Khrushchev: The Man and His Era is a 2003 biography of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Written by William Taubman, the book is the first in-depth and comprehensive American biography of Khrushchev. Taubman was the recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, as well as the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award. The author spent almost 20 years researching the life of Khrushchev in preparation to write the book. Extensive research was made possible through access to archives in Russia and Ukraine, which were opened to the public following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In addition to printed materials and documentation, he spent time engaging Khrushchev's children and extended relatives, resulting in over 70 personal interviews. Taubman presents a historical narrative and study of the life of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader who succeeded Joseph Stalin. The book concludes with Khrushchev's death on September 11, 1971.
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era presents a historical narrative and study of the life of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader who succeeded Joseph Stalin. Historian and author, William Taubman offers a brief overview of Khrushchev's childhood and early life. He was raised in an economically depressed home and received little formal education. After he attended two years of school, his father pulled him out of class to begin working in the fields. Prior to his involvement in politics, he worked as a skilled metal worker in the Russian coal mining region. In spite of being relegated to working in the mines, Khrushchev was naturally intelligent and a quick learner. He was viewed by the Bolshevik party as the ideal recruit.
In 1918, Khrushchev joined the Bolsheviks, where he displayed a strong work ethic and total loyalty to the party. Taubman presents a political and psychological analysis of Khrushchev, taking a comprehensive look at his quick rise in the Communist Party under Stalin. In January 1934, Khrushchev succeeded his mentor, Lazar Kaganovich as the First Secretary of the Communist Party in Moscow. Khrushchev was responsible for overseeing the development and completion of the Moscow Metro.
Khrushchev was one of the more complex and prominent political figures of the 20th century. He was known for his often contradictory decisions and political leadership. While he supported the Great Purge and authorized thousands of arrests and executions when Stalin was in power, he denounced these actions upon Stalin's death. He conspired in criminal acts with Stalin, while seemingly retaining his ability to feel compassion for others and empathize with their personal hardship and tragedies. He also supported de-Stalinization and attempted to reform the political climate of the Soviet Union. Taubman provides comprehensive details about Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", as well as his involvement in the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Cuban Missile Crisis. There is also a fairly detailed account of Khrushchev's troubled and ambivalent relationship with artists and intellectuals, which reveals him at his worst, often devoid of elementary self-control.
On February 25, 1956, Khrushchev gave a clandestine speech to the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was entitled, "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", which denounced Stalin and his protégés. Khrushchev charged Stalin with fostering a personality cult, despite maintaining support for the ideals of communism. The speech was highly critical of Stalin and his reign of terror, primarily denouncing the purges of the Soviet military and Communist Party, which had taken place during the latter part of the 1930s. The speech brought forth several accusations, notably those concerning the Moscow Trials, where rulings were made based on forced confessions obtained through torture.[1] Judicial decisions were determined based on liberal interpretations of Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code, which was introduced in 1927 in order to arrest persons suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. Due process, in accordance with Soviet law, was often dismissed and replaced with summary proceedings issued by institutional commissions known as NKVD troikas, who issued sentences to the accused without representation, defense, or trial.
During the early 1960s, Americans viewed Khrushchev with apprehension and disdain, fearing he would bring about further war and nuclear holocaust. In 1962, the Soviet Union supported Cuba, following a failed attempt by the US to overthrow the Cuban government in the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Project. Khrushchev intended to place Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba, threatening nuclear holocaust and essentially deterring future invasion of the island by the US. In response, the US established a military blockade by air and sea, crippling the ability of the Premier to deliver the missiles to Cuba. During this time, Khrushchev and US President John F. Kennedy, along with United Nations Secretary-GeneralU Thant, reached an agreement that ended the conflict. Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, while the US made a public statement declaring that it would never invade Cuba. This effectively ended the confrontation on October 28, 1962.
