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"Khrushchev emerges from thisvolume— as he did
during his years on center stage—as one of the most
complex and contradictory major figures of the mld-
twentleth century. On the one hand he is the devout
believer In communist ideology and the simple-minded
advocate of Soviet and communist imperialism. But if

those were his only traits, he would not have been the
great reforming influence that he was in the Soviet
Union, the man who made the historic break with Stalin-
ism that his successors have partially reversed. Some
of this other side of Khrushchev shows up vividly

here."
—Harry Schwartz, Saturday Review

"The man who speaks in these pages Is as slippery as

Proteus, switching from vulgar bully to humble student
to visionary statesman to gangster to sentimentally
fond admirer of Queen Elizabeth II. We are well reward-
ed by crucial revelations about Soviet attitudes toward
the West and about the sources, both personal and his-
torical, of those attitudes. KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
also supplements its author's 1956 denunciation of

Stalin— and thereby provides a devastating portrait of

a terrifying, mad autocrat"
—Geoffrey Wolff, Newsweek
 "

"KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS reads like a Russian-style

who-done-it. It is fast-paced, engrossing, Intriguing and
simply written. This volume, so delightfully free of the
stuffiness and pseudo-scholarship that often mark the
memoirs of world leaders, gives a stark and enlighten-
ing picture of the Soviet Union. It is not a pretty pic-
ture. As one analyst said, This is a major scandal for
the Soviet Union.'
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Extraordinary revelations and admissions,- an extraordi-

nary historical document; and an extraordinary portrait
of a man who grew and grew, and, as this book reveals,
is still growing. But what makes KHRUSHCHEV REMEM-
BERS irresistible to read Is the pungency and Imme-
diacy of Khrushchev's personality. It draws us wherever
it wishes to . . . and we go willingly."
— Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

"Khrushchev has written a chilling study of political

power unrestrained by law, and the human frailty of
men who possess great power. Khrushchev, who during
the Cuban missile crisis could have sealed the fate of
mankind with a single decision, reveals himself not as
a titan, but as all too human, capable of prejudices, un-
reasonable passions. Ignorance, misunderstanding and
Illogical suspicions."
—Wall Street Journal
"It needs to be said first about Nikita Khrushchev's
marvelously juicy and revealing story that it is in fact

his story. More importantly, the reader is not nagged

by a suspicion that this Is a heavily censored book. It

tells enough, and the Idiom is fresh enough, to stand

on its own. Khrushchev's stories about life in Stalin's

court are fabulous. The courtiers, himself included,

were 'temporary people'—perfect phrase. It is stunning

to read what importance Khrushchev read Into such a
zippy but trivial event as President Truman's rebuke to
Washington Post music critic Paul Hume, who had criti-

cized Margaret Truman's singing. He records his sur-

prise to find Nelson Rockefeller dressed 'fairly demo-
cratically.' Khrushchev's book ends with a piea for open
borders and criticism of the 'new trend of military
overspending.' It is fascinating to speculate how things
would be today if he had not been ousted in 1964. Per-
sonally, I am full of regret that he was bounced. 'No-

body's perfect,' he says in his book, 'I'm no saint my-

self.' But he was, in his way, a great man."
—Stephen S. Rosenfeid, Chicago Sun-Times
Bemembers
With an Introduction, Commentary and Notes
•< By >•

Edward Crantahaw
Translated and Edited by Strobe Talbott

6 -mm §

\ ^ 2

A NATIONAL GENERAL CONCPANY

 This low-priced Bantam Book
has been completely reset in a type face
designed for easy reading, and was printed
from new plates. It contains the complete
text of the original hard-cover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with
Little, Brown and Company

PRINTING HISTORY
Little, Brownedition published November 1970
2nd printing January 1971 4th printing January 1971
3rd printing January 1971 5th printing .February 1971
. .

Serialized in life magazine in four parts November-December 1970

History Book Club main selection January 1971
Book-of-the-Month Club special mid-winter selection 1971
Bantam edition published October 1971

Front cover photo by Dalma, Fix, Inc.

Back cover photo by Karsh, Rapho Guillumette Pictures

All rights reserved.

Copyright ©
1970 by Little, Brown and Company (Inc.)
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by
mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: Little, JBrown and Company,
34 Beacon Street, Boston Massachusetts 02106.

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc., a National

General company. Its trade-mark, consisting of the words "Bantam
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Bantam Books, Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10019.

PRINTED IN the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 Publisher's Note

This book is made up of material emanating from vari-

ous sources at various times and in various circum-
stances. The publisher is convinced beyond any doubt,
and has taken pains to confirm, that this is an authentic
record of Nikita Khrushchev's words. Whether the
author intended or expected his words ever to find
their way into print, either in his own country or in
the West, is a matter of speculation. The publisher takes
full responsibility for the manner in which Nikita
Khrushchev isrepresented here. Moreover, he does so
with confidence that the genuineness as well as the
significance of these reminiscences speak for them-
selves.
\
 Introduction

by EDWARD CRANKSHAW

When I was told of the existence of Nikita Khru-

shchev's reminiscences, my first thought was that they
would prove to be a forgery. There have been a number
of such documents which were in fact manufactured in
the West for poUtical or conmaercial reasons.
I did not have to read very far, however, to feel
pretty well sure that these were the real thing; and by
the time I had finished I was convinced. Here was
Klhrushchev himself, quite unmistakably speaking, a
voice from limbo, and a very hvely voice at that. To
anyone who had hstehed to him in the days of his
prime, or read his speeches in Russian, there was no
mistaking the authentic tone. I have read almost every
word of Khrushchev's that has been published since the
late 1920 's. On a number of occasions I have met him
face to face, and I have listened to him speaking
pubHcly and privately inside and outside the Soviet
Union. For just on fifteen years, from his recall by
Stalin from Kiev to Moscow in the winter of 1949 to
his ecHpse in October, 1964, it was my constant task
to study him and try to penetrate his character and
motives. And I am as sure as it is possible to be sure of
anything that cannot be scientifically proved that the
man who speaks in these pages is the man I came to
know in all his pubHc aspects and in the largely hidden
processes (still hidden, alas, as far as these reminis-
cences are concerned) of his struggle to seize power
and retain it. He is older now, tired, diminished by
—
sickness, his vitahty no longer what it was ^but in
some ways all the more self-reveahng because of that.
ix
 X KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
So what we have is an extraordinary, a unique per-
sonal history. With sM its limitations, its evasions,
concealments, deceptions, omissions (some dehberate,
some due clearly to the forgetfulness of the old) it is
,

the first thing of its kind to come from any Soviet

political leader of the Stalin and post-Stalin eras. It
takes us straight into what has been hitherto a for-
bidden land of the mind. And for me the supreme in-
terest and value of this narrative lies in the unconscious
revelation of the underlying attitude: the assumptions,
the ignorances, the distorted views, which must be
shared to a greater or lesser degree by all those Soviet
leaders who came to maturity under Stalin and were
favored by him for their macabre combination of
perfect ruthlessness zmd almost perfect obedience.
How was this remaurkable document 2issembled, and
why? Here I have to say at once that I do not know.
My own personal decision as to its authenticity had to
be based on the evidence of a Russian typescript and
nothing else at all. This, on the face of it, extremely
unsatisfactory situation is not so strange to me (though
sufficiently bizarre) as it would be to those who work
in and with open societies and have no experience of
the inhibitions, the conspiratorizJ procedures, which
surround all but the most elementary human activities
in the Soviet Union. Often enough in the past I have
had to rely on nothing but my own judgment and
experience in determining the truth or fadsity of this
or that Russian-language document. Conversely, there
have been occasions when I have handled and pub-
lished such documents knowing where they caune
from but pledged not to divulge their provenance to
any other person. So I was not surprised or shocked
to discover that there would be no answer to any of
my questions.
There was still one question, nevertheless, which
I had to ask myself. Were those responsible for con-
veying this material to the West exploiting it as a
weapon in political warfare? Particularly, were they
working for the final ruin of its author? The first
thought, again, was that some faction in or around
the Kremlin, might be interested in compromising
 INTRODUCTION XI

Khrushchev himself, or alternatively, in undermining

individuals or a group in the present Soviet leadership.
Careful reading of the whole scotched any such idea.
Khrushchev does not emerge very well from these
pages, but by Soviet governmental standards he does
not emerge all that badly either: there is much self-
justification, and the really damaging admissions are
—
the unconscious ones and the omissions and evasions.
More importantly, nobody now active and in office is
attacked directly. The main target of criticism is Stalin
himself, and after him, Beria; a long way after Beria,
Kaganovich and Malenkov. All are either dead or re-
tired. I think it may be assumed that the chief concern
of the person, or persons, responsible for releasing
—
these reminiscences to the West it certainly appears
to be one of Khrushchev's chief concerns was to—
counter the current attempts to rehabilitate Stalin.
As for the book itself, what we have are the
thoughts and memories, highly selective, of an old man
trying to justify himself. The material adds up to
a rambhng, repetitive, sometimes self-contradictory,
sometimes inaccurate, usually tendentious narrative in
no sort of order and full of gaps. Mr. Talbott has taken
this fragmentary record and put it into a coherent nar-
rative in more or less chronological order.

Now a word about the groundthat is covered in this

—
book and the ground that is not covered. There will
be two main categories of readers: the general reader
who has heard a good deal and read a little about
Russia under Stalin and Khrushchev but has not had
occasion to penetrate deeply; and the specialist reader
who is familiar with the whole story and will be look-
ing for confirmation, correction, and above all, ampli-
fication ofwhat he already knows.
For the general reader, many episodes in this narra-
tive, indeed perhaps the whole tone of it, will come, I
believe, as a revelation. And it is for him that I have
written the short introduction to each chapter and
section, and added the notes, putting the various parts
into the larger context, pointing to omissions and
Xii KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

suppressions, correcting demonstrable misstatements,

false implications,and so on, indicating who was who,
and generally trying to put the record straight.
For the specialist reader on the other hand, there
are no major surprises. He knows the whole story and
he does not need me, or anybody else, to signpost the
narrative and comment on it point by point. But he v^ll
find valuable confirmation of many facts already sus-
pected or established by deduction, innumerable new
details and vivid pictures from the life which will fill
out and illuminate his existing picture, and above all,
the re-creation of the mood and atmosphere of Stalin's
court. The picture of Stalin himself confirms and ampli-
fies the picture given us first by Milovan Djilas in his
superb Conversations with Stalin, then by Svetlana
Alliluyeva in Twenty Letters to a Friend. It is a pic-
ture so different from the conventional image which
held the stage for some thirty years, from Stalin's
seizure of power untH some years after his death, that
we cannot have too much of it.
Khrushchev also illuminates himself. From his early
days to the death of Stalin he enables us to trace his
development as a human being and a Party boss. From
1955, when he began to assume supreme power, until
1964 when he he gives us a great deal of insight
fell,
into his thinking and activity as a world statesman.
What is missing is any sort of account of the power
struggle inside the Kremlin which ended in his victory
and subsequent defeat. There is a hair-raising account
of the arrest of Beria, three months after Stalin's
death. But after that, apart from a very personal
version if the Twentieth Party Congress and the gene-
sis of the Secret Speech denouncing Stalin, early in
1956, we are told next to nothing directly about the
—
domestic scene during the Khrushchev era neither
the large policy conflicts affecting industry, agricul-
ture, and the government structure, nor the power
game in which Khrushchev was so deeply involved and
which he played so skillfully. It is necessary to make
this clear from the start. The general reader with no
particular interest in the detailed maneuvers in the
higher echelons of the Soviet Communist Party will
 INTRODUCTION XUl

scarcely be affected by this blank. The specialist can

only hope, as I do, that it wiU be at least partly filled
one day.
Meanwhile we must make do with what we have,
which is a great deal. The narrative has two major
themes: the self -presentation of a very remarkable
man who rose from the humblest peasant background
to be master of one of the two greatest powers in the
world, and an exposure of Stalin designed to reinforce
and elaborate the revelations of the famous Secret
Speech (the text of which is given in Appendix 4).
Khrushchev is deeply concerned at the attempts of the
past few years to rehabilitate Stalin and is doing his
best to make this as hard as possible.
As far as Stalin's actual crimes are concerned, Khru-
shchev has little to add to the revelations of the Secret
Speech, and indeed, in some particulars that speech
went into fuller detail. It has to be remembered, how-
ever, that the Secret Speech has never been published
inside the Soviet Union: copies of it were circulated
to Party secretaries all over the country and read
aloud, in whole or in part, to assemblies of the Party
rank and file. These could carry away as much as they
could remember. But the Soviet people at large have
never been able to read it for themselves, and Khru-
shchev's account of how he came to make it, though
questionable, embodies in fact the first public admission
on his part that such a speech was ever made. Given
all this, it is natural enough that these recollections
should offer, as though for the first time, facts long
familiar to the outside world. As in so many matters,
the West is still, as it has been for many years, better
informed about the details of Stalin's crimes than the
Russians themselves.
But the emphasis here is less on Stalin's crimes,
though there is a good deal about some of these, than
on his general attitude and behavior in his private
—
circle his way of doing business; and on his relations
—
with his immediate subordinates and their relations
with him.
It is here that Khrushchev finds himself in difficul-
ties. Because in condemning Stalin he is condemning
XIV KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

himself. In the Secret Speech he was able to skate

around this problem with more or less success because
he was concerned not with presenting his own life
story but rather with a highly selective exposure of
Stalin's own excesses. In this i>ersonal narrative, how-
ever, he is compelled to tread quite large expanses of
very thin ice indeed. And although he manages to
conceal or blur his own contribution to the horror of
—
those days' activities for example, his ardent and
vociferous support of Stalin at the height of the purges
and the treason trials in 1936-37 and his personal
—
purge of the Ukraine in 1938 ^what he does say is
quite enough to constitute the most damaging direct
admission of complicity, over a long period, with Stalin
at his worst. He is plainly aware of this, though even
now, recollecting in troubled tranquillity the savagery
and viciousness of the past, he seems to be very large-
ly unconscious of the depth of corruption into which
he and all his colleagues plunged themselves by the
very act of surviving in positions of authority under
Stalin.
In condemning Stalin in the Secret Speech, and
by implication, himself, IChrushchev was also
therefore,
condemning the whole system of government that had
made Stalin possible. In the Secret Speech, of course,
there was not the faintest suggestion of this: it was
Stalin who, from the middle 1930's, had perverted the
system. And any foreign Communist, most notably the
Italian Party Secretary Togliatti, who suggested that
any system which had permitted Stalin to behave as
he did must be in need of radical overhaul, was
brushed aside. This was understandable. Khrushchev
had inherited the system from Stalin and made it his
own. He could conceive of no other. But now, in his
old age, there are flashes here and there which suggest
that he has had second thoughts about a number of
things. In this connection perhaps the most interesting
feature is the short section on the collectivization of
agriculture in which he states astonishingly but with
perfect accuracy that "the Stalin brand of collectiviza-
tion brought us nothing but misery." He is speaking
of that fearful, man-made catastrophe which caused the
 INTRODUCTION XV
deaths of millions, virtually halved the agricultural
production of the Soviet Union, and contributed more
than any other single factor to the reduction of the
Soviet people to thralldom and to the economic imbal-
ance which threatens the leadership to this day. If
Khrushchev had been able to bring himself to this
admission when he still held power, heaven knows
what might not have happened. Scattered about the
narrative there are other observations with implica-
tions scarcely less explosive.
I should like to say here that I have not seen it
desirable to challenge and counter all the assumptions,
statements, arguments from which I dissent. My own
views on Khrushchev, his failures and achievements,
are copiously on record. Here he is speaking for him-
self. And I have done no more in my own commentary
than indicate omissions in his narrative and point out
important discrepancies between the facts as presented
't by him and as generally accepted in the West.
^ Nor is this the place to recapitulate Khrushchev's
'
career in outline.A detailed record of the main events,
many of which he does not touch upon at all, may be
found in Appendix 1. Each separate section is prefaced
by a short explanation, or clarification, of what fol-
—
lows and an indication of what has been passed over
in silence. This process of clarification is continued in
greater detail in the footnotes, which also identify the
chief characters referred to, except for a few inter-
nationally famous names. Mr. Talbott has provided
fuller biographies of Khrushchev's most prominent or
enduring colleagues in Appendix 3.
But with all that the fact remains that Khrushchev
does not do himself justice in this narrative. In one
sense, of course, in the sense that he suppresses a great
deal of his own past and presents his own swift rise
under Stalin in an altogether too rosy light, he does
himself much more than justice. But what he does not
do, perhaps cannot do, is provide the clue to his own
astonishing transformation from one of Stalin's most
reliable henchmen into the international figure who,
toward the end of his career, was showing, his tem-
 XVI KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
perament and prejudices notwithstanding, signs of wis-
dom of a really superior kind.
Of course, he remained a prisoner of his past until
the end. In some ways he transcended the system
which made him and which he helped to make. But he
could never escape it entirely, and in the end it de-
stroyed him. His achievement was extraordinary all
the same. And the qualities which he began to exhibit
toward the end of his career were not suddenly added
to him: they must have been latent all the time, when,
to aU appearance, as a determinedly ambitious Party
professional, sycophantic toward his master, bullying
toward his subordinates, maneuvering around his rivals
with deep peasant cunning, he was simply a thug
among other thugs,visibly distinguished from the
others only by a certain liveliness of imagination, a
warmth of feeling, a sturdy self-reUance, and at times
the recklessness of a bomgambler. Paradoxically, in
one so committed to the Stalinist bandwagon, he had
about him, I should think from the earUest days, a
certain quality of apartness. He mixed with others of
all kinds far more than any Soviet leader before or
since. Unlike any other Party official known to me
(or any Soviet factory or collective farm manager, if
it comes to that) he was not afraid to get mud on his

boots. He was always happiest from his earliest days

laying down the law and telling people what to do and
how to do it and where they were wrong. Even at the
simimit of his glory he would stand in the middle of a
muddy field expounding to an audience of deeply
skeptical peasants the proper way to plant potatoes.
But he was also a great listener, and he was a very
quick learner to the end of his career. I have seen him
listening to a group of factory managers when his
silence and stillness was so absolute that it seemed to
be drawing the virtue out of them and into himself,
to be stored up and transformed into his own energy.
I have seen him, particularly on his early excursions
outside the Soviet Union, making mistake after mistake
—
in rapid succession ^but never the same mistake twice.
And all the time when he was not himself holding
forth, sometimes roughly, sometimes with avuncular
 INTRODUCTION XVU
benevolence, punctuating his talk with Biblical phrases
and allusions which must have burned very deep into
him in childhood, those small angry eyes were fixed
in the faraway look of a man seeing visions. He did,
indeed, see visions.
One of the most disconcerting aspects of this narra-
tive, the narrative of a man who went after power
because it was irresistible but who also dreamed of a
better world for the Soviet people, was his apparently
unquestioning acceptance of some of the vilest of the
vile. Their names keep turning up in these pages. He
seems to have liked the poHce chief Yagoda and the
still more loathsome Yezhov: they were "honest fel-
lows" before they went wrong. So, in his eyes, was his
own chief policeman, Ivan Serov, who was nice to
children and could be charming to his friends when he
wasn't rounding up whole nations to be sent to Siberia
or put to death. The answer is, I suppose, that IChru-
shchev himself was a naturally violent man (his vio-
lence would still break out even when he had become
an international statesman) and violence was the mood
,

of the times. He and his colleagues were engaged in

the desperate labor of coercing the Soviet people into
building a new Russia, and this could not be done
—
without tears. Anyone the great mass of the people
—
in effect who resisted this transformation had to be
compelled, and the means of compulsion were brutal
and summary. But what he came to object to was
arresting people without what appeared to him good
reason. Above all, he objected to Stalin's destruction
of "honest -Communists." The stress he lays here, as in
the Secret Speech of 1956, on Stalin's crimes against
the Party and his silence about his crimes against the
ordinary people is thus quite logical. He really be-
lieved that the Party represented a higher form of life.
There is another consideration. Khrushchev was
evidently so full of the sense of his own abiHties that
other people did not count: at best, they were useful
colleagues and subordinates engaged with him in the
great task. The others were children to be bullied,
coaxed, flattered, smiled on, punished. This is not to
suggest that Khrushchev in his early career had his
Xviii KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

eye on the highest peaks. He was obviously ambitiousu

But he had a sharp sense of his own limitations (hel
was, for example, very conscious indeed of his lack oi
formal education) It is probable that even in the earlj
.

1930's, when he found himself touching the peripherjii

of Stalin's circle, it did not cross his mind that he!
might soon be within that circle. He was the sort oi;
man who begins to rise in a large organization, and
continues rising, because he is driven to dominate all
—
those who happen to be around him ^then to look up-
ward. And at each stage in the upward journey he!
finds, perhaps rather to his surprise, that he can dc
much better than the men who were lately set above
him. It was in this way that Khrushchev progressed
from his first post as a very minor provincial Party
functionary in Yuzovka in 1926 to become the Party
chieftain of all Moscow precisely ten years later. By
then, of course, the feeling that he could do any job
better than anyone he knew, and could outmaneuver
his rivals into the bargain, must have become a cer-
tainty. It was a certainty he would have been at pains
to conceal.
Even so, the way to further promotion was effective-
ly barred by a host of senior figures. These were not
the old oppositionists, who for all practical purposes
were already finished though not yet shot, but Stalin's
own men, who had supported him against Trotsky,
against Zinoviev and Kamenev, against Rykov and
Bukharin. These now filled the highest Party appoint-
ments in Moscow and all over the Soviet Union, and
Stalin, who owed so much to them, had for some time,
been regarding most of them with a jealous eye. In
1935 it must have seemed to Khrushchev that his rapid
upward progress would be checked more or less in-
definitely by a massive promotion block. But quite
suddenly, in the next three years, the way was cleared
by the mass destruction of the very men (among at
least seven millon others) who stood between him and
the inner circle of power. In 1938 he found himself a
candidate member of the Politbureau, a year later a
fullmember.
The Politbureau (renamed the Party Presidium in
 INTRODUCTION XIX

1952) presented itself to the outer world as an all-

powerful committee of hard-faced men who had done
well out of the purges and who arrived at poHcy deci-
sions of great moment after prolonged deliberation.
—
But for some time it had been clear above all, through
the memories of Milovan Djilas and Svetlana Allilu-
—
yeva ^that it was nothing of the kind. Stalin and
Stalin alone made the decisions and told his henchmen
to get on with the job. Although Khrushchev's picture
of Stalin would have been better for more insight into
the qualities of mind and nerve which enabled this
sinister man first to maneuver himself into a position
where his word was law, then to hold his own with a
Churchill, bamboozle a Roosevelt, and play them off
against each other (neither of them, after all, was
afraid of being clapped into jail and shot), the hair-
raising picture of hisway of doing business in his later
—
years is evidently true as far as it goes which is quite
a long way. There were no formal meetings. Stalin
could stiQ show devastating qualities of insight and
—
coolness as in his characteristic decision to keep
—
Russia out of North Korea ^but for the most part he
ran his vast realm, as it were, off the cuff: sitting up
half the night watching some idiotic film, carousing,
terrified of being alone yet making life intolerable for
the men he had in to keep him company, throwing out
in his thick Georgian tones casual instructions and
threats (but all his instructions were threats) to a
sycophantic group the worse for drink and lack of
sleep. At a word from him they would go off and set in
—
motion the requisite machinery for the arrest of an
individual none of them had ever heard of, for the
rounding up and forcible deportation of a whole peo-
ple (the Chechens of the Caucasus, the Tartars of the
Crimea), for the shooting of one of their own closest
colleagues, for the complete rewriting of the history of
the Soviet Communist Party, for the introduction of a
Dew style of agriculture guaranteed to produce a
ruined harvest over an area the size of Western
Europe.
The salvation of Khrushchev was his promotion to
be Stalin's viceroy over the Ukraine in 1938. For
 :

XX KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

twelve years he was away from Moscow, from the

daily maneuvering for position, from the intrigue, the
flattery, and the backbiting that went on in Stalin's
shadow, enervating even able men like Malenkov. For
three years before the war, and for five years after
—
1944, he was master of forty million souls Little Rus-
sians, dourer, more practical, harder-working than the
—
dominant Great Russians of Muscovy who inhabited
the borderland which was then the granary of the
Soviet Union and its main industrial base. Here, as far
as it was possible to be under Stalin, KJirushchev was
his own man, able to develop his gifts and also his
character, which otherwise must have been corrupted
beyond redemption. At first he ruled vvdth all the
blinkered arrogance of the worst kind of colonial
governor. Then came the war. In uniform now as po-
litical advisor to some of the most able generals, he
had his first induction into a world far removed from
the enclosed circle of the Kremlin. He found himself
siding with the soldiers against his fellow Party thugs.
He also experienced at first hand the bitter hatred of
the regime, the regime to which he belonged, exhibited
by the common people of the Ukraine in the early days
of the war. Finally he saw, also at first hand, the fear-
ful suffering they were called upon to endure and the
way in which, despite that suffering, they turned
against the Germans, seen at first as liberators, and.
—
fought them to the death making a demigod out of.
Stalin, who was unworthy of their trust. There was no
other Party chieftain, with the exception of A. A.-\
Kuznetzov who went through the siege of Leningrad;:
and was quite soon afterward shot by Stalin, who':
experienced for so long and so vividly the realities of
life in Soviet Russia under Stalin. I think it changed
him. And I think the self-reliance he developed as
master of the Ukraine and the patient cunning he de-
veloped in keeping Stalin at arm's length, served him |^
well when he was recalled to Moscow at the end of
1949 and when, with Stalin's death in 1953, he saw his
chance of getting to the top.
He went very carefully at first. For a time, after he
had combined with his colleagues to kill Beria (his
 INTRODUCTION XXI

account of Beria's arrest, though not of the process

which led up to it, is likely to remain the definitive
one) he entered into the farce of collective govern-
ment. But all the time he was working to undermine
Malenkov, his most powerful and able rival, who was
trying to base his power not on the reactionary Party
apparatus but on the new generation of managerial
technocrats. Khrushchev first watched in silence as
Malenkov put forward all sorts of schemes for domestic
reform and international cooperation. Then he struck,
invoking the forces of reaction in the name of Lenin,
to bring his rival down. Then, without turning a hair,
he proceeded to adopt the ideas of reform and coexis-
tence as his own. Thus, even in the struggle to seize
the power, which would enable him to break with
Stalinism, he employed the techniques he had learned
from Stalin.
It was a brilliant performance, culminating in the
Twentieth Party Congress and the de-Stalinization in
1956. And although it was touch and go for Khru-
shchev when the de-Stalinization led directly to the
—
revolts in Poland and Hungary and to the demoraliza-
tion of the Soviet people, from which they have not
—
yet recovered ^he managed to survive, refused to sub-
mit to a majority vote of the Party Presidium calling
for his resignation, demanded to be heard by the full
Central Committee in accordance with the Party Stat-
utes to which nobody had paid any attention for many
years past, had his supporters on the Central Conrnut-
tee flown into Moscow from all over the Soviet Union
in a spectacular airlift laid on by Marshal Zhukov,
stated his case, took the vote, and won. Malenkov, Mo-
lotov, Kaganovich, and others were stripped of their
offices and sent off to eat humble pie in the remote
provinces. But they were not imprisoned and they were
not shot.
KJirushchev was now, in 1957 at the age of sixty-
three, on the way to becoming a statesman. But he
was stni very much a spHt personality. He could dream
great dreams, he could genuinely seek for universal
peace and the prosperity of the Soviet Union as part of
a peaceful world; but equally, when crossed, he could
Xxii KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

revert disconcertingly to violence and chicanery. He

saw the necessity for a lasting detente between the
Soviet Union and the U.S.A. if only to avoid an atomic
holocaust; but he still believed that it was a reasonable
thing to work for the collapse of the capitalist world
while expecting that world to behave in a neutral
manner toward the Soviet empire. Just as he could
never escape from his Stalinist past, so he could never
transcend the suffocating half-truths of his kinder-
garten Marxism. And his increasing power and experi-
ence of the world gave scope not only to his genuinely
questing mind, to his deep but intermittent and un-
regulated insights into reality, but also, alas, to his
impatience with restraint and his megalomaniacal
predilection for wholesale and ill-prepared schemes
for the reform of this or that symptomatic manifesta-
tion of a diseased regime. In all this, perhaps, Khru-
shchev was not so very different from many Western
—
politicians operating on our side of the hill except
for the violence and lawlessness which was his natural
air. It is a large exception, of course. What was sadden-
ing was that he had in his make-up so many of the
attributes of a great statesman. On the other hand,
what was astonishing was that in the context of post-
Stalin Russia these attributes could make themselves
felt at all.
Although he has little to say about his domestic
policies, his struggle for supremacy, his fall, the last
section of the book, which deals, sometimes in a per-
functory manner, sometimes in enthralling detail, with
his contacts with the world outside the Soviet Union,
tells us a great deal about his mature outlook and his
general state of mind. We see the incessant and unre-
solved conflict between the habits of thought and
action of more than forty years and the lessons derived
from a newly perceived reality. Indeed, the contradic-
tions are such that it is insufficient to call him a split
personality: his personahty was fragmented. Nowhere,
it seems to me, are the contradictions more clearly

exposed than in the chapter on the quarrel with China,

with its lapse into strident chauvinism, and the chapter
on Nasser and Egypt, in which all the warmth of his
 INTRODUCTION XXIU

sjTmpathy comes to tiie surface and yet still finds itself

at odds with his calculating eye for personal and na-
tional advantage.
Taking the narrative as a whole, every reader must
determine for himself the balance between self-decep-
tion and deliberate falsification. There is a good deal
of both. The problem is at its most acute in those
chapters which deal with the Soviet seizure of eastern
Poland and the Baltic States. How much did Khru-
shchev realize what he was doing when he presided
over the arrest, imprisonment, or deportation to Siberia
of practically the whole of the middle and lower-middle
classes of what is now called the Western Ukraine? To
what extend did he really believe, in his ignorance of
life outside the Soviet Union, that he was conferring
immeasurable privilege and benefit on the toiling
masses of an alien society? Judgment is not made
easier by the fact that in one breath he speaks of this
crime as an act of liberation, ui the next as an annexa-
tion. Again, in his early days he quite evidently be-
lieved, with millions of others, that in rallying around
Stalin he was assisting in the glorious, if harsh and
painful, transformation of the old Russia into a society
more just and equitable than any seen on earth. Soon,
of course, he became interested in achieving power for
its own sake, then in hanging onto it. But how much
of the old dream remained, and how deeply did it
color his views on the Soviet mission, first in Eastern
Europe, then farther afield? There can, of course, be
no firm answers to these questions. But they are im-
portant ones. And in considering them, it is as well to
remember how indelibly our own views may be colored
by self-deception, prejudice, and ignorance. It was one
of Khrushchev's greatest achievements that with aU
his intermittent saber-rattling, his threats, his decep-
tions, his displays of violence, he nevertheless broke
out of the Stalinist mold and made it possible for the
Western world to hope that a measure of coexistence
more complete than he himself was yet ready to con-
ceive might one day be realized.
 Translator-Editor's Note

I HAVE attempted here to render Nikita Khrushchev's

reminiscences into a coherent, if informal, narrative.
The original material, when it came into my hands, was
quite disorganized. In trying to turn it into a readable
Enghsh book, I have had to take certain Hberties with
the structure. However, I have also taken pains not to
misrepresent Khrushchev, even when drawing together
diverse fragments into what are here presented as
chapters. Except for an occasional paraphrase or im-
provised transitional sentence, Khrushchev has said
everything attributed to him in this book. I have
endeavored to preserve the letter and spirit of what
he says as well as a suggestion, across the language
barrier, of how he says it.
Khrushchev's discourse is characterized by a curious
and often intentional alternation between cautious
insinuation and bold revelation, apparent indiscretion
and deft evasion, earthy vulgarism and stilted euphe-
mism. One moment he sounds like the stereotype of
the retired poHtician, boring anyone who will Usten
with tales of his greatest moments; the next, he sounds
like a crusty propagandist reeling off the Party Line;
then like a blusterous bumpkin describing with great
relish and embellishment a barroom brawl. And often
he sounds like one of modem history's most perceptive
insiders. The language of the material on which this
book is based abounds with the playful colloquialisms,
pet phrases, Marxian rhetorical flourishes, histrionic
outbursts, and the odd BibUcal archaism that were
trademarks of Khrushchev's distinctive oratorical style
during his years on the Party podium.
These are the recollections of an old man with much
XXV
 ;,
;

XXVl KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

to remember, and seemingly inexhaiistible resources
of bombast and intelligence, thuggish toughness and:
instinctive humanity. They comprise an important his-
torical document, particularly for the depositions Khru-
shchev makes to history's prosecution of Stalin. Khru-
shchev's reminiscences add up to the most devastating
and authoritative case for de-Stalinization ever made,
and it is all the more convincing coming from a loyal
Soviet citizen and devout Marxist-Lemnist. But the
book is also an important personal document, a vivid
self-portrait by the man who emerged from Stalin's
shadow to chsilenge Stalin's ghost. It can, I think, be ,

taken as a deliberate and revealing exercise in self-

rehabilitation, the final testament of a clever peasant-
tumed-apparatc^ifc who rose from the coal mines of
the Donets Basin to be one of the most powerful men
in the world.
—Strobe Talbott
 Contents

Publisher's Note vii

Introduction by Edward Crankshaw ix

Translator-Editor's Note xxv

Prologue

PART one: from the coal mines to the KREMLIN

1 Early Career 11
Years of Hardship 11
First Rungs on the Party Ladder 18

2 Party Work in Moscow 35

From, Industrial Academy to Politbureau 35
City Father 53

3 The Terror 67
Collectivization 67
The Purge Years 72
Beria's Rise to Power 90

4 Return Ukraine
to the 105
Putting the Party Together Again 105
Academician Paton 118
Troubleshooting in the Tire Industry 122

5 Prelude to the War 129

Soviet-German Relations 129
The Advance into Poland 140
Sovietizing the Western Ukraine 150
The Winter War with Finland 158
The Red Army on the Eve of Barbarossa 166
 6 The Great Patriotic War 175
The Darkest Hours I75
The Kharkov Disaster 191
Stalingrad 200
General Malinovsky 212
A Visit from Comrade Ulbricht 217
Kursk 220
Victory 224
Stalin and the Allies 231
7 Famine in the Ukraine 241
8 Stalin's LastYears 261
The Leningrad Affair 261
Stalin's Anti-Semitism 273
Stalin's Theoretical Writings 286
The Nineteenth Party Congress 293
The Doctors' Plot 301
Svetlanka 307
Feasts and Holidays with Stalin 316
Fear and Intrigue in the Inner Circle 329
Stalin's Death 339
9 Succession 346
Plotting Beria's Downfall 346
The Twentieth Party Congress 370

PART two: the world outside

10 The Fraternal Countries 389

11 The Korean War 400
12 Burying the Hatchet with Tito 408
13 The Geneva Summit 429
14 Visit to London 439
15 Restoring Order in Hungary 456
16 Nasser, Suez, and the Aswan Dam 474
17 The Berlin Crises 500
18 Mao Tse-tung and the Schism 511
19 Ho Chi Minh and the War in Vietnam 531
20 Fidel Castro and the Caribbean Crisis 540

21 Defending the Socialist Paradise 559

Appendixes
1 Chronology of Khrushchev's Career 581

2 Soviet Institutions and Terminology 591

3 Khrushchev's Kremlin Colleagues 595

4 Khrushchev's Secret Speech 608

Index 679
Khrushchev
Remembers
Since Khrushchev's narrative abounds
with official'
titlesand references to government and Party admin-'
istrative units, the reader is urged
at the outset to
consult Appendix 2 (page 591) for a
capsule explana-
tion of the structure and terminology
of the Soviet i

Government and the Communist Party.

 Prologue

I NOW live like a hermit on the outskirts of Moscow. I

have practically no communication with other people.
I communicate only with those who guard me from
—
others and who guard others from me. I suppose the
people around me spend most of their time guarding
others from me.^
In looking back over the years I emphasize the most
striking events of Stalin's rule which damaged the
fabric of our Soviet society. There's no point in dwell-
ing on the positive side of Stalin's leadership because
that side has already been amply treated at govern-
ment meetings, in the press, and in our literature. You
might even say Stalin's image has been polished and
embeUished. In fact, if everything positive that has
ever been said about Stalin were diminished by eighty
percent, enough would remain to praise a thousand
great men. Besides, the very history of our Soviet
State and the victory of our Communist Party are
sufficient testimony to our virtues and our achieve-
ments. If we look down the road of the past fifty years,
we can see where we started and how far we have
come. We have astonished even our enemies.
Even today you can find people who think that we
have Stalin to thank for all this progress. Even after
his massive crimes were exposed and his guilt indis-

1. Khrushchev appears to exaggerate his present isolation. In

fact he is closely attended by his family and often visited by
friends, including foreigners of various nationalities, even
Americans. Although "accompanied," he occasionally visits
Moscow, where he has an apartment.
1
2 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

putably proved at the Twentieth Party Congress,^ there

are those who still quake before Stalin's dirty under-
wear, who stand at attention and salute it, never ques-
tioning that all the deaths caused by Stalin were
historically inevitable and relatively insignificant com-
pared to the greatness of our leader, "the Dear Father
of the Soviet People," the Genius and Master. There
are still those who use the term "Stalinist" for someone
—
who did what Stalin said and consider this to be a
good quality. I consider Stalinism a bad quality.
How much of a genius was Stalin really? What sort
of a "Dear Father" was he to us? How much blood
shed by our country was Stalin personally responsible
for? The covers over the answers to these and other
questions should be ripped away. Stalin should be
shown to the Soviet people naked, so that he can oc-
cupy his proper place in history.
Of course, credit is due Stalin, and it is considerable.
But our overall success has mostly been the success of
the people, and the strength that sustains us has been
derived from the ideas of Lenin. Lenin was the founder
of our Party and the creator of our system. He devel-
oped the theory on which our State has been built. His
ideas form the bedrock of all we have accomplished.
Moreover, Lenin explicitly warned us about Stalin. At
the very beginning of Stalin's rise to power, Lenin told
us about his faults. Subsequent events proved how
right Lenin was. As long as Lenin's own ideas were
properly applied, they gave us positive results. Even
despite Stalin's perversions of Lenin's positions and
directives, Marxist-Leninist theory is still the most
progressive doctrine in the world. It has enriched,
fortified, and armed our people, and it has given us the
strength to achieve what we have.
Everyone knows about Stalin's own revolutionary

Klhrushchev's Secret Speech on the crimes of the Stalin era

2.
was delivered to the Twentieth Party Congress on the night of
February 24-25, 1956. The version issued by the US State
Department has never been seriously challenged. It was pub-
lished the next year under the title Khrushchev and Stalin*s
Ghost, with an exhaustive commentary and analysis by Ber-
tram D. Wolfe.
 PROLOGUE 3

spirit and about his own virtues which have been

cited by the Party over and over again. His preten-
sions to a very special role in our history were well
founded, for he really was a man of outstanding skill
and intelligence. He truly did tower over everyone
around him, and despite my implacable condemnation
of his methods and his abuses of power, I have always
recognized and acknowledged his strengths. But Sta-
lin's strengths have to be appraised in a number of
different respects. It was one thing when they were
devoted to consolidating the gains of the Revolution.
It was another thing when, under the guise of impas-
sioned slogans about defending our Party against its
enemies, his strength was turned against the Revolu-
tion. Stalin's vengeance against his own enemies, who
he claimed were enemies of the Party, cost us incalcu-
lable losses. His intolerance, which the Great Lenin
himself had warned us about, led to the annihilation of
thousands of people, devoted in the depths of their
souls to the Marxist-Leninist cause.
I will give Stalin credit for one thing: he didn't
simply come with a sword and conquer our minds and
bodies. No, he demonstrated his superior skiQ in sub-
—
ordinatiQg and manipulating people an important
quahty necessary in a great leader. In everyihing about
Stalin's personality there was something admirable
and correct as well as something savage. Nothing about
him fitted into its own frame. Everything has to be
seen in the light of his very complex personality.
Nevertheless, if he were alive today and a vote were
taken, I would vote that he should be brought to trial
and punished for his crimes.
I've often been asked, "What was it about Stalin?
How could an intelligent man like him do all those
terrible things?" I've often asked myself the same
thing. I think Lenin had the answer. As early as 1923,
when he was writing his Testament, Lenin already saw
clearly where Stalin might lead the Party if he kept
the post of General Secretary. Lenin understood the
basic reasons for Stalin's t3n:anny long before the exe-
cutions and other crimes began. He wrote that while
Stalin possessed the quahties necessary for leadership,
 4 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

he was basically brutish and not above abusing hh

power. He suggested transferring Stalin and promotini
into his place someone more moderate and conscien-
tious, someone more tolerant in his relations v^th hif
comrades, someone who would be sure not to abuse his
high position.^ The Central Committee gave no heec
to Lenin's words, and consequently the whole Partj;
was punished.
There was unquestionably something sick aboul
Stalin. I think there's a similar case of this sickness in
the present day which should be mentioned. People
of my generation remember how the glorification of
Stalin grew and grew, and everyone knows where it
led. I often see films about China on television, and it
seems to me that Mao Tse-tung is copying Stalin's
personality cult. He's even echoing some of the same
slogans. If you close your eyes, listen to what the
Chinese are saying about Mao, and substitute "Com-'
rade Stalin" for "Comrade Mao," you'll have some
idea of what it was like in our time. Huge spectacles
were organized in Moscow in much the same way
they're being organized in Peking today. I used to
think that this urge to glorify himself was a weakness
unique to Stalin, but apparently men like Stalin and
Mao are very similar in this respect: to stay in power,
they consider it indispensable for their authority to be
held on high, not only to make the people obedient to
them, but to make the people afraid of them as weU.

3. The document commonly referred to as Lenin's Testament

was one of several letters Lenin wrote in 1923, when he was
trying to head off a split in the Party after his death. The
relevant passages: "Comrade Stalin, having become General
Secretary, has concentrated enormous power in his hands; and
I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power
with sufficient caution. . Stalin is too rude, and this fault,
. .

entirely supportable in relations among us Communists, be-

comes insupportable in the office of General Secretary. There-
fore, I propose to the comrades to find a way to remove Stalin
from that position and appoint to it another man who in all
respects differs from Stalin in one superiority ^namely, that —
he be more tolerant, more loyal, more polite, and more con-
siderate to comrades, less capricious, etc." (The full text of this
and other docimients are included in Bertram Wolfe's KhrU" i

shchev and Stalin's Ghost,) \

 PROLOGUE 5

I stress the negative side of the Stalin years to show

that if Stalin hadn't committed such terrible abuses,
we would have achieved even more than we have. I
give an account of his crimes in order to help prevent a
repetition of the damage he did to the working class,
—
the peasantry, the intelligentsia ^to all the laboring
peoples of the Soviet Union and of other Socialist
countries as well.
Unfortunately much remains a carefully guarded
secret. Much is still unknown or unrevealed, some of
it weighted down under heavy suppression. But its

time will come. It will all come out in the end. Even
the best-kept secrets will be brought out into the open.
Perhaps other comrades of mine, men with whom I
worked in the leadership under Stalin, will leave their
memoirs behind them. If they do, I hope they'll be
objective and won't be afraid to teU history what they
know about Stalin's faults. They witnessed the same
things I did. I was very seldom alone with Stalin.
Usually there were five or six, and sometimes as many
as ten, other people present when I was with Stalin.
Anyone who really wants to reestablish Leninist
norms in the Party must do everything he can to ex-
pose Stalin and to condemn Stalinist methods. In order
to prevent the ghosts of those years from coming back
from their graves to haunt us, we have no choice but
to rehabilitate all of Stalin's victims. Many of his vic-
tims were returned to their rightful places in history
by the Twentieth Party Congress; but many more
still await rehabilitation, and the reasons for their
—
deaths are stiU hidden. Tliis is shameful ^it's absolute-
ly disgraceful! And now they're starting to cover up
for the man guilty of all those murders. I know it
doesn't make any sense, but it's a fact nonetheless.
I wonder particularly about a few of our influential
military leaders who in their speeches and memoirs
are trying to whitewash Stalin and to put him back
on his pedestal as the Father of the People. They're
trying to prove that if it hadn't been for Stalin, we
would never have won the war against Hitlerite Ger-
many and would have fallen under the yoke of fascism.
The reasoning behind this sort of claim is stupid. It
6 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
reflects a slavish mentality. Just because Stalin isn't
around any more, does that mean we will succumb to
German or English or American influence? Of course
not. The Soviet people will always be able to produce
leaders and to defend our country against invaders,
just as we've always defended ourselves in the past.
I hope I don't even need to point out the absurdity
of those military leaders who are trying to rehabilitate
Stalin and his victims at the time. Once when I
same
was in Bulgaria, I made a speech in which I quoted
from Pushkin's verse play Mozart and Salieri, from
the episode in which Mozart, who doesn't suspect that
Salieri intends to poison him, says, "Genius and crime
are incompatible."* The same goes for Stalin. One man
can't be both a genius and a murderer. Regardless of
his motives, Stalin still committed a horrible crime
when he had thousands executed. There are those who
argue that Stalin was motivated by his concern for the
well-being of the people and not by selfishness. This is
crazy. While concerned for the interests of the people,
he was exterminating the best sons of the people! The'
logic here is fairly original. But then, it's always a
complicated thing to argue for the acquittal of a mass I

murderer.
Even now people sometimes say to me, "Comrade
Khrushchev, perhaps you shouldn't be telling all these
stories about Stalin." The people who say this sort of
thing aren't necessarily former accomplices in Stalin's
villainy. They're just old, simple folk who became
accustomed to worshiping Stalin and who can't give up
the old concepts of the Stalinist period. It's hard for
them to adjust to the truth. They are the product of
defects in the way Party members were trained and
conditioned while Stalin was alive. Stalin adapted all
methods of indoctrination to his own purposes. He
demanded unthinking obedience and unquestioning
faith. To go to your death without a single doubt in
your mind about what you're dying for is all right, of
course, in wartime, but there's another side to that
coin: absolute devotion will become bitter hatred if a

4. Pushkin's verse play was based on the legend that the

fashionable composer Salieri poisoned Mozart out of jealousy.
 PROLOGUE 7

man discovers his trust has been betrayed. This can

become a vicious circle. A country's leaders can't just
assume that the people will close their eyes and never
realize what's happening to them. Such an assumption
on the part of men in responsible positions wiU have
the effect of undermining the people's confidence in the
Party and the Government.
That's why I've always stood for complete truthful-
ness before the Party, before the Lenin League of
Communist Youth [the Komsomol], and before the
—
people and I stand for truthfulness aU the more now.
Only through truthfulness can we win the confidence
of the people. The truth has always been an inexhausti-
ble source of strength for the Party, and it must con-
tinue to be so.
There may still be some who will ask why do I
discuss the events that did such terrible harm to our
Party and why do I delve into the motivations which
led Stalin to do things which cost the lives of tens of
thousands of our best sons, the best sons of our Party
and of our country. The answer is this: I do it because,
unpleasant as these revelations may be, they contribute
to the self-purification of our Party. It is no disgrace
when the Party questions itself and scrutinizes its own
history. Besides, even more people will come over to
the side of our Party when they realize that the abuses
of Stalin's rule were not committed by the Party but
were inflicted on the Party.
The Party has already begun to correct its mistakes
and to guarantee that what happened under Stalin
will never happen again. That's why I'm not afraid to
tell all. What I have to say is not slander, and it's not
malicious gossip. It is meant to serve the important
and constructive function of our Party^s self-^purifica-
tion. I speak as a man who spent his whale life in close
touch with the Soviet people and who also stood for
many years at Stalin's side in the leadership of the
Party and the country. As a witness to those years, I
address myself to the generations of the future, in the
hope that they will avoid the mistakes of the past.
 ONE

From the Coal Mines

to the Kremlin
 1

Early Career

Years of Hardship

Khrushchev was twenty-four when he joined the Bol-

shevik Party in 1918, some Tnonths after the October
Revolution. Until then, after his peasant childhood, he
had worked a^ a mechanic in the mining town of
Yuzovka (renamed Stalino, now Donetsk) in the Don-
bass region of the Ukraine. As such, he was in a
reserved occupation, exempt from military service in
World War I. But early in 1919 he joined the Red
Army and played his part in the Civil War. It was not
until 1922 that he returned to Yuzovka, now a hard-
ened Party activist, to help get the mines working
again in a starving and devastated land. Here he pro-
Ijides an insight into the mood of those difficult days
when uneducated peasants and workers were put into
positions of responsibility only because they had dcTn-
onstrated their devotion to the Bolshevik cause. It was
at this time, from 1921 onward, that Lenin was forced
to retreat from socialism and develop his New Eco-
nomic Policy, which encouraged private enterprise and
conceded privileges to bourgeois m,erchants, traders,
and specialists of all kinds as the only way to rebuild
the ruined economy. The NEP, of course, aroused great
bitterness among the Party faithful. It remained in
force until Stalin put an end to it in 1926, two years
after Lenin's death.

Not too long ago many of my old comrades called me

up to exchange greetings on the anniversary of the
creation of the Soviet Army. It was a great occasion,
11
 '

12 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

a day of celebration, devoted to honoring our armed

forces. Created under the leadership of Lenin, oui
army won many important victories against our White-
Guardist class enemies in the first years of the Revolu-
tion. Later, in the Great Patriotic War, we turned back
the invasion launched by the fascists against our Marx-
ist-Leninist way of life. Thanks to our army, we met
head-on Hitler's threat to the country of Soviets and
to the Russian people. We have crushed our enemies.
Our armed forces have always held high the Banner
of the Struggle, the Red Banner of the Working Class,
stained with the blood of the Soviet people in its battle
against our class enemies.
Our armed forces have come a long way, a very long]
way. I'm proud to say that it was my privilege to serve
in our glorious armed forces in the first, most danger-
ous years of our young Soviet RepubHc. From Janu-
ary, 1919, until the end of the Civil War I underwent I

many severe hardships in the ranks of the Red Army.

I happened to serve in the Ninth Rifle Division. We
were first driven back from Orel to Mtsensk. We then
took the offensive and marched right through a hail
of enemy bullets, reaching Taganrog by Christmas of
1919. By that time our rifle divisions had been at-
tached to the First Mounted Army under the com-
mand of Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny.^ We pursued
the retreating Whites and by April, 1920, completed a
long march to the Black Sea. We captured Anapa and
drove the White-Guardist bands into the sea. Our divi-
sion occupied Anapa and rested for five or six days,
then moved on down the Taman Peninsula. I remember
we celebrated the great proletarian holiday, May First,
in Taman.
When I returned from the Front to the Donbass at

1. Khrushchev was a junior political commissar attached to

Ihe fighting troops. S. M. Budyonny, a sergeant major in the
Tsarist cavalry, who became a hard-drinking crony of Stalin's,
was operating against General Denikin's army, which at one
time offered the most dangerous threat to the new Bolshevik
regime. It was this Budyonny, now a marshal and hopelessly
out of his depth in modem warfare, who led his army to di-
saster in the Ukraine when Hitler invaded in 1941.
 EARLY CAREER 13

the beginning of 1922, hard times had set in. Lenin

was striving to use the respite at the end of the Civil
War to build up our industry, our economy, and the
living standard of our people. Armed with our staunch
devotion to the ideas of Lenin, we set about to accom-
plish in a few years what had taken the capitalist
countries decades. We had to pull in our belts and we
suffered cold, hunger, and deprivation. We spared no
sacrifice to build up our heavy industry and our army
so that no enemy would ever be able to threaten our
borders again.
There was famine in the mines of the Donbass in
1922, and even isolated incidents of cannibalism. The
villages were even more ravaged than the mines. My
first wife, Galina, died during the famine in 1921. Her
death was a great sadness to me. I was left with two
children to look after, my son Leonid and my daughter
Julia. In 1924 I married again, to Nina Petrovna. Those
first years of Soviet Power were years of struggle and
hardship and self-sacrifice. But the people still believed
in the Party; even the most illiterate of our citizens
understood the Party's slogans and rallying cries. The
people knew that these hardships were being thrust
—
upon us by the bourgeoisie both by our own bour-
geoisie and by the bourgeoisie of the world at large,
which was instigating counterrevolution and interven-
tion against us. We told ourselves that no matter how
bad things were, they had been worse in the old days,
before the Revolution.
Actually, this wasn't true for everyone. The most
highly skilled miners in the pits where I worked in the
Donbass had been better off before the Revolution
than immediately after it. As far as my own material
condition was concerned, I'd say I lived worse after
the Revolution when I was a deputy manager of min-
ing operations than before the Revolution when I was
a simple metalworker.
Most of us willingly submitted to privation because,
as we saw it, we had to squeeze the last drop of
productivity out of our resources in order to indus-
trialize the country as quickly as possible. If we were
to survive, we had to catch up with the capitalists.
14 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Sometimes achieving this goal required sacrificing
moral principles as well as material comfort. But on
the whole the people gladly underwent these sufferings
for the Party's sake. And in the space of a few years
we brought a modem industrial society into being.
In those days, in order to be a Communist you
couldn't expect to be rewarded for your sacrifice with
eventual blessings. It's not like that nowadays. Of
course, there are still people of principle among Com-
munists, but there are also many people without prin-
ciple, lickspittle functionaries and petty careerists.
Nowadays a Party card all too often represents nothing
more than its bearer's hope of finding a comfortable
niche for himself in our Socialist society. Shrewd
people these days manage to get much more out of our
society than they put into it. Their attitude is a viola-
tion of the principle that a citizen should be compen-
sated according to the quantity and quality of labor
which he expends in the building of Commimism. It's
sad but true. This state of affairs is one of the scourges
of our time.
I don't mean to say that there wasn't a certain
amount of opportunism among would-be Communists
in the first years of the Revolution, too. It existed, but
to nowhere near the same extent. I remember during
the Civil War when we attacked and occupied the city
of Maloarkhangelsk, a dim-witted schoolteacher asked
me what post he would be given if he joined the
Communist Party. This question immediately put me
off, but I restrained myself and said: "You'll be given
the most responsible and prestigious of all posts."
"Which one is that?"
"You'll be given a rifle and sent to fight the White-
Guardists. You'll have a chance to help decide whether
Soviet Power will prevail in our country. What greater
responsibility is there?"
"And what if I don't want to join the Party?"
"It's just as well you don't. The Party will be better
off without you."
It was during this period of the Civil War and the
years of hardship immediately afterward that Stalin
earned his reputation as a "specialist-eater." A spe-
 EARLY CAREER 15

cialist-eaterwas someone who refused to trust the

bourgeois specialists whose help Lenin had enhsted,
particularly in the formation of the Red Army.- In
those days Trotsky was head of the People's Commis-
sariat of Defense. Naturally Trotsky followed the di-
rective he got from Lenin to seek out commanders for
the Red Army from among the bourgeois officers who
had been trained in tsarist mihtary academies. In later
years Stalin used to enjoy telling us that he refused
to have an>^ing to do with the bourgeois officers
whom Trotsky dispatched to Tsaritsyn and that they
invariably turned out to be traitors.
Admittedly, during this period, a certain amount of
distrust of the bourgeois intelligentsia was justified.
In the first days of the Revolution most intellectuals
failed to make clear where they stood. Some of them
emigrated at the very beginning of the Revolution.
Some of them waited to see what would happen. Some
of them tried to sabotage us, and the rest actively
joined the struggle against Soviet Power, organizing
armed resistance. Hence the strong antispecialist or
''specialist-eater's" attitude among the people. Party
organizations, acting on Lenin's instructions, were hard
pressed to control and restrain this attitude.
In addition to distrust, there was also much resent-
ment against the special privileges which accrued to
the specialists. Unavoidable but very embarrassing
developments in our society aggravated the people's
hostility to the bourgeois intellectuals whom Lenin
recruited. The country was ravaged. Many workers
cvere worse off than they'd ever been under capitalism,
rhey were starving. Although the workers were will-
ugly making great sacrifices for the sake of industrial-

2. Trotsky, of course, as Lenin's Commissar (or Minister) of

Defense, was the creator of the Red Army. It is interesting to
ind Khrushchev giving him credit for this after forty years of
otal rejection. It was at Tsaritsyn (later Stalingrad; now
Volgograd) that Stalin had his first major quarrel with Trotsky,
vhich was to have such tremendous consequences. Budyonny
ind Voroshilov objected strongly to Trotsky's commissioning
>f young Tsarist officers who were ready to fight in the Red

^Jmy. Stalin supported them.

16 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
izing and fortifying our country, they were under the
impression that with the victory of the Revolutior
their lives would improve materially. Therefore the>
resented the fact that the bourgeois specialists weren'1
having to suffer the same hardships as everyone else.
After all, if people were going to be equal before the
law, they should be equal in terms of material security
as well. We had been taught by the Party to beheve
that once we set about building Communism, the
means of consumption would be evenly distributee
among all those who toiled. Yet here were bourgeois
specialists being singled out for special privileges anc
high wages while the workers were being paid less
than in the old pre-Revolutionary times.
The reason for this was as follows: under capitalism,
specialists had private apartments with all the neces-
sary conveniences, while the workers had nothing. For
the workers, "communal services" meant weUs or
water barrels which were usually a long way from
where they lived and worked. The workers had always
had to trudge to and from the market through the
mud, while the specialists had ridden on horsebacjc.
There was terrible animosity among the people toward
the specialists, and toward their wives and servants
especially.
Despite these obvious injustices, Lenin and the Party
understood that it was vitally important to enlist the
bourgeois specialists to the cause because, without
it would have been impossi-
their scientific expertise,
ble to build our society on the foundation of technol-
ogy. The building of a Communist society requires
extensive and profound scientific knowledge. Lenin
and the Party also understood that the only way to
enlist the specialists to the cause was to appeal to
their material interests. This meant they had to be
given certain privileges which at least partially corre-
sponded to the privileges they had enjoyed under the
capitalists. They had to be given passable apartments
and adequate transportation. A chief engineer would
have a pair of horses and a driver, while a regular
engineer would have only one horse and a driver. Of
 EARLY CAREER 17

course, this wasn't exactly luxury, but in the workers'

minds it seemed to be.
In order to enlist bourgeois officers into the Red
Army, Lenin knew he would have to give them the
freedom to make decisions on their own. Commissars
were to watch over the bourgeois officers but not to
interfere with them. Just imagine: a former colonel of
the old tsarist army would suddenly be given a com-
mand in the Red Army. During the Civil War, I saw
many misunderstandings arise between officers and
the commissars who were standing over them. As
Stalin waslater to remind us so frequently, there were
many instances of treason among the bourgeois officers.
A certain amount of treason had to be expected. These
people had been brought up under the old capitahst
regime. Some came over to our side out of fear, some
came for the novelty, others came because they had no
—
alternative they had to earn a Hving. And some came
out of treachery.
But the Party had no choice. We had to win over as
many specialists as possible to our cause. It was part
of Lenin's genius that at such a critical moment he was
able to learn some lessons from the capitalists and take
advantage of their experience and expertise.
Stalin, for his part, remained a speciahst-eater aU
his life.
Another measures that proved to be very
of Lenin's
controversial was the New Economic Policy. This was
—
a bold, decisive, and dangerous ^but absolutely neces-
—
sary step for him to take. It was another example of
Vladimir Ilyich's wisdom and foresight. In essence the
New Economic Policy meant the restoration of private
property and the revival of the middle class, including
the kulaks. The commercial element in our society was
put firmly back on its feet. Naturally this was, to some
extent, a retreat on the ideological front, but it helped
us to recover from the effects of the Civil War. As
soon as the NEP was instituted, the confusion and
famine began to subside. The cities came back to life.
Produce started to reappear in the market stalls, and
prices fell.
The Party slogan at the time was "Learn Com-
18 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS I
merce!" We were supposed to defeat the private if

merchants and NEP men not by taking administrative ]a

measures against them, but by beating them at their !l

own game. We tried to take over as much commerce :

as possible and put it in state hands. We tried hard to uj

underprice the NEP men in state cooperatives and also

to offer higher quality and better service. But we
didn't have much success. Merchants who were in
business for themselves could put up better displays
of their products and give their customers more per-
sonal attention. Private stores catered to housewives,
who like to have a choice when they shop; they like
to browse around and examine everything carefully.
I remember that when I lived and worked in Yuzov-
ka I went around to the marketplace almost every
day. I always went straight to the workers' coopera-
tive. As soon as I stepped into the store, my old friend
Vanya [Ivan] Kosvinsky, who was chairman of the
cooperative, would say, "Well, I suppose you've come
by to scold me again, haven't you? What can I do?
We're doing everything we can to compete with the
NEP men, but the private merchants still seem to be
attracting more customers."
In the southwest comer of the Yuzovka industrial
area, at the very edge of the mining fields, there were
many Greek settlements which raised livestock. They
—
sold their meat cheaply and privately. By the fall of
1925 there was an abundance of vegetables, water-
melons, and poultry, and meat cost only fifteen kopeks
a pound. We had returned to prewar standards. Fortu-
nately, the political situation at the time was favorable.
The workers understood the Party guidelines and fol-
lowed them. But it was still difficult and even painful
for us to adapt ourselves to the New Economic Policy.

