorance colossale et completement dépourvu des convenances sociales qui prevallait dans nos pays de l'ouest. Il a surestimé ses connaissances surtout dans le domaine agricole ce qui lui poussé a trop mise sur la culture de mais.

Malgre tous ses fautes, le bilan de la carriere de Kruschev est positif. Il a mis fin a un épouvantable reigne de terreur et il a fait les premieres pas ver un rapprochement. Grace à sa bonhommie, le public occidental a decide qu'un dialogue avec l'URSS etait possible et souhaitable.

[Ilze Paegle-Mkrtčjana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ārkārtīgi detalizēta un izsmeļoša biogrāfija - ne velti autors saņēmis Pulicera prēmiju par saviem ilgajiem pūliņiem. Lērums neticami interesantu sīkumu, kas ļauj labāk izprast Hruščova ļoti pretrunīgo personību un ne mazāk pretrunīgo darbošanos vispasaules komunisma līdera ampluā. Tomēr, ja atļauts mazliet pakritizēt: aiz kokiem reizēm pagrūti saskatīt mežu, proti, detaļu pārbagātība ik pa laikam liek iepauzēt, lai censtos saskatīt lielākas likumsakarības vai - varbūt - nejaušības aiz galvenā varoņa nerimtīgās un reizēm ļoti dīvainās rosības

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taubman's book contains an extensively detailed portrait of Nikita Khrushchev, one that does suffer at times from a bit too much detail. There's a lot to learn about Khrushchev, and this book does a decent job laying out his major accomplishments and failures, though it does get bogged down a bit, especially in the middle. I feel like I understand him more now, having read this book, and on the whole, I enjoyed it.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1959, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York teased Nikita Khrushchev by telling him that half a million Russians had emigrated to New York seeking freedom and opportunity. Khrushchev replied that they only came to get higher wages and he knew this because he was almost one of them and had at one time given much consideration to coming. Rockefeller responded by saying that if he had, he would have ended up as leader of one of the biggest unions. I can see that. In fact, I can see Khrushchev being elected as a U.S. Representative from some working class district from the Midwest. In Professor Taubman's book, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, he gives us a portrait of the man that shows he possessed that kind of relationship with the ordinary people he met in the course of his day to day work in Russia and in his travels all over the world. He was what we would call "a natural". Even though he rose to the highest of positions, he was born into the lowest. A peasant, uneducated beyond the ability to barely read and write, unsophisticated, even boorish, he was able because of his native intelligence and incredible abilities to succeed in what can only be described as a cutthroat era. Taubman states"...taken in its entirety, his life holds a mirror to the Soviet age as a whole. Revolution, civil war, collectivization and industrialization, terror, world war, cold war, late Stalinism, post-Stalinism--Khrushchev took part in them all."

Since his life encompassed so much of the Soviet experiment and included the extreme violence and murderous aspect of the beginning decades, Khrushchev's hands were hardly clean. But it was he who denounced Stalin in his "secret speech" to the Twentieth Congress. He tried to introduce reforms periodically in the years that followed but his behavior was so erratic that no one ever could be certain of what policy would remain and for how long. As Taubman puts it, he "didn't think things through very well." He insulted his officials repeatedly and his behavior in the West was felt to be embarrassing for Russia. His shoe-banging incident at the UN and his mishandling of the Cuban Missile crisis eventually led to his downfall and forced resignation.

Khrushchev: The Man and His Era is a complex but never boring story of an unusual life. The endless parade of Russian names and titles make for difficult reading but there's no way around that one. It does get very repetitive in its description of Khrushchev as uneducated, foolish, loquacious, etc. in almost every chapter, accompanied by endless anecdotes of barnyard language that Khrushchev was fond of using. But these are minor complaints in such a compelling story.

[Will Cafferky · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a fascinating little man

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the book, ultimately, rather boring, which is sad because K was not a boring man. I was also confused for about the first tbird of the book because I was constantly confused as to "when" I was. It took me that long to realize Taubman's biography was a mix of topical and chronological but with the emphasis on topical. Because of this, some events and conversations were covered more than once. In a book this long, that is irritating.

