The Man Who Cleared Gorbachev146;s Path

Khrushchev: The Man And His Era By William Taubman The Free Press Price: 24.95

Soviet supremo Nikita Khrushchev is probably best remembered today for banging his shoe on the podium at the United Nations. But surely, one of the most powerful countries in history could not possibly have been led by a buffoon. Could it?

Assuredly not, Soviet-Russian specialist William Taubman informs us in this magisterial biography of the man who wielded the reins at the high tidewater of the Soviet Union8217;s power 8212; if anything, he was far more complex than we could have imagined. Taubman was supposed to have delivered his manuscript in 1989. That he did not, and waited instead for the archives to disgorge their secrets, and for Khrushchev8217;s family, colleagues 8212; and even enemies 8212; to speak openly has made this the single, indispensable source for understanding Khrushchev.

Khrushchev always made it a point to note his humble origins, contrasting them with that of his interlocutors. Born in Kiev, with no education to speak of, he became a metalworker and took part in the Communist coup following the collapse of the monarchy in 1917. A hard worker, he rose quickly in the party hierarchy, finally becoming a member of Stalin8217;s court. He was responsible for implementing Stalin8217;s grandiose rebuilding of Moscow and, later, signing the death warrants of thousands as part of the great purges, and during and after the Second World War in the Ukraine.

How did he manage to survive? Quite simply, he worked at pleasing Stalin. He was an industrious worker, whether it involved putting in long hours to finish some project, or incriminating some unsuspecting person. After Stalin8217;s death, he led the move to thwart the ambitions of KGB chief Beria by quickly arresting and executing him. Khrushchev was to rule the USSR until his ouster in 1964.

Khrushchev, who survived and thrived under Stalin, made it impossible for any of his successors to re-Stalinise the Soviet Union. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, he revealed in excruciating detail Stalin8217;s murderous regime. True, his own hands were stained 8212; as were those of his comrades-in-power, and the state continued to be omnipotent and omnipresent 8212; but the death camps never returned. Thus, he ensured that more lives were not lost.

In retrospect, one is amazed by the zigzag manner and dizzying pace at which which Khrushchev at various moments tried to defuse the Cold War, and at almost the same time, ensured that it continued. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Crisis 8212; these were all precipitated by his injudicious and inexplicable actions.

He tried to rehumanise the USSR 8212; Yetveshenko and Solzhenitsyn made their first appearance, the heavy hand of censorhip was lightened. But when things seemed to be going too far, he pulled back 8212; pace the Pasternak affair or the infamous lecture to artists. In industry, agriculture, he broke no new ground.

As an administrator and party leader, Khrushchev was a maverick par excellence. He was abusive, contemptuous, given to sudden outbursts, and headstrong. The result was the numbers of those resentful grew apace, until they outnumbered his supporters. So, when the fall came, it was particularly hard for him. He was consigned to a dacha outside Moscow, where he wrote his startling memoirs.

So, what was Khrushchev8217;s legacy? The destalinisation process could never be repealed. More than that it was the brief glimpses of a free polity that he showed which were to inspire Gorbachev and Yeltsin, as they have acknowledged. But they did not understand, as he did, that matters could be taken up to a point 8212; beyond that lay freedom from fear, and the inevitable unravelling of the Soviet state. Ironically, Khrushchev8217;s greatest legacy was to show the way the Soviet Union could be demolished.