Rating: 
Summary: Well Researched But A Bit Of A Chew
Review: * William Taubmann's NIKITA KRUSCHEV is an attempt to provide a
definitive biography of Nikita Sergeyich Kruschev, Stalin's
controversial successor as leader of the USSR.Taubmann's biography is thorough, tracing Kruschev's origins as a
Ukrainian-born Russian who grew up under conditions of grinding
poverty, rising above his origins through his cleverness and drive to
become a metalworker and enter a higher social class. Had the
Revolution not come along, Kruschev would have probably become a
factory manager (and might well have had a happier life if he had).
However, Kruschev was a young man on the make and threw his lot in
with the Bolsheviks as he perceived they provided him with the most
opportunity for advancement. This pattern of opportunism continued into the 1930s, when he became
what he himself described as "Stalin's pet", serving the Party as a
high Moscow city official to push through the construction of the
Moscow subway system, and then as Party boss of the Ukraine. Though
he would ever try to obscure the fact, his prominence with Stalin's
regime meant that he was up to his neck in the terror, helping to send
thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent
people off to imprisonment or the executioners. He didn't like doing
it, but he did it anyway. He served through most of the war as a military political commissar,
and then in the last years of Stalin's rule consolidated his position.
After Stalin's death in 1953, Lavrenti Beria of the secret police took
charge for a short time, only to be betrayed by Kruschev and his
colleagues and executed. Kruschev's years in power are the heart of Taubmann's book, and they
paint an odd picture, showing Kruschev to be energetic but often
chasing off in different directions; good-natured but full of bluster
and inclined, through simply peasant coarseness, to step on toes and
make enemies; wanting peace while giving the impression of being warlike; and chopping away at the cult of Stalin while remaining
clearly in awe of him. Taubmann does a thorough job of portraying Kruschev, making him seem
sympathetic even though there are times when he seems to need a good
kick where it might do him some good. It is by no means an entirely
pleasant story, not so much because of the brutalities in which
Kruschev was a party, than because of the background of bureaucratic
toadying and back-stabbing that runs through the narrative. Anybody
who's ever worked for a big organization will find such games
unpleasantly familiar -- it's sad to find out how badly people behave
under such circumstances, and though Soviet Communism was an extreme
example it was by no means unique or even all that unusual. I have to say that I am impressed by all the work Taubmann did on this
book, since he seems to have done a painstaking amount of scholarship.
At the same time, though, I found reading KRUSCHEV to be a bit of a
slog. It has about 650 pages of text, not counting footnotes and so
on, which is not excessively long, but I would have been happier if it
had been about 300 pages long. I have to add that I say that about *most* of the biographies I read,
and that I understand that a shorter and simpler biography would
probably be rejected by most publishers. It certainly would not get
the author much respect from his peers. Still, from the consumer's
point of view I feel like I'm being given more than I really need to
know, or for that matter can usefully retain. So, in sum, I have to
say this is a thorough, well-researched book, just not one which is
entirely lively and smoothly-crafted reading from front to back.
Rating: 
Summary: I can't believe I've read a 700p book about Krushchev...
Review: ...and praising it to the skies! And I don't usually read political biographies, but Krushchev was the Big Bad Guy of my generation, a peasant with a big mole and a fourth grade education (!! - did I ever know that before? If so, I'd forgotten!) who pushed his face up against America's image and banged his shoe on the table at the UN. Talk about a 'character!' So I dove into the book with what I hope was an open mind. Yeah, it's really long, and yeah, there were a few places where I skimmed, but mostly I devoured it with wide eyes.
Taubman manages to put a human face on a poorly-understood, highly-complex figure of Russian-American history.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing book of an enigmatic leader
Review: A very well written and researched book on a fascinating leader who began the opening Russian society. Yet he presided over some of Stalin's worst excesses and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Understanding Krushchev's actions are difficult to understand and explain, but Taubman provides rare insight into the man...but after finishing this book I still don't feel as if I understand Khrushchev's motives and his sheer incompetance.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read for Russian History
Review: Although the subject is Khrushchev, his life and how he came to power, Stalin is addressed in great detail as well. Once a great admirer of Stalin's, Khrushchev became known for the "Khrushchev thaw". A time when things reversed themselves from what Stalin originated. Stalin had been a monster to his own people and Khrushchev was afraid of him. Khrushchev had convinced himself that Stalin was doing what was best for the people at the time. Through sheer luck (or whatever you want to call it), Khrushchev was spared from Stalin's purges and there were 20 million who were not so fortunate. For a man with little education, little cultural experience, a very short fuse and a loud mouth he became the successor of Stalin and leader of one sixth of the world's population. His relationships with Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy as well as Chairman Mao are addressed.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and intriguing
Review: An excellent book. While at times the author repeats information well known from Premier K's memoirs, the book is chocked full of anecdotes, ranging from the frugalness of Ms. K., to the events surrounding K's son's untimely death. A fascinating look at a guy who had warts yet took the harshest edges off the Soviet system. Must reading for anyone who wants to understand the humanity surrounding the Soviet system.