I felt I gained a better understand of the goals and efforts of the Soviet Union under K as well as a much better understanding of the US fear of communistic goals to take over smaller third world countries and the Soviet pledge to encourage rebellion wherever there was any dissent. I appreciated the irony that, toward the end of his life, he became almost a dissident but actually became a political criminal. And his son Sergei carried out the greatest irony of all:

"In 1991, Sergei Khurshchev (K's son) moved to Providence Rhode Island where he has since been a fellow at ... Brown University, teaching.... Sergei and his wife, Velentina, obtained American citizenship in 1999, an act that outraged many Russians. Even those who aren't nostalgic for communism are chagrined at how empty Nikita Khrushchev's boasts turned out to be. Khrushchev crowed that grandchildren of Americans he met would live under communism. Instead his own son is living under capitalism."

Asked if there was anything he regretted, Nikita Khrushchev said it was all the blood, that he was up to his elbows in blood.

One other thing struck me as I read was how similar in personality are Khrushchev and President Trump. For both, disagreement is defined as disloyalty. Like K, Trump will get an idea that he wants to implement some policy and refuses to listen to advisers explaining why that is impractical or inadvisable. He wants it, it will be done. Don't talk to him about compromise. Both tout pseudo science and fake science as real and important. And neither had/has a concept of decorum. One remembers the tale of K's banging his shoe on the table at the UN. Following that, he was proud he did it. As he was ousted from office, K's detractors pointed out that, after several years, he still saw it as something of valor rather than embarrassing for a world leader to do and harmful to the reputation of the nation. Of similar vein, Trump chiding on Twitter to North Korea's threats of nuclear attacks that "we have a bigger button". The world saw, with both events. What An Idiot. But the Soviet Union had an excuse -- Khruschev took over. Trump was elected.

Yet, ultimately, although K did many, many very harmful things to the Soviet Union, his move away from the horrors of Stalinism and his move toward reforms paved the way for the glastnost of Gorbachov. As much harm as he did to his country, he also did good. Will Trump be seen, historically, in the same way, despite his harm did he also do good and will the good outweigh the harm? With Khrushchev, it did not.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taubman is a great biographer and Khrushchev, complex and mercurial, is a great subject. Really, it’s just fascinating to see a man who survived Stalinism, or thrived in it, launch an assault on at least some of its elements. It’s also fascinating to see this force of nature come to terms with life after his tenure in power. Khrushchev’s brilliant insecurity reminds one of LBJ though he’s naturally associated with Kennedy.

[Leo46 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Narrative built on liberal circlejerk (plural activity referring to all the citations). Some facts here though, but could be found elsewhere without manipulative rhetoric. Read it with a Carnegie Mellon history course.

[Jānis Būmanis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Labs, pamatīgs darbs par visnotaļ pretrunīgu un sarežģītu personību un dzīvesstāstu. Nedaudz nepatika, tas, ka brīžiem radās sajūta ka autors cenšas Hruščovu attaisnot

[Alex Givant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Интересная биография очень противоречивого человека, почитайте и подумайте!

[Frank Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's debatable whether or not Nikita Khrushchev ever banged his shoe at the United Nations Assembly in 1960. There are photos of him pounding the lectern with his fists, and reports of him waving the shoe, but some say he never smacked it down. The irony, as William Taubman points out in this Pulitzer Prize winning biography, is that the young Khrushchev was tormented by his lack of shoes as a child, and that the moment that came to define him in the history as a rustic vulgarian, also demonstrated to Khrushchev just how far he had come from his roots. Waving a real shoe at the UN! How high he had risen!

Khrushchev was the energetic son of a poor peasant family on the Russian border with Ukraine, who moved southwest into the Donbas region to find metalwork around the coal mines. In his early years, Khrushchev wished nothing more than to be a middle-class mechanical engineer, and for his whole life he was never so happy as when he was overlooking mechanical blueprints. Though he could hardly spell, he always claimed his wish was to spend more time on his mechanical and cultural education and less in politics. But at the new technical schools founded after the Russian Revolution, he focused his efforts on running Communist Party cells and rising in the party ranks, and eventually caught Stalin's eye. He ran the Moscow Party when the famous Moscow subways were built, and supervised the political front on the Ukraine in World War II. Despite his success, his uneducated, bumptious manner meant he was regarded as a joke in the Soviet Union and in the West.

