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'''Nikita Khruschev''' (1894 - 1971) was a Russian Communist who seized power as dictator over the [[Soviet Union]] when [[Joseph Stalin]] died in 1953, and lasted until he was ousted in 1964. It was the height of the [[Cold War]] between the Soviet bloc and the United Sattes and its allies.  One of the most colorful world leaders of the 20th century, he always identified with the peasant--and indeed he was crude, unsophisticated, earthy, and brutal, as well as energetic, shrewd and determined.  He really did hammer his shoe on the table at the United Nations when he disagreed with a speaker.  He exposed and ended some of the arbitrary cruelty of Stalin in order to unleash what he thought was the scientific prowess of socialism, but apart from launching the world's first satellite into space, he never found the magic technological fix for Russia's ills, and instead came dangerously close to war with both the Americans and the Chinese.  His leadership of the Communist bloc in the [[Cold War]] was so dangerous he had to be removed by his subordinates.

'''Nikita Khrushchev''' (1894 - 1971) was a Russian Communist who seized power as dictator over the [[Soviet Union]] when [[Joseph Stalin]] died in 1953, and lasted until he was ousted in 1964. It was the height of the [[Cold War]] between the Soviet bloc and the United States and its allies.  One of the most colorful world leaders of the 20th century, he always identified with the peasant--and indeed he was crude, unsophisticated, earthy, and brutal, as well as energetic, shrewd and determined.  He really did hammer his shoe on the table at the United Nations when he disagreed with a speaker.  He exposed and ended some of the arbitrary cruelty of Stalin in order to unleash what he thought was the scientific prowess of socialism, but apart from launching the world's first satellite into space, he never found the magic technological fix for Russia's ills, and instead came dangerously close to war with both the Americans and the Chinese.  His leadership of the Communist bloc in the [[Cold War]] was so dangerous he had to be removed by his subordinates.

[[File:Khrush-1961.jpg|thumb|290px|Khrushchev liked to threaten and bully; ''Time'' Sept. 8, 1961]]

[[File:Khrush-1961.jpg|thumb|290px|Khrushchev liked to threaten and bully; ''Time'' Sept. 8, 1961]]

==Coming to Power, 1953==

==Coming to Power, 1953==

After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev and premier Georgi Malenkov united their networks against Soviet security chief Lavrenti Beria. The defection of two of Beria's deputy ministers, Sergei Kruglov and Ivan Serov, allowed Khrushchev and Malenkov to arrest Beria for Beria no longer had control of Ministry of Interior troops and the troops of the Kremlin guard. Beria was shot.  By 1957 he had consolidated his dictatorship by building a network of loyalists among oblast secretaries, which enabled him to win victory in the Central Committee over the "anti-party group" of Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich. Officially he was First Secretaryof the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the SovietUnion from 1953 to 1964 and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministersfrom 1958 to 1964. He lived in a Kremlin apartment with his wife Nina and their children.

After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev and premier Georgi Malenkov united their networks against Soviet security chief Lavrenti Beria. The defection of two of Beria's deputy ministers, Sergei Kruglov and Ivan Serov, allowed Khrushchev and Malenkov to arrest Beria for Beria no longer had control of Ministry of Interior troops and the troops of the Kremlin guard. Beria was shot.  By 1957 he had consolidated his dictatorship by building a network of loyalists among oblast secretaries, which enabled him to win victory in the Central Committee over the "anti-party group" of Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich. Officially he 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. He lived in a Kremlin apartment with his wife Nina and their children.

==Foreign policy==

==Foreign policy==

Khrushchev handled foreign policy poorly.  He had to preserve control of Eastern Europe--persuasion failed and he sent in his army. Second, he had to maintain the unity of the world Communist movement, which turned above all on relations with China. He failed and made his most important ally into his most implacable foe.  Finally he had to de-escalate tensions and reach equilibrium with the United States.  He instead tried confrontation, leading to near disaster in 1964 until he drew back at the last second over Cuba.  More successful was his quest for prestige which centered on the Space Race--where the Soviets astonished the world by taking a clear lead over the U.S. for a few years.

