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Nikita Khrushchev’s proclamation from the floor of the United Nations that "we will bury you" is one of the most chilling and memorable moments in the history of the Cold War, but from the Cuban Missile Crisis to his criticism of the Soviet ruling structure late in his career the motivation for Khrushchev’s actions wasn’t always clear. Many Americans regarded him as a monster, while in the USSR he was viewed at various times as either hero or traitor. But what was he really like, and what did he really think? Readers of Khrushchev’s memoirs will now be able to answer these questions for themselves (and will discover that what Khrushchev really said at the UN was "we will bury colonialism").
This is the first volume of three in the only complete and fully reliable version of the memoirs available in English. In this volume, Khrushchev recounts how he became politically active as a young worker in Ukraine, how he climbed the ladder of power under Stalin to occupy leading positions in Ukraine and then Moscow, and how as a military commissar he experienced the war against the Nazi invaders. He vividly portrays life in Stalin's inner circle and among the generals who commanded the Soviet armies.
Khrushchev’s sincere reflections upon his own thoughts and feelings add to the value of this unique personal and historical document. Included among the Appendixes is Sergei Khrushchev’s account of how the memoirs were created and smuggled abroad during his father’s retirement.
- Sales Rank: #1203853 in Books
- Published on: 2013-06-20
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.25" h x 2.54" w x 6.13" l, 2.85 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 1004 pages
Review
“Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most important political leaders of the twentieth century. Without his memoirs, neither the rise and fall of the Soviet Union nor the history of the Cold War can be fully understood. By dictating his memoirs and publishing them in the West, Khrushchev transformed himself from the USSR’s leader to one of its first dissidents. His remarkably candid recollections were a harbinger of glasnost to come. Like virtually all memoirs, his have a personal and political agenda, but even what might be called Khrushchev’s ‘myth of himself’ is vital for understanding how this colorful figure could place his contradictory stamp on his country and the world. The fact that the full text of Khrushchev’s memoirs will now be available in English is cause for rejoicing.”
—William Taubman, winner of the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for his book Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
“One of the most extraordinary archives of the twentieth century”
—Strobe Talbott, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
“Khrushchev had a remarkable memory, and although the style and broad outline of what he has to say will be familiar to those who read the original two-volume English version issued in the early 1970s, the detail he provides here, particularly on the war, adds a great deal.”
—Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs
“But his personal slant, conveyed in the World War II memoirs that make up half of this huge book, is important for understanding the political atmosphere during that colossal struggle. And the detail of his recall, without notes or references, is extraordinary.”
—Robert V. Daniels, The New Leader
“Sergei Khrushchev (Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute, Brown Univ.) has edited an exquisitely detailed, amply documented, remarkably translated first volume of a proposed three-volume translation of his father’s memoirs, based on the four-volume Russian edition of 1999.”
—C.W. Haury, Choice
“There is a lot less high politics here than one would expect. Khrushchev’s focus is very often on chance encounters and small vignettes, often told at great length, rather than on reflections on the ‘big picture’ or revelations about key historical events. Yet it is this above all else that makes this work so readable, for it allows Khrushchev’s personality to come through in the text in all its contradictions and complexity.”
—William Tompson, Political Science Quarterly
“This volume far exceeds in detail earlier editions of the Khrushchev memoirs and for readers of this journal especially, his observations of the war years are intriguing.”
—Paule Wanke, Journal of Military History
“Like all memoirs, this book has to be read with caution. This is a product of the love of Khrushchev’s son, Sergei, and it permeates the book. He has gone to great lengths to get this book published and keep the legacy of his father alive. As a result, the book is a s complete as one can hope. Inevitably there is also a negative side. Khrushchev’s role in the Stalinist terror in Ukraine, for example, is not discussed. Even the index uses a conditional statement: ‘Khrushchev’s alleged purging’ in Ukraine (p.932). Despite this and other shortcomings, this is a book of enormous importance that no one interested in the Soviet Union can afford to miss.”
—Hiroaki Kuromiya, Harvard Ukainian Studies
From the Publisher
"Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most important political leaders of the twentieth century. Without his memoirs, neither the rise and fall of the Soviet Union nor the history of the Cold War can be fully understood. By dictating his memoirs and publishing them in the West, Khrushchev transformed himself from the USSR’s leader to one of its first dissidents. His remarkably candid recollections were a harbinger of glasnost to come. Like virtually all memoirs, his have a personal and political agenda, but even what might be called Khrushchev’s "myth of himself" is vital for understanding how this colorful figure could place his contradictory stamp on his country and the world. The fact that the full text of Khrushchev’s memoirs will now be available in English is cause for rejoicing." --William Taubman
About the Author
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (1894-1971) was First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964.
Sergei Khrushchev is Senior Fellow at the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies at Brown University. He is the author of Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower (Penn State, 2000).
Most helpful customer reviews
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
"Every autobiography is concerned with two characters
By Lonya
a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self."