Yet after Stalin's death, this country bumpkin outmaneuvered his opponents Beria, Malenkov, Molotov, and Zhukov to cement his total power. The seeming impossibility of Khrushchev running the country meant that, in the vicious world of Soviet politics, people felt safe in allying with them, until he overcame them one by one. To illustrate his surprising success, Khrushchev often told the sad Ukrainian story of Pinya, who was chosen to lead a prison escape by other inmates, because they thought he would get shot first as they ran. Although Pinya was the dimmest and the smallest of the group, he bravely took up the challenge. "That little Pinya - that's me," Khrushchev said with all too much self-knowledge.

As the Soviet leader, Khrushchev denounced Stalin and opened up the gulags, but also crushed a democratic movement in Prague in 1956 and jailed and silenced his critics at home. He came up with the absurd "Virgin Lands" campaign to start a new agricultural frontier in central Russia, but also convinced his engineers to place ICBM missiles in silos against their inclinations. He antagonized opponents with his talk of pumping out missiles like sausages (when he had none), but also traveled across the globe on goodwill tours, while previous Soviet leaders had barely left the country.

Khrushchev, obviously, was a man of contradictions, with much blood on his hands but many successes to celebrate. As he himself said in 1964 when Leonid Brezhnev and others overthrew him during a two-day Politburo meeting, the very fact that they could yell at him and send him off without killing him was his greatest success. He had reined the Soviet Union away from the worst excesses of the Stalin years.

This book was at its best when it detailed Khrushchev's early life and rise, but after Khrushchev reaches the pinnacle, the author feels compelled to report every jot and tittle of his speeches and doings. This would have been an amazing work if it had been 200 pages shorter. Nonetheless, the author is right that Khrushchev had one of the strangest and most amazing lives of the 20th century, and it deserves to be better known.

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 5 out of 5]

"William Taubman's monumental, long-awaited biography of Nikita Khrushchev is the most important book on Khrushchev to appear in English since the deposed Soviet leader's own memoirs in 1970. It is rich in analysis and factual detail, shedding new light both on Khrushchev's life and on the Soviet state."
- Robert Cottrell, New York Review of Books

A personal reflection: Khrushchev was the first politician whom I remember from childhood. Until the 1990s, Poland was in the Soviet sphere of influence so the Soviet party leaders were bigger than God for us, the Polish children. I remember one night in October 1964 when my mother woke me up saying "No more Khrushchev!" and it was like the end of the world. I remember exactly how the room looked from my bed when I heard the news.

This is the eleventh book on Russian and Soviet leaders that I am reviewing here on Goodreads. The full list is included below the rating. Also, it is the second biography of Nikita Khrushchev that I am reviewing, and a very different one from Medvedev's work. I completely agree with the sentiment expressed by the professional reviewer and quoted in the epigraph. Let me steal yet another blurb, this time from Simon Heffer in The Spectator:

"A monumental book....A masterpiece, magnificently researched and well written, bringing out the true dimensions of his subject"

Note the use of the word "monumental" by both reviewers. Yes, that's indeed the best adjective to describe of William Taubman's Khrushchev. The Man and His Era. (2003) Not only is the biography monumental - in size, scope, and depth of detail - but it also is "definitive," in the sense that it will be next to impossible to improve upon. When reading the bio one is overwhelmed by the breathtaking thoroughness and completeness - almost as if every month of Khrushchev's life and every aspect of his activities has been meticulously documented. Note the volume of the book: 651 pages, plus over 200 (!!!) pages of notes, bibliography, and index.

Not being a historian, political scientist, or a writer, I am not qualified to properly review a superb biography. I will just offer a few comments on some of the fragments of the bio that made the strongest impression on me.

Khrushchev (three years younger than my grandmother) spent his youth in rural Russia, in extremely primitive living conditions, which would be unimaginable for most modern people. Not only poverty - which is ubiquitous today even in the richest countries - but also famine and hunger-driven cannibalism. Add to this the extreme political persecution - extreme as in never-ending mass killings of so-called political enemies. If anything seems more shocking than eating other people to survive, it is having to sentence other people to death in order not be sentenced to death. The passages about Khrushchev, a young activist rising in the ranks of the Communist party, calling for executions of "enemies of the party and nation" during Stalin's purges are extremely hard to read.