Overall, Khrushchev's political power laid the groundwork for the eventual demise and disintegration of the Soviet Union. At the same time, his efforts to lift the curtain on the Cold War ended up bringing about further crises. In addition to the Cuban Missile Crisis, author Taubman writes about Khrushchev's involvement with the shoe-banging incident, the Berlin Wall, and Sputnik. The book concludes with Khrushchev's death on September 11, 1971.
Research
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era was written by William Taubman, who serves as a professor of political science at Amherst College.[2] The book is the first in-depth biography of Khrushchev,[3][4][5] the publication of which was made possible by newly established access to archives in Russia and Ukraine, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Prior to Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, no other book was able to fully reflect the personal life and professional background of Soviet leaders, due to open source restrictions and lack of accessible materials and documentation. He spent almost 20 years researching the life of Khrushchev in preparation to write his book.[3] He culled information from a collection of documents, unpublished memoirs, and newsreels that have been held by approximately two dozen Soviet and American archives. He also consulted published books, and magazine and newspaper articles, while also engaging Khrushchev's children and extended relatives, resulting in over 70 personal interviews.[6]
On March 16, 2003, Leon Aron of The New York Times reviewed the book and remarked that the work lives up to its title, fully introducing the time and era in which Khrushchev lived. Aron states that it is a "multifaceted study of the key political and economic forces of the first 47 years of the Soviet civilization".[6]
On March 26, 2003, Richard Pipes in The Times lauded the work and stated that, while there were over a dozen biographies written of Khrushchev, the biography is "the first scholarly study of this Soviet leader based on a thorough examination of all the existing literature as well as the available archival sources and interviews with those who knew him".[7] Pipes also surmised that the "lively narrative is likely to remain for a considerable time the standard study of [Khrushchev]".[7]
Archie Brown of The Guardian was "intrigued" by the influence that Khrushchev had on the Soviet political arena. Brown states that Taubman's book is "by far the best and most thorough contribution to understanding Khrushchev's personality and politics ever written".[3] At the same time, he dismisses Taubman's writing regarding the level of continuing acceptance that the citizens of the Soviet Union had toward communism, stating that Taubman "oversimplifies"[3] the truth when he says that "Gorbachev shared Khrushchev's naivete about the extent of the Soviet people's commitment to communism".[3] Brown countered that "Gorbachev himself ceased to be a Communist and increasingly embraced a social democratic conception of socialism; it was this that he believed corresponded with the aspirations of a majority of the Soviet people."[3] Brown also questioned the reliability of content attributed to an interview with a leading Russian pollster, who stated that "the only two periods of the 20th century that Russians evaluate positively are those associated with the last tsar, Nicholas II, and Nikita Khrushchev".[3] Brown said that the surveys used by pollsters merely "reflect changing views of the present".[3] He said that Taubman was "misleading"[3] by using this source, whereas the most reliable polling data shows that while "public consensus in 1994 [revealed that] 33 [percent] of respondents held Khrushchev's period to be the best of the 20th century and 36 [percent] chose the Brezhnev era, by 1999 support for Khrushchev's time had dropped to 30 [percent], whereas that for life under Brezhnev had risen to a remarkable 51 [percent].[3]
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), and formerly known as the Bolshevik Party, was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system. The party's main ideology was Marxism-Leninism.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 and additionally as head of state beginning in 1988, as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990 and the only President of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev stunned the communist world with his denunciation of his predecessor Joseph Stalin's crimes, and embarked on a policy of de-Stalinization with his key ally Anastas Mikoyan. He sponsored the early Soviet space program and the enactment of moderate reforms in domestic policy. After some false starts, and a narrowly avoided nuclear war over Cuba, he conducted successful negotiations with the United States to reduce Cold War tensions. In 1964, the Kremlin leadership stripped him of power, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982, and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1977 to 1982. His 18-year term as General Secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration. To this day, the quality of Brezhnev's tenure as General Secretary remains debated by historians. While his rule was characterized by political stability and significant foreign policy successes, it was also marked by corruption, inefficiency, economic stagnation, and rapidly growing technological gaps with the West.
