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William Taubman

Khrushchev: The Man and His Era Paperback – April 17, 2004

by William Taubman (Author)

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

The definitive biography of the mercurial Soviet leader who succeeded and denounced Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most complex and important political figures of the twentieth century. Ruler of the Soviet Union during the first decade after Stalin's death, Khrushchev left a contradictory stamp on his country and on the world. His life and career mirror the Soviet experience: revolution, civil war, famine, collectivization, industrialization, terror, world war, cold war, Stalinism, post-Stalinism. Complicit in terrible Stalinist crimes, Khrushchev nevertheless retained his humanity: his daring attempt to reform communism prepared the ground for its eventual collapse; and his awkward efforts to ease the cold war triggered its most dangerous crises.

This is the first comprehensive biography of Khrushchev and the first of any Soviet leader to reflect the full range of sources that have become available since the USSR collapsed. Combining a page-turning historical narrative with penetrating political and psychological analysis, this book brims with the life and excitement of a man whose story personified his era.

Print length

896 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

April 17, 2004
Dimensions

6.1 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches
ISBN-10

0393324842
ISBN-13

978-0393324846
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Thanks to Taubman, one of the most important figures of the 20th century finally has the biography he deserves."
― Strobe Talbott, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Masterful and monumental...one should salute its author for a wonderful achievement."
― Robert G. Kaiser, Washington Post

"A portrait unlikely to be surpassed any time soon in either richness or complexity....shines with mastery and authority."
― Leon Aron, New York Times Book Review

"The book is a gift, as fascinating as it is important."
― Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs

About the Author

William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. His biography, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (April 17, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 896 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393324842
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393324846
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.52 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #636,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #528 in Historical Russia Biographies
- #1,703 in Russian History (Books)
- #2,723 in Presidents & Heads of State Biographies

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robert clarke

Best Bio of a Soviet Leader -- Must-Read If You Think Socialism Is The Answer

Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2019

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This will rank as one of the best, if not the best, bios of Soviet Leaders/Personalities. Taubman puts a human face on an inhuman system and personalizes Khrushchev in a way that rings true -- NSK is clearly portrayed in his many strengths and equally many weaknesses. Taubman chronicles KSK's ascent from a true believer, frightened toady of Stalin, thru his wartime experiences, to an erratic leader of the USSR who despises the Soviet military yet recklessly threatens the West with nuclear war, to his final realization that socialism/communism is a failed system. "I am up to my elbows in blood," KSK is quoted as saying. In penatance, he forced the first moves towards exposing and reversing the horrible excesses of Stalin. Especially poignant are the last passages in which NSK finally comes to the realization that his beloved communism ideal can't be reformed by tinkering, but the very foundations of that system is the source of its failures and cruelties. This should be read by any American who is intrigued by the false allure of socialism and the illusive"fairness" which it promises...

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

dac

Surprising

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2020

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I am not a book reviewer, so I can't give you what a book reviewer would say, for example, in a newspaper column. The book was very well written and researched and was, I think, as objective a one as can reasonably be. It is drawn from many sources, and has a very good and extensive biography. On a personal level, I do not like Khrushchev and never have. But after reading the book, I came to at least respect him. He was a very complex man. He was completely indefatigable and truly believed in what he tried to achieve. Unfortunately, he was dead wrong and continued to delude himself about the failed system around him. Try as he may, and he did try hard, he could not get a completely unworkable, discombobulated, humanly unrealistic system to work. However, after Stalin's death, he was the first to clearly and sincerely denounce Stalin and denounce the complicity of the others in the ultra higher ups around Stalin, e.g., Kaganovich, Molotov, Bulganin, Beria, Voroshilov, etc. This included himself, though he he rather vaguely brushed over this point.
He seems to have been a strong family man, though he traveled constantly, working always. and was frequently away from home. He did a very great deal of entertaining, and on a personal level seemed generous and most gregarious. He repeatedly invited people to his dacha to spend a night or two; some of this was political, some was not. .
On another note, one can scarcely fail to note a definite feeling of inferiority, always trying to push him self up. Paradoxically, he often took pride in his impoverished up bringing. Much of his thinking seems reactionary to his past.
I recommend this book to anyone. Don't let the number of pages scare you off. There is a big chunk of bibliography with notes on the bibliography itself at the end. This book is compelling and especially so when seeing past history from the other side; for example, the Cuban missile crises. From about the middle on, it's hard to put this book down.