Soon after the purges comes World War Two and the blood-curdling stupidity of Stalin, the "Greatest Genius of All Times and Nations," which cost millions of people their lives. When the mass-murdering tyrant finally dies in 1953, Khrushchev gradually grabs the power. The author's detailed explanations about why it was Khrushchev who won the succession power struggle are fascinating. In particular, I have been captivated by the detailed discussion of the so-called "anti-Beria plot," with its double twist.

Khrushchev's famous "Secret Speech" on February 25, 1956, when he began disclosing the unimaginably huge extent of Stalin's crimes against humanity and, in particular, against his nation, was the beginning of the great ideological thaw that stopped the avalanche of political killings and brutal persecution in Eastern Europe (naturally, the persecution remained unabated as it is one of the essences of human nature, but became less lethal).

In a particularly depressing fragment of the book the author writes about the people's of Soviet Georgia unyielding love for their Greatest Son, Stalin, who - despite that the Greatest Son spilled more Georgian blood than that of any other region - "carried flowers to the Stalin monument" during protests against Khrushchev's Secret Speech; twenty people died during protests against sullying Stalin's immortal name.

The Berlin Crisis of 1961: Thanks to reading Mr. Taubman's work I feel as if I finally understand the exact dynamics of the political events of that year, although I acutely remember the concern and nervousness of the Polish radio broadcasts 60 years ago. Almost immediately after this, the Cuban missiles crisis happens, when the world gets the closest to being destroyed in a global nuclear war. I have read about the crisis in several other books, yet Mr. Taubman offers new insights and details, especially on the bumbling execution of the Soviet plan to bring nuclear missiles to Cuba.

The Cuban crisis was one of the major factors in the unraveling of Khrushchev's political leadership. The author describes the events preceding and surrounding Khrushchev's ouster in October of 1964 with great clarity. Finally, in a harrowing passage, we read what the deposed Soviet leader regretted about his life:

"'Most of all the blood [...] My arms are up to the elbows in blood. That is the most terrible thing that lies in my soul.'"

It is a strong indictment of the failure of human race that Mr. Khrushchev, despite being instrumental in his youth in executing hundreds of people for fictitious political crimes in order to save his own life, undoubtedly deserves credit and praise for greatly contributing to ending Stalin's brutal reign. Mr. Khrushchev had laid the foundations for future reforms by Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

Reading about humanity's lukewarm response toward Stalin's crimes makes one notice how constant the human nature is. Millions of people in ex-Soviet Union still cherish Stalin's memory. I know of another country where tens and tens of millions of people have voted for an utterly incompetent, corrupt, and failed politician.

Four-and-a-half stars.

My previous reviews of books on Soviet leaders:

Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumphs and His Failure - by Robert G. Kaiser

The Struggle for Russia - by Boris Yeltsin

Gorbachev: Heretic in the Kremlin - by Dusko Doder and Louise Branson

The Andropov File - by Martin Ebon

Against the Grain - An Autobiography - by Boris Yeltsin

Lenin to Gorbachev: Three generations of Soviet Communists

Brezhnev, Soviet Politician - by Murphy

Khrushchev - by Roy Medvedev

Gorbachev and His Revolution - by Mark Galeotti

Andropov - by Zhores Medvedev

[Antonio Nunez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Khruschev spent all his life trying to get out of the Vozhd's shadow. Stalin made him what he was, and, until the end of his life, he ran from his legacy, while at the same time continuing to indulge in many of its ways. For a very long time Kruschev has been a walk-on character in the Stalin biographies (particularly egregiously in Volkogonov's "Autopsy of an Empire", where everyone after Stalin is a let-down). Stalin was so exceptional (and I'm not saying this as praise: rather the opposite) that everyone (including such extraordinary characters as Zhukov, Kaganovich, Bukharin, Beria, Kirov and also Khruschev) ends up looking pale by comparison.
Taubman's biography does justice to its subject. It emphasizes his duality: an ignorant man who prized culture and loved to deal with artists, but could never do so without alienating them; a true man of the people (the only real manual worker to have become leader of the USSR), with simple tastes, who was yet devious beyond measure; an exceptionally intelligent person who achieved the greatest power, but who probably would have been happier as a manager of a manufacturing concern; a warm man in public, who was yet extremely distant from his family, although he loved them deeply; a man who was a teetotaler who however was perceived as a drunk; a negotiator who wanted to end the Cold War, who did much more than anyone else to almost bring about nuclear apocalypse; a loyal Party man who ended up almost dismantling the Party and betraying its rules. One could go on, and on, because nothing about Khruschev was simple.

