Chruschev is a very unusual figure in the world history. He is so special, that no person can be indifferent to him - some people love him, some hate him, some consider him a clown, some consider him a genius. I'd like to express my attitude to this person and would love to read what do you all think of Chruschev. So, let's start.

Some years ago I considered Chruschev to be a bad and incompetent politician. Perhaps, I thought of him like this, because the only thing I knew about him was how he used his shoe at one of the UN conferences. But I think I was quite indifferent to him, just because I knew little about him.

For the last year my attitude to Chrushev has been changing. I've read much about him, and realized that this man is worth being respected more than such a general secretary as Brezhnev.

Perhaps not everyone knows that after Stalin's death, the programmes of further development of USSR offered by three most powerful persons in party (Beria, Chrushev, Malenkov) were extremely progressive as compared to the Stalin's plans. For example, Malenkov's programme included reduction of the rate of inductrial goods production and increase the rate of production of consumption products. I won't pay much attention to Malenkov - the typed example is nothing more than example; it doesn't express any attitude to the entire programme. But, certainly not a single word was talked about turning USSR into democratic state - it would have been nonsence.

So, back to Chrushev. Nearly eveyone knows what were Chrushev's mistakes, remembers his strange and illogic desigions, but his good actions have almost been forgotten.

Carribean crisis. Chruschev showed himself as an experienced and prudent diplomat, just a fact to prove it - according to the treaty signed by Chrushev and Kennedy, USSR should have transported all the rockets of a certain type ( can't remember what it was, unfortunately ) from the territory of Cuba, but there was nothing about US rockets and rocket bases in Turkey ( US rockets in Turkey, in fact, caused the crisis ). This fact shows that Chruschev wasn't so simple as he seemed to be. He could make consessions, even if that would contradict the state doctrine of foreign policy. Some more facts about Chruschev's foreign policy. Did you know that in 1959 Chruschev offered the project of general disarmament at the UN General Assembley? Certainly that project wasn't supported by anyone. But Chruschev declared mass demobilization, so that the 6-million-people-army turned into more mobile 2,5-million army in 1960. Do you know that Varsaw treaty was the reaction on Western Germany's joining NATO.
Chrushev paid much attention to the problems of agriculture in USSR. Certainly some of his ideas, like 'tselina' ( building new agricultural zones in the places that had never been agricultural regions before) are silly to say at least. The question about corn is controversial - personally I consider problems with corn to be caused by local authorities. All in all agriculture suffered much from his politics, but It continued developing. Look at these numbers: in 1951-1955 (before Chruschev) the overall growth of industrial production was 85%; of agricultural production - only 20%!!!In 1956-1960 industrial production - 65%, agricultural - 30% (much better). The average income of workers in 1959 formed 160% of the money they were paid in 1950; the average income of a peasant formed 190% of the money he earned in 1950.

And the last thing. When Chruschev was a general secretary, the USSR developed faster, than it ever did in 1960-1990 (and - 2000 btw).

I know, many of you will accuse me of worshiping Chruschev. You might think like this, because there are no bad words about him, but I just wanted to show the other Chrushev, not the one you know.

Mysterious person, but very interesting. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to finish his very interesting memoirs, in which he lays out some of the motives behind his major decisions. Although monitored by the Soviet government, his memoirs were smuggled out, and published in America. He died in bitter isolation when the book was first published in the 1970s, I believe.

But he was a cruel man; sometimes acting without a concept of humanism, at other occassions, seemed like a warm and friendly kind of man; alert, but not hostile. I thinks he's the most interesting leader in the Soviet Union after Stalin. Imagine how bitter he must have felt when ousted by a life-long colleague and friend in 1964 (?) ?

Anyhow, most details of his book seem to have slipped my mind, otherwise I would happily have discussed some of the issues of his leadership which I find very interesting. Is his book available in Russia btw, you sure did your research, I can tell?

Probaly the most effective Communist primere.

Pragmatic and intelligent, he also had a sense of humor, rare in high level Soviet leadership.

It was pobaly a bad thing he lost control, he may very well have pushed the Soviets into new eras of prosperity, but alas, Breshnev put an end to all that.

I've always liked Khrushchev :). He seemed bombastic but friendly, pragmatic and intelligent; the man had a lot of common sense about him. He made very intelligent moves in the Cuban Missle crisis, all over the map he made the USSR improve--in fact, I can't think of any aspect that suffered during his rule. He criticized Stalin, and it is interesting to think how the Soviet Union and Communism in general might have done had Khrushchev been premier for more than 6 years.

I find his activities during the war very interesting.

He was quite effective at "motivating" people.

