I picked up an old copy of N.S. Kruschev’s memoirs, and have been reading it. It comes across as too pat-Kruschev always comes across as moralistic and honorable. Now, given that the man survived a long relationship withy Stalin (and many did not), some of his hyperbole can be excused.
but anyway, what do moder Russian historians make of the book-was Kruscheve largely truthful? Or did he cover up a lot of terrible deeds…stuff like the Ukrainian Famine, or the mass purges of the 1930’s?
Give this try I have parts one and two on my I-pod.
http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/168865-1/William+Taubman.aspx
I think this might do better in GQ. Moved from Cafe Society.
First of all: Was it ever made clear just how Khrushchev’s memoir became known in the West?
Allegedly the manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union – somehow. The introductory pages of the book (at least the edition I read) included a paragraph by Strobe Talbot (a relatively big name, apparently, among American Sovietologists) indicating that it was smuggled out (but no details on how), and claiming that leading American Sovietologists, presumably including himself, had studied it and concluded that it was genuine. I think they said it contained information that probably only Khrushchev would have known, or something like that.
I also read Witness to History by Charles Bohlen, career diplomat including being Ambassador to Moscow appointed by Eisenhower. He describes the history of American/Soviet diplomacy, circa 1930 through 1960 or so. I saw a certain amount of consistency between his account and Khrushchev’s account – For example, Bohlen described Stalin as a “monster” and described Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin and “rehabilitation” (mostly posthumously) of people that Stalin had condemned. Then, in reading Khrushchev’s book, I saw substantially the same story, but from K’s point of view.
ETA: Wiki on Strobe Talbot. Wiki on Charles Bohlen.
Bohlen was a survivor of Joe McCarthy, who had tried to torpedo Bohlen’s ambassador appointment because Bohlen had been an assistant to Truman at Potsdam (or maybe to Roosevelt at Yalta – I forget which.)
Some years ago – about the time K Remembers was published, IIRC – there had recently been another major biographical (or autobiographical?) book published, namely a “Life and Times” sort of book about Adolf Hitler. It was immediately suspected of being a hoax, due to the vast trove of new information it had that hadn’t been published before – and was fairly quickly exposed as being a hoax.
Thus, when Khrushchev Remembers was published (soon after that Hitler hoax, IIRC), it was also immediately questioned. The mysterious nature of its arrival in the West didn’t help much. Thus, there was not only the OP’s question (to-wit: How truthful was K?), but also the bigger question: Was it really a memoir by K at all? Other than the brief note by Strobe Talbot, mentioned above, I haven’t seen any further discussion of that (but admittedly, I never searched).
For people interested in this era of world history, and especially in Cold War history, I highly recommended these books:
– Witness to History by Charles Bohlen, as mentioned above.
– Khrushchev Remembers. Read Bohlen first, and then read this. Watch for episodes where K tells substantially the same stories that Bohlen tells, but of course from the “other” point of view.
– Also read Memoirs by George F. Kennan, another American Soviet-specialist and career diplomat.
Thanks for the useful replies. As I say, Nikita was a sharp old fox-he had to be, to survive 30 years with Stalin. I get the sense that Kruschev was at heart, an honorable man. But only God knows how many bodies he had buried, simply to stay alive (and claw his way to the top).
A fair view of Khruschev would have to be fairly nuanced (as for most of us, I suppose). I mean, the man was an authoritarian leader of a fairly brutal system. This was the guy who crushed the Hungarian revolution in 1956, making it perfectly clear to the rest of the world that the Warsaw Pact wasn’t really an opt-out sort of system. On the other hand, he wasn’t an absolute monster by any stretch of the imagination - by all accounts, he was genuinely appalled by Stalin’s abuses, and in a famous speech to the Party congress, he said exactly that. Moreover, he had a genuine horror of war, which he confided in Kennedy during the Cuban Missile crisis, and probably helped both sides back down.
Bottom line - I’d say Khruschev sincerely wanted the Soviet Union and its people to survive and prosper. His views on how best to achieve that were … dodgy. But in a different political culture, he probably would have made a fine democratic leader.