Khrushchev: The Man and His Era

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Summary: A rare biography of Khrushchev
Review: Wm. Taubman's Khruschyev: The Man and His Era is one of the few Khruschyev biographies to be published in the English language. That's a shame, Khruschyev's denunciation of Stalin stands as the first volley in the forty year struggle to move Russia out of the grip of Stalin's legacy, his loosening of the soviet regime allowed artists to flourish and by making living standards a higher priority he sanctioned the building of housing of a higher quality [It was a revelation to me when living in St. Petersburg, Russia several of my friends and acquaintances considered the Khrushchev era `good years'] .

Taubman follow's Khruschyev's early years in Ukraine and his peasant and proletariat background. A background that would help to propel him forward in the communist party [proletariat backgrounds were given enhanced status within a party with a surprisingly large number of members who were descendent of non-proletariats]. After a very brief and potentially lethal fling with the Menshivek faction within the party he joined the Bolshevik faction run by Lenin.

Taubman shows how Khrushchev swiftly rose through the ranks through long hours of work, strict adherence to party dictates and in spite of his meager education. Indeed Khrushchev's real talent lay in hard work and in being able to speak with workers and peasants on their own terms instead of obtuse theoretical dialog.

Khrushchev 's rise through party was accompanied by blood. Ruthless in his application of party dictates in Ukraine he purged kulaks in the early `30s, sending thousands to exile, the gulag or to be killed, during the era of purges he ruthlessly hacked away at local elites. As was usual with the Stalinist regime, families were not exempt and the arrest of a close relative could signal the arrest of the whole family. In his later years Taubman hints at the guilt that Khrushchev seems to have carried within him over his role in the purges. Indeed he is even quoted as admitting at one point that he was up to his elbows in blood.

As his carrier moved along Khrushchev was able to rise into the Politburo itself where Stalin seems to have viewed him as somewhat of a country bumpkin, less of a threat than the lecherous Beria. Beria himself underestimated Khrushchev as the latter operated behind the scenes with other members to arrest and execute Beria in the months after Stalin's death finally gathering enough power to run the Soviet Union.

What emerges is a man of volatile temperament who allowed his rise to power to overcome his common sense. He stopped listening and began lecturing, removing all those who disagreed, although he stopped the Stalinist method of arrest and execution of the losers, being satisfied instead to force them into far lesser positions or retirement.

In the end Khrushchev 's instabilities and often hair brained schemes alienated his closest supporters who removed him from power forcing him into retirement and hailing in an era of retrenchment of a more suppressive regime under Breshnev. In his final years Khrushchev worked on his memoirs and amazingly they were smuggled out of the country by his son and published in the West.

Taubman has written a fine biography of this mercurial Soviet leader. Well written and with interesting insight it's the best single volume on Khrushchev published in English.