Although Taubman doesn't say so, Kruschev's strategy was similar to that used by other figures who managed to survive terrible masters. Robert Graves's Emperor Claudius comes to mind: according to Suetonius, he survived the madness of Caligula and the bloodshed of Tiberius by pretending to be a fool, a drunk and a cripple. Like Claudius, Khruschev survived Stalin's various Terrors by disguising his ambition and playing the buffoon endlessly: by appearing useful but harmless, in short. But, like Claudius, the abilities that led him to supreme power, deserted him once he achieved his goal: Claudius was easily destroyed by his cunning niece Agrippina the Younger, and her psycopath son, Nero. Similarly, Khruschev, after having disposed of such tough customers as Beria, Malenkov, Bulganin and Molotov, was brought down by a second-rater, Leonid Brezhnev, in a singularly inept coup that probably could have been easily dismantled if Khruschev had had his eye on the ball. Many of these leaders were grotesques (particularly Malenkov and Beria), and Taubman does a sterling job at presenting them like real human beings, which they also were.

The story Taubman tells is exceptional, and he tells it supremely well. One feels like another guest at Khruschev's dachas, or a fly-on-the-wall at yet another Politburo meeting. The cast of secondary characters is fascinating, including, on the American side, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, and key establishment types such as the Dulles brothers, Averell Harriman, Adlai Stevenson and Bobby Kennedy. Interesting brits, notably Harold Macmillan, make their appearances, as do Conrad Adenauer, Mao Ze Dong, Zhou En Lai, Josip Broz Tito, Fidel Castro, Pandit Nehru, Sukarno, Charles de Gaulle and Walter Ulbricht. That was a time when giants walked the earth, and this is truly the story of The Man and his Era, like the dustjacket says. I was particularly interested in Andropov's role in the publication of the Khruschev memoirs in the US: appparently, as KGB chief, he could have stopped it because Khruschev's contact was actually a KGB mole, but didn't, because he wasn't just a simple spymaster but also a complex character.

All the key episodes (like the infamous shoe-banging at the United Nations, the Cuban missile crisis, the several Berlin crises, the Hungary invasion, the secret speech at the end of the XX Party Congress, the launching of Sputnik and the Pasternak Nobel Prize) are told in just the right length, with all the context required for a non-specialist.

From the book one emerges with the view that Khruschev was not a demented villain like Stalin and Lenin, nor a useless careerist like Brezhnev. He was rather like Gorbachev: a true believer who thought that the system he served could survive and would become even stronger if cleansed of the accretions of 35 years of dictatorship. He was also a visionary. He understood the change in the role of armies as a consequence of nuclear and high-tech weapons (he knew that large standing armies would be unnecesary and even counter-productive in the new world). He saw that the so-called Third World was the next frontier for the Cold War. He realized the USSR would have to live with Chinese and Yugoslav socialism, and that this would not necessarily weaken Moscow's power in the long term. He realized that Mao's China meant that a rapprochement with the USA was necessary in order to maintain his country's status )if Khruschev hadn't been overthrown and Kennedy hadn't been killed, it's quite possible Nixon's entente with Mao would never have happened, because it would have been pre-empted by a new Soviet-American understanding). His moving the missiles into Cuba was actually no different from the US having missiles in other countries bordering the USSR, such as Turkey. He understood that Stalinism was an illness, which he tried to cure, although he failed to notice that, to a large extent, Stalinism was encoded in the Leninist DNA, and couldn't be done away it without losing Leninism as well.

He did many evil things. He was instrumental in collectivising the Ukraine, causing the worst famine in history after Mao's great leap forward. He led the purges in Ukraine in the 1930's, although he tried to protect the local culture and language from his own onslaught. He was instrumental in saving Stalingrad from the Germans, at a terrible cost. He persecuted religion in the USSR like even Stalin hadn't dared. He was a reckless gambler, and he sometimes lost sight of his bets.