4 people found this helpful

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dmiguer

A Peasant Boy Climbs the Ladder

Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2022

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Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.”
- Joseph Stalin

“When Stalin says dance, a wise man dances.”
- Nikita Khrushchev

“As Stalin lay dying his son Vasily screamed at Beria and the others: ‘You bastards, you murdered my father!’ Beria later told the Politburo, ‘I did away with him and saved all of us.’” - ‘Molotov Remembers’, from conversations in 1969

“His face altered and became dark. His lips turned black and his features unrecognizable. At what seemed like the very last moment he opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance, insane or perhaps angry, and in fear of death. He suddenly lifted his hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse upon us all. After a final effort his spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh.” - Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana at his deathbed, 1953

“Beria wants the police for the purposes of destroying us, and he will do it too if we let him. No matter what happens we cannot allow him, no matter what!” - Khrushchev, 1953

“Following Presidium directives, that dictated the verdict in advance, the judicial panel declared Beria and his men guilty and sentenced them to be shot in the same room where the trial was held. After the sentence was pronounced guards removed Beria’s prison shirt, tied his hands and attached the rope to a wooden board designed to shield witnesses from ricocheting bullets. Beria tried to speak and was gagged with a towel. He was dispatched by a three star general who fired directly into his forehead.” - Eyewitness to Beria’s trial and execution, 1953

“Khrushchev spoke with agitation and emotion. His hatred for Stalin was visible as he held him accountable for the disastrous defeats in Kiev and Kharkiv in 1941 and 1942. ‘He was a coward! He panicked. Not once during the war did he go near the front.’ Presidium colleagues sat stony faced. Khrushchev taunted Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich and Viroshilov, and demanded they explain their behavior. None of them uttered a word during or after the speech. ‘You’re old and decrepit now! Can’t you find the courage to tell the truth about what you saw with your own eyes?’ - Eyewitness to Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in a closed 20th Party Congress meeting, 1956

“That night, after his ouster, Khrushchev called Mikoyan, and said: ‘I'm old and tired. Let them cope by themselves. I've done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he didn't suit us anymore and suggesting he retire? Not even a wet spot would have remained where we had been standing. Now everything is different. The fear is gone, and we can talk as equals. That's my contribution. I won't put up a fight.’” - Khrushchev’s son, Sergei in his 1991 memoirs

************

William Taubman begins this Pulitzer Prize biography of Nikita Khrushchev on the eve of his downfall, recalled from vacation in 1964 following elevation to First Secretary of the Communist Party after Stalin’s death in 1953. He was an old school Bolshevik who backed Stalin during the purges and famines of the 30’s, WWII horrors of the 40’s, overcoming rival’s aspirations. He denounced prior policies of political and intellectual repression but heightened Cold War tensions in the 50’s. Inexplicably he ignored warnings from friends and family of his imminent overthrow by Brezhnev in 1964.

1910’s
Khrushchev grew up in extreme poverty in southern Russia where people couldn’t afford shoes and lived in mud huts. From a peasant childhood he moved at age fourteen to an industrial region in Ukraine where his father was a miner. Men lived in barracks without running water; Khrushchev went to work at a factory as a metal fitter. By age twenty he was married and successful, skilled enough to avoid WWI service, and became active in left wing politics as a strike organizer. After the Tsar’s abdication in 1917, civil war broke out in Russia and Khrushchev joined the Bolshevik party.

1920’s
The White Army suppressed miners and factory workers in Ukraine as the Bolsheviks seized peasants grain. Khrushchev became a top political leader in the Red Army until the war ended in 1920. Disease and famine caused more deaths than both wars had by 1922. After Lenin’s stroke a split began between Stalin and Trotsky, who was deposed and exiled. Khrushchev was a Party hack in Donbas, Kharkiv and Kiev, investigating bourgeois crimes like sabotage, espionage and opposition, and signing death warrants for wrong thinking. Moscow impressed, he quickly climbed the Party ladder.