2 Khrushchov Jokes:

(Polish)
1. Two prisoners meet (in 1965) in a prison cell, and one asks the other why he's in. He says he'd been involved with illegal political activities, and he asked his companion why he was in. He replied:

"Well, I don't know. I mean, in 1954 I went to the Party headquarters and shouted, 'Khrushchov is a pig!' and they gave me 10 years. I understand that. But then I got out last year, and after ten years of thinking things over I had decided that maybe he wasn't so bad after all, so as soon as I got out I charged over to the Party headquarters and shouted, "Long Live Comrade Khrushchov!' - and now I'm back here again for another ten years!" :lol:

(Hungarian)
2. Two prisoners meet in a prison cell (in 1965) and one asks the other why he's in. He says he was involved in some illegal political activities, and he asks his companion why he's in. his companion replies:

"Well, I don't know. I was a local party functionary in Pécs (city in southwest Hungary) when one day last year a commissar from Budapest burst into my office and shouted, 'Get the picture of that b*stard pig off your wall!' and all I asked was, 'Which one...?" :lol:

(Hint to non-communist initiated: All party offices, and just about all offices for that matter, always had the pictures of Marx, Lenin, Engels, and the local Commie hack on their walls.)

Sorry I missed this thread for so long Bifrost. Some thoughts:

Khrushchov was not a complicated man. Reading his memoirs you can feel a highly intelligent but equally deeply uneducated man, one steeped in ideology and largely ignorant of the larger world. Stalin was not an ideologue; his sole concern was keeping Stalin in power and if communism or Russian nationalism would do that, well fine. But Khrushchov really believed all that Marxist-Leninist crap, which is a fatal flaw for a man to have in a fatal system. His peasant origins made him look boorish or like a buffoon sometimes as when he banged his shoe on the UN podium, but this only masqueraded his powerful political cunning and utter lack of scruples. There are lots of people who have knives in their backs because of Khrushchov, which is OK because his own protoge Brezhnjov put one in Khrushchov's eventually anyway. But his ability to scheme did not lend itself to a coherent policy for the USSR, as Khrushchov's ideology blinded him to the realities of Soviet life.

Khrushchov didn't understand how unravelling Stalin's web would destabilize the USSR. he also didn't realize that the people who supported him in establishing his own power after getting rid of Molotov, Malenkov, Beria, etc., etc., etc., were interested in keeping their own power. Stalin understood a new class was forming in Soviet Russia and he used purges and favoritism to make sure this class served exclusively Stalin. After Stalin was gone, this class found a willing collaborator in Khrushchov who would let them guard their own interests - namely keeping the nice new life they had. These apparatchiks struck deals with Khrushchov that did away with the nastiest aspects of Stalinist rule (purges, killing of political opponents, etc.) in exchange for power. Unfortunately, Khrushchov thought Stalinism was just an abboration within the otherwise wonderful world of communism and getting rid of Stalinism would get rid of communism's problem - which gave him free rein to finish Lenin's march on the world. Khrushchov banged his shoe and said "We will bury you" to the West, and began building up the Soviet nuclear forces at the expense of the conventional forces, all the while embarrassing the hell out of the Soviet state by admitting "errors" left and right.

The Cuban Missile Crisis brought matters to a head, and resulted in a situation that threatened Khrushchov. First, although he did manage to get the Americans to agree to trading the Jupiter missiles in Turkey for the Soviet missiles in Cuba, that was done secretly and was arrived at only after nearly bringing the world to the brink of nuclear anhiliation. Secondly, in the process of the crisis, Khrushchov behaved in such a way that made it look as if the Soviets had backed down and were cowed by the Americans. Khrushchov had squandered the immense prestige the Soviet military was enjoying worldwide, revived recently in 1957 by the launch of Sputnik and the Soviet space program. When Khrushchov made the public issue of Gary Powers and the U2 shot down over the USSR, he inadvertantly admitted that in the midst of a spectacular space program the Soviets couldn't shoot down an American spy plane until it descended below the clouds. Little things like that embarrassed the Soviet military, and made them a dangerous enemy for Khrushchov. His boosting of the nuclear weapons over conventional forces though was his final undoing. The army apparatchiks were still enjoying the prestige of having played a major role in defeating Hitler and had developed after Stalin's death some very comfortable jobs for themselves in the army hierarchy, and now Khrushchov was taking resources away from them and diverting them to the nuclear programs - playing a dangerous game with the Americans to boot. It was a political alliance between teh civilian and military apparatchiks who overthrew Khrushchov and replaced him with an amazingly thick and slow-witted fellow apparatchik, Brezhnjov.

Thanks for that enjoyable post, Vrylakas. :)

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
Probaly the most effective Communist primere.

Pragmatic and intelligent, he also had a sense of humor, rare in high level Soviet leadership.

It was pobaly a bad thing he lost control, he may very well have pushed the Soviets into new eras of prosperity, but alas, Breshnev put an end to all that.

Indeed. De-Stalinization by Nikita was sadly put to an end by Brezhnev's re-Stalinization...

Originally posted by rmsharpe
Brezhnev's re-Stalinization...