Yet he was courageous and, on the whole, likeable. He was probably the nicest guy that worked for Stalin, which may not be saying a lot, but it's better than being called the worst of them all (and there's plenty of competition for that spot). Judged against these (admittedly low) standards, Khruschev didn't do too badly. Taubman's book will do much to give him the place he deserves in the history of the last century.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book covers the life and times of the controversial Soviet leader in meticulous detail. Sometimes too much detail, but other times I felt as if I were present at meetings where great matters were discussed and decisions were made, some of them fortunate and others disastrous.

The book's strength was its descriptions of Khrushchev's state of mind and behaviors throughout his career. An uneducated man, his street smarts, ambition, and gregarious nature enabled his rise from a metal worker to the heights of Soviet power. Everyone underestimated him when Stalin died, and yet he outmaneuvered his rivals to head the country and bested them when they tried to oust him the first time, in 1957.

As his power solidified, his behavior became unleashed. The mannerisms that enabled him to survive Stalin's purges were gone. He became erratic and unpredictable, and the sycophants around him did not challenge him. When things didn't go his way, he blamed others instead of understanding that the system he cherished and promoted was incapable of sustaining a world power. He bumbled his way into the Cuban missile crisis, and by luck, both Kennedy and Khrushchev managed to prevent the situation from blowing up into nuclear war.

Today, Khrushchev is still a controversial figure. The author conveyed that many Russians view him in a positive light but they also view Tsar Nicholas II in a positive light, a dunderhead who couldn't see what was happening to his country in front of his eyes. Nevertheless, Khrushchev's life story is the story of the Soviet Union from its beginning to its superpower machinations in the 1960s. It's a fascinating story about the endless game of thrones and psychology of a man who always had to watch his back and who had the blood of thousands on his hands.

[Steve Kettmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003:


A foul mouth that shaped history

Reviewed by Steve Kettmann

Sunday, April 27, 2003

Khrushchev

The Man and His Era

By William Taubman

NORTON; 768 Pages; $35
Short, fat and crude, Nikita Khrushchev was an enigma to President Kennedy and his advisers during the tense days of the Cuban missile crisis and remains an enigma to this day.

If William Taubman never really comes to terms with that enigma in this faultlessly researched biography, "Khrushchev: The Man and His Era," that should serve mostly to underscore the complexity of Khruschev's character.

He was a boor and a bully, volatile and often red-faced, given to strange look-at-me theatrics such as pulling off his shoe at the United Nations and banging it on the table. He was a peasant and metalworker with a peasant's immovable stubborn side and an undying love of scatological jokes. He lied to himself and others about his involvement in Stalin's epic crimes. He let power go to his head and made many rash decisions as undisputed Soviet leader -- most momentously, challenging Kennedy with nuclear-tipped missiles deployed in Cuba, all without much of a plan about what to do if the United States forcefully objected.

Another side of Khrushchev comes through in these pages, too, that of a man who, whatever else his many faults, was not a cynic. Until very late in his life, after he'd been ousted and erased from Soviet public life, he genuinely believed in the promise of socialism. He even seemed to believe at some level that the radical schemes he cooked up to boost agricultural production might actually work and that the socialist world really might outstrip the West in meeting the needs of its people.

That core of genuine belief might not sound like much, except that it sets Khrushchev apart from every other post-Lenin Soviet leader except Mikhail Gorbachev. In fact, Gorbachev cited Khrushchev as his inspiration when he mounted his radical program of glasnost and perestroika, which ushered to a close both the Cold War and the Soviet experiment. Khrushchev was guilty of many failures, but he somehow summoned the courage to condemn Stalin and Stalinism -- "an atmosphere of lawlessness and arbitrariness" -- at the historic Twentieth Party Congress in 1956.