W.H. Auden's aphorism forms an appropriate framework for reviewing The Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev: Volume I. Although the Memoirs have more Don Quixote than Sancho Panza they are compelling, informative, and insightful.
Volume I consists of two sections: Khrushchev's Memoirs from the early days of the Russian Revolution through the end of the Second World War and Sergei Khrushchev's (Nikita's son) essay on the creation of the memoirs and the decades long struggle to see it published in the USSR.
Khrushchev's memoirs are fascinating for a number of reasons. As set out in Sergei's essay, these Memoirs were dictated and not written. As a result, the Memoirs have a very conversational tone whcih, for me, brought the Memoirs to life. Khrushchev had a prodigious memory and his Memoirs bear this out. Each chapter of Khrushchev's life is rich with the type of detail that one doesn't expect in a memoir written decades later. The bulk of Volume I is devoted to World War II. Khrushchev served as a member of the Military Council and as Commissar in the Ukraine (a political hierarchy that paralleled the military chain of command). Khrushchev played a critical role in the Ukraine during the war, lived and worked through the horrendous battle of Stalingrad, the enormous victory at Kursk, and the liberation of Kiev. Khrushchev is at his narrative best when describing these events. At the same time, Khrushchev does not shy away from discussing the chaos and confusion that reigned at the beginning of the war. Stalin (rightfully I think) bears the brunt of this criticism but Khrushchev did not shy away from brutal assessments of soldiers and political leaders who displayed cowardice or put their own interests above those of the state. Interestingly, Khrushchev does not stint in his praise for Marshall Zhukov, despite the fact that Khrushchev had Zhukov removed from a top party post in the 1950s when he became a threat to Khrushchev's power base.
The Memoirs are fascinating not only for what is said but also what is left unsaid. George Orwell once wrote that "[a]utobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful." There is nothing to distrust in these Memoirs as they relate to Khrushchev's external life, most of which can easily be confirmed by the available records. However, missing from the Memoirs (at least in this Volume) is a detailed examination of Khrushchev's inner life. We know he survived the purges and we know he began to question Stalin's actions. Khrushchev writes convincingly of Stalin's mistakes but we never quite find out what he knew and when. Khrushchev was (seemingly) at the time a devoted servant to Stalin. He participated in party purges and in these Memoirs he ruefully acknowledges his then belief that many of his colleagues were enemies of the state. Yet this was the same Khrushchev who took a tremendous leap of faith in revealing Stalin's `crimes' at the famous Party Congress in 1956. What is missing is some indication of the inner reflections (the Sancho Panza-like reflections if you will) on the survival mechanisms that led an intelligent and clearly decent person to suspend disbelief for such a long period of time. However, Sergei Khrushchev's fascinating essay on the fight to publish these Memoirs leads to some valuable insights.
Sergei's essay is an intriguing story in its own right. The Kremlin put pressure on the family to get Nikita to stop writing. They were followed and interrogated by the KGB. Khrushchev seethed at these attempts to suppress his memoirs. Khrushchev defended his rights as a Soviet citizen and fulminated against these affronts to his dignity and self respect. There is no small amount of irony in reading about Khrushchev's struggle with the Politburo. Despite the fact that he was primarily responsible for "the thaw", Khrushchev also managed to crack down on artists and writers who he thought "went too far". The illicit export of a copy of the manuscript placed him in the same company as such writers as Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Voinovich, and Grossman.
More importantly, however, the essay portrays Khrushchev's struggle as one compelled in part by his sense of dignity and self-respect. The historical record and the Memoirs are filled with references to Khrushchev and other leaders abasing themselves before Stalin. I think Sergei's essay goes a long way toward fleshing out (at least implicitly) Important parts of Khrushchev's internal life that are missing from the Memoirs. Khrushchev was a figure of great substance and no small amount of talent (despite some glaring failures during his premiership). He was a man who with only four years of formal education but he had enough talent and ambition to lead a nation. But along the way he had to endure almost daily humiliations at the hands of his `master'. These humiliations, along with his participation in the development of the cult of Stalin all constitute part of what may be called `the sin of survival'. Although not uncommon in Gulag memoirs they strike a jarring note in the memoirs of the leader of a nation. Khrushchev's actions at the 20th-Party Congress and his fight during his last days to preserve his right to publish seem, to me at least, to be an attempt to reclaim some part of that dignity that was voluntarily (if by necessity) forfeited years ago.
Nikita's Memoirs, together with Sergei's essay, provide a profoundly interesting and informative examination of one of the 20th-Cenntury's most complex and misunderstood leaders. The Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev Volume I should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the history of the USSR and its place in world history.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
The Red Antichrist
By Dean Brunel
A riviting personal account of the workings and failures of the Soviet Union under the direction of Joseph Stalin. Those who may revere the memory of Stalin will not like this book, but it helps explain the causes of the lack of preparedness of Russia for the Second World War and the folly placing one's faith in the ability of one man to rule a nation.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Five Stars
By Orestes J. Garcia
GOOD
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