I wouldn't over-stress that. It's not exactly if Brezhnev was in the same league as Stalin. Nothing post-Stalin ever really was.

Originally posted by Hamlet
I wouldn't over-stress that. It's not exactly if Brezhnev was in the same league as Stalin. Nothing post-Stalin ever really was.

I agree, Stalin and Brezhnev was two quite different category, but I would say they were the two prototypes of Soviet leaders.
Kruschov was different, as Vrylakas wrote, I think he just did not fit into the Soviet reality. Stalin ruled the system, while Brezhnev was ruled by the system, and this was the only two way to get along at the very top of the SU, the "somewhere-in-between" category, in which Khruschov was could not be successful.

I view Chruschev (btw, is there any "official" spelling in English?) as the most sympathetic Soviet leader. No matter whether his ideas were pragmatic or not, he (as far as I can know that) seemed to have been someone who really wanted to bring the USSR forward in the spirit of the Communist (in this sense Marxist) idea. That alone is a difference to those other dictators who cared about not much more than their own power.
Of course Nikita did that as well (otherwise he would have hardly made it to the top), but he was a much better man than Breshnev. Stalin shouldn't even be mentioned in comparison.

So all in all I agree with Bifrost.

The official English spelling is Khrushchev, Hitro :D.

Really? I thought it was Chrushchev. ;)

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
Probaly the most effective Communist primere.

Pragmatic and intelligent, he also had a sense of humor, rare in high level Soviet leadership.

It was pobaly a bad thing he lost control, he may very well have pushed the Soviets into new eras of prosperity, but alas, Breshnev put an end to all that.

What... You don't think old Boris had a sense of humor? *hic*
;)
except russia wasn't communist when he took over..

I Was absent for a while. I'm glad Vrylakas replied; and my message will be a kinda analysis of everything he said.

First of all, I think it's better to use nomenclatura instead of apparatchiki. those people were called 'apparatchiki' three decades ago, perhaps someone even wouldn't understand you if you said 'apparatchiki' instead of 'nomenclatura'. Well, it is not significant.

Stalin was not an ideologue; his sole concern was keeping Stalin in power and if communism or Russian nationalism would do that, well fine. But Khrushchov really believed all that Marxist-Leninist crap, which is a fatal flaw for a man to have in a fatal system.

Can you imagine that someone, who did not believe in that 'crap' (btw, I'm agaist using that 'marxism-leninism' - marxism and leninism are too different to be united. well, you are sure to know what I mean) became a general secretary of communist party? It is nonsense.... :confused: or perhaps Malenkov could transform himself into some kind of menshevik? Rather doubtful...

Khrushchov didn't understand how unravelling Stalin's web would destabilize the USSR.

Hmmmmmm..... As it always happens after reading such things, I've got my thoughts mixed up.
Can't say it is controversial, but there's something to discuss. To my mind, the Soviet system worked better while Khruschev was the general secretary. Nomenclatura wasn't as frightened as it was in 30-40s and early 50-s (the main weapon of Stalin was fear), but the structure was flexible - after working for a couple of years on a certain post each representative of communist nomenclatura was moved to another post, that often meant moving to another city or region - it wasn't surprising if someone moved to Vladivostok after five years of successful work in Moscow suddenly. And that system worked - there was no corruption; and what do we havein Brezhnev's times? - Every com.party member was a corruptioneer, because he worked for decades at some post and had dozens of 'comrades' that happened to ask him for some service from time to time. This is one of the main advantages I see in Chruschev's system - the lowest corruption rate plus relatively tolerant ideological policy.
I think it would be useful to 'classify' the types of nomenclatura USSR had. So, there were four kinds of nomenclatura in USSR :
1. No nomenclatura - Lenin.
2. Fixed posts, but low corruption because of terror policy - Stalin.
3. Positions flexibility cause low corruption (quite natural mechanism) - Khruschev.
4. Fixed positions cause high corruption (it's quite natural too) - from Brezhnev to Putin.
As you see, there were only two ways to cope with corruption - #2 and #3.
Back to the quote. It was inevitable to destroy Stalin's system. It wasn't possible to support that atmosphere of fear and suspicion any more. Perhaps, Khruschev didn't know what he was doing, but he had to, otherwise someone else instead would

Stalin understood a new class was forming in Soviet Russia and he used purges and favoritism to make sure this class served exclusively Stalin. After Stalin was gone, this class found a willing collaborator in Khrushchov who would let them guard their own interests - namely keeping the nice new life they had.
Nice life? Haven't you heard about so-called 'ravens' - the cars that could visit any 'favorite' to take him somewhere without any cause - just to be sure others are frightened enough? Even if someone loved and adored Stalin, even if someone would give his life for Stalin it didn't mean that 'someone' is protected. And the thing nomenclatura expected from Kruschev was NOT keeping, but beginning a new nice life, they wished some freedom, tolerance and peace. They got it. They wished more. They ruined USSR.