The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the union's dissolution in 1991, the officeholder was the recognized leader of the Soviet Union. Officially, the General Secretary solely controlled the Communist Party directly. However, since the party had a monopoly on political power, the General Secretary de facto had executive control of the Soviet government. Because of the office's ability to direct both the foreign and domestic policies of the state and preeminence over the Soviet Communist Party, it was the de facto highest office of the Soviet Union.
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as unofficial chief ideologue of the party until his death in 1982. Suslov was responsible for party democracy and power separation within the Communist Party. His hardline attitude resisting change made him one of the foremost orthodox communist Soviet leaders.
Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was an Armenian Communist revolutionary, Old Bolshevik and Soviet statesman. Having been elected to the Central Committee in 1923, he was the only Soviet politician who managed to remain at the highest levels of power within the Communist Party from the latter days of Lenin, through the eras of Stalin and Khrushchev, to his peaceful retirement under Brezhnev.
Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev was a Soviet-born American engineer and the second son of the Cold War-era Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev with his wife Nina Petrovna Khrushcheva. He moved to the United States in 1991 and became a naturalized American citizen.
Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1980 and was one of the most influential Soviet policymakers in the mid-1960s along with General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev.
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William Chase Taubman is an American political scientist. His biography of Nikita Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004 and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography in 2003.
Joseph Stalin's cult of personality became a prominent feature of Soviet popular culture beginning in 1929, after a lavish celebration of his purported 50th birthday. For the rest of Stalin's rule, the Soviet press presented Stalin as an all-powerful, all-knowing leader, with Stalin's name and image appearing everywhere. Historian Archie Brown sets the celebration of Stalin's 50th birthday on 21 December 1929 as the starting point for his cult of personality.
The history of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (USSR) reflects a period of change for both Russia and the world. Though the terms "Soviet Russia" and "Soviet Union" often are synonymous in everyday speech, when referring to the foundations of the Soviet Union, "Soviet Russia" often specifically refers to brief period between the October Revolution of 1917 and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922.
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician who briefly succeeded Joseph Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union. However, at the insistence of the rest of the Presidium, he relinquished control over the party apparatus in exchange for remaining Premier and first among equals within the Soviet collective leadership. He then became embroiled in a power struggle with Nikita Khrushchev that culminated in his removal from the premiership in 1955 as well as the Presidium in 1957.
The Khrushchev Thaw is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were relaxed due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and peaceful coexistence with other nations. The term was coined after Ilya Ehrenburg's 1954 novel The Thaw ("Оттепель"), sensational for its time.
Collective leadership, or collectivity of leadership, was considered the ideal form of governance in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and other socialist states espousing communism. Its main task was to distribute powers and functions among the Politburo and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as well as the Council of Ministers, to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system by a Soviet leader, such as that seen under Joseph Stalin's rule. On the national level, the heart of the collective leadership was officially the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Collective leadership was characterised by limiting the powers of the General Secretary and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers as related to other offices by enhancing the powers of collective bodies, such as the Politburo.
"On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", popularly known as the "Secret Speech", was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. Khrushchev's speech was sharply critical of the rule of the deceased General Secretary and Premier Joseph Stalin, particularly with respect to the purges which had especially marked the last years of the 1930s. Khrushchev charged Stalin with having fostered a leadership cult of personality despite ostensibly maintaining support for the ideals of communism. The speech was leaked to the West by the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet, which received it from the Polish-Jewish journalist Wiktor Grajewski.
De-Stalinization comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power, and his 1956 secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", which denounced Stalin's cult of personality and the Stalinist political system.
This is a select bibliography of English language books and journal articles about the post-Stalinist era of Soviet history. A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included. The sections "General Surveys" and "Biographies" contain books; other sections contain both books and journal articles. Book entries have references to journal articles and reviews about them when helpful. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below; see Further Reading for several book and chapter-length bibliographies. The External Links section contains entries for publicly available select bibliographies from universities.
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