"Gorbachev . . . reached political maturity during the Khrushchev era and remembered its openness and optimism with nostalgia," Taubman writes. "Although he rose rapidly under Khrushchev's successor . . . he regarded 'Brezhnevism [as:] nothing but a conservative reaction against Khrushchev's attempt at reforming. . . .' Gorbachev's own generation, he added, 'considered itself 'children of the Twentieth Congress' and regarded the task of renewing what Khrushchev had begun as 'our obligation.' "

Oddly, Taubman develops this theme only as a kind of postscript, near the end of the book, and never seems quite sure how seriously to take Khrushchev's better impulses. That is, he never offers a decisive picture of how he sees his legacy or how we ought to see it.

Taubman often explains that Khrushchev was a mystery, especially to educated people who weren't in a good position to fathom the psychological terrain of so poorly educated and provincial a man who nevertheless rose to remarkable power in the world. Yet, for reasons that are not clear, Taubman sometimes breaks from his normal tone of neutral, meticulously informed scholar to offer psychological insights that seem like overreaching.

That's true whether he's citing Freud on a child who is the favorite of his mother, early in the book, or remarking about Khrushchev's 70th birthday, shortly before his ouster from power:

"Khrushchev was worn out, both, one suspects, from craving the daylong acclaim and from being mortified by it. For him the two feelings were probably more or less in balance."

The best parts of the book are the sections dealing with U.S.-Soviet relations and, in particular, the tense days of October 1962, when Khrushchev deployed the missiles in Cuba and brought the world closer to all-out nuclear war than it has ever been. Taubman's scholarship is excellent, and he offers so many remarkable details that the episode gains a haunting, vivid quality.

For example, the Soviets opted to deploy not only 36 medium-range missiles and 24 intermediate-range missiles but also an elaborate array of surface-to- air missiles to protect the missile launchers and a squadron of bombers including six fitted for nuclear weapons. The Kremlin planned to send 50,874 men to Cuba, including bakers, mechanics and doctors, but reduced the number to 45,234 -- 41,902 of whom were actually deployed. Khrushchev's failure in believing he could mobilize such a force and have it fully operational without U.S. detection must count as one of the all-time historical errors in judgment.

World war was averted during those tense days, but as Taubman makes clear from his close look at Khrushchev's state of mind, it could easily not have been. That's a reminder that should never be forgotten: Even momentous decisions on going to war and risking huge numbers of lives are often made on the basis of flimsy assumptions and only minimal consideration of the likely consequences of confrontation.

Steve Kettmann lives in Berlin and reviews for The Chronicle.

This article appeared on page M - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive biography of Khrushchev. Sometime a bit too much information, well written and worth the time to read this behemoth.

[John]

After p. 180
I am not sure that I can read much more of this book. To be sure Taubman's book is a splendid example of the biographer's art and craft, fully deserving of the aclaim and prizes, including the Pulitzer, that various critics bestowed, etc., etc. It's just that the subject is so very uninteresting.
I have read tens of biographies of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and Bukharin, among the many Old Bolsheviks whose fascinating lives are told and documented in wonderfully engaging and powerful books.
I was entirely surprised that K's life could have been so dull. This is NOT to say that his life was uneventful, because it was. It is to say, however, that the biography of one of Stalin's creatures, whom he advanced as he liquidated the old Bolshevicks and with them the Bolshevick Party and state, is singularly one dimensional. That dimension, of course, was the gamesmanship of survival, of remaining one of Stalin's pets. Not altogether a challenge for the likes of K. - on the whole a singularly vacuous man, who could tell himself anything and believe whatever thoughts he concocted, who lived a life entirely untroubled by conscience. He was, of course, pruitanical, berating drunkards and the unfaithful, while he calmly signed the death warrants of hundreds to thousands. Just the sort of man, the uneducated, unreflecting, rather stupid, submissive and entirely sincere nullities that Stalin placed and kept in power.
Of course, I understand that K. initiated and drove the de-Stalinization of the USSR - such as it was, so it might be that I skim over the pages of his biography that narrate his life before Stalin's death and skip the years between 1953 and 1956 altogether. We'll see.
But none of this is Taubman's fault. I'm just wondering how he could summon the energy to write such a wonderful book of such a shallow, self-aggrandizing, narcissistically inflated, vapid but cunning non-entity.

I couldn't read another page - for now. Something apart from this book will have to prompt me to pick it up again. Maybe Lawrence Friedmans' "Kennedy's Wars."