Khrushchev handled foreign policy poorly.  He had to preserve control of Eastern Europe--persuasion failed and he sent in his army. Second, he had to maintain the unity of the world Communist movement, which turned above all on relations with China. He failed and made his most important ally into his most implacable foe.  Finally he had to de-escalate tensions and reach equilibrium with the United States.  He instead tried confrontation, leading to near disaster in 1964 until he drew back at the last second over Cuba.  More successful was his quest for prestige which centered on the Space Race--where the Soviets astonished the world by taking a clear lead over the U.S. for a few years.

==Tense relations with U.S.==

==Relations with U.S.==

 

Khrushchev met with [[President Kennedy]] during Kennedy's first year in office at the Vienna Summit of 1961.  Journalist James Reston wrote afterward,  

Khrushchev met with [[President Kennedy]] during Kennedy's first year in office at the Vienna Summit of 1961.  Journalist James Reston wrote afterward,  

{{Cquote|Kennedy went there shortly after his spectacular blunders at the [[Bay of Pigs]], and was savaged by Khrushchev.... I had an hour alone with President Kennedy immediately after his last meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna at that time...Khrushchev had assumed, Kennedy said, that any American President who invaded Cuba without adequate preparation was inexperienced, and any president who then didn't use force to see the invasion through was weak. Kennedy admitted Khrushchev's logic on both points.}}

{{Cquote|Kennedy went there shortly after his spectacular blunders at the [[Bay of Pigs]], and was savaged by Khrushchev.... I had an hour alone with President Kennedy immediately after his last meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna at that time...Khrushchev had assumed, Kennedy said, that any American President who invaded Cuba without adequate preparation was inexperienced, and any president who then didn't use force to see the invasion through was weak. Kennedy admitted Khrushchev's logic on both points.}}

[[File:Khrush-chef.jpg|thumb|260px|Khrushchev cooks up trouble for the West, looking to see where unrest will boil over]]

[[File:Khrush-chef.jpg|thumb|260px|Khrushchev cooks up trouble for the West, looking to see where unrest will boil over]]

===Cuban Missile Crisis===

===Cuban Missile Crisis===

see [[Cuban Missile Crisis]]

see [[Cuban Missile Crisis]]

Much more serious was his miscalculations on Cuba, which he feared would be invaded by Americans. As the Kennedy Administration developed a first-strike strategy and a nuclear superiority capable of delivering it, Khrushchev sought to parry the American advantage by installing short-range Soviet warheads in Cuba. Stunned to discover the missiles, Washington demanded their removal and through a naval blockade around the island.  Khrushchev seems not to have consulted his advisors, but at last relented and took out the missiles and nuclear weapons, winning a public promise that the U.S. would never invade Cuba.  He also got the Americans to secretly remove their nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy. His recklessness troubled other Kremlin leaders, who saw the Cuban episode as a fiasco that was all Khrushchev's fault.

Much more serious was his miscalculations on Cuba, which he feared would be invaded by Americans. As the Kennedy Administration developed a first-strike strategy and a nuclear superiority capable of delivering it, Khrushchev sought to parry the American advantage by installing short-range Soviet warheads in Cuba. Stunned to discover the missiles, Washington demanded their removal and through a naval blockade around the island.  Khrushchev seems not to have consulted his advisors, but at last relented and took out the missiles and nuclear weapons, winning a public promise that the U.S. would never invade Cuba.  He also got the Americans to secretly remove their nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy. His recklessness troubled other Kremlin leaders, who saw the Cuban episode as a fiasco that was all Khrushchev's fault.<ref> Michael Dobbs, ''One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War'' (2008).</ref>

===Test Ban Treaty===

===Test Ban Treaty===

==Domestic issues==

==Domestic issues==

===Destalinization===

===Destalinization===

Khrushchev denounced Stalin as soon as he died and tried to purge all memory ofDétente Stalin (“destaDétentelinization”).  The glasnost had to be controlled lest it get out of hand.  By blaming his predecessor for all of Russia's ills Khrushchev bought time to reform the system.  He ended the worst features of the Gulag and mass executions, while maintaining a high enough fear level in people's minds to keep the wheels turning.

Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1956 in one of the most spectacular and detailed speeches in world history.  The secrets were out but this new "glasnost" had to be controlled lest it get out of hand, for the Stalin era was built on deceit, disinformation, and false allegations up and down the line and everyone shared in the guilt, especially Khrushchev himself.  Hundreds of thousands of loyal Russians had been shot as "spies" to satisfy Stalin's paranoia. By blaming his predecessor for all of Russia's ills Khrushchev bought time to reform the system.  He ended the worst features of the Gulag and mass executions, and brought back many from Siberia, while maintaining a high enough fear level in people's minds to keep the wheels turning. As for the memories of Stalin, that was solved by erasing him from history--his name was never mentioned, his image never seen--and instead filling the media and the minds with the glorious heroics of the Great Patriotic War against Germany. <ref> Cynthia  Hooper, "What Can and Cannot Be Said: Between the Stalinist Past and New Soviet Future," ''Slavonic & East European Review'' 2008 86(2): 306-327,</ref>

 

 

===Agricultural reform===

===Agricultural reform===

[[File:Red-farms.jpg|thumb|260px|Herblock laughs at the hair growers]]

[[File:Red-farms.jpg|thumb|260px|Herblock laughs at the hair growers]]

Khrushchev's favorite project was to till the virgin and long-fallow lands of Kazakhstan and nearby Soviet republics in order to increase the USSR's agricultural production, especially of grain. Despite his belief that scientific socialism could overcome all obstacles, the task proved far more immense and complex than the authorities had anticipated; the results were mostly failures, although some local achievements were attained.<ref> Taubman (2003) p 305-6</ref>

Khrushchev's favorite project was to till the virgin and long-fallow lands of Kazakhstan and nearby Soviet republics in order to increase the USSR's agricultural production, especially of grain. Despite his belief that scientific socialism could overcome all obstacles, the task proved far more immense and complex than the authorities had anticipated; the results were mostly failures, although some local achievements were attained.<ref> Taubman (2003) p 305-6</ref>

===Space race===

===Space race===

===Religion===

===Religion===

Under Lenin and Stalin before 1939 all churches were persecuted and ridiculed; there was a pause during World War II. Khrushchev was no friend of the [[Orthodox Church]], and greatly increased persecution in the late 1950s because he identified it with old-fashioned superstitions that would slow his schemes for the rapid modernization of agriculture. Khrushchev had the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1954 issued a secret resolution, "On the Serious Defects in Scientific-Atheist Propaganda and Measures for the Improvement Thereof," which demanded new and more scientific standards of struggle against religion. An antireligious campaign, the exact causes and chain of command of which are still debatable, was launched in the second half of the 1950s, and systematic efforts were used to fight not just priests and churches but the personal faith of believers--he wanted to reach the very essence of the people's religiousness in order to cure them.  The campaign perhaps worked in Latvia, which did give up Lutheranism. In Russia, however, at the local level cures were few. More often, ways were found in which religion and the Soviet system could coexist. The Party found it expedient to ignore religious activity that did not interfere with technological improvements, and the peasants and workers found quiet ways to ensure their religious practices were compatible with participation in the new society. Outward repression like the closing of churches and the prohibition of pilgrimages occurred but were not enough to attain the primary goal of replacing the religious person in rural Russia with the Soviet person.  He predicted the end of Christianity in the Soviet Union and boasted that the last Christian would be paraded on Soviet television within a few years.<ref>http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=2462&cid=125&p=22.05.2006</ref> In fact, Christianity outlasted Khrushchev, and even outlived Communism in Russia.  He tried to change the soul of Russia and failed.<ref>Andrew B. Stone,"'Overcoming Peasant Backwardness': the Khrushchev Antireligious Campaign and the Rural Soviet Union," ''Russian Review'' 2008 67(2): 296-320, </ref>  

Under Lenin and Stalin before 1939 all churches were persecuted and ridiculed; there was a pause during World War II. Khrushchev was no friend of the [[Orthodox Church]], and greatly increased persecution in the late 1950s because he identified it with old-fashioned superstitions that would slow his schemes for the rapid modernization of agriculture. Khrushchev had the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1954 issued a secret resolution, "On the Serious Defects in Scientific-Atheist Propaganda and Measures for the Improvement Thereof," which demanded new and more scientific standards of struggle against religion. An antireligious campaign, the exact causes and chain of command of which are still debatable, was launched in the second half of the 1950s, and systematic efforts were used to fight not just priests and churches but the personal faith of believers--he wanted to reach the very essence of the people's religiousness in order to cure them.  The campaign perhaps worked in Latvia, which did give up Lutheranism. In Russia, however, at the local level cures were few. More often, ways were found in which religion and the Soviet system could coexist. The Party found it expedient to ignore religious activity that did not interfere with technological improvements, and the peasants and workers found quiet ways to ensure their religious practices were compatible with participation in the new society. Outward repression like the closing of churches and the prohibition of pilgrimages occurred but were not enough to attain the primary goal of replacing the religious person in rural Russia with the Soviet person.  He predicted the end of Christianity in the Soviet Union and boasted that the last Christian would be paraded on Soviet television within a few years.<ref>http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=2462&cid=125&p=22.05.2006</ref> In fact, Christianity outlasted Khrushchev, and even outlived Communism in Russia.  He tried to change the soul of Russia and failed.<ref>Andrew B. Stone, "'Overcoming Peasant Backwardness': the Khrushchev Antireligious Campaign and the Rural Soviet Union," ''Russian Review'' 2008 67(2): 296-320, </ref>  