Rating:
Summary: Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
Review: For all Americans who have forgotten the TRUE image of a great enemy. And those Americans who have even less idea what makes a TRULY GREAT AMERICAN President, READ THIS BOOK.
Anyone can take the world to the edge of the End of humanity. It takes strong, intelligent leaders with their own peoples' best interests in mind, leaders who understand what an all out war means at this point in Humanities history, to step back from the brink of all out war.
This book explores the FIRST great Devil to American society - Communism and it's best known leader (at least in the U.S.). At that point Khruschev stood against Kennedy. He stood in front of NATO and the world pounding his shoe on the podium, saying "We will destroy you". This did not come to be. Because of hard nosed DIPLOMACY! Poker faced, all the stakes, bluff em, hold em DIPLOMACY.
Khrushev played and won at Russian politics during the long reign of Stalin. If you fell from favor in the midst of this time it meant a bullet to the back of the head. Khruschev outplayed and outlived his competition to rise to be the most powerful person in the USSR. I lived through the Cuban Missle Crisis, the Cold War and the other brinks of annihilation scenerios. And wish that the expertise of leadership and diplomacy that got us through, could have been written and passed down to future generations of leaders. This is an excellent biography written with insight and a less dry approach than earlier "Soviet" biographies of Khruschev. The book, to me, addresses the current state of conflict too. There cannot have been a more tense situation leading to potential nuclear war than what transpired in the 1960's between the USA and USSR. Yet all out war was diverted.
Bless Our Troops John Row
Rating:
Summary: Superb use of archives gives intriguing portrait of the man
Review: Given how much has already been written about Khrushchev you might be forgiven for wondering exactly how much new material there can really be out there. The answer is a great deal. Taubman has done a wonderful job of using old and new archives to paint the gripping picture of a devious, suspicious, ill-educated yet extraordinarily canny man who survived the purges and then went on to become Soviet leader. What I found most illuminating was quite how short-tempered Khrushchev was most of the time and how staggeringly incompetent he and his fellow leaders were. It's amazing how the world wasn't plunged into a nuclear war when the Soviet Union was in the hands of such a bunch of nitwits. This is the best political biography I've read in years.
Rating: 
Summary: Khrushchev was boring
Review: I like reading about Sovietology, but please be forewarned: Khrushchev, like US president Eisenhower, was kind of boring. So, while Taubman tries to make the most of his prosaic material, the book frankly could have been made a lot shorter. Hence the two stars.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended, but prepare yourself for the slow pace
Review: I recommend the book for all the reasons the other reviewers state, but be advised the book is unnecessarily ponderous. If you are a scholar, you might appreciate the lengths the author goes to in attributing so many details to the source materials and the inch by inch pace he sometimes travels at. For the general audience, the book would read better if it were more tightly edited to concentrate on the narrative. The book could probably be slimmed down 100 pages and be the better for it. Having said that, Kruschev is such a compelling character and the system he operated in so bizarre in a fascinating/troubling kind of way that you'll be glad you read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great deal of information
Review: I would agree with most reviews of this book with one additional comment. If my memory serves me right, William Taubman spent a great deal of time writing this book and just about when it was ready for release the Soviet Union collapsed and as a result a wealth of new information became available on the topic and Mr. Taubman decided to postpone the release of the book. The reason this is relevant is because the book reads like it has been written twice. Some parts are very readable and cohesive, other parts seem out of order and, at times, confusing. I believe it to be the result of re-editing the book with additional facts. This is very apparent in the early chapters where the author talks about Khrushchev's early years. I sometimes found myself lost both in time and geographically because the author jumps around so much. Also, great deal of names are introduced in the book without much background and you find yourself wondering who these people are and where did they come from. All that aside, the book is extremely interesting and packed with information.
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