1930’s
During the decade Khrushchev was a protege of Kaganovich, Stalin’s enforcer, assisting in a holocaust that wiped out ten million farmers and purged thousands of Party members to gulags or execution. Farm collectivization in 1932 created a famine, starving another five million. In 1937 he was made Party boss of Ukraine where arrests and deaths continued. High level leaders were tried in 1938, among them Bukharin accused of trying to murder Lenin, Stalin and poisoning the writer Gorky. Khrushchev survived the Red Terror because he wasn’t a member of the inner circle until after 1939.

1940’s
As Hitler invaded Poland, Khrushchev took over the western Ukraine and Belarus, and held fake referendums to join the Soviet Union. A million ethnic Poles and Jews were deported or shot before Russian defeats in Kiev and Kharkiv. Stalin and Khrushchev were at odds with commanders, pressing for impossible goals until Zhukov’s 1943 victories in Kursk and Stalingrad. Khrushchev returned to Kiev to restore the Soviet rule. In 1946 Ukrainian revolts and famines resumed. State grain quotas reduced peasants to cannibals. Promoted to Moscow Party Leader, he left the Ukraine during 1949.

1950’s
Khrushchev joined the Central Committee as Stalin’s health declined. Molotov fell out of favor, but Beria and Malenkov held on. On Stalin’s death in 1953 they seized control of the Presidium and police. Khrushchev arrested them with help by Zhukov and Brezhnev. Denunciation of Stalin in 1956 led to revolts in Eastern Europe and crushing of the Hungarian Revolution. Reforms were passed to wash blood from Party hands, prisoners released, censorship relaxed. Invasion at the Suez Canal by Britain and France was defused. Sputnik 1 was launched in 1957 to Western astonishment and concern.

1960’s
In 1960 the USSR shot down a US spy plane and captured it’s pilot. Eisenhower promised to end the flyovers. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop dissidents fleeing to the West. A 1962 Cuban missile crisis nearly lead to war. Khrushchev made a deal with Kennedy to disarm Cuba in exchange for removal of US missiles in Turkey. A nuclear test ban was achieved in 1963. On again off again foreign policy with the US gave Brezhnev excuse to plot an overthrow of Khrushchev in 1964 and repeal his reforms. Repression didn’t return to the level during Stalin’s time, so some progress was made.

Khrushchev tried to recast himself as a reformist in memoirs but shows he was the sort of sycophant and apparatchik that made Stalin possible. Khrushchev fought his conscience at times but was unable to restrain his ambition and ideology. He suffered an inferiority complex, due to his impoverished background and lack of education, but saw he could use it to advantage, projecting the persona of a proletarian bumpkin. After Stalin’s death it was easier to blame everything on him. This is a long biography at 650 pages but Taubman has a fluid writing style and gives a clear picture of Soviet politics.

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Top reviews from other countries

Greg S

Excellent, objective and thorough...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 26, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book is worth all the plaudits, as Taubman has covered a vast time period with great attention to detail. Having read countless books on pre-Khrushchev Russian history (right through from the revolution to Stalin's death), it was refreshing to read the 1930s/40s history from another perspective within the First Circle. I found it summarised the issues and personalities of that era well without over-simplifying, before understandably dedicating the bulk of the writing to the period after Stalin's death.

Much of the narrative from 1953-55 along with Khrushchev's time at the top was enlightening as the detail of many events was unfamiliar to me. The accounts from both Russian and American (and Castro's) perspectives of events like the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis were objective and intriguing at the very least, and are written in a way that retains the reader's interest to the end. The sources of information are hugely varied and the research behind each appears to be thorough. Appropriately large passages are dedicated to the Secret Speech and other relevant political situations such as the development of the Sino-Chinese relationship, while throughout the book many of the anecdotal pieces make many of Khrushchev's encounters extremely amusing once we come to undertand the man himself.