First Rungs on the Party Ladder

Khrushchev's rise in the Party apparatus wes very

swift. Although here and throughout his reminiscences
 EARLY CAREER 19

he insists that he was reluctant to accept promotion,

It is clear that very soon after his return to Yuzovka

he decided that his future lay in full-time Party work

rather than industrial management as such. And al-
though at first he did not understand the real signifi-
cance of Stalin*s vicious and successful cavfipaign
igainst Trotsky, he owed his early career to Lazar
Kaganovich (see Appendix 3), who was very close to
Stalin, and more immediately, to the Yuzovka Party
Secretary, K. V. Moiseyenko, who was a committed
Stalinist. Here and later it becomes obvious that Khru-
shchev had no clear idea of the policy differences
between the various groups of opposition Com^munists.
His Marxism was received doctrine of a fairly primitive
—
kind slogan-Marxism,, or hurrah-Marxism, it might
)ustly be called. The heretic, the enemy, was anyone
who questioned Stalin. Temperam,entally, Khrushchev
was on the side of Stalin*s thugs and bullies, the prac-
ticalm,en who got things done, ruthlessly and without
counting the cost; and he was against the intellectuals,
largely from bourgeois backgrounds, often Jews, often
with years of foreign exile behind them, whom Stalin
was soon to destroy. After Lenin's death in 1924,
Stalin combined with G. E. Zinoviev (head of the
Covnintem and Leningrad Party chief) and L. B.
Kamenev (head of the Moscow Party apparatus) to
iefeat Trotsky. Their victory was celebrated at the
Fourteenth Party Congress in Decemher, 1925, which
Khrvshchev attended as a provincial delegate. It was
now that the slogan "Socialism, in One Country" was
proclaimed. And it was this Congress that saw the final
oppression of free debate within the Party. Stalin
then combined with Rykov and Bukharin to put down
Zinoviev and Kamenev. In 1927, while Khrushchev
was holding Yuzovka for Stalin, Trotsky was expelled
from the Party. When Khrushchev arrived in Moscow
in 1929, the First Five-Year Plan had been launched
und the country stood on the eve of the terrible events
which ensued from the forced collectivization of agri-
culture.
 20 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
I SUPPOSE you could say my political education began
during my boyhood in the little village of Kalinovka
where I w^as born. My schoolteacher there was a wom-
an named Lydia Shchevchenko. She was a revolution-
ary. She was also an atheist. She instilled in me my
first political consciousness and began to counteract
the effects of my strict religious upbringing. My mother
was very religious, likewise her father —my grand-
father —who
as a serf had been conscripted into the
tsarist army for twenty-five years. When I think back
to my
childhood, I can remember vividly the saints on
the icons against the wall of our wooden hut, their
faces darkened by fumes from the oil lamps. I remem-
ber being taught to kneel and pray in front of the icons
with the grown-ups in church. When we were taught
to read, we read the scriptures. But Lydia Shchevchen-
ko set me on a path which took me away from all that.
Well before the Revolution I became an avid reader
of proletarian and Social-Democrat newspapers. I read
Pravda as soon as it started coming out regularly in
1915, when I was a metal fitter at the generator plant
of the Pastukhov mine near Yuzovka. My job at the
Pastukhov mine was one of a series of jobs I had after
being fired for taking part in a strike in 1912. I had
some of my first serious political conversations at the
pit in 1915. We
had many prisoners of war from the
Austro-Hungarian army working there, mostly Aus-
trians but some Czechs, too. I got on very well with
the Czechoslovaks. They used to tell us Russians that
we Slavs were all brothers. They said they didn't want
to make war on us, they only wanted to live in peace
and friendship. I remember two Czechs in particular.
I used to invite them back to my quarters for tea with
jam. In return, they gave me lessons in mechanical
drawing, which was very useful to me in my profes- :

sion. The Czechs used to tell me about the Pan-Slavist a

movement and about how we were united by our

common Slavic blood. I admit this was the first I'd
ever heard of Pan-Slavism, and I was very impressed.
The fact that I was so fascinated by what those Czechs
had to tell me about the so-called Pan-Slavist brother-
hood shows that I was stiU a long way away from
|R . EARLY CAREER 21

understanding the Marxist-Leninist concept of class

solidarity.
read Emile Zola's Germinal, I thought that
When I
he was writing not about France, but about the mine
in which my father and I worked. The worker's lot
was the same both in France and in Russia. When,
later on, I listened to lectures on political economy
and the lecturer spoke about the wage system under
capitalism, about the exploitation of the workers,
it

seemed to me as though Karl Marx had been at the

mine where my father and I had worked. It seemed as
if it were from observing our life as
workers that he
had deduced his laws and scientifically proved why
and how the workers must liberate themselves from
capitalist slavery and build a Socialist society.
I became a Bolshevik and a member of
the Commu-
nist Party after the Revolution and a short time later
and propa-
joined the Red Army as a political worker
after the
gandist. As soon as I returned from the Front
Civil War, the Yuzovka Party organization
made me a
deputy manager of the Ruchenkov mines. I'd worked
belonged to
there ten years before, when the mines
a French company. The manager in 1922 was
my close
Trofimovich Abakumov. This
friend Yegor [Georgi]
was the Abakumov who became Minister of the
later
Minister ot
Coal Industry, not the one who was to be
Internal Affairs under Stalin. „ ^ 1 1.
I was offered the directorship of
the Pastukhov
mines but I asked instead to be released from
my
Party duties so that I could study at the Yuzovka
finally
Workers' Faculty. After persistent requests, I
the
prevailed upon Abram Pavlovich Zavenyagin,
Secretary of the local Party committee, to send
me to
the Workers' Faculty.
Subsequently I held various posts in the
Yuzovka
a dele-
Party organization, and in 1925 I was elected
in Moscow.
gate to the Fourteenth Party Congress
at that time
The head of the Yuzovka organization
Moiseyei^o.
was a medical student named Kostyan
had
He had a petty-bourgeois streak in him, and heNEF
than
contacts with people who were Uttle better
men. Later we were to remove him from the secretariat
22 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
of our organization, causing an uproar that
went all
the way to the Central Committee of the Ukrainian
Communist Party, which sent a commission out to
Yuzovka to investigate Moiseyenko's removal. In the
end the commission supported us against him. But
Moiseyenko was an excellent orator and a good orga-
nizer—you couldn't take that away from him— and at
the time of the Fourteenth Party Congress he still had
a firm grip on the minds of Communists in our area.
He was head and shoulders above anyone else in the
local active Party membership.^
There were four voting delegates and four consult-
ing delegates chosen to go to the Congress. I was a
consulting delegate. We
were chosen democratically,
on the basis of the size of our respective Party con-
stituencies. I was head of the Petrovsko-Marinsk Dis-
trict, which was only the sixth or seventh
largest
Yuzovka district m
terms of the number of Party
members, so it was fitting that I should have been a
consulting rather than a voting delegate.
I was overjoyed to have an opportimity to see Mos-
cow and to attend an All-Union Congress. We lived in
the House of Soviets at Number 3, Karetny Row. Our
quarters were very simple and crowded. We slept on
plank beds and were aU stacked together like logs. I
remember that Postyshev, the Secretary of the Khar-
kov organization, used to sleep with his wife in a row
v^th some of the rest of us.^ This arrangement made
for some jokes at Postyshev's expense, but it was all
in good fun. We were young, and besides, Postyshev
was well respected in the Party. The first morning
after we got to Moscow
I tried to take a streetcar to
the Kremlin, but I didn't know which number to take
and ended up getting lost. From then on I woke up
early and walked to the KremHn. It took longer, but

3. It was at the Fourteenth Party Congress that Moiseyenko

distinguished himself by helping to shout down the opposition
to Stalin. Moiseyenko was demoted in the following year, one of
many provincial secretaries who were purged for corruption.
4. This was Pavel Postyshev, a devoted Stalinist, who was to
rise to the top in the Ukraine, only to be arrested and executed
in the purges.
 EARLY CAREER 23

at least I learned my way around. I even skipped

breakfast in order to be sure of arriving in time to get
a good seat.
Each delegation had a block of seats assigned to it,
but within each block it was first come, first served. I
always tried to find a seat right in front of the podium.
The Congress was held in the hall where the Supreme
Soviet now sits. At that time it hadn't yet been rebuilt,
and it was still called Vladimir Hall. The Ukrainian
delegations sat in the center of the hall, and the
Yuzovka delegation had the first rows in the center
section. The proletarian Donbass organization was
given the best seats in recognition of its strategic
position in the Party organization of the Ukraine.
The head of the Ukrainian org£inization was Lazar
Moiseyevich Kaganovich, and his Politbureau included
Petrovsky, Chubar, Shikhter, and Skrypnik. Kagano-
vich was First Secretary of the Central Committee of
the Ukrainian Conmiimist Party, and Chubar was
Chairman of the Ukrainian Coimcil of Ministers.^
The Fourteenth Party Congress made a lasting im-
pression on me. Here I was, only a few feet from the
leaders of our State and our Party! I had my first
chance to see Stalin in the flesh. I was very impressed
by him, and I think I can explain why by mentioning
an incident which occurred during the Congress.
At one point the head of our Regional Party orga-
nization. Comrade Moiseyenko, requested that Com-
rade Stalin permit himself to be photographed with
our delegation. We were informed that Stalin would
be willing to join us when our group photograph was
taken and that he would let us know when he would
be free. We waited and waited. Finally we were told
to gather in Catherine Hall during a recess of the
Congress. StaHn arrived and sat down. We all took our

5. The important names here, apart from Kaganovich, are

V. Y. Chubar and N. Slaypnik. Chubar was Prime Minister of
the Ukraine; Skrypnik was Minister of Education. Skrjrpnik,
after bravely opposing PostysheVs first major purge of the
Ukraine, which was designed to subdue Ukrainian national
consciousness, committed suicide in 1933. The fate of these
and other personalities is described in Chapter 3.
24 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
places around him. The photographer, whose name was
Petrov, went to his camera and started to arrange the
group for the picture. Petrov was a respected specialist
in his trade. He had worked around the Kremlin for
years and was well known among Party workers. He
started giving us instructions on which way to look
and how to turn our heads. Suddenly Stalin remarked
in a voice everyone could hear, "Comrade Petrov loves
to order people around. But now that's forbidden here.
No one may order anyone else around ever again."
Even though he said this jokingly, we all took him
seriously and were heartened by the democratic spirit
he displayed.
A similar incident occurred a few years later when
my friend Lev Abramovich Rimsky took a group of
students to Moscow to see the sights of the capital.
Rimsky decided to ask Stalin if he would receive a
delegation of these students. As Lev Abramovich told
me, "I called the Kremlin and was put straight through
to Stalin. What accessibility! Stalin agreed to receive
us. When we arrived at Stalin's office, I said, 'Comrade
Stalin, we've come from the city formerly called Yu-
zovka which now bears your name. It's called Stalino.
Therefore we'd like to ask you to send a letter of
greeting back with us to the Stalino workers.' " And
here is how Stalin answered this request: "What do
you think I am? A big landowner? The workers in
the factories aren't serfs on my farm. It would be in-
sulting and completely imsuitable for me to vrrite them
a letter of greeting. I won't do it myself, and I don't
like it when other people do that sort of thing." Lev
Abramovich was pleasantly surprised. When he got
home he spread this story around to illustrate Stalin's
democratic spirit, his accessibility, and his proper un-
derstanding of his place.
Most of what I saw and heard of Stalin during these
early years pleased me very much. In the twenties
transcripts of Politbureau sessions were distributed to
Party organizations throughout the country, where
they were read and studied by active Party members.
I remember reading in one of these transcripts an
argument between Stahn and either Trotsky or Zi-
 EARLY CAREER 25

noviev. One phrase

that Stalin used stuck in mem-my
ory. He said something like this: "I'll do everjrthing
in my power to preserve unity in the Party and to
fortify the monolithic solidarity of our movement.
Don't you see what you're doing? Good God,^ man,
—
don't you see what you're sajdng? But God be with
you, God be with you!" Now, even though he'd once
studied in a seminary, Stalin certainly wasn't a reli-
gious man, and an expression like that wasn't at all
characteristic of him. I took his saying "God be with
you" to mean: "There's nothing more I can do to
help you. I don't wish you evil. May God be with you,
and may He help you to see the error of your ways."
While naturally I'm not a religious man either, and
never have been, I was glad to see this evidence of
Stalin's tolerance for his opponents.
In 1925 the public hadn't yet gotten wind of the
fierce struggle going on inside the Party. Stalin had
emerged as General Secretary while Lenin was still
alive and while Trotsky was still active. However,
years were to go by before the very special nature of
Stalin's role became known in Party circles, to say
nothing of among the masses.
—
In 1927 I attended again, as a delegate from the
—
Yuzovka Party organization the Fifteenth Party Con-
gress, at which Stalin and his supporters squared off
against the Zinovievites, or "Leningrad opposition," as
they were then called. I remember we used to say that
even the sparrows were chirping the news to the man
in the street that a schism had formed in the Party.
Our delegation was again quartered in the House
of Soviets at Number 3, Karetny Row. Shortly after
we arrived in Moscow, we were told that Yakov
Arkadyevich Yakovlev was coming by to talk to us
about certain developments in the Party and to warn
us about the situation which was likely to arise at

6. Atheism is an article of Marxist faith, and therefore

Khrushchev, as a doctrinaire Marxist, would not capitalize the g
of God.
26 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
the Congress J I think Yakovlev was one of Sergo
Ordzhonikidze's deputies.® We knew Yakovlev must
be coming to see us on factional business because we
were told not to let anyone into the meeting except
members of the Ukrainian delegations.^ We also real-
ized that Yakovlev was passing on to us confidential
information and instructions directly from Stalin him-
self. Yakovlev explained where we differed with the
Zinovievites and told us what we were to do. In other
words, he prepared us to carry out factional work
against the Zinoviev-Kamenev opposition which was
then gathering force. Zinoviev was Chairman of the
Comintern, the international Communist organization
which steered the course of the world revolution. As
the main person in the international Communist move-
ment, Zinoviev commanded much authority and pres-
tige. Yakovlev explained that Zinoviev was to be co-
speaker with Stalin at the Congress. (He had given
the General Report after Lenin's death and had been
co-speaker with Stalin at the previous Party Congress,
the Fourteenth, in 1925.) Yakovlev told us that the
Leningrad delegation to the Fifteenth Congress had
written a letter to the Congress Presidium demanding,
on the basis of the Party Statutes, that Zinoviev once
again be given equal time with Stalin.
When the Congress began we found that once again
we had the central place in the hall. On our left were
7. Y. A. Yakovlev, a onetime People's Commissar of Agricxil-
tiire,was deeply involved in the excesses of collectivization and
was on many occasions used by Stalin as a trusted strong-arm
man. This did not save him from being condemned as a right-
wing oppositionist in 1938 and subsequently shot. The irony was
that the real "right" oppositionists had been opposed to the
collectivization.
8. "Sergo" Ordzhonikidze was, like Stalin, a Georgian. For
years he was very close to Stalin.
9. This segregation of the various delegations to the Fifteenth
Party Congress is exceptionally interesting. It shows us that as
early as 1927 Stalin refused to allow devoted Party delegates
from different Republics even to talk to each other. So a long-
lived tradition started. At the Moscow Congress of world Com-
munist Parties in 1960, the foreign delegates complained bitterly
that the Soviet comrades (headed by Khrushchev himself) re-
fused to allow them to meet and talk together.
 EARLY CAREER 27

the Leningraders, and on our right was the Moscow

delegation. We were in contact with the Moscow Party
workers, coordinating with them our activities against
the Leningrad opposition. Discussions and arguments
were going on everywhere, formal and informal, in
large groups and small, during the sessions and during
the recesses, inside St. George's Hall and out in the
corridors.
I was distressed to find my old comrade Abramson in
the enemy camp. He had been the editor of the news-
paper The Dictatorship of Labor in Yuzovka when I
returned from the army in 1922. Now he was working
in Leningrad as the secretary of some district com-
mittee. He was a good Communist, but like all Lenin-
graders, he was a Zinovievite. The Zinovievites had
also added Badayev and Nikolayeva^^ to their delega-
tion, so that the opposition might swing more weight
at the Congress. These were good active Party mem-
bers. They're all dead now.
Stalin, Rykov, and Bukharin spoke for the Central
—
Committee line that is, Stalin's line. There was the
Central Committee line on one side and the opposition
on the other. There was nothing in between.
A word about Bukharin. He was much respected
and very popular. I had seen him and heard him
speak back in 1919 when I was serving in the Red
Army. As Secretary of our unit's Party cell I had been
invited to a meeting of the active Party members in
Kursk Province at which Bukharin gave a speech.
Everyone was very pleased with him, and I was abso-
lutely spellbound. He had an appealing personality
and a strong democratic spirit. Later I met some
—
comrades who had worked with him simple, progres-
sive Communists from Moscow who were more or less
at my level of political development. They told me how
Bukharin had lived with them in their dormitory and
eaten with them at their mess at the same table. This

10. K. I. Nikolayeva was, apart from Nadezhda Knipskaya,

Lenin's widow, the only woman who was a full member of
the Central Committee on the eve of the great purge. Although
she had indeed supported Zinoviev, she survived the purges
and still held her position when the Terror subsided.
28 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
impressed me very much. Bukharin was also the editor
of Pravda. He was the Party's chief theoretician. Lenin ,

always spoke affectionately of him as "Our Bukhar-

chik." On Lenin's instructions he wrote The A-B-C
of Communism, and everyone who joined the Party ,

learned Marxist-Leninist science by studying Bukha-

rin's work. In short, Bukharin was much beloved in ;

the Party. !

'

During the Fifteenth Party Congress some delega-

tion or other presented the Congress Presidium with a '

steel broom. Rykov, who was Chairman of the Presid- ,

ium, made a speech, saying, "I hereby present this i

steel broom to Comrade Stalin so that he may sweep !

away our enemies." There was a burst of appreciative i

applause and laughter. Rykov himself broke into a \

smile and then laughed, too. He obviously trusted Sta- [

lin to use the broom wisely, for the good of the Party, ,

against anti-Party elements and opponents of the Gen-

eral Line. Rykov could hardly have foreseen that he,
too, would be swept away by this same broom which ]

he handed over to Stalin in 1927.^^

At the time of the Fifteenth Party Congress we had ,

no doubt in our minds that Stalin and his supporters i

were right, and that the opposition was wrong. I still

think that Stalin's ideological position was basically
correct. We realized that a merciless struggle against i

the opposition was unavoidable. We justified what was :

happening in a lumberjack's terms: when you chop ;

down a forest, the chips fly. After all, it was no acci-

dent that Stalin held the leading position in the Party, '

and it was no accident that the Party supported him

against such powerful opponents as the Trotskyites,
Zinovievites, and later the right-left bloc of Syrtsov

11. A. Rykov, Prime Minister of the Soviet Union in succes-

sion to Lenin, and N. Bukharin, the great Party intellectual and
beloved friend of Lenin's, had helped Stalin defeat Zinoviev
and Kamenev. Very soon they were themselves to be con-
demned as right oppositionists. They were to be tried at the
third and most celebrated of the great treason trials in 1938,
condemned, and shot.
 EARLY CAREER 29

and LfOminadze.^2 Stalin was a powerful personality,

and he had contributed greatly to the mobilization of
the Party's forces for the reconstruction of our indus-
try and agriculture and the strengthening of our army.
It shouldn't be overlooked that Stalin's name hadn't
been very widely known among the masses in the first
years of the Revolution. He had come a long way in a
short time, and he had brought our Party and our
people with him.

In 1928 Kaganovich called me to Kharkov [then the

capital of the Ukraine] and offered me a post as Depu-
ty Chief of the Organizational Section of the Ukrainian
Party Central Committee. As Kaganovich explained,
there were very few workers on the Ukrainian Central
Committee, which was then based in Kharkov, and he
wanted to bring me from Stalino [Yuzovka] in order
to equalize the representation of workers in the Party
apparatus. I was reluctant to accept the offer. I'd
already had enough contact with the Kharkov organi-
zation to know that it was filled with people who
weren't to be trusted. I was pretty sure that I would
run into trouble if I took the job. People in Kharkov
tended to be jealous of the Yuzovka organization, and
not without reason: we were miners and metalwork-
ers; we were the real proletariat, the salt of the earth
and the bedrock of the Party. Therefore I told Kagano-
vich, "I think you're quite right to want to bring more
workers into the Central Committee apparatus, but I
don't want to leave Stalino. I'm very much at home
there; I know the procedures and the personnel of the

12. S. Syrtsov, who became a candidate member of the Polit-

bureau, and Prime Minister of the Russian Federal Republic,
and V. V. Lominadze, one of Stalin's closest friends, had both
helped Stalin, first against Trotsky, and then against Bukharin.
In the early thirties they turned against him actively and openly
urged his deposition as General Secretary of the Party. They
were arrested and imprisoned. They were named as conspirators
iti the Bukharin trial. Their precise fate has never been re-

vealed. Khrushchev's odd-sounding reference to "the right-

left" bloc was evidently inspired by the fact that the trials of
Bukharin, et al., in 1938, was officially known as "the Case of
the Anti-Soviet Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites."
 !;;
; '1

so KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Stalino organization. I'm completely unfamiliar with
the setup here in Kharkov and I doubt I could adapt •

myself to the Organizational Section of the Central

Committee."
"Well," said Kaganovich, "if you put it that w^ay, 1
guess the Central Committee can do v^thout you.
There's no need to transfer you from Stalino if you
feel so strongly against it."
;

I w^ent home and began to reconsider Kaganovich's

offer. I reviewed in my mind my past relationship with '

Kaganovich and the prospect of working with him.

Kaganovich liked me very much. We met in the first
days of the February Revolution at a meeting in
Yuzovka, which I attended as a representative of the i

workers at the Ruchenkov mines. Then a week or two

later we met again. In those days I knew him not as
Kaganovich but as Zhirovich. I trusted and respected
him one hundred percent. I knew that Kaganovich
needed all the help he could get in Kharkov. He wasn't
considered much of an administrator, to say nothing ,

of being a real leader. Kaganovich's position in the

collective leadership of the Ukraine was shaky, and
his relations with the other members of the Central
Committee were complicated at best. The old men in
the collective were constantly trjdng to undercut his
authority. Petrovsky wasn't behind him, and neither .

was Chubar. Generally speaking, the group from the

Dniepropetrovsk area was against him. Kaganovich :

leaned very heavily on the Donbass, and particularly i

on the Yuzovka organization, for support.

There was something else that made me think i

seriously about going to Kharkov. People were be- '

ginning to lose confidence in Stroganov, the Secretary

of the Yuzovka committee, and they were starting to
come to me rather than to him. This was partly be-
cause I'd lived in Yuzovka since my childliood. My
father had worked in the pit at Uspensk, four versts i

[two and two-thirds miles] south of Yuzovka. I had I

learned my own trade as a metal fitter at the Bosse i

factory and had a wide circle of friends whom I'd )

known since I was a boy. As people started to turn to [3
me and bypass Stroganov, my relations with him be- -i

i
 EARLY CAREER 31

came more and more strained, since I was nominally

his deputy. Bythe way, he perished later on. (Poor
feUow, he certainly didn't deserve to be shot.) In any
event, in order to avoid getting into a fight with
Stroganov, I thought it might be best for me to get out
of Yuzovka before my relations with him became any
worse.
After carefully weighing all these considerations, I
decided to accept Kaganovich's offer after all. I told
Kaganovich that I'd changed my mind and agreed to
—
being transferred to Kharkov ^but only on one condi-
tion: that I be sent somewhere else as soon as there
was an opening; I didn't care where as long as it was
in an industrial area. I didn't have much experience
in farming and would have been out of my element in
an agricultural area.
I went to Kharkov and was confirmed as Deputy
Chief of the Organizational Section under Nikolai
Nesterovich Demchenko.^^ He was a good man and a
good Communist, devoted to the General Line of the
Party, to the Central Committee, and to Stalin. But he,
too, later perished at Stalin's hand.
As I had expected, my job in Kharkov turned out to
be most disagreeable. It was nothing but paper work.
I'm a man of the earth, a man of action, a miner; I'm
used to working with metal and chemicals. I have a
—
constitutional block against clerical work it's com-
pletely alien to me. I hate having to look over a stack
of forms and files to see the flesh-and-blood world. My
job in Kharkov was a dead end; I felt stifled and
trapped. I went to Kaganovich two or three times and
reminded him that he'd promised to get me out of
Kharkov as soon as there was an opening somewhere
else.
Then one day he called me up and said, "I've got a
job opening for you in Kiev. Demchenko has gone
there as Secretary of the District Committee, and he's
asked that you be sent to head up the Organizational

13. Petrovsky, Stroganov, —

Demchenko three individuals
among the countless Party officials unknown to the West who
were to "perish at Stalin's hand."
 . ,
;
,

32 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Section in Kiev. If you agree to the transfer, you can
get yourself a ticket and leave today." 1

I accepted without thinking twice. This was on a!

Sunday. I was on a train that evening and in Kiev the
next morning. I'd never been to Kiev before. My
own i

hometown of Yuzovka was a tiny village compared'

to Kiev. As soon as I arrived I went straight to the \

banks of the Dnieper and gazed at the famous river

with my suitcase stiU in hand.
The Kiev organization was not considered a very j

secure outpost of the Party. In fact, the area was no-

torious as a stronghold of Ukrainian nationalist ele- i

ments, and its reputation was well deserved. The local \

proletariat was weak and unstable; and the intelli-

gentsia, which was centered around the Ukrainian
Academy of Sciences, was led by Grushitsky, a na- ;

tionalist and a follower of Petlura.^* There was also a !

formidable contingent of Trotskyites in the area. I

knew that the Ukrainian nationalists in Kiev were •

sure to regard me as a hopeless "Rusak" [derisive ;

Ukrainian term for Russian]

Despite my forebodings, I must admit that my year
in Kiev turned out to be very satisfactory. I have
many pleasant memories of that period. I found it easy
to work there. The people seemed to like me and trust
me. I'd even say they respected me.
I'm not saying there weren't some difficulties. Far
from it. The Mensheviks, Social-Revolutionaries,
Ukrainian nationalists, and Trotskyites all tried to take
advantage of the troubles we were having in Kiev.
There were many people out of work, and they used
to demonstrate in the streets, parading around with
red banners. We had a large meeting in the old Kiev
City Soviet Council building to discuss the problem. I
told the people who came to this meeting, "I know
where there's great demand for workers, and I can
easily find work for you there."

V. Petlura was the most celebrated of the Ukrainian

14. S.
leaders who were dedicated to an independent
nationalist
Ukraine and fought against incorporation into the new Soviet
Union.
 —
I
^•They seemed pleased. "Where?" they asked.
r*In the Donbass."
^"We'd rather be out of work here than go to the
Donbass for jobs," they said.
This infuriated because my own roots were in
me
the Donbass, and missed the miners whom I'd grown
I
up with very much. As far as these Kievans were
concerned, the Donbass meant the backward provinces.
Besides, it was mining country, and they had no
training for that kind of work.^^
In 1929 I reached the age of thirty-five. I realized
this was my last chance to think seriously about going
to an institution of higher learning. I had never gotten
further than the Yuzovka Workers' Faculty, and time
was weighing on me heavily. I decided to try and get
a leave of absence to complete my
education. At first
I encountered some resistance from my superiors. Ka-
ganovich by now had been transferred to the Central
Committee in Moscow, and Comrade Kossior had been
sent to take his place. ^^ I was widely regarded as
someone who had been very close to Kaganovich, and
it's true, I had been. But people also assumed that the

real reason I was asking permission to go back to

school was that I didn't want to work with Kossior,
which wasn't true. I didn't know Kossior very well,
but I respected him. He was a fairly mild-mannered
person, pleasant and intelligent. I would have put him
on a higher level than Kaganovich as regards his
ability to get along with people, but he couldn't com-
pete with Kaganovich as an organizer. Kaganovich was
a man who got things done. If the Central Committee
put an ax in his hands, he would chop up a storm;
unfortunately he often chopped down the healthy trees
along with the rotten ones. But the chips really flew
you couldn't take that away from him.

15. Here and in subsequent chapters Khrushchev can never

make up his mind whether to admit the very real strength of
Ukrainian nationalism or pretend that it was unimportant.
16. S. V. Kossior, a member of Stalin's Politbureau, remained
as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party until his
recall in 1938 and subsequent arrest. It was Khrushchev who
then took over his job in the Ukraine.
34 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Anyway, I wentKharkov and explained

to myposi-
tion to Kossior, man
to man: "Look, I'm already thirty-
five years old. I want to finish my
education. Will you
write me a recommendation? I want to apply for ad-
mission to the Industrial Academy in Moscow and I'd
like to ask for the Central Committee's support. I
want to become a metallurgist.'*
Kossior was very understanding. He heard me out
and gave me his personal consent. Demchenko, how-
ever, was very upset and tried to persuade me to stay,
although he, too, could understand how a man might
want to continue his studies. The Bureau met to de-
cide whether to grant me a leave of absence. Some of
them thought that I was trying to get away from
Demchenko, and they hinted that they would support
me if that was the reason I wanted to be released from
my job in Kharkov. I had to convince them that my
request for leave had nothing to do with my relations
with Demchenko and that I simply wanted to complete
my education. Finally, after a number of sessions, the
Bureau decided to release me from my Party responsi-
bilities in the Ukraine so that I could enter the Indus-
trial Academy. I soon left for Moscow. j|
 Party Work in Moscow

From. Industrial Academy to Politbureaa

In the light of subsequent events it seems more than

probable that the thirty-five-y ear-old Party function^
ary from the Ukraine was brought up to the Industrial
Academy in Moscow not primarily to study but to
prove himself in political work and at the same time
turn the academy into a Stalinist stronghold. For in
1929 and 1930 this forcing hou^e of the new Comm,unist
elite was in fact a focus of anti'Stalinism. Be that as
it m,ay, Khrushchev did very soon win control of the
Party cell and beat down the opposition by the use of
methods that were both rough and devious. So suc-
cessful was he that within two years he was able to
leave the academy behind him and start, in the shadow
of Kaganovich, on the swift career that was soon to
make him the Party chieftain of all Moscow. The larger
background to this chapter was the first frenzied and
violent campaign for the rapid industrialization of the
Soviet Union represented by the First Five-Year Plan
and the collectivization of agriculture, about which
Khrushchev has something to say later.

I RAN
into some difficulties during my first year at the
Industrial Academy. I was told that I didn't have
enough experience in executive management to be a
student there. "This is a school for managers and
directors," the comrades said, "and you're just not
ready for the course here. Maybe you should switch
to the Central Committee's course in Marxism-Lenin-
ism." I finally had to get Kaganovich's help. Lazar
35
 36 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Moiseyevich was a Secretary of the Central Commit-
tee. With his backing, I was able to remain at the
academy. There were all sorts of people there. The
students varied greatly in their political and educa-
tional backgrounds. Many had never gone any further
than the village school and knew nothing but the four
basic operations of arithmetic. Then there were also
people who had gone through secondary school. Hav-
ing completed the Workers' Faculty in Yuzovka, I was
considered in that category.
The classroom building of the academy was located
on the Novo-Bassmannaya, not far from the dormitory
where I lived at Nimiber 40, Pokrovka. I had a room
of my own. It was an ideal setup. My daily routine
was to walk to the academy. I never took the streetcar.
The overseer was Comrade Kuibyshev, the Chair-
man of the State Planning Commission.^ Who could
have been better? He was a respected and influential
figure, and he gave the academy all his support. Our
director was G. M, Kaminsky, an Old Bolshevik and a
good comrade.^ I remember that in 1930 we asked him
to see if Comrade Stalin would receive some repre-
sentatives of the first graduating class. We were plan-
ning a commencement celebration in the Hall of
Columns,^ and we wanted to ask Comrade Stalin to
give the valedictory address on the great occasion. We
were informed that Stalin would receive a delegation
of six or seven people. Even though I wasn't a member
of the graduating class myself, I was included in the
group because I was Secretary of the academy Party
organization. During our meeting with Stalin he gave

1. V. V. Kuibyshev, senior Bolshevik and head of the State

Planning Commission (Gosplan), aligned himself early on
with Stalin but was a comparative moderate. He died suddenly
in January, 1935, and may have been killed on Stalin's orders.
At the great trial of Bukharin et al. in 1938, the two doctors
(Levin and Pletnev) accused of murdering the writer Maxim
Grorky and others were also accused of murdering Kuibyshev.
2. G. M. Kaminsky, onetime People's Cormnissar for Health,
signed Kuibyshev's death certificate and also Ordzhonikidze's.
His fate is described in Chapter 3.
3. This was the ornate hall of the Tsarist Noblemen's Club in
Moscow.
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 37

US some advice along the following lines: he told us to

master our studies, and to make ourselves experts in
oiu: fields; naturally we should be versatile in the gen-
eral area of management, but we should also be
specialists. This was good counsel, even though we'd
heard it before. I'd been told the same thing back at
the Yuzovka Workers' Faculty. As Stalin was speaking
I thought to myself, "Here is a man who knows how
to direct our minds and our energies tow£ird the prior-
ity goals of industrializing our country and assuring
the impregnability of our Homeland's borders against
the capitalist world; the well-being of the people is
obviously in firm hands!"
When he finished giving us his advice, Stalin said,
"I'm afraid I won't be able to attend your celebration
this evening myself, but Comrade Kalinin will be
there." Our interview with Stalin had taken longer
than expected. We had to run to the Hall of Columns.
By the time we got there Kaminsky had already
finished speaking, but we didn't miss Mikhail Ivano-
vich Kalinin's speech. We all respected him very much
and listened to him attentively.
I should explain how I came to be chosen Secretary
of the Party organization at the academy. It's a fairly
long story, but it's worth teUuig,
When I first came to Moscow in 1929, the student
body at the academy was full of unstable and unde-
sirable elements. There were a lot of people who for
one reason or another had abandoned their Party,
trade union, or managerial duties and had settled into
cozy niches. They did nothing but loaf. We had two
—
days off a week Sunday, and then another day which
we were supposed to use for "assimilating" what we
had learned that week. Well, I used to notice how
these good-for-nothings would leave the dormitory
early in the morning and not come back until late at
night. I don't know what they did all day, but it's a
sure thing they weren't "assimilating" their studies.
Most of them hadn't come to the academy to study at
all; they had come because it was a good place to lie
low and wait for the political storm to blow over. They
made themselves snug httle nests in the academy and
 38 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
avoided political involvement altogether. This practice
led to an ironic state of affairs: the political enemies
of the Central Committee were just about the only
people in the country who were able to take advan-
tage of our institutions of higher learning. I remember
Molotov once asked me, "Comrade Elhrushchev, do
you have much time to read?"
"Very little," I replied.
"It's the same with me. My job never lets up. Much
as rd like to sit down and read a book, and much as,
I know I should, I never have a chance."
I knew what he meant. Ever since I'd returned from
the army in 1922, I'd been too busy to read. I was an
active Party member, and therefore all my time was;
taken up with fighting for the General Line of the
Central Committee. My life wasn't my own. If someone
did have a chance to appreciate literature, he was
likely to be reproached for shirking his civic and Party
duties. I remember Stalin once put it very well: "So
this is how it's turned out! The Trotskyites and the
rightists have been rewarded for their activities with
the privilege of higher education! The Central Com-
mittee doesn't have confidence in them so it removes
them from their Party posts, and they rush straight
into our scientific and technological institutes. And
meanwhile, the people who've stood firmly for the
General Line and done the day-to-day practical work i

of the Party never have an opportunity to advance

their education and their professional training."
As a result of this situation, the Industrial Academy ;

was teeming with rightists, and they'd gotten control'

of the Party cell. When I arrived in 1929 the Secretary ;:
of the Party organization was Khakharev. He was s
faurly influential and had pre-Revolutionary Party t
experience, dating, I think, from about 1906. He had n
what we called the Old Guard around him of men who \C:

supported the rightists Rykov, Bukharin, and Uglanov^ \i

4. N. A. Uglanov was First Secretary of the Moscow

Partyfrj
"
Committee and thus responsible for the Industrial Academy.
When he was purged in 1928 he was succeeded first by K. Y.
Bauman, who did not last long, then by Molotov, then by|
Kaganovich, and after that by Khrushchev himself.
 —
\ft PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 39

against Stalin and the General Line of the Party. The

Old Guard at the academy consisted of Old Bolsheviks,
former plant directors, and trade union leaders in —
short, respectable men who were attending the acad-
emy ostensibly to refresh their technical skills.
There was a group of us at the academy who stood
for the General Line and who opposed the rightists:
Rykov, Bukharin, and Uglanov, the Zinovievites, the
Trotskyites, and the right-left bloc of Syrtsov and
Lominadze. I don't even remember exactly what the
differences were between Bukharin and Rykov on the
one hand and Syrtsov and Lominadze on the other.
Rightists, oppositionists, deviationists
right-leftists,
these people were all in basically the same
moving
political direction, and our group was against them.
We all came from the South —
^from the Donbass, from
Dniepropetrovsk, and from Kharkov. Furthermore, we
had all joined the Party after the Revolution. When
someone's candidacy to a post in the academy organi-
zation was proposed at a meeting, he had to go to the
podium and say where he was from and when he had
joined the Party. This made it easy for the Old Guard
in the Party cell to recognize and vote down anyone
who was likely to oppose them.^
My election to the academy presidium was blocked
two or three times, and I wasn't even nominated as a
delegate to the Sixteenth Party Congress. However,
even though I was new in Moscow, my name was
already beginning to emerge as an active Party mem-
ber on the side of the General Line, and therefore the
Central Committee gave me a permanent guest pass to
the Congress. That's how I was able to hear Stalin's
General Report. I didn't attend aU of the Congress
sessions, and even though my pass was supposed to be
nontransferable, I let some of my comrades use it so
that they could get into the Congress, too. I'm glad I

5. Khrushchev here makes an interesting point: the Party

intellectuals and moderates, most of them Old Bolsheviks,
v/ere confronted by Stalin with a phalanx of ruthless toughs,
particularly Khrushchev's colleagues from the industrial com-
plex of the Ukraine, comparative newcomers to the Party.
 , ;'

40. KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

wasn't discovered sharing my pass because people were,
punished if they were caught. j

At the time of the Sixteenth Party Congress the tide

began to turn in our struggle against the rightists at
the academy, and I took a position of leadership in'
the campaign to make the academy a stronghold;
for the Central Committee. My role in the struggle for
the Party Line was not insignificant. Modesty aside,!
I'd say mine was the leading role. The bureau of the i

academy Party cell knew this and tried to get me out i

of town so that I wouldn't interfere vdth its plan toi

elect a rightist delegation to the Bauman District Party i

Conference in 1930. I was sent out into the country,

to inspect a collective farm which the academy Party \

organization sponsored.
When I got back to Moscow the Bauman Conference ,

was already in jkill swing, and the academy was being ,

represented largely by rightists. Comrade Tabakov

came and told me everything that had happened while
I was away. He was a Jew by nationality. He was one
of mystaunchest supporters in the academy, a politi-
cally sophisticated comrade and a Communist of the
highest order. He was later shot. Tabakov told me that
the Party cell had put up a slate of somewhere between
ten and thirteen delegates to the Conference, including
Stalin, Rykov, Bukharin, and, I think, Uglanov. This
tactic was devised by the rightists to make it impossible
to support Stalin's candidacy without also supporting ;

Rykov and Bukharin.

Later that evening I was called to the telephone. I I

didn't have many acquaintances in Moscow, and I (

couldn't imagine who would be calling me. I picked

up the phone, and a voice said, "This is Mekhlis, the
editor of Pravda, speaking.^ Can you come over to my >

6. L. Z. Mekhlis, one of Nature's secret-policemen, was put

in charge of Pravda to make it safe for Stalin. Later, he proved
to be a particularly unpleasant and treacherous NKVD general
who achieved high military rank after the great purge of the
Red Army and cost his country dear by his incompetence in (i

battle. He survived to become Minister of State Control and

died, naturally by all reports, in 1953.
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 41

away? I'll send my car for you. I have an

office right
urgent matter I want to discuss with you."
A few minutes later his car pulled up outside the
dormitory where I lived. I got in and was driven to
the Pravda editorial offices. I'd never met Mekhlis be-
fore. He read me a letter from the academy complain-
ing about political machinations and illegal procedui»es
which had been used to select a rightist delegation to
the Bauman District Conference.
"Are you in agreement with the contents of this
letter?" Mekhlis asked me.
"Yes, absolutely. It accurately reflects the situation
we're facing at the academy."
^ "Would you be willing to put your signature on it?"
F "How can I do that? I didn't have anything to do
with drafting the letter. I don't even know who the
author is."
"That's not important. Your name and the author's
name won't figut-e in this business at all. I'm asking
you to sign it because I trust you; I've heard a lot
about you and the role you've been playing, and your
signature would assure me that the letter is a fair
reflection of what's happening."
"Very weU. I'll sign." I did so and was driven straight
back to my dormitory in Mekhlis's car.
The next day Pravda carried the letter in its corre-
spondence column.'^ It was like a clap of thunder out
of a clear blue sky. The academy was inmiediately
thrown into a turmoil. Classes were suspended, and
the Party group organizers called a meeting at which
all the academy delegates to the Bauman District Con-
ference were recalled except Stalin. Perhaps we got
orders from above not to recall Bukharin, but I don't
remember. In any case, Rykov, Uglanov, and the other
rightist representatives of the academy were all re-
called, and new delegates were chosen. I was made

7. The letter appeared on May 30, 1930. It has long been ob-
vious that Khrushchev was a key figure behind it. It is inter-
esting that he should admit it. His story, even so, may be over-
simplified.
 1

42 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
chairman of the meeting and was put on the new;
delegation.® i

These changes were made so hurriedly that there j

wasn't even time to print new credentials, so we were i

simply given the credentials of the old delegates. This I

aroused a certain amount of curiosity at the Confer-

ence. Once I was even challenged because someone]
else's name was on my credentials. "I know," I ex-[
plained. "These papers were issued originally to the
person whose name is on them, but now they're mine."
That's all I said. Most of the other delegates seemed De
to understand.
Our delegation decided that I should report to the f

Conference on where we stood. As I started my speech, p

there were voices that shouted disapprovingly, "We \\
know all about you and your Industrial Academy!" Jl

The academy was notorious as a hotbed of rightists,

so my first task was to prove that we represented a
position different from the one taken by the previous lu
delegates. Only after I made clear that we stood firmly \l
for the Party Line did the other delegates to the Con-
ference begin to trust us.
After I became Secretary of the Party organization 5
at the academy, we began to crack down on the loafers i
and good-for-nothings who were using the academy {t

as a place to sit out the political struggle which was 8

going on in the Party. We
reminded the students that |s
they hadn't come there to see the sights of Moscow;
they'd come to study and to equip themselves with
theoretical and practical knowledge so that they could
be more productive in the building of Socialism. Soon
the academy began to play a leading role in the strug-
gle against the opposition. Resolutions passed at our
meetings were often published the next day in Pravda
as guidelines for other Party organizations.
That's how my Party activity in Moscow got under
way. As a result of my leadership of the academy
organization, my name became even better known to
the Moscow Party organization and to the Central

8. The story was more complicated than that. The Bukharin-

ites fought back almost recklessly. But their cause was forlorn.
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 43

Committee. During those years there was a District

Party conference every six or twelve months. Another
conference of the Bauman District Party was held in
January, 1931, and I Weis elected Secretary of the
—
District Party Committee, replacing Shirin who only
a year before had opposed my candidacy to the Six-
teenth Party Congress. Shirin was politically imma-
ture. I'm sure he'd had his own reasons for voting
against me in 1930, but all that was over and done
with. My future as a Party worker now looked very
bright.®
At first I thought I had Kaganovich to thank for my
advancement in the Moscow apparatus, but I soon
began to realize that my promotion was due not so
much to Kaganovich as to Stalin himself. Stalin had
apparently been keeping an eye on me through his
wife, Nadezhda Sergey evna Alliluyeva. She sang my
praises to Stalin, and Stalin told Kaganovich to help
me along.
Nadezhda Sergeyevna and I were fellow students at
the academy. She studied chemistry in the textile
faculty, speciahzing in artificial fibers. She was a Party
group organizer, and I used to meet with her regularly
in my capacity as Secretary of the Party organization.^^
I had to give her instructions, and I knew that she
went home and told Stalin about my performance. I
felt just like Piny a, the hero of the story by Vin-
chenko.^^

9. This was in fact the moment of Khrushchev's breakthrough

and the end of the Bukharinites in the academy. A. P. Shirin
was broken and Khrushchev stepped into his shoes, the first
of many such promotions.
Nadezhda Sergeyevna Alliluyeva, Stalin's imhappy second
10.
wife, the mother of Svetlana Stalin, indeed knew Khrushchev
well at the Industrial Academy. It seems odd that such a sen-
sitive creature should have liked a rough, half-educated
peasant as Khrushchev was in those days.
11. Khrushchev has on more than one occasion compared
himself to the hero of Vinchenko's story. Pinya was a puny
little Jew elected as their headman by a number of very tough
prisoners as a gesture of contempt. When the proving time
— —
came a prison breakout he put them all to shame by rising
to the occasion as a bom and sacrificial leader.
 ;

44 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS j

However, Nadezhda Sergeyevna was careful never

to abuse her connection with Stalin. Only a limited i

circle of people even knew she was Stalin's wife. She

was Alliluyeva, and that's all. We
j

had another Al-

liluyev at the academy, a mining engineer from the i

Far East. He sat on the bureau of the Party cell. !

Nadezhda Sergeyevna let people assume that she was |

his wife or sister. She never took advantage of the

|

privileges available to her as Stalin's vdfe. She never i

traveled between the academy and the Kremlin by j

car, but always came and went by streetcar. Nothing ,

singled her out from the mass of students aroimd her. i

It was very shrewd of her not to show that she was ',

close to the person who was considered the Big Man

by both her friends and her enemies in the political
world.
In those days I called her Nadya. Later we started
calling her Nadezhda Sergeyevna. It wasn't until I
became Secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee
and started going regularly to Stalin's for family
dinners that I realized how much Nadya had told
Stalin about my activities at the Industrial Academy
in the struggle for the General Line. Sometimes Stalin
would remind me of incidents which I had forgotten
myself.
During the years that followed I stayed alive while
most of my contemporaries, my classmates at the
academy, my friends with whom I had worked in the
party organization, lost their heads as enemies of
the people. I've often asked myself, how was I spared?
The fact that I am truly devoted to the Party has
always been beyond doubt. But those comrades who
perished were also devoted to the Party, and they,
too, contributed to the struggle for Stalin's General
Line. Why did I escape the fate which they suffered?
I think part of the answer is that Nadya's reports
helped determine Stalin's attitude toward me. I call it
my lottery ticket. I drew a lucky lottery ticket when
it happened that Stalin observed my activities through
Nadezhda Sergeyevna. It was because of her that Sta-
lin trusted me. In later years he sometimes attacked
and insulted me, sometimes made rude remarks about
 —
PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 45

me; but he always got over it, and right up until the
last day of his life he Hked me. It would be stupid and
sentimental to talk about this man loving anyone, but
there's no doubt that he held me in great respect.
Stalin had very little respect for Nadezhda Konstan-
tinovna Klrupskaya and Maria Ilinichna Ulyanova
[Lenin's widow and sister respectively]. He used to
say that he didn't think either of these women was
making a positive contribution to the Party's struggle
for victory.
^ After Stalin's death we found an envelope in a secret
compartment, and inside the envelope was a note writ-
ten in Lenin's hand. Lenin accused Stalin of having
insulted Nadezhda Konstantinovna. Vladimir Ilyich
demanded that Stalin apologize for insulting her
otherwise Lenin would no longer consider StaHn his
comrade. I was astonished that this note had been
preserved. Stalin had probably forgotten all about it.^^
It was always very upsetting to see how disrespect-
fully Stalin behaved toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna
while she was alive. She opposed Stalin during the
struggle against the rightists and made a speech de-
fending Bukharin and Rykov at the Bauman District
Party Conference in 1930. As a result she came under
attack from most of the delegates at the Conference;
and afterward, without any pubUcity, the word went

12. The contents of this note were revealed for the first time
by Khrushchev in the Secret Speech. Lenin had suffered more
than one stroke and was desperately trying to warn his col-
leagues against Stalin's overweening ambition. The distin-
guished scholar, the late Boris Nicolaevsky, believed that Stalin
deliberately insulted Krupskaya, knowing that this wotild get
back to Lenin and so upset him that his death would be acceler-
ated. The text of Lenin's note to Stalin (with copies to Ka-
menev and Zinoviev) reads: "Dear Comrade Stalin! You
permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone
and a rude reprimand of her. ... I have no intention to forget
so easily that which is being done against me, and I need
not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which
is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you
weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your
words and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of
relations between us. Sincerely: Lenin. (5 March, 1923)." See
Appendix 4.
46 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
out to Party cells to give her a working-over. As for
Maria Ilinichna Ulyanova, everyone knew she was a^
good friend of Bukharin's; she had been secretary of
Pravda when he was editor.
For my part, as a young Communist with a record
of experience dating from after the October Revolu-
tion, I had always revered Lenin as our great leader
and therefore had the utmost respect for Nadezhda
Konstantinovna. She had been Vladimir Ilyich's in-
separable companion. It was a bitter thing for me to
watch her at these sessions of the Bauman District
Conference when everyone started coming out against
her. I remember her as a broken old woman. People
avoided her like the plague. On Stalin's instructions,
she was kept under close surveillance because she had
strayed from the Party Line.
As I analyze now what happened during that period,
I think Nadezhda Konstantinovna was correct in the
stand she took. But I say that with the benefit of
hindsight. At the time, everything was mixed up in
one pile, and everyone was slinging mud at Nadezhda
Konstantinovna and Maria Ilinichna.
Later, when I was working on the Moscow City
Party Committee, Nadezhda Konstantinovna was in
charge of dealing with citizens* complaints. Anyone
who had been dealt with unjustly by the Moscow City
Soviet took his grievance to her. Undoubtedly there
were many faults in the way the Moscow City Soviet
worked. Conditions were especially hard for workers,
office employees, and intellectuals. Whenever someone
ran up against a brick wall in the bureaucracy, he
would appeal to Nadezhda Konstantinovna as a last
recourse. She was limited in what she could do to help.
She didn't have enough influence to redress even the
most vaUd grievances that were brought to her. She
often forwarded them to me at the Moscow City
Committee. Unfortunately, even though I held a high
post, there wasn't much I could do to help, either. We
had a widespread shortage of apartments in Moscow.
The whole housing situation was a nightmare. Wewere
industrializing the country and building new factories
everywhere, but the expansion of Moscow's worker
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 47
Ipopulation wasn*t taken into account. Only the barest
minimum of housing facilities were being built, and
these new apartment buildings didn*t begin to compen-
sate for all the houses that were being torn down to
make room for factories.
I did whatever I could when Nadezhda Konstanti-
novna sent people to me with complaints. I would
always report to her what had been done, or else I
would tell her that we were powerless. Occasionally I
met with her. She was perfectly correct about where
I stood. She knew that I toed the General Line of the
Party and that I was a product of Stalin's generation.
She treated me accordingly.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was absolute-
ly right: I was a hundred percent faithful to Stalin as
our leader and our guide. I believed that everything
Stalin said in the name of the Party was inspired by
genius, and that I had only to apply it to my own life.
Nevertheless I felt divided against myself when Na-
dezhda Konstantinovna disfavor in the Party.
fell into
I felt a basic human sympathy
for her.
Stalin used to tell his inner circle that there was
some doubt as to whether Nadezhda Konstantinovna
was really Lenin's widow at all, and that if the situa-
tion continued much longer we would begin to express
our doubts in public. He said if necessary we would
declare that another woman was Lenin's widow, and
he named a solid and respected Party member. This
person is stUl alive; I don't want to try to comment
on such matters.^^
I think Stalin's attitude toward Krupskaya was just
another instance of his disrespect toward Lenin him-
self. Nothing was sacred to Stalin, not even Lenin's
good name. Stalin never let himself breathe a word
against Krupskaya in public, but in his inner circle

13. According to Alexander Orlov, a high-ranking NKVD

officer who defected to the West, the substitute widow was to
have been Elena Stasova, who later spent years in labor
camps and was rehabilitated after Stalin's death. A rumor stUl
current in Moscow identifies the candidate for "official widow"
as R. S. Zemlyachka, an Old Bolshevik and onetime colleague
of Bela Kun in the Crimea.
 "

48 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

he allowed himself to say all sorts of outrageous things

about her. He wasn't just indulging in frivolous gossip,
either. He wanted to influence us psychologically, to
undermine our limitless love for Lenin, and to increase
his own stature as the uncontested leader and great
thinker of our era. To this end he cautiously but
deliberately sprinkled into the consciousness of those
around him the idea that privately he wasn't of the
same opinion about Lenin that he professed publicly.
I have to mention Kaganovich in this regard. His
behavior disgusted me, and it disgusted others, too. He
was nothing but a lackey. All Stalin had to do was
scratch Kaganovich behind the ears to send him snarl-
ing at the Party.
Kaganovich used to throw back his chair, bring him-
self up to his full height, and bellow: "Comrades! It's
time for us to teU the people the truth. Everyone in
the Party keeps talking about Lenin and Leninism.
We've got to be honest with ourselves. Lenin died in
1924. How many years did he work in the Party?
What was accomplished under him? Compare it with
what has been accomplished under Stalin! The time
has come to replace the slogan 'Long Live Leninism'
with the slogan 'Long Live Stalinism.'
While he would rant on like this, we would all keep
absolutely silent and lower our eyes. Stalin was always
the first and only one to dispute Kaganovich.
"What are you talking about?'* he would say, "How
dare you say that?!" But you could tell from the tone
in Stalin's voice that he was hoping someone would
contradict him. This device is well known among
village folk. When a mother is about to go off with
someone on a visit to another village and wants her
little child to come with her, she scolds, "Now, you
stay here! Don't you dare follow me, you little devil!'*
and she wags her finger at the child. Then, when the
person who has come to fetch her isn't looking, the
mother beckons to the child and whispers, "Come on,
follow me!" So the little child runs along behind her.
I've often witnessed this scene myself, and it was in
just this way that Stalin would start scolding Kagano-
vich.
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 49

Stalin liked to rebuke Kaganovich with the following

comparison: "What is Lenin? Lenin is a tall tower!
And what is Stalin? Stalin is a little finger!" Some-
times when he made this remark he substituted an
analogy which, shall we say, isn't suitable for recording
here. Kaganovich was encouraged all the more, and
he persistently repeated his claim about Stalin. Ka-
ganovich was a master at sensing when Stalin's indig-
nation was false.
This "dispute" between Kaganovich and Stalin be-
came more and more frequent, right up until Stalin's
death. No one ever interfered and Stalin always had
the last word in settling the matter.
This routine of theirs was typical of both Stalin
and Kaganovich. Kaganovich was unsurpassed in his
viciousness. Stalin used to hold him up as an example
of a man "resolute in his class consciousness" and
"implacable toward his class enemies." Later we found
out all too well how resolute and implacable Kagano-
vich really was. He was the kind of man who wouldn't
say a single word on behalf of his own brother, Mikhail
Kaganovich, who was accused of being a German spy
planted by Hitler to form a puppet Russian govern-
ment after the Germans captured Moscow. What could
be more absurd? Hitler was planning to put Mikhail
Kaganovich, a Jew, in a fascist Russian government?
From the standpoint of the Nazis, this would have been
criminal! But nonetheless, that was the charge made
against Mikhail Kaganovich; and when he had no
other way out, he committed suicide. I never heard
anyone mention this incident after it happened, and
Lazar Moiseyevich himself seemed to ignore his broth-
er's tragedy. As far as he was concerned, it was all
quite simple: once there was a man named Mikhail
Kaganovich, People's Commissar of the Aviation In-
dustry; then Mikhail Kaganovich was no more; he
might as well have never existed. And all the while
Lazar Moiseyevich never stopped groveling before
Stalin.i*

14. Lazar Kaganovich indeed took his brother's disgrace and

suicide without apparently turning a hair. KJirushchev through-
 1'

50 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
But I'm getting ahead of myself ... I

After working for six months as Party Secretary o;|

the Bauman District, I became Secretary of the Reel
Presnya District in 1931. It was definitely a step up
the Party ladder. In view of its historical importance;
in the 1905 uprising, the Red Presnya was politicalljl
more important than the Bauman District. Actually, ilj
was the leading Party district committee in Moscow!
After another six months I was elected Second Secre-|
tary of the Moscow City Party Committee at a city I

conference. Much as I appreciated the honor and the|

responsibility that went v^rith this promotion, I wasj
sorry to have to leave the Industrial Academy without'
graduating. Taking the job on the Moscow City Com-;
mittee meant giving up my hopes of ever completing
my higher education. Furthermore, as I confided to'
Kaganovich, I was apprehensive about the difficulties'
I was sure to encounter in the city apparatus. But I
proved up to the challenge, and a year later I became
Second Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee.
I was elected to the Central Committee of the AU-i
Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) at the Seven-
teenth Party Congress in 1934. The election procedure
impressed me as being very democratic. Here's how iti
worked: Candidates were nominated and their names
put on a ballot, which was then passed around to all'
the delegates. Admittedly, there wasn't much choice!
left to the delegates because the number of names on
the ballot was just enough to fill the staff of the Central i

Committee, including members and candidate mem-

bers, plus the staff of the Inspection Conmiission. How-
ever, every delegate was given a chance to express his i

opinion about each candidate either by leaving his

name on the ballot or striking it off. Stalin then made
the rounds of the delegates to collect the ballots, look-
iQg each delegate squarely in the eye so as not to see
his ballot. (It was only later that I found out that no-
body's name was ever put on the ballot without Stalin's

out his narrative has difficulty in arranging his ideas about his
onetime sponsor and protector, to whom he owed so much,
and whom he finally ruined in 1957 (see Appendix 3.)
[
PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 51

approval.) Then the ballots were counted, and the

i number of votes for and against each candidate was
announced.
I remember that at the Seventeenth Party Congress
Stalin didn't receive a unanimous vote. Six people
voted against him. Whydo I remember this so well?
Because when my name was announced "Khru- —
—
shchev!" I also was only six votes short of unanimous
election to the Central Committee! This meant I was
in a position comparable to Stalin's. Other candidates
often received twenty or thirty or even a hundred
votes against them. It took a majority of the votes cast
for a candidate to be elected.
In 1935 Kaganovich was appointed People's Com-
missar of Transport and released from his duties in the
Moscow organization. I was promoted to take his place
as First Secretary of the Moscow Regional and City
committees.^^
At the very next plenum of the Central Committee
I was elected a candidate member of the Politbureau.
I was pleased and flattered, but I was also terrified by
the onerous responsibility that went with this job. I
was now a full-fledged professional Party worker, but
I kept with me the tools of my trade —
calipers, mark-
ers, try square, a ruler, and a liter measure. I was

reluctant to sever my ties with my old profession. The

way I looked at it, a Party job was elective, and if I
weren't reelected, I might any day have to return to
my original career as a metal fitter.
I started attending Politbureau sessions regularly.
In those days Stalin was still, to a certain extent at
least, observing Lreninist traditions. Members of the
Central Committee who happened to be in Moscow
were entitled to attend Politbureau sessions, as long
as they sat quietly and didn't disrupt the work. I
learned a lot at these sessions about how the leadership
of theParty made decisions.
To be able to sit with the Politbureau, to be able to
work side by side with the leaders of our Party, and

15. This meant that Khrushchev was absolute master, imder

Stalin, of the city of Moscow and the surroimding Region.
 ,

52 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
to —
be close to Stalin this seemed like the crowning
opportunity of my career. For years I had been devotee
with all my soul to the Central Committee and to
Stalin. Ever since first coming to Moscow and hearing
him speak at mass meetings, I had admired Stalin for
his clearness of mind and the conciseness of his formu-
lations. I had been equally impressed by this same
succinctness and lucidity in his address to a smaller
group, at a closed meeting of industrial managers in
1932, when he was formulating his Six Great Condi-
tions. And now that I was a candidate member of the'
Politbureau, I had an opportunity to watch Stalin in
action at close quarters, regularly. My admiration for
him continued to grow. I was spellbound by the pa-
tience and sympathy for others that he showed at
PoUtbureau meetings in the middle thirties.
I can think of various examples of what I mean, but
I'U single out just one. It was a fairly unusual case,
involving a young diplomat who had gone to some
Latin American country with one of our trade mis-
sions and let himself be compromised by the local
press. He was brought in to testify during a Polit-
bureau meeting and was obviously very embarrassed
and upset. Stalin opened the discussion.
"Tell me, please, everything that hapi)€ned. Don't
hold anything back."
The young diplomat explained that just after he
arrived in the Latin American country, he went to ai
restaurant to get somethmg to eat. "I was shown to a
table, and I ordered dinner. A man came up and sat
down at my table. He asked me if I were from Russia.
I said, yes, I was. Then he started asking all sorts of
—
questions ^what did I come to buy, had I served in the
army, did I know how to shoot? I told him that I'd
—
been in the cavalry, that I wasn't a bad shot ^things
like that. Then, to my horror, an article appeared in
the newspaper the very next day. It was full of all
kinds of nonsense about how I was a real Caucasian
cowboy and a crack shot; it was also full of lies about
why I'd come, what I was going to buy, what prices I
was going to pay, and so on. Shortly afterward the
embassy told me I'd better return to the Homeland
 —
PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 53

and report to you. That's what happened. I only ask

you to take into account that I committed this blunder
out of inexperience, and without any malicious intent."
I felt very sorry for this young man. He had obvi-
ously been a victim of his own naivete. Everyone
squirmed in his seat and whispered to his neighbor
we were all waiting to see what would happen.
Suddenly Stalin said, "Well, as far as I can see, a
trusting fellow was taken advantage of by a bunch of
rascals. Is there anything more to it than that?"
"No."
"Then the incident is closed." Stalin looked the
young diplomat in the eye and said, "See that you're
more careful ia the future." The poor fellow just sat
there with his mouth open as the meeting was ad-
journed. He was so surprised by his good fortune that
he couldn't move. Then he grabbed his briefcase and
scurried out.
I was very impressed by the simplicity and compas-
sion with which Stalin had handled the case. So was
everyone else.

City Father

From 1952, when he became Second Secretary (under

Kaganovich) of the Moscow City Party Committee, to
1938, when he was appointed to he First Secretary of
the Ukraine, Khrushchev was primarily concerned
with the management of Moscow. In 1935, he tt?as in
absolute control of the Moscow Regional and City
Party organizations. It was in these years that he made
his reputation as a hard and ruthless driver of men
who, unlike so many Russians in exalted positions, was
not afraid to get mud on his boots. His most spectacu-
lar operation was the con^truxition of the Moscow
Metro, that celebrated showpiece of the Soviet regime,
with its gilded and marble underground halls which
were to become a wonder of the world. The Metro was
named after Kaganovich, who initiated it, with Khru-
shchev as his assistant. But soon Khrushchev himself
 54 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
took over and brought it to a successful conclusion
\

Khrushchev gives us an account of those feverish days

He did, indeed, work without ceasing. He had undei
his command not only hands of enthusiastic younc
Communist volunteers, hut also a large forced-lahoii
contingent at the disposition of G. G. Yagoda, the
NKVD chieftain. From 1936 onward, it was also Khru-
shchev's joh to help make Moscow safe for Stalin
during the terrihle purge years. It was then that he
distinguished himself, though he does not mention this,
by addressing mass meetings in which he praised
Stalin in more high-flown terms than any of his
colleagues and demanded death for the victims of the
treason trials.

From the beginning of my Party activities in the Mos-

cow organization, there was a lot to be done in a short
time. I played a central role in the management and
reconstruction of our Soviet capital through the early
and middle thirties.My comrades and I worked with
enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. Our jobs consumed our
whole Hves. We knew no such thing as rest. We fre-
quently called mass meetings or had consultations
among ourselves on our days off, and we worked long
hours, often well into the night. In our eyes, there was
something romantic about our task. Everyone lived to
see the day when Lenin's words would come true:
after the first ten years of its existence, Soviet Power
would be invincible! Nowadays, unfortunately, a lot of
that spirit of idealism and self-sacrifice has gone out
of the Party; many of the attitudes that seem all too (

prevalent today have a touch of bourgeois pettiness

about them. Back when I helped run the city of Mos-
cow, no one would have permitted himself so much as
a single thought about having his own dacha [country
house]. After all, we were Conmiunists! We always
went around in plain work clothes. None of us ever
wore suits. Our uniform was a field shirt with an open
collar or a white peasant smock. Stalin set a good
example for us in this regard.
While Kaganovich was First Secretary of the Moscow
City and Regional committees, he was also Second
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 55

Secretary of the Central Committee. That made him

Stalin's deputy. Therefore he had to devote most of
his time to the Central Committee, and the Hon's
share of the responsibility for getting things done in
Moscow feU on my shoulders, since I was Second
Secretary of the City and Regional committees. This
job required effort, industriousness, and great care on
my part. I had to make up in diligence what I lacked
in experience. I enjoyed good relations with my com-
rades in the Moscow Party organization. Apparently
my performance justified the trust and responsibility
which had been invested in me when I had been pro-
moted from the district level.
Of course, there were trying moments. I remember
the following episode which occurred ia 1932: People
were going hungry in Moscow, and as Second Secre-
tary, I devoted much of my energy to finding the
—
means to feed the citizenry or "working class," as
we used to say.^^ Stalin had suggested the idea of
raising rabbits for food. I was all for this plan and
worked zealously to carry out his instructions. Almost
every factory, plant, and workshop started raising
rabbits to help stock its own kitchen. Then we began
pushing a plan to raise mushrooms in cellars and
ditches around Moscow. Some estabHshments con-
tributed their share, but every mass movement has its
bad elements and some factory directors didn't support
the cause. We ran into more trouble when it came to
distributing ration cards. There were never enough
cards, and a certain amount of swindling was inevita-
ble. The card shortage tempted some people, especially
the imstable ones, to play fast and loose with the law
or to steal outright. There were different ration cards
for people who worked and people who didn't, and
among those who worked, cards varied in exchange

16. Moscow was now feeling the effects of the famine resulting
from collectivization. Although the main Political Directorate
and the army forced the peasants to give up their produce for
the benefit of the urban workers, there was still not enough to
go around. The state of the peasantry at this time is described
in the following chapter.
56 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
value. This state of affairs, too, made for all sorts of
irregularities and abuses, and even thievery.
Kaganovich called me in one day and said, "You'd
better make a report to the Politbureau on w^hat you're
doing to keep people from getting hold of ration cards
illegaUy."
This assignment worried me. I'd go so far as to say
that I was really frightened by the prospect of deliver-
ing a speech to our most prestigious body; Stalin
would be there, judging my report.
Actually, in those days, Stalin never chaired the
Politbureau sessions himself. He always left that job
to Molotov. Molotov was Stalin's oldest friend. They
had known each other from the pre-Revolutionary ,»

underground. Molotov had always been promoted as A

Stalin's most faithful, most unshakable comrade-in- t

arms. They say he claimed this himself when he was i

nominated for the chairmanship of the Council of Peo- j

pie's Commissars at a Central Committee plenum I
toward the end of 1930. After I started working as 1
Secretary of the Moscow City and Regional commit- j

tees, I often went by Stalin's office, and Molotov was

|
'
almost always vdth Stalin when I got there. They
regularly went on vacation together, too. Molotov was
Stalin's right hand in the battle against the opposition.
That's why the oppositionists called him Stalin's bludg-
eon. Stalin used Molotov to strike out at any member i
of the Politbureau who opposed him. But in those !J

days, Molotov impressed me as a strong-willed, inde- li

pendent man who thought for himself .^^ |!

I presented myself at a Politbureau meeting and '»

delivered a speech listing all the measures we were

taking to liquidate abuses of the ration card system.
I claimed we had already been very successful.
"Stop bragging, Comrade Khrushchev," said Stalin.
— —
"There are still many thieves left very many don't
think you've caught them all."
Stalin's remark was made in a fatherly tone and it
didn't upset me at all. He was right. I had convinced
myself that we had rounded up all the ration card

17. See Molotov's biography, Appendix 3.

i
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 57

swindlers, and I was astounded that Stalin —^who

hardly ever left —
the confines of the Kremlin was so
all-seeing that he probably knew exactly how many
thieves were still at large! This raised Stalin all the
more in my eyes.
Some time afterward I found out that a delegation
from Leningrad was going to deliver a report to the
PoUtbureau on the same problem of ration cards. I
was interested to hear how the Leningraders were do-
ing because we were in competition with them in every
area, particularly confidential ones. Sergei Mironovich
Kirov was First Secretary of the Leningrad organiza-
tion. He assigned the report on rationing to one of the
—
other secretaries someone with a Lettish name. As
far as I could tell, the Leningraders' report spoke well
for the amount of headway they had made in building
up their economy so that they could cut back on
rationing.
When the Leningraders finished presenting their re-
port, a recess was called and people filed out of the
hall to go into a nearby lounge where refreshments
were served. There was hunger in the land, and even
people in high positions like myself lived modestly, to
put mildly, and we often didn't have enough to eat
it
at home. TTierefore we used to gorge ourselves on
sandwiches, sausages, sour cream, and sweet tea be-
tween working sessions at the Ejremlin. While every-
one else stormed the buffet next door, I stayed behind
for a moment, waiting until everyone in the back of
the room had left. Unintentionally, I was witness to
an exchange of sharp words between Stalin and Sergei
Mironovich Kirov. Sergei Mironovich said something
favorable about his delegation's report on rationing,
and Stalin shot back with some insulting remark about
the Secretary who had delivered the report.^^ I was
shocked. In those days I was very ideaHstic about
Party morale. I couldn't believe that Stalin, the leader
of our Party, would behave disrespectfully toward an-

18. thirties, S. M. ICirov was

In the late twenties and early
as close as anyone to Stalin. Already here we see the first signs
[>f that independence of mind which was to end in his murder
Eind the launching of the great purge. (Chapter 3).
 ,
;

58 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
other Party member. The way I looked at it, if some-
one carried a Party card and was a true Communist,
—
then he was my brother he was really more than
that. We were boimd together by the invisible threads
of our shared belief in the lofty struggle. The building
of Communism was something almost sacred to me. If
I may use the language of religious believers, I'd say
that every participant in the Conmiunist movement
was to me an apostle, ready to sacrifice himself in the
name of common cause.^^
our
At the time, the incident I overheard between Stalin
and Kirov struck me as an inexpHcable departure i

from Stalin's usual conduct. |

Istarted seeing more of Stalin in informal circum- |

stances after I became First Secretary of the Moscow

City Committee. Along with Bulganin, who was Chair- ;

man of the Moscow City Soviet [in effect, mayor] I ,

used to be invited regularly to family dinners at |

Stalin's apartment. Stalin and Nadezhda Sergeyevna

were always host and hostess. Nadezhda Sergeyevna's ,

parents, Mama
and Papa Alliluyev, were often there,
too. So were Nadezhda's brother and his wife, and her
sister Anna Sergeyevna and her husband Redens.
Redens was Chief of the Moscow Regional office of the '

NKVD. Stalin would always seat Bulganin and me

next to him and pay close attention to us during the
meal. He was fond of saying, "Well, how's it going,
City Fathers?"
make
'

At first it was strange to hear Stalin light

conversation at the dinner table. Worshiping him as I
'.

did, I couldn't get used to being with him in relaxed i

surroundings: here was a man not of this world, laugh- •

ing and joking like the rest of us! After a while I began
to admire him not only as a political leader who had
no equal, but simply as another human being.
Sometimes when there was something he wanted to
talk over with us pertaining to the administration of
the city, Stalin would instruct someone to call up

19. This is a little high-flown. Nevertheless, for all their bru-

tality,men like Khrushchev at this time did feel they were
building a new world.
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 59

Bulganin and myself and have us join him at the

theater. We always concentrated hard on what he was
saying and then tried to do exactly as he had advised
us.
Once— thinkI itwas before the Seventeenth Party
Congress— got I a message to call a phone number
which I immediately recognized as Stalin's apartment.
Stalin answered when I called.
"Comrade Khrushchev," he said, "rumors have
reached me that you've let a very unfavorable situa-
tion develop in Moscow as regards public toilets. Ap-
parently people hunt around desperately and can't
find anywhere to relieve themselves. This won't do. It
puts the citizens in an awkward position. Talk this
matter over with Bulganin and do something to im-
prove these conditions."
This may seem like a trivial subject for Stalin to
have brought to our attention, but I was impressed
nonetheless. Bulganin and I began to work feverishly.
We personally inspected buildings and courtyards. We
also booted the militia [uniformed police] off their
behinds and got them to help. Later Stalin assigned
us the task of installing clean, modern pay toilets. This
also was done. I remember when I was at a conference
with comrades from the provinces, the Party Secretary
of Novosibirsk Eikhe asked me, with typical Lettish
simplicity, "Comrade Khrushchev, is it true what peo-
ple are saying? Are you really busying yourself about
toilets in Moscow, and is this really on Stalin's instruc-
tions?"2o
"Yes, that's perfectly true," I answered, "and I think
it proves our concern for the citizens. A
big city like
Moscow can't get along without enough decent toilets."
This episode, trivial as it may seem, shows how Sta-
lin, the leader of the world's working class, wasn't too

20. R. I. Eihke. Khrushchev made much in his Secret Speech

of Eihke's fate during the purges. A
candidate member of the
Politbureau, he was arrested in April, 1938, and forced under
torture to sign a confession. He repudiated the confession and
appealed to Stalin for a Central Committee investigation of his
case. He was shot in February, 1940.
 60 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
busy to bother himself over as important a detail of
city life as public toilets.
In 1934 Kaganovich, Bulganin, and I worked togeth-
er on the reconstruction of Moscow and supervised
the erection of many new buildiags. I remember that
once when we were standing around in a group,
inspecting a new complex that had been built around
the Moscow Soviet, Kaganovich pointed at the Marx-
Engels Institute and said, "Who the hell designed that
monstrosity?"
The architects who were with us glanced around
nervously, and the city's chief architect, Chernyshev,
became extremely embarrassed. "Lazar Moiseyevich,"
he said, "I designed that building." Kaganovich smiled,
apologized, and qualified his observation. Actually, the .

flat, squat, gray concrete mass of the Marx-Engels f

Institute was indeed a very gloomy-looking structure. 3

It was a period of feverish activity, and stupendous Ij

progress was made in a short time. A hundred impor- J

tant projects seemed to be proceeding all at once: the I
construction of a ball-bearing factory, the enlargement \i

of the Dux Number One aviation factory, the installa-

|
tion of oil, gas, and electricity plants, the excavation [

of the Moscow- Volga Canal, and the reconstruction of

—
the bridges over the Moscow River ^to name just a
few. The huge task of overseeing all this was largely
mine because Kaganovich was up to his ears in work 1

outside the Moscow Party organization.

In addition to putting up new buildiags, there was
a lot to be done in the way of modemiziag the most
basic metropolitan services. Moscow's sewage and
water draiaage systems were long out of date, and there
were no water mains at all in the city. Most streets
were cobblestone, and some were completely unpaved.
Much of the city's transport was still horsedrawn. It's
incredible to look back on it all now, but things really
were that primitive.
During the reconstruction of Moscow I had the hon-
or of setting up the first trolley lines in the Soviet
Union. It took a lot of effort for me to convince people
that trolleybuses were a good idea. There were many
opponents of this means of transport. For example, my
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 61

late friend Aleksei Ivanovich Likhachev was in love

with the internal combustion engine and fought tooth
and nail against the installation of a trolley system. I
eyen ran into some resistance from Stalin himself.
After we'd put up the wires and were getting ready
to test the system, I got a call from Kaganovich, who
said we had to call the whole thing off. Apparently
Stalin was sure that the trolley cars would overturn
on the slope in front of the Central Telegraph building.
But it was already too late to call off the test, and
fortunately everything went smoothly. We reported to
Stalin that because a trolley worked on electricity, it
didn't make much noise or pollute the air. In short, it
was the most progressive mode of transport, and a
trolley system would definitely contribute to the ad-
vancement of the city. Stalin supported my recom-
mendation. It's true that later, when we bought
doubledecker trolleys, Stalin absolutely refused to let
us use them. He was afraid that they would tip over,
and nothing we could say would change his mind.
Generally speaking, though, StaUn supported modem
improvements and progressive developments of all
kinds.
When we started building the Moscow Metro, we had
only the vaguest idea of what the job would entail.
We were very unsophisticated. We thought of a sub-
way as something almost supernatural. I think it's
probably easier to contemplate space flights today than
it was for us to contemplate the construction of the
Moscow Metro in the early 1930's.
It was recommended that we put Pavel Pavlovich
Roter in charge of the project. He was reputed to be
the best builder in Moscow. He was a Russian of
German extraction who had supervised one of the
—
State's most ambitious construction projects the Gov-
ernment House on Dzerzhinsky Square in Kharkov.
At first I had nothing to do with the Metro myself.
Then, after some time passed, Kaganovich said, "Things
aren't going very well. Since you've had some experi-
ence with mining, you'd better take charge and super-
vise the building of the Metro. I suggest you put aside
all your work in the City Committee. You'll have to
 62 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

go down into the shafts to familiarize yourself with

what's being done. Bulganin should do the same.*'
Kaganovich's suggestion made sense. At the time I
still held Lazar Moiseyevich in high esteem. There was
no question about his devotion to the Party and to the
cause. In the course of chopping firewood he sent a lot
of chips flying, as they say, but he never flagged in
strength or energy. He was as stubborn as he was
devoted.
After I'd spent some time down in the shafts, I had
I
a better idea of exactly what the Metro was all about.
I realized that things were done much as they were
in the mines where I'd worked in my youth. As fori
Bulganin, he developed a sciatic condition on the proj-
ect and was laid up in bed for a long time. That's how
the supervision of the Metro fell on my shoulders. I
started giving regular progress reports to Kaganovich, |;

stressing that we didn't have enough skilled personnel

to do the job quickly and properly. At my urging, we
started looking for experienced mining engineers to
supervise the work in the shafts.
About this time things were going badly in the coal
industry in the Donbass. We weren't able to mine coal
fast enough to meet the country's growing demand.
Molotov was sent to the Donbass to look into the situa-
tion. He wasn't able to do much good because he didn't
know the first thing about mining. Yegor Trofimovich
Abakumov was head of coal works in the Donbass.
We'd been friends since we worked in the same pit
back in 1912; after the Civil War I'd worked as his
deputy. He was a good administrator and widely
recognized as an experienced miner. Molotov made a
report to the Politbureau recommending that we re-
lease Abakumov from his post in the Donbass. Kagano-
vich called me and told me about this.
"Do you know this Abakumov?"
"Yes, I know him well."
"What would you think if Abakumov were made
deputy director of the construction of the Metro under
Roter?"
"A better deputy we'd never find," I said. "He'd
even make an excellent director."
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 63

"I didn't ask you about that," snapped Kaganovich.

"We've already got Roter as our director."
So Abakumov was assigned to us. My job became
easier after he arrived. We knew and trusted each
other. We started right away to recruit experienced
mining engineers.
One day Kaganovich asked me, "What if we were
to make you chief of construction work for the Metro?"
"I wouldn't want that."
"Whynot? You've demonstrated the necessary abil-
ity and experience. Frankly, we've already started
looking to you as the manager of day-to-day operations
around here. What difference would it make to you if

we made it official and put you in charge?"

what you decide to do," I said, "then I'll
"If that's
do everything in my power to justify your confidence
in me. I would only ask that you release me from my
duties as Secretary of the City Committee. I couldn't
possibly hold both jobs at once."
"Oh, no, that would be out of the question."
I later found out that it had been Stalin's idea to
make me manager of the Metro construction. Kagano-
vich never told me this himself, but apparently Stalin
had instructed him to see if I would take on the Metro
job in addition to my Moscow City Committee duties.
The suggestion was dropped when I said I couldn't
hold both positions at the same time.
As turned out, even though I formally kept my
it
job at the City Committee, I gave eighty percent of
my time to the Metro. I went to and from the Mos-
cow Committee through the shafts. In the morning I
climbed down a shaft near where I lived and came up
out of a shaft near the Party office building. It would
be hard for me to describe how strenuous a working
day we put in. We slept as little as possible so that
we could give all our time to the cause.
One day a young engineer who worked in the plan-
ciing section came to me with an idea of how we might
improve the Metro. His name was Makovsky. I liked
tiim immediately. He was sharp and handsome, one of
3ur Socialist era's new generation of specialists. Here
is what he said:
 64 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Comrade Khrushchev, v^re're building the Metro!
according to the so-called German, or open-trench, I

method. This method is very unsuitable for a city. I

propose that v^re switch to the English, or closed-tun-
nel, method. We'd have to build the Metro deeper, and I

it would be a little more expensive. But if you keep '

in mind the possibihty of war, you'll see that the

tun-
nels, wdth their reinforced shielding and
j
'

buttressed
walls, would make excellent bomb shelters. There's
i

another advantage to the English method: we wouldn't '

have to build along the main transport lines; we could !

timnel right under buildings. Then there's also the

|

matter of how we're going to get passengers down into '

the Metro and up and out again. Pavel Pavlovich Roter

has already given instructions for us to build elevators.
That's also the German method. I propose that we
build escalators instead." I admit this was the first
time I'd ever heard this word "escalator." I asked him
what it meant. He explained, and I followed him as
best I could. It sounded extremely complicated. Ma-
kovsky finished by saying, "I ask you please to think
over my proposals. If you want, I can make a report
explaining exactly what I have in mind. However,
please don't tell Pavel Pavlovich that I've been to see
you. He's very jealous and very strict. I've brought
this idea to you without his permission. It would have
been fruitless for me to have spoken to him first. He's
awfully opinionated, and he would have knocked my
proposal down without even listening to me."
"All right," I said, "I'll talk it over with Comrade
Kaganovich, and we'll let you know what we decide.'*
I reported to Kaganovich. He answered curtly, "Why
don't you get Makovsky you in more detail
to tell
about these escalators of and then you'll see why
his,
we have to build elevators instead. We'd have to order
the escalators from England or Germany, and we can't
afford to spend our gold reserves abroad, even for the
sake of the Metro."
I decided to call a meeting with both Makovsky and
Pavel Pavlovich Roter present. I wanted to get the
whole question settled once and for all. There were
some other people invited, too. Try to imagine the
 PARTY WORK IN MOSCOW 65

scene: Makovsky, young and handsome and delicate-

looking; and Roter, old and fat, scowling at Makovsky
from under his craggy brows like a crocodile at a
rabbit. Makovsky was obviously very nervous, but he
handled himself well. He argued convincingly that we
were using an outmoded system and that he was pro-
posing a progressive alternative. He kept citing England
—
as an example: Piccadilly station ^the best station in
London, right in the heart of the most aristocratic
—
section of the city ^was built deep in the ground, and
it had escalators rather than elevators. Roter kept

spewing contempt on Makovsky, calling him an irre-

sponsible young whippersnapper. But Makovsky had
made his point. I took his side when we made our
report to the Central Committee. Roter was very stub-
bom. He was determined to defend his position to the
bitter end. Kaganovich, who was on Makovsky's side
with me, was embarrassed about this impasse because
it meant we'd have to take the dispute to the Polit-

bureau. Roter would present his case against us, and

there was a chance Stalin might support him. However,
we had no choice.
Roter gave his report at the Politbureau meeting,
and then it was our turn to speak. An argument broke
out. At one point Roter said, "What you're proposing
is much too expensive ." . .

But Stalin cut him off sharply. "Comrade Roter,

the question of what is expensive and what is inex-
pensive will be left up to the Government to decide.
Your job is to let us know what is technically feasible,
not what is financially feasible. Now, tell us, is the
proposal of this young engineer Makovsky technically
feasible."
"Yes, but it will be much too expensive."
"I just told you. Comrade Roter, the Government
will decide that. We will go ahead and accept Makov-
sky's plan for deep tunneling."
I was dehghted. Stalin showed great wisdom and
boldness. He had taken into account the long-range
factor of civil defense, and he decided on that basis
that tunnels merited the extra expense. Sure enough,
in the first part of the war, the city's command post
66 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

was situated in the Myasnitsky Gates Metro station,

and the tunnels were used as bomb shelters.
In 1935 the citizens of Moscow celebrated the com-
pletion of the first stage of the Metro. Many people
received government awards. I was decorated with
the Order of Lenin. This was my first such honor. Bul-
ganin received the Order of the Red Star. And the
Metro was named after Kaganovich. A competition had
already begun among Politbureau members to see who
could "claim" the most factories, collective farms,
towns, and so on. This regrettable practice had come
into being under Stalin, and Kaganovich was already
adept at it.
 The Terror

t
Collectivization

What came to he known as the Great Terror did not

start until 1935. But the use of terror in principle, to
shatter opposition to the regime, had been a feature of
Bolshevik rule since its formul invocation hy Lenin
in 1918. Collectivization (1928-33) was the wholesale
application of terror to the countryside, and nobody
knows, or ever will knx)w, how many millions perished
in a madhouse operation which, years later, Stalin
himself in conversation with Winston Churchill de-
scribed as being more critical for the Soviet Union
than any of the crnses of World War 11. In 1933, when
it was all over, the agricultural produx^tion and the

livestock population of the Soviet Union had been

diminished by more than half. On the eve of the Ger-
man invasion in 1941 they had still not returned to
their 1928, precollectivization levels. What mukes this
section of outstanding interest is that Khrushchev for
the first time admits that ''the Stalin brand of collec-
tivization brought us nothiiig but misery." For nearly
forty years the Soviet leadership, Khrushchev in-
cluded, have pretended that the collectivization, bitter-
ly opposed at the time by Bukharin and others, was a
necessary and brilliantly successful operation. In fact
it was an atrocity on a colossal scale, the consequences

of which have been perw^anently damaging to the

Soviet economy.

Collectivization was begun the year before I was

transferred from the Ukraine, but it wasn't until after
67
 j'!
'

68 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
|

I started work in Moscow that I began to

suspect itij
real effects on the rural population and it wasn'i—
until many years later that I realized the scale of the|
starvation and repression which accompanied collec-
tivization as it was carried out under Stalin. i

My first gUmpse of the truth was

in 1930, when the!
bureau of the Party cell at the Industrial Academy!
tried to get rid of me by sending me out into the coun-;
try on a business trip. The academy sponsored the:
Stalin Collective Farm in the Samara [later named
Kuibyshev] Region, to which I was supposed to dehver,
money we had collected for the purchase of agricul-i
tural implements. Sasha [Aleksandr] Sdobnov, an-|
other student at the academy, accompanied me on thati
trip. He was a good comrade from the Urals. Later he,
got caught in the meat-mincer of 1937. '

We spent only a few days at the collective farm and

were appalled at the conditions we found there. The|
farmers were starving to death. We called a meeting to i

present the money we'd brought them. Most of thei

workers on this collective farm were drawn from the:
Chuvash population, so we had to speak to them,
through an interpreter. When we told them that the|
money was allocated for farm equipment, they toldj
us they weren't interested in equipment what they| —
wanted was bread. They literally begged us to give j

them food. Sdobnov and I were put up in the hut of \

an old widow who was so poor that she had nothing

to give us; we shared with her the food we'd brought
''

along for the trip. j

I'd had no idea that things were this bad. At the

Industrial Academy we'd been living under the illu-
sion promoted by Pravda that collectivization was
proceeding smoothly and everything was fine in the
countryside.
Then, without warning, Stalin delivered his famous i

"Dizzy with Success" speech, laying the blame for the i

excesses of the collectivization on active local Party

members.^ The same people who had been conducting

1. The speech was delivered on March 2, 1930. Stalin insisted

that his perfectly straightforward instructions had been mis-
K THE TERROR 69

the collectivization with such reckless, bestial fervor,

suddenly found themselves under Pravda's lash. At
the time we considered Stalin's speech a masterpiece,
a bold blow struck by the Party leadership against the
men responsible for the excesses.^ But I remember
being bothered by the thought: if everything has been
going as well on the collective farms as Stalin has
been telling us up until now, then what's the reason
for the "Dizzy with Success" speech all of a sudden?
The controversy over collectivization sparked a rapid
turnover in the Moscow Party leadership. Uglanov,
who was an opponent of collectivization, was replaced
by Bauman.^ Then Bauman was caught in the crack-
down on excesses, and he was replaced by Molotov,
who in turn was replaced by Kaganovich. It was when
Kaganovich was the leader of the Moscow organiza-
tion that word began to leak out that there was trouble
on the collective farms, although I never had any idea
that trouble meant peasant uprisings and that people
were sent out from Moscow to put them down.
I remember that while I was working on the Moscow
City Committee in 1932, Kagonovich suddenly an-
nounced that he had to go on a business trip to
Krasnodar. He was away for a week or two. He didn't
tell us at the time, but it later came to light that he'd
—
gone to quell a strike or "sabotage," as it was then
—
called of Kuban Cossacks who refused to cultivate
their land. As a result of Kaganovich's trip, whole
Cossack settlements were picked up and moved forcibly
to Siberia,

understood. This was the master denouncing his own instru-

ments for carrying out his orders.
2. "At the time we considered Stalin's speech a masterpiece
.. ." But who was "we"? Stalin spoke without warning to the

Politbureau and the Central Committee. The Central Commit-

tee actually found the courage to protest at being saddled with
the blame for Stalin's crime.
3. It was against the collectivization drive that the "rightists,"
above all Bukharin, made their last fight. The irony was that
Trotsky and the "leftists" had first advocated collectivization,
which Stalin had opposed at the time. Molotov was Moscow
Party chieftain from 1928-30, when he became Prime Minister.
70 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
One of myfriends was Veklishev, the Chief of th
Political Directorate [armed forces "security"] of th
Moscow Military District. He told me that strikes an*
sabotage were going on all over the place in th
Ukradne, and that Red Army soldiers had to be mob
ilized to weed the sugzu* beet crop. I was horrified,
knew from my own experience with agriculture tha
sugar beets are very delicate; they have to be weede(
at the right time and with the proper care. Yoi
couldn't expect Red Army soldiers, most of whom hac
never seen a sugar beet and didn't give a damn i
they ever saw one again, to be able to do the job right
Naturally, the sugar beet crop was lost.
Subsequently the word got around that famine hac
broken out in the Ukraine. I couldn't belive it. I'c
left the Ukraine in 1929, only three years before, wher
the Ukraine had pulled itself up to prewar living
standards. Food had been plentiful and cheap. Yel
now, we were told, people were starving. It was in-
credible.
It wasn't until many years later, when Anastas
Ivanovich Mikoyan told me the following story, thai
I found out how bad things had really been in the
Ukraine in the early thirties. Mikoyan told me thai
Comrade Demchenko, who was then First Secretary
of the Kiev Regional Committee, once came to see him
in Moscow. Here's what Demchenko said: "Anastas
—
Ivanovich, does Comrade Stalin ^for that matter, does
—
anyone in the PoHtbureau ^know what's happening in
the Ukraine? Well, if not, I'U give you some idea. A
train recently pulled into Kiev loaded with corpses of
people who had starved to death. It had picked up
corpses all the way from Poltava to Kiev. I think
somebody had better inform Stalin about this situa-
tion."
You cansee from this story that an abnormal state
of affairs had already developed in the Party when
someone like Demchenko, a member of the Ukrainian
Politbureau, was afraid to go see Stalin himself. We
had already moved into the period when one man had
the collective leadership under his thumb and every-
one else trembled before him. Demchenko decided to
 THE TERROR
r 71

tell Mikoyan about what was happening in the UkrEiine

because he knew Mikoyan was close to Stalin and
might be able to get something done. Active Party
members in those days often referred to Stalin,
Ordzhonikidze, and Mikoyan as the Caucasian clique.
IVe always held Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan in high
esteem. We all have our faults and Anastas Ivanovich
certainly has his, but he's an honest, intelligent, and
capable comrade who has made a large contribution
to the Party and the State.
The conditions that existed under collectivization
have been described by Sholokhov in Virgin Soil Up-
turned. Sholokhov wrote his book while Stalin was
still alive, so he had no choice but to describe collec-
tivization according to the Stalinist interpretation.
When the failure of the collectivization became widely
known, we were all taught to blame scheming kulaks,
rightists, Trotskyites, and Zinovievites for what was
happening. There was always the handy explanation of
coim.terrevolutionary sabotage.
But now that Stalin's abuses of power have been
exposed, a more searching, objective analysis of col-
lectivization is in order we're ever going to under-
if
stand what reaUy happened. Perhaps we'll never know
liow many people perished directly as a result of
collectivization, or indirectly as a result of Stalin's
eagerness to blame its failure on others. But two things
are certain: first, the Stalin brand of collectivization
brought us nothing but misery and brutality; and
second, Stalin played the decisive role in the leadership
)f our country at the time. Rykov, Bukharin, Zinoviev,

md Kamenev had already been removed from their

posts, and Trotsky was in exile. Therefore, if we were
looking for someone to hold responsible, we could lay
the blame squarely on Stalin's own shoulders.
But all this is hindsight. At the time, we didn't know
the truth. We still believed in Stalin and trusted him.
 72 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

The Purge Years

Here we have an inevitably selective and distorter

account of the most terrible period in the history o
the Soviet Union. Unlike Molotov and Malenkov
Khrushchev was not actively involved in the excessei
of the purge years until he was sent out to the Ukraine
in 1938 to finish off the great purge there before recon^
structing the shattered Party apparatus. But he kneu
a great deal of what was going on; he profited directl%
by the shooting of his senior colleagues; and he sayi
enough (as in the affair of Yaroslavsky) to indicate
that, like every other senior Party functionary at thai
time, he himself performed some vile actions, even be-
fore he arrived in Kiev. This chapter should be com-
pared with the passages in the Secret Speech which
deal with the arrest, torture, and execution of men
wholly guiltless of the charges preferred against them
— though far from innocent in other ways. The whole
appalling story was known in very great detail in the
West, but it was not until the Secret Speech that the
horrors were confirmed by an official Soviet source.
Even then it has to be remembered that Khrushchev
gives no idea of the sheer scale of the butchery. At the
same time, he limited his revelations to the crimes
committed by Stalin against the Party and the army:
he had not a word to say about the effect of the terror
on millions of rank-and-file Party members and ordi-
nary unpolitical citizens. In a word, he is speaking
throughout of Stalin's crimes agairist the Party, not of
his crimes against the Soviet people as a whole. The
m^ost usual estimate of the number of Party members
arrested is close on one million. Non-Party citizens
arrested were at least seven times this number. It is
worth mentioning that the deliberate torturing of pris-
oners under interrogation (as distinct from spontaneous
kicking, punching, and the like) was forbidden under
the regulations until 1937. Early in 1937 or late in 1936
secret instructions were issued saying that torture
 THE TERROR 73

might he iLsed. It wds

finally approved hy the Central
Comnnittee in 1939. (The Great Terror hy Rohert
Conquest is incomparahly the hest and most complete
study of the purges as a whole, and essential for a
proper understanding of their range. Perhaps the m,ost
revealing account of what it was like to he a Party
memher caught up in the purges is Into the Whirlwind
hy Yevgenia S. Ginzhurg.)

In giving an objective, concentrated analysis of Stalin's

negative side, I must say something about the practice
Stalin instituted of ruthlessly branding Party mem-
bers as enemies of the people, then bringing them to
trial and having them eliminated. Our Party is still
scarred by the damage done during the purges. The
attitudes which Stahn inculcated in the minds of many
Party members a kind of encrustation on the con-
left
sciousness of many people, especially dull, limited
people. Even today you'll find those who think that
Stalin's way was the only right way to build Socialism
and to get things done in our country. As far as I'm
concerned, it reflects a fairly primitive, slavish mental-
ity to say that people won't work unless there's some-
one standing over them, cracking a whip above their
heads. If you believe in the psychology of a slave
—
society that people have to be kept in line by force
—
or else they'll revolt then maybe you're one of those
who thinks the repression inflicted on the Soviet people
by Stalin was historically inevitable. But I think that
claim is nonsense. Moreover, it contradicts one of the
basic tenets of our Marxist-Leninist doctrine: namely,
it's the people who make history, not a single powerful

personage. The October Revolution was achieved in

response to Lenin's compelling rational leadership, not
under his whip. The people followed Lenin because
they believed in him, not because they feared him.
Lenin raised and unified the aspirations of the people.
Stalin tried to bully the people and the Party into
obedience.
It all started one evening in 1934. The telephone
rang and I picked it up. It was Kaganovich. "I'm call-
74 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
ing from the Politbureau. Come over here right away.
It's urgent."
I went straight to the ICremlin. Kaganovich met me.
He had a frightful look about him. I was immediately
on my guard, ready for an3rthing. "What's happened?"
I thought to myself.
"There's been a terrible tragedy," he said. "Kirov
has been murdered in Leningrad. I'll tell you about it
in more detail later. Right now the Politbureau is dis-
cussing the matter. We're putting together a delegation
—
to go to Leningrad Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, plus
a delegation of sixty people from the Moscow Party
organization and the Moscow worker class. You'U lead
the delegation. You'U be in the honor guard there and
then accompany Kirov's body back to Moscow."
"Very weU."
I went straight to the Moscow Committee. I put
together a delegation and left for Leningrad that same
night. I didn't see Stalin, Voroshilov, and Molotov.
They were traveling separately, in special raibroad
cars. It seemed to me that the whole city of Leningrad
was in a state of mourning, although maybe I was just
projecting my own feelingsonto everyone else.
We were all completely in the dark about what had
happened. We knew only that Kirov's murderer was
someone named Nikolayev, who had been expelled
from the Party for taking part in the Trotskyite oppo-
—
sition ^which indicated that the Trotskyites were be-
hind the whole thing. We all felt sincere outrage and
indignation.^

4. S. M. Kirov, already referred to in Chapter 2, for long a

devoted Stalinist had built up a very strong position as the
Leningrad Party chieftain in succession to Zinoviev. Having
helped Stalin defeat the opposition, he challenged the idea that
it was necessary and desirable to pursue a policy of revenge-

—
ful persecution particularly insofar as this involved kiUing. He
was the only man close to Stalin who was strong enough to say
what he felt and to be regarded by others who thought like him
as an alternative leader. He was shot in his Leningrad office
on December 1, 1934, by a disgruntled ex-Bolshevik, L. Niko-
layev, who had been expelled from the Party not, as Khrushchev
says, because he was a Trotskyite but because he had quarreled
with the Party bureaucracy. Kirov was given a state funeral
 THE TERROR 75

I don*t remember how long we spent in Leningrad

—two or three days, I think. We
took turns standing
around the coffin in an honor guard as the Leningrad-
ers said their last farewells to the body of Sergei
Mironovich. I could see that Kaganovich was badly
shaken, even frightened. I can't say how the other
leaders felt about Kirov's death. I watched Stalin
closely when he stood in the honor guard. He had
enormous self-control, and his expression was abso-
lutely impenetrable. It didn't even occur to me that
perhaps he had other things on his mind besides
Kirov's death.
Part of my job as Secretary of the Moscow Com-
mittee was to supervise the activity of the Moscow
office of the NKVD. The chief of the office was Com-
rade Redens.^ He was StaHn's brother-in-law, a Pole
by nationahty. He was a good comrade and had been
a member of the Party since 1914. Stalin later had him
shot. I found out from Comrade Redens that the opera-
tion of the NKVD changed drastically after Kirov's
murder.
Before the murder, the Cheka rarely resorted to
administrative methods for dealing with people. By
administrative methods, I mean arrest and trial. Such
methods were used only in cases involving activities of
an overtly anti-Soviet character.^ For example, we had

with all honors and Stalin appeared to be deeply affected. But

there were many who believed that Stalin himself was behind
the murder: certainly Nikolayev was acting for no opposition
faction. Later, in 1938, the deposed police chief Yagoda, on trial
for his life, was accused of facilitating the murder. In the
Secret Speech, and subsequently, Khrushchev himself suggested
that Stalin had inspired the murder and promised a full judicial
investigation. If this took place it has never been reported. It
was the Kirov murder which triggered off the great purge
which, starting in Leningrad, spread under successive police
chiefs to the whole country, stifled it in terror, and reduced the
surviving population to a state of cowed and frightened apathy.
5. S. Redens was imcle by marriage to Svetlana Alliluyeva.
Very active in the purge years, he vanished when Beria as-
sumed control of the NKVD in 1939.
6. There were plenty of arrests, with or without trial, before
the Kirov murder: "anti-Soviet" activity was a very broad
term. But Party unity was a holy concept, and it was not until
76 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
always tried to deal with work stoppages and strikes
in Moscow by going to the barracks or factories and
explaining to the workers that we had to raise pro-
duction quotas in order to catch up with our enemies.
The workers who had been recruited from the villages
—
lived in unspeakable conditions filth, bedbugs, cock-
roaches, bad food, and inadequate clothing. It tended
to aggravate their discontent when their collective
agreements on output norms were revised in favor of
the State. We would sit down with them and try to
explain that sometimes the interests of the State super-
seded those of the individual. Usually the workers
were very imderstanding and eager to get on with the
job, even if their output norm was raised ten or fifteen
percent while their wages were left the same. If certain
individuals refused to adapt themselves to the neces-
sary conditions, they would be openly denounced by
the Party. But we almost always stopped short of
using administrative methods against them.
All that suddenly changed after Ejtov's murder.
Redens told me he had received instructions to "purge"
Moscow. Moscow unquestionably needed a purgative.
It was constipated with many undesirable elements
— ^nonworkers, parasites, and profiteers. A list was put
together of the people who should be exiled from the
city. I don't know where these people were sent. I
never asked. We always followed the rule that if you
weren't told something, that meant it didn't concern
you; it was the State's business, and the less you knew
about it the better. Anyway, the deportation of crimi-
nal elements from Moscow was the first stage of the
repression which began after Kirov's murder.'^

the Kirov murder that it became in effect a crime for Party

members to diverge, or to have diverged in the past, even
fractionally from Stalinist orthodoxy.
The NKVD, or People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, had
been established in July, 1934, to take over from the GPU,
which itself had been created by Lenin in 1921 to take over
from the Cheka, also created by Lenin. (See Appendix 2.)
7. The first stage of the repression which began after Kirov's
murder was in fact a wave of political arrests in Leningrad
Khrushchev's so-called "criminal elements" in Moscow
itself.
had nothing to do with the case.
 THE TERROR 77

Soon the political terror started. I caught only an

occasional, accidental glimpse of its inner workings.
While the trial of the Leningrad oppositionists was
going on, Kaganovich and Sergo Ordzhonikidze were
left in charge whenever Stalin and Molotov were out
of Moscow. Once I went by the Central Committee
oflSce to see Kaganovich about some matter relating to
city administration. When Kaganovich was informed
that I was outside, he asked me to come into his study.
He had Sergo Ordzhonikidze and Demyan Bedny with
him. They were conferring about the trial of the op-
positionists and the presentation of the trial in the
press. A series of articles condemning the oppositionists
was being pubUshed in order to prepare pubHc opinion
for the harsh sentences which actually had already
been decided upon.
I remember the scene very well. Sergo and Kagano-
vich asked Demyan Bedny, "Well, Comrade Demyan,
have you written a poem that we can use?"
"Yes," said Demyan, and he recited the poem.
When he finished, there was an awkward pause.
Kaganovich spoke up first: "That's not quite what we
had in mind, Comrade Demyan." Sergo, who had a
fiery temper, didn't beat around the bush. He heatedly
exhorted Demyan to do better. Demyan Bedny was
an obese man, and he was completely bald. His head
looked like a huge copper cauldron. He looked at them
with his good-natured eyes and said, "I'm afraid I can't
do any better. Muchas I've tried, this is all I've been
able to squeeze out. I just can't raise my hand against
the oppositionists. I can't do it. I'm impotent toward
them." Actually, he used a cruder, more manly ex-
pression.
I don't know if what Demyan wrote was ever pub-
lished. He obviously wasn't completely convinced that
the oppositionists were criminals. That's why he
couldn't muster the inspiration and the Party spirit to
rip them apart in his poem. He just wasn't sure they
were enemies. To mention my own attitude, naturally
I was on Kaganovich's side —
that is, on Stalin's side.
Therefore, at the time I glared at Demyan disapprov-
 78 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
ingly. But now I understand why Demyan had his
doubts.®
The flower of the Party was stamped out in the
savage violence which erupted shortly after that scene
Iwitnessed in Kaganovich's office. Many of the original
leaders of our Party and our country were wiped out.
Where had men like Molotov or Kaganovich or Voro-
shilov or Mikoyan been when Zinoviev, Kamenev,
Trotsky, Bukharin, and Rykov were running the
country? Almost the whole Pohtbureau which had
been in office at the time of Lenin's death was purged.
Take for example Zinoviev and Kamenev, who were
eliminated as leaders of the opposition: they had made
some errors during the Revolution. Everyone knows
that. But everyone also knows something else, too.
After they saw the error of their ways, Lenin himself
enlisted them to work in the leadership. At Lenin's
side, Zinoviev and Kamenev gave worthy guidance to
the Party. When the Government moved from Lenin-
grad to Moscow, Zinoviev stayed in Leningrad. He
was entrusted with the supervision of our original
capital, our most revolutionary city, which had raised
the banner of insurrection in the October Revolution.
And Moscow had been entrusted to Kamenev. Yet now
these men were in the dock as criminals and were soon
to be eliminated as enemies of the people!
Stalin's purge of the Party swept from the opposi-
tionists in 1936 to the rightists in 1938, when Rykov,
Bukharin, and other leaders of the people and the
Party were brought to trial It is fitting that these men
should be called leaders. Take Rykov for example. He
became Chairman of the Council of People's Commis-
sars after Lenin's death. He was a man of merit in the
eyes of the Party and a worthy representative of Soviet
Power. Yet he was shot. As for Bukharin, Lenin had
called him "our Bukharchik," and his A-B-C of Com-

D. Bedny, a hack versifier, may have had his doubts at

8.
this tiine. He soon recovered, however, and produced a series
of nauseating "poems" vilifying the accused (including the main
victims of the subsequent purge of the Red Army) and demand-
ing savage punishment.
 THE TERROR 79

munisTn was a primer of Marxist-Leninist wisdom for

the entire older generation. He, too, was brought to
trial and eliminated.®

9. To establish the main chronology: While the purge gath-

ered force in 1935, Stalin was preparing the first great show
trial, which Klhrushchev here refers to as the trial of the Lenin-
grad oppositionists. His instrument was G. G. Yagoda, head of
the NKVD, who had first inaugurated the Soviet system of
forced labor. This trial, held in August, 1936, was officially
called the Trial of the Trotsky-Zinoviev Terrorist Center, and it
ended with the shooting of Lenin's close colleagues, G. E. Zino-
viev and L. B. Kamenev, together with fourteen others.
Immediately afterward, Yagoda was removed for lack of
zeal and replaced by N. Yezhov, a pathological case, a dwarf,
with whom Klhrushchev had worked on the Moscow Party
Committee. It was under Yezhov that the purge ran wild and
the terror became universal. The second show trial, prepared
by Yezhov, took place in January, 1937, and was known as the
Trial of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Center. Khrushchev scarce-
ly mentions this. The chief victims were G. L. Pyatakov, a
protege of Lenin's who had earlier been pressured into de-
manding the death penalty for Zinoviev; G. Sokohukov, a mem-
ber of Lenin's first Politbureau; K. Radek, the brilliant journal-
ist; and fourteen others.
The third great treason trial, and the most spectacular, oc-
curred in March, 1938, also prepared by Yezhov. This was the
Trial of the Anti-Soviet Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites.
There were twenty-one accused, headed this time by Bukharin
himself; Rykov, Lenin's successor as Prime Minister of the
Soviet Union; and Yagoda, Yezhov's predecessor as head of
the NKVD.
In all these trials the accused were charged with conspiring
to murder Stalin, with being agents of foreign intelligence
services, and many other things besides.
In the summer of 1937, between the show trials of 1937 and
1938, occurred the secret trial and execution of the cream of
the Red Army high command, headed by Marshal Tukha-
chevsky. Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, an action
which preceded the impublicized liquidation of approximately
half the entire officers' corps.
The purge continued in a lunatic progression until the end
of 1938, when it was Yezhov's turn to be liquidated. He was
succeeded by Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, head of the Georgian
NKVD, whose first task it was to purge the purgers (inciden-
tally pajring off any old scores of his own). The great mass of
victims, including many of the most ardent Stalinists in high
positions who had thrown themselves into the early purges
with enthusiasm, were arrested, tortured, and shot without
trial and without publicity. They simply vanished from the
80 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
During that period the Party started to lose its
authority and to be subservient to the NKVD. I re-
member the follov^ing state of affairs at the Moscow-
Party Conference of 1937. All candidates nominated
for membership on the Moscow City and Regional
committees had to be screened and "sanctioned" by
the NKVD. Neither the Central Committee nor the
Party at large could promote its ovm members. The
NKVD had the last word in assessing the activities of
any Party member and in deciding whether or not he
could be elected to top Party posts. We had been con-
ditioned to believe that this practice helped local Party
organizations expose enemies who had penetrated the
ruling Party organizations. I remember one incident
in particular that occurred during the 1937 Moscow
Party Conference. There was a commissar from the
Frunze Military Academy who, from the standpoint
of the Moscow Party Committee, was a good Commu-
nist and a good comrade. When it was moved that his
name be put on the ballot, the delegates to the Con-
ference were clearly enthusiastic about his candidacy.
His nomination was greeted by thunderous applause.
Suddenly I got a message from the NKVD: "Do every-
thing you can to bring that man down. He's not to be
trusted. He's connected with enemies of the people
and will be arrested." We obeyed and defeated his
nomination, but it was a distressing experience for all
the delegates. The very next night that commissar was
arrested.
The case of Emelyan Yaroslavsky was much the
same.^^ He was an Old Bolshevik and much respected
in the Party. He was Secretary of the Party Collegium
of the Central Control Commission, which means he
was considered beyond reproach from the Party's
standpoint. He was nominated as a candidate for elec-

scene. Khrushchev was head of the Moscow Party organiza-

tion throughout the blood purge until January, 1938, when he
went off to rule the Ukraine. He was taken into the Polit-
bureau at the height of the Yezhovshchivu.
10. E, Yaroslavsky had earned notoriety as head of the
League of the Militant Godless, the spearhead of the Bolshevik
attack on religion.
 THE TERROR 81

tion to the Moscow Regional Committee. Suddenly I

got a call saying that Yaroslavsky had to be brought
down. This order was very hard on me personally, but
I had to obey. I passed the word around to the other
secretaries of the Regional Committee to launch an
agitation campaign against Yaroslavsky among the
delegates without letting it reach Yaroslavsky himself.
But it was too late. Despite our activity, he was
elected by a meirgin of something like one vote. After
the Conference, Comrade Zemlyachka, whom I re-
spected very much, went so far as to write a letter to
the Central Committee blaming me, as Secretary of the
Moscow City Committee, for the disrespect shown to
Yaroslavsky during the Conference. Of course, at the
time I couldn't explain to her that I had just been fol-
lowing orders. Naturally, her letter didn't have any
effect.
The point of these stories is that since every promo-
tion or transfer of Party personnel had to be made in
accordance with directives from the NKVD,the Party
lost its guiding role. It was disgraceful.^^
I was personally acquainted with many victims of
the political terror. Some of them I'd known from my
days in the Donbass. Take Ivan Tarasovich Earilkin,
for instance. He was manager of the Ruchenkov mines
in 1925-26 and later was made the director of the
Makeyev metal works, which he ran very competently.
Then there was Vasily Bazulin. He did a pretty good
job supervising a factory near Yuzovka. Both men
perished in 1937. They disappeared off the face of the
earth, without leaving so much as a trace. Nobody
would tell me what had happened to either of them. I
don't know how many factory directors and engineers
perished in just the same way. In those days it was
easy enough to get rid of someone you didn't like. All
you had to do was submit a report denouncing him as
an enemy of the people; the local Party organization

11. For all practical purposes the original Bolshevik Party had
been destroyed by 1937. What remained was Stalin, his police
chief of the moment, and his closest colleagues, of whom
Khrushchev was one.
82 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
would glance at your report, beat its breast in righteous
indignation, and have the man taken care of.
I also knew Treivas.^^ His name had been widely
known in the twenties as a prominent figure in the
Lenin League of Communist Youth [Komsomol]. He
was an intelHgent, capable, decent man. I got to know
him through the Moscow Party organization when
Treivas and I worked for six months together in the
Bauman District. Kaganovich once took me aside and
warned me that Treivas's political record had a black
mark on it. Apparently he had been among the so-
called Youth League Ninety-Three, who had once
signed a declaration in support of Trotsky. He came
to a tragic end. When Stalin proposed that regional
committee secretaries should go around and inspect
Chekist prisons in their areas, I found Treivas in jail
during my rounds. He didn't escape the meat-mincer i

when the butchery began in 1937.

Sometimes you hear the name of Lomov mentioned
on the radio. They tell you how Lenin instructed
Lomov to do such-and-such. Where is this Lomov now?
I knew him well. I met him frequently when I was
working in the Donbass after the Civil War. He was
put in charge of coal output in the Ukraine, and I
used to see him frequently at his office in Kharkov.
He was much respected in the Party as a man with a
Party record going back to the days of the pre-Revolu-
tionary underground. But you still want to know,
where is this Lomov now? The answer is shot! No —
more Lomov. ^^
Even the people closest to Stalin were swept up in
the frenzy of the hunt. Take Ordzhonikidze's fate.^*

12. Kirilkin, Bazulin, and Treivas were minor figures who

shared the fate of tens of thousands like them.
13. G. I. Lomov (real name, Oppokov) was a member of the
Control Commission of the Council of People's Commissars of
the USSR. He was arrested and shot on Molotov's orders.
14. "Sergo" Ordzhonikidze, having been very close to Stalin,
took exception to his excesses and quarreled personally with
his master. Immediately afterwards he died in circimistances
that are still a mystery. He was not formally executed. He was
 THE TERROR 83

Comrade Sergo, as we always called him, was a popu-

lar figure. He
enjoyed well-deserved respect through-
—
out the Party. The three Caucasians Stalin, Mikoyan,
—
and Sergo ^were inseparable for many years. But even
though Stalin and Sergo were both Georgians and Old
Bolsheviks, they were completely imlike. Despite his
explosive temper, Sergo was a man of chivalrous char-
acter, much
respected for his accessibility, his human-
ity, his sense of justice. Sergo by no means
and
approved of the butchery that was going on in the
Party. I remember, for example, that he felt great
respect and sjnnpathy for Lominadze.^^ Once he even
called me at the Moscow Committee and asked, in his
thick Georgian accent, if I would intervene on Lo-
minadze's behalf. I told him there wasn't much I could
do since Lominadze was an active oppositionist and
had given Ihe Party ample reason for denouncing him.
Sergo pressed me to do whatever I could to see that
Lominadze was left in peace. However, his own efforts
notwithstanding, people continued to be rounded up
as enemies of the people, and finally Sergo couldn't
stand it any more. At the beginning of 1937 he shot
himself. It wasn't untilmany years later that I found
out the real story behind his death. Stalin covered up
the whole affair very cleverly. I first heard Sergo was
dead when Abel Sofrenovich Yenukidze called me on
my day off and said, "Comrade Khrushchev, come to
my office right away. It's urgent."^^
I went straight to the KJremlin and asked, "What's
this all about, Abel Sofrenovich?"
"Sergo is dead."

honored after his death. Khrushchev said in the Secret Speech

that he was forced to commit siiicide. But nobody knows to
this day exactly what happened.
15. V. V. Lominadze, an early supporter of Stalin's, more
independent-minded than most, was named as a conspirator
in the first and third show trials.
16. A. S. Yenukidze, another Georgian, was a Stalinist who,
like Kirov and Ordzlionikidze, objected to Stalin's increasing
brutality. Since he was deprived of his posts and outlawed in
1935 it is hard to see how this conversation could have taken
place.
 84 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
"What? I just saw him a little while ago."
"He died very suddenly. You must not have knowni
that he was a sick man. The Government has set up a>
commission to arrange his funeral, and you've been
appointed to it."
All the procedures for an appropriately solemn State i

fimeral were followed. I gave a funeral oration onj

behalf of the Moscow Committee during the ceremony
at the Lenin Mausoleum. I mourned Sergo sincerely.
He had always been particularly kind to me. I had
benefited greatly from his fatherly protection.
I didn't find out that he had conmiitted suicide until
during the war, when I was at a dinner with Stalin
and some of the other comrades and just happened to
bring up the subject of Sergo:
"Sergo! Now there was a real man. What a pity he
died before his time. What a loss!"
There was an embarrassed silence. I sensed that I I

had said something wrrong. I asked Malenkov as we

were leaving after dinner, "What did I say that I
shouldn't have said?"
"Don't you know?"
"No."
"You mean you thought Sergo died a natural death?
You didn't know he shot himself? Stalin won't forgive
him for that. You saw how awkward
it was when you
mentioned Sergo's name. That was pretty careless of
you."
Of course, at the time Sergo died, Malenkov didn't
know anything about the suicide either. He wasn't as
close to Stalin as I was. He'd only found out about it
indirectly.
After Stalin's death Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, who
had been very close to Sergo, told me he had had a
talk with him on the very eve of his suicide. On a
Saturday evening they had gone for a walk together
around the Kremlin. Sergo told Anastas Ivanovich that
he couldn't go on living. He said it was impossible to
'

tolerate what Stalin was doing to the Party, and he

didn't have the strength to fight it any more. The next
day, Sunday, he shot himself. Comrade Sergo was a
singularly honorable man.
^ THE TERROR 85

Shortly after Sergo's death Stalin struck against the

Old Guard of the Red Army. I can't enumerate all the
generals he eliminated, but I would like to single out
a few.
Tukhachevsky's arrest came like a thunderbolt out
of a clear blue sky. He was our brilliant Deputy Peo-
ple's Commissar of Defense. At the age of twenty-six
he had commanded the Western Front in the Civil
War. Lenin entrusted the Kronstadt oi>eration to him,
as well as the operations against Antonov and Kolchak.
When Tukhachevsky was executed, there was a lot of
cackling from men who had been connected with him
in the Civil War—men who couldn't reach up to his
knees, much less to his navel. They started kicking his
corpse around and blaming him for their own failures
in the Civil War. But in the opinion of experts, those
failures had occurred only because Tukhachevsky
hadn't been placed high enough in the command. And
the fact remains that Lenin entrusted Tukhachevsky
with many critical operations on which the life or
death of the country depended.
Ihad known Tukhachevsky slightly and used to
meet with him when I worked as First Secretary of
the Moscow City and Regional committees. We used
to talk on the telephone and see each other at plenums.
He occasionally took me out into the field to show me
some new weapon or new piece of engineering equip-
ment. He had a deep imderstanding of military inno-
vations and a high regard for them. I'm convinced that
if he hadn't been executed, our army would have been

much better trained and better equipped when Hitler

attacked.
Then there was Gamarnik. He was Chief of the Red
Army Political Directorate, so he was an important
political figure as well as a good soldier. He had played
a significant part in the creation of the Red Army.
They'll tell you Gamarnik wasn't executed. True
enough. He shot himself. He foresaw that he would be
arrested, and when they came pounding on his door,
he put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. The
executioners arrived to drag him to the block, but he
 86 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
decided it would be better to end his life by his own
hand. Gamarnik was a very honorable man.
—
Other victims were Yegorov^^ one of our greatest
military leaders, our commander on the Southerr
Front in the Civil War—
and Yakir.^^ General Yakii
was a relatively young fellow. He hadn't taken part in
World War I or the Revolution. His career began dur-
ing the Civil War, when he joined a newly formed
detachment. In those days we were armed with any-
thing we could get our hands on, but our main weapon
was our hatred of the old bourgeois capitalistic regime
and our devotion to the new Socialist way of life for
which the Civil War was being fought. Yakir's de-
tachment grew to a division, and he was put in com-
mand. He and his troops were cut off from the Red
Army in the South, but he managed to break out of
the encirclement and lead his division right through
the White-Guardist lines to rejoin our main forces.
After the Civil War, Yakir commanded the troops in
the Ukraine and the Crimea. Suddenly he was arrested
—
and executed. So was Eideman a poet as well as a
soldier, one of our outstanding military leaders.^^
Now about Blucher.2^ The newspapers often talk
about Bllicher: Bliicher received the First Order of
the Red Banner, Bliicher did this, Bliicher did that,
Bliicher, Bliicher, Bliicher. Bliicher was a proletarian,
a worker, a plumber by trade. He was a self-made
military man. He got his first experience in World
War I, and then commanded entire formations in the
Civil War. Later he was sent to China as our consultant

17. Marshal A. Yegorov was arrested and shot comparatively

late in the army purge, having briefly succeeded Tukhachevsky
as Deputy People's Commissar for Defense.
General Yakir, an army commander in charge of the
18.
Kiev Military District, was the father of the historian Peter
Yakir, a leader of the dissident Soviet intelligentsia today.
19. General R. P. Eideman had been an army commander in
the Civil War. He was head of the civil defense organization
when he was arrested and shot.
20. Marshal Bliicher was commander of the Far Eastern
troops and perhaps the ablest Red Army commander. Arrested
in August, 1938, he was interrogated personally by Beria, who
had just succeeded Yezhov.
 THE TERROR 87

to Chiang Kai-shek. He also commanded the troops of

the Far Eastern Military District. We trusted him both
as a military leader and as a poUtical figure. So where
was Bllicher when we really needed him in the war
against Hitler? He was already dead. But how? Did
he die a natural death? No, he was executed. He was
arrested and shot as an enemy of the people.
Now they're putting up a monument to Bliicher, as
well they should. But the monument should tell the
whole truth about him, and those people who don't
want the whole truth to be told should be ashamed.
Any monument to Bliicher should let the people know
that it wasn't a natural death that deprived us of his
talents in the war against the Germans; no, Bliicher
Fell by the hand of someone who Lenia said shouldn't
be trusted.
In recent years I've seen the film The Iron Torrent
i number of times, and it always affects me very
leeply. The Iron Torrent was also a book. It was the
irst book about the Civil War that I ever read. It was
^vrritten by our talented writer Serafimovich. Now it
las come out on the screen. Whenever I see this movie,
;'m always haunted by the thought, "Where have I
leen this brave, clever general who commands the
raman army?" In the film and in the book he's called
iCozhukh, but his real name was Kovtyukh.^^ This was
he man who displayed such brillance, skill, and cour-
igewhen he broke an encirclement by the Whites and
ed the Taman army through enemy lines. Everyone
vho saw this general in action has nothing but praise
or him. You might ask, "Where is this Kozhukh-
Covtyukh now? What happened to him? What did he
.0 during the war against Hitler?" Kovtyukh was gone

i^henWorld War II broke out. He had been rounded

ipwith the enemies of the people and shot.
I was personally very close to Ivan Naumovich
)ubovoy.^2 He came from a proletarian family. His

21. General Kovtyukh, corps commander, was shot in July,

938.
22. I. N. Dubovoy, another army commander, was shot in July,
938.
88 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
father was a miner on the Don. Dubovoy finished offi-
cers' school during World War I. When the Civil War
broke out, he was made deputy commander of a divi-
sion commanded by Shchors. Later I used to see
Dubovoy at congresses of the Ukrainian Communist
Party. I got to know him particularly well in 1928-29,
when I ran the Organizational Section of the Kiev
Regional Committee. Dubovoy commanded the Kiev
Military District. I used to go out with him to inspect
the troops. I was very pleased that we had commanders
—
like him in the Red Army men devoted body and
soul to the Revolution, to Soviet Power, and to Social-
ism.
When the enemies of the people were exposed,
Stalin distributed the testimonies of Tukhachevsky,
Yakir, and the others to the Politbureau. Among these
testimonies was a confession written in Ivan Naumo-
vich Dubovoy's own handwriting. He wrote that he
had killed his commander Shchors during the Civil
War. Here iswhat he said in his confession:
"Shchors and I were lying on the ground watching
the battle. Suddenly an enemy machine gunner opened
fire in our direction. The bullets sprayed all around us.
Shchors was in front of me. He turned his head and
said, 'Vanya, Vanya, the Whites have a good machine
gunner. Look how accurately he's firing on us.' A few
moments later he turned around again and started to
say something else. Then and there I killed him. I shot
him in the head. I killed him in order to take his place
as commander of the division."
You can imagine how was when I first
disgusted I
read this confession. I had always respected Dubovoy,
and suddenly I discovered he had done something as
vile as that. I rebuked myself: how could I have been
so blind? Why hadn't I known that Dubovoy was
Shchors's murderer?
But at the time of the Twentieth Party Congress in
—
1956 when we opened the archives and looked into
the j51es of all the people who had been declared
—
enemies of the people and shot or strangled I found
out that Dubovoy's testimony was all a lie. I had been
deceived a second time. The first time was when my
 THE TERROR 89

regard for Dubovoy as an honest man was shattered

by his confession to Shchors's murder. Now I had been
deceived again, this time by Dubovoy's own murderer
—Stalin himself.
In the late thirties Hitler was preparing his attack
and doing everything he could to undermine our mili-
tary leadership. We helped him along considerably by
destroying the cream of our executive personnel, our
Party leadership, and our scientific intelligentsia. The
blood bath reached a red-hot frenzy in 1937. It was no
accident that 1937 was the first year we didn't fulfiU
our Industrial Plan. All this has to be taken into ac-
count in making an objective analysis of the beginning
of the war. But for years nobody raised the curtain
on these facts. The extermination of the Old Guard of
the army was for a long time considered a credit to the
men responsible rather than a crime for which they
should have been punished. And who paid for the
crime? The army, the people, and the country paid
for it.

You could put together a whole book consisting of

nothing but the names of the important military. Party,
—
administrative, and diplomatic leaders all men of the
—
Leninist school who were Stalin's first victims. Hon-
est, loyal Leninists, devoted to the cause of the Revo-
—
lution ^they were the first to go when Stalin imposed
his arbitrary rule on the Party.
Most of the generals who perished by Stalin's hand
have been given back their good names. They were
rehabilitated at the Twentieth Party Congress. But
more recently, many things about them have been
silenced. All those who perished should not only be
given back their names: they should also be presented
to the people as martyrs of the terror waged by Stalin
under the slogan of the struggle against the enemies
of the people.
Why did Stalin commit these crimes? Was he de-
ceived? If he was deceived, then by whom? And with
how many lives did we pay for this deception?
 90 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Beria's Rise to Power

In this section Khrushchev moves from the early days

of his assignm^ent in the Ukraine, at the beginning of
1938, back to Moscow under the great purge, arid for-
ward again to Kiev. By the time of Khrushchev's
appointment as the Ukrainian First Secretary, it might
have been thought that the purge in the Ukraine had
been completed. This is not unnaturally the way
Khrushchev him,self likes to see it in retrospect. But
in fact his first action in Kiev was to preside over a
new purge of his own. By the summer of 1938 there
were only three survivors of the Central CommAttee,
eighty-six strong, of the previous year. Khrushchev
was building a new Party apparatus, a new govern^
m,ent, in his own image. "I pledge myself to spare no
effort in seizing and annihilating all agents of fascism,
Trotskyites, Bukharinites, and all those despicable
bourgeois nationxilists on Ukrainian soil," he publicly
declared in May, 1938. Later that summer the Ukrain-
ian Party organ carried the following eulogy: "The
merciless uprooting of the enemies of the people the —
Trotskyites, Bukharinites, bourgeois nationalists, and
all other spying filth— began only after the Central
CoTYimittee of the All-Union Communist Party sent
the unswerving Bolshevik and Stalinist, Nikita Ser-
geyevich Khrushchev, to the Ukraine to lead the Cen-
tral ComTYiittee of the Ukrainian Communist Party."
This was a gross exaggeration. But it was the way
Khrushchev liked to be regarded at the tiyne. This
should be remembered when contemplating his stric-
tures on Stalin in general, and now, in particular, as
he turns to consider the rise of Lavrenty Pavlovich
Beria, the notorious Georgian police chief, who was to
hold sinister sway at Stalin's elbow for so many years.

Early in 1938 Stalin offered me the post of First

Secretary of the Ukrainian Central Committee. He
said that Kossior wasn't doing a good job. I went to
 THE TERROR 91

Kiev and took over from Kossior.^^ He was brought

back to Moscow and made Deputy Chairman of the
Council of People's Commissars under Molotov. About
a year later the question came up of making me
Molotov's deputy. Molotov himself first mentioned
this possibility to me. Then, during one of my visits
to Moscow for consultations, Stalin took me aside and
said, "Molotov insists on having you as his deputy. I
think he should have his way. What do you think?"
I objected strongly because I had only just settled in
Kiev. The people had accepted me and I was just be-
ginning to build up a strong Party organization in the
Ukraine. Most important, it was clear that we were
heading toward war; if a new man were brought into
the Ukraine at that late date, he might run into trouble
when war broke out. I convinced Stalin that it wouldn't
be in the interests of the cause to transfer me from
Kiev after I'd just been installed there; someone else
could easily be found to be Molotov's deputy in Mos-
cow. Stalin agreed: "That's the end of this discussion.
Klhrushchev stays in the Ukraine."^^
Sometimes if you persistently opposed Stalin and if
he became convinced you were right, he would retreat
from his position and accept yours. Of course, such
flexibility and reasonableness is a positive quality in
any man. But unfortunately, you could count on the
fingers of one hand the number of times he displayed
this virtue. More often than not, if Stahn decided you

23. S. V. Kossior had been First Secretary of the Ukrainian

Party since 1928. A Stalinist, he was also, like so many of the
Ukrainian Party leaders, not untouched by Ukrainian national
feeling, resenting and trying to resist absolute domination by
Moscow. This included a vain attempt to moderate the effects of
the great purge. In 1937 his like-minded Second Secretary,
Postyshev, was arrested. And at the beginning of 1938 he him-
selfwas removed from the First Secretaryship, called to Moscow,
and given the job of first deputy to Molotov, still Prime Minister.
But he was soon arrested, tortured (according to Khrushchev
in the Secret Speech), and in February, 1939, sentenced to be
shot.
24. The story of Khrushchev's being offered the deputy pre-
miership of the USSR is new.
92 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
should do something—intelligent or stupid, helpful or
—
harmful he made you do it. And you did it.
In any case, that's how I came to remain in the
Ukraine.
But before telling of my years as First Secretary of
the Ukrainian Communist Party, I should talk about
some important developments in Moscow that began
before my transfer to Kiev and continued after I left.
I want particularly to explain the growth of Lavrenty
Beria's role in the Party.
In order to analyze how and why Beria came to hold
a position of such influence, I have to go back to the
period when the butchery of the purges was in full
swing. Six months before Tukhachevsky's group had
been exposed, Stalin had declared that People's Com-
missar of Internal Affairs Yagoda wasn't doing an
adequate job and should be replaced. In those days
we still had absolute faith in Stalin. We blamed our-
selves for being blind to the presence of enemies all
around U5. We thought we lacked Stalin's deep under-
standing of the political struggle and were therefore
unable to discern enemies in our midst the way Stalin
could.
Stalin named Yezhov to replace Yagoda.^^ Yezhov
had been in charge of personnel for the Central Com-
mittee. Malenkov had been his first deputy and took
over his Central Committee job when Yezhov was
transferred to the NKVD. But Yezhov kept his senior-
ity over Malenkov, which explains why the supervision
of Central Committee personnel fell under the control
of the NKVD.
I had always liked Yagoda. Personally, I saw noth-
ing anti-Party in his behavior. I couldn't understand
Stalin's outward rationale, much less his hidden mo-
tives, for replacing Yagoda. On the other hand, I

25. This was the occasion of the famous telegram of September

25, 1936, from Stalin and Zhdanov, on vacation at Sochi on the
Black Sea, to Kaganovich, Molotov, "and other members of the
PoUtbureau," instructing them to replace Yagoda with Yezhov
because the secret police had fallen "four years behind" in its
work of "immasking the Trotskyite-Zinoviev bloc." It was the
signal for the redoubling of the terror.
 .

THE TERROR 93

certainly had no objections to Yezhov.^^ He was dili-

gent and reliable. I knew he'd been a Petrograd
worker and a Party member since 1918, which was a
mark in his favor. He'd been my own supervisor after
I was elected Secretary of the Party organization at
the Industrial Academy because the academy came
imder the authority of the Personnel Section of the
Central Committee. The Personnel Section would as-
sign me to mobilize students for a work project or a
political campaign, and I would frequently make prog-
ress and status reports to Yezhov.
After Yezhov was put in charge of the NKVD in
1936, the repressions became worse than ever. A
literal
slaughter began, and masses of people were caught up
in the meat-mincer.
Some time later, Stalin said that Yezhov needed
help and should be given a deputy. He asked Yezhov
who should be his deputy. Yezhov suggested Malen-
kov, since Malenkov had previously been his deputy
in the Personnel Section of the Central Committee. I
believe that there were several such conversations, but
the question wasn't decided finally until one day Stalin
said, "No, it looks like we'd better not reassign
Malenkov to you. We'd better leave him where he is,
in the Central Committee Secretariat."^^
Stalin eventually suggested to Yezhov that he ap-
point Beria as his deputy. By this time Stalin's dissatis-
faction with Yezhov had become apparent. Gone were
the days when placards were carried at demonstrations
with chain-mail gauntlets drawn on them; Stalin no
longer called Yezhov "Our Mailed Fist" and "Our
Blackberry" [puns on Yezhov's name]

26. It is interesting to see how Khrushchev always seems to

have found successive secret police chiefs to be friendly and
honest fellows. Yagoda's chief claim to fame, apart from his
management of the first great treason trial (Zinoviev, Kamenev,
et al.) was his introduction of the system of organized forced
labor with the construction of the White Sea Canal.
27. The association of Malenkov with Yezhov is deliberately
intended to blacken Malenkov. The two men were in fact very
close. Malenkov in the Personnel Section of the Central Com-
mittee handed over his fellow Party members to Yezhov for
liquidation.
 94 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
When Stalin assigned Beria to be Yezhov's deputy,
it was clear that Yezhov's removal was imminent.
Yezhov himself understood this. He knew his star was
in decline. His career was over, and perhaps he even
sensed that his very existence was coming to an end.
He said to Stalin, "Comrade Beria is unquestionably
a most worthy person. In fact, he could be more than
just a deputy. Perhaps he could be a full-fledged
People's Commissar."
"I doubt that," said Stalin, "but he'll make a good
deputy."
So Beria was confirmed as Yezhov's deputy.^^ Since
I was then on good terms with Beria, I went up to him
after the meeting and half-seriously, half-jokingly
congratulated him on his new post.
"I don't accept your congratulations," he said.
"Why not?"
"You didn't accept the assignment to be Molotov's
deputy, so why should I be glad that they've assigned
me to be Yezhov's deputy? It would be better for me
to remain in Georgia.'*
think Beria was probably sincere when he said
I
this. In any event, he was transferred from Georgia to
the central NKVD offices in Moscow. At first his ac-
tivities seemed to be turning out promisingly. During
my visits to Moscow Beria often said to me, "What's
going on here? We're arresting and imprisoning people
right and left, even secretaries of Regional committees.
This whole business has gone much too far. We've got
to stop it before
too late."
it's
Meanwhile Yezhov's position was more and more
—
precarious all the time. An episode ^which centered
around Uspensky, the People's Commissar of Internal
—
Affairs in the Ukraine ^presaged Yezhov's downfall.^*

28. Beria was appointed Yezhov's deputy in July, 1938.

29. Itwas Yezhov's man A. I. Uspensky, head of the Ukrainian
NKVD, who carried out the purge over which Khrushchev
himself presided in the Ukraine. "I consider myself a pupil of
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov," Uspensky declared in Jime, 1938.
And: "Only after the faithful Stalinist, Nikita Sergeyevich
Khnishchev, arrived in the Ukraine did the smashing of the
enemies of the people begin in earnest." Within weeks of this
 —
THE TERROR 95

Stalin phoned me one day in Kiev and said, "There's

evidence against Uspensky which leaves us with no
doubts as to his guilt. Can you take care of arresting
him yourselves?"
"Of course we can, if those are your instructions."
"Then arrest him." At first it sounded over the tele-
phone as though Stalin were talking about Usenko and
not Uspensky. There was a Usenko in Kliev, a Youth
League worker. It so happened there was also incrimi-
nating evidence against him. But when Stalin began
to specify the details of the case, I realized he was
talking about Uspensky, the Ukrainian Commissar of
Internal Affairs. A few moments after I hung up Sta-
lin called back and said, "Forget what I told you about
Uspensky. Now there's nothing for you to do. We'll
take care of it ourselves. We'U call him back to Moscow
and have him arrested along the way."
I had already planned a trip to Dniepropetrovsk. I
left before Uspensky was summoned to Moscow. I had
a premonition that he wouldn't actually go to Moscow.
He must have guessed why he'd been called back and
known that he was in danger of being arrested. There-
fore as Iwas leaving, I told Korotchenko,^^ who was
Chairman of the Ukrainian Council of People's Com-
missars, "Keep an eye on Uspensky while I'm gone."
The next morning, when I arrived in Dnieprope-
trovsk, I got a call from Beria not Yezhov, hut Beria!
—who "While you've been traveling around the
said,
countryside, Uspensky has gotten away."
"What?"
"That's right, he's escaped.'*

declaration Uspensky vanished without trace. Khrushchev's

account of his end is therefore news. Beria finally took over
from Yezhov in December, 1938.
30. D, S. Korotchenko was not a Ukrainian at all. He was bom
Korotchenkov. He served on the Moscow Party Committee
under Khrushchev and was sent to Smolensk in Belorussia at
the height of the purge, where he distinguished himself by his
extreme rigor. Khrushchev took him to the Ukraine with him
in 1938, and he was to rise to great heights under his new
master, becoming in due course a member of the Central Com-
mittee Secretariat.
 .

96 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
I went straight back to Kiev. Sure enough, Uspensky
was gone. He had left a note saying he was going to
commit suicide by throwing himself into the Dnieper.
We searched for him with fishing nets and divers, but
there was no trace of him. He seemed to have disap-
peared into thin air. Later they caught him somewhere
— —
in Voronezh, I think and he was shot.
When I was in Moscow soon after this, Stalin told
me that it looked as though Yezhov had warned Uspen-
sky of what was in store for him: "Yezhov overheard
us when we were talking," said Stalin, "and instead of
ordering Uspensky to Moscow as he was supposed to,
Yezhov tipped him off that he would be arrested along
the way."
So Stalin had already come to the conclusion that
Yezhov was an enemy of the people and wasn't to be
trusted. Shortly afterwards Yezhov was arrested and
Beria took his place. Beria immediately started con-
solidating his forces. Now that Uspensky was gone, the
Ukraine didn't have a People's Commissar of Internal
Affairs, so Beria sent Kabulov down to Kiev. This was
the younger brother of the Kabulov who was Beria's
deputy in the NKVDand who had worked with Beria
in Georgia.^^
In the aftermath of Yezhov's arrest, all his deputies
and everyone who was connected with him were
arrested. This cloud hung over Malenkov, too, because
Yezhov had requested that Malenkov be appointed
his first deputy. Moreover, everybody knew Malenkov
was a close friend of Ye2diov's. I'd also been a friend
of Malenkov's for many years. We'd worked together
on the Moscow Committee. I drew my own conclu-
sions about the suspicions surrounding Malenkov after
the following incident.
One day I arrived in Moscow from Kiev, and Beria
invited me to his dacha. "Let's go out to my place," he
said, "I'm alone. No one else is around. We'U take a
stroll and you can spend the night there."

31. Nothing is known of this Kabiilov, who did not last long
in this job. He was to be succeeded very soon by I. A. Serov,
who was to become notorious (see Chapter 4)
 THE TERROR 97

"That^s fine with me," I said, "Fm alone, too."

We drove out to his dacha and went for a walk in
the woods. Beria started talking:
"Listen, what do you think about Malenkov?"
"What should I think?"
"I mean now that they've arrested Yezhov."
"So what if Malenkov and Yezhov were friends?
You were Malenkov's friend, too, and so was I. I
think Malenkov is honest and irreproachable."
"That's beside the point. You're still friends with
Malenkov. Listen, think about it some more. Just think
it over."
So I thought it didn't reach any particular
over. I
conclusion, and I continued to be friendly with Malen-
kov. When I returned to Moscow, I often stayed with
him at his dacha on our days off. I think maybe Stalin
was trying to warn me about Malenkov through Beria.
However, this cup passed from Malenkov, and later he
and Beria became inseparable friends.
At the beginning of 1939, in February, a Central
Committee plenum was convened to discuss a resolu-
tion condemning excesses and abuses in the NKVD.
The slackening of the terror which had reigned for the
past three years was attributed largely to Beria's influ-
ence. People concluded that Beria had made an in-
vestigation of NKVD
practices after he took over as
commissar and then convinced Stalin to approve a
series of recommendations. However, there were a
number of incidents at the February Central Commit-
tee Plenum of 1939 indicating that the terror was by
—
no means over it had just become more subtle and
discriminating.
The February Plenum was a very self-critical meet-
ing.Everybody had something critical to say about
everybody else. The only person highly placed in the
Party leadership who seemed to be escaping criticism
was myself, Klirushchev. Then suddenly Yakovlev,
whose real name was Yakov Arkadyevich Epstein,
made a very unusual and original accusation against
me. He me
for the fact that everyone in the
criticized
Moscow organization called me Nikita Sergeyevich.
That's all he said. I took the floor and replied that it
98 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
was true my comrades called me by my name and
patronymic. I hinted that his own name was not Ya-
kovlev at all, but Epstein. After the session, Mekhlis,
who was still running Pravda, took me aside. He was
indignant about Yakovlev's speech. Even though
Mekhlis himself was a Jew, he said, "Yakovlev is a Jew
and doesn't understand that among Russians it's ac-
ceptable to call people by their name and patronym-
ic."32
Later, after an all-day session of the Central Com-
mittee Plenum, everybody dispersed for dinner. I
stayed behind for a moment. When I was getting up to
go, Stalin suddenly shouted at me, "Khrushchev, where
are you going?"
"I'm going to have dinner."
"Come with me. We'll eat together."
I wondered to myself, "Why is he inviting me to have
dinner with him?" As we were leaving, Yakov Arka-
dyevich Yakovlev, who had been hovering around
nearby, followed Stalin to his apartment uninvited.
The three of us ate dinner together. Stalin did most of
the talking. Epstein- Yakovlev was in a very agitated
state. You could see he was undergoing some sort of
inner turmoil. He feared that he was about to be ar-
rested. He wasn't mistaken in his forebodings. Shortly
after Stalin's friendly chat with him over dinner,
Yakovlev was arrested and eliminated. I'm telling this
story to show how even someone as close to Stalin as
—
Yakovlev who was head of the Agricultural Section
of the Central Committee and who had been one of
Stalin's most trusted supporters during the struggle
—
against the opposition could suddenly find his life
hanging by a thread. The episode was typical of Sta-
lin's treacherous character.
Another incident at that same February Plenum

32. Y. A. Yakovlev, onetime People's Commissar for Agricul-

ture (see Chapter 2). This is a remarkable example (there are
others to follow) of the way in which Khrushchev, though pro-
fessing to abhor anti-Semitism, seems nevertheless unable to
resist denigrating individual Jews. Russian Jews use "name and
patronymic" like aU other Russians. Yakovlev in his speech was
probably in fact accusing Klhrushchev of self-glorification.
 THE TERROR 99

indicated that even though Beria had initiated the

investigation into the abuses and excesses of the
NKVD, he was capable of great treachery himself. In
the course of the Plenum, Grisha [Grigory] Kaminsky
gave a speech. He was People's Commissar of Health
for the Russian Federation, a highly respected com-
rade with pre-Revolutionary Party experience. I first
knew him at the beginning of my work in the Moscow
organization. He was very straightforward, very sin-
cere and honest. I would say his Party conduct had
always been impeccable. Here's what he said in his
speech to the Central Committee:
"Comrades! Everyone is making a speech saying
what he knows about everyone else. I also have some-
thing I want to say for the information of the Party.
When I worked in Baku, there were rumors rampant
that during the occupation of Baku by EngHsh troops,
Beria worked for the counterintelligence service of
the Mussavat government. Since the Mussavat counter-
intelligence service was under the control of the En-
glish, it was said that Beria must be an English
intelligence agent operating through the Mussavat-
ists."33
Kaminsky finished his speech and sat down. No one
came forward with either refutation or clarification,
nor did Beria himself offer any comment. Immediately
after that session of the Plenum, Kaminsky was ar-
rested and disappeared without a trace. I've always
been tormented by his case because I completely
trusted him. I knew he would never make up some-
thing like that. He always told the truth.^*
I remember Malenkov's speech, too. He criticized
both the secretary of a Central Asian bureau and Beria
for self-glorification. Malenkov said that some mountain
climbers had conquered one of the highest peaks in

33. The Mussavats were Transcaucasian nationalists (Mos-

lems) fighting the Bolsheviks in Baku at the time of the British
,

intervention.
34. G. M. Kaminsky, People's Commissar for Health. Earlier
he had been one of those who had put his signature to the death
certificate which stated that Sergo Ordzhonikidze had died of
natural causes.
100 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Central Asia and then named it after this Party secre-
tary. The man was later arrested. Beria was also
accused of self-glorification. There was already plenty
of cause for criticizing him in this regard.
At the end of the Plenum the Central Committee
passed a resolution condemning the excesses of the
NKVD. This gave us some hope that the arbitrary
rule which had prevailed in the Party would be ended.
For over three years a man had had no way of know-
ing from one moment to the next whether he would
survive or disappear into thin air. This fear and un-
certainty had undermined the morale of the Party.
After the February Plenum the brakes were applied
to the purges, but the repressions weren't brought to
a complete halt by any means: people continued to sink
out of sight forever just as though the ice had broken
beneath them and swallowed them up.
Beria and I started to see each other frequently at
Stalin's.3^ At first I liked him. We
had friendly chats
and even joked together quite a bit, but gradually his
political complexion came clearly into focus. I was
shocked by his sinister, two-faced, scheming hypocrisy.
Soon after his transfer to Moscow, the atmosphere in
the collective leadership and in Stalin's inner circle
took on an entirely different character from what it
had been before. It changed very much for the worse.
Stalin himself once even confided to me his own un-
happiness with Beria's influence: "Before Beria ar-
rived, dinner meetings used to be relaxed, productive
affairs. Now he's always challenging people to drinking
contests, and people are getting drunk all over the
place."^^

35. As already noted, Beria did not take up his appointment

as Yezhov's deputy in Moscow until July, 1938, when Khru-
shchev had already left for the Ukraine. But the two men would
have met long before this on Beria's frequent visits to Moscow,
and they went on meeting when Khrushchev came to Moscow
from Kiev.
36. Both here and later, with special reference to Zhdanov
and Shcherbakov, Khrushchev speaks very disparagingly of the
drunken habits of certain of his colleagues. Drunkenness of the
most thoroughgoing kind was in fact de rigueur not only in
Stalin's circle but also in the army high command. Khrushchev
 THE TERROR 101

Even though I agreed with Stalin completely, I knew

I had to watch my step in answering him. One of
Stalin's favorite tricks was to provoke you into making
a statement —or even agreeing with a statement—^which
showed your true feelings about someone else. It was
perfectly clear to me that Stalin and Beria were very
close. To what extent this friendship was sincere, I
couldn't say, but knew it was no accident that Beria
I
had been Stalin's choice for Yezhov's replacement. In
addition to being the potentate of a powerful commis-
sariat, Beria also pulled a lot of weight in the collective
leadership. Anyone who wanted to be sure of stajdng
in Stalin's good graces had to fawn all over Beria, too.
Kaganovich was especially adept at getting ahead by
must say, I never saw any of this kind of
flattery. I
debasing obsequiousness on Molotov's part. Nor did I
ever kowtow to Beria myself, and I often had to con-
tend with Beria working against me as a result. Since
I worked for the Party and State in a number of
important posts, I had many opportunities to make
recommendations for progressive improvements. I usu-
ally had Stalin's support, and when Ifailed to have
his support, it was almost always because of Beria's
and Malenkov's influence on Stain. I'm convinced that
their opposition to me was based primarily on jealousy.
Beria, particularly, was fiercely jealous of his power
in the collective leadership and his influence over Sta-
lin. Astory illustrates what he was capable of:
Stalin's brother-in-law, Redens, had once been Be-
ria's Deputy People's Commissar of State Security in
Georgia.^'' Before Beria himself was transferred to
Moscow, he decided to have Redens bounced out of
Georgia. Why? So that Stalin would have no informer
in Georgia other than Beria himself. Beria had always

himself was a very heavy drinker and frequently appeared

drunk in public, at least \intil 1956. Indeed, the Soviet attitude
to drunkenness is still very like the British attitude of one hun-
dred and fifty years ago. In fairness to Khrushchev I might
mention that Beria was drunk more often than most. On the
few occasions I saw him he was invariably drunk.
37. Redens was Svetlana AUiluyeva's uncle, and she has a
good deal to say about him in Twenty Letters to a Friend.
 102 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
been hostile to Sergo Ordzhonikidze for the same
reason. So what did Beria do to get rid of Redens? He
instructed some of his men to lure Redens into a cafe,
where they took advantage of his weakness for drinkj
got him dnmk, and threw him out into the gutter. The
poHce came along and saw him lying there in a dis-|
reputable state. Beria saw to it that Stalin found out|
that Redens had discredited himself. That's why Re-
dens was sacked from his job in Georgia and ended up
in the Moscow Regional office of the NKVD. You seej
what sort of provocateur Beria was? Many years later,
after Beria 's downfall, the Central Committee received)
a long letter from a Georgian ex-convict enumerating i

allthe people in Georgia who had been victims of(

similar provocations perpetrated by Beria.
Beria was fond of telling stories about favors he had
done for people when they were in trouble. But even
these stories, and they were mostly lies, had a sinister
ring to them. I remember he once told me how
Marshal Meretskov was broken and forced to sign a
confession admitting that he was an EngUsh agent, an
enemy of the people, and so on.^® I never read his
testimony myself. Stalin didn't distribute it. It hap-
pened during the war and by that time Stalin was the
only judge in the only court in the land. He decided
whom to eliminate all by himself; he didn't need others
to support him. Anyway, the way he told the story,
Beria deserved credit for arranging Meretskov's re-
lease and return to active service:
"I went to Comrade Stalin and said, 'What's this
about Meretskov being in jaU as an English spy? How
could he be an English spy? He's an honest man.
There's a war going on, and we need him at the Front.
He could be given a field command.*
"Stalin answered, 'You're probably right. Go talk

38. General Meretskov was only one of a number of high-

ranking Red Army commanders who escaped by a miracle and
survived to be brought out of prison and sent to fight Hitler.
Marshal Rokossovsky was the most famous of these. Another
was General Gorbatov, who eventually became the Soviet com-
mandant of Berlin and published an account of his experiences
in prison. Years oj My Life.
 THE TERROR 103

to him.' So I called Meretskov in and said, "This is

nonsense you've written in your confession. You're no
spy. You're an honest man, a good Russian. How
could you be an English spy?'
"Meretskov looked at me forlornly and said, *I've
got nothing more to say. You have a confession written
in my own handwriting. I don't know why you're
interrogating me again.*
" *I'm not interrogating you. Comrade Meretskov. I
just want to teU you that I know you're not a spy. Go
iDack to your cell and think it over. Sleep on it. I'll
talk to you again tomorrow.' They took him away.
The next day I summoned him again and asked, 'Well,
have you thought it over?'
"He started weeping and thanking me, saying, *How
could I be a spy? I'm a good Russian. I love my people.
I believe in my people.' So they let him out of jail,
dressed him in a general's uniform, and off he went
to be a commander at the Front."
WeU, I know for a fact the story wasn't that simple.
Before his arrest, Meretskov had been a strapping
young general, very strong and impressive-looking.
After his release he was just a shadow of his former
self. He'd lost so much weight he
could hardly squeak.
Beria's version of what happened confuses me in other
ways, too. For one thing, I can't understand who ar-
rested Meretskov in the first place. Beria blamed it on
V. S. Abakumov, but who was Abakumov? He was
one of Beria's own men. Abakumov reported to Beria
before anyone else, even before Stalin. Consequently,
Abakumov couldn't have arrested Meretskov unless it
was on Beria's orders.^^
While Beria was telling me the story about how he
got Meretskov out of jail, another favorite remark of
his kept running through my mind. It was something
he used to say about anyone who had fallen under
suspicion: "Listen, let me have him for one night, and

39. V. S. Abakumov, a notorious Chekist who was to become

head of the Ministry of State Security in 1946. He was dismissed
in 1951. In 1954, he was shot, ostensibly for having fabricated
the Leningrad Case in 1949. He makes a cameo appearance in
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel. The First Circle,
104 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
I'll have him confessing he's the
king of England." I
never knew quite how to take that, but I had no doubt
Beria knew how to get what he wanted. His arrogance
and his treachery grew in direct proportion to his
increasingly powerful position.

I
 Return to the Ukraine

Putting the Party Together Again

Khrushchev's first task as First Secretary of the

Ukrainian Communist Party in 1938 was to huild up,
virtually from nothing, a brand-new Party apparatus
to succeed the one which had been presided over by
Kossior from 1929 until its destruction in the purges.
But even as Khrushchev was building, the purges con-
tinued. The following section offers a revealing glimpse
of the nature of this process. What Khrushchev does
not mention is that his second task was to Russify the
Ukraine by eliminating from, positions of authority and
trust all Ukrainians who might be suspected of local
patriotism, (the so-called "bowrgeois nationalists") and
by discouraging the use of the Ukrainian language in
schools and elsewhere. This was an operation of ex-
treme importance in the eyes of Stalin. Ukrainian na-
tionalisra was very strong in this rich land, which was
not only the breadbasket of the Soviet Union but also
the most powerful industrial base. The official excuse
for this policy, which was carried out with great ruth-
lessness,
—
—as Khrushchev himself said in the sum-
was
mer of 1938 to eliminate those who "wanted to
all let
in theGerman fascists, the landowners and bourgeois,
and make the Ukrainian workers and peasants slaves
of fascism, and the Ukraine a colony of the Polish-
German fascists."

"We want to send you to the Ukraine to head the Party

organization there. Kossior doesn't seem able to man-
age. We'll transfer him to Moscow to be First Deputy
105
106 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
of the Council of People's Commissars and Chairmar
of the Central Committee Commission."
When Stalin offered me the top Ukrainian post in
1938, I was reluctant to accept it for three reasons:
First, I liked Kossior and was uncomfortable about
taking his place. I'd known him when he succeeded
Kaganovich as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Cen-
tral Committee in 1929. That was the year I applied
for admission to the Industrial Academy, and it had
been Kossior who approved my application. Second, I
doubted that I was experienced or qualified enough to
take Kossior 's place; I thought the cap of Ukrainian
First Secretary was simply too big for my head. Finally,
the nationality question entered into my thinking. It's
true, I'd already worked in the Ukraine and had always
gotten along well with Ukrainian Communists and
non-Party members alike. Nevertheless, as a Russian,
I still felt some awkwardness among Ukrainians. Even
though I understand the Ukrainian language, I'd never
mastered it to the extent that I could make speeches
in it. I explained all these drawbacks to Stalin, and
told him that I was afraid the Ukrainians, and particu-
larly the intelligentsia, might be very cool to me: "It
hardly makes sense to send me, a Russian, to the
Ukraine," I told him.
"Kossior's not a Russian, is he? He's a Pole. Why
should a Russian have a harder time with the Ukrain-
ians than a Pole?"
"Kossior may be a Pole," I conceded, "but he can
give speeches in Ukrainian. Moreover, Kossior is much
more experienced than I am."
"No more argument. You're going to the Ukraine."
"Very well. I'll try to do everything I can to justify
your confidence in me and to put the Ukrainian Party
back on its feet." I was still worried that I wouldn't be
able to manage the assignment, but I won't deny I was
flattered that the Central Committee would entrust me
with such a high post.
I knew there had been a top-to-bottom shake-up in
the Ukrainian organization. Kossior's removal was an
indication of how far it had gone. I also had a glimpse
into the fate of Chubar, the former Chairman of the
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 107

Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars, whom I'd

often met in the twenties at congresses of the Ukrainian
Party and at miners' convocations.^ For a time he'd
been in charge of mining in the Donbass. His Party
behavior had always been excellent. Then one day
when I was sitting in Stahn's office at the Kremlin,
Stalin was called to the phone. He talked to someone
for a few moments and hung up. Stalin said Chubar
had called, in tears, trying to prove he was an honest
man. Stalin's tone of voice was almost sympathetic to
Chubar. At least he seemed to understand why Chubar
was so upset. The very next day Chubar was arrested
and eliminated.
The Conmiunist Party of the Ukraine was demol-
ished partly as a consequence of the Polish and West-
ern Ukrainian purges. It was easy for Stalin to destroy
the leaders of the Pohsh Party because most of them
lived and worked in the Comintern in Moscow.^ The
only reason Bierut and Gomulka stayed alive was that
they were relatively unknown in Party circles. The
Communist Party of the Western Ukraine was filled
with unstable and even subversive elements, and all
the personnel we could get our hands on were elimi-
nated as provocateurs, turncoats, and agents of Pilsud-
ski. Since the Ukrainian Central Conmiittee was
technically responsible for the Western Ukrainian
Party, many Ukrainian Party leaders whom I'd known
from the twenties were swept up in the purge, includ-
ing Comrade Demchenko, who had been First Secre-

1. V. Chubar was a colleague of Khrushchev in his early days

in the Ukraine. He was appointed Prime Minister of the Ukraine
in 1923 and joined the Politbureau at the same time as Mikoyan
in 1935, in place of the murdered Kirov. He disappeared from
view in the summer of 1938 and was executed in February,
1939.
2. This is a brutally casual reference to Stalin's deliberate
destruction of the Polish Communist Party in 1937-39. As
Khrushchev says, the purge was easy to carry out since most of
the Polish Party's most prominent men had sought refuge in
Moscow from the Polish dictator, Marshal Pilsudski. Many
German, Spanish, and other foreign Commiinists then working
in Moscow were executed at this time.
 .

108 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

I
tary of the Kiev Regional Committee vvrhen I was Chief
of the Organizational Section there in 1928-29.^
When he sent me to Kiev, Stalin told me that in
addition to being First Secretary of the Ukrainian
Central Committee I would also be First Secretary of
both the Kiev Regional and City committees. I told
him it was impossible for me to hold so many positions
at once, but he was insistent.
"You can manage," he said. "Just select whom you
want to help you when you get there."
I asked Malenkov to assign some Ukrainians to as-
sist me. Malenkov made one of his own deputies,
Burmistenko, my Second Secretary. I liked Burmisten-
ko the moment I met him. We were cut from the same
cloth.* I told him to select ten or so people from the
Moscow organization and the Central Committee ap-
paratus.
When we got to the Ukraine, Comrade Kossior
briefed us about the troubles they'd been having and
introduced us to the few Party leaders who had sur-
vived the purge. He formally introduced us to the
Ukrainian Party at a special Central Committee ple-
num. The Party had been purged spotless. It seemed as
though not one regional or executive committee secre-
tary, not one secretary of the Council of People's
Commissars, not even a single deputy was left. The
Party leadership was almost totally demolished. We
had to start rebuilding from scratch.^

3. The Western Ukraine to which Khrushchev refers was then

part of Poland; it was seized by the Soviet Union when Germany
invaded Poland in 1939 (see Chapter 5)
4. M. O. Burmistenko distinguished himself by joining the
Cheka in 1919, when he was only seventeen. He was notorious
for his brutality in the destruction of resistance to the col-
lectivization. As MalenkoVs deputy in ORPO (Department of
Leading Party Organs) he played an active and sinister part
in purges. His appointment to be Elhrushchev's deputy in Kiev
was in itself enough to show that heads would soon be roUing.
5. In the light of what happened in the Ukraine before
Khrushchev got there, let alone what happened imder his
leadership, it is clear that he had, at least by 1938, a very clear
idea of the havoc Stalin was creating. He says enough here and
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 109

I asked Stalin for permission to bring Lukashov

from Moscow. He's still alive but has been retired for
a long time. He had been in charge of vegetable and
fruit procurements for the workers' cooperatives in
Moscow. I liked him for his efficiency and his capacity
for hard work. I told Stalin I wanted to appoint Luka-
shov People's Commissar of Internal Trade in the
Ukraine, and Stalin gave his consent.
Then suddenly Lukashov was arrested.^ This was
very unpleasant for me, first, because I liked Lukashov
personally, and second, because I had requested his
appointment to a responsible post. I knew it might
reflect badly on me that Lukashov had been arrested
as an enemy of the people. A considerable amount of
time passed, and Lukashov was released. He returned
to the Ukraine beaten up, crippled in body and spirit.
He told me he had been tortured and ordered to de-
nounce me as a member of a conspiracy. It had so
happened that earlier, while working in Moscow, I'd
once asked that Lukashov be sent to Poland and
Lithuania to purchase onion seeds and vegetables.
When he was arrested, he was pressured to testify
that his trade mission to Poland had actually been a
secret political assignment to establish contacts with
anti-Soviet organizations abroad. He refused to con-
fess —
and was released a rare thing. I told Stalin about
the episode.
"Yes," he said, "I know what you mean; there are
these kinds of perversions. They're gathering evidence
against me, too."
I began to feel even more uneasy about the activities
of the NKVD after the following incident: The Peo-
ple'sCommissar of Internal Affairs, when I arrived in
the Ukraine, was Uspensky. I knew him slightly and
liked him. He was a Russian even though his name
was Polish. He'd been a worker in Yagoda's central

in the preceding section to make nonsense of his insistence at

various points in this narrative that it was not until Stalin was
dead that he realized that Stalin's behavior had been criminal.
6. The individuals referred to here were men of at most
secondary importance, their fates characteristic of tens of thou-
sands.
 110 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
NKVD apparatus, then an NKVD representative for
the Moscow Region, and later a commandant of the
Kremlin. From that post he'd been sent to the Ukraine.
The Central Committee evidently trusted him, and
from what I could tell when I first arrived, this trust
was well founded. But soon I started to have some
doubts.
The Second Secretary of the Kiev City Committee
was a man named Kostenko. I didn't know him very
well, but he seemed diUgent and trustworthy. He was
an honest, simple person. I forget if he was a worker
or a peasant by background. Suddenly he fell under
suspicion and was arrested. I was sent a lengthy testi-
mony
about his connections with the enemies of the
people. It perplexed me very much.
I told Uspensky, "I want to have a talk with this
man Kostenko whom you've arrested."
"That can be arranged, Comrade Khrushchev."
went to the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, and
I
Kostenko was brought to me. He confirmed everything
he'd said in his confession.
"Yes," he told me, "I did all those things. I was part
of a conspiracy. I made a clean breast of everything,
about everyone I knew. I didn't keep anything back."
I wasn't entirely satisfied. Kostenko's confession
seemed to raise more questions than it answered, and
that worried me. As I was leaving the NKVD offices
I warned Uspensky, "Comrade Uspensky, if you sen-
tence Kostenko to death as an enemy of the people, he
may inform on someone else in his last words. If that
happens, then I would urge you not to have him
executed until we have a chance to check out his
accusations. We must make sure that he doesn't in-
criminate anyone by slander."
Some time later Uspensky brought me a document
saying that just before he was shot, Kostenko had
claimed that his replacement on the Kiev Regional
Committee, Cherepin, was guilty of the same crimes.
I liked Cherepin. He was a simple peasant from Pol-
tava, but a clever man. I was sure he was honest.
When I heard that Kostenko had tried to impUcate him,
I was furious.
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 111

"How could you let this happen, Comrade Uspensky?

I you to verify any charges Kostenko
explicitly told
made against anyone before you had him shot!"
I immediately phoned Malenkov at the Central Com-
mittee because he was in charge of personnel and
might be able to help. I told him what had happened.
"Do you trust Cherepin?" Malenkov asked.
"Yes."
"Then let him keep his job."
I was relieved. However, not too long after that
phone conversation Malenkov called me back and
said, "Now it looks as though we'd better not keep
[
Cherepin on the Secretariat after all. I realize you
! trust him, but serious evidence has been brought
against him."
"What evidence? You mean Kostenko's accusation?
That's not evidence, it's slander!"
But Malenkov wouldn't give in. I tried hard to
\
arrange for Cherepin's return to good standing in the
Party. We had already made him Deputy People's
Commissar of Agriculture. I kept raising the question
to the Central Committee about using him for Party
work. My conscience tormented me about him. I kept
insisting that he was beyond reproach and had been
unjustly accused. Finally Malenkov gave in, and Chere-
pin was promoted to First Secretary of the Sumsky
Regional Committee. When the war started I proposed
his candidacy to the Military Council of the Coastal
Army. He was killed during the German invasion.
Thus he honorably gave his life for his country, his
people, and for the Soviet Union.
When Stalin sent me to the Ukraine, he said, "I
know you have a weakness for cities and industry, so
I'd better warn you not to
concentrate on industrial
and municipal management at the expense of your
agricultural responsibilities. And be especially careful
not to spend all your time in the Donbass. You won't
find as many problems in industry as in agriculture,
and just remember: farming in the Ukraine is very
important to the Soviet Union. Try to do something to
organize our agriculture down there more efficiently."
I heeded his warning, although it wasn't always easy
112 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
to resist the temptation of my first loves, mining and
industry. I felt continually drawn to the factories,
machine shops, and the mines. Nonetheless I tried to
learn everything I could about farming. I spent a lot
of time traveling around the Ukraine, visiting farms
and villages, talking to agronomists and managers.
Burmistenko and I arrived in the Ukraine in Janu-
ary or February of 1939, just in time to start getting
ready for the spring sowing. We immediately found
ourselves up against a dangerous problem. Horses
were dropping dead on farms all over the western
sections of the Ukraine, along the Polish border. No
one could figure out what was making the horses sick.
During a visit to a collective farm in the Vinnitsa
region, I asked a stable attendant if he had any idea
why the horses were dying like flies. He told me that
the horses were being poisoned:
"I saw this man administering poison to the horses,"
he said, "so we grabbed him and turned him in. And
you know what he turned out to be? A
veterinarian!"
This was plausible enough. Wefigured that the Ger-
mans, who were then preparing for war against us,
might be trying to sabotage our economy and our mili-
tary capabilities. You see, horses weren't just livestock
in those days; they were what tanks, airplanes, and
jeeps are today.'^
I decided to look into the situation a little bit further.
I asked Uspensky, "Do you still have in jail any of the
men who were caught poisoning horses?"
"Yes, we have."
"Which ones?"
He named some professor at the KJiarkov Veterinary
Institute, a Jew, and the director of the Kharkov In-
stitute of Animal Husbandry, a Ukrainian.
"I'd like to talk to them, but I'd rather not go to the
prison to do so. Call them into your office, will you?"
"What's the use? They've already confessed to the

7. This may sound odd, but it istrue. For example, until

American trucks started arriving in their thousands by the
Persian route at the time of the Battle of Stalingrad, Soviet
army transport was almost entirely horsedrawn.
 RETXJRN TO THE UKRAINE 113

NKVD that they're saboteurs and German agents.

They'll just be repeating their confessions to you."
"Maybe so. But there's still something that bothers
me. In their confessions they gave the chemical formula
of the poison which they supposedly used. I asked our
scientists to make a sample and test it. We fed it to
some horses and nothing happened. I'm puzzled about
why the poison they claim to have used doesn't work.
That's why I want to talk to the prisoners myseH."
"All right, I'll arrange an interview for you."
I went to the NKVD and the Jewish professor, a
gray-haired man of about fifty, was brought to me.
"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?"
"I've already given two testimonies, and I can only
confirm what I said there. Yes, we're German agents,
and we were given an assignment to poison horses."
"How do you explain the fact that the chemical you
say you used doesn't even make a horse sick?"
"Well, that's possible. You see, we received a pre-
pared ingredient directly from Germany which we
added to our own mixture here. We don't know what
the stuff from Germany was."
I wasn't satisfied. As far as I was concerned, his
testimony remained unsubstantiated, and the case was
by no means closed. I'd given him a perfect chance to
declare his innocence, yet he stuck to his original story.
There was something else that bothered me. Why
would a Jew be in the employ of his worst enemies,
the anti-Semitic German fascists? It didn't make sense.
Of course, you could explain it in terms of the class
struggle and so on and so forth, but I still had my
doubts.
I called in the second doctor, the director of the
Kharkov Animal Husbandry Institute. He too repeated
his confession. It was no joking matter to be accused
of sabotage, and maybe they were hoping things would
go easier on them if they were repentant and made a
clean breast of it. But still.. .

I decided to set up a commission to look into the

mysterious deaths of all the horses. I was faced with
a problem here, too, because there had already been
several such commissions, and when the horses kept
 114 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

on dying, the commissions had been dissolved and their

members arrested and eliminated. Therefore, w^ith
some justification, it was widely thought that an ap-
pointment to serve on one of these commissions sealed
a man's fate.
I summoned Comrade Bogomolets, the president of
the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was a non-
party member, but as far as I was concerned that was
a matter of formality, which I never held against a
good Soviet citizen and a progressive person.
"Comrade Bogomolets," I said, "you know that the
horses on our farms are still dying. We have to do
something."
"What's there to do?"
"I can't believe that science is absolutely helpless
here. Surely if we make a concerted effort, we can
isolate and identify the cause of the deaths. I think we
should set up another commission to investigate. Now,
I realize your colleagues are afraid of being appointed
to these commissions since the members of past com-
missions have been arrested. But if you, the president
of the Academy of Sciences, were the chairman, I'm
sure other specialists would join you willingly. I
promise you I'll attend all the plenary sessions of the
commission myself and listen to the reports of your
scientists. Comrade Uspensky, the People's Commissar
of Internal Affairs, will attend, too, in order to help
avoid the danger to your commission of being accused
of anything. I propose we take another precaution as
well: we'll set up two commissions to work in parallel
with each other. That way we'll double the chances of
one commission's coming up with the answer."
I actually had another reason for proposing two
parallel commissions. I wasn't excluding the possibility
that there were saboteurs about, and I was hoping that
if a saboteur got on one of the commissions, the other

commission would be made up of honest men.

Bogomolets agreed, but without much enthusiasm.
The staffs of the two commissions were approved by
the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR.
Just to be absolutely safe, we added a third commis-
sion made up of Russian scientists from Moscow,
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 115

headed by Professor Vertinsky. All three groups went

out to the stricken farms and started to work.
Sometime later one of the Ukrainian commissions,
Professor Dobrotko's, came to the conclusion that the
horses were being made sick by a fungus which grew
in wet hay.
"When I realized this must be the cause," Comrade
Dobrotko told me, "I even contaminated myself with
the fungus to see what would happen, and I came down
with an illness very similar to the one which is killing
the horses."
Professor Vertinsky wasn't willing to accept Dob-
rotko's conclusions! Vertinsky was a Muscovite, and
Dobrotko was a Ukrainian. At that time the difference
was still very significant. In order to avoid a clash
between them, I suggested that the investigation go a
bit further to make absolutely certain we had found
the answer.
A long time passed, and finally Vertinsky informed
me that he agreed with Dobrotko's findings. The field
research came to an end, and a report was made at a
plenum in Kiev. The reconmiended method for stamp-
—
ing out the disease was simple keep hay dry.
Stalin had been following the whole affair closely.
He had been distressed when he heard that horses
were being poisoned in the Ukraine. When I returned
to Moscow and reported on the results of our com-
missions' work, I proposed that the various chairmen
be decorated. Professor Dobrotko was awarded the
Order of the Laborers' Red Banner. In my opinion he
deserved the Order of Lenin. I proposed Professor
Vertinsky for the Order of Honor, although he had
been little more than a catalyst in the process.
We had won more than just a victory for our agricul-
ture. It was a moral and political victory as well. But
how many collective farm chairmen, cattle raisers,
agronomists, animal husbandry specialists, and scien-
tists had lost their heads as saboteurs before I stepped
in and took charge of the situation?
It took a long time for the atmosphere of distrust
and treachery to dissipate in the Ukraine. I was con-
stantly running up against vestiges of the attitudes
 116 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
which had prevailed during the purges. We had a doc-
tor in the Ukraiae who was also a political figure. His
name was Medved [a common last name which also
means "bear"]. Years later he was a member of the
Ukrainian delegation to the founding of the United
Nations in San Francisco. He annoyed our enemies
very much, and they used to say, "The Ukrainian bear
is growling again!" He really did have a voice like a
bear and an irascible temper to go v^th it. In my time
there was a story in the Ukraine about this Medved
which illustrates the crazy extremes which the situ-
ation reached at the height of the purges:
When Medved was Deputy Chief of the Regional
Health Department either in Kiev or in Kharkov,
some woman got up at a Party meeting, pointed her
finger at him, and said, "I don't know that man over
there but I can tell from the look in his eyes that he's
an enemy of the people."® Can you imagine?
Fortunately Medved didn't lose control of himself.
He retorted immediately, "I don't know this woman
who's just denounced me, but I can tell from the look
in her eyes that she's a prostitute" —
only he used a
more expressive word. Medved's quick comeback prob-
ably saved his life. If he'd let himself be put on the
defensive and had started protesting that he wasn't an
enemy of the people, he would have fallen all the more
under suspicion, and the woman who denounced hhn
would have been encouraged to press her charge
against him, knowing that she wouldn't have to take
any responsibility for what happened.
This kind of thing happened less and less after I got
settled in the Ukraine —
and after Uspensky was re-
moved as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs.
I must say something about Uspensky's successor,
Serov. Serov was punished during my time. I think he
was careless, but he was an honest, uncorruptible,
reliable comrade despite his mistakes. I respected and
trusted him. He was a simple person, simple to the

8. This is a highly characteristic example of the sort of

malicious or hysterical deniinciation that sent millions to their
death or to the labor camps.
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 117

point of being naive. When I first knew him, he was

young and inexperienced. He had just graduated
still
from an artillery academy. He was among those mobi-
lized when we started drafting mihtary men into the
service of the NKVD. Naturally, he had no experience
in security operations. This was both an advantage
and a disadvantage for him. Before Serov was assigned
to security duty, people had been acquiring experience
which proved harmful both to the country and to the
Party, as well as to themselves. They had become
experienced at staging provocations, at arresting inno-
cent people, and at extracting confessions by elaborate
tortures. Serov's predecessors in the NKVD
weren't
necessarily cruel men, but they had been turned into
automatons. They were guided by one thought only:
"If I don't do this to others, then others will do it to
me; better I do it than have it done to me." It's fright-
ening to realize that in our time, in our Socialist era,
Communists devoted to the Party could be dictated
to, not by conscience or by reason, but by an animal-
like fear for their own hides. In order to protect their
lives, they snuffed out the lives of completely innocent
people. Serov, fortunately, wasn't a product of that
period and that mentality.®
With his help, I was able to put the Ukraine back

9. I. S. Serov was a Red Army officer who was transferred

from the Fnmze Military Academy
to the NKVD
in 1938. His
rise was swift and he was sent out to succeed Uspensky, after
a brief interregnum, as head of the Ukrainian NKVD
working
alongside Khrushchev in 1939. For the nature of his activities
in the Ukraine see the next chapter. He was not an enthusiastic
killer. He was essentially an organization man and a gifted ad-
ministrator, detached, cynical, wholly ruthless, killing without
turning a hair when required to do so, organizing mass depor-
tations as a matter of routine, then going home from his office
and emerging on social occasions as an amiable, kindly, and
amusing companion. When the Ministry of State Security
(MGB) was transferred into the Committee of State Security
(KGB) after Stalin's death, Khrushchev appointed Serov as its
first head. It was now his job to behave with relative mildness
where before he had behaved with absolute ruthlessness. But,
as in Hungaryin 1956, he could arrest and kill as efficiently as
ever the occasion arose. In 1958, for reasons unknown, he
when
was dismissed.
118 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

on its feet. Industry started fulfilling its quotas, and

the agricultural situation began to stabilize. The repres-
sions diminished, and the ranks of the Party and
managerial workers were replenished until they re-
turned to their normal size.

Academician Raton

Here we contem'plate Khrushchev the practical man of

action.His observations about the waste of time caused
by the endless indoctrination m,eetings in which busy
men were compelled to participate are very just. But
they go on to this day. In refusing so indignantly to
have the new bridge in Kiev named after him,, Khru-
shchev may have forgotten that in the days when he
ruled the Ukraine he mxinaged to encourage a formi-
dable "personality cult" of his own, which was deeply
resented by some of his peers who were living more
immediately in the shadow of Stalin in Moscow.

Shortly after I took up my duties in the Ukraine, a

well-known mechanical engineer named Yevgeny Os-
karovich Paton called my office and asked for an
appointment. When he came in to see me I found him
a thick-set man with gray hair, already well along in
years; he had a face like a lion's and bright, piercing
eyes. He greeted me and immediately produced a lump
of metal from his pocket. He thrust it onto my desk
in front of me.
"Look at this, Comrade Khrushchev, look what our
institute can do! This is a piece of bar iron ten milli-
meters thick, and look how well we've been able to
weld it!"
I examined the joint closely. As a metalworker my-
self, I'd had many occasions to inspect welded joints.
Here was a seam as smooth as if the bar had been cast
in a single piece.
"That's an example of fusion welding," said Aca-
demician Paton.
I'd never heard the term before and asked him what
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 119

it meant. Paton, who already had a number of other

inventions to his credit, explained that he'd designed
a new, much improved, welding technique. He drew
me a sketch showing how we could make portable
fusion welders for working on ships and bridges. I
was literally enchanted by Academician Paton. All my
life I've been fascinated with metalworking. My father
wanted me to become a shoemaker, but I chose to be a
mechanic's apprentice instead. Once, as a boy, I even
put together a motorbike from pieces of scrap. From
the moment we met I knew that Academician Paton
was a man after my own heart. I decided then and
there to do what I could to see that his invention re-
ceived the attention it deserved.
The next time I was in Moscow I told Stalin about
Paton. Stalin was very impressed and asked if I
thought Paton was up to being made a commissioner
to the Council of People's Conmiissars: "Would he be
able to handle all the bureaucrats and make them do
what he said if we gave him unlimited power to intro-
duce his new welding method in our factories and at
our construction sites?"
"From what I've seen of Paton, Comrade Stalin, the
bureaucrats wouldn't stand a chance against him."
So Paton was given the authority to introduce fusion
welding throughout our industry. One day I broached
the idea with him of using fusion welding to build
tank bodies on an assembly line.
"Tell me. Comrade Paton, do you think your tech-
nique would work on tank steel?"
"I'll have to study the problem. How thick would
the armor be?"
"Perhaps one hundred millimeters."
"That could make it difficult, but we'll try. I think
we can do it."
I sent Paton to the Kharkov tank factory and asked
the Party organizer there. Comrade Yepishev (who's
now Chief of the Political Directorate of the Soviet
Army), to introduce him to the designers and super-
visors there. That was the beginning of an important
stage in Academician Paton's career. He played an
important part in the war. Thanks to the improvements
 120 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS I
he introduced in our tank production, tanks started
coming off our assembly lines like pancakes off a grid-
dle. He moved with our armor works to the Urals
when we had to evacuate our industry from Kharkov
early in the war.
In 1943 Paton happened to be in Moscow when
Stalin called me back from the Front for consultation.
Paton asked to see me and brought me a letter he'd
written to the Central Committee. Here's what his
letter said:
"In 1917 I failed to take the Revolution seriously.
My father was a tsarist consul in Italy, and I was a
product of the old regime; mine was an old-fashioned
tsarist upbringing. I did not sympathize with the Oc-
tober Revolution, but at the same time I took no part
in anti-Soviet activities of any kind. But with every
passing year I have been more and more won over to
the side of Soviet Power. Hitherto, I have never be-
lieved that I deserved any special confidence or recog-
—
nition from the Party I have never forgotten my
shortsightedness in the first days of the Revolution.
But now I have been on the side of Soviet Power for a
long time, and I believe I have recently made a signifi-
cant contribution to the wartime defense of our coun-
try by helping in the production of tanks. Therefore I
feel I have earned the moral right to address myself to
the Party with a request that I be accepted into its
ranks. I enclose an application for Party membership,
and I ask the Central Committee for its endorsement."
Needless to say, I was not only pleased by this
—
letter I was deeply moved. I told him I was sure he
would be accepted. I immediately took his letter
straight to Stalin. Stahn, too, was obviously very
moved, although he rarely showed his emotion. He
said simply, "So Paton has decided he wants to join
the Party. I see no reason why he shouldn't. I propose
we issue a special decree admitting Paton to full mem-
bership right away and exempting him from the usual
trial period." At that time there was a compulsory
trial period or "candidacy" of two years for all Party
applicants who came from the bourgeoisie or intelli-
gentsia. An exception was made in Paton's case.

J
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 121

After the war Paton returned to his job as a scientist

at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Later he be-
came vice-president of the academy. Shortly after that,
a great misfortune befell the Ukraine and the Ukrain-
ian scientific community in particular: Comrade Bogo-
molets, the president of the academy, passed away.
Knowing the special regard in which I, Khrushchev,
held Academician Paton, many people were sure that
he would be named Bogomolets' successor.
I should explain that Paton was a rather controver-
sial figure at the academy. Opinions about him varied.
I remember once the Chief Propaganda Section
of the
of the Ukrainian Central Committee complained to me
about him. He said Paton had showed disrespect to the
Central Committee by walking out of a Party meeting
to which he'd been invited.
"What sort of subjects was this meeting meant to
discuss?" I asked.
"Oh, various questions pertaining to ideological
work."
"No wonder he walked out. Comrade Paton can't be
wasting his time on meetings hke that. He probably
thought he should get back to his scientific work." The
incident was typical of Paton. He didn't have any
patience with those fruitless, abstract discussions in
which a lot of siUy, pretentious people sit around play-
ing at being learned. Such people felt threatened by
Paton.
We could have had him elected president of the
academy if we'd wanted to apply pressure, but we
decided not to. Besides, Paton had no aspirations to
being president. He was wrapped up in his scientific
work and in running his institute.
When Paton died, a bridge across the Dnieper was
being completed in Kiev, the biggest bridge in the city.
It's entirely welded — there's not a single rivet in it.
The Ukrainians were thinking about naming the new
bridge after me. I was shocked because we had already
passed a decree forbidding the dedication of factories,
public facilties, collective farms, and other enterprises
to members of the Party or government leadership
who were in good health. We had even changed some
 f
122 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

names we felt were inappropriate. In

short, we*d
cracked down on very unhealthy competition,,
this
which had started under Stalin, of seeing who could
have his name put on the most plants and towns and
collective farms.
I told the Ukrainians, "If you were to put my name
on this bridge, it would be in direct violation of w
Central Committee decree. I'm against the idea all thei
more because I was the one who initiated that decree.
You must realize what sort of a position you would
be putting me in. Why don't you name the bridge after i

Academician Paton?"
And that's what they did. Today the bridge is, as!
they say, alive and well, and people crossing over iti
remember with respect and gratitude the man who
made it possible, the father of industrial welding in the
—
Soviet Union Academicism Yevgeny Oskarovich Pa-
ton!

Troubleshooting in the Tire Industry I

The extended anecdote that follows shows Khrushchev

happily in action as a practical indiistrialist, lending a
hand on the shop fioor, hossing people about, and
teaching a factory manager his own business. It illumi' i

nates both the wastefulness of the struggle to "exceed

'

the Plan," regardless of quality, and the extremely

patchy state of Soviet ind'ostry in 1939, after the first
two five-year plans, in which all the best resources of i

the country had been concentrated on building up i

heavy industry. It illustrates also the remarkably hand-

to-mouth way in which Stalin used his most powerful
aides for quite small tasks, plugging gaps as he became
aware of them. Khrushchev at this time was a full
member of the Politbureau, as well as viceroy over
forty million souls in the Ukraine; yet he was called
away from his own bailiwick and sent off to report on
the shortcom^ings of a tire factory in Yaroslavl, so dis-
trustful was Stalin, so thin on the ground were com-
petent managers in those days.
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 123

For a period before before the war, members of the

Politbureau and Central Committee were forbidden to
fly in airplanes. This started after Mikoyan let some
pilot take him for a joyride in Belorussia. The incident
was written up in the newspapers. When Stalin read
that one of his men had been up in a plane doing all
sorts of aerobatics, he gave Mikoyan a stern dressing
down and promptly made a rule that Central Com-
mittee members and first secretaries of the Republics
weren't allowed in airplanes. I was fairly disappointed
because I loved to fly. For a while I either had to take
the train between Kiev and Moscow or else drive.
Aleksandr Georgievich Zhuravlev was my chauffeur
for almost thirty-three years. My children used to call
him Uncle Sasha. He was good at his job, and he liked
it, too, I respected and trusted him.

During a trip from Eliev to Moscow in 1939, Ale-

ksandr Georgievich told me that the tires which were
being issued for our cars were wearing out much too
quickly. In fact, they were blowing out at the sides
while they were still almost brand-new. When I got to
Moscow, I told Stalin that this manufacturing defect
was costing us a lot of time and money.
Stalin never liked to hear anyone criticize something
that was Soviet-made. He listened to my complaint
with obvious displeasure. Then he angrily instructed
me and to find the culprits.
to liquidate this situation
He "So you're criticizing our tire industry, too?
said,
Everyone's criticizing it. We are going to instruct you
to deal with this situation yourself. You are going to
look into it and recommend the measures necessary to
eradicate these defects and to ensure the issue of good-
quality tires from our factories."
I answered, "Comrade Stalin, I would accept this
assignment with pleasure, but I'm absolutely unfamil-
iar with the rubber industry and tire manufacturing.
IVe had something to do with the coal industry, with
metallurgy, and with the construction business, but
the tire industry is completely unfamiliar to me."
"So familiarize yourself. Take over immediately. You
won't go back to the Ukraine until you've taken care
of this problem."
124 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
A was drawn up establishing a commis-
resolution
sion, and was confirmed as chairman of it. I was a
I
bit worried. I didn't know how much time it would
take, and I didn't know if I would be able to cope with
the problem. I convened the commission and sum-
moned specialists from the Yaroslavl tire factory, from
Leningrad, from Moscow, and from various ministries.
With the help of the Central Committee apparatus, I
collected everyone who knew anything about tire
manufacturing. Our consultations took place in the
Central Committee building. Everyone had a chance to
give his views. I remember that the director of the
Yaroslavl factory made a particularly good impression
on me from the start.
After the first round of consultations I reported to
Stalin what everyone had said and then offered my
own considerations. Stalin said, "I suggest you go to
Yaroslavl and work this out on the spot. The Yaro-
slavl tire factory is the best we have."
So I went to Yaroslavl. I took some of the specialists
with me from Moscow. The Secretary of the Regional
Party Committee was Comrade Patolichev, who many
years later became Minister of Foreign Trade. The
Chairman of the Regional Executive Committee was
a young Armenian who, like Patolichev, was a metal-
lurgical engineer. They both made a good impression
on me. As soon as I arrived, I told them why I had
come to Yaroslavl and asked them to give me their
help.
First of all, I wanted to see how the rubber outer
covering of the tires was made. I told the director of
the factory, "Don't describe your whole operation to
me now. That would be a waste of time. Just lead me
along your assembly line. I want to start from scratch."
I reviewed the whole assembly line, lingering here and
there and watching any workers who were doing som.e-
thing that interested me. I didn't have time to see the
vulcanization process, so I relied on the speciaHsts who
were reporting to me to fill me in on that subject.
I was particularly interested in the technique by
which the workers applied the wire cords to the tires.
I watched them for a long time. They did this deftly
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 125

j
and quickly, not even looking at their hands as they
I
worked. Their hands moved like musicians* hands. I
i admired them and later asked about the production
'

plans for what they were doing. I was told how many
;
layers of wire cording were applied and what purpose
I
the cords served. On the basis of what I was told, I
sensed that I had found the weak spot. I had seen how
quickly the workers applied the cords, and I knew
that they had to be applied and stretched evenly, so
that all the strands in each layer would work together
like a single strand. If the cords were applied evenly,
you could multiply the durability of one strand by the
total number of strands and that would be the re-
sistance of the whole layer to rupture. However, if a
layer were applied unevenly, each strand would work
by itself and the cords would be torn one by one. That's
why the tires were breaking down. There were other
problems, too, but this was the main one.
I called over the director of the factory. "Comrade
IMitrokhin, let me see the instruction manual you're
using for the manufacture of tires. I want to see what
sort of production process is recommended. Since we
purchased the equipment for this plant from America,
the Americans must have reconmiended a process for
us to use."
"Yes, we have all the instructions."
"Then check those instructions against the process
now being used and report to me exactly what changes
have been made in the recommended process."
According to Mitrokhin's report, there had indeed
been some departures from the instructions recom-
mended by the American firm. One or two layers of
cording had been eliminated since it was thought that
the number left would be sufficient to guarantee dura-
bility. I was also told that the amount of reinforcing
wire had been diminished at the edges. One or two
rings had been taken out. All this had been done to
make the whole process more economical. I knew im-
mediately we had foiind the bug.
"When were these changes made?" I asked.
"Comrade Kaganovich came here to make an inspec-
tion tour and studied our production methods. He
 126 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
recommended these changes." This had been wher
Kaganovich was head of the People's Commissariat of
Transport. Apparently he had brought Sergo Ordzhoni-
kidze with him to Yaroslavl.
"All right," I said, "give me the official minutes of
your meeting with Kaganovich so that I can report
to Comrade Stalin and the Central Committee. Now
you should start following exactly the production
method used in America." During my tour around the
factory I'd noticed that in this one, as in any factory,
there was an honor board with the photographs of the
best producers or, as they were called, the shock-
V'orkers. I asked the manager of the factory, "How
does the productivity of your workers compare with
tnat of the workers in America who apply tire cord-
ing?" I was told that we had made a giant step forward
and had surpassed the American workers.
We prepared a draft resolution based on our find-
ings, and returned to Moscow. When I reported to
I
Stalin, I stressed that we were producing poor-quality
tires because, in our desire to economize, we had
violated the production procedure recommended by
the firm from which the equipment was purchased.
We had "corrected" the American manufacturers and
"improved" the production process, but as a result,
one of their tires lasted ten times as long as one of
ours. That certainly is economizing for you!
Then I told Stalin that I considered it a mistake to
try to raise the productivity and output norms too
high. We should avoid trjdng to economize on produc-
tion and to raise productivity at the expense of quality.
The tire workers may have surpassed their quota, but
they had overdone it. Our workers should have been
encouraged to pay more attention to quality when
applying the tire cording. In order to do that, we
needed to lower their output norms. We were learning
that if you aim for a level of productivity which de-
prives a worker of a chance to do quality work, the
product will be spoiled. All the shock-workers on the
honor board at the factory were, in actual fact, ruining
what they produced, lowering the productivity of our
 RETURN TO THE UKRAINE 127

drivers, and preventing us from getting efficient use

out of our motor pool.
Stalin listened to me attentively. I could see he was
terribly irritated by what I was telling him, and I
understood why. Any man who cares for the welfare
of the State — especially the man who holds the leading
—
position in the State ought well to have been dis-
turbed by this kind of news. Stalin said, "I agree with
you. Give us your recommendations and we will ap-
prove them."
In my report I introduced recommendations that
output norms be lowered, that workers' wage rates be
raised, and that a whole series of other measures be
taken as suggested by the specialists from the factory,
from the scientific research institutes, and from the
People's Conmiissariats.
Stalin then said, "We must pass a resolution to dis-
courage excessive competition for quantity over quality
among the workers by prohibiting the posting of honor
boards at the tire factory."
On general principle I would have been against this.
It had always been a Leninist contention that com-
petition is a healthy thing for productivity, and pro-
ductivity is the bedrock of industrial development.
However, I approved of Stalin's position in this par-
ticular case.
I was pleased that with the help of the specialists, I
had succeeded in pinpointing and liquidating the weak
spot in the manufacture of tires. We sensed at the
time that we were heading toward war, and in wartime
the mobility of the army depends on the quality of the
transport industry. I was pleased that as soon as we
liquidated the defects and restored proper production
methods, high-quality durable tires started to be issued.
We conducted tests at various factories to see how
long tires could last without repair. If the results of
the test were positive, a factory would receive a prize
which went to all the workers collectively for their
contribution to the general good.
Shortly afterward, Mitrokhin, the director of the
Yaroslavl factory, became Commissar of the Chemical
Industry. I was pleased that Stalin hadn't forgotten
 —
128 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS '^
my high recommendation of this man and had assigned
him to such a responsible post.
In relation to the scale of our whole manufacturing
industry, this episode concerned a minor matter, but
it still had its significance for me. I've told this story
to illustrate hovvr Stalin was sometimes capable of a
conscientious and statesmanly approach to problems.
He was a jealous lord and master of the State, and he
fought against bureaucracy and corruption and defects
of all kinds. He was a great man, a great organizer and
a leader, but he was also a despot. He often fought with
harsh methods against the primitiveness which still
afflicted our industry. In his desire to look out for the
welfare of the State, he was merciless in liquidating
any defect that came to his attention. But it shouldn't
be forgotten that as a despot, Stalin also did much
harm, especially in his treatment of the Party and
military leadership. This was all a result of his un-
healthy mistrust of other people.
We still have problems of productivity and output.
You have probably seen on more than one occasion
how men and women are engaged in chipping ice off
the pavement with crowbars. This is unproductive
labor. Such a sight really makes one uncomfortable.
So much has been done in our country to mechanize
compHcated production processes, so many machines
have been created to make work easier, and the first
artificial earth satellites have been developed, but as
for replacing the crowbar and shovel with a machine
we have not yet gotten around to that. We pay too
little attention to such matters and regard them as
trivial. But is this trivial? No, it is "trivial matters"
like this that constitute the work of many people.
 Prelude to the War

Soviet-German. Relations

It is clear that Khrushchev paid little attention to for-

eign ajfairs in the dangerous prewar years: he was
wholly hound up with running first Moscow, then the
Ukraine. Stalin told him little of what was going on.
Thus he has nothing to say about the rise of Hitler and
about Litvinov's "collective security" campaign. He
starts with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August,
1939, which threw Europe into confusion and gave
Hitler the green light to invade Poland. The invasion
duly took place on September 1, 1939. England and
France declared war on Germany on September 3. The
Red Army moved into eastern Poland on September 17.
In his comm,ents on the motives and behavior of the
Soviet Union, Germany, Britain, and France, Khru-
shchev reflects the accepted Soviet line.

The inevitability of war had been obvious long before

Hitler and our enemies actually began preparing to
attack us. Ever since the fascists first came to power
in Germany, we'd known that sooner or later they
would wage war against us. In his book Mein Kampf —
which disgusted me so much that I could never finish
—
it Hitler speUed out the aggressive designs he had on
the world and the misanthropic philosophy which
motivated him. He set as his sworn duty the annihila-
tion of Communism and the storming of its citadel, the
Soviet Union. When he came to power, he immediately
started whipping his army into shape. This was no
secret. Throughout Germany there were noisy military
129
130 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
parades and belligerent speeches threatening the Soviet
Union. Mein Kampf didn't say anything about peaceful
coexistence with us. It talked about grinding us into
the dirt. And it wasn't a change of heart that moved
Hitler to send Ribbentrop to Moscow on the twenty-
third of August, 1939. No, he was stiU the same Hitler,
with the same vision of himself as a warrior and a
conqueror, bent on liberating the Russian people from
Bolshevism.
I first heard about Ribbentrop's visit the day before
he arrived. I was at Stalin's dacha on a Saturday, and
he told me that Ribbentrop was flying in the next day.
Stalin smiled and watched me closely to see what sort
of an impression this news would make. At first I was
dumbfounded. I stared back at him, thinking he was
joking. Then I said, "Why should Ribbentrop want to
see us? Is he defecting to our side, or what?"
"No," said Stalin, "Hitler has sent us a message
saying, *I ask you, Herr Stalin, to receive my minister,
Ribbentrop, who brings with him some concrete pro-
posals.' We've agreed to meet with him tomorrow."
I told Stalin that I'd already planned to go hunting
with Bulganin and Malenkov at Voroshilov's preserve
the next day. Stalin said, "Go right ahead. There'll be
nothing for you to do around here tomorrow. Molotov
and I will meet with Ribbentrop and hear what he has
to say. When you come back from your hunt, I'll let
you know what Hitler has in mind and what the out-
come of our conversation with Ribbentrop is."
That night Bulganin, Malenkov, and I left for the
hunting preserve in Zavidova. When we arrived we
found that Voroshilov was already there, so he couldn't
have been with Stalin and Molotov for the meeting
with Ribbentrop.^ There were some other marshals

1. When Ribbentrop flew into Moscow, delegations from

Britain and France imagined that they were still negotiating
with the Russians in a belated and half-hearted attempt on the
part of the British and French governments to achieve an al-
liance with the Russians. Marshal Voroshilov, People's Com-
missar of Defense, was the chief Russian spokesman in the talks
with the British and French. It is interesting to know that he
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 131

and generals at the preserve, too, and we all went on a

hunt together. It was a wonderful day. The weather
was warm, and the hunt was a great success ^for me —
particularly. Please don't misunderstand me: I'm not
one to brag about my skill as a hunter, but that day I
was able to bag one duck more than Voroshilov. I
mention this only because the press had already begun
to build up Voroshilov as our number one marksman.
When we finished the hunt we went straight back
to Stalin's dacha. I knew that Stalin would call us all
together for dinner, so I brought my ducks along to
share with the other Politbureau members that eve-
ning. I told Stalin about the hunt and boasted jokingly
about our successes of the day. He was in a very good
mood and was joking a lot himself. Stalin's attitude
toward hunting usually depended on what sort of mood
he was in. If he were in an especially good mood, he
might even think about going on a hunt himself. But
there were other times when he sat at home and com-
plained bitterly about hunters. His occasional opposi-
tion to hunting wasn't based on his conviction that all
life was sacred— —
far from it! but simply on his feeling
that hunting was a waste of time. Of course, as far as
wasting time is concerned, I don't think there has ever
been a leader in a position of comparable responsibility
who wasted more time than Stalin did j\ist sitting
around the dinner table eating and drinking.
Anyway, we met for dinner at Stalin's that Sunday
in August, 1939, and while the trophies of our hunt
were being prepared for the table, Stalin told us that
Ribbentrop had brought with him a draft of a friend-
ship and nonaggression treaty which we had signed.
Stalin seemed very pleased with himself. He said that
when the English and French who were still in Moscow
found out about the treaty the next day, they would
immediately leave for home. The English and French
representatives who came to Moscow to talk with
Voroshilov didn't reaUy want to join forces with us

went duck shooting on the fatal day when the Molotov-Rib-

entrop Pact was signed, while the British and the French, in
all ignorance, were left to kick their heels.
 132 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

against Germany at all. Our

discussions with them
were fruitless. We knew
that they weren't serious
about an alliance with us and that their real goal was
to incite Hitler against us. We
were just as glad to see
them leave.
That's how the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, as it was
called in the West, came into being. We
knew perfectly
well that Hitler was trying to trick us with the treaty.
I heard with my own ears how Stalin said, "Of course
it's all a game to see who can fool whom. I know what
Hitler's up to. He thinks he's outsmarted me, but
actually it's I who have tricked him!" Stalin told
Voroshilov, Beria, myself, and some other members
of the Politbureau that because of this treaty the war
would pass us by for a while longer.^ We
would be
able to stay neutral and save our strength. Then we
would see what happened.
Of course there were some people who thought that
since Hitler wanted to negotiate with us, he must be
too frightened of us to attack. This interpretation of
the treaty was very flattering to us. Many people in the
USSR eagerly believed it and congratulated them-
selves. But we, the leaders of the Government, knew
better. We weren't fooling ourselves. We knew that
eventually we would be drawn into the war, although
I suppose Stalin hoped that the English and French
might exhaust Hitler and foil his plan to crush the
West first and then to turn east. This hope of Stalin's
must have been part of the strategy behind our agree-
ment to sign the treaty.
I believe that the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939
was historically inevitable, given the circumstances of
the time, and that in the final analysis it was profitable
for the Soviet Union. It was like a gambit in chess: if
we hadn't made that move, the war should have started
earlier, much to our disadvantage. As it was, we were
given a respite. I think the vast majority of the Party
considered the signing of the treaty tactically wise on

2. The war Khrushchev refers to is, of course, the "Great

Patriotic War" between Russia and Germany, which did not
break out until June, 1941.
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 133

our part, even though nobody could say so publicly.

We couldn't even discuss the treaty at Party meetings.
For us to have explained our reasons for signing the
treaty in straightforward newspaper language would
have been offensive, and besides, nobody would have
—
believed us. It was very hard for us as Communists,
as antifascists, as people unalterably opposed to the
—
philosophical and political position of the fascists to
accept the idea of joining forces with Germany. It was
difficult enough for us to accept this paradox ourselves.
It would have been impossible to explain it to the man
in the street. Therefore we couldn't admit outright
that we had reached an agreement on peaceful co-
existence with Hitler. Coexistence would have been
possible with the Germans in general, but not with the
Hitlerite fascists.
For their part, the Germans too were using the
treaty as a maneuver to win time. Their idea was to
divide and conquer the nations which had united
against Germany in World War I and which might
unite against Germany again. Hitler wanted to deal
with his adversaries one at a time. He was convinced
that Germany had been defeated in World War I be-
cause she had tried to fight on two fronts at once. The
treaty he signed with us was his way of trying to limit
the coming war to one front.
AU the while the English and French and the whole
bourgeois press were trying to sic Hitler on the Soviet
Union, trumpeting, "Russia is nothing but a colossus
with feet of clay!" England and France would have
loved to have stood by and watched Germany and the
Soviet Union go at each other and finish each other
off. The English and French rubbed their hands in
delight at the idea of lying low while Hitler's rampage
took its toll of our blood, our territory, and our wealth.
If you look at war as a game, you might put it like
this: we were betting on the possibility that we could
duck behind the treaty and escape the bullets which
—
would soon be flying thus avoiding the fate which
the Western powers hoped would befall us. If it had
worked out that way, then I believe the Ribbentrop-
Molotov treaty would have been completely justified.
 134 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Hitler first approached us with his proposal for a
treaty through his ambassador to Moscow, Schulen-
burg. As history has shown, Schulenburg was genuine-
ly in favor of strengthening peaceful relations between
Germany and the Soviet Union.^ There's no question
that he opposed Hitler's plan to go to war against us.
When Molotov summoned him to discuss some matter
Schulenburg was radiant. "God
relating to the treaty,
Himself has come to our aid!" he declared. At the time
we thought he was just acting, but later we realized
that his delight about the treaty was sincere. He un-
derstood the necessity for building Germany's relations
with the Soviet Union on a foundation of peace, friend-
ship, and the mutually biading principle of nonaggres-
sion. He must have reported his views to Hitler at some
point but Hitler paid no attention. Schulenburg took
part in the plot against Hitler in 1944. The plot failed,
and he was among those executed.
During the period immediately after the treaty was
—
signed, Stalin and Hitler fulfilled or at least pre-
—
tended to fulfill their obligations to each other as
stipulated by the treaty. There was an exchange of
fairly detailed information, as I recall, with Molotov
frequently reporting to Stalin, "Schulenburg has said
. Schulenburg has transmitted ..." and so on. Of
. .

course, Schulenburg was more interested in picking

up information from us than he was in passing any to
us. I remember once when Iwas at Stalin's, Molotov
told the following story: He had summoned Schulen-
burg to his office, where Schulenburg noticed stenog-
raphers making transcripts of radio broadcasts and
remarked, "Why do you have to make stenographic
copies ?" Then he cut himself short, but Molotov
. . .

stored the incident away in his memory. He realized

from what Schulenburg had let slip that apparently
the Germans had some sort of mechanical means of
recording radio broadcasts and therefore didn't need
stenographers. It was only after the war that we
discovered the existence of tape recorders, which ex-

3.Count Werner von der Schulenburg indeed did all he coiild

to keep the peace between Germany and Russia.
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 135

plained why German intelligence had been able to

monitor radio broadcasts so much better than we could.
Secret radiograms are transmitted very rapidly, and
it's impossible for a stenographer to copy them down.
What's more, they're in code. A tape recorder can take
them down and then play them back slowly so they
can be decoded. Thus, Schulenburg's offhand comment
to Molotov gave us our first hint that the Germans
had invented tape recorders.
According to the treaty, we were supposed to give
the Germans a certain amount of wheat, oil, and other
products. We made all our deliveries punctually. Hitler
j
was supposed to compensate us with a battle cruiser.
[He even sent along his speciahsts to help us arm the
I
cniiser. A high-ranking German naval officer arrived
Sin Leningrad to help supervise the job of fitting out
the ship. The appropriate accommodations and work-
ing conditions were arranged for him. Then a scandal
broke out. It seems that our intelligence service had
planted in his apartment all sorts of listening and
photographic devices. Apparently this admiral was an
admirer of the opposite sex, so our intelligence service
obliged him with a young lovely and then tried to
photograph him in an indecent pose with her. This
went on for a number of nights until the admiral
heard a whirring noise. He started hunting around and
moved a large picture which was hanging on the wall.
A little window was cut in the picture, and behind it
he found a camera. He immediately registered a com-
plaint. Our Chekists had thought they could compro-
mise him and enlist him into their own service, but
the German admiral's superiors couldn't have cared
less that he had been with a woman.^
Hitler personally raised a rumpus about what had
happened. I remember that Stalin got very angry with
Beria over our Chekists' handling of the whole thing.
That's how I found out about the cruiser. Later, when
the war ended, the cruiser was still sitting in Leningrad

4. is characteristic of Soviet secret-police behav-

This episode
ior, now
as then. Khrushchev's only criticism appears to be
that the operators were found out.
136 KHEUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
unfinished. Some people thought that Hitler had given
us the cruiser because he was ready to share his
military might with us. Actually, Hitler believed that
before the cruiser was finished, he would have crushed
the Soviet Union and the cruiser would be his again.
I remember another example of how Hitler tried to
give the appearance of honorably abiding by the con-
ditions of the nonaggression treaty. We had a contract
with a Czechoslovakian munitions firm called Skoda,
which was supposed to make some antiaircraft guns
for us. These were good 88 mm. guns which were
being built according to samples which we had already
bought from Skoda. We were also supposed to get
some 205 mm. cannons. When Hitler invaded Czecho-
slovakia, Skoda suspended the contract. Hitler himself
intervened and ordered Skoda to go ahead and fill our
order. Skoda obeyed and delivered a certain number
of 205 mm. heavy cannons, but not enough to make
much difference. The 88 mm. antiaircraft guns, how-
ever, were adopted for production by our factories.
They played an important role in the war, both as anti-
aircraft and as antitank guns.
Throughout this period the Germans were assessing
our technological sophistication, particularly the qual-
ity of our mechanized equipment. They sensed our
weakness, and this encouraged them. Of course, as it
turned out, they very much underestimated us.
From 1940 on, many controversial matters arose in
our relations with Hitler. After prolonged consultation
among ourselves, we decided that Molotov should go
to Berlin. I came to Moscow in October or November
of 1940, after Molotov had gotten back from his trip.
He said that strict security measures had been taken
during his train ride from the Soviet border to Berlin
and that during the negotiations the English had car-
ried out an air raid, forcing Hitler and his entourage
to move to a bomb shelter. Molotov said he could tell
that the bomb shelter had already been in frequent
use. Molotov, himself taciturn by nature, characterized
Hitler as an untalkative man who never touched a
drop of drink. At an oflScial dinner Hitler didn't even
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 137

pick up his wine glass and was served tea during the
meal.^
From Molotov's answers to StaUn's questions I con-
cluded that his trip had strengthened our general
conviction that war was inevitable and probably im-
minent. Stalin's face and behavior showed signs of his
anxiety, but he rarely shared his anxiety with us or
even asked our opinion about what should be done. I
remember that when Hess flew to England and the
Germans put out the canard that he had fled, I said
to Stalin, "The Germans are hiding something. I don't
think Hess's flight to England is really an escape from
Germany at all. I think he must actually be on a secret
mission from Hitler to negotiate with the Enghsh about
cutting short the war in the West to free Hitler's
hands for the push east."®
Stalin heard me out, and then said, "Yes, that's it.
You understand correctly." He didn't develop his
thoughts on this subject further. He just agreed. We
had long since become accustomed to the practice that
if you weren't told something, you didn't ask. This may

be a proper way to deal with functionaries, but it's no

way to treat members of the Government. To deal this
way with members of the ruling body of the Party and
of the country is a violation of all the norms which
must be observed if the Party is to be truly democratic.
But that's what happened to our Party, the Party of
Lenin, in the thirties and forties. Information was
carefully selected, limited, and weighed by Stalin be-
fore it was passed on to the Politbureau. He had no

5. On the night of November 13, 1940, when Ribbentrop and

Molotov were at a critical point in negotiating "spheres of
influence" and "territorial aspirations," the RAF paid a friendly
caU on Berhn. During the raid, as Stalin was later to tell
Churchill at Teheran, the Germans kept insisting that Britain
was finished. "If that is so," Molotov retorted, "then why are we
in this shelter, and whose are these bombs that are falling on
us?" The Molotov visit to Berlin was, for Hitler, the very last
straw. A month later he issued Directive No. 21, headed "Opera-
tion Barbarossa," instructing his generals to prepare to crush
Soviet Russia before the end of the war against England.
6. Many Russians to this day still believe that Britain entered
into some sort of a conspiracy with Hess.
 138 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

right to do this, according to the Party Statutes. The

fact that he did it anyway was another manifestation
of the arbitrary rule which acquired the aspect of law
under Stalin.
I came to Moscow
again in the winter, either at the
end of 1940 or at the beginning of 1941. As soon as 1
arrived I received a message that Stalin wanted to see
me at the Nearby Dacha [the stock phrase for Stalin's
dacha] right away. When I got there, Stalin was lying
on a couch reading. He told me he didn't feel very
well. Then he started to talk to me about military
matters. This was possibly the only time he ever talked
about military matters when we were alone. Appar-
ently he just needed somebody to talk to and didn't
care who it was. He was always depressed when he
was alone. It was as though the walls were closing in
on him. I think our conversation about the coming war
was just an excuse for having me around to keep him
company. That's the only way I can explain it because
usually he felt no urge to exchange opinions with
others. He valued his own abilities and views much
more than those of anyone else.
On that occasion in the winter of 1940-41, Stalin
started complaining about being unable to take part in
the military consultations which were then going on.
While I was with him he telephoned Timoshenko^ and
started arguing angrily vdth him, stressing the impor-
tance of artillery and criticizing some decision which
had already been made in favor of some other sort of
weaponry. He was obviously very worried about the
state of our defenses. I reacted very humanly to these
outward manifestations of Stalin's deep alarm. A dark
cloud was indeed hanging over our country.
I remember we were all together in the Kremlin
when we heard the news over the radio that the
French army had capitulated and that the Germans
were in Paris. Stalin's nerves cracked when he learned

7. Marshal Semyon Timoshenko replaced Voroshilov as Peo-

ple's Commissar of Defense after the Fmnish war in 1940.
Before the Finnish war he was in the Ukraine as commander of
the Kiev Military District.
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 139

about the fall of France. He cursed the governments

of England and France: "Couldn't they put up any
resistance at all?" he asked despairmgly. Molotov and
I were with him at the time. Beria and Zhdanov were
probably there, too.
Hitler had been stunningly successful in his conquest
of Europe. He had swiftly moved his troops right up to
the borders of the Soviet Union. After the fall of Po-
land there was only a very tentative boundary between
Hitler's forces and the Soviet Union. Germany, Italy,
and Japan were formidable countries, and they were
united against us. The most pressing and deadly threat
in all history faced the Soviet Union. We felt as though
we were facing this threat all by ourselves. America
was too far away to help us, and besides, it was un-
known at that time how America would react if the
Soviet Union were attacked. And England was hang-
ing by a thread. No one knew if the English would
be able to hold out should the Hitlerites attempt an
invasion across the Channel.
Hitler knew how dangerous our situation was, and
he did his best to humiliate us. I remember Stalin once
told me that Hitler had sent a request for a favor
through secret channels. Hitler wanted Stalin, as the
man with the most authority and prestige in the Com-
munist world, to persuade the French Communist Par-
ty not to lead the resistance against the German
occupation of France. Stalin was indignant. There was
no question how he would answer, ffitler had stooped
to new depths of filth and vileness. How could he
expect Stalin to make such a degrading deal? How
could he expect him to cooperate with the fascists
against the Communist Party of France!®
I recall another example of Hitler's brazenness. The
Germans staged their capture of Danzig as though it
were a cinema spectacle. They set up movie cameras
in advance and filmed the battle from sea and land.
They tried to distribute this film to all the countries

8. Khrushchev in his indignation does not mention Stalin's

earlier betrayal of the German Communists in the face of Hitler.
Perhaps he did not know about it.
140 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
of the world. Hitler wanted to show off his might and I

to paralyze his future adversaries with fear. He wanted j

the whole world to see what irresistible blows thei

fascist troops could strike and to quake in terror.
Hitler proposed that Stalin take this film and have it
shown in our movie theaters. Stalin agreed on one
condition: "We'll distribute your film if you distribute
ours." We had some very impressive films of our own,
showing our troops on maneuvers and on parade.
Naturally, as Stalin expected. Hitler wouldn't agree
to this exchange. That's how Stalin countered Hitler's
attempt to subvert our will. Hitler's film was sent to
us anyway, and we watched it in the Kremlin with
Stalin. It was very depressing. We knew very weU
that we were the next country Hitler planned to turn
hisarmy against.
At that time we had a play called The Keys to Berlin
running in a number of theaters. It was part of our
campaign to toughen the country psychologically for
the coming war. The Germans were trumpeting that
they were invincible and that every country on earth
would soon fall under their power. This play of ours
was a reminder that there had already been occasions
in history when Russian troops had crushed the Ger-
mans, captured the city of Berlin, and thereby received
the keys to the German capital. Unfortunately, as it
turned out, we didn't succeed in getting the keys to
Berlin at the end of World War II, but by rights we
should have.

The Advance into Poland

Here, and in the next chapter, Khrushchev deals with

one of the more obscure and terrible episodes in the
history of the Soviet Union: the Soviet seizure of east-
em Poland, the Polish Ukraine, in accordance with
the secret provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,
While the Polish army, facing west, was being shat-
tered in the first German blitzkrieg, the Red Army
quietly and massively took the Polish army in the rear,
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 141

\and meeting next to no resistance, moved up to the

\new frontier and agreed with the Nazis to achieve what
was nothing less than the fourth partition of Poland.
Khrushchev, as viceroy of the Soviet Ukraine, was
responsible for setting up a civilian administration with
its capital at Lvov, and in effect, for organizing the
sovietization of the annexed territory. It was an opera-
tion carried out with extrejue rigor. It was the task
of the Red Army, under Timoshenko, to round up
whole Polish arrny formations and arrange for their
transportation to the prisons and labor camps in the
interior of the Soviet Union. Fifteen thousand Polish
officersvanished from the face of the map, and the
bodies of over four thousand of them were later dis-
covered in mass graves in Katyn Forest near Smolensk,
having been shot by the NKVD. Over two hundred
thousand Polish prisoners, wom^en as well as men, were
taken to the camps. Many died there. Others, released
in accordance with the StalinSikorski agreement after
theGerman invasion of Russia, made their way south,
many dying on the way. The survivors found haven
under British auspices in Persia and the Middle East,
where the soldiers formed a new army which fought
so bravely with the Allies at Cassino and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the army and the bourgeoisie having
been liquidated, a puppet government was set up by
Khrushchev, elections being rigged in the Soviet man-
ner, which asked for the occupied territory to be in-
corporated in the Soviet Union. It is impossible to tell
whether Khrushchev was fully aware of the scale of
this atrocity. He cheerfully talks of arrests and insists
that they were necessary. But, as master of forty mil-
lion souls it is improbable that he had any detailed
understanding of what went on in his name. He was
surrounded by sycophants and flatterers and rene-
gades, and by some genuine enthusiasts for Russia, too
(though the Communist Party of Poland had already
been destroyed by Stalin). He would have beamed on
cheering crowds, "spontaneously" dem,onstrating at
carefully vetted public meetings. Having no idea of
living conditions anywhere outside the Soviet Union,
and believing in Leninist dogma, he would have found
142 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
it easy to believe that he was really bringing comfort
and light to the oppressed. The dirty work was done
by the head of the Ukrainian NKVD, Ivan Serov.
In the Polish Ukraine there were indeed large nuvti'
bers of oppressed. The right wing of the government
of Colonel Beck had been highly dictatorial. Further,
the history of the Ukraine was a muddle (Ukraine
means "borderland"). The first Russian state had been
based in Kiev. After the Tartar invasion in the thir-
teenth century Moscow won ascendancy, and by the
end of the fifteenth century when the Tartars were
driven back, the Great Russians of Muscovy had be-
come in many ways different from the Little Russians
of the Ukraine, which was disputed territory, with now
the Poles, now the Lithuanians, the dominant power.
It was not until the seventeenth century that Kiev and
the Eastern Ukraine were brought back under the sway
of the Muscovite Tsars. The Western Ukraine remained.
part of Poland, until part of it went to Russia andi
part to Austria with the first partition in 1772. Lvov
was then known as Lemberg. The Ukrainians had de-
veloped their own characteristics and their own lar^r
—
guage very close to Russian. Although their lands
were divided among the powers, they retained a strong
feeling of national consciov^sness and set up an inde-
pendent state in 1918. This did not last. The Ukraine
was divided again, now between Soviet Russia and the'
—
new Republic of Poland until, in 1939, the Red Army.
under Timoshenko and the Soviet Government, repre-.
sented by Khrushchev, forcibly recovered the western
part and Poland once again ceased to efdst as an
independent power. After World War II the Rv^sia^is
kept their gains and compensated Communist Poland
by pushing the boundtaries of the new state deep intc
— —
Germany the Oder-Neisse line driving out the Ger-
TTian inhabitants. This chapter is interesting, vahiahU
indeed, in that it offers a view of the Kremlin's attitude
toward Eastern Europe so radically different from our
own.

How did German-Soviet relations look from my posi-]

tion in the Ukraine?
[
PRELUDE TO THE WAR 143

The Germans, like all believers in bourgeois ideol-

ogy, thought that since the Soviet Union was multi-
lational, it would collapse at the first poke of a bayonet,
rhey expected national discord to break out and the
^nter of the people's solidarity to give way. This de-
lusion consoled the Soviet Union's ill-wishers through-
out the world, and it encouraged the Germans to
concentrate pressure on the Ukraine.^
After the fall of Poland, Hitler moved his troops up
to our border and faced them east. Since we had
signed the nonaggression and friendship treaty with
the Germans, Hitler's feverish efforts to fortify the
border looked suspicious. We reported to Stalin what
was happening. Stalin must have realized the threat,
but in order to allay our fears he would usually either
Ignore our reports or contradict our assessments of
what the Germans were up to.
One incident in particular sticks out in my mind. We
were in close contact with the Germans when we began
converting the railroad tracks in the Western Ukraine
from the narrow European gauge to our own wide-
gauge system. Germans appeared on a number of
occasions and advised us against proceeding with the
track conversion. I knew what they were thinking. I
immediately reported to Stalin that the Germans must
be planning to use our tracks for their own equipment
in the near future. In this case Stalin had to agree. He
cursed angrily and said, "Go ahead and give the order
to convert the rest of the rails as quickly as possible."
We did so, but it didn't make much difference because
after their invasion the Germans simply converted the
railsback to narrow gauge as they marched. Construc-
tionworkers followed behind the fascist troops, ripping
up spikes, moving the rails, and driving in new spikes.
Despite the taunting haughtiness of the Germans
all
they took care not to provoke
after the fall of Poland,
a military confrontation with us until they were ready
for a massive invasion. I had an opportunity to keep

9. The Germans were right from their point of view. When

they invaded in 1941 large numbers of Ukrainians received them
as liberators, before disillusionment set in.
 144 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
an eye on them at close quarters. As a member of the
Military Council for the Kiev District, I often went out
with the commander, Timoshenko, to review our troops
who were concentrated on the border. We were ap-
palled at the complete breakdown of the Polish war
machine and the Polish government after the Germans
attacked on September 1, 1939. The Poles had been
proud and cocky, and they had thrown back in our
face our proposal that we join forces with them. And
now their army was in a disgraceful shambles. ^^
The Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty set a new boundary
between Poland and the Soviet Ukraine. We crossed
the old border and moved west, meeting practically no
resistance. First we moved our troops forward to
Ternopol. We drove through Polish villages populated
mostly by Ukrainians. On the second or third day of
the campaign we approached Lvov. We
got there just
a little bit ahead of the Germans. We were anxious to
avoid clashing with the Germans over who would
enter Lvov, so we decided to send Yakovlev, who is
now Marshal of Artillery, over to the German lines to
negotiate.^^ He knew a little German. If the Germans
had had their way, they would have entered Lvov first
and sacked the city. But since our troops, under the
command of Golikov,^^ had gotten there ahead of them,
the Germans were careful not to show any hostility
toward us. They stuck to the letter of the treaty and
told Yakovlev in effect, "Please, be our guests! After
you!" Hitler was playing for high stakes, and he didn't
want to start a fight with us over small change. He

10. The Poles had certainly asked for trouble by refusing to

consider any agreement between the Soviet Union, Britain, and
France which would allow Soviet troops to pass through their
territory in the event of war with Germany. Proud, cocky
indeed, they also were. They were soon shattered by the Ger-
man blitzkrieg. But Khrushchev should have remembered,
before speaking of a "disgraceful shambles," that the Red Army
itself was soon to be reduced to a disgraceful shambles by the
Finns, and in June, 1941, by the same Germans.
11. Lieutenant General V. F. Yakovlev, who was later to com-
mand the Soviet Fourth Army in front of Leningrad.
12. P. I. Golikov, later promoted to marshal, who became
GOC Lvov Military District.
 PREHJDE TO THE WAR 145

wanted us to think he was a man of his word. So the

German troops were pulled back to the border which
had been set by the treaty.
There was great elation both among our own troops
and among the local population over the annexation
of the Western Ukraine to the Soviet Ukraine. His-
torically these lands had been populated by Ukrainians.
The only exception was in the big cities. Lvov, for
instance, had many more Poles than Ukrainians. But
this was an artificial majority. Ukrainians were barred
from jobs in the cities; they weren't even given road-
work. This discrimination had been practiced as a
matter of poUcy to make sure that Poles dominated
the cities.
If you consider the Soviet Union's acquisition of the
Western Ukraine from a purely territorial point of
view, you'll see that we gained practically nothing
—
except what we were legally entitled to that is, the
Belorussian and Ukrainian lands which had been seized
by Pilsudski in 1920.^^ Naturally, there were some
Ukrainians who, for nationalistic reasons, weren't very
happy with the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty. They be-
lieved that the Soviet regime in the Ukraine was only
temporary, and they would have preferred the Curzon
Line, which was further to the west than the new
border set by the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty.
Ukrainian nationalists gave us more trouble than
anyone else between the signing of the treaty in 1939
and the outbreak of war in 1941. Indisputable docu-
mentary proof fell into our hands that they were
receiving instructions and money from the Germans.
This information in turn constituted the definitive proof

13. These lands were part of Imperial Russia until the Revo-
lution. Poland had not existed as a sovereign state since the
Third Partition between Russia, Grermany, and Austria in 1863.
An independent Poland was proclaimed in November, 1918.
General Pilsudski became President and Paderewski, the pianist,
Prime Minister early in 1919. The Bolsheviks tried to reestablish
Russian ascendancy and marched on Warsaw, under Tukhachev-
sky. Pilsudski pushed them back and by the Treaty of Riga, in
March of 1921, Polish possession of part of Belorussia and the
Ukraine was confirmed.
146 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

that Hitler was getting ready to invade us. He was

using Ukrainian nationalists as his agents in the West-
ern Ukraine, and when he invaded, the nationalist
packs in the area helped the German intelhgence
service more than once.^^
Before the invasion, the Ukrainian nationalists
looked forward eagerly to the impending war because
Goebbels had duped them into believing that Hitler
would drive the "Muscovites" out of the Ukraine and
give the Ukrainians their independence on a silver
platter. These nationalists were too blind to see what
—
the Soviet regime founded on Marxism-Leninism, the
—
most advanced doctrine in the world had to offer.
When we moved into Lvov we made the mistake of
releasing the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Ban-
dera from prison. Who was this Stepan Bandera? Many
people still don't know. Some even confuse him with
the Ilf and Petrov character, Ostap Bender. Like his
father before him, Stepan Bandera was a priest in the
region of Stanislav. He once studied at the Lvov Poly-
technic Institute. He was in prison in Lvov because he
had been convicted in connection with the assassina-
tion of the Polish Minister of Internal Affairs. We were
hardly inclined to mourn the passing of a minister of
the reactionary Polish state. Nevertheless, we still
showed a certain lack of judgment by freeing people
like Bandera from prison without first checking up on
them. We were impressed by Bandera's record as an
opponent of the Polish government, but we should
have taken into account the fact that men like him
were also enemies of the Soviet Union. They were
Ukrainian nationalists and therefore had a pathologi-
cal hatred of the Soviet regime. Bandera himself was
an outright agent of German fascism, and later he gave
us a lot of trouble. It's true that when Bandera realized
that the Hitlerites didn't intend to keep their promise
to sponsor an independent Ukraine he turned his units
against them. But even then he didn't stop hating the

14. Here again we see that Elhrushchev finds it hard to de-

cide whether to minimize or to stress the strength of Ukrainian
nationalism when it suits him. In fact it was very strong.
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 147

Soviet Union. During the second half of the war he

fought against both us and the Germans. Later, after
the war, we lost thousands of men in a bitter struggle
between the Ukrainian nationalists and the forces of
Soviet Power.^^
I would like to say something about a tragedy which
occurred in the Ukraine during the period just after
the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. I didn't
have time to deal with these developments myself.
Besides, in my very important position as Politbureau
member and Secretary of the Ukrainian Central Com-
mittee, would have been impolitic for me to have
it

taken a direct hand in them. These events were re-

ported to me by Comrade Serov, the People's Commis-
sar of Internal Affairs in the Ukraine.
Serov's duties required him to have contacts with
the Gestapo. A
Gestapo representative used to come
to Lvov on official business. I don't know what sort of
a network the Gestapo had in the Ukraine, but it was
extensive. The cover for this network was an exchange
agreement whereby people on German-occupied terri-
tory who wanted to return to their homes in the former
Polish territory now occupied by Soviet troops were
allowed to do so; and likewise, anyone in the Ukrain-
ian population on Soviet territory who wanted to re-
turn to German-occupied Poland could do that.
Serov described the following scene to me: "There
are long lines standing outside the place where people
register for permission to return to Polish territory.
When Itook a closer look, I was shocked to see that
most of the people in line were members of the Jewish
population. They were bribing the Gestapo agents to

15. For some years after the war, until he was killed, Stepan
Bandera presented a very serious problem to the Soviet author-
ities. For obvious reasons his activities have never been pub-
licized, but it took a large-scale military and police operation,
with all the paraphernalia of tanks, aircraft, and heavy artillery,
to break up the rebel forces, composed of dedicated Ukrainian
nationalists, deserters from the Soviet armed forces, former
prisoners of war, and displaced persons of all kinds and many
—
nationalities all imited in fear or hatred of Moscow.
148 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
let them leave as soon as possible to return to their
original homes."
The Gestapo agents were eagerly accepting the
bribes, getting rich,and shipping these people straight
to the gas chambers. There was nothing we could do
to stop them. They wanted to go home. Maybe they
had relatives in Poland. Maybe they just wanted to go
back to their birthplaces. They must have known how
the Germans were dealing with Jews. Naturally, no
better end awaited these Polish Jews who, by the will
of fate, found themselves on Soviet territory but who
wanted to get back to a land where fascism now ruled.
The Polish intelligentsia in the Western Ukraine
reacted in various ways to the arrival of the Red
Army. Many intellectuals were still in a state of shock.
They had been subjected to the imposition of a Hitler-
ite state in Poland. They had seen the Polish govern-
ment liquidated. Warsaw was in ruins, and other cities
had undergone vast destruction. Brought up in a
bourgeois culture on bourgeois ideas, the Poles felt
they were losing their national identity. Since they
neither understood nor accepted Marxist-Leninist
teachings, they couldn't imagine that their culture
would actually be enriched by the annexation of their
lands to the Soviet Union. In other words, while the
Ukrainian population in the Western Ukraine felt
liberated by the Red Army, the Polish population felt
repressed.
Most Poles on Soviet-occupied territory were against
the Soviet system, but when confronted with the al-
ternative of what Hitler had brought to the rest of
Poland, they chose what they thought was the lesser
of two evils. Regrettably, some Polish intellectuals fled,
and most of those perished in the Gestapo's mobile gas
chambers and ovens.^^

16. In 1939, of course, there were no gas chambers. The de-

cision to exterminate the Jews of Europe, which led to the
establishment of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and the like with their
gas chambers, was not made by Hitler imtil 1941. In 1939 the
Jews were being very actively and viciously persecuted in Ger-
many, but Polish Jews, especially those of bourgeois origin, may
i i
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 149

I remember one incident which perplexed and

grieved me very much. When we moved into Lvov,
there was a famous Polish opera singer there named
Wanda Bandrovska. asked our people who handled
I
cultural matters ta negotiate with her and offer her a
chance to sing in the Kiev, ICharkov, or Odessa opera.
I thought such an attractive opportunity would entice
her to stay. I didn't want a famous singer like her to
return to the Polish territory now occupied by the
fascists. For her to sing in Poland would be an affront
both to the PoUsh people and to the Soviet people.
But Bandrovska outsmarted us. She pretended to be
very interested in our offer, while at the same time she
was conducting negotiations with the fascists behind
our backs. She let them spirit her over to German-
occupied territory, and one day Serov told me, "Ban-
drovska is gone. She is in Cracow and has already
appeared in the theater there and sung to officers of
the German army."
Despite setbacks like that one, we were sure that
the Polish intellectuals, as well as the Polish workers
and peasants, of the Western Ukraine would correctly
understand the necessity for the Ribbentrop-Molotov
treaty and would accept Soviet rule. It hadn't been
our fault that we had had to sign the treaty. It had
been the fault of an unwise Polish government ^the —
government of the Pilsudski-ites, who were blinded by
their hatred of the Soviet Union and their hostility to
the workers and peasants of their own state. They
were afraid that any contact with us might encourage
the freedom-loving elements in their own society. More
than anything else they feared the Communist Party
of Poland, and they didn't want to do anything that
might strengthen the Party. The Pilsudski-ites knew
that if they joined forces with us their fate would
depend on the wiU of the Polish people. So they re-
fused our assistance, and consequently most of Poland
fell to Hitler while the Western Ukraine was united

well have felt, at the time, that they would stand more chance
of buying their way out of Germany into Western Europe than
of escaping from the Soviet labor camps.
150 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS f

with the Eastern Ukraine and its people were given an

opportunity to become citizens of the Soviet Union.

Sovietizing the Western Ukraine

Here Khrushchev continues his story of the incorporor

tion of the Polish Ukraine into the Soviet Union, re-
ferring also to the occupation of the Baltic States in
1940. The sovietization of Lithuania, Latvia, and Esto-
—
nia was carried out arrests, deportatioTis, and all in —
the manner already perfected in the Ukraine, hut with
the difference that these small peoples were in no
sense Russians and had achieved living standards much
superior to those obtaining in the Soviet Union, which
proceeded to drag them down to its own level.

Under my leadership we got on with the job of estab-

lishing Soviet Power and normalizing the situation
in the lands annexed from Poland. Assisted by Com-
rade Serov, I concentrated on the creation of local
Party organizations in the Western Ukraine. Regional
committees were formed mainly from people who
came from the Soviet [Eastern] Ukraine, while district
committees were drawn largely from local Party ac-
tivists. Despite strong Ukrainian nationalist influences:
and resistance among the Polish intelligentsia, there
were still plenty of people willing to recognize the;
Soviet reality. And even though the Communist Party
of the Western Ukraine had been dissolved during the
purges of 1936-37, there were many Communists in
the area who still sympathized with us.
Some of the local Party workers in the Western
Ukraine had their hearts in the right place but were
fairly unsophisticated. I remember one amusing epi-
sode in particular. I once called at the Lvov Revolu-
tionary Committee to see how the Chairman was
getting along. His office was crowded with people who
had come to see him about various matters relating
—
to the management of the city the condition of the
trolley lines, roads which needed repair, and most
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 151
I
important, the city's electricity and water supplies. The
people who had run these services in the past were all
Poles, and they were coming to the Revolutionary
Committee to be certified by the new administration
and to receive instructions. There, in the midst of all
these people, sat the Chairman. He was a huge man,
and he was wearing high felt boots and an enormous
overcoat on top of his sheepskin jacket. It was late
fall and beginning to turn chilly. There were two
revolvers sticking conspicuously out of his overcoat. It
looked as though the only reason he didn't have a
cannon slung over his shoulder was that it would have
been too heavy. The people sitting around waiting to
see him were obviously scared of him. When his office
hours were over, I told him I was horrified to find the
Chairman of the Revolutionary Conmiittee looking like
that. "Listen," I said, "this will never do. You're mak-
ing a terrible impression on these people; you're going
to give a bad name both to yourself and to our Party.
What are you going to do if a terrorist comes charging
in here and tries to kill you? He'll be able to shoot you
with one of your own pistols! From now on, if you
want to carry a revolver, make sure that the butt isn't
sticking out of your coat like that."
There was something else that surprised me in Lvov
and other cities of the Western Ukraine and that was
the attitude of the local Jewish population. There were
many Jews among both the working class and the
intelligentsia, and some of them were involved in anti-
Soviet activities of one sort or another. Some Jews,
along with Ukrainians, belonged to an anti-Polish,
nationalist organization called the Communist Party
for the Defense of the Ukraine.^'^ I remember that once
—
we invited Ukrainians, Jews, and Poles mostly work-
—
ers but some intellectuals, too to a meeting in the
Lvov opera house. It struck me as very strange to hear
the Jewish speakers at this meeting refer to themselves
as "yids." They said things like, "We yids hereby
declare ourselves in favor of such-and-such."

17. The initials in Russian are the same as those of the Com-
munist Party of the Western Ukraine.
 —
152 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Out in the lobby after themeeting I stopped some of

these men and demanded, "How dare you use the
word 'yid'? Don't you know it's a very offensive term,
an insult to the Jewish nation?"
"Here in the Western Ukraine it's just the opposite,"
they explained. "We call ourselves yids and consider
the word 'Jew' an insult."
Apparently what they said was true. If you go back
—
to Ukrainian literature take Gogol for instance
you'll see that "yid" isn't used derisively or insultingly. ,

But even after this custom was explained to us, it '

continued to grate on our sensibilities until we got

used to it.^^
While we were trying to enlist support among the
intelligentsia of the Western Ukraine, I heard about
a writer named Wanda Lvovna Wassilewska, whose ,

voice carried a great deal of weight among Polish

intellectuals. She and became fast friends. She was
I '

a good person, very smart and very honest. She be-

came a Communist of unimpeachable honor and bound-
less loyalty. She was later one of the few people who ,

could talk back to Stalin and still keep in good graces.

She had fled on foot from Warsaw to the territory
occupied by our troops, dressed like a simple peasant
in a sheepskin coat and plain black boots. She came
from a distinguished Polish family. She was the daugh-
ter of a minister in the Pilsudski government. It was
even rumored that she was Pilsudski's goddaughter,
although I never asked her if this was true. The
important thing was that she stood clearly and firmly
for the establishment of Soviet Power in the former
Polish territory, and she helped us get through to those
Poles in the Western Ukraine who were clinging
irrationally to the idea that we had negotiated the

18. Our own derogatory "yid" is the closest approximation to

the Russian zhid. The Jews of the Western Ukraine do in fact
refer to themselves as zhidze. This is so commonplace that any
Ukrainian or Great Russian who has been there knows it and
takes it for granted. So this seems to be yet another case of
Khrushchev getting in a dig at the Jews while professing his
total freedom from anti-Semitism.
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 153

Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact at their expense.^^ Later I

came to know Wanda Lvovna's daughter Eva, who
lived in the Soviet Union and worked in one of the
big libraries in Moscow.
My main job was to set up organizations to represent
the people of the Western Ukraine and to give them
a chance to declare themselves: did they want to join
the Soviet State or not? Delegations were elected to
an assembly in Lvov to decide this question. When the
assembly was convened I sat in a special box and
observed how the first session progressed. It was a
very encouraging event. The local presidium was made
up of people from the Western Ukraine. We knew
where they stood politically because they had already
declared themselves at public meetings and in the
press. But while these men were well known to us,
they were by no means our stooges or our planted
agents. They were Communists by conviction.
The assembly continued for a number of days amid
great jubilation and political fervor. I didn^t hear a
single speech expressing even the slightest doubt that
Soviet Power should be established in the Western
Ukraine. One by one, movingly and joyfully, the speak-
ers all said that it was their fondest dream to be
accepted into the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. It was
gratifying for me to see that the working class, peas-
antry, and laboring intelligentsia were beginning to
understand Marxist-Leninist teachings and that they
all wanted to build their future on that foundation.
Such was the power of Lenin's ideas! Despite all the
efforts of the Polish rulers to distort our Leninist
doctrine and to intimidate the people, Lenin's ideas
were alive and thriving in the Western Ukraine.
At the same time we were still conducting arrests,
[t was our view that these arrests served to strengthen
the Soviet State and clear the road for the building of

19. Wassilewska rejoiced in her new Soviet citizenship and

latermarried the no less politically minded writer Komeichuk.
By the majority of Polish writers she was regarded as a traitress.
^s a reward for assisting in the liquidation of her own Polish
colleagues, she was made a Deputy Prime Minister of the
Jkraine.
 . . '

154 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Socialism on Marxist-Leninist principles; ^^ but our
bourgeois enemies had their own interpretation of the
arrests, which they tried to use to discredit us through-
out Poland. But despite this intensive slander cam-
paign, the people of the Western Ukraine welcomed
the Red Army in the way a laboring people should
welcome its hberators.
The assembly in Lvov proceeded triumphantly. Rep- '

resentatives made speeches with tears of joy in their j

eyes. They said that finally they had lived to see the j

day when the Ukraine was unified and when they '

were united with their Ukrainian brethren. The na- '

tional aspirations of the Ukrainian people were being '

fulfilled—and at the same time the frontiers of the \

Soviet State were being fortified. Our borders had

been pushed west, and history's injustice to the Ukrain- '

ian people was being set right. Never before had the
Ukrainian people been united in a single Ukrainian ,

state. Only now, in the Soviet era, was this dream at

last coming true.^^
However, the assembly in Lvov reflected only the
feelings of the people who had been liberated from
Polish oppression. Therefore the unification of the

20. The arrests were indeed (who would deny it?) intended
to strengthen the Soviet State, which considered itself then (as ,

today) insufficiently strong to tolerate the existence, outside

prison or the labor camps, of any individual who might be '

expected to question the regime. In Soviet-occupied Poland and ;

in the Soviet-occupied Baltic States the arrests of such indivi-

duals ran into many hundreds of thousands (see note 24 below)
For the most moving account of what happened to civilians
arrested by Serov, at Khrushchev's right hand, see the terrible
story of the deportees, The Dark Side of the Moon, published
anonymously, with a preface by T. S. EUot. For an account of
the vain search for fifteen thousand Polish officers who were
taken prisoner by the Russians, see The Inhuman Land by
Josef Grzapski, with prefaces by Maurice Halevy and Edward
Crankshaw. For an account of the discovery of the bodies of
some four thousand of these officers, found murdered in Katyn
Forest near Smolensk, see The Katyn Wood Murders by Joseph
Mackiewicz.
21. The majority of the population would have told another
story.

i
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 155

Ukraine and the acceptance of the former Polish

official
territory into the Soviet Union weren^t yet legally
accomplished. But only a formality remained. No one
expected the Ukrainians of the eastern areas to object
to the inclusion of the Western Ukraine in the Ukrain-
ian Soviet State. After the representative, or founding,
assembly in Lvov we transferred the discussion of all
these matters to Kiev, where the delegates made an
application first to the Ukrainian and then to the
Soviet Government for acceptance of the Western
Ukraine as part of the Soviet Ukraine. Then they made
an application for inclusion in the Soviet Union at a
special session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR,
which was convened in Kiev. The mood at this session
was triumphant. It gave me great joy and pride to
attend these meetings because from the very beginning
I had organized and supervised the sovietization of the
Western Ukraine.
It^s true there were still some Ukrainians living on
the other side of the Carpathian Mountains. After the
liquidation of Czechoslovakia, the Transcarpathian
Ukraine had been annexed to Hungary. Ukrainians
used to say among themselves: "Well, for the time
being the Transcarpathian Ukrainians aren't part of
our Ukrainian state. But the hour will come when they
will join us." And that's exactly what happened after
the war. When Hitler was crushed, the Transcarpathian
Ukraine joined the Soviet Ukraine, and all Ukrainians
were at last united into one state.

Meanwhile, sovietization was also going on in Belo-

russia. The Belorussians, like the Ukrainians, joyfully
celebrated the victory of Soviet power and the historic
unification of the whole Belorussian population into a
single Belorussian Soviet state.
The annexation of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
occurred somewhat later. When
Mussolini began mili-
tary actions againstGreece and when Hitler attacked
Yugoslavia and occupied Norway almost without a
shot, moving right beside our northern frontier near
Murmansk, we opened negotiations with Lithuania,
 ! ''
.

156 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Latvia, and Estonia.^^ We
asked for assurance that the
Baltic republics wouldn't attack us. It goes without
saying that there was soon a change of government in I

each of these countries. I found out about what was I

happening there from conversations I had with Stalin

when I returned to Moscow from Kiev. We were all
very glad that the Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians ,

would again be part of the Soviet State. This meant •

the expansion of our territory, the augmentation of I

our population, the fortification of our borders, and the ;

acquisition of an extensive coastal frontier on the i

Baltic Sea.23 ,

The annexation of the Baltic states also furthered!

our progressive aims with regard to the peoples of that i

area. Unlike the Belorussians and Ukrainians, who are

united by strong national bonds with Russians, the;
Baltic peoples are of a different national stock. Yetj
they have still been given a chance to live in conditions i

equal to those of the working class, peasantry, andi

laboring intelligentsia of Russia. We were absolutely!
certain that the annexation was a great triumph for the
Baltic peoples as well as for the Soviet Union. The
working class and laboring peasants of the Baltic states i

knew that the liquidation of the exploiting classes i

which we had accomplished in Russia would spread

to them as it would to all peoples who were to join
the Soviet Union.
For a while the Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians
were faced with a problem. Their leaders had fled with!
the bourgeoisie. Some leaders who didn't have time to

22. Norway was invaded in April, 1940. Miissolini attacked'

Greece in October, 1940. Hitler attacked Yugoslavia in April,
1941. But Russia seized the Baltic States in June, 1940.
23. An unusually cool admission of Soviet faith in Might being
Right. All three countries had, after many vicissitudes, become
part of Imperial Russia at various dates in the eighteenth cen-i
tury. In 1918 they separately declared their independence. The'
inhabitants of these states, unlike the Ukrainians, are not Slavs
and they were all superior to the Russians in their agricultural
and economic development, as well as their general cultural
level. The peasants and the workers had everything to lose and'
nothing to gain by being sovietized.
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 157

were given posts in the new governments, but

lee
nostly we had to find new people.^* We proceeded
mth the sovietization process more gradually than we
lad in the Ukraine and Belorussia. First, governments
;^rere created that were well disposed toward the Soviet
Union, and local Communist Parties were granted
legal status. Then progressive forces began to promote
friendship with the Soviet Union among the masses.
After a certain amount of time, the Baltic peoples
made known their desire to become part of the Soviet
Union. The establishment of Soviet rule was accom-
plished by democratic methods and in observance of
^^
the required judicial formalities.
The Soviet people welcomed the entrance of the
Baltic states into the Soviet Union with the same
enthusiasm that we had welcomed the unification of
the Ukraine and Belorussia. These annexations were
itriumphs transcending differences in nationality.
We all believed unquestioningly in the wisdom of
Stalin's leadership. We
glorified him for his foresight
in protecting the security of our country. We
had faith
in his ability to assure the impregnability of our bor-
ders. It was no small thing that we had pushed west
the border of the Soviet Ukraine and also secured a
new access to the Baltic Sea. Before this we had only
a narrow outlet through the Gulf of Finland, and now

24. Many did indeed flee. Other were not so lucky. It has been
estimated that between the Soviet annexation and the German
invasion, over 170,000 individuals were arrested, put into cattle
trucks, and deported to Siberia. The list of categories to be
deported, which included in principle almost everyone who was
not a manual worker or a peasant or a professing Communist,
was drawn up, seven months before the occupation, by I. A.
Serov of the NKVD and embodied in the notorious Order No.
001223 of October 11, 1939, signed by Serov—who, almost im-
I
mediately afterward joined IChrushchev in the Ukraine and put
into effect the same procedure of arrests and deportations, but
on a much enlarged scale.
25. A different way of putting it is to say that the puppet
governments established by the Soviet overlord (Andrei Zhda-
nov was to the Baltic States what Khrushchev was to the Polish
Ukraine) were instructed by Moscow to apply for the incor-
—
poration of their states into the Soviet Union and obeyed.
 j

158 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

we had a wide coastal frontier. The way we looked at
it, if a full-scale war broke out and if England, France,

or Germany tried to launch an invasion against us,

they might have tried to use the territory of Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia as a staging area. So the annexa-
tion of the Baltic states greatly improved our defenses.
This was of major importance because at that time our
economy and our industry were weak, and we were*
— —
encircled by the hostile and superior forces of the
bourgeois imperialist camp.

The Winter War with Finland

Khrushchev's story of the notorious Winter War of

1939—40, accords fairly closely with the established
facts. The best and fullest account of the negotiations
whereby Stalin tried to persuade the Finns to surren-
der part of Karelia in the interests of the security of
Leningrad is in Vaino Tanner's own book, The Winter
War. Although Tanner was the implacable opponent of\
Soviet expansion, he makes it plain that Stalin was
reluctant in the extreme to use force and was genuine-
ly surprised when the Finns would not give in to his
demands. Once he decided that force miLst be used, he
expected the Finns to surrender at once, and the old\
Finnish Bolshevik, Kuusinen, was groomed to takel
over the government of the occupied territory in\ —
effect a Finnish Quisling. As all the world knows, it\
did not work out like that. Marshal Mannerheim and]
the Finns put up a heroic resistance and humiliated the^
Red Army in its pride. It was not until Voroshilov had\
been superseded by Marshal Timoshenko, who brought]
the whole vast weight of the Red Army to bear, thati
the Finns finally surrendered. It was a traumatic
experience for the Russians. After the Nazi invasion
of the Soviet Union in June, 1941, the Finns were
compelled to yield to Hitler's demands and fight on
the German side. It is true that after the defeat oj
Hitler Stalin could have taken the whole of Finland.]
Khrushchev's remarks about Stalin in this context]

k
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 159

are fair. Finland, apart from Karelia, was not neces-

sary to the Soviet Union. Further, the Russians are
uncomfortable with the Finns, who make awkward
subjects. At the same tiyne, Finland was isolated, and
m the event of a major war in Europe, could be
knocked out with ease.

As we became increasingly concerned about protecting

pur defenses against attack from the north, the question
of Finland arose. We had to guarantee the security of
Leningrad, which was within artillery range of the
Finnish border and could easily have been shelled
from Finnish territory. Moreover, the Finnish govern-
ment was following policies hostile to the Soviet Union.
(It was demonstratively flirting with Hitlerite Ger-
many. The Finnish commander in chief, Carl Manner-
heim, was a former tsarist general and a sworn enemy
of the Soviet Union.^® Vaino Tanner was an old Social
Democrat, but he remained an irreconcilable foe of our
Marxist-Leninist ideology until the end of his days.^*^
Consequently, Finland represented a real threat to us
because its territory could be used by more powerful
governments; and it was therefore sensible, indeed
crucial, for the Soviet State to take steps to protect
Leningrad.
1 First we opened negotiations with Finland in order
!
to come to some kind of diplomatic agreement. These
talks took place while I was in the Ukraine. We wanted

26. Marshal C. G. E. von Mannerheim was Chairman of the

Finnish Defense Council when war was threatened. He was re-
sponsible for the Mannerheim line, the celebrated fortifications
in depth against which the Russians beat themselves for so long
in vain.
27. Vaino Tanner had been Prime Minister of Finland from
1926-27. It was he who had to negotiate with the Russians on
three successive visits to Moscow in the autumn of 1939 in an
efEort to reach an accommodation with Stalin. He became foreign
minister in the war government and subsequently the grand
old man of Furnish politics. He was the bete noire of the Soviet
leadership, not only because he was hated as a Social Democrat
(Communists hate and fear all other kinds of Socialists far more
than they hate and fear Conservatives), but also because he un-
derstood them inside out, their strength and their weakness.
 '! ,

160 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

the Finns to give up a certain amount of territory and
to move the border farther aw^ay from Leningrad. Thii
would have satisfied our need to protect the safety ol
Leningrad. The Finns refused to accept our conditions.
so we were left with no choice but to decide the ques-
tion by war.
Whenever I came to Moscow from Kiev, Stalin al-
most always summoned me. Occasionally I found him
alone when I went to see him. It was always easier to
exchange opinions with him candidly if we were alone.
But much more often than not, Stalin had Molotov,
Voroshilov, Kaganovich, and sometimes Zhdanov with!
him when I called on him. Zhdanov was the First i

Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee. Mi-i

koyan and Beria were often there, too. One day when
I came to Moscow, Stalin invited me to his apartment
for dinner. He told me Molotov and Kuusinen would •

be there. Kuusinen was then attached to the Comin- i

tern.
When I arrived at Stalin's apartment in the EIremlin,
I had the feeling that Stalin, Molotov, and Kuusinen
were continuing an earlier conversation about Finland.
Apparently they had already decided to present Fin-
land with an ultimatum. It had been agreed that
Kuusinen would head the government of a new Karelo- '

Finnish SSR. Up to that time, Karelia had been an !

autonomous republic annexed to the Russian Federa- :

tion. Now Karelia was to be made a Union Republic. ;

The consensus of the group was that the Finns should •

be given one last chance to accept the territorial de-

mands which they had already rejected during the ;

unsuccessful negotiations. If they didn't yield to our ,

ultimatum, we would take military action. This was

Stalin's idea. Naturally I didn't oppose him. Besides,
in this case I agreed that it was the right thing to do.
All we had to do was raise our voice a little bit, and
the Finns would obey. If that didn't work, we could :

fire one shot and the Finns would put up their hands
and surrender. Or so we thought. When I arrived at
the apartment, Stalin was saying, "Let's get started i

today." , I

We sat around for a long time. The hour of the ulti-

 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 161

matum had already been set. After the prescribed time

. had elapsed, Artillery Marshal Kulik was dispatched
to supervise the bombardment of the Finnish border.^^
: We waited to see what would happen. Stalin was con-
. fident. None of us thought there would be a war. We
were sure that the Finns would accept our demands
without forcing us to go to war. I repeat: our only
goal was to protect our security in the North. Com-
! pared with our own vast territorial and natural re-
; sources, Finland had little to offer us in the way of
; land and forests. Our sole consideration was security
— Leningrad was in danger.
Suddenly there was a telephone call. We had fired
our salvo, and the Finns had replied with artillery fire
of their own. De facto, the war had begun. There is,
of course, another version of the facts: it's said that
the Finns started shooting first and that we were
compelled to shoot back. It's always like that when
people start a war. They say, "You fired the first shot,"
or "You slapped me first, and I'm only hitting back."
There was once a ritual which you sometimes see in
opera: someone throws down a glove to challenge
;
someone else to a duel; if the glove is picked up, it
means the challenge is accepted. Perhaps that's how
; it was done in the old days, but in our time it's not

i always so clear-cut who starts a war.

There's some question about whether we had any
legal or moral right for our actions against Finland.
Of course we didn't have any legal right. As far as
morality was concerned, our desire to protect our-
selveswas ample justification in our own eyes.
Afew days after the war began, I left for the
Ukraine. Like everyone else I was confident that our
, advantage would prove immeasurable and that our
dispute with the Finns would be solved quickly, with-
out many casualties for us. So we thought, and so we

28. Marshal Kulik was an NKVD general notorious for his

stupidity, brutality, incompetence, and corruptness. As Khru-
shchev later notes, Stalin's attachment to him was to cost the
Soviet Union dearly in the early days of the German invasion.
 '!'
' ' 1

162 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

hoped. But the history of that conflict turned out very

differently.
The war dragged on stubbornly. The Finns turned
out to be good warriors. They had organized their 9

defenses brilliantly along the Mannerheim Line on the 1

Karelian isthmus, and they thwarted our attempt to '

push through this strategically important passage. We I

^

soon realized we had bitten off more than we could ' i

chew. We found ourselves faced with good steel-rein- ' l

forced fortifications and effectively deployed artillery, i 7

The Mannerheim Line was impregnable. Our casual- [

ties mounted alarmingly. In the winter it was decided

to bypass the Karelian isthmus and to strike a blow
from Lake Ladoga to the north where there were no '

fortifications. But when we tried to strike from the

rear, we found
ourselves in an even more difficult situ- '

ation than before. The Finns, who are a people of the

North and very athletic, can ski almost before they can
'

walk. Our army encountered very mobile ski troops

armed with autcm.atic high-velocity rifles. We tried to
put our own troops on skis, too, but it wasn't easy for
ordinary, untrained Red Army soldiers to fight on skis.
We started intensively to recruit professional sports-
men. There weren't many around. We had to bring
them from Moscow and liie Ukraine as well as from
Leningrad. We gave them a splendid send-off. Every-
one was confident that our sportsmen would return
and they left in high spirits. Poor fellows,
victorious,
they were ripped to shreds. I don't know how many
came back alive.
—
This was a terrible time ^terrible because of our 1

losses, and even more terrible in the wider perspective. >

The Germans were watching with undisguised glee as ^

we took a drubbing from the Finns. I
Our navy was engaged against the Finnish fleet. You
wouldn't have thought that the Finns would have the
advantage at sea, but our navy couldn't do anything
right. I remember hearing when I was at Stalin's in
Moscow that one of our submarines had been unable
to sink a Swedish merchant vessel which it had mis- ,

taken for a Finnish ship. The Germans observed this

'

incident and gave us a teasing pinch by offering their

 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 163

I
assistance: "Are things that bad? You can't even sink
an unarmed ship? Maybe you need some help from
; us?" You can imagine how painful this was to us.
I
Hitler was letting us know that he recognized our
; helplessness and was gloating over it.
I recall how Stalin spoke with bitterness and sad-
ness about the way the war was going: "The snows are
; deep. Our troops are on the march. There are many
Ukrainians in the units. At first they're full of spirit,
; saying, Where are those Finns? Let us at them!'
*

i Suddenly there's a burst of automatic fire, and our men

I
fall to the ground."
The Finns used the following tactic for fighting in
the forest. They would climb up into the fir trees and
shoot our men at point-blank range when they came
along on patrol. Covered by branches and with white
;
cloaks over their uniforms, the Finns were completely
I
invisible. The Ukrainian troops called the Finns "cuck-
oos" Decause of the way they perched in the trees.
There was a special campaign waged against these
;
cuckoos. But it took time, and meanwhile we lost a lot
i of blood.
I Stalin was furious with the military, and with
1 —
Voroshilov justifiably, in my opinion. Voroshilov had
'[

held the post of People's Commissar of Defense for

; many years. He had been vaiuited as our top marks-
j
man in order to lull the people into thinking that the
! country's defenses were in capable hands. Voroshilov
;
deserved to bear the brunt of the blame for the way
the Finnish war was going, but he wasn't the only
! guilty party. He blamed the mishandling of the war on
} faulty intelligence.
I remember once at the Nearby Dacha, Stalin jumped
i
up in a white-hot rage and started to berate Voro-
shilov. Voroshilov was also boiling mad. He leaped
up, turned red, and hurled Stalin's accusations back
into his face. "You have yourself to blame for all this!"
shouted Voroshilov. "You're the one who annihilated
the Old Guard of the army; you had our best generals
killed!" Stalin rebuffed Mm, and at that, Voroshilov
:
picked up a platter with a roast suckling pig on it and
smashed it on the table. It was the only time in my life
 ';'

164 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

I ever witnessed such an outburst. Voroshilov ended

up being relieved of his duties as People's Commissar
of Defense. For a long time afterward he was kept '

around as a whipping boy.^

Marshal Timoshenko, who was commander of the
Kiev Military District, came to me in Kiev and said, ,

"I've been summoned to Moscow. I'll almost certainly |

be going to the Finnish Front."^^ He was put in charge

'

of our troops on the Karelian isthmus, replacing I

Meretskov. Our army had learned its lesson. It was \

decided not to circle around and strike from the rear '

but to hit frontally, to crush the Finnish fortifications '

on the Karelian isthmus. You may rightly wonder why •

this strategy of an all-out frontal strike wasn't devised '

much earlier. In any case, the necessary artillery, air

power, and infantry were concentrated for the strike.
The Finnish pillboxes were wiped out. Nothing was
left standing in front of our artillery. '

The air force played its part in the strike, too. I

remember Stalin saying, very typically, "Our air force
has been called into action. The assignment is to de-
molish the Finnish supply lines to the Front, knock
the railroads out of commission, bomb the bridges, and i

strafe the locomotives. Many bridges have been de-

stroyed. Many trains have been crippled. The Finns;
have only their skis left. Finns can never be without ^

their skis. Their supply of skis never runs out.'*

Finland called for a truce. Negotiations began. We'
agreed on the terms for peace and signed a treaty. The
Finns pulled back about fifteen kilometers from Lenin-
grad and gave us a base on the Hango Peninsula. i

And so the war with Finland ended. We started to,

analyze the reasons why we were so badly prepared
and why the war had cost us so dearly. I'd say we
lost as many Timoshenko
as a million lives. told me
that faulty inteUigence hadn't been to blame after all.

29. See Appendix 3 for Voroshilov*s biography. The incident

of the suckling pig is here revealed for the first time.
30. Marshal Semyon Timoshenko was to return to Kiev after
smashing the Finnish defenses and winning the war. His close'
association with Khrushchev was to continue in war as well as
in peace.
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 165

In fact, it was learned that our intelligence service

had known about the Finnish defenses all along. The
pillboxes and artillery batteries of the Mannerheim
line had even been drawn on our intelHgence maps
before the war. The trouble was that no intelligence
oflScers had been consulted when our first strike was
planned. I can't imagine how this kind of stupidity was
permitted. After all, it's a cardinal rule that a military
operation should be based on a careful study of the
region where it will be conducted and that strategists
should cooperate closely with the intelligence service.
If we had only deployed our forces against the Finns
in the way even a child could have figured by looking
at a map, things would have turned out differently for
both the Soviet Union and Finland.
Our assumption that the government of Finland
would stop at nothing and would put its territory at
the disposal of our enemies was justified by later
events. Even before Hitler invaded the USSR, we
found out that he was amassing his troops in Finland.
It could be argued that the Finns let him do this be-
cause they were furious at us and wanted to get back
what they had lost in the 1940-41 war. Be that as it
may, the fact remains that Leningrad had been en-
dangered, and we had had no choice but to solve the
problem by resorting to military means.
It would be wrong to claim that Stalin started the
war intending to seize Finland. You might ask, why
iidn't we seize Finland during World War II, when
:he Finnish arm_y was virtually wiped out? Stalin
showed statesmanly wisdom here. He knew that the
territory of Finland wasn't relevant to the basic needs
)f the world proletarian Revolution. Therefore when

ve signed a treaty with the Finns during World War

I, just ending the war itself was more profitable for us

han an occupation would have been. Finland's cessa-

ion of hostilities set a good example for other satel-
ites of Hitlerite Germany, and it also made good
narks for us with the Finnish people.^^

31. But the Russians also imposed what they believed to be

rushing reparations. Instead of subsiding into self-pity the
 ;;

166 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

The Winter War with Finland showed us our verj
serious weaknesses. It also exposed our weaknesses ti|
Hitler. It doesn't take much imagination to guess wha(
Hitler must have concluded after he watched us tr
to wage war against the Finns: "The Soviet Union ha'
barely managed to handle a country that we coul(|
have disposed of in a few hours. What would be left o
the Russians if we attacked them with our best equip;
ment and masses of our best-trained, best-organizec;
troops?" In short, our miserable conduct of the Finnisl|
campaign encouraged Hitler in his plans for the bhtzi
krieg, his Operation Barbarossa. ;

In our war against the Finns we had an opportunity,

to choose the time and the place. We
outnimibered ou:i
enemy, and we had all the time in the world to pre'
pare for our operation. Yet even in these most favor!
able conditions it was only after great difficulty anc,
enormous losses that we were finally able to win. ^j
victory at such a cost was actually a moral defeat.
Our people never knew that we had suffered a mora'
defeat, of course, because they were never told tht'
truth. Quite the contrary. When the Finnish war ended
our country was told, "Let the trumpets of victory'
sound!"32
'

But the seeds of doubt had been sown. The waii

against the Finns was a dark hour for our army, whose;
slogan of invincibility was, "In case there's a war!
tomorrow, we're ready for the march today!"
'

The Red Army on the Eve of Barbarossa

In discussing the unpreparedness of the Red Army fof

war, Khrushchev is at pains to insist that, even though
he was a member of the Polithureau, the supremel

Finns grimly set themselves to pay them off in the shortesl

possible time, and in so doiag, at the cost of much self-sacrifice,;
greatly enlarged their industrial capacity, above all in ship-|
building.
32. A revealing insight into the capacity of the Soviet leader-
ship to conceal the truth from the people.
—
PRELUDE TO THE WAR 167

licy-making body, he could not have been expected

know that the vaunted Red Army was incompetent-
y led and insufficiently equipped when the whole
joeight of Soviet industry had been concentrated on it
or more than a decade. In the light of Stalin's way of
'unning his government this seew^ reasonable enough,
Khrushchev was concerned wholly with the civilian
government of the Ukraine. He would have relied on
lis own Front commander to secure the defenses of the
Jkraine, and he would have assumed that Stalin and
/oroshilov (Minister of Defense) between them, would
lave properly organized the army as a whole and the
mpply armaments and munitioTis. There was clearly
of
%o regular cabinet in which Khrushchev could have
:ross-examined the Minister of DefcTise, even had he
been equipped to do so, which he was not. Vast expen-
iiture was lavished on the army; maneuvers and pa-
rades were impressive in the extreme. But even
Khrushchev knew that the greater part of the army
high command had been liquidated by Stalin and
Yezhov in 1937, though he may not have realized that
some forty thousand officers of lesser rank had also
been purged. He must have been alarmed by the ter-
rible showing put up by the Red Army against the
Finns. And it seems almost inconceivable that he was
mver warned by his military opposite number in Kiev
1
first, Tim,oshenko, then Zhukov —
that there were sad
deficiencies. Indeed, Timoshenko himself had been de-
nounced as an enemy of the people and would have
been shot in 1938 but for Khrushchev's personal inter-
vention.

All of us —and Stalin first —

and foremost sensed in
our victory a defeat by the Finns. It was a dangerous
defeat because encouraged our enemies' conviction
it
that the Soviet Union was a colossus with feet of clay.
But it wasn't enough just to admit our defeat and to
criticize ourselves for our mishandling of the war
against Finland. Nor was it enough just to sack Voro-
jhilov and to appoint a new
People's Commissar of
Defense. We had to draw some lessons for the imme-
iiate future from what had happened. We
had to get
 —

158 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

a deeper and wider grasp on what had gone wrong in

our preparation for the Finnish campaign. We had to
locate and Hquidate the flaws in our organization which
had caused our defeat. We had to elevate the fighting
potential of the Soviet Army. And this meant, above
all, elevating the quaHty of leadership in our military

command.
I don't know what had weakened our army more
our shortage of armaments or the inadequacy of our
commanders. Undoubtedly both factors were very
important. On the one hand, our military parades and
troop maneuvers played a positive role in that they
bolstered the morale of our people. On the other hand
they played a negative role in that they covered up
the faults of our army and deluded us into thinking
we were safe. We should have reexamined our army,
particularly our mechanized units, after the Finnish
war; and we should have begun much earher to con- |

vert our industry to our wartime needs. We didn't

know how much time we had left before the enemy
would attack, yet there were still many things left
imdone right up to the day the war began. This was
an inexcusable state of affairs, and we paid for it in
land and blood. The preparation for war involves more
than just mapping out strategies. The foundation of
niihtary preparedness is arms production. This means
airplanes, artillery, tanks, rifles, engineering equip-
—
ment, chemical and bacteriological weapons ^in short,
all the means necessary to repulse an attack and to
crush the enemy.
Part of the problem was that Stalin tried to super-
vise our manufacturing of mimitions and mechanized
equipment all by himself, with the result that no one
really knew what state our arsenal was in. For exam-
ple, I remember that in 1941 Stalin
instructed me to
look into the possibiHty of mounting diesel engines on
airplanes. His idea was that since diesels require less
fuel, they would increase the
range of bombers. He
told me that diesel engines were
being manufactured
at the Kharkov locomotive factory.
Naturally I knew
ttiis factory, but this
was the first I'd heard about
diesels being made there. A special permit was re-
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 169

quired to get in, and Stalin made sure that nobody

except those directly involved in the project went pok-
ing his nose into the factory. Even I, the First Secre-
tary of the Ukrainian Central Committee, had known
nothing of these powerful diesel engines which were
being built right there in Kharkov. I didn't have time
to conclude whether the engines could be mounted on
bombers or not, but they did prove very effective when
used to power our T-34 tanks. Unfortunately, we
didn't have enough of these tanks built by the time the
war broke out.
We had a terrible shortage of arms of all kinds in
the first months of the war. I was a member of the
Politbureau and part of Stalin's ruling circle, but I
still had no way of knowing that we were woefully
lacking in rifles and machine guns, not to mention
tanks and heavy artillery. I couldn't imagine that we
would be unprepared in such an elementary respect.
Even the tsar, when he went to war against Germany
in 1914, had a larger supply of rifles than we had the
day after Hitler invaded. And our economic potential
was incomparably higher than the tsarist government's,
so we had no excuse.
I put the principal blame on Voroshilov. Until he
was sacked during the Finnish war, the responsibility
for the state of our armed forces was primarily his.
We had set aside huge financial resources for arms,
and I never heard of a single instance when Stalin
refused a request for funds. Voroshilov simply didn't
make the necessary requests. His negligence was crimi-
nal. His subordinates must have reported to him how
bad things were, but these reports rolled off him Hke
water off a duck's back. Oblivious of his responsibili-
ties, he just smiled for the photographers and strutted
about in front of the movie cameras. People used to
say that Voroshilov spent more time posing in Gerasi-
mov's studio than he did attending to his job at the
Commissariat of Defense.^^ He also spent a lot of time
33. Gerasimov was president of the Soviet Academy of Arts
and virtually Stalin's court painter. An establishment figure, he
was academic in the worst sense, and the scourge of all Soviet
painters with any pretensions to originality.
 170 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

in the theater world. He made quite a name for him-

self as a connoisseur and critic of opera. I remember
once in my
presence the name of some opera singer
came up, and Voroshilov's wife, letting her eyes drop,
remarked, "Kliment Efremovich doesn't hold a particu-
larly high opinion of her." Voroshilov used to fancy
himself quite a singer, even after his hearing started
to go bad. He sang pretty well in my opinion. Just like
Stalin, he'd once been in a church choir.
In short, Voroshilov was much more interested in
showing off his impressive military bearing at public
celebrations than he was in supervising arms prociu-e-
ment and organizing troop deplojrments. While Ga-
mamik, Tukhachevsky, and the other members of the
Old Guard were still around, before they were elimi-
nated in 1937, the administrative and political business
of the People's Commissariat of Defense went on
without Voroshilov altogether.^*
For his part, Stalin very much overestimated the
preparedness of our army. Like so many others, he
was under the spell of films showing our parades and
troop maneuvers. He didn't see things as they were in
real life. He rarely left Moscow. In fact, he rarely left
the Kremlin except to go to his dacha or to his vacation
retreat in Sochi. He got all his information from Vo-
roshilov, who was out of touch with reality himself.
The reasons for the weakness of the military com-
mand are well known. Our best commanders were
eliminated as enemies of the people. In this regard,
weighing their guilt, I would say Stalin was more to
blame than Voroshilov. Voroshilov sometimes defended
the accused generals and argued with Stalin, but other
times he deliberately goaded Stalin on. There's not
much to be said about the other members of the Polit-
bureau. Molotov stood closest to Stalin in decision-
making, and even though the supervision of the
military command wasn't part of Molotoy's domain,
he too sometimes fanned Stalin's fury against the Old

34. This is fair comment. Voroshilov deserved all Khrush-

chev's strictures.
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 171

Guard. However, Molotov had no responsibility in

matters of arms supply.
There's no question that we would have repulsed
the fascist invasion much more easily if the upper
echelons of the Red Army command hadn't been
wiped out. They had been men of considerable ex-
pertise and experience. Many of them had graduated
from miUtary academies and had gone through the
Civil War. They were ready to discharge their soldierly
duties for the sake of their Homeland, but they never
had a chance. After they were eliminated, we had to
appoint new commanders. The military staff underwent
two, three, even four changes of command. Men who
had earlier occupied third- and fourth-rank positions
were promoted to the top after those in the first and
second ranks were shot.
Most of the people promoted were honest and loyal,
but they needed experience, and they had to acquire
this experience in the war with Hitlerite Germany.
Their initiation cost our people a tremendous loss of
life, and it cost our country terrible ruin.

In 1940, when Timoshenko was made People's Com-

missar of Defense, Zhukov took his place as commander
of the Kiev Mihtary District.^^ Zhukov was more than
satisfactory as Timoshenko's replacement. He was a
talented organizer and a strong leader. He was to
prove his mettle in the war. I still have great respect
for him as a commander, despite our subsequent part-
ing of the ways. He didn't correctly imderstand his
role as Minister of Defense, and we were compelled to
take action against him in order to prevent him from
going through with certain schemes which he had

35. 23iiikov, in fact, after brilliant operations against the

Japanese in the Far East, had been appointed chief of staff to
Timoshenko, who was then commanding the Kiev Military Dis-
trict, before the Finnish war. When Timoshenko was called in
as commander in chief to smash the Finnish resistance, Zhukov
went with him as his chief of staff, returning when ihe war
was over to succeed Timoshenko in Kiev. He was promoted to
the rank of army general in Jxme, 1940, and became Deputy
Minister of Defense and chief of General Staff in February,
1941, four months before the German invasion.
172 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

concocted. But even then I valued him highly as a

soldier, and I don't retreat one step today from my
high evaluation of him. Nor did I disguise my admira-
tion for Zhukov after the war when he fell out of favor
with StaHn.8«
At the end of 1940 or the beginning of 1941 Comrade
2^ukov was transferred from Kiev to Moscow, where
he worked in the Operational Department of General
Headquarters. He was replaced in Kiev by Kirponos.
Kirponos was typical of the well-intentioned but inex-
perienced commanders who were promoted to fill the
vacuum left by the purge of the Red Army high com-
mand. Kirponos was made commander of the Kiev
Military District simply because there was no one else
to appoint. He had been given a division during the
Finnish campaign, in which he had distinguished him-
self and earned the title Hero of the Soviet Union. But
he wasn't prepared for the responsibility of the Kiev
command."
The Kliev Military District was situated directly m
the path of Hitler's invasion. It had all the most favor-
able topographical conditions for a mechanized offen-
sive. The roads were good, and there were hardly any
swamps. In order to goad Hitler into attacking us, the
foreign bourgeois press used to say that the area
between Poland and Kiev was a veritable "tanko-
drome," where Hitler could put his tanks on display
and show the world what he could do.
Stalin thought Kirponos would be suitable for the
Kiev command from the standpoint of honesty and
devotion, and he was right. But Kirponos didn't have
the necessary experience to direct such a huge number
of troops. And moreover, the ill-preparedness of our
country's defenses was sorely reflected in the Kiev

36. See Appendix 3 for ZhukoVs further career.

37. Colonel General M. P. Elirponos, a good divisional general,
was promoted above his powers as a result of the purges. He
took over the Kiev Military District from Zhukov when the
latter went to the Ministry of Defense. He thus found himself,
four months later, in the direct path of the advancing Germans.
Khrushchev's comments are fair. But he fought very bravely. In
fact this front was better supplied and equipped than others.
 PRELUDE TO THE WAR 173

Military District, which was supposed to guard the

most dangerously exposed ofour borders.
On the basis of my own observations, which I admit
were fairly infrequent, it seemed to me that the Com-
missariat of Defense started to function better once
Marshal Timoshenko took charge. I had admired Timo-
shenko ever since he and I had worked together in the
Kiev Military District, where he was commander and
I was a member of the Military Council. He was a
good man and a good soldier. I got to know him even
better during our liberation of Bessarabia from the
Rumanian occupation in 1940.^^ I took an active part
in the operation, which stemmed from our treaty with
the Germans and from our desire to regain our his-
torical rights, which had been violated by the Ru-
manian monarchy after the October Revolution. By
this time Timoshenko was already People's Commissar
of Defense. I once accompanied him on an airplane
trip deep into Bessarabia behind Rumanian lines to
see his relatives in the village of Furmanka where he
had grown up. He hadn't been back since he was called
up at the beginning of World War I. We landed in a
field near Furmanka and were given a warm welcome
by the villagers. Marshal Timoshenko was treated Hke
a returning hero. I spent the night in a shed near his
brother's house, while Timoshenko stayed up all night
drinking wine and talking about old times with his
brother and sister and his friends. Timoshenko was
certainly an improvement over Voroshilov as Commis-
sar of Defense.
Unfortunately, men like Timoshenko and Zhukov
were exceptions. After the annihilation of the Old
Guard, men like Mekhlis, Shchadenko and Kulik came
in, and the Commissariat of Defense became like a
kennel of mad dogs.^® Once Comrade Timoshenko
38. Bessarabia,acquired by Russia at the Congress of Berlin
in 1878, went to after World War I, having first de-
Rumania
clared its independence and appealed to Rumania for help
against the Bolsheviks. By agreement with Hitler, Stalin re-
covered it for the Soviet Union in 1940 and proceeded to
Bovietize it.

39.Shchadenko and K\ilik were "political" generals of ex-

treme incompetence and unpleasantness appointed by Voroshi-
174 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

pulled me by the sleeve into a session of the Defense

Council. He wanted me to see how these people whonc
he had to work with were tearing at each other's
throats. Mekhlis was one of the worst."*^ He had s
particularly strong influence on Stalin. He often over-
stepped the bounds of his office as Chief of the Political
Directorate of the Red Army. Ever since Stalin had
appointed him to replace Bukharin as the editor oi
Pravda, Mekhlis had been one of Stalin's right-hand
men. I had once been on very good terms with him.
Our friendship had grown from the soil of our common
efforts in the struggle against the rightists back in
1929-30. He had given me a lot of help when I was|
Secretary of the Party organization at the Industrial
Academy. But in the intervening years we had drifted
apart. By the time he took over as Chief of the Political
Directorate I considered him a nitwit, and I was ap-
palled that someone like him could enjoy Stalin's
unbounded confidence. Mekhlis often gave Stalin ad-
vice on military matters, and Stalin usually listened
to him. Mekhlis's influence did the army and the coun-
try no good at all; it contributed to the inexcusably
shabby state of our defenses on the eve of the war.
It's a credit to our people and our army that we
survived the early disasters of the war and, in the end,
prevailed. We
learned from our mistakes and finally
drove back the enemy and crushed him on his own
ground. But at what a price! Perhaps even if Stalin
hadn't eliminated our best generals, the war would
still have come. But it wouldn't have cost us anywhere
near as much as it cost under "Our Dear Father, the
Great Genius."

lov. Both were active in purging the Red Army in 1937. Kulik
was promoted to marshal in 1940 and did all he could to lose
Leningrad to the Germans. Zhukov arrived to take over in the
nick of time.
40. L. Z. Mekhlis was another "political" general of the kind
favored by Stalin. There is no means of determining whether
he caused more death and suffering by deliberate action in the
purge years and thereafter or by sheer incompetence during the
war.
 The Great Patriotic War

The Darkest Hours

Khrushchev's account of the war years, though full of

revealing anecdotes and close-up views of the high
command in action, is essentially impressionistic. His
primary concern is evidently to show up Stalin's fail-
ures and to present him^self a^ the man on the spot,
working with the field commanders, while his col-
leagues sat in Moscow and allowed the fighting gen-
erals to he frustrated, obstructed, intrigued against,
and starved of supplies by the "politicals." Khrushchev
was, of course, a "political" himself, but with his
practical nature and passion for getting things done he
seems very soon to have found hivfiself far more at
hoTTie with the professional soldiers than with his col-
leagues in Moscow, the NKVD generals, and his fellow
—
political advisors and to have taken their side against
the Kremlin. Certainly, throughout the greater part of
the war he was indeed much nearer the guns than any
other member of the Politbureau, with the exception
of Zhdanov in Leningrad. As the Germ,ans nnoved
into the Ukraine, Khrushchev was transformed over-
night from the supreme ruler, under Stalin, of that
va^t, rich land, the granary of the Soviet Union and its
chief industrial base, into the Politbureau's representa-
tive at Front headquarters. Very soon the Front was
torn to ribbons and he had the bitterness of seeing his
great province swiftly overrun by the German armor,
largely owing to the abject failure of one of Voroshi-
lov's cronies. Marshal Budyonny, the alm,ost unbeliev-
ably inept relic of the Civil War days, who was to lead
175
 *
176 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

a million men and unnecessary disaster, losing

to total
Kiev and Kharkov. Khrushchev's anecdotes and corru-
m,ents afford vivid glimpses of the confu^on, shame,
and heroism, of those early days, when Stalin was
reduced to a state of breakdown while the Germans
were wiping out whole armies in vast encirclements,
moving in on Leningrad and Moscow, and overrunning
the Ukraine.

During the years when I held a high position in the

Government as First Secretary of the Central Com-
mittee and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, I
frequently warned our military men to approach the
writing of war memoirs very cautiously. I've always
found that you can't expect an objective analysis of a
battle from someone who actually took part in it. How-
ever, as a member of the Military Council and a Polit-
bureau representative on various fronts during the
course of the war, I think I can illuminate what hap-
pened in a number of key operations.
Let me explain what the beginning of the war looked
like from my perspective, and also let me review the
roles played by some of the generals and government
figures with whom I had to deal.
I was in Moscow just before the war broke out. I
was detained there for a long time and just sat around
with nothing to do. Stalin kept telling me, "Lrook,
what's the rush on getting back to the Ukraine? Give
them a chance to do without you for a while down
there in Kiev. You don't need to leave yet." I didn't
see any sense in sticking around Moscow. I certainly
wasn't learning anything new from Stalin. There was
just one long dinner after another. I'd already begim
to despise those dinners. They gave me a chance to
watch Stalin closely, and I didn't like what I saw. He'd
obviously lost all confidence in the ability of our army
jj
to put up a was as though he'd thrown up his
fight. It
hands in despair and given up after Hitler crushed the
French army and occupied Paris. As I've said, I was
with Stalin when we heard about the capitulation of
France. He let fly with some choice Russian curses
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 177

and said that now Hitler was sure to beat our brains
in. 1
This kind of talk wasn't doing me any good at all. I
kept trying to get permission from him to return to
Kiev. Finally I asked him outright, "Comrade Stalin,
war could break out any hour now, and it would be
very bad if I were caught here in Moscow or in transit
when it starts. I'd better leave right away and return
to Kiev."
"Yes, I guess that's true. You'd better leave." His
answer confirmed what I'd suspected: that he hadn't
the slightest idea why he'd been detaining me in Mos-
cow. He knew my proper place was in Kiev. He had
kept me around simply because he needed to have
company, especially when he was afraid. He couldn't
stand being alone.
The next morning I returned to Kaev and went
straight to the Ukrainian Central Committee office to
pick up the latest information. That evening I went
home. At ten or eleven o'clock that night I got a call
from headquarters asking me to come back to the
Central Committee office to read a dispatch that had
just been received from Moscow. A covering letter
said that as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Party I
should personally acquaint myself with the contents
of the dispatch. I went over to the Central Committee
office and found that the message from Moscow was
cause for considerable alarm. It was a warning that we
should be ready for war within the next few days or
even hours.
Then we got a call from our command post at
TemopoP informing us that a soldier had just defected
to our side from the German front lines; he claimed
that Germany was going to attack the Soviet Union
the next morning at three o'clock. This information
seemed to confirm the dispatch we had received from
Moscow. We interrogated the German soldier thor-

1. This confirms other reports of Stalin's behavior on the eve

of the war. See especially The Siege of Leningrad by E. Har-
rison Salisbury.
2. Ternopol, east of Lvov, had recently been acquired by the
Soviet occupation of eastern Poland.
178 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

oughly, and what he said appeared to make sense.

When asked how he knew that the Germans were
going to attack the next day, he said he and the other
troops had been issued three days' rations. And why
would the attack come at three o'clock in the morning?
Because, he explained, the Germans always attacked
early in the morning. He said he had defected because
he was a Communist, an antifascist, and an opponent
of Hitler's military adventurism. We
tended to believe
him.
Instead of returning home that night, I waited till
three o'clock to see what would happen. Sure enough,
just as dawn began to break, we got word that the
German artillery had opened fire. When the enemy
first launched the invasion, we received orders from
Moscow not to shoot back. Our leaders issued this
strange command because they thought that possibly
the artillery fire was a provocation on the part of
some German field commander acting independently
of Hitler. In other words, Stalin was so afraid of war
that even when the Germans tried to take us by sur-
prise and wipe out our resistance, Stalin convinced
himself that Hitler would keep his word and wouldn't
reaUy attack us.^
But within hours our troops met the German in-
vaders in battle and repulsed their first strike. By
daylight we got word from the MiHtary District head-
quarters that German planes were approaching Kiev.
Soon they were over the city, bombing the airfield.
Fires broke out in the hangars, but fortunately there
were no planes there at the time. All our planes had
been concentrated along the border under camouflage
nets. Our air force, tanks, artillery, and anmiunition
depots were largely unscathed by the enemy's first
strike.
The situation quickly turned very bad, mostly be-
cause there was so Httle help forthcoming from Mos-
cow. Shortly after the war started, during the German
advance on Kiev, there was a great awakening of

3. Stalin was indeed for all practical purposes prostrated dur-

ing the first weeks of the war.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 179

patriotism among the people. The workers from the

K "Lenin Forge" and other factories around Kiev came
to the Central Committee in droves asking for rifles so
that they could fight back against the invaders. I
phoned Moscow to arrange for a shipment of weapons
with which to arm these citizens who wanted to join
the Front in support of Red Power. The only person I
could get through to was Malenkov.
"Tell me," I said, "where can we get rifles? WeVe
got factory workers here who want to join the ranks
of the Red Army to fight the Germans, and we don't
have anything to arm them with."
"You'd better give up any thought of getting rifles
from us. The rifles in the civil defense organization
here have all been sent to Leningrad."
"Then what are we supposed to fight with?"
—
"I don't know spikes, swords, homemade weapons,
anything you can make in your own factories."
"You mean we should fight tanks with spears?"
"You'll have to do the best you can. You can make
fire bombs out of bottles of gasoline or kerosene and
throw them at the tanks."
You can imagine my dismay and indignation when
I heard Malenkov tafldng this way. Here we were,
trying to hold back an invasion without rifles and ma-
chine guns, not to mention artillery or mechanized
weapons! I didn't dare tell anyone what Malenkov had
said to me. Who knows what the reaction would have
been. I certainly couldn't tell the people how bad the
situation was. But the people must have figured out on
their own how woefully underequipped we were. And
why were we so badly armed? Because of complacency
in the Commissariat of Defense and demoralization and
defeatism in the leadership. These factors had kept us
from building up our munitions industry and fortifying
our borders. And now it was too late.
The Germans moved swiftly into the Ukraine, Belo-
russia, and the Russian Federation. Their occupation
of the Ukraine deprived us of our mining and agricul-
tural heartland. We lost the European part of the
Soviet Union where our industry was concentrated. A
large portion of our automotive production fell into
 180 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

enemy hands when Germans moved into our in-

the
dustrial base around Moscow. Moscow and Leningrad
were our political, and technological brain
military,
centers, and Leningrad was besieged. We also
in 1941
lost Rostov, Voronezh, Stalingrad, and the northern
Caucasus.
We to evacuate our industry. Our peo-
were forced
our engineers and technicians, under-
ple, particularly
took the mammoth task of moving our manufacturing
equipment out of the enemy's reach so that we could
go on with the production of tanks, artillery, mecha-
nized weapons, rifles, machine guns, mines, and so on.
This required a superhuman effort and total coopera-
tion. Ultimately the evacuation of our industry paid
off, and it enabled our army to drive the enemy out of
our Homeland.
Once we were at war I had to argue with Stalin
many times. Even though he could have blasted me
with fireand water, I doggedly tried to persuade him
to my point of view. Sometimes I succeeded. I found
if Ikept at him, he might come around to my way of
seeing things. However, it was always very difficult to
—
argue with him and very dangerous.
After the successful conclusion of our operation out-
—
side Moscow in which we ^that is, the Southwest
Front—had taken part, I was called to Moscow to con-
sult with Stalin. I found myself confronted with a new
man. He was much changed from the way he'd been at
the very beginning of the war. He had pulled himself
together, straightened up, and was acting like a real
soldier. He had also begun to think of himself as a
great military strategist, which made it harder than
ever to argue with him. He exhibited all the strong-
willed determination of a heroic leader. But I knew
what sort of a hero he was. I'd seen him when he had
been paralyzed by his fear of Hitler, like a rabbit in
front^ of a boa constrictor. And my opinion of him
hadn't changed in the meantime. During the first part
of the war, when things were going
badly for us, I
hadn't failed to notice that Stalin's signature never ap-
P^^ed on a single document or order. "High Com-
mand," "General Staff," or some other term was used,
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 181

but never his name. This practice didn't change even

after we repulsed the Germans outside of Moscow and
Stalin began to regain his confidence. Directives con-
tinued to be issued from him without his signature.
Sometimes they appeared over his title, "Commander
in Chief," but never over his name. And this was no
accident. Nothing that Stalin ever did was an accident.
His every move was deUberate and calculated. Every
step he ever took, good or bad, was measured carefully.
Here is another example of Stalin's refusal to accept
direct responsibility for what was happening at the
Front. Many of our generals who were taken prisoner
during the German advance were declared traitors on
Stalin's order, and their families were sent to Siberia.
I remember this practice was applied to Muzychenko
and Ponedelin and their families, and to Potapov, too.
Only after Stalin's death were these people allowed
to return. Muzychenko, Ponedelin, and Potapov were
given posts in the Soviet Army after they came back
from prison camp and were rehabilitated. In short,
Stalin mistreated his generals very badly.*
The treatment of the rank-and-file troops and junior
officers was no remember we had a com-
better. I
mander named Gordov, who was generally praised for
his skill, his energy, and his courage. He was a puny
man, but that didn't stop him from regularly beating
up his officers and his men. Later I found out that
Andrei Ivanovich Yeremenko once hit a member of
the Military Council. It was perfectly acceptable, even
exi>ected, for a commander to discipline his subordi-
nates with his fists.^ When a commander reported to

4. The three generals mentioned were commanders of mech-

anized corps: Major General (tank troops) M. I. Potapov,
Lieutenant General I. N. Muzychenko, and Major General P. G.
Ponedelin, whose formations were among those to bear the
brunt of the onslaught of Kleist's and Reichenau's tanks. They
fought well, but were frittered away in useless counterattacks
by Kirponos. Stalin's treatment of the families of oflBcers taken
prisoner is characteristic.
5. Characteristic also was the extremely frequent use of per-
sonal violence, up to and including shooting on the spot, on the
part of senior officers against offending juniors, especially in
the very early days of the war when the henchmen of Stalin,
 182 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Stalin about someone's incompetence or mistake, Sta-

linused to ask, "Did you punch him in the snout? If
he does something like that again, pimch him right in
the snout!"
Another thing that distressed me about Stalin was
hisdependence on the Cheka for mihtary intelligence.
On the whole the Chekists who had Stalin's confidence
were a fairly despicable lot. Take Sergienko for ex-
ample. He wasin the Central State Security adminis-
tration in Moscow. He was a resourceful fellow. I
learned from experience that he was also dishonest
and treacherous. It happened like this: Early in the
war when things were going badly for us, the com-
mander and I had no choice but to evacuate our
headquarters from Kiev to Brovari. Suddenly I got a
telegram from Stalin unjustly accusing me of coward-
ice and threatening to take action against me. He
accused me of intending to surrender Kiev. This was
a filthy lie. I was sure that no one other than that
villain Sergienko had put the idea in Stalin's head. I
knew Stalin considered the Chekists beyond reproach
and believed anything they told him. At the time,
Sergienko was behind German lines. When the Ger-
mans surrounded Kiev, he remained at the enemy's
rear and sneaked out of the encirclement disguised as
a peasant.
After this incident I always regarded Sergienko
with deep distrust. I knew he was capable of any
slander as long as it would make him out to be a hero,
no matter if it were at someone else's expense.^ But

Voroshilov, and Beria stiU had senior commands. Even Zhukov

was pretty rough. Later, after the army recovered from the
purges, it was commanded increasingly by able and battle-
seasoned officers and developed a more civilized tradition of its
own.
Nothing much is knovm about this Sergienko. He appears
6.
to have been an inferior Mekhlis, which suggests the lowest
form of life. In those days the Chief Directorate of State Se-
curity was a department of the NKVD, with Beria
as the Peo-
ple's Commissar at its head. His actions as here
described were
characteristic of the whole race of police generals or political
commissars with the army.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 183

history has vindicated me from Sergienko's slanderous

accusation that we planned to surrender Kiev. We
inflicted heavy losses on the Germans and drove back
their attempt at a frontal assault. Kliev fell, not be-
cause it was abandoned by our troops who were
defending it, but because of the pincer movement which
the Germans executed from the north and south in the
regions of Gomel and Kremenchug.
One of the most contemptible characters around
Stalin during the war was Shcherbakov."^ He was a
poisonous snake. I once heard that when Gorky was
chairman of the Writers* Union, Shcherbakov was at-
tached to him as a secretary to deal with ideological
matters so that Gorky could devote himself to opera-
tional matters. Gorky wasn't the sort of person Shcher-
bakov could boss around and Shcherbakov ended up
being transferred at Gorky's request.
One episode was characteristic of both Shcherbakov
and Stalin. It happened in 1943. Aleksandr Petrovich
—
Dovzhenko a remarkable film director and an excel-
—
lent journalist wrote a scenario called "The Ukraine
in Flames." Many of the scenes in it were based on
articles he had written exposing the faults of the Red
Army. Dovzhenko, who had a sharp mind and a sharp
pen, was especially critical of the people responsible
for the ni-preparedness of our army on the eve of the
war. He sent the scenario to the Central Committee,
where Malenkov and some of the other comrades read
it. During one of my trips to Moscow, Stalin asked me
if I'd read it. I said, yes, I had. Actually, I hadn't really
sat down and read it, but Dovzhenko himself had read
it to me during the German offensive of July, 1943.
Naturally three fourths of my attention had been

7. A. S. Shcherbakov, member of the Politbureau, a Moscow

Party chief and head of the armed forces Political Directorate
(that is, chief commissar). Fat, spectacularly gross, treacherous,
and drunken, he was very close to Stalin, and during the war
many in Russia believed that he was a probable successor to
Stalin. If he had a redeeming featiure it has yet to be discovered.
He died in 1945. He was one of the men said to have been
poisoned by the Kremlin doctors in the fabricated Doctors' Plot
of 1953. He may well have been poisoned, but not by Dr. Vino-
gradov and his colleagues.
184 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

taken up by the enemy attack, and I hadn't been able

to concentrate on the text of Dovzhenkp's work. I ex-
plained this to Stalin. He said I was trying to weasel
out of my responsibility for what had happened, and
he started a blistering denimciation of Dovzhenko,
criticizing him up and down, accusing him of Ukrain-
ian nationalism and all kinds of other sins. At that
time it was very fashionable to accuse Ukrainians of
nationalism, regardless of whether there was any evi-
dence for doing so. This practice had started during
Kaganovich's term in the Ukraine. He was fond of
saying that every Ukrainian is potentially a nationalist
— which is, of course, nonsense.
Anyway, Stalin called a meeting to discuss Dov-
zhenko's scenario. Shcherbakov presented the case for
the prosecution. He was obviously trying hard to fan
Stalin's anger against Dovzhenko by harping on the
charge that the film scenario was extremely national-
istic. Malenkov sat silently through this whole discus-
sion, even though he had already given the scenario
his blessing.
Stalin didn't let the matter drop there. He told me
to convene a meeting of the Ukrainian Party and
government leaders, including the Central Committee
secretaries in charge of propaganda. He told us to
prepare a self-critical resolution about the unsatisfac-
tory state of affairs on the ideological front in the
Ukraine. Then he called Dovzhenko himself onto the
carpet and gave him a fierce dressing down. Dovzhenko
was put on ice as an active man in the arts for a long
time afterward.
This whole disgraceful affair was mostly the doing
of Shcherbakov, who had wormed his way into Stalin's
confidence and did everything he could to make life
miserable for everyone else. It might sound as though
I'm saying aU this because I have some special grudge
against Shcherbakov. That's not true. I've given
Shcherbakov the evaluation he deserved, and he de-
served the worst. But the main culprit was Stalin. It
was Stalin who made the mischievous influence of peo-
ple like Shcherbakov possible.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 185

Iwould like now to say something about a few of

the commanders I knew during the war. I spent a lot
of time with a great many generals and had excellent
relations with the vast majority of them. There were,
of course, occasional conflicts. A certain amount of
tension is unavoidable in wartime. People make mis-
takes or lose their tempers. After all, nobody's perfect.
I'm no saint myself. Generally speaking, though, I
was impressed by the men with whom I worked on
the different fronts. We almost always found a common
language. There were occasional disagreements, but
I won't go into them here. The war is long since over,
and the enemy is crushed. Many of the commanders
in question have been decorated and honorably re-
tired. There's no point in airing dirty linen at this
point.
However, before speaking about the commanders
who distinguished themselves in the war, I'd like to
say something about Pavlov, who was blamed for the
collapse of our resistance in Belorussia at the very
beginning of the war.® I had always had my doubts
about Pavlov, even before he was given the Belorussian
command. I remember in 1940 watching him, when he
was commander of our armored tank forces, test our
new T-34 tanks in Kharkov. On the basis of a short
conversation with him, I decided he was a man of very
limited scope. Even though he had been a hero of the
Spanish war, he struck me as being imprepared for a
position of high responsibihty. I decided to pass on to
Stalin my doubts about Pavlov's abilities. I broached
the subject with him very cautiously:

8. General D. G. Pavlov was regarded as the top Soviet tank

expert on the eve of the war, but he made the same mistake
about tanks that so many British generals made: he did not
believe they could be used as the Germans so quickly showed
they could be used (taught by Captain Liddell Hart) in armored
formations to cut deeply into enemy territory. The way to use
tanks, he thought, was in support of the imfantry. Hence the
terrible wastage of Soviet armor to no purpose in the early
days of the war. Pavlov commanded the Belorussian Front,
which was starved of troops and supplies and collapsed with
catastrophic consequences.
186 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

"Comrade Stalin, do you know Pavlov well?"

"Yes, very well."
"I oriy spoke to him a few minutes, but frankly, he
made a negative impression on me. He seems fairly
limited. There's no question that he knows how to
handle a tank, but I don't think he's suited to a com-
mand."
Stalin was obviously agitated. "How can you say
that? You don't even know the man."
"I've already admitted that I don't know him very
weU."
"Well, I do. He's proved himself to my satisfaction
as a tank commander in Spain."
"All right. I simply wanted to let you know that he
didn't make a very good impression on me. I also want
to pass on to you some of my doubts about Marshal
Kulik. He's responsible for all our artillery. War is
imminent, and I don't think he's up to the job.'*
Stalin was furious. "First you complain about Pav-
lov, and now you're complaining about Kulik. You
don't even know Kulik. I know him from the Civil
War, when he commanded the artillery at Tsaritsyn
[Stalingrad]. He understands artillery."
"Comrade Stalin, I don't doubt that Kulik was a
good artillery officer at Tsaritsyn, but how many
cannons did you have there? Two or three? And now
he's in charge of all the artillery in the country."
Stalin completely lost his temper with me. He told
me to shut up and stop sticking my nose into things
that weren't my business. This was what I had been
afraid would happen. Stalin believed that the Red
Army was his baby and that nobody else was com-
petent to comment on it. However, events proved
Stalin wrong and me right about both Pavlov and
Kulik.
Stalin made Pavlov commander of the Belorussian
Military District. I didn't even find out about the ap-
pointment until after the fact—which was also typical.
Stalin hardly ever bothered to consult with members
of the Politbureau. So Pavlov was entrusted
with the
mihtary district that was right in the line of attack
from the west, and he did nothing to prepare his
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 187

troops for Hitler's invasion. In the first days of the war

Pavlov's troops were routed and his air force was
destroyed on the runways. Stalin had Pavlov, his chief
of staff, and the local member of the Military Council
court-martialed and shot. Stalin must have realized
what a mistake it had been to give Pavlov the Belo-
russian command, but it was already too late. The
front had fallen apart, and the Germans were driving
deep into our country.
As for Kulik, he proved to be totally incompetent as
a military leader. I remember in 1943 Vatutin and I
listened to Kulik report to Shepilov, who was a mem-
ber of the Military Council for the Vorenezh Front.
His report was a complete travesty. Finally, at our
urging, Stalin gave in and demoted Kuhk from marshal
to major general. After the war Kulik was arrested
and shot.
Many years later, when Stalin's abuses of power
were exposed at the Twentieth Party Congress, it was
decided to rehabiUtate Pavlov and the other generals
who were court-martialed and executed in the first
days of the war. I had some reservations about reha-
bilitating them; I knew that there had been legitimate
grounds for court-martialing Pavlov and the others.
But I also knew that Stalin was the real guilty party
because he had given men like Pavlov their commands
in the first place. Therefore I didn't use my influence
to prevent their rehabilitation.
I saw Zhukov a number of times early in the war.
I was always glad when he flew in to take over the
command from Elirponos. Once, after he'd been with
us for a couple of days, he got a call from Stalin order-
ing him to drop what he was doing and return to
Moscow. "Well," he said, "I'm afraid your commander
here is pretty weak. But what can we do? There's
nobody better available. We'U have to give Comrade
ICirponos all the support we can and hope for the
best." He was right; that was all we could do. I was
being very sincere when I told Zhukov how sorry I
was he was leaving.
People who came to the Front from Moscow early
in the war were not always as helpful or as welcome
188 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

as Zhukov. For example, Marshal Budyonny^ was sent

to us from Moscow when the Germans were closing
in around Kiev. I sat in on a session while the Chief
of our Operational Section, Colonel Bagramyan,^^ re-
ported to Budyonny on the general situation, which
was then looking grim. I don't remember exactly what
—
was said the whole discussion was conducted in miH-
—
tary jargon ^but I do remember how the conversation
ended. Budyonny told Bagramyan in a high-pitched
voice, "I've been listening to what you've been sajdng,
and it looks to me as though you aren't even in control
of your own troops. I think we'd better have you shot."
"Semyon Mikhailovich," repHed Bagramyan, "why
should I be shot? If I'm not fit to be Chief of the
Operational Section, then give me a division to com-
mand. But what purpose would it serve to have me
shot?"
Budyonny would hear nothing of a simple transfer
or demotion and tried stubbornly to get Bagramyan to
agree that he should be shot. Naturally, Bagramyan
wasn't ready to agree to any such thing.
It should be kept in mind that this "friendly" con-
versation took place after a hearty dinner and a lot of
brandy. Despite these extenuating circumstances, I was
still shocked. It was outrageous for a representative
of the Supreme High Command hke Budyonny to be-
have this way toward a good soldier like Bagramyan.
He certainly wasn't helping to solve any of the grave
problems that were facing us. Our situation hadn't
improved after Budyonny arrived, and it didn't get any
worse after he left.

M. Budyonny, the former Tsarist cavalry sergeant major

9. S.
who became Stalin's special friend and gave his name to the
peculiar Red Army pixie hat, later abandoned. He was very
dashing and brave and drunken, and totally incompetent in
modem warfare. He not only lost Kiev but managed so to con-
trive things that an altogether disproportionate number of Rus-
sion troops were encircled and swallowed up.
10. I. K. Bagramyan, who began life as an officer cadet in the
Tsarist army. He fought in the Red Army in the Civil War,
served for some time in World War IE as Timoshenko's chief of
staff, and then distinguished himself as an army commander,
finishing up as a marshal.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 189

Fortunately nothing ever came of Budyonny's threat.

Ivan Khristoforovich Bagramyan is still alive and well
—may he live another thousand years! He's always
been a decent man and a good soldier. Subsequently
he was entrusted with many key sectors of the Front
in our effort to repulse Hitler's invasion.

I should tell you of my association with Vlasov, who

I later turned traitor and betrayed his Homeland. Before
the war he had commanded the heroic Ninety-ninth
Division, which was to go down in history as the first
World War II to be awarded the Order of
division in
the Red Banner. He was widely respected as a good
man and a very capable comriiander. When Kirponos
and I were looking for someone to command the
Thirty-seventh Army, which we formed to defend
Kiev, the Personnel Section of the Kiev Military Dis-
trict recommended that we appoint Vlasov. I decided
to check up on him with Moscow. At that time we were
still living under the suspicion that the enemies of the

—
people were everywhere particularly in the military
— and I wanted to make sure that we could trust
Vlasov with the selection of a staff for the Thirty-
seventh Army and the defense of Kiev.
I called Malenkov, who was in charge of personnel
I
for the Central Committee. Naturally I didn't expect
him personally to know anything about Vlasov, but
I thought he could put some of his men to work and
give me an assessment of Vlasov's record. When I
finally got him on the phone, I asked Malenkov, "What
sort of reference can you give me on Vlasov?'*
Malenkov said, "You can't imagine what it's like
around here. Our whole operation has come to a
standstill. I don't have anyone free to help you out.
You'll have to do whatever you see fit and take com-
plete responsibility for what you decide."
That left me with nothing to go on except the
recommendations of other military men. On that basis
Kirponos and I decided to go ahead and appoint Vlasov
to the command. He took charge decisively and effec-
tively. He put together his army from units that were
falling back from the Front or breaking out of the
190 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

German encirclement and proved himself to be a wise

choice for the command. He always bore himself calmly
under fire and provided firm, intelligent leadership in
the defense of Kiev. He discharged his duty and kept
the Germans from taking Kiev by a frontal assault.
When Kiev finally fell, it was because of an encircle-
ment and a concentration of German troops consider-
ably to the east. It wasn't because Vlasov didn't put
up a staunch defense.
Vlasov broke out of the encirclement and made it
back to our lines on foot; Stalin ordered that he be
flown to Moscow. I thought that General Headquarters
must have had some sort of evidence against Vlasov
and that he was being called back for questioning.
Later we found out that he had been called to Moscow
to be decorated. Stalin himself praised him and put
him in command of our counteroffensive against the
Germans outside Moscow, and Vlasov distinguished
himself once again. Stalin then gave him the critical
job of defending the Valdai sector of our Front. Again
Vlasov fell iQto an encirclement, and again he broke
out and made it back to our lines. Stalin even con-
sidered putting Vlasov in command of the Stalingrad
Front. I remember Stalin once told me, in the presence
of witnesses, that if Vlasov had been available he
would have been given the Stalingrad command rather
than Yeremenko.
When Vlasov turned traitor, Stalin called me in and
reminded me in an ominous tone that I was the one
who had promoted Vlasov to the command of the
Thirty-seventh Army. In reply I simply reminded him
that he had been the one who had put Vlasov in charge
of the Moscow counteroff ensive and had even suggested
making Vlasov commander of the Stalingrad Front.
Stalin let the subject drop and never raised it again.
Naturally the Vlasov affair was a bitter pill to swal-
low—for me as well as for Stalin. It was difficult to
understand how a man who had displayed such devo-
tion, bravery, and sldll and who had earned such
respect, could betray his country. Vlasov must have
had a very unstable character to let himself be re-
cruited as an agent by the Germans. He was supposed
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 191

to be a Communist, but he must have had no real

ideological substance to him at all. In civilian life he'd
been a teacher. Apparently he wasn't a bad fellow. In
the first years of the war he certainly seemed loyal to
Soviet Power. Of course it's possible he was just fol-
lowing mercenary motives when he became a soldier.
Maybe he was hoping to set himself up with a com-
fortable position as a Party official. Unfortunately,
weVe had such careerist types around in the past, and
I'm afraid they're even more numerous nowadays. Of
course Vlasov was guilty of more than just careerism.
He was guilty of treason, which is a completely differ-
ent order of crime.
He got the punishment he deserved. He was tried
and hanged.^^

The Kharkov Disaster

In the spring of 1942, with the Germans held in the

suburbs of Leningrad and pushed back at the eleventh

11. Colonel General A. A. Vlasov, one of the most brilliant

and determined of the new generation of Soviet commanders,
performed prodigies in the first year of the war. Several times,
by sheer courage, he extricated himself from German encircle-
ments made possible by the incompetence of his superiors and
colleagues. He was a legendary figure, a dedicated soldier, high-
ly intelligent and conspicuous for his height. Sickened and
revolted by the corruption, brutality, and incompetence of Stalin
and his circle, he allowed himself to be captured by the Ger-
mans in the spring of 1942 when faced with yet another en-
circlement in the course of an ill-considered, inadequately pre-
pared offensive on the river Volkhov. It seemed to him then
that the only hope for Russia lay in a German victory and the
destruction of the regime. He offered to turn the vast niimbers
of Russian prisoners of war into a fighting army and lead them
into battle on the German side. But Hitler failed to seize this
opportunity and the Vlasov army came to very little. Vlasov
was an angry and frustrated idealist who did not understand
until it was too late that there could be no salvation for Rus-
sia at the hands of the Germans. He was as far from an oppor-
timist careerist as it is possible to be. When the Germans were
defeated, his execution as a traitor was inevitable.
 —
192 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

hour in front Moscow, the Russians decided to mount

of
a three-pronged offensive in the Ukraine. The central
operation was to he a major assault toward Kharkov
hy Timoshenko, which turned out to he an unmitigated
disaster for the Red Army. Khrushchev, at Timo-
shenko's headquarters, was deeply involved in the
planning and execution of the offensive. Its failure was
a traumatic experience for him. He went out of his
way in the Secret Speech to exculpate himself and put
all the hlame on Stalin. Here, he goes over the ground
once more. Zhukov, in his memoirs puhlished after
Khrushchev's fall (Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Bat-
tles), says that the ill-fated offensive was indeed StO/'
lin's idea, and that he, Zhukov, opposed it for very
good reasons. This is almost certainly true. But Zhu-
kov goes on to say that Stalin was strongly supported
hy Timoshenko and Khrushchev. This is also likely.
He then goes on to imply (hut here the chronology is
unclear, perhaps deliherately), that there was no at^
tempt on the part of Timoshenko and Khrushchev to
have the offensive called off hefore disaster was upon
them. Disaster came hecause the Germans were them-
selves deployed for an offensive designed to nip out a
salient in the Russian line, and it was into this salient
that Timoshenko poured his own army, which thus
m^ved straight into the jaws of a trap.

Stalin's dissatisfaction with me reached its peak dur-

ing the period of our retreat, when he thought that
we were going to lose the Ukraine. He was Supreme
Commander, but he didn't want to take responsibility
for the defeat. He
started looking for a scapegoat. I
was the obvious candidate since I was First Secretary
of the Ukrainian Central Committee and a member of
the Mihtary Council
Perhaps my most perilous hour was during the dis-
astrous counteroffensive toward Kharkov in 1942. The
operation had begun promisingly enough. We had bro-
ken through the enemy's front line of defense easily
We
too easily. realized that there were no forces massed
against us. We seemed to have a clear road ahead,
deep into enemy territory. This was unsettling. It
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 193

meant we had stumbled into a trap. We reconnoitered

and discovered that the enemy was concentrating his
groupings in the Alvayansk sector of the Southern
Front. Apparently the Germans planned to strike at
our left flank and liquidate the salient which we had
formed during the winter campaign. We could see that
the deeper we penetrated to the west, the more we
would stretch our flank and the easier it would be for
the Germans to cut us off and encircle us. We
had just
barely figured out the enemy's scheme before it was
too late. Now it remained for us to get permission to
call off the offensive altogether and pull back.^^
I forget who had taken the initiative for organizing
the Kharkov operation in the first place. Later Stalin
was to accuse me of having ordered the offensive. I
don't deny that I may have had a part in it, but, as I
asked Stalin, "What about the commander, Timo-
shenko?"
"No," said Stalin. "It was your idea and Timoshenko
simply gave in to you."
"That's impossible," I replied. "You must not know
Timoshenko very well. He's very strong-willed, and
he would never have given his consent to the opera-
tion unless he thought it was a good idea."
As a matter of fact, it was actually Comrade Ba-
gramyan who worked out the plan of attack for the
Kharkov counteroffensive. Our own headquarters for
the Southwest Front approved and so did General
it,

Headquarters. We had all been in on the original

decision together, and now I had to persuade General
Staff to call off the operation. I knew it wouldn't be
easy.
As soon as we
realized the danger of proceeding
toward Kharkov, we ordered a halt to our offensive

12. Timoshcnko's advance started on May 12 and went all

too well for several days. It was not until May 17, with the
Soviet troops dangerously extended, that the real picture began
to emerge. And it was only at midnight on the 17th that the
telephoned appeals to Stalin were made. At dawn on the 18th
the Germans launched their counteroffensive and the deadly
encirclement was imder way. The Russians in the pocket were
out of control and desperately on the defensive.
194 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

and took steps to build up our defenses. We moved our

artillery, armor, and antitank forces around to cover
our exposed left flank. When all the necessary orders
had been given and we had effectively shifted from
the offensive to the defensive, I returned to my quar-
ters to get some rest. It was three o'clock in the morn-
ing and already beginning to get Hght. I was just
taking off my clothes to lie down when Comrade
Bagramyan burst in on me. He was very upset. "I'm
sorry to bother you, Comrade Khrushchev," he said,
"but I thought you should know that Moscow has
countermanded our order halting the offensive."
"What? How can this be? Who made the decision?"
"I don't know. All I know is that if we go ahead with
the offensive, we'U be heading straight for disaster.
Our troops in the salient will be doomed. I implore
you: speak to Comrade Stalin personally. Our only
chance is that you can talk him into reversing his
decision to countermand our order."
I'd never seen Comrade Bagramyan in such a state
before. He's a rational, evenhanded man. I like him.
I can even say I'm very fond of him. I've always ad-
mired him for his sober mind, his Party spirit, his
wide-ranging knowledge of military affairs, and his un-
corruptible integrity and straightforwardness. What's
more, completely agreed with him about the need
I
for me to talk to Stalin. I had to try to change Stalin's
mind even though I expected the worst.
Comrade Bagramyan was with me when I put
through a call to General Headquarters. I got Ale-
ksandr Mikhailovich Vasilevsky on the line.^^ He al-
ready knew what had happened.
"Aleksandr Mikhailovich," I said, "as a military man
who has studied maps and who understands enemy
strategy, you know the situation in greater detail than
Comrade Stalin does. Please take a map along and
explain to Comrade Stalin what will happen if we
continue this operation." Vasilevsky understood what

13. Marshal A. M. VasUevsky, chief of General Staff in suc-

cession to Marshal Shaposhnikov, who had died.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 195

I wasgetting at. We
had both seen how Stalin tried to
plan battle movements by tracing troop lines and the
Front with his finger on a globe of the world.
"Stalin's now at the Nearby Dacha," said Vasilevsky.
"Then go talk to him there. You know he'll see you
any time. After all, there's a war going on. Take a
map and show him how our decision to call off the
offensive is the only rational thing to do."
"No, Comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Stalin has al-
ready made up his mind. He has already issued his
orders."
Anyone who has ever dealt with Vasilevsky will be
able to imagine the steady, droning voice with which
he said this. I was on very good terms with him; so,
after hanging up, I decided to call him back and try
again. This time I pleaded with him urgently to help,
but he still refused: "Nikita Sergeyevich, Comrade
Stalin has made up his mind and that's all there is to
it." If only Zhukov had been at General Headquarters
instead of Vasilevsky, I'm sure he would have driven
straight out to the Nearby Dacha and intervened on
our behalf.
Anjrway, I had no choice but Comrade
to try to call
Stalin myself. This was a very dangerous moment for
me. I knew Stalin by now considered himself a great
military strategist. I called the Nearby Dacha and
Malenkov answered. We exchanged greetings, and
then I asked, "May I please speak to Comrade Stalin?"
Stalin must have been there. I knew the layout of the
dacha very weU. I knew exactly where everyone would
be sitting and how many steps it would take Stalin to
reach the telephone. I had watched many times as he
went to answer a phone call. I could hear Malenkov
saying that I was on the phone and asking Stalin to
come talk to me. Malenkov came back and told me,
"Comrade Stalin says you should tell me what you
want, and I'll pass on your message." This was a sure
sign of trouble.
I insisted, want to speak with Comrade Stalin
"I
personally. I have to report to him about the situation
at the Front."
196 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Malenkov passed this on to Stalin and then came

back on the line, "Comrade Stalin repeats that you
should tell me what you want."
So I had to tell Malenkov that by continiiing our I

offensive we would be playing right into the enemy's i

hands. We had overextended and weakened our front; |

we were exposing our flank to the Germans. There was

another pause while Malenkov reported to Stalin.
When he came back, he said, "Comrade Stalin knows
you didn't get the Front commander's approval on
your decision to halt the offensive; he knows that
calling off the operation was your idea and your idea
alone, and he's against it." I still can't believe that
Timoshenko told Stalin I had forced the decision down
his throat. I think Stalin was simply trjdng to throw
me off balance and undercut my argtiment.
"Comrade Malenkov, you know Timoshenko's char-
acter better than that. He would never have accepted
the decision unless he too were convinced that the
operation must be called off."
"There's no point in discussing it further. Stalin says
the offensive must continue."
"All right," I said, "orders are orders. Continuing
the offensive is all too easy since we have no enemy
troops in front of us. That's exactly what worries me."
Malenkov hung up. Comrade Bagramyan was with
me and overheard this conversation. His nerves
cracked, and he burst into tears. He foresaw what was
going to happen. He was weeping for our army.^*
Catastrophe struck a few days later, exactly as we
expected. There was nothing we could do to avert it.
Many generals, colonels, junior officers, and troops
perished. The staff of the Fifty-seventh Army was
wiped out completely. Almost nobody managed to es-

14. The story of the telephone conversation coincides with

the accoimt in the Secret Speech, except for a new and very odd
detail:namely that Stalin, through Malenkov, accused Khru-
shchev of acting independently of Timoshenko. Both Timoshen-
ko and his chief of staff, Bagramyan, were desperate for
permission to break off the offensive and pull out what they
could save.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 197

cape. The army had advanced deep into enemy terri-

tory,and when our men were encircled, they didn't
even have enough fuel to escape. It was too far to
return on foot. Many were killed, but most were taken
prisoner. General Gurov somehow managed to escape
in a tank. Some people suggested that he should be
court-martialed for desertion, but I told them, "Sxirely
weVe lost enough generals already. Do you want to
lose the few who managed to escape as well? Have you
all gone mad?!"
Naturally Stalin would never admit his mistake. A
few days after the disaster I received a call from
Moscow. They weren't simmioning Timoshenko, the
Front commander, back to Moscow, but me. As you
can imagine, I was very depressed. I hardly need
describe what I was feeling. We had lost many, many
thousands of men. More than that, we had lost the hope
we had been living by, the hope that we might be able
to turn back the tide of the invasion in 1942. Suffering
the defeat of the Kharkov operation was bad enough.
To make matters worse, it looked as though I were
going to have to take the blame for it personally. I
knew it wouldn't make any difference that I had tried
to call off the offensive and avert the disaster. For
Stalin to have agreed that we had been right when
we halted the operation would have meant admitting
his own mistake. And that sort of nobility was not for
him. He would stop at nothing to avoid taking the
responsibility for something that had gone wrong.
As I flew toward Moscow I could see clearly the
tragic aspect of my own predicament. I put myself in
the hands of fate. I was ready for anything, including
arrest.
At first Stalin didn't give any sign of whether he was
furious with me or sympathetic toward me. He was a
good actor. His face was a mask of inscrutability. Then
he said, "The Germans have announced that they cap-
tured more than two hundred thousand of our soldiers.
Are they lying?"
"No, Comrade Stalin, they're not lying. That figure
sounds about right. We had approximately that num-
ber of troops, perhaps a few more. We must suppose
 ''

198 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

that some were killed and the rest taken prisoner."!^

Stalin didn't say anything more, but now I could now
see he was seething. I didn't know when this boiling
kettle would explode and who would get scalded when
it did. But he restrained himself. He didn't say any-

thing more for the moment.

Later we started to talk things over. What would we
do now? What chance was there of building up our
defenses along the Donets River in order to prevent
the enemy from crossing? How could we contain the
German advance v^th our limited resources? After
this discussion we went
in to dinner.
I stayed in Moscow for a number of days. The longer .

I stayed the more wearisome and painful became the

process of waiting to see what would happen to me. I
doubted very much that Stalin would forgive the de-
feat. He still must have wanted to find a scapegoat.
Here was a chance to demonstrate his implacable :

toughness and dedication to the principle of harsh

retribution when the interests of the people were at i

stake. I knew exactly how Stalin would formulate his i

revenge. He was a master at this sort of thing.

A few days after I got to Moscow we were sitting at i

Stalin's table having dinner. Stalin started a conversa- •

tion in a calm, noncommittal tone. "You know," he

said, looking at me closely, "in World War I, after our '

army fell into a German encirclement in East Prussia,

the general commanding the troops was court-mar-
tialed by the tsar. He was condemned and hanged."
"Comrade Stalin," I answered, "I remember this
event well. The tsar did the only right thing. Myasni-
kov was a traitor. He was a German agent."
Stalin didn't say anythmg. He didn't develop his
thoughts on this subject any further. But he'd already
said enough to give me some idea of where I stood.
You can imagine how I felt. I saw the analogy he was
implying between the encirclement of our troops in
East Prussia m World War I and the encu-clement of
our troo ps east of Kharkov. Stalin was reminding the
15. The official Soviet casualty list was
5,000 dead, 70,000
missing, and 300 tanks destroyed. The
Germans said they had
200,000 prisoners.
 —
THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 199

member of the Military Coimcil responsible for the

Kharkov defeat that this kind of thing had happened
before in history. Besides, there had already been a
precedent in World War II: the arrest, court-martial,
and execution of General Pavlov along with his chief
of staff and the local member of the Mihtary Council
after the Germans overran Belorussia with impunity
in the first days of the war.
Stalin was preparing me psychologically for imder-
standing why, in the interests of the Fatherland and
in order to mollify public opinion, he might have to
pimish severely all those who were responsible for the
Kharkov disaster.
So there I was, waiting to see what my fate would
be.
The only thing that made it difficult for Stalin to
blame me for what had happened was that I had tried
stubbornly to persuade him to call off the offensive
and I had done so in the presence of witnesses. I had
transmitted my opinion and my advice to him through
Malenkov, and I'm sure Beria, Mikoyan, Molotov, and
possibly even Voroshilov were there at the dacha with
Stalin when I called from the Front. Even though all
these people were very close to Stalin, it was impossi-
ble for him to ignore the fact that I had vigorously
opposed continuing the offensive. These men could
have been very disagreeable witnesses for me if the
offensive had turned out differently, but as it was, they
were disagreeable witnesses for Stalin himself.
Finally Stalin called me into his office and said I
could return to the Front. I was relieved, but I realized
I wasn't safe yet. I knew of many cases when Stalin
would reassure people by letting them leave his office
with good news, and then have them picked up and
taken somewhere other than the place they expected.
But nothing happened to me during the night after I
left his office, and the next morning I flew back to the
Front.i«

Khnishchev indeed had cause to fear for his life. What he

16.
omits to sayis that although he was let off lightly, Timoshenko
was demoted as a consequence of the lOiarkov disaster. Zhukov
now took over as Deputy Supreme Commander under Stalin.
200 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

When I got back I found the situation very bad.

Marshal Timoshenko told me that the army had been
so utterly routed by the enemy that the only way to
rally the troops was to set up mobile kitchens and hope
that the soldiers would return when they got hungry.
He was drawing on his Civil War experience here. We
set up field kitchens and slowly but surely reorganized >

our defenses.
After these many years, I often look back on the
Kharkov episode as an agonizing moment for our
Homeland and a milestone in my own life.

StaUngrad

Stalingrad was Khrushchev's greatest hour. As politi-

cal advisor to Marshal Yeremenko, who was responsi-
ble for the defense of Stalingrad until Zhukov turned
to the attack, he was very much the man on the spot
— although, of course, once the Germans destroyed the
city and were fighting in its ruins, Yerem,enko's head-
quarters had to he moved to the other side of the river.
His account of the development of the battle furnishes
illuminating firsthand glimpses of the fearful struggle
which ended in the destruction of Paulus's Sixth Army
and marked the turning of the tide.

When the Battle of Stalingrad started, our armed

forces werestill very weak. We were suffering from
a shortage of heavy artillery, machine guns, antiair-
craft, and antitank weapons. The Gennans were still
pressing us hard. But now our troops had begun to
put up a stubborn resistance. There was none of the
disorderly flight which had characterized the situation
earher in the war. Our troops were now fighting
heroically and retreated only when there was no other
way out. They retreated in a disciplined fashion from
one position to another and never allowed themselves
to be routed.
Our setbacks, although less frequent, were still very
painfuL During the battle I received a report that
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 201

Rub^n Ibarruri had been killed.^'^ Early in the war

Ruben Ibarruri and my own son Leonid were in the
same casualty ward in Kuibyshev. Leonid, who was a
pilot, later died in battle. Then I learned that Anastas
Ivanovich Mikoyan's son, also a pilot, had perished.
This was all very familiar to me. It was war, and many
good men died as they do in every war. But the Red
Army was suffering more than it ought to have because
it was badly prepared and insufficiently armed.
Iremember a tragic sight that I saw when I went
out to the battle zone south of the city near the
Noriman ravine. Some of our fighter-bombers flew
over, heading toward the front. Suddenly German
Messerschmitts appeared. Before our very eyes, our
bombers were hit and caught fire one after the other.
The pilots bailed out. Our own planes looked very
much like the Messerschmitts. Our infantry thought
the stricken fighter-bombers were German, so they
opened fire on our pilots as they parachuted to the
ground. I remember how one pilot screamed as he
came down, "I*m one of you! I'm one of you!" Then
there was a burst of machine-gun fire, and it was all
over.
Our were commanded by Kliryukin,
air force units
a young fellow who had been made a Hero of the
Soviet Union for his part in the war against Japan
when we were fighting in China on the side of Chiang
Kai-shek.^®
The Germans reached the Volga and half-encircled
us, closing offour railroad contact with the North and
stopping all navigation on the river. I got a call from
Stalin. He asked me menacingly, "What's this about
you starting to evacuate the city?"
17. He was the son of Dolores Ibarruri, the celebrated Spanish
Communist known as La Pasionaria, who still lives in Moscow.
18. T. T. Khrsrukin commanded the Eighth Air Army. The
reference is to the operations in the undeclared, small, but
bloody war with the Japanese in Mongolia in the summer of
1939. It was here that Zhukov first made his name, arriving just
in time to restore a dangerous situation at Halkin-Gol and shat-
ter the Japanese. It is sometimes forgotten that the Russians
then regarded Chiang Kai-shek as an ally and also supported
him against Mao Tse-tung. Mao never forgot.
 202 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

"Comrade Stalin,who said anything about evacuat-

ing the city? Who reported this to you? Nothing of
the kind is even planned. I don't know how you came
by this information, but it's absolutely untrue."
He hung up. I began wondering, who could have
concocted this filthy lie? It was obviously aimed against
me personally. I decided to call Malyshev, although I
didn't think he would stoop that low.^^ I told him
about Stalin's call and he said, "Yes, I just got an
indignant call from Stalin myself. He said the very
same thing to me that he said to you. I have no idea
who could have planted this lie."
Then I thought maybe it was Chuyanov, but Chu-
yanov was hardly the sort to stoop that low either. I
called him anjnvay. He said that he'd had a nasty
phone callfrom Stalin, too.
Stalin never mentioned the evacuation again. Later
I realized that the rumor about an evacuation was
Stalin's own doing. It was what he would have called
a preventive device. For anyone else to have suggested
an evacuation would have been to invite some very
unpleasant consequences, so Stalin took the initiative
of planting the idea himself, just to let us know how
he felt about it in case the idea were ever to come up.
This was typical of Stalin's conduct of the war. He
wanted to regulate everything from Moscow. By carry-
ing centralized control to such an extreme, Stalin
hamstrung his commanders and commissars at the
Front.
Our battle headquarters in Stalingrad was situated
on the Tsaritsa River in a ravine which had been
eroded by many years of rain and melting snow. When
we first came to Stalingrad we were surprised to dis-
cover that there was already a command post dug
into the steep slope of this ravine. It had been pre-
pared and fortified long before the present war. The
entrance was protected by baffles against shock waves
from explosions, and the doors were reinforced with

19. V. A. Malyshev, then People's Commissar of the Armament

Industry, later became one of MalenkoVs team of high-powered
technocrats and a member of the enlarged Party Presidium.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 203

thick girders to keep them from being beaten in. Every-

thing in this underground bunker on the Tsaritsa had
a curiously familiar look about it. It was decorated
very much according to Stalin's taste. The walls had
oak pljrwood trimming, just like all Stalin's dachas.
The place was very well equipped. It was even fitted
out with a toilet. No real military man would have
considered having a toilet like this under field condi-
tions. I never heard, before or since, for whom this
command post had originally been prepared.
Early in the battle the enemy subjected Stalingrad
to the cruelest air raids. Wave after wave of German
planes bombed the city. Stalingrad was in flames. We
found ourselves cut off from the left bank of the Volga.
Communication with the left bank was crucial to our
supervision of the battle. The commander Yeremenko^®
and I decided that our continued presence in Stalin-
grad was inadvisable.
We sent off the appropriate dispatch to General
Headquarters requesting permission to transfer our
command post to the left bank so we could be in im-
mediate contact with all our armies. A
day passed, and
there was no reply. We
repeated the request. Again,
there was no word from Moscow. We
couldn't move
the command post without permission.
Then Stalin called about something else entirely. I
talked to him myself and said, "Comrade Stalin, we've
already had to repeat our request for permission to
transfer our command post to the left bank, but Gen-
eral Headquarters still hasn't answered. Time is of the
essence, so I ask you to give us the go-ahead right
now."
"No, that's impossible. If your troops find out that
their commander has moved his headquarters out of
Stalingrad, the city wUl fall."
I tried to explain to Stalin as best I could that his
fears were unfoimded: "Comrade Stalin, I don't look

20. I. Yeremenko was commander of the South-

Marshal A.
east Front, to which Khrushchev was attached. At this stage
the Southeast Front included the city of Stalingrad. The Stalin-
grad Front was the designation of the group of armies to the
north of the city.
204 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

at it that way.The Sixty-second Army under the

command Chuikov^^
of has undertaken the defense of
Stalingrad. We've also appointed Gurov to the Military
Coimcil and instructed him to stay in the city and
strengthen the leadership of the army. We're absolute-
ly sure that Chuikov and Gurov will do their jobs.
They will keep the enemy from penetrating our de-
fenses and capturing the city."
"Well, all right. If you're certain that the Front will
hold and our defenses won't be broken, I'll give you
permission to move to the left bank. Just make sure
you leave a representative of the Front headquarters
in Stalingrad who can report to you on the way things
are going. I want to make sure that you have somebody
in the city to back up Chuikov's reports."
Yeremenko and I prepared to move our command
post. We asked our chief of staff, Zakharov, to help
US.22 (Zakharov and Yeremenko both used to punch
people in the snout on Stalin's "instructions.") We
decided to leave General Golikov in Stalingrad to
keep us advised on how Chuikov was doing with the
defense of the city. Golikov had been sent to us by
Stalin as first deputy commander of the Front.^^ I'd
known him during our occupation of Lvov in 1939 and
also when he was chief of personnel for the Red Army.
I'd often seen him in Stalin's presence
when he was
head of army intelligence, but before now I'd never

21. Marshal V. I. Chuikov had succeeded General Lopatin as

commander of the Sixty-second Army, which for so long
bore
wie fuU brunt of the siege. Chuikov,
who was later to race to
±5erim and, m
due course, to become commander of the Soviet
is not the pleasantest of men,
^fFP^y*
hrm!L? soldier and the supreme
briUi^t
but he was a
hero of Stalingrad.
22. General M. V. Zakharov, Yeremenko's chief
of staff at
^o^Fn -^^ ^^^ ^^*^^
• ^
a^^y conmiander.
23 Colonel General P. I. Golikov, a "political"
general, was

^o!f^
rn^ir^'^'.u
^
^Z, ^^^^^^^f^ *^^ administrative and
f
r.^°'' ?^^^
^ ^^^""^
^^™^
^
^^
quasi-diplomatic assign-
b^^ly escaped shooting by
^943 Kharkov offensive, he
^^ ^?^^ °f ^^ ^"^ed forces Political
rSec^^L^^f "^^.^^i
Directorate It is not clear what he
was doing in Stalingrad. He
was certainly not there for long.
r THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 205

had a chance to assess him as a human being and as a

Communist.
We called Golikov in and Yeremenko told him,
"Comrade Golikov, weVe received permission to move
our command post to the left bank. We want you to
remain with our headquarters here and to maintaia
communications with Comrade Chuikov."
Alook of terror came over Golikov's face, but for
the moment he contained himself. As soon as Yere-
menko left the room, Golikov pleaded with me not to
leave him alone in the city. I never saw anyone, soldier
or civilian, in such a state during the whole war. He
was white as a sheet and begged me not to abandon
him. He kept saying over and over, "Stalingrad is
doomed! Don't leave me behind! Don't destroy me! Let
me go with you!"
"What are you talking about! How dare you say
Stalingrad is doomed! Can't you see that things have
changed? We're no longer retreating from the enemy.
Our army is making a stand here. What's the matter
with you? Pull yourself together. How dare you behave
like this? You've been ordered to stay in the city, and
you will obey."
A few days later we received a message from an
officer in Stalingrad informing us that Golikov had
gone completely off his head and was behaving like a
madman. His presence in the army wasn't doing us
any good, and he was even becoming a Hability to us.
The officer who lodged the complaint asked that ap-
propriate measures be taken. We relieved Golikov of
his duties and had him recalled.
Later he complained to Stalin about us. During one
of my visits to Moscow Stalin reproached me angrily
for having the wrong attitude toward our generals
and for failing to give them the support they needed.
I asked him, "Exactly what general do you have in
mind?"
"Well, take Golikov for example. We sent him down
to help you and look how you treated him." Then he
launched into a tirade against Yeremenko, calling him
a worthless so-and-so. I was shocked. Before this I had
often heard Stalin praising Yeremenko in the most
 206 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS i

glowing terms, virtually worshiping him as our best

field general and so on. Part of the reason for Stalin's
disillusionment with Yeremenko must have been that!
the Germans were still driving us back and had bro-
ken into Stalingrad; there were skirmishes and even
pitched battles going on inside the city. But instead of
telling me what was really bothering him, Stalin ranted
on about Yeremenko's alleged mistreatment of Golikov.
"Comrade StaHn, I don't know what Comrade Goli-
kov has told you, but if he has complained about our
treatment of him, I have no choice but to tell you the
reasons for our attitude." Then I told Stalin the story
of how Golikov had behaved when we ordered him to
stay with our headquarters in the city. From the way
Stalin's expression changed I could tell that he had
known nothing about the incident. "Therefore," I con-
cluded, "we were perfectly justified in having Golikov^
sacked. I really don't see why you're lashing out at
Yeremenko and myself like this. I will defend anyone
who has been punished unfairly but GoUkov got
exactly what he deserved."
Then Stalin told me that the decision had already
been made to relieve Yeremenko of the Stalingrad
command. I told him I thought this would be a serious
mistake. "I realize there may be varying opinions
about Yeremenko aroxmd here," I said. "Like every-
one, he has his enemies and there are those who don't
respect him. But in my capacity as a member of the
Military Council, I've gone through a critical period
with Yeremenko, and in my opinion he's fully worthy
of his rank and of his current assignment. I'm only
talking about his virtues as a commander. I won't
address myself to his other qualities. The important
thing is that he's efficient, experienced, and a good
leader of his troops."
At first, naturally, Stalin resisted stubbornly, but
after a while he began to soften. Finally he said I
could fly back to the Front. As we were saying good-
bye, he shook my hand and said, "I'm glad we called
you back for consultations. If it weren't for what you've
told me, we would have sacked Yeremenko. I'd al-
ready made up my mind to do so. Your arguments
r THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 207

have changed my mind. Yeremenko can stay at his

post."
"You won't be sorry, Comrade Stalin. You're doing
the right thing."
Meanwhile, the enemy pressed on, but our army
made the Germans pay in blood for every inch they
gained. Our slogans were "Not One Step Back!" "We
Will Stand Our Ground at the Volga!" and "Fight to
the Death; Don't Give Up Stalingrad!"
It seemed that whenever the situation was looking
gravest Malenkov would fly in with Vasilevsky, Voro-
nov, Novikov, or some other representative from Gen-
eral Staff.^^ Frankly, I was never very pleased to see
them. Unless they were bringing us tangible assistance
—and that would have meant troop reinforcements, air
—
support, infantry, and artillery units they weren't
doing the cause any good by showing up when we
already had our hands full. These celebrities always
chose the wrong time to make a personal appearance,
and they weren't very pyopular at our command post
when they showed up. It was so crowded you could
hardly move.
Always at the most critical moment, I sensed that
Stalin was paying especially keen attention to me and
that he had sent Malenkov to keep an eye on me. I
would notice Vasilevsky and Malenkov whispering
together. Malenkov would have to return to Moscow
and report to Stalin about why the battle was going
so badly, and naturally he wanted to avoid any per-

24. Marshal N. N. Voronov is the new name here. As chief of

artUlery he was one of the most gifted and intelligent of the
Soviet generals. Khnishchev speaks as though Malenkov, Vasi-
levsky (chief of General Staff), Voronov, and Novikov (head
of the Soviet air force) came in on a single flying visit. In fact
Malenkov spent a good deal of time at Yeremenko's head-
quarters as Stalin's special envoy (deeply resented by Khru-
shchev), while the others mentioned, together with Zhukov,
were frequent visitors. It was absolutely vital for the General
Headquarters to know precisely what was going on at Stalin-
grad, how the city could be best supplied, how long the defend-
ers could hold out with minimum reinforcements while Zhukov
was preparing, steadily and with utmost secrecy, his tremen-
dous coiinteroffensive.
208 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

sonal responsibility for what was happening. In his

whispered talks with Vasilevsky, Malenkov was pre-
paring to denounce someone, and I knew that I was
the obvious choice. He didn't know anjrthing about
miHtary matters, but he was more than competent
when it came to intriguing.
In the end Vasilevsky and Malenkov would tell me
they had received orders to return to Moscow. After
they left, Yeremenko and I were left alone with a
small operational staff in the command post. An eerie
silence seemed to fall over the area as often happens
in a forest after a storm.
At one point in the battle, Konstantin Simonov came
to Stalingrad and asked where he should go on the
front lines to see some action. I told him where, but
warned him that it was a very dangerous sector.
"That's aU right," he said, and off he went.^s
As the battle progressed, our armies of the Stalin-
grad Front swung south against Manstein.^^ The armies
of Rokossovsky and Chistyakov began to close in on
the Oermans 27 j g^^ ^q know Chistyakov's chief of

25. Simonov was an establishment writer who had strong

popular appeal One of his poems, "Wait for me, I shall return,"
was sung and recited everywhere and stood for the will to
endure. His epic novel Victims and Heroes is a deeply moving
account of the muddle, confusion, treachery, and heroism of the
great retreat.
26. This is a reference to the immense and majestic operation
which resulted in the total destruction of the German Sixth
Army under Paulus. At the end of October, 1942, Chuikov and
his Sixty-second Army were hanging on to the right bank of
the Volga and a few islands of rubble in the city by the skin
of their teeth. But, secretly, ZhukoVs forces were moving into
position to start the great envelopment. On November 19
Voronov to the north opened the biggest artillery barrage of
the war, while three armies went over to the attack in the
south. Four days later, the ring around the city had been closed,
but not yet firmly enough to withstand a serious attempt at a
breakout or a break-in. It was not until early in December that
Manstein made his great bid to break through and relieve
Paulus. By then it was too late.
27. Marshal K. K. Rokossovsky and General L M. Chistyakov.
Rokossovsky, who was the great hero of the envelopment, had
barely escaped with his life in the army purge of 1937. He was
later to achieve HI fame as the commander who held back his
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 209

staff, General Penkovsky, and liked him very much.

He was diligent and efficient, and later he made a sub-
stantial contribution to the performance of the Sixth
Guards Army. General Penkovsky is still alive and
well. I wish him a hundred years of life and happi-
ness.^®
As we began enemy in the direction of
to press the
Kotelnikovo, it became more and more difficult for a
single command to conduct two very different opera-
tions simultaneously: the Front command had to direct
our armies that were holding Paulus in an encircle-
ment VD. Stalingrad and at the same time direct oiu:
attack toward Rostov. Therefore General Staff pro-
posed that we divide the Front in two, forming the
troops facing Paulus into the Don Front and the troops
facing Manstein into the Southern Front. I don't know
if this was Stalin's idea or the idea of someone else at
General Headquarters.^®
Given the difficulties which had developed, it made
sense to divide the Stalingrad Front, but nonetheless
it was sad for Yeremenko and me to have to part with

the armies of the new Don Front, which had already

army on the Vistula (on Stalin's orders) when the Warsaw

Poles rose against the Germans. He was Polish Minister of
Defense when the Poles rose against the Russians in 1956.
Chistyakov commanded the Twenty-first Army advancing from
the Kletskaya bridgehead. It was later renamed the Sixth
Guards Army and fought at Kursk.
28. The great-uncle of Oleg Penkovsky, the MGB
colonel who
turned against the regime and became an agent of the West.
29. The nomenclature of the fronts is confusing. The term
front was used to designate a group of armies, not a fixed
location. In September the Stalingrad Front was renamed the
Don Front and put under Rokossovsky. At the same time the
Southeast Front became the Stalingrad Front, stiU under
Yeremenko, while a new front was created fiulher down the
river and called the Southwest Front, under Vatutin. At the
end of December it was decided at Supreme Headquarters that
the Don Front and the Stalingrad Front must be coordinated
by one commander for the final offensive. Rokossovsky was
chosen in preference to Yeremenko, who had to surrender to
him three of his armies, including the Sixty-second, which had
for so long held what remained of the city. The Stalingrad
Front, what was left of it, was now renamed the Southern Front
and turned south to attack the Germans in the Rostov area.
210 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
—
earned their place in history armies like the Sixty-
second, which had parried the enemy's main strike and
taken the full brunt of Paulus's blow on its chest. Then
there was the Sixty-fourth, commanded by Comrade
Shumilov, and the Fifty-seventh, and others. We had
grown close to all these men, but I knew it was in the
interests of the cause to leave them to seal off the
encirclement of Stalingrad while we pushed south.
When Stalin called, I told him I agreed with the de-
cision to spht up the Front.
Then Stalin called Yeremenko. I don't know how
their conversation went, but afterward I found Yere-
menko literally in tears.
"Andrei Ivanovich," I said, "what on earth is wrong?
Don't you see that we must split up the Front? Our
armies have turned south, and our task now is to
strike at the enemy's flank in the northern Caucasus.
Stalingrad will manage on its own. All that remains is
to surround the enemy and close him off. Then our
comrades can just wait for him to run out of food and
ammunition."
"Comrade Klhrushchev, you don't understand. You're
a civilian. You don't know how much we've been
through. You forget how in the early days of the war
we thought we were doomed, how Stalin used to ask
us if we could hold out for three more days. We all
believed that the Germans would capture Stalingrad,
and we would be made scapegoats for the defeat. And
now look! We've turned on the offensive. Maybe you
don't foresee what will happen, but I do: the new Don
Front will get all the glory for the Stalingrad victory,
and our armies of the new Southern Front will be
forgotten." He was still weeping bitterly.
I tried to calm him down, saying, "Of course the
personal satisfaction of one soldier or one commander
is important, but it isn't the main thing. The main
this is the glory of the people, the victory of our peo-
ple and of our cause." But I couldn't do anything to
console him. I really did feel sorry for him. I knew
how much he'd been through. He'd devoted every
ounce of his strength and skill to assuring our victory.
I can find no words in the Russian language that ade-
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 211

quately express my admiration for Yeremenko's con-

tribution to the cause as conmiander of the Stalingrad
Front.
We encircled Paulus's army in the fall and finished
it off in the winter. I saw a horrible scene when we
moved into the city in the early spring. Of course,
there are always horrors in time of war. Our troops
were busy gathering up the corpses of German soldiers.
We were afraid of what might happen if we left them
lying around with spring coming on and a hot summer
ahead. We
knew that unless we did something quickly
they would begin to decompose and an epidemic might
break out. But it wasn't easy. The earth was still fro-
zen, and it was hard to dig them out. We gathered
thousands of corpses and stacked them in layers alter-
nating with layers of railway ties. Then we set these
huge piles on fire. I once went out to watch, but I
didn't go back a second time. Napoleon or someone
once said that burning enemy corpses smell good. Well,
speaking for myself, I don't agree. It was a very un-
pleasant smell, and altogether a very unpleasant scene.
Around Stalingrad we found dead German soldiers
who had been stripped half naked. Their trousers and
boots were often missing. It wasn't the wolves who
had gotten to them. It was the work of pillagers, I'm
sorry to say. I think probably both soldiers and civil-
ians had taken part in the pillaging.
As we pushed forward after the battle of Stalingrad,
I saw many large heaps of German soldiers who had
been asked General Volsky^o about this: "Were
shot. I
these men executed?"
"No, they were all killed in battle."
Well, the enemy always sustains huge losses when
an army is advancing, but I didn't rule out the possi-
bility that some of our men had violated our strict
instructions not to use force against prisoners. In addi-
tion to the moral consideration, we didn't want to give
enemy propaganda an excuse to claim that the advanc-
ing Soviet forces were shooting their captives. How-

30. General T. V. Volsky, commanding the Fourth Mechanized

Corps.
212 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

ever, it perfectly understandable that some of our

was
men might have given in to their hatred of the Ger-
mans and killed any fascist soldier they could get their
hands on in revenge for the atrocities committed by
the Germans on occupied Soviet territory.

General Mallnovsky

Fresh light is shed here on the career of Marshal

Mallnovsky (see Appendix 3), who was, in due course,
to become Minister of Defense under Khrushchev. The
section also provides a graphic example of the atmo-
sphere of intrigue and suspicion surrounding Stalin's
court and threatening to suffocate, if not destroy, any-
one who was touched hy its miasTna. It is worth notic-
ing that the Larin episode occurred not in the confuted
arid treacherous first months of the war, hut after the
triumph of Stalingrad,

During the early years of the war I got to know Rodion

Yakovlevich Mallnovsky very well. He fell into dis-
favor for a while after Rostov was surrendered to the
Germans, but he was still widely acknowledged as one
of our ablest commanders. He used to tell me fascinat-
ing stories about his early career. I don't think his
mother was married. In any case, he'd never known
his father. He was raised by his aunt and spent his i

childhood in Odessa. He had nothing but spite for his ji

mother, but he always spoke with great tenderness \

about his aunt. He worked as an errand boy in Odessa, ^

and then, when the First World War came along, he ii

ran away and fell in with a regiment which took him

j
to the Front. That's how he joined the army. He ended
|
up as a machine gunner with a detachment of Russian
j
troops that was sent to France as part of the Russian I

Expeditionary Force.
j

Many years later, when he was Minister of Defense i

of the USSR, Malinovsky accompanied me on my trip ;

to Paris to meet with the heads of the three Great J

Powers. This meeting collapsed just before it was to |

 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 213

begin because the Americans sent one of their U-2 spy-

—
planes over our territory and we shot it down a land-
mark event in the history of our struggle against the
American imperialists who were waging the Cold War.
While we were in Paris, Malinovsky suggested, "Let's
go visit the village where our unit was stationed during
World War I. The old peasant whose house we lived
in is probably dead, but his wife was a young woman.
Maybe she's still alive." We got in a car and drove
along one of those beautiful French roads. Maliaovsky
directed us to the village without difficulty. We found
the house where he had lived. The housewife and her
son, who now had children of his own, welcomed us
graciously. "My old man died a long time ago," she
told us.
Friends coming around, champagne was
started
broken and Malinovsky started to reminisce and
out,
ask questions about people and places he had known.
"Didn't there used to be a saloon of some kind near
here where the peasants used to gather?"
"You still remember?"
"Yes, I remember very well."
"Then you probably also remember that girl so-and-
so.
"Yes," said Malinovsky, smiling, "of course I do."
They aU laughed. "He remembers! She was our
beauty! But she's been dead for a long time."
Other Frenchmen started arriving. The word spread
quickly that the visitor was the Soviet Minister of
Defense who had been a soldier in a Russian imit
stationed in this village almost fifty years before.
"Of course we remember you!" they aU said. "You
had a Russian bear in your unit, didn't you?" Malinov-
sky laughed and explained to me that he and his com-
rades had picked up a bear cub on the way to France
and taken it with them. Malinovsky had been in France
when the Revolution broke out back home. I remem-
ber when he told me his life story, Malinovsky said,
"It used to hang heavily on me that the Revolution
found me serving in the Russian Expeditionary Force
abroad." With great difficulty he returned to Russia
via Vladivostok and made his way through Siberia,
214 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

which was then under the control of Kolchak. Finally

he met up with the Red Army. I'm recounting this part
of Malinovsky's biography because it's important for
an understanding of the Stalin period. For years suspi-
cion hung over Malinovsky like the sword of Damocles,
first because he had been part of the tsarist expedi-
tionary force in France during World War I and second
because he had been on White-occupied territory be-
fore he joined up with the Red Army.
He fell under Stalin's personal suspicion again while
we were working together on the Southern Front after
the Battle of Stalingrad. Here's the story of what
happened:
One day Malinovsky burst in on me at my quarters
in Verkhne-Tsaritsynsk. He was very upset. Tears
were streaming down his face.
"Rodion Yakovlevich, what on earth is v^ong?
What's happened?"
"A terrible thing. Larin has shot himself!"
Larin was a member of the Mihtary Council for the
Second Guards Army. He was also a real soldier and
a good general. He and Malinovsky were close friends.
Larin had been his commissar when Malinovsky was
given his first corps command, and since then he had
more than once requested that Larin be his commissar.
Larin's adjutant later told me the circimistances of
his death. It's an incredible story in itself. Apparently
he purposely let himself be shot at by the enemy when
he went out to inspect the lines at the Front. Instead
of taking cover behind a haystack when the Germans
opened fire, he strutted about, taunting the enemy with
an enticing target and dehberately inviting death. He
was woimded, but it wasn't serious. The bullet lodged
in the soft part of his calf; the bone wasn't even dam-
aged. When I went by to see him at his quarters, he
was sitting up and chatting cheerfully with an Arme-
nian woman doctor. He seemed in good spirits right up
until he shot himself.
We know how Larin committed suicide, but we don't
know why. It would have been more understandable
at the very beginning of the war, when a number of
generals shot themselves during our retreat. But now!
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 215

the tables were turned and we were on the attack. We

had surrounded Paulus, and the Second Guards Army,
for which Larin was a member of the Military Council,
was putting up a good fight against Manstein. So there
—
seemed to be no reason at all for his suicide at least
as far as our struggle against the Germans was con-
cerned.
Larin left behind a note. This note, too, was very
strange. The gist of it was simply that he couldn't go
on living. Over his signature was the slogan, "Long
Live Lenin!" We immediately sent Larin's suicide note
off to Moscow where Shcherbakov got hold of it. One
shouldn't say unkind things about the dead, so I won't
say anything about Shcherbakov except that he was an
upper-echelon Party worker for many years and Chief
of the Political Directorate of the Red Army during
the war [but see pages 183-184]. Shcherbakov showed
his true colors when he got his hands on Larin's suicide
note. He used it to fan Stalin's suspicion against Ma-
linovsky and also to get in a dig against me, since I
was a member of the Military Council for the Front
where the incident had occurred.
Shortly after we sent off Larin's note, I was called
back to Moscow. As usual there was an interminable
dinner with all the trimmings at Stalin's. In the course
of the meal Stalin turned to me and asked, "Who's
this Malinovsky?"
"I've reported to you about Malinovsky more than
once in the past," I replied. "He's a fairly well-known
general who commanded a corps at the beginning of the
war and then an army. Later he was in command of
the. Southern Front, where he suffered some reverses,
as you know." Malinovsky had been relieved of his
command after the fall of Rostov and reassigned to
the rear, where he formed the Second Guards Army.
Then Shcherbakov started playing on Stalin's suspi-
cions in a way calculated to turn Stalin against Ma-
—
linovsky and indirectly, against me as well. "You
know, this whole thing is very puzzling," said Shcher-
bakov. "Maybe it's no accident that Larin wrote 'Long
Live Lenin' and not 'Long Live Stalin.' What do you
think he meant by saying Lenin instead of Stalin?"
 216 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

have no idea," I replied. "Larin was obviously

"I
under the influence of some sort of psychological dis-
turbance when he shot himself."
Shcherbakov was clearly trying to get me to de-
nounce Larin and Malinovsky, too, but I had no inten-
tion of letting him use me like that.
Later Stalin asked me again, "Who is this Malinov-
sky?"
"Comrade Stalin, I've known Malinovsky
since the
beginning of the war, and I can give him only the
highest recommendation, both as a general and as a
human being."
I could see Malinovsky was in trouble. His early
career, the failure at Rostov, and now Larin's suicide
— these things were all tied up together in Stalin's
mind. Evidence was piling up against Malinovsky,
despite my staunch efforts to stick up for him.
"When you return to the Front," said Stalin, "you'd
better keep a close watch on him. I want you to keep
an eye on the Second Guards Army headquarters,
too. Check up on all his orders and decisions. Follow
his every move."
"Very well, Comrade Stalin. I won't let Malinovsky
out of my sight."
When I got back to the Front I had to spy on Ma-
linovsky every hour of the day. I had to watch him
even when he went to bed to see if he closed his eyes
and really went to sleep. I didn't like having to do
this one bit.
It wasn't imtn after Stalin's death, when Malinovsky
and I went on a himt together, that I told him how
Stalin had reacted to Larin's suicide and how I had had
to report on him to General Headquarters. Malinovsky
told me he had known all along why I was following
him around and taking quarters next to his. He said
he had understood the awkwardness of my position
and hadn't held it against me. He had known that as
long as he did an honest and competent job, I wouldn't
interfere vdth him and I would give a good report on
him to Stalin.
I don't know what actually saved Malinovsky from
falling victim to Stalin's compulsive urge to arrest
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 217

people and have them elimiQated. Perhaps the practical

demands of wartime reality compelled StaUn to hold
his anger and his suspiciousness in check. Then again,
perhaps it had something to do with my own interven-
tion on his behalf that Maltnovsky was spared. After
all, my influence with Stalin was not inconsiderable.

A Visit from Comrade Ulbricht

Here we are given a first glimpse of Walter Ulbricht,

the present master of the German Democratic Re-
public, or Communist East Germany, With other Ger-
man Communists he spent the war in the Soviet Union
being groomed for his future role. In Moscow he had
been head of the Political Department of the German
Communist Party in exile and had helped to further
his own advancement by denouncing some of his most
able colleagues. In 1942 the Russians set up the Free
Germany Committee in Moscow to recruit German
prisoners of war for political training and to conduct
propaganda among the German front-line troops. After
Stalingrad, a number of prominent German officers
were recruited to this committee. The best account of
this operation is given in The Shadow of Stalingrad
by Heinrich von Einsiedeln,

At one point Walter Ulbricht, along with a couple of

other German Communists, came to Verkhne-Tsa-
ritsynsk in order to broadcast propaganda to the enemy
through bullhorns and loudspeakers.^^ They urged the
German troops to give themselves up. This work was
usually carried out at night. Ulbricht and I often had
dinner together after he came back from the front
lines. I used to joke with him a lot: "Well, Comrade
Ulbricht, it doesn't look like you've earned your dinner
today. No Germans have given themselves up."

31.This incident must have taken place in mid-December,

1942,when the Russians were countering Manstein's desperate
attempt to relieve Paulus's Sixth Army cooped up in Stalingrad.
 218 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Then one day I received a report that a German

soldier had come over to our side. "Bring him here," I
said. "We'll see what sort of man he is, and we'll also
find out what he has to say about the morale of his
comrades.'*
They brought the man to me. "Who are you?" I
asked."What nationality are you?"
"I'm a Pole."
"How did you get into the German army?"
"I'm from the part of Poland that was annexed to
Germany. I was called up."
I had an uneasy feeling about this man. "We're
planning to form a PoHsh army to liberate your coun-
try," I told him. "What do you think about that?"
"I'm pleased. Naturally I want Poland to be liber-
ated."
"Wen then, do you want to sign up for the Polish
army?"
"No."
"Then how is Poland going to be liberated?"
"The Russians will liberate Poland."
I didn't like his tone of voice when he said this. I
turned to Comrade Ulbricht and said, "So here's what
you've managed to attract with your propaganda. He's
not a German soldier at all, but a Pole who's fleeing
from the Germans. And he's not even ready to join in
the liberation of his ovni country."
Later, a few real pure-blood Germans defected and
were taken prisoner. When Christmastime came aroiind
I ordered that they be offered the hospitality of our
headquarters—that is, Malinovsky's headquarters. But
first I instructed that they be taken to the baths,
debused, given a chance to wash, and dressed in
some new clothes. Then we brought them aroimd
to our quarters and gave them each one hundred
grams of vodka and something to eat. Ulbricht was
there, too. During the conversation that followed,
one of the German prisoners told us he was against
the Nazis, against Hitler, and against the war. He stood
out clearly as the best of the group. Ulbricht asked
him, "Would you be willing for us to send you back
to your own lines to work for our side?"
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 219

"I'd be willing," said the German. "Let us go one at

a time, and we'll tell our officers that we escaped from
you."
An argument broke out in the group. One of the
other Germans we try to go back to our own
said, "If
lines, we'll be shot. No one will believe that we escaped.
Nor will anyone believe any other story you come up
with."
"Our" German retorted heatedly, "You coward! I'll
go! Let them shoot me! I don't mind dying for the
cause!"
Comrade Ulbricht and I were in complete agreement
about the desirability of sending the German defectors
back to their own lines. Then Tolbukhin found out
about our plan.^^ jje came to see me and said, "Com-
rade Khrushchev, don't go through with this idea of
yours. These German prisoners know the location of
our headquarters. If we let them go, they might give
us away, and we'll be bombed."
"There's no danger," I said. "We led them to and
from the headquarters blindfolded. They don't have
any idea where they are."
"Nevertheless, I can't risk it. At least don't send
them back until I've had a chance to move my head-
quarters to a new spot."
I could see there was no use in persisting. I knew
Stalin wouldn't support me if Tolbukhin went over
my head. I didn't teU Ulbricht about Tolbukhin's ob-
jections. I simply said, "Comrade Ulbricht, apparently
we'd better put this plan aside because there's some

32. There may be some confusion about the various head-

quarters referred to. Verkhne-Tsaritsjnisk was at this time the
headquarters of the Fifty-first Army under Major General N. I.
Trufanov. This army was grouped with the Fifty-seventh Army
under General F. I. Tolbukhin. Malinovsky was then command-
ing the Second Guards Army, which was transferred, under
protest, from Rokossovsky's Don Front to the Stalingrad Front
on December 15, in a swift move to halt the Manstein offensive
(the offensive was broken on December 21). Klhrushchev was
certainly with Vasilevsky, Soviet chief of staff, at Fifty-first
Army headquarters on December 12, when the Manstein threat
was at its height.
220 KHHUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

risk that these Germans may give away the location of

our headquarters if we let them go."
"Well," he shrugged, "I guess that's that." And he
went on with his job of transmitting propaganda across
to the German lines.

Kursk

The Battle of the Kursk Salient was by far the greatest

tank battle in history. Stalingrad had been the turning
of the tide, but in front of Kursk in July, 1943, Zhukov
tore the heart out of the German army and doomed it
to ultimate annihilation. Some six thousand tanks and
self-propelled guns were engaged, tearing up the open
steppes in the nearest thing to a sea battle that could
ever take place on land, freedom of maneuver was so
absolute. It never caught the imagination of the West
as Stalingrad had done. But it was a stupendous feat
of arms, a set-piece battle on a colossal scale, which
displayed to the utmost advantage the skill, nerve, and
ruthlessness not only of Zhukov and Vasilevsky, who
planned it, but also of Rokossovsky, in command of the
Central Front, and Vatutin, in command of the newly
strengthened Voronezh Front. They fought the most
experienced German tank formations to a standstill and
utterly destroyed them. On this extraordinary occasion
Khrushchev was present as political advisor to Lieu-
tenant General N. F. Vatutin, who had by now emerged
as one of the most gifted generals on either side, highly
intelligent as well as filled with boundless energy. He
was killed by rebel Ukrainian nationalists in February,
1944. For a lucid account of the Battle of Kursk, as
indeed of the whole war between Germany and the
Soviet Union, see Barbarossa by Alan Clark.

Our detractors used to say that the only reason we

were able to defeat Paulus's colossal army at Stalin-
grad was that we had the Russian winter on our side.
They had said the same thing about our defeat of the
Germans outside Moscow in 1941. Ever since Russia
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 221

turned back Napoleon's invasion, people claimed that

winter was our main ally. However, the Germans
couldn't use this excuse to explain their defeat at the
Battle of the Kursk Salient in 1943. They fired the first
shot; they chose the time, place, and form of the battle.
AU the cards were in the hands of Hitler and his cut-
throats. It was high summer. If you like fancy phrases,
you could say that the countryside was in full bloom,
dripping with fragrant juices.
Our armies under Rokossovsky were supposed to
start an offensive of their own on July 20. We were
sure we would be successful, that we would crush
the Germans and push west to the Dnieper. We were
all driven by a single desire —
^to break through the

German lines and to liberate Kharkov.

Suddenly, about fifteen or sixteen days before our
operation was to begin, we got a call from the Sixth
Army. The commander told us that a German soldier
had defected from a front-line SS division and that he
had some important information: "He says the Ger-
mans are going to attack tomorrow morning at three
o'clock." We ordered that the prisoner be brought to
us immediately. Vatutin and I interrogated him.
"What makes you think they're going to attack?" I
asked.
"Naturally see the orders for the
I didn't actually
offensive," he answered, "but the troops can sense
what's about to happen. And it's more than just intui-
tion. First, we have been issued dry rations for
three
days. Second, tanks have been moved up the way
all
to the front lines. Third, an order has been given to
stack ammunition right next to the heavy artillery and
field pieces so as not to lose time loading once the
artillery opens fire."
"But what makes you so sure the attack will start at
three o'clock in the morning?" I asked.
"Well, figure it out yourself. At this time of year
dawn begins to break at about that hour, and that's
when the German command likes to open an attack."
This defector was a young fellow, handsome and
—
elegant-looking obviously not from worker stock. He
was from one of the fairly well-known SS armored di-
222 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

visions— "Adolf Hitler" or "Reich" or "Death's Head."

All three of these divisions were pitted against us. I
used to tell Vatutin that no matter where I went on
the Front, I always found the "Death's Head" division
facing me.
I asked the German if he was a Nazi.
"No. I'm against the Nazis. That's why I've come
over to your side."
"But you're with the SS, and they're all Nazis."
"Not any more. That was true in the first and second
years of the war, but now the SS will take anyone it
can get. They took me because of my height and ap-
pearance. Anyway, I'm not even the same sort of Ger-
man as the Nazis. My parents came from Alsace, and
I was brought up as a Frenchman. My parents are
against Hitler, and they raised me accordingly. I don't
want to risk my neck for Hitler. That's why I've de-
fected. It's in the best interests of the German people
for Hitler to be defeated and exterminated."
When we finished interrogating the prisoner, our
intelligence officers took him away. We immediately
called Moscow to warn the high comimand that the
Germans were preparing to launch an offensive.
A short time later Stalin phoned me back. I don't
know if he'd talked earlier with Vatutin or not. When-
ever I say that Stalin called me, I'm not claiming that
he didn't call the commander as well. I don't want
people thinking, "There goes Khrushchev, building
himself up again, all the time saying 1-I-L' " No, my
esteemed friends, I'm not trying to build myself up.
I'm just trying to tell you what happened as I saw it.
j

I sat on the Mihtary Council and the Politbureau;

Stalin knew me and trusted me. Even if he did some-
times make me a scapegoat for his own mistakes and
even if he did take out his frustration and anxiety on
me sometimes, he still had great confidence in me. He
often called and asked my opinion. He did so when I
was in Stalingrad and in the South, and he did so here
at the Kursk Salient.
Stalin listened cahnly as I explained the situation.
He wasn't rude or impatient as he had sometimes been
in the past. This pleased me. I have no idea why he
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 223

was SO cool and controlled on this occasion, while on

other occasions he flew completely off the handle. It
was as though the devil himself held a string attached
to Stalin's main nerve, and no one knew when the
devil would give the string a jerk, sending Stalin into
one of his fits of rage. Both Stalin's temper and his
self-control were developed to an advanced degree. He
was, in short, an overpowering personaUty.
After I finished briefing him on the situation, Stalin
asked me, "What do you think we should do?"
"The commander and I have been exchanging opin-
ions, and we're very optimistic. We're just as glad that
the Germans are opening an offensive tomorrow."
"Why?"
"Because our defensive positions are solid, and we'll
make the enemy pay in blood when he tries to break
through. Even though we're stOl waiting for the rein-
forcements, we'll be able to hold our ground. It takes
fewer forces to defend than it does to attack. We've
already learned that in practice as well as in theory."
The enemy, too, was confident of victory. Later I
saw an order we captured from a demolished German
armored unit. It contained a message addressed to the
German troops which went something hke this: "You
are now waging an offensive with tanks far superior
to the Russian T-34's. Until now the T-34 has been the
best tank in the world, better even than our own. But
now you have our new Tiger tanks. There is no equal
to them. With such a weapon you warriors of the Ger-
man army cannot fail to crush the enemy."
Their new tanks were very menacing indeed, but
our troops learned quickly how to deal with them. At
Kursk we won a battle which tipped the balance of
the war in oiu* favor. In my opinion the Battle of Kursk
Sahent was the turning point of the Great Patriotic
War. It was decisive in determining the defeat of
Hitlerite Germany and the ultimate triumph of our
Soviet Army, our ideology, and our Communist Party.
224 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Victory

Khrushchev entered Kiev on November 21, 1943. He

was a lieutenant general now and certainly felt at one
with the soldiers with whom he had lived for over two
years. He went on with them as far as the new Polish
border, but his military days were over and he had to
turn back to Kiev and face the task of rebuilding the
administration of the Party and Government of the
Ukraine.

After their defeat at Kursk, the Germans began to

stagger westward under the blows of our army. I'm
not without certain human weaknesses, including
pride, and I'm certainly pleased to have been a mem-
ber of the MiUtary Council for the fronts involved in
the huge battles which the Red Army waged at Stalin-
grad and Kursk.
After Kursk I was connected first with the Voronezh
Front, then with the First Ukrainian Front. We were
pushing hard toward Kiev. It was a triumphal hour
when we reached the west bank of the Dnieper. We
were fighting for the liberation of the capital of the
Ukraine, the mother of Russian cities. Everyone felt
tears of joy welling up inside him. Since 1941 we had
been thrown back all the way to Stalingrad. And now,
tomorrow or the next day, we would be in Kiev!
While we were still outside the city, Zhukov arrived
from General Headquarters.33 An underground bim- j

ker was prepared for him and me to sleep in. During

the day we sat around joking and discussing the situa-
tion. On the second or third day we didn't even bother
to use the dugout any more. We had driven the Ger-

33. After Kursk, Vatutin, commander of the Voronezh Front,

took over the First Ukrainian Front. Khrushchev stayed with
him. When Vatutin was fatally woimded in February, 1944,
Zhukov took over his command for a time, the first operational
command he had held since the battle for Moscow in 1941.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 225

mans into the woods, and our troops were skirmish-

ing on the outskirts of the city. We
were fighting from
our bridgehead west of the city in order to prevent the
enemy from breaking out on the Zhitomir-Kiev road.
The deputy commander of the Voronezh Front was
Grechko.^* We had sent him to arrange a field head-
quarters for himself in Mezhgora and to help organize
the troops from there. I remember the sun was setting
when Grechko arrived at our own command post out-
side Kiev. It was a warm evening, though autumn was
already setting in. We had come outdoors with our
burkas [Caucasian capes] thrown back over our shoul-
ders. Grechko drove up and reported directly to me. I
had known him for a long time and respected him very
much, so I allowed myself to joke about his incredible
height: "Comrade General, please stand back a bit so
I can look you in the eye." He laughed. I don't remem-
ber exactly what he said in his report, but his main
point was what we already knew: the enemy had been
smashed.
Shortly afterward there was a sudden explosion, and
a cloud of smoke went up from the city. I knew Kiev
like thepalm of my hand and said, "The Germans are
blowing up the 'Bolshevik' factory in the western part
of the city. If they've started blowing up buildings,
they must be fleeing." Before our offensive I had asked
that special squads be appointed to go straight to the
Central Committee buildings, the headquarters of the
Kiev Military District, the Council of Ministers build-
ings, the Academy of Sciences,and other important
spots as soon as our troops broke into Kiev; these
squads were to make sure that the Germans didn't
have time to start fires or set explosives. They were
to drive the German demolition teams away and dis-
arm any explosives that might have been fused.

34. Colonel General A. A. Grechko, now Marshal Grechko

and Minister of Defense, was to become commander in chief of
the Warsaw Pact forces in 1960. As commander of the Kiev
Military District immediately after the war he worked closely
with Khrushchev for some years. It was Grechko who planned,
prepared, and led the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
226 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

When the explosions started, I told the artillery

commander, "Comrade Varentsov, give an order to
cover Kiev with scattered shelling." He looked at me
in surprise. He knew that I was a loyal Kievan and
that I loved the city dearly. So why was I suddenly
ordering him to fire on Kiev? "Comrade Varentsov, if
you open fire on the city," I explained, "it will send the
Germans into a panic. They'll try to clear out even
faster, and they'll do less harm to the city. We can
always repair the damage caused by a few scattered
shells."
Our troops entered Kiev on November 6 [1943], an
especially triumphal day because it was the eve of the
anniversary of the Great October Revolution. It might
have looked as though we deliberately arranged the
liberation of Kiev as a celebration of the anniversary,
but actually it was only a happy coincidence.
Early in the morning on November 6 I sent my
chauffeur. Comrade Zhuravlev, into Kiev to check on
what the road was like. He reported that the road was
perfectly clear. Some Ukrainian leaders and I drove
into the city. I can't express the emotion which over-
whelmed me as I drove along the road into Eliev. It
was an old familiar one we used to take to and from
our dacha before the war. We passed through the
suburbs and came to the Kreshchatik [the main boule-
vard of Kiev] I went straight to the Council of Minis-
.

ters to inspect the building. It was all right on the

outside. The Central Committee building was still
standing, too, and so were the Academy of Sciences
zuid the theaters, but both the "Bolshevik" and "Kre-
shchatik" factories had been destroyed.
There was something eerie about the city. It had
been such a noisy, lively, youthful place before the
war, and now there was no one around. As we walked
along the Kreshchatik and turned onto Lenin Street,
our footsteps echoed along the empty stretch of pave-
ment around us. Soon people began to emerge from
hiding. They appeared as though they had come out of
the ground.
As we were walking along Lenin Street in the direc-
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 227

tion of the Opera, talking and comparing impressions,

we suddenly heard a hysterical scream, and a young
man came running toward us. He kept shouting, "I'm
the only Jew left! I'm the last Jew in Kiev who's still
alive!" I tried to calm him down. I could see he was in
quite a state, and I worried that maybe he had gone
insane. I asked him how he had survived. "I have a
Ukrainian wife," he said, "and she kept me hidden in
the attic. She fed me and took care of me. If I'd shown
myself in the city, I would have been exterminated
along with aU the other Jews."^^
Later we met an old man with a gray beard who was
carrying a lunch bag just Hke the one I used to take
to work with me at the factory at Yuzovka. He threw
himself on my shoulder and kissed me on both cheeks.
I was very touched. A
photographer was able to get a
picture of this scene, and it appeared in many news-
papers and magazines.
I got my first glimpse of Americans in the late spring
or early summer of 1944 near Kiev. It was a bright,
warm day. Suddenly we heard a rumbling noise in the
distance. We scanned the sky and saw a large forma-
tion of airplanes flying toward us. I'd never seen this
type of plane before. I realized they must be Ameri-
cans because we didn't have anything like them in our
own air force. I certainly hoped they were American;
the only other thing they could have been was German.
I later found out that these planes were B-17 "flying
fortresses" and were based outside of Poltava as part
of our a^eement with Roosevelt. They used our terri-
tory to rearm and refuel after bombing missions over

35. The reference is to the massacre of the Jews at Babi Yar,

a ravine just outside the city. In two days 33,771 Jews were
killed—lined up on the edge of great pits and machine-gunned.
The Soviet leadership, under Khrushchev as well as Stalin, re-
fused to recognize that Soviet Jews had suffered imder the
Nazis more than other Soviet citizens. The site of Babi Yar was
turned into a recreation gro\md. It was not until the poet
Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote his celebrated poem entitled "Babi
Yar," and got into trouble as a result, that most Russians ever
heard of it.
228 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
overhead at
Germany. We would often see them flying
in Germany, and then
night, on then- way to targets
returning at daybreak. Somehow the
Germans were
bombers back to Poltava
able to track the American
that many
and bomb their base. I received a report
many had been
planes had been destroyed and
lives

lost Most of the casualties were

our own men whom
at the
we had provided as maintenance personnel
base.^^
As we pushed the Germans west, we encountered
an old enemy—Ukrainian nationahsts. learned We
our partisan
from Comrade Begma, the commander of
in the Ukraine, that the Banderites^^
headquarters
own.
were setting up partisan detachments of theu:
Then:
They were based in the forests around Rovno.
hero. We
leader was called Taras Bulba, after Gogol's
Bander-
instructed Begma to find out in detail what the
ite partisans planned to do. Then we told him to give

Bulba an opportunity to join forces with us agamst

the Germans. Bulba refused. We soon realized
that the
Banderites were trying to conserve their strength
and
open a par-
consohdate their forces so that they could
tisan campaign against us at our rear after we
drove
the Germans out of the Ukraine.
I went to Rovno myself in the winter
of 1944 to 1

consult with Comrade Begma and the commander

who
the area.
had captured the city and who was liberating

Apart from an RAF fighter squadron based outside

36.
Mi^-
days of the war, establishment of the
xnansk in the early
American bomber base at Poltava represented Stalms
sole
seeking to operate military
concession to his Western allies'
aircraft from Soviet territory. The retahatory German
r^d
Khrushchev mentions took place on the night of June 21-22,

1944. It destroyed fifty American bombers and

killed about
thirty Russians, along with two American soldiers.
Despite high
bombing" of Ger-
hopes and elaborate planning, the "shuttle
many, which had the apt code name Frantic, never came to

much. Only eighteen missions were flown. The operation was

constantly frustrated by Soviet political suspicions and bureau-
cratic inefficiency.
the Ukrainian nationalist rebel Stepan
37. Followers of
Bandera.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 229

I think it was Moskalenko.^^ The ground was covered

with snow, and it was bitterly cold. I decided to return
to Kiev as soon as the meeting at division headquarters
was over. The commander tried to persuade me to stay
the night, but I insisted on getting back to Kiev right
away. I headed north along our old border with Po-
land. I stopped for a rest at one of our rear supply
bases and noticed a curiously large number of people
loitering about. I wondered to myself how many of
them were Banderites in disguise, eating our food,
warming themselves in front of our fires, and spying on
us. I was warned that the area was swarming with
Banderites. Rather than spend the night at this supply
base, I pushed on to a little village on the old Polish
border and stopped there.
I wish I'd had more chance to visit the Front head-
quarters after our troops crossed over into Poland. I
would have loved to see something of our pursuit of
the Germans into Eastern Europe, but I had my hands
fuU in Kiev, supervising the reconstruction of the
Ukraine and the reorganization of the Party.
There was great elation in the army as we drove the
enemy out of our country. The guard units particularly
distinguished themselves in the last year of the war.
Their slogan was "On to Berlin! From Stalingrad to
Berlin!" A favorite subject for jokes and toasts was
who would get to be commandant of Berlin when we
finallycaptured the German capital. Everyone wanted
—
the job. Any man who had seen and personally suf-
—
fered the hardships which this war had brought to
our country wanted to do his part to make sure that
the Germans paid for what they had done.
I remember one day in Kiev getting a call from
Zhukov. He was jubilant. "Soon I'll have that slimy
beast Hitler locked up in a cage," he said. "And when
I send him to Moscow, I'll ship him by way of Kiev so
you can have a look at him." I wished Zhukov every

38. Marshal K. S. Moskalenko, then, an army commander of

the First Ukrainian Front. He was very close to Klhrushchev.
In 1960 he became commander in chief of Soviet Missile Com-
mand, and later, of Strategic Missile Forces.
 230 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

success. I knew that with him commanding the front,

our offensive was in good hands. Then, after Germany
capitulated, Zhukov called me again and said, "I won't
be able to keep my
promise after all. That snake Hitler
is dead. He shot himself, and they burned his corpse.
We found his charred carcass."^®
Thus ended the great epic of our people's war against
the Hitlerite iavaders. We
were overjoyed at the de-
struction of our enemy, and we felt a lofty moral
satisfaction with oiu* victory. The words of Alexander
Nevsky rang in our ears: "He who comes to us with
a sword shall perish by the sword."^^
I should have known better, but I decided to call
Stalin in order to congratulate him on the capitulation
of Germany. When he answered the phone, I said,
"Comrade Stalin, permit me to congratulate you on
the victory of our armed forces and our people over
the German army." And what was his response? He
cut me off rudely and said I was wasting his time. I
was simply dumbfoimded. I rebuked myself for having
called him in the first place. I knew what sort of per-
son he was, and I should have expected exactly what
happened. As I've already said, Stalin was a good actor.
He was pretending now that since the war was over
and done vdth, he was already thinking about other,
more important matters; why should I waste his time
talking about yesterday when he was straining his
mind, thinking about tomorrow? He acted as though
he weren't in the least surprised by our victory. He
wanted me to think that he had knovm all along how
the war would turn out. But I knew better. I had
watched him during moments of crisis. I knew that
during the war he had been even more worried and
afraid than the people around him.

39. Stalin of course for a long time insisted that Hitler was
not dead at all.
40. Alexander Nevsky, the legendary Russian warrior hero,
was not the first to express this sentiment.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 231

Stalin and the Allies

In this chapter we have the public achnowledg-

first
ment hy any Soviet politician of the immense part
played hy Lend-Lease and American and British aid
to the Soviet army. It is a pity that Khrushchev felt
unable to speak in these terms when he was in power.
The Soviet people have never been told what this aid
amounted to, and the whole issue has been so clouded
with propaganda of one hind and another that there
are all too many people in the West who have never
properly understood the magnitude and importance of
the Allied contribution. Khrushchev does not tell the
half of it; but at least he has begun to set the record
straight. For the rest, we see the old agonizing about
the Second Front, the profound suspicion of Allied
motives, and the total failure to comprehend the colos-
sal naval operation necessary to invade across the
—
Channel on Russian m,aps so trivial an obstacle. The
section also casts further light on the alm,ost total ig-
norance in which Khrushchev loos kept of the vast
movements presided over by Stalin. At this time, when
all is said, he was not only muster of the Ukraine but
also a long-standing member of the Politbureau, the
supreme policy-making body; yet it is clear that far
from being consulted about foreign policy as it de-
veloped, he was never even informed about Stalin's
plans and his negotiations with Churchill and Roose-
velt, except casually, in the form of anecdotes told by
Stalin over the supper table. In this connection it is
worth noting that in a later chapter Khrushchev re-
marks that until he was called back to Moscow finally,
in 1950, he was not even on the distribution list of
papers circulated among his Moscow colleagues. It was
a strange preparation for the man who was in due
course to becom,e the chief architect of Soviet policy.
It says a great deal for Khrushchev's basic sense and
capacity to learn that he succeeded as well as he did. It
also explains in large measure his failings.
232 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

A Victory Parade in Red Square was scheduled for

June 24, 1945. I came to Moscow for the occasion. I
wanted to watch our troops marching and to rejoice
with all our people in the capital of our Homeland.
Eisenhower came to Moscow, too. He stood with us on
the LfeniQ Mausoleum to review the parade. This was
the first time I met Eisenhower. Stalin gave a huge
banquet. All our military leaders were there. So was
Eisenhower. I don't think Montgomery, the English
commander was there. Stalin had formed good relations
with Eisenhower and even better ones with Roosevelt.
He had bad relations with Churchill and even worse
ones with Montgomery.
After the war, but before my transfer from the '

Ukraine back to Moscow [at the end of 1949], I fre- I

quently heard Stalin speak about Eisenhower's noble

characteristics in conversations with his inner circle.
Stalin always stressed Eisenhower's decency, generos-
ity, and chivalry in his dealings with his aUies. Stalin
said that if it hadn't been for Eisenhower, we wouldn't
have succeeded in capturing Berlin. The Americans
could have been there first. The Germans had concen-
trated their forces against us as they prepared to
surrender to the Americans and British. Stalin ap-
pealed to Eisenhower in a letter to hold back his
armies; Stalin told Eisenhower that according to his
agreement with Roosevelt and in view of the amount
of blood our people had shed, our troops deserved to
enter Berlin before the Western Allies. Eisenhower
then held his troops back and halted their offensive,
thus allowing our troops to take Berlin. If he hadn't
done this, Berlin would have been occupied by the
Americans before we reached it, in which case, as
Stalin said, the question of Germany might have been
decided differently and our own position might have
turned out quite a bit worse. This was the sort of
chivalrous generosity Eisenhower demonstrated. He
was true to Roosevelt's word.
However, at this time Truman was President, and
Stalin had no respect at all for Truman. He considered
Truman worthless. Rightly so. Truman didn't deserve
respect. This is a fact.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 233

At the very end of the war Stalin was very worried

that the Americans would cross the line of demarcation
in the West. He was doubtful that they would relin-
quish the territory which Roosevelt had previously
agreed to give us in Teheran. The Americans could
have said that the line their troops reached was the
new boimdary dividing the zones of occupation. But
the Americans pulled their troops back and deployed
them along the line which had been set in Teheran.
This too says something about Eisenhower's decency.
The Germans were hard pressed by our troops and
couldn't resist any longer. They were supposed to throw
down their arms and surrender to us. However, they
refused to do this and moved west instead to surrender
to the Americans. Once again, Stalin addressed himself
to Eisenhower, saying that Soviet troops had shed
their blood to crush the Germans and now the Ger-
mans whom they encountered were siurendering to
the Americans. Stalin complained that this wasn't fair.
This was on the Austrian Front, where Malinovsky
was directing our advance. Eisenhower ordered the
commander of the German army to surrender to the
Russians who had defeated his army.
Stalin once made a similar request to Churchill.
The Germans were fleeing from Rokossovsky and sur-
rendering to the English in a region occupied by Mont-
gomery. Stalin asked the English not to take prisoners
and to compel the Germans to surrender to our troops.
"But nothing of the sort!" said Stalin angrily. "Mont-
gomery took them all, and he took their arms. So the
fruits of our victory over the Germans were being
enjoyed by Montgomery!"
Both General Eisenhower and Field Marshal Mont-
gomery were representatives of the same class, the
bourgeoisie. Yet they decided this question differently.
They interpreted differently the principles of partner-
ship, agreement, and honor. Whenever I had dealings
with Eisenhower in later years, I always remembered
these actions of his during the war. I kept in mind
Stalin's words about him. Stalin could never be ac-
cused of liking someone without reason, particularly
234 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

a class enemy. He was uncorruptible and irreconcilable

in class questions. It was one of his strongest qualities,
and he was greatly respected for it.^^
Stalin invited Eisenhower to our Victory Parade and
expressed his recognition of Eisenhower's merits by
presenting him with our highest medal, the Order of
Victory. It's true the same medal was given to Field
Marshal Montgomery, but in that case it was a formal
fulfilLment of our duty as an ally because the English
were presenting their medals to oiur military leaders.
It was merely reciprocity.
What were my impressions of the opinions Stalin
expressed about the interrelations of the AlHes diunng
the war and specifically about Roosevelt and Church-
ill? Judging from what he said, I think Stalin was

more sympathetic to Roosevelt than Churchill because

Roosevelt seemed to have considerable understanding
for our problems. Roosevelt and Stalin had a conmion
antipathy for monarchy and its institutions. Once he
told me about the following episode. When they were
in Teheran sitting over dinner, Roosevelt raised his
glass and proposed a toast to the President of the Soviet
Union: "Mr. Kalinin." Everyone drank, and after a few
moments Churchill raised his glass and proposed a
toast to the king of Great Britain. Roosevelt said he
wouldn't drink that toast. Churchill's back went up,
but Roosevelt was firm. "No," he said, "I won't drink.
I cannot drink to an English king. I can never forget
my father's words." Stalin explained that when Roose-
velt's father left for America from England or Ireland,
he said on the boat to the young Roosevelt, "The king
is our enemy." Roosevelt had never forgotten his fa-

41. It iseasy to believe that Stalin was more than surprised

by the restraint shown by Eisenhower and others in the matter
of halting the Allied advance into Germany. Certainly he was
furioxiswith Montgomery for taking prisoner large numbers of
Germans fleeing from the Soviet advance. He was, of course,
perfectly correct in telling Klhrushchev that he got on better
with Roosevelt than with ChiirchiU. Roosevelt held British f
imperialism in the deepest suspicion and was convinced that he
could come to a personal understanding with Stalin.
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 235

tiher's contempt for the king of England. Despite all

the requirements of etiquette, Roosevelt didn't raise
his glass.*^
In disputes during the working sessions in Teheran,
Stalin often found Roosevelt siding with him against
Churchill. Thus, Stalin's personal sympathies were
definitely reserved for Roosevelt, although he still held
Churchill in high esteem, too. Churchill was not only
a great English statesman; he held one of the leading
positions in the conduct of world politics. At the time
of the Allies' failure in the Ardennes, which threat-
ened their invasion landing, Churchill asked Stalin to
divert the forces of the German army onto us. This
required that we launch an offensive which wasn't
part of our plans at the time and which shouldn't have
come until considerably later, but it turned out to be
most profitable for us. Stalin did well to demonstrate
our goodwill toward our ally in a time of need.
Churchill certainly played an important role in the
war. He
understood the threat hanging over England,
and why he did everything he could to direct
that's
—
the Germans against the Soviet Union in order to pull
the Soviet Union into war against Germany. When
Hitler attacked us, Churchill immediately declared
that England considered it necessary to make a treaty
joining forces with us against Germany. Here, too,
Stalin did the right thing. He accepted Churchill's pro-
posal and signed the treaty. After a certain time Amer-
ica entered the war, and a coalition of the three Great
Powers came into existence.
It's difficult to judge what the intentions of the Allies
were toward the end of the war. I wouldn't exclude
the possibihty that they desired to put a still greater

42. It interesting to know whether in fact Stalin

would be
did the story of Roosevelt's refusal to drink to the King.
tell
If he really believed that President Roosevelt's father had emi-
grated to the USA from Ireland or England, he must have been
very badly briefed. It seems likely that Khrushchev is confusing
one of Stalin's anecdotes about the coolness between Roosevelt
and Chiu-chill at Teheran with a muddled memory about the
immediate ancestry of President Kennedy.
236 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

burden on the shoulders of the Soviet Union and to

bleed us even more. Or perhaps it's as they explained:
they weren't sufficiently prepared for a landing. Their
arms production wasn't sufficiently developed. They
needed more time, and so on. Both explanations were
probably true, but I think they were mostly dictated
by their desire to bleed us dry so that they could come
in at the last stages and determine the fate of the
world. They wanted to take advantage of the results
of the war and impose their will not only on their
enemy, Germany, but on their ally, the USSR, as well.
I can easily imagine how this thought played a signifi-
cant role in their thinking.
To look at it from a class position, it was in the
Allies' interest to rely on the Soviet Union as a war-
time ally, despite the fact that our country was founded
on Socialist principles. We had to unite our forces
against a common enemy. None of us could have won
the war singlehandedly. But while exerting our collec-
tive efforts against the common enemy, each of us
remaiaed on his own class position. The Western Allies
were certainly not interested in strengthening us. En-
gland and America, from their class positions, knew
they had to help us to an extent, but they still wanted
the Soviet Union to be considerably weaker after the
war so that they could dictate their will to us.
For our part, we knew it would be useful to become
considerably stronger at the end of the war in order
for our voice to carry more weight in the settlement
of international questions. If we had succeeded, the
question of Germany wouldn't have been decided the
way it was at Potsdam. The Potsdam decision was a
compromise based on the distribution of power among
the Allies at the end of the war. The onesidedness
of the agreement was particularly reflected in the
clauses concerning Berlin and Vienna. These cities
were located in the zone occupied by Soviet troops,
and it would have seemed that they should have been
part of our zone. However, the Allies didn't give them
to us. Berlin and Vienna were each divided into four
sectors. We received one sector, and the Western
 f THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 237

powers — —
^England, America, and France received the
:
other three. This says something about the distribution
j
of power at the end of the war.
When we began our advance west and were ap-
proaching the border of Germany, the Allies were
compelled to hurry up and launch their landing. They
were afraid we might push considerably farther than
the boundaries defined at Yalta.
Nevertheless, we must still give credit to the Allies
for their contribution to the common cause of defeating
Hitlerite Germany. In order to avoid excessive haughti-
ness, the people and the Party of the Soviet Union
must be properly informed about the contribution of
the Allies to the common cause and to the Soviet Union
itself. If the past isn't analyzed objectively, the build-
ing of the future will be based on illusions and primi-
tive patriotism instead of proved facts. Unfortunately,
our historical works about World War II have perpe-
trated an illusion. They have been written out of a
false sense of pride and out of a fear to tell the truth
—
about our AlHes' contribution all because Stalin him-
self held an incorrect, unrealistic position. He knew
the truth, but he admitted it only to himself in the
toilet. He considered it too shameful and humiliating
for our country to admit publicly.
But, telling the truth needn't have been a humilia-
tion. Recognizing the merits of our partners in the war
need not have diminished our own merits. On the
contrary, an objective statement would have raised us
stiU higher in the eyes of all peoples and it would not
in the least have diminished our dignity and the im-
portance of our victories. But in this case truthfulness
was unthinkable for Stalin. He tried to cover up our
weaknesses. He figured that it would make us stronger
than our enemy and that we would be feared more.
This was stupid. He should have known that you can't
fool the enemy. The enemy can always see for himself
and analyze on his own. It's also possible that Stalin
feared that openness about the history of the war
might backfire on him personally. That's a different
matter. But I still think we should have openly ad-
238 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

mitted what happened and not tried to cover up. We

would have been helping our country and our cause
by not trjdng to hide our mistakes, by revealing them
for the people to see, no matter how painful it might
have been. The people would have understood and
supported us. If necessary they would have forgiven
the mistakes which had been committed. When I did
expose the mismanagement of the war, the people
were able to say, "Here Khrushchev is criticizing Sta-
Hn, but he is using Stalin only for purposes of illustra-
tion in a constructive analysis." That's perfectly true.
I don't think it's ever too late for the new generation,
which will soon replace the current leadership of our
country, to cast objective light on the beginning of the
war. Wemust study the past in order not to permit in
our own time those mistakes which were permitted
earlier. We must prevent them both in the present and
in the future.
To acknowledge the material aid which we received
in the past from our adversaries of the present doesn't
have any bearing on the situation of today. We
shouldn't boast that we vanquished the Germans all
by ourselves and that the Allies moved in only for the
kill. That's why I give my ov^n view of the Allies' con-
tribution, and I hope that my view will be confirmed
by the research of historians who investigate objective-
ly the circumstances which developed between 1941
and 1945. The English helped us tenaciously and at
great peril themselves. They shipped cargo to
to
Murmansk and suffered huge losses. German subma-
rines lurked all along the way. Germany had invaded
Norway and moved right next door to Murmansk.
As Mikoyan confirmed after his trip to America,
we received military equipment, ships, and many sup-
plies from the Americans, all of which greatly aided usj
in waging the war. After Stalin's death, it seemed that
all our artillery was mounted on American equipment.
I remember proposing, "Let's turn all the automotive
equipment we're producing over to the military so that
the tractor-mounts in our parades will be Soviet-
made." Almost all the artillery in the GDR [East
 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 239

Germany] was mounted on American Studebakers. I

said, "This simply won't do. It's disgraceful. Just look
how many years have passed since the war ended, and
we're still driving around in American equipment!"
By this I wanted only to stress how many of our cars
and trucks we had received from the Americans. Just
imagine how we would have advanced from Stalingrad
to Berlin without them! Our losses would have been
colossal because we would have had no maneuver-
ability.43
In addition we received steel and aluminum from
which we made guns, airplanes, and so on. Our own
industry was shattered and partly abandoned to the
enemy. We also received food products in great quan-
tities. I can't give you the figures because they've
never been published. They're all locked away in Mi-
koyan's memory. There were many jokes going around
in the army, some of them off-color, about American
Spam; it tasted good nonetheless. Without Spam we
wouldn't have been able to feed our army. We had lost
—
our most fertile lands the Ukraine and the northern
Caucasus.
I repeat, the Allies gave us this help neither out of
compassion for our people, nor out of respect for our
political system, nor out of hope for the victory of
Socialism and the triumph of Marxism-Leninism. The
Allies helped us out of a sober assessment of the situa-
tion. They were facing a matter of their own life or
death. They helped us so that our Soviet Army would
not fall under the blow of Hitlerite Germany and so
that, supplied with modem weapons, we would pul-
verize the life force of the enemy and weaken ourselves
at the same time. They wanted to wait to join the war
actively against Germany at a time when the Soviet

43. The Soviet tanks were the finest in the world; but until
Stalingrad the Soviet army had virtually no mechanized trans-
port. It was with American and British trucks that it was able
to advance swiftly, complete the encirclement of the German
forces aroimd Stalingrad, and sweep out rapidly across the
steppe to shatter the German armor at Kursk—and on to Berlin
and Vienna.
240 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Union had already spent its might and was no longer

able to occupy a decisive position in the solution of
world problems.

4
 Famine in the Ukraine

The great Ukrainian Famine of 1946-47 went almost

completely unnoticed in the West. It was not until
December, 1947, that Andrei Zhdanov in one of his
last public speeches referred to this famine, declaring
that it had been caused by the worst drought in the
history of the Ukraine, worse even than the great
drought of 1890. It was not, however, as bad as the
famine of the collectivization years, which has even
now never been officially admitted. The famine was
due largely to drought, but it was drought affecting a
ruined agriculture. Khrushchev has something to say
about the lack of manpower on the farms (in the imn
mediate postwar years all over the Soviet Union, not
only in the Ukraine, there was scarcely an able-bodied
man to be found on any of the collective farms, which
were cultivated by women, children, and old men
working with primitive tools). The devastation was
such that the bulk of the population in the Ukraine and
—
Belorussia were living in dugouts pits du^ in the
ground and roughly roofed over.
This was the background of Khrushchev's second
spell as viceroy of the Ukraine. His accounts of hunger
and cannibalism, far from being exaggerated, give only
the faintest idea of the ruinous state of affairs. But
there was one aspect, contributing to the famine, which
Khrushchev does not mention: under the German oc-
cupation the collectivization had broken down, and it
was one of the Party's tasks to reimpose it. Resistance
was strong, not only from the peasants but also from
the farm managers who, in countless instances, were
241
242 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

turning a blind eye to the private acquisition of corrv-

munal land in exchange for a rake-ojf for themselves.
It was this situation which Khrushchev had to cope
with, and he could not cope fast enough. It was evi-
dent at the time that he was in trouble and that Ka-
ganovich himself had been sent out from Moscow to be
his superior and to bring all possible ruthlessness to
bear on the recollectivization. The glimpse we have of
Khrushchev fighting for his own Ukrainians against
what he calls the State (meaning the Moscow govern^
ment, of which he was in fact a member) is sufficiently
revealing. In a sense it was 1930 all over again, with
—
the peasants being starved to feed the towns but this
time Khrushchev was caught between two fires. He
was responsible for the well-being of the Ukraine; at
the same time it was his job to carry out Stalin's
orders. We see how those orders were conceived, and
we are given a close-up of the personal intrigues among
Stalin's closest colleagues in Moscow. The great row
about spring wheat versus winter wheat, about shallow
versus deep plowing, was all part and parcel of the
rows between individuals, who, as always, would
seize on any technicality as a weapon in their perpetual
guerrilla warfare and would play on Stalin's prejudices
to incite him against their rivals. Malenkov was very
active in all these matters (Khrushchev does not men-
tion it, but Malenkov had been sent to start reconstruc-
tion work Ukraine as the Germans were pushed
in the
back and while Khrushchev was still at Front head-
quarters).

Once the Ukraine was liberated from the Hitlerite

invaders in 1944, I worked hard reorganizing the Party
and restoring the economy. All able-bodied men had
been drafted into the Army. As it battled its way for-
ward, the Red Army reinforced itself with men who
had been in occupied territory. The recruits from the
liberated areas understood their duty and didn't need
to be preached at about their obligation to join the
ranks of the Soviet Army to fight against Hitlerite
Germany.
 FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE 243

The jobof reconstructing the people's economy of

the Ukraine, especially agriculture, fell upon those
who were left behind the Red Army's advance: old
men, invalids, those unfit for military service, and
particularly the women. Some engineers, miners, and
industrial workers were exempt from military service.
Those who were mobilized into industry, including
many young girls, went willingly. Their zeal was un-
derstandable. For one thing, patriotism drew many of
them to the cause. So did the Party agitation and
propaganda campaign stressing that the restoration of
industry was the only salvation from economic disas-
ter and the only way to raise the living standard of the
people. For another thing, the areas where industry
was being restored were better supplied than rural
areas. There was more food in the cities than in the
villages.
In the Donbass, coal mining, steel manufacturing,
machine shops, and were all restored.
local industries
Reconstruction progressed rapidly. It was astonishing
to see how tenacious the people were and how weU
they understood the necessity of exerting all their
power to build up industry and agriculture. Lenin's
wise and forward-looking policies instituted after the
October Revolution had done much to heal nationalist
antagonisms between Russians and Ukrainians. Natu-
rally, there were still problems. It will take decades
to eradicate all the evils of the past. But the basic goal
—
had already been realized. The people the workers,
—
peasants, and intelligentsia aU knew that only through
unity could we be strong and could we achieve mate-
rial as well as cultural growth. The war had united
us once and for all and shattered the hopes of our
enemies that we might fall prey to their divisive pres-
sure. After the war had ended and the jubilation of
the people had died down, our workers returned to the
factories, the shops, the mines, the state farms, and
the collective farms. Reconstruction proceeded at a
still faster pace.
But 1946 was a very dry year, and the agriculture
of the Ukraine suffered badly. A
poor harvest was
expected. Severe climatic conditions combined with
244 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

the poor mechanization of our agriculture made it in-

evitable. We were short of tractors, horses, and oxen.
In addition, our organization of manpovvrer was still
very weak. Men were coming back from the war
ready to work, but no one fitted into his old place.
After a long time away, some men were no longer
qualified for skilled farm labor, and others had never
been qualified in the first place.^
All possible measures were taken to supply enough
grain to the State. It must be said that the Ukrainian
collective farm workers understood their duty. They
did everything in their power to provide the rest of
the country with bread. They had suffered from hunger
themselves while their own country was occupied
by the Germans, and they knew what having enough
bread meant. They understood that heavy industry
couldn't be restored without bread. The same went for
mining, steel-making, and the chemical industry. Be-
sides, the collective farmers had great confidence in
the Party. After all, victory over the Germans had
been achieved under the Party's guidance. Among the
collective farm workers in the Ukraine, there was a
widespread feeling of responsibility for contributing
to the security of the rest of the country by providing
the necessary agricultural products.
We were supposed to supply the State first and our-
selves second. We had been assigned an output plan
of something like 400 million pood [7.2 million tons]
for the year 1946. This quota was established arbi-
trarily, although it was dressed up in the press with
supporting scientific data. It had been calculated not
on the basis of how much we really could produce,
but on the basis of how much the State thought it could

1. This situation was aggravated by several factors: the ap-

palling wartime losses, amoiinting to some twenty million, main-
ly the able-bodied; the desperate need for men to rebiiild and
work the factories; and Stalin's deliberate policy of directing
demobilized soldiers to work far from their own homes lest
they stir up discontent in their own villages with accounts of
higher living standards in the West. The idea was that they
would be less likely to talk to strangers about what they had
seen.
 FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE 245

beat out of us. The quota system was really a system

of extortion. I saw that the year was threatened with
catastrophe. It was difficult to predict how it would
end. I was getting letters from collective farm workers
and from their chairmen. These were heart-breaking
letters. A typical one comes to mind. It was from the
chairman of a collective farm, who wrote, "Well, Com-
rade Khrushchev, we have delivered our quota to the
State. But we've given everjrthing away. Nothing is
left for us. We are sure the State and the Party won't
forget us and that they will come to our aid." He must
have thought their fate depended on me. I was the
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of
the Ukraine and First Secretary of the Ukrainian Cen-
tral Committee. He imagined that since I was the head
of the Ukrainian state, I could help him. Well, he was
deceiving himself. There was nothing I could do once
the grain had been turned over to State receiviag
points. It was no longer in my power to dispose of it.
I myself had to make a special request from the State
for grain to feed our own people.^
I could already see that our output plan wouldn't
be fulfilled. I assigned a group of agricultural experts
and economists under Comrade Starchenko to make a
realistic calculation of how much grain we really could
produce. They came up with a figure of somewhere be-
tween 100 and 200 million pood. This was very little.
Before the war the Ukraine had produced as much as
500 million pood, and the State had already assigned
us an output plan of 400 million pood for 1946. I felt
it was best to approach the problem honestly. I hoped
that if I reported the situation to Stalin candidly and
supported my report with facts and figures, he would
believe me. I wanted to do everything in my power to
make Stalin understand oiir position.
In the past I had sometimes succeeded in breaking

2. In 1938 Khrushchev had gone to the Ukraine as StaHn's

unquestioning and quite ruthless agent. His wartime experiences
taken together with his close-up view of the suffering of the
people had their effect. Here he emerges as a champion of the
people against the State, whose representative he nevertheless
was.
 246 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

through the bureaucratic resistance of the Moscow

apparatus and appealed directly to Stalin on a few
matters. Sometimes, if I was able to present carefully
selected material with logically constructed conclu-
sions, the facts would speak for themselves and Stalin
would support me.
I hoped I could prove I was right this time, too, and
that Stalin would understand that my request wasn't
"sabotage." This term was always on hand as a justifi-
cation for the repression and the extortion of products
from the collective farms. In this case, I would be try-
ing to convince Stalin that we couldn't supply the
agricultural products we wanted and needed. Our own
country needed them, and Stalin also wanted to send
food to the other Socialist countries, especially Poland
and Germany, which couldn't survive without our
help. Stalin was already building up an alliance and
fitting himself with the toga of the leader of future
military campaigns. He would be very unhappy to hear
that the Ukraine not only couldn't fulfill its assigned
quota for delivery to the State, but in fact needed food
from the State to feed its own people.
However, I had no choice but to confront Stalin
with the facts: famine was imminent, and something
had to be done. I gave orders for a document to be
prepared for the Council of Ministers of the USSR in
which I asked that the State issue us ration cards so
that we could supply the farm population with a cer-
tain quantity of products and organize the feeding of
the hungry. I vras very doubtful of success. I was
hesitant to send the document to Moscow because I
knew Stalin, his rudeness and his fierce temper. But
my comrades persuaded me. They said, "We've already
arranged it so that if you address this docimient to
Stalin, it won't ever get to him personally. He'll never
see it. We've talked to Kosygin, and he has agreed to
give us the ration cards we need." Kosygin was then
in charge of these matters.^

3. A. N. Kosygin, now Prime Minister of the USSR. During

the greater part of the war he had been resi)onsible for co-
ordinating the various food industries, as well as what light
industry there was.
 FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE 247

I hesitated a long time, but finally I signed the docu-

ment. When the document reached Moscow, Stalin
wasn't there. He was vacationing in Sochi. But Malen-
kov and Beria saw a chance to exploit my document
to discredit me in Stalin's eyes. Instead of deciding
the matter themselves, which they could easily have
done on StaHn's behalf, they sent it on to him. All
official documents to the Government were addressed
personally to Stalin, but he never set eyes on most of
them, just as many government decrees he'd never
seen appeared over his signature. But thanks to Malen-
kov and Beria, this request of mine went straight to
Stalin in Sochi.
In reply Stalin sent me the rudest, most insulting
telegram. I was a dubious character, he said; I was
writing memoranda to prove that the Ukraine was
unable to take care of itself, and I was requesting an
outrageous quantity of cards for feeding people. I
can't express how murderously this telegram depressed
me. I saw clearly the whole tragedy, which was hang-
ing not only over me personally, but over the whole
Ukrainian people. Famine was now inevitable; Stalin's
response dashed our last hopes that it could be avoided.
Stalin returned from Sochi, and I immediately went
from Kiev to meet him in Moscow. I was ready for the
worst dressing down imaginable. In this kind of situa-
tion anything could happen. You could end up on the
list of enemies of the people in no time at all. In the
blink of an eye you could be thrown into the Lubyanka
[the secret police headquarters and prison in the heart
of Moscow]. I told Stalin that I had taken pains in my
memorandum to reflect accurately the state of affairs
in the Ukraine; I insisted that the Ukraine really did
need help. My arguments just aggravated his anger
all the more. He flatly turned down our request
for
ration cards.
By now, as I had predicted, famine was under way.
Soon I was receiving letters and official reports about
deaths from starvation. Then cannibalism started. I
received a report that a human head and the soles of
feet had been found under a little bridge near Vasil-
kovo, a town outside of Kiev. Apparently the corpse
 248 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

had been eaten. There were similar cases. Kirichenko,*

who was then Secretary of the Odessa Regional Com-
mittee, told me that he had gone to a collective farm
to check on how the people were surviving the vmiter.
He was told to go see a woman who worked there.
Here is how he described it: "I found a scene of hor-
ror. The woman had the corpse of her own child on
the table and was cutting it up. She was chattering
away as she worked, 'We've already eaten Manechka
Maria]
[Little . Now
we'll salt down Vanechka [Little
Ivan]. This will keep us for some time.' Can you
imagine? This woman had gone crazy with hunger and
butchered her own children!" As I retell this story,
my thoughts go back to that period. I can see that
horrible scene vividly in my mind. There was nothing
I could do. I reported all these things to Stalin, but it
only fanned his anger all the more. He would say,
"You're being soft-bellied! They're deceiving you.
They're counting on being able to appeal to your senti-
mentality when they report things like that. They're
trjdng to force you to give them all your reserves."
Apparently Stalin had channels of information which
bypassed me and which he trusted more than my ov^m
reports. Some people were spreading the rumor that I
was giving in to local Ukrainian influences, that I was
imder pressure from Ukrainian interest groups, and
that I was already becoming a Ukrainian nationalist
myself. People were saying that I didn't deserve full
confidence any more, and Stalin started to regard my
reports with a certain familiar cautiousness. And
where was this other information coming from? From
the Chekists, of course. They were traveling around
the country and reporting back to the Central Com-
mittee. Some of this information filtered up to Stalin

4. A. I. Kirichenko, one of Khrushchev's subordinates in the

Ukrainian Party apparatus before the war; as a major general
he served on the military councils of various fronts during the
war. He succeeded IQirushchev as First Secretary of the
Ukraine at the end of 1949 and came to Moscow as EQirushchev's
right-hand man in 1957, having helped him defeat the so-called
Anti-Party Group. In 1960 he was suddenly disgraced for
reasons never divulged.
 FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE 249

himself. Usually people were afraid to give Stalin

information because they knew that discouraging re-
ports would displease him and jeopardize themselves.
Stalin liked to think the country was thriving. He liked
to think, as Taras Shevchenko [nineteenth-century
Ukrainian poet] once said, "From the land of Molda-
vians to the land of the Finns, all tongues are silent
because the times are good." The only difference was
that Shevchenko was writing during the reign of
Nicholas I, and this was the reign of Joseph I.
Stalin raised the question of convening a Central
Committee plenum to discuss agriculture. I don't know
how long it had been since a plenum had been held.
There had been plenums in the late thirties, first to
discuss the struggle agciinst the enemies of the people
and then to discuss the excesses which had been per-
mitted during the struggle against the enemies of the
people. At that time Stalin had played the role of a
benevolent fighter against the excesses which he had
initiated himself. Anyway, Stalin now raised the ques-
tion of calling a plenum to discuss how to raise the
productivity of our agriculture.
The question came up of who should be instructed
to deliver the General Report. Stalin was thinking out
loud in front of everybody. "Who should deUver the
General Report?" he asked. "Malenkov? He's in charge
of agricultural matters, but what kind of report can
he deliver? He doesn't know the first thing about
agriculture. He doesn't even know agricultural termi-
nology." Stalin said this in Malenkov's presence. He
was absolutely correct, but it was all the more astoimd-
ing that Stalin had assigned Malenkov to handle
agriculture if he knew that Malenkov was totally in-
competent in this area. The paradox was interesting
to me, and I have no ready explanation for it. But then,
anything was possible with Stalin.
Suddenly Stalin said to me, "You make the General
Report."
Iwas simply terrified by this instruction and said,
"Comrade Stalin, please don't assign this to me."
"Why not?"
"I could deliver a report on the Ukraine. I've been
250 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

concerned with the Ukraine for some years now, and

I know more or less what the situationis there. But I
don't know anything about agriculture in the Russian
Federation, and I haven't the slightest idea about
Siberia. I've never even been in Central Asia. I've
never seen cotton, and I don't know how it grows.
Actually, before going to the Ukraine, I had almost
nothing to do v^th agriculture at all. I'm an industrial-
ist. I've been concerned with industry and with the

city administration."
But he was "That doesn't matter. You'll
insistent:
make the General Report anyway."
I said, "No, Comrade Stalin, I ask you please to re-
lease me from this. I don't want to mislead the Central
Committee, nor do I want to put myself in a stupid
position by trying to make a report on subjects which
I really don't understand."
He thought about it for a few moments and then
said, "Well, all right. We'll assign the report to An-
dreyev."^ Andreyev had earned himself a reputation as
the Party's expert on agriculture. Compared with the
other members of the Politbureau, he knew quite a
bit about agriculture, although personally I wasn't very
impressed by his knowledge. He was a rather dry and
formal person. I knew he would throw together his
General Report by drawing on papers vrritten by other
agricultural experts. In any event, I couldn't suggest
anyone better, and I was relieved that this cup had
passed from me.
Andrei Andreyevich Andreyev was confirmed as
speaker for the Central Committee Plenum. The Ple-
num took place in Sverdlov Hall [of the Kremlin].

5.A. A. Andreyev, one of Stalin's senior lieutenants in his

rise to power and thereafter, had been a Bolshevik since 1914
and a Politbureau member since 1932. A dour and featureless
organization man, he turned his hand to every job, which he
pursued ruthlessly in Stalin's interest. In 1943 he was put in
charge of agriculture. He came to grief in 1950, incurring Sta-
lin's displeasm-e, ostensibly over a technical matter of agricul-
tural policy, but survived to make an abortive comeback under
the protection of Malenkov. It was in 1950 that Khrushchev
emerged as the spokesman for Soviet agriculture.
 FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE 251

Andrei Andreyevich's report turned out to be fairly

coherent and logically constructed as Andrei Andreye-
vich*s report usually were. I sat next to Stalin and
saw that he was listening attentively. During the re-
cess, we went into a lounge where members of the
Politbureau got together for refreshments. We sat
down at a table, tea was served, and Stalin asked me,
"What did you think of Andreyev's report?"
I said, "It certainly cast light on all the main prob-
lems."
"But you were sitting there absolutely indifferent to
what he was saying. I was watching you."
"If you want me to be frank, I'll tell you I think
these problems should have been posed somewhat dif-
ferently. All the necessary matters were touched on,
but in a very stereotyped fashion."
Stalin was furious. "First you refuse to deliver the
report yourself and now you're criticizing it." I hadn't
wanted to criticize the report, especially since I had
declined to give it myself. However, I still told Stalin
honestly that I thought Andreyev had done a pretty
second-rate job. Now I could see Stalin was very dis-
pleased with me indeed.
After the recess, we started discussing the report.
Many people spoke, including myself. I talked about
the problems of reconstructing the economy of the
Ukraine. I said I considered mechanization and the
questions of seed stocks to be the key subjects. Before
this Plenum there had been a decree laying down the
first commandment for a collective farm worker: his
first obligation was to meet his output quota and make
his required deliveries to the State; only then could
he supply seed and other products to his fellow labor-
ers on his collective farm. I believed that this first
commandment, which had been Stalin's idea, should
be revoked and seed should be set aside for sowing
on the farm before grain was turned over to the State.
In the old days a peasant would starve to death before
eating grain he had set aside for seed. His seed was
his future, the very life of his farm. How could we
take his seed away from him? It made Httle difference
that the State was supposed to compensate him with
252 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

new seed for sowing, the farmer had no way of know-

ing what strain of seed it was or where it had come
from. The State was making farmers sow their fields
with unknown seed which may not have been acclima-
tized to their own region. It was no way to manage
agriculture.
My remarks during the discussion of Andreyev's
report aggravated Stalin even more. A
still darker

cloud hung over me after Maltsev's speech. He was an

experienced farmer who managed the agriculture of
the Urals excellently.^ In his speech he said that every-
thing was going very well in the Urals and that they
were bringing in a good harvest of spring wheat. As
soon as Maltsev mentioned spring wheat, I knew that
I was in even deeper trouble than before. I knew that
Stalin wouldn't stop to examine details but that he
would grab the question of spring wheat and throw it
in my face. I had already declared myself against the
sowing of spring wheat according to rigid, compulsory
rules. Spring wheat was less high-yielding in the
Ukraine, especially in the south, but it yielded a decent
harvest on certain collective farms. Therefore I thought
Ukrainian collective farms should be able to sow it
if they wanted to, but there should be no blanket order
from Moscow compelling every collective farm to sow
a specified percentage of spring wheat. In some cases
a harvest of spring wheat didn't even yield enough of
of a harvest to pay for the cost of the seed. Stalin
didn't understand this, and he didn't want to hear
anything about it. I had told him about our problem
with spring wheat before the war. At that time he had
agreed with me and approved a decision to release
Ukrainian collective farms from compulsory cultiva-
tion of spring wheat.
There was another recess. When we went into the
loimge, Stalin snapped menacingly at me, "Did you
hear what Maltsev said about spring wheat?"

6. T. S. Maltsev, a gifted and energetic agronomist with

powerful Party connections, was for a long time in the fore-
front of experimental attempts to increase productivity; some
of the attempts were good, some bad.
 FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE 253

"Yes, but Comrade Stalin, he was speaking about

the Urals. In the Ukraine our highest-yielding crop is
winter wheat. In the Urals they don't sow winter wheat
at all. They sow only spring wheat. They have studied
it. They know how to cultivate it and how to harvest

it profitably."
"That doesn't matter. If they're able to get such a
good harvest of spring wheat in the Urals and if we"
— —
he slapped himself on the stomach "have such good
rich, dark soil, then we should get an even better
harvest. There should be a resolution taken to that
effect."
I said, "If you want
to put it in a resolution, then go
ahead. You can
also record that I'm opposed. Everyone
knows I'm against spring wheat. But if it's what you
want to do, then issue a resolution to the northern
Caucasus and to the Rostov Region."
"No, this resolution will apply directly to you." By
that he meant that I would have to take the initiative
so that the other grain-growing areas would follow my
lead.7
A commission was created with Andrei Andreyevich
as chairman. I was appointed to this commission, too.
When the Central Committee Plenum ended, I had to
get back to the Ukraine. The commission hadn't yet
finished its work, and Malenkov and Andrei Andreye-
vich were left to work out the resolution Stalin
wanted. Just before I left, I proposed that the commis-
sion recommend revoking the first commandment for
collective farm workers. I proposed that the stocking
of seed for the collective farms should proceed in
parallel with the delivery of grain to the State in a
certain proportion. This was a concession on part, my
but I believed it would be better than no change at all.
As it was, the State wasn't leaving anything at all for

7. of spring versus winter wheat was characterk-

The drama
interference in technical matters about which he
tic of Stalin's
knew nothing. He was incapable of realizing that what might
be suitable in the Urals could be unsuitable in the Ukraine.
Curiously, Khrushchev showed much the same failing in years
to come when he insisted on the wholesale growing of
maize,
regardless of local conditions.
 254 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

the farmers. According to my proposal, the farmers

would deliver a certain percentage of their grain to the
State while retaining a certain percentage for their
ov^oi seed stores.
Then I left for Kiev. Malenkov phoned me a few
days later and said, "The resolution is ready. We have
not included your proposal regarding seed stores for
collective and state farms. We are now going to report
to Stalin. Do you want us to report your proposal
separately? Or perhaps we shouldn't mention it at all?"
This was clearly a provocation. Everyone knew, and
Stalin knew, that I had fought hard for my proposal
at the commission meetings. If I were to tell Malenkov
not to mention my proposal to Stalin, I would look like
a coward, so I answered, "No, Comrade Malenkov,
please go ahead and report my point of view to Com-
rade Stalin."
"Very well," he said. So they reported it. Not long
afterwards Malenkov phoned me again and said that
my proposal had angered Stalin and he had rejected it
out of hand.
The next thing that happened was that Stalin sud-
denly raised the question of what sort of help I should |

be given in the Ukraine.® This meant he had his eye

on me, "Apparently we'd better bolster up Khru-
shchev's leadership in Kiev," he said. "The Ukraine is
being ruined, which could be a disaster for our whole
country." He was obviously up to something, but
wasn't sure what he was driving at. Then he said, "I
think we had better send Kaganovich to help you.
What do you think about that?"
"Well," I said, "Kaganovich was once Secretary of
the Central Committee in the Ukraine, and he knows
the Ukraine very well. Naturally, since the Ukraine
is such a huge Republic, there's enough for tens or

hundreds of people to do, not to mention just two."

Stalin then said, "We'll send Patolichev to help you,
too."

8. When Stalin suggested that one of his subordinates needed

"help," it could be taken to mean that he was about to be re-
placed.
 FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE 255

I answered, "By all means. That will be fine." The

decision was recorded and published. Stalin suggested
that the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers
in the Ukraine be separated from that of First Secre-
tary of the Central Committee. A
few years before,
when these two offices had been merged at Stalin's
suggestion, I had tried to persuade him that it was a
bad idea. Now Stalin said, "Khrushchev will be Chair-
man of the Council of People's Commissars of the
Ukraine, Kaganovich will be First Secretary of the
Central Committee, and Patolichev will be the Central
Committee Secretary in charge of agriculture."®
"Very well," I said. We
convened a Central Com-
mittee plenum in the Ukraine and ratified Stalin's
decision. Everyone went to his post and proceeded
with his duties. I told Kaganovich and Patolichev, "We
have to get ready for the sowing campaign. People are
starving. Cannibalism has broken out. If we don't
organize famine rehef there's no point in talking about
,

a sowing campaign."
We feared it might already be too late to secure a
good harvest in 1947 and to lay in grain for 1948. We
asked Stalin for aid and received a certain amount of
seed and food rations from Moscow. It was February.
The sowing had already started in some places in the
south. By March many collective farms all over the
Ukraine would be sowing. We would have to be fui-
ished with a massive sowing campaign in the Kiev
Region by April.
I said to Kaganovich, "Let's make up our minds
about what to do."
"We should make a tour of the Ukraine," he replied.
9. This was the most ominous setback for Khrushchev. It
meant only one thing: he was on the way out. N. S. Patolichev,
though Khrushchev does not mention it, was a Malenkov pro-
'>eg6, which made his appointment aU the more sinister from

EQirushchev's point of view. Incidentally, it was this Patolichev

ivho was head of the Yaroslavl tire factory referred to in Chap-
ter 4. After his Ukrainian appointment he fell into disgrace for
1 time, but survived to become in 1950 First Secretary of the

IJommunist Party of Belorussia. He also siu-vived the eclipse of

\Ialenkov in 1957 and became Minister of Foreign Trade in 1958.
 —
256 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

"Yes, but right now that's not the most important

thing. You haven't been in the Ukraine for a long time,
so you make a tour around the Republic. I'll stay in
Kiev. Right now it won't do much good for me to make
an appearance at a handful of collective farms. The
main thing is to rush the seed consignments out by
rail and get them to the farms where they're needed.
The success of the sovdng campaign depends on this."
So Kaganovich left and I stayed in Kiev like a tele-
phone dispatcher, trying to push through the seed, fuel,
and other supplies vital to the sowing campaign. There
was no thought of supplying mineral fertilizers because
we simply didn't have any.
Kaganovich made a trip to the Poltava Region. What
he saw there convinced him that, however honored
his position as First Secretary may have been, it was
also a grievously responsible position. He saw that
collective farmers were virtually blowing over in the
wind. They couldn't work, and many of them were
dying of starvation. After he returned to Kiev he
shared his impressions with me about one collective
farm in particular. He told me about its chairman, a
man named Mogilchenko. "I've never met anyone like
him," said Kaganovich, "He's so grim and stubborn.
I'm afraid he may really get a good harvest after all.'*
"And what's the matter with that?" I asked.
"Well, when I got to Mogilchenko's collective farm,
I saw they were using a shaUow-tillage method."
You'd have to know Kaganovich to imagine how he
would have barked at this collective farm chairman
"Why the hell are you plowing so shallow?"
Mogilchenko, who knew his business well, said, "I'm
plowing the way I should be plowing."
Kaganovich snapped back at him, "If you plow this
shallow, you'll end up having to beg for bread from
the State."
"Not me. Comrade Kaganovich, never," answered
Mogilchenko proudly. "I've never asked for bread
from the State. I myself give bread to the State. And
what's more, I don't care if you are First Secretary of
the Party; I'm going to keep plowing like this no
matter what you say. We'll sow these fields my way.
 FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE 257
iand we'll get a good harvest, you'll see." A
year later
I made a special trip to meet this Mogilchenko. His
collective farm was one of the most prosperous in the
country. It would deliver its quota to the State six
months or more in advance. All this disturbed Kagano-
vich very much. That's why he had said to me, "I'm
afraid this Mogilchenko really will have a good harvest
using shallow tillage."
I should mention that Kaganovich had a personal
stake in discrediting Mogilchenko; he had had a hand
in the struggle against the proponents of the shallow-
tillage method. People who used this method were
actually put on trial and in some cases even condemned
to death. The practice of shallow tillage had been de-
clared "against the law." The theory behind it had
been developed in Saratov by some professor who was
later punished. I think they put him in jail or maybe
worse.^^
From the very beginning of his activities in the
Ukraine, Kaganovich looked for every opportunity to
show off and to throw his weight around. He took it
into his mind to distinguish himself by making the
Ukraine exceed its industrial output plan, especially
for local industry.
I remember one Chairman of the Council
year, as
of Ministers for the Ukraine, I had to introduce to the
Ukrainian Politbureau the target figures which had
been proposed by the State Planning Commission. Ka-
ganovich very reluctantly agreed to accept this plan.
He thought the figures were too high and doomed us
to failure, and he didn't want to accept an output plan
which we would fall short of. He wanted one which
could be exceeded. It's much easier to put lower
figures into a plan and then shout later about how the
plan has been fulfilled and even exceeded. Unfortu-
nately, this is a very common device. I think it's still
used fairly widely today.
About this time I ran into some bad luck. I caught
a cold, and it developed into pneumonia. I had to lie

10. Another small example of the fatality attached to dis-

agreements about agricultural practice.
258 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

for a long time in an oxygen tent. I barely survived.

While I was sick, Kaganovich had a chance to do what-
ever he pleased without me
around, looking over his
shoulder. He bullied Patolichev so much that Patoli-
chev came to me while I was still sick in bed, just after
I had passed my crisis, and complained. "I can't take
being pushed around by Kaganovich any more," he
said. "I don't know what to do." I could see he had
been driven to his wits' end. Later he wrote a letter to
Comrade Stalin requesting that he be relieved of his
job because he couldn't work with Kaganovich. Patoli-
chev was released from his post in Kiev and transferred
to Rostov.
My health soon started to get better, but I stayed in
bed for another two months before returning to work.
After my recovery and resumption of my duties, my
own relations with Kaganovich went from bad to
worse. He became simply unbearable. He developed
his intensive activities in two directions: against the
so-called Ukrainian nationalists and against the Jews.
A Jew himself, Kaganovich was against the Jews! His
anti-Semitism was directed mainly against the Jews
who happened to be on friendly terms with me. For
instance, there was a newspaper editor in Kiev named
Traskunov. Kaganovich had him fired. He treated him
very badly. He mocked and taunted him. Traskunov
was an honest man. During the war he had been the
editor of one of the very best Front newspapers. I
knew him from the Yuzovka Workers' Faculty, where
he had edited the newspaper. I had also endorsed his
candidacy when he applied for Party membership. Ka-
ganovich punished Traskunov simply for his association
with me.
All the while Kaganovich was grinding out a steady
stream of pohtical complaints against everybody in
sight. As Chairman of the Ukrainian Council of Minis-
ters, I left the Party Secretariat to take care of them.
Many of Kaganovich's political complaints against
Party members found their way to Stalin in the form
of interofi&ce personnel reports. One day Stalin called
me and said, "Why isn't your signature on these
memoranda of Kaganovich's?"
 FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE 259

"Comrade Stalin, these memoranda aren't govern-

ment business, they're Party business: therefore my
signature isn't required."
"Not so. I've told Kaganovich that I won't accept
any more of his memoranda unless they're co-signed
by you."
Almost as soon as I hung up, the phone rang again,
[t was Kaganovich.

"Has Stalin called you yet?" he asked.

"Yes."
"Did he tell you?" He didn't even have to say what
about; we understood each other completely.
"Yes. He told me that now we're both supposed to
sign all memoranda."
The stream of official complaints from Kaganovich
soon dried up because he knew that he could never
?et me to sign them. That was certainly a welcome
ievelopment in itself, but the most important thing
about this story is that it shows that Stalin's trust in
cne had been restored. I took his telephone call as a
signal that I had been returned to good standing as a
member of the PoHtbureau. My
morale improved im-
measurably.^^
In the end we fulfilled our bread quota and delivered
—
something Uke 400 million pood of grain not an overly
impressive amount compared to the prewar level; but

11. In March, 1947, Khrushchev relinquished the First Secre-

iaryship of the Ukraine to Kaganovich. A week later he publicly
Dlamed the shortcomings of Ukrainian agriculture on his own
Ukrainian Minister of Agriculture. Ten days later he lost the
secretaryship of the Kiev Regional Party Committee. In June
le failed to appear at the Ukrainian Central Committee Plenum,
[t appeared that he had been stink without a trace. The fact

Jiat he was still nominally Prime Minister of the Ukraine and

i member of the Moscow Politbiireau proved nothing: on
several occasions Stalin kept senior lieutenants nominally "on
ihe strength" for some time after they had in fact been dis-
carded. Khrushchev now tells us that this period of total
sclipse was in fact due to illness, which may well have been so.
[t is only recently that the illnesses of members of the Soviet

Grovemment have been declassified from top secret. It was

December, 1947, that Kaganovich went back to Moscow and
Khrushchev, quite suddenly, reemerged in all the panoply of
power.
260 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

compared to what we'd started with after the war, it

wasn't a bad harvest at all.
In the fall Stalin transferred Kaganovich back to
Moscow.
My last year in the Ukraine was 1949. It was also
our best year. In inter-Republic competitions, we out-
stripped Belorussia and aU the other regions of the
Union which, like ourselves, were recovering from the
ravages of German occupation. Our agricultural suc-
cesses elevated the stature of the Ukraine and the<
prestige of the Ukrainian leadership in the eyes of the
whole country. I look back on that period v^th warm
memories. Stalin more than once instructed me to de-
liver reports on agricultural topics such as livestock
raising in the Ukraine, and on his instructions my
reports were reprinted in Pravda as examples for oth-
ers to follow. But far be it from me to take aU the
credit. I myself am a Russian and wouldn't want to
sHght the Russian people, but I must attribute our
success in the restoration of Ukrainian agriculture
and the reconstruction of Ukrainian industry to the
Ukrainian people themselves.
 8

Stalin's Last Years

The Leningrad Affair

Until Khrushchev's Secret Speech to the Twentieth

Party Congress, the so-called Leningrad Afair was
never publicly mentioned in the Soviet Union. All that
the outer world knew was that soon after the sudden
death in 1948 of Andrei Zhdanov, the Leningrad Party
chieftain and at one time the most likely successor to
Stalin, there was a vicious and large-scale purge of the
Leningrad apparatus and of Zhdanov's supporters in
Moscow and elsewhere. A. A. Kuznetsov, a Secretary
of the Central Committee, long Zhdanov's number two
in Leningrad and a hero of the wartime siege, was
executed; so were all the Leningrad City and Regional
Party secretaries, together with M. I. Rodionov, Prime
Minister of the Russian Federal Republic, and many
more besides. N. A. Voznesensky, the brilliant youn^
Chairman of State Planning, who seemed to have the
world at his feet, was also shot at this time. A. N.
Kosygin, another Leningrader, now Prime Minister of
the Soviet Union, escaped with a temporary demotion.
The chief and immediate beneficiary of this bloody
operation was Malenkov, for whom the death of his
rival, Zhdanov, had been providential. Malenkov men
at once moved to the front in Leningrad and in some
Moscow appointments too. Khrushchev is almost cer-
tainly right in suggesting that Stalin brought him back
to Moscow from Kiev at the end of 1949 to act as a
counterweight to Malenkov, who was becoming too
strong. It may be doubted, however, whether Stalin
was immediately planning to replace Malenkov with
261
262 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS '

Kuznetsov. It is far more likely that with Zhdanov

dead, Malenkov, assisted hy Beria, decided to move in
on the Zhdanov empire and succeeded in poisoning
Stalin's mind against the Leningraders, who were at
least potential rivals. Be that as it may, Malenhov's
position was temporarily strengthened and his chief
rival from now on was to he Khrushchev, ,a

I
My from the Ukraine back to Moscow at the^
transfer
end of 1949 was partly a consequence of the sickness
which began to envelop Stalin's mind in the last years
of his life.
One day when I was in Lvov, conducting a meeting
among the students at the forestry institute, where the
writer Galan had been murdered by Ukrainian na-
tionalists, I suddenly got a call from Malenkov. He
said that Stalin wanted me to come to Moscow.
"How urgent is it?" I asked.
"Very. Get a plane first thing tomorrow morning."
I left ready for anything, trying to anticipate all
sorts of impleasant surprises. I didn't know what my
status would be when I returned to the Ukraine or —
even if I would return at all. But my fears turned out
to be unfounded. Stalin greeted me warmly when I
arrived in Moscow.
"Tell me," he said, "don't you think you've been in
the Ukraine long enough? You're turning into a regu-
lar Ukrainian agronomist! It's time you came back to
Moscow to work. Our opinion is that you should take
up your old post as First Secretary of the Moscow City
and Regional Party committees."
I thanked him for his confidence in me and told him
I agreed that twelve years was a respectable term of
service in the Ukraine: "I've been treated well, and
I'm thankful to everyone who has helped me with the
supervision of the Ukraine. But I vdll nonetheless be
glad to get back to Moscow."
"Good. We need you here. Things aren't going very
well. Plots have been uncovered. You are to take
charge of the Moscow organization so that the Central
Committee can be sure to count on the local Party
structure for support in the struggle against the con-
 .

Stalin's last years 263

spirators.So far, we've exposed a conspiracy in Lenin-

grad, and Moscow, too, is teeming with anti-Party
elements. We want to make the city a bastion for the
Central Committee."
"I'll do everything in my power."
"Good. Here's an important letter which has fallen
into our hands. Familiarize yourself with its contents,
and we'll talk about it after you've moved up here."
He handed me a lengthy document. There was a list
of signatures at the end, but it read like an anonymous-
ly written statement. It said that there existed in
Moscow a group of people who were conspiring against
the Central Committee, and it named Popov,^ Secretary
of the Moscow and Central committees as the leader
of the group, which consisted of district committee
secretaries, factory directors, and engineers. My im-
mediate reaction was that either a madman or a scoun-
drel must be behind these charges. Whoever he was,
his intentions were obviously malicious. I put the
document in my safe and decided not to mention it
again unless Stalin brought the subject up himself. I
felt the longer I let the matter rest, the better.
I went back to Kiev to arrange for my transfer.
When got home Wanda Lvovna and Komeichuk
I
came by to see me at my apartment.^ I told them about
my new assignment, and Wanda Lvovna Hterally broke
down and burst into tears.
"How can you go? How can you leave the Ukraine?"
she wailed. Here was a Polish woman bewailing the
departure of a Russian from the Ukraine!
I convened a plenum in Kiev at which we elected a
new leadership for the Ukraine. I was in a rush to get
back to Moscow because Stalin had asked me to be
sure to return in tune for his seventieth birthday
celebration, which was on the twenty-first of Decem-
ber, 1949.
Shortly after I was officially installed as First Secre-

1. It was into his shoes as Moscow Party chief

G. M. Popov.
that Khrushchev now stepped on his retiim from the Ukraine.
2. A. Komeichuk was a prominent Ukrainian writer-politician
much favored by the Party establishment (see page 153)
 264 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

tary of the Moscow Committee,^ Stalin raised the

subject of the letter which he had given me to look
over.
"Did you familiarize yourself with that document I
gave you?" He was watching me intently.
"Yes. I famiUarized myself with it."
"Well?" As he said this, his eyes narrowed and bored
into mine; then he tossed his nose into the air and
—
snorted it was one of his favorite mannerisms.
"The letter must have been put together by scoun-
drels or madmen," I said.
"What!" He never Uked it when someone seemed to
have less than absolute faith in statements that exposed
and denounced conspiracies.
"Comrade Stalin, I'm one hundred percent certain
that the charges made in the letter have nothing what-
soever to do with reality. I am personally acquainted
with many of the people who are named as conspirators
in it. They are all honest, loyal men. I'm sure that
Popov is no conspirator. No doubt he's handled him- •

self stupidly and his work hasn't been up to snuff, but

he couldn't be involved in any sort of plot. He's an
honest man. I've never had any doubts about him, and
this letter doesn't change my opinion of him in the
shghtest."
My air of certainty must have had some effect on
Stalin. He
looked at me closely and said, "You mean
you don't think this document should be taken seri-
ously?"
"Absolutely not, Comrade Stalin. Of course, I don't
know for sure, but my guess is that it's the work of a
provocateur."
He cursed angrily, but he let the matter drop. Clear-
ly, it would have been easy enough for me to have
improved my own and to have won Stalin's
position
confidence simply by supporting the fabricated charges
in the letter. All I would have had to do was say:

3. When he returned to Moscow at the end of 1949, Khru-

shchev was, of course, much more than First Secretary of the
Moscow Party Committee. He was still a member of the Polit-
bureau, and he was now put on the Central Committee Secre-
tariat, too.
 Stalin's last years 265

"Yes, Comrade Stalin, this looks serious. We'd

better
investigate." That's all the encouragement Stalin would
have needed to order Popov and all the others ar-
rested. They would have confessed, of course, and we
would have had a conspiracy trial in Moscow every bit
as disgraceful as the one in Leningrad. And I would
have gotten credit as the man whose vigilance made it
possible to stamp out the plot at its roots.
Even though Popov was saved for the moment, I
knew Stalin would be looking for a chance to do him
in. He wouldn't rest until Popov was out of the way.
I suggested we transfer Popov out of Moscow. We
found him a job as director of a large factory in
Kuibyshev.
Stalin would occasionally remember the charges
made in the letter, and he'd ask menacingly, "Where's
that Popov, anyway?"
"He's in Kuibyshev," we would answer.
Stalin would then calm down, but he must have
wondered to himself from time to time: "Maybe Khru-
shchev was wrong. Maybe Popov is plotting against
me." I later found out that Popov had denoimced me
bitterly after we got him out of Moscow. He must not
have known that if it hadn't been for me, he would
have been dead. Td saved him at considerable risk to
myself, by the way. I was running the chance that if
Stalin didn't trust me, he might take it into his head
that I was involved in the conspiracy with Popov.
Popov was too blind to know who his real friends were,
and he turned against someone who had gone out on
a limb for him.
After taking up my job in Moscow I could see that
my arrival on the scene got in the way of Beria and
Malenkov's plans. I even began to suspect that one of
the reasons Stalin had called me back to Moscow was
to influence the balance of power in the collective and
to put a check on Beria and Malenkov. It seemed some-
times that Stalin was afraid of Beria and would have
been glad to get rid of him but didn't know how to do
it. Naturally, Stalin never told me this, but I could
266 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

sense it.* Stalin certainly treated me well. He seemed

to trust and value me. Even though he frequently

criticized me, he gave me support when I needed it,
and I appreciated that very much. I was constantly
running up against Beria and Malenkov. Malenkov
had become a member of the Politbureau after the war.
Essentially, he was a typical oflSce clerk and paper-
pusher. Such men can be the most dangerous of all if
given any power. They'll freeze and kill anything that's
aUve if it oversteps its prescribed boundaries.
Meanwhile the hunt was on m
Leningrad. I don't
know how Stalin himself really felt about the Lenin-
grad affair. He never spoke to me about it, except
when he touched on the matter of the "Moscow con-
spirators" in connection with my transfer from the
Ukraine. The people arrested in Moscow were mostly
Party workers who had been promoted by Zhdanov
from the Gorky organization to the Moscow organiza-
tion.^
By the time I started working as the Central Com-
mittee Secretary responsible for the Moscow organiza-
tion, A. A. Kuznetsov —
the Leningrad Kuznetsov, as
—
we always called him ^had already been arrested, and
the Leningrad Party organization was being torn to
shreds. The campaign was concentrated against a
troika [threesome] of promising young men: Kuzne-
tsov, Voznesensky, and Kosygin. I more or less knew
Kuznetsov, and knew Voznesensky very well. He
I
still hadn't been arrested when I arrived in Moscow,
but he had been removed from all his posts. He was
out of work and was expecting them to come for him
any day.
For a period after Voznesensky was put on ice, he
still used to come to dinner at Stalin's. He was a
changed man. He wasn't the same bright, self-assured.

4. There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that Stalin was

in fact turning against Beria at this time.
5. Andrei Zhdanov had been the Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod)
Party Secretary until he was sent to Leningrad to take over
from the murdered Kirov. He had brought some of his pro-
teges to Leningrad with him and managed to get others well
placed in Moscow.
 STALESr'S LAST YEARS 267

tough-minded Voznesensky I'd known earlier. In fact,

it was
precisely these virtues which had been his un-
doing. While Chairman of State Planning, he had been
brave enough to tangle with Beria. He had sought to
redistribute the country's economic resources more
evenly, and this meant taking money away from cer-
tain commissariats which enjoyed Beria's patronage.
Beria had many commissariats under him, and he
always demanded that they receive much more than
their share of funds. Beria was extremely powerful
because of his closeness to Stalin. You'd have to have
seen Beria's Jesuitical shrewdness in action to imagine
how he was able to pick the exact moment when he
could turn Stalin's goodwill or ill will for someone
to his own advantage. Voznesensky dared to cross
Beria's path, and before Beria finished with him,
Voznesensky was just a shadow of his former self.^
I remember that more than once during this period
StaHn asked Malenkov and Beria, "Isn't it a waste not
letting Voznesensky work while we're deciding what
to da with hun?"
"Yes," they would answer, "let's think it over."
Some time would pass and Stalin would bring up
the subject again: "Maybe we should put Voznesen-
sky in charge of the State Bank. He's an economist, a
real financial wizard."
No one objected, but nothing happened. Voznesen-
sky was still left hanging.
Stalin obviously felt a certain residual respect for
Voznesensky. Before the whole Leningrad affair
started he had nourished high hopes for that troika of
bright young men and had been systematically
in fact
promoting them before the "plot" was "exposed."
Kuznetsov once seemed destined to replace Malenkov.
Voznesensky had been made a first deputy of Stalin's
and was often entrusted with the job of presiding over
the Council of Ministers. Kosygin had been given a
responsible post in charge of trade and finance. It's

6. The shooting of N. A. Voznesensky, the most up-and-

coming of the yoimger generation, has always been associated
with the Leningrad affair, but Khrushchev gives here, for the
first time, a plausible account of what happened.
258 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

my opinion that the downfall of these men was de-

tennined by precisely this fact: Stalin had been pre-
paring them as successors to the Kremlin Old Guard
— which meant that Beria first and foremost, then
Malenkov, Molotov, and Mikoyan, no longer enjoyed
Stalin's confidence J It's difficult for me to say exactly
how the Old Guard managed to undermine Stalin's
confidence in these young men and how he was, to
put it crudely, sicced on them. I can only offer the
conclusions which I reached on the basis of my own
observations and on the basis of remarks which I over-
heard in conversations between Malenkov and Beria.
I could plainly see how Beria and Malenkov be-
haved with Stalin when the names of these three
young men were mentioned. I quickly formed the
impression that Beria and Malenkov were doing every-
thing they could to wreck this troika of Kuznetsov,
Voznesensky, and Kosygin. As I've already mentioned,
Beria was the most accomplished, at undermining
Stalin's confidence in others, and he had Malenkov to
use as a battering ram. Malenkov sat on the Central
Committee Secretariat and had access to all the in-
formation which was given to Stalin. He could manip-
ulate it in such a way as to provoke Stalin's anger
and distrust.
Beria and Malenkov's scheming against the Lenin-
grad troika involved another, earlier case, that of A. L
Shakhurin, who was already in jail when the impris-
onment of the Leningraders began in earnest. He had
been People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry
during the war. I'd known him very well when he was
a Party organizer for the Central Committee in charge
of the Thirtieth Aviation Factory. While I was in the
Ukraine, Shakhurin was arrested for having allegedly
allowed the production of defective airplanes during

This is going too far. It seems probable that Khrushchev

7.
is anticipating Stalin's plans. It is much more likely that Malen-
kov and Beria resented the rise of A. A. Kuznetsov, G. M. Popov,
and N. A. Voznesensky and successfully intrigued for their
destruction. With the top men safely eliminated, it followed as
night follows day (according to time -honored Soviet custom)
that all their assistants and proteges would be destroyed.
ip Stalin's last years 269

the war. Malenkov later told me that Vasya [Vasily]'

Stalin, who was a pilot, had denounced Shakhurin to
his father, and Stalin had ordered an investigation.^
Malenkov was indirectly implicated in the Shakhurin
case himself. Part of his job during the war had been
to supervise the aviation industry, which made him
responsible for the bad job being done by the People's
Conmiissar. There was some justice here because the
drive for quantity during the war certainly had been
conducted at the expense of quality. Anyway, Sha-
khurin was thrown in prison, and Malenkov wais dis-
charged from the Central Committee Secretariat and
—
sent somewhere in Central Asia to Tashkent, I think.
Beria used his influence to get Stalin to let Malenkov
come back to Moscow, and the two of them, Beria and
Malenkov, had been inseparable ever since.
Aviation Marshal A. A. Novikov was also in jail
at the beginning of the Leningrad affair.® He'd been
arrested after the war for having accepted defective
airplanes. He, too, was reportedly denounced by Vasya
Stalin. I knew Novikov well. He commanded the Red
Army air force through most of the war and had
visited our command post during the battle of Stalin-
grad. He had his faults. He drank more than was

8. Stalin's son was notorious for his arrogant and vindictive

nature. He was also an alcoholic. He presiimed excessively on
his heredity, and his elevation to be a lieutenant general in the
air force was flagrant nepotism. Stalin himself was compelled
to remove him from the command of the Moscow Military Dis-
trict air arm shortly before his death. Svetlana Alliluyeva in
Twenty Letters to a Friend confirms that Vasily was respon-
sible for the disgrace and imprisonment of Marshal A. A.
Novikov, commander in chief of the Soviet air force. After
Stalin's death Vasily was sentenced to eight years' imprison^
ment by a military tribunal because of this and other offenses.
He was released before serving his term largely because Khru-
shchev took pity on him and "treated him like a father." He
was given back his air force rank, his Party membership, and
his pension, but had another spell in prison, then was released
again to drink himself to death in 1962.
9. Novikov was a first-class commander who was also a
brilliant pUot and an attractive man. The fact that he and Shak-
hurin could be broken and imprisoned by this sort of intrigue is
a fair commentary on life in. Stalin's Russia.
270 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

probably good for him, but he was a devoted, honest,

and honorable man.
Apparently even after these arrests, Stalin felt a
certain amount of goodwill toward Shakhurin and
Novikov. He used to turn to Beria and Malenkov
during dinner and ask, "Say, are Shakhurin and
Novikov still in jail?"
"Yes."
"Don't you think it might be all right to release

them?" But Stalin was asking the question to himself.

He was just thinking out loud. No one would say
anything, and the matter would be left up in the air
until some time later when he'd bring it up again.
Once he even went so far as to say, "You should give
serious thought to releasing Shakhurin and Novikov.
What good are they doing us in jail? They can still
work." He always directed these remarks to Malenkov
and Beria because they were in charge of the case
against Shakhurin and Novikov.
After dinner at Stalin's we used to collect in the
bathroom to wash our hands. It was a big, roomy bath-
room, and we sometimes stood around in there before
—
and after sessions we always called dinners with
—
Stalin "sessions" discussing what needed to be done
and what the consequences of a session were likely to
be. Once I overheard Beria say to Malenkov in the
bathroom, "Stalin's brought up the subject of those
two aviators again. You know, if they're released, it
could spread to others."
What did Beria mean, "It could spread to others"?
Who were "the others"? Beria must have been afraid
that if Shakhurin and Novikov were released, Stalin
might return to the matter of Kuznetsov and Voz-
nesensky. He might start thinking about having them
released before they were brought to trial. Malenkov
and Beria were afraid that if Kuznetsov and Voz-
nesensky, who were considered the ringleaders of the
Leningrad plot, were released, the campaign against
the whole Leningrad organization might collapse.
Therefore Malenkov and Beria did everything they
could to keep Shakhurin and Novikov in jail. They
 STALIN S LAST YEARS 271

succeeded, and consequently the Leningraders weren't

released either.
I never saw the indictments in the Leningrad case,
—
but I assume also on the basis of conversations I
overheard between Malenkov and Beria ^that the—
charges against Kuznetsov's group were Russian na-
tionalism and opposition to the Central Committee.
The investigation began. And who directed the inves-
tigation? Stalin himself did. But if Stalin was the con-
ductor, then Beria was the first violinist. Why do I
say that? Because [V. S.] Abakimiov, who actually
supervised the prosecution, was Beria's man; he never
reported to anyone, not even to Stalin, without check-
ing first with Beria.
I was never really in on the case myself, but I admit
that I may have signed the sentencing order. In those
—
days when a case was closed and if Stalin thought it
—
necessary he would sign the sentencing order at a
Politbureau session and then pass it around for the
rest of us to sign. We would put our signatures on it
without even looking at it. That's what was meant by
"collective sentencing."
In comparison with Stalin's usual method for deal-
ing with enemies of the people, the Leningrad case
was a model of justice. It gave the appearance of
being handled in accordance with all the proper
judicial procedures. Investigators conducted the inves-
tigation, a prosecutor handled the prosecution, and a
court trial was held. The active members of the Len-
ingrad organization were invited to observe when the
accused were interrogated in the courtroom. Then the
accused were given a chance to say something in their
defense before the sentence was read.
I was with Stalin when he was told about what
Voznesensky said just before it was announced that
he had been sentenced to be shot. Voznesensky stood
up and spewed hatred against Leningrad. He cursed
the day he had set foot in the city when he came there
to study from the Donbass. He said that Leningrad
had already had its share of conspiracies; it had been
subjected to all varieties of reactionary influence, from
272 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Biron^^ to Zinoviev. Obviously he had lost his sanity.

It*s nonsense to talk about Biron and Zinoviev in one
breath, as though they were the same thing. Zinoviev
represented a poHtical view, conflicting with Stalin's,
on how to build SociaHsm in our country. You could
be either for him or against him. For my part, I always
stood for the Stalinist position and therefore fought
against Zinoviev and his followers. But Biron! ^he —
was something else altogether.
I don't know what Kuznetsov and the others said
in their last words, but whatever they said, it didn't
have any bearing on their fate. They had already been
sentenced a considerable time before the sentence was
officially passed and even before the trial began. In
fact, they had been sentenced by Stalin himself at the
time of their arrest.
Many people perished in Leningrad. So did many
people who had been transferred from Leningrad to
work in other regions.
As for Kosygin, his life was hanging by a thread.
Men who had been arrested and condemned in Len-
ingrad made ridiculous accusations against him in
their testimonies. They wrote all kinds of rot about
him. Kosygin was on shaky ground from the beginning
because he was related by marriage to Kuznetsov.
Even though he'd been very close to Stalin, Kosygin
was suddenly released from all his posts and assigned
to work in some ministry. The accusations against him
cast such a dark shadow over him that I simply can't
explain how he was saved from being eliminated along
with the others. Kosygin, as they say, must have
drawn a lucky lottery ticket, and this cup passed from
him [a favorite Khrushchevism] .^^

10. Biron was the notorious Count von Biihren, later Duke of
Courland, a German of fairly obscure origin who started as
the lover and secretary of the Empress Anna Ivanovna before
she came to the throne, and rose to become one of the most
hated tyrants in Russian history. He presumed too much and
finished up by being sent off to Siberia for twenty years.
11. Khrushchev is not alone in wondering how Kosygin
managed to escape with his life. It may well have been because,
although a prominent figure in the Leningrad organization,
Kosygin managed to keep out of Party intrigues and concen-
 Stalin's last years 273

In those days anything could have happened to any

one of us. Everything depended on what Stalin hap-
pened to be thinking when he glanced in your direc-
tion. Sometimes he would glare at you and say, "Why
don't you look me in the eye today? Why are you
averting your eyes from mine?" or some other such
stupidity. Without warning he would turn on you with
real viciousness.A reasonable interrogator wouldn't
behave with a hardened criminal the way Stalin be-
haved with friends whom he'd invited to eat with him
at his table.
Bulganin once described very well the experience
we all had to live with in those days. We were leaving
Stalin's after dinner one night and he said, "You come
to Stalin's table as a friend, but you never know if
you'll go home by yourself or if you'll be given a
—
ride to prison!" Bulganin was fairly drunk at the
time, but what he said accurately depicted how pre-
carious our position was from one day to the next.

StaUn's AntL'SemitLsm.

One most interesting aspects of this narrative

of the
is the way which Khrushchev goes out of his way
in
to condemn anti-Semitism. Guilt feelings must play
their part here. There is no evidence to indicate that
Khrushchev himself was ever committed actively to
anti-Semitic policies, hut tiyne and time again he is on
record as making disparaging remarks about Jews
and insisting that they should he kept in their place.
He may have heen horrified hy the pogroms of his
childhood, hut he did not like Jews, and as master of
the Ukraine, he kept silent ahout the mass-murdering
carried out hy the Nazis (including the massacre at
Bahi Yar on the outskirts of Kiev). In accordance with
Stalin's policy, which he later made his own, he re-

trate on administration and the industrial economy. Stalin

brought him back to be a candidate member of the enlarged
Presidium after the Nineteenth Party Congress in 1952.
274 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS 11

fused to admit that Jews had suffered more than non^

Jews on Soviet territory; he m,ust also have connived
at Stalin's own postwar deportation of Jews frorn the
Ukraine into deep Siberia. Everything he ha^ to say
about the fate of individual Jews in this period is true;
he might have said much more. It is interesting to get
the story of Mikhoels' murder officially confirmed and
to have an illunninating sidelight on the fate of poor
Lozovsky. None of this, incidentally, was mentioned
in the Secret Speech. Nor was the arrest and imprison^
ment of Molotov's wife. On the other hand, the Secret
Speech contained more information than occurs in this
chapter on Stalin's destruction of whole peoples in the
Crimea and the Caucasus (Tartars, Chechens, In-
gushes, and so on), as a punishment for "collabora-
tion" with the Germans. Khrushchev's own slapdash
attitude toward violence and arbitrary rule connes out
in this chapter, as in the earlier chapters on the great
purges. "I'm all for arresting people" he says, but with
the innplication that it should be done in the proper
form.

While we were still piishing the Germans out of the

Ukraine, an organization had been formed called the
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee of the Sovinform-
bureau [Soviet Bureau of Information]. It was set up

— —
for gathering materials ^positive materials, naturally
about our country, about the activities of our Soviet
Army against the common enemy, Hitlerite Germany,
and for the distribution of these materials to the
Western press, principally in America where there is
a large, influential circle of Jews. The committee was
composed of Jews who occupied high positions in the
Soviet Union and was headed by Lozovsky, a member
of the Central Committee and former chairman of
Profintern [the Trade Union International]. Another
member was Mikhoels, the most prominent actor of
the Yiddish theater. Yet another was Molotov's wife,
Comrade Zhemchuzhina. I think this organization was
first created at the suggestion of Molotov, although it
may have been Stalin's own idea. The Sovinform-
bureau and its Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were
P Stalin's last years 275

considered indispensable to the interests of our State,

our policies, and our Communist Party.^^
Lozovsky used to get in touch with me whenever I
came to Moscow, and sometimes he would call me on
the telephone asking for material to use as propaganda
about the Hitlerite fascists. I gave orders for the prep-
aration of such material over the signatures of various
authors, and it was sent to America, where it was
widely used to publicize the successes of the Red
Army and to expose the atrocities committed by the
Germans in the Ukraine. On the whole, Lozovsky's
activities were very worthwhile. He was an energetic
person and sometimes almost annoyingly persistent.
He used virtually to extort material from me, saying,
"Give me more material! More! More!" We were busy
with the reconstruction of the economy and didn't
have much time for such matters. He wouldn't let up
on me: "You must understand how important it is for
us to show the face of our common enemy to the
world, to expose his atrocities, and to show the process
of reconstruction which is taking place in our cities
and villages."
Once the Ukraine had been liberated, a paper was
drafted by members of the Lozovsky committee. It
was addressed to Stalin and contained a proposal that
the Crimea be made a Jewish Soviet Republic within

12. Lozovsky was well known to Western correspondents and

respected by them as the Soviet official spokesman. He simply
vanished in 1948 and was sadly missed. Soon it was known that
he had been shot, along with a number of Jewish writers, after
the sudden disbandment of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
Khrushchev's first reference to the "Crimean Affair" was in an
interview with a delegation of Canadian Communists in 1956.
The famous Jewish actor Mikhoels also vanished at this time.
It was soon known, though not admitted, that he had been
shot. He was the brother of one of the Kremlin doctors falsely
accused of poisoning activities and was himself built into the
so-called plot by the NKVD. Madame Molotova (Zhemchu-
zhina) had been an important figure in her own right, at one
time head of the State Cosmetic Tnist (which introduced per-
fxmies and lipstick to the Soviet young). Molotov had to stand
by and suffer her arrest and exile without murmurmg at the
very time when he was turning his iron front to the West in
the early days of the Cold War.
276 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

the Soviet Union after the deportation from the Cri-

mea of the Crimean Tartars. Stalin sav^r behind this
proposal the hand of American Zionists operating
through the Sovinformbureau. The committee mem-
bers, he declared, w^ere agents of American Zionism.
They were trying to set up a Jewish state in the
Crimea in order to wrest the Crimea away from the
Soviet Union and to establish an outpost of American
imperiaUsm on our shores which would be a direct
threat to the security of the Soviet Union. Stalin let
his imagination run wild in this direction. He was
struck wth maniacal vengeance. Lozovsky and Mi-
khoels were arrested. Soon Zhemchuzhina herself was
arrested. The investigation of the group took a long
time, but in the end almost all of them came to a
tragic end. Lozovsky was shot. Zhemchuzhina was
exiled. I thought at first she had been shot, too, be-
cause nothing of what had happened was reported to
anyone except Stalin, and Stalin himself decided whom
to execute and whom to spare.
I remember my advice about
Molotov calling to ask
this whole Apparently Zhemchuzhