Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"William Taubman's monumental, long-awaited biography of Nikita Khrushchev is the most important book on Khrushchev to appear in English since the deposed Soviet leader's own memoirs in 1970. It is rich in analysis and factual detail, shedding new light both on Khrushchev's life and on the Soviet state."
- Robert Cottrell, New York Review of Books

A personal reflection: Khrushchev was the first politician whom I remember from childhood. Until the 1990s, Poland was in the Soviet sphere of influence so the Soviet party leaders were bigger than God for us, the Polish children. I remember one night in October 1964 when my mother woke me up saying "No more Khrushchev!" and it was like the end of the world. I remember exactly how the room looked from my bed when I heard the news.

This is the eleventh book on Russian and Soviet leaders that I am reviewing here on Goodreads. The full list is included below the rating. Also, it is the second biography of Nikita Khrushchev that I am reviewing, and a very different one from Medvedev's work. I completely agree with the sentiment expressed by the professional reviewer and quoted in the epigraph. Let me steal yet another blurb, this time from Simon Heffer in The Spectator:

"A monumental book....A masterpiece, magnificently researched and well written, bringing out the true dimensions of his subject"

Note the use of the word "monumental" by both reviewers. Yes, that's indeed the best adjective to describe of William Taubman's Khrushchev. The Man and His Era. (2003) Not only is the biography monumental - in size, scope, and depth of detail - but it also is "definitive," in the sense that it will be next to impossible to improve upon. When reading the bio one is overwhelmed by the breathtaking thoroughness and completeness - almost as if every month of Khrushchev's life and every aspect of his activities has been meticulously documented. Note the volume of the book: 651 pages, plus over 200 (!!!) pages of notes, bibliography, and index.

Not being a historian, political scientist, or a writer, I am not qualified to properly review a superb biography. I will just offer a few comments on some of the fragments of the bio that made the strongest impression on me.

Khrushchev (three years younger than my grandmother) spent his youth in rural Russia, in extremely primitive living conditions, which would be unimaginable for most modern people. Not only poverty - which is ubiquitous today even in the richest countries - but also famine and hunger-driven cannibalism. Add to this the extreme political persecution - extreme as in never-ending mass killings of so-called political enemies. If anything seems more shocking than eating other people to survive, it is having to sentence other people to death in order not be sentenced to death. The passages about Khrushchev, a young activist rising in the ranks of the Communist party, calling for executions of "enemies of the party and nation" during Stalin's purges are extremely hard to read.

Soon after the purges comes World War Two and the blood-curdling stupidity of Stalin, the "Greatest Genius of All Times and Nations," which cost millions of people their lives. When the mass-murdering tyrant finally dies in 1953, Khrushchev gradually grabs the power. The author's detailed explanations about why it was Khrushchev who won the succession power struggle are fascinating. In particular, I have been captivated by the detailed discussion of the so-called "anti-Beria plot," with its double twist.

Khrushchev's famous "Secret Speech" on February 25, 1956, when he began disclosing the unimaginably huge extent of Stalin's crimes against humanity and, in particular, against his nation, was the beginning of the great ideological thaw that stopped the avalanche of political killings and brutal persecution in Eastern Europe (naturally, the persecution remained unabated as it is one of the essences of human nature, but became less lethal).

In a particularly depressing fragment of the book the author writes about the people's of Soviet Georgia unyielding love for their Greatest Son, Stalin, who - despite that the Greatest Son spilled more Georgian blood than that of any other region - "carried flowers to the Stalin monument" during protests against Khrushchev's Secret Speech; twenty people died during protests against sullying Stalin's immortal name.

The Berlin Crisis of 1961: Thanks to reading Mr. Taubman's work I feel as if I finally understand the exact dynamics of the political events of that year, although I acutely remember the concern and nervousness of the Polish radio broadcasts 60 years ago. Almost immediately after this, the Cuban missiles crisis happens, when the world gets the closest to being destroyed in a global nuclear war. I have read about the crisis in several other books, yet Mr. Taubman offers new insights and details, especially on the bumbling execution of the Soviet plan to bring nuclear missiles to Cuba.

The Cuban crisis was one of the major factors in the unraveling of Khrushchev's political leadership. The author describes the events preceding and surrounding Khrushchev's ouster in October of 1964 with great clarity. Finally, in a harrowing passage, we read what the deposed Soviet leader regretted about his life:

"'Most of all the blood [...] My arms are up to the elbows in blood. That is the most terrible thing that lies in my soul.'"

It is a strong indictment of the failure of human race that Mr. Khrushchev, despite being instrumental in his youth in executing hundreds of people for fictitious political crimes in order to save his own life, undoubtedly deserves credit and praise for greatly contributing to ending Stalin's brutal reign. Mr. Khrushchev had laid the foundations for future reforms by Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

Reading about humanity's lukewarm response toward Stalin's crimes makes one notice how constant the human nature is. Millions of people in ex-Soviet Union still cherish Stalin's memory. I know of another country where tens and tens of millions of people have voted for an utterly incompetent, corrupt, and failed politician.

Four-and-a-half stars.

My previous reviews of books on Soviet leaders:

Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumphs and His Failure - by Robert G. Kaiser

The Struggle for Russia - by Boris Yeltsin

Gorbachev: Heretic in the Kremlin - by Dusko Doder and Louise Branson

The Andropov File - by Martin Ebon

Against the Grain - An Autobiography - by Boris Yeltsin

Lenin to Gorbachev: Three generations of Soviet Communists

Brezhnev, Soviet Politician - by Murphy

Khrushchev - by Roy Medvedev

Gorbachev and His Revolution - by Mark Galeotti

Andropov - by Zhores Medvedev

View all my reviews