==Communist lands==

==Communist lands==

===Hungary===

===Hungary===

[[File:~nikita.jpg|thumb|310px]]

[[File:~nikita.jpg|thumb|310px]]

==Overthrown==

==Overthrown==

By late 1964 Kremlin leaders were troubled by Khrushchev's irascible and self-contradictory behavior; he had been weakened by the Cuban Missile Crisis and his split with China,  but there was no orderly way to change rulers. Top conspirators included [[Leonid Brezhnev]], Aleksei Kosygin, Nikolai Podgorny, Mikhail Suslov; they acted in a bloodless coup to remove Khrushchev from his government and party positions in October 1964. They persuaded the [[Politburo]], which governed the Communist Party, to replace KhrushchevStates with Brezhnev. Khruschev then quietly lived out the remainder of his life under the watch of the [[KGB]] until his death in 1971. He managed to smuggle out his memoirs for publication in the West.

By late 1964 Kremlin leaders were troubled by Khrushchev's irascible and self-contradictory behavior; he had been weakened by the Cuban Missile Crisis and his split with China,  but there was no orderly way to change rulers. Top conspirators included [[Leonid Brezhnev]], Aleksei Kosygin, Nikolai Podgorny, Mikhail Suslov; they acted in a bloodless coup to remove Khrushchev from his government and party positions in October 1964. They persuaded the [[Politburo]], which governed the Communist Party, to replace Khrushchev with Brezhnev. Khrushchev then quietly lived out the remainder of his life under the watch of the [[KGB]] until his death in 1971. He managed to smuggle out his memoirs for publication in the West.

==We will bury you==

==We will bury you==

==External link==

==External link==

*[http://www.richardsorge.com/appendixes/beria/translation.html Gianni Agnelli quoted on Khruschev], 11 May 2003.

*[http://www.richardsorge.com/appendixes/beria/translation.html Gianni Agnelli quoted on Khrushchev], 11 May 2003.

==Further reading==

==Further reading==

* Tompson, William J. ''Khrushchev: A Political Life'' (1997) [http://www.amazon.com/Khrushchev-Political-William-J-Tompson/dp/0312163606/ref=sr_1_39?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255060227&sr=1-39 excerpt and text search]

* Tompson, William J. ''Khrushchev: A Political Life'' (1997) [http://www.amazon.com/Khrushchev-Political-William-J-Tompson/dp/0312163606/ref=sr_1_39?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255060227&sr=1-39 excerpt and text search]

* Von Bencke, Matthew J. ''The Politics of Space: A History of U.S.-Soviet/Russian Competition and Cooperation in Space'' (1997) [http://www.questia.com/read/65419161?title=The%20Politics%20of%20Space%3a%20A%20History%20of%20U.S.-Soviet%2fRussian%20Competition%20and%20Cooperation%20in%20Space online edition]

* Von Bencke, Matthew J. ''The Politics of Space: A History of U.S.-Soviet/Russian Competition and Cooperation in Space'' (1997) [http://www.questia.com/read/65419161?title=The%20Politics%20of%20Space%3a%20A%20History%20of%20U.S.-Soviet%2fRussian%20Competition%20and%20Cooperation%20in%20Space online edition]

* Zubok. Vladislav M. ''A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev'' (2007) [http://www.amazon.com/Failed-Empire-Soviet-Gorbachev-History/dp/0807830984/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255061323&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]

* Zubok, Vladislav M. ''A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev'' (2007) [http://www.amazon.com/Failed-Empire-Soviet-Gorbachev-History/dp/0807830984/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255061323&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]