Khrushchev is an extremely unique character in 20th century history, and I think this book demonstrates that despite his genuine attempt to de-Stalinise the worst parts of Soviet life, he was well out of his depth intellectually when it came to international relations or truly grasping political ideology (whether Lenin-Marxism or western capitalism). His personality flaws dug his own political grave, but not before a decade of absolutely bizarre behaviour on both the domestic and international fronts. At times, I was (as other readers were I'm sure) left completely flabbergasted at how government was run in the world's largest communist state, not to mention how close (and more importantly, why) we came so close to nuclear war in the early 60s. An excellent read!!

6 people found this helpful

Mr. Martin F. Peers

A well researched biography

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 19, 2013

Verified Purchase

This is a very good biography of Khrushchev, with some very insightful passages, especially about the years dealing with the Russian leader's rise to power. The author also provides some telling opinions about Khrushchev's rivals, such as Brezhnev, and gives us detailed background information to important world events like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Moreover, from the point of view of the meticulous nature of the research carried out for it, this book is also very useful for those who wish to study the history of the USSR in some detail.

My only criticisms of the narrative provided concern the pro-American stance taken by it about episodes like the Cuban missile crisis and the fact that - in its later stages - the author writes the book paying too much regard to the knowledge that Khrushchev was to fall from power in 1964. While accepting William Taubman's comments about the weaknesses of Khrushchev's educational background in relation to his needs as a world leader, I believe that he fails to give the Russian ample credit for what he did achieve, especially in 1962-3. The placing of missiles on Cuba was very risky for world peace but it did ensure that the USA has never tried to invade the island since. It also led to the removal of American missiles from Turkey, the establishment of a Hot Line between the two world leaders and a Test Ban treaty, all in 1963. Moreover,It was surely not unconnected that the military establishments of the two super-powers resented the attempts by the two leaders to establish détente a full ten years before it was achieved and the fact that both of them had been removed from power by the end of 1964.Finally, in relation to domestic policy, while the author does show the reader that Gorbachev saw Khrushchev's policy of cuts in military expenditure as a way of restructuring the Soviet economy through what he called perestroika, he appears to present Khrushchev's earlier attempt at this as both amateurish and doomed to failure.

Overall, however, the book is extremely well researched. It also provides a meaningful look at the basic weaknesses of the Soviet system and why it could not really survive. Finally, the author shows us that Khrushchev's naïve view of agriculture, his innate Stalinist conservatism in economic and cultural policy and his reliance on autocratic methods to stay in power all led, in the end, to his removal from power.

4 people found this helpful

Dundawolf

Generally illuminating in respect of both the man and the ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2015

Verified Purchase

Generally illuminating in respect of both the man and the period both of which are fudamental to understanding the evolution of modern Russia and the psychology of the soviet system. The flaw is that Taubman does not always grasp the socialist context in which Kruschev was steeped as opposed to the personalties involved and I was not wholly convinced by his anaylsis of the Cuban crisis.

Unmissable for those interested in the tragic direction of Russia in the 20th and 21st century and futher evidence of the human extremes lived by the Russian people deliberately neglected by Western ideologues.

MR. M. WELCH

Great book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 27, 2020

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed this well researched and well written account of an interesting though very forceful character .

One person found this helpful

Staffan in Stockholm

Amazingly well researched and well written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 22, 2011

Verified Purchase

After having read Montefiori's biography on Stalin I started wondering how Khrushchev was able to survive Stalin's rule for three decades without being sent off to Siberia or shot as an alleged "enemy of the people" or "spy"? And how much did he change the course of history in the Soviet Union when he got rid of his rivals after Stalin's death and became his own man? And how was the decisionmaking done in the politbureau?

By reading this book I got answers to all my questions and many others as well. It is amazing that so many details of those years in the secretive Communist state are now available to historians and journalists. And Taubman has really made a great researching effort and managed to write the ultimate biography in my view. He deals with all the major conflicts of that time and give great insight into Khrushchev's deliberations and decisions - with a wide range of sources including in depth interviews with his son Sergei.

This book is enlightening and entertaining.

10 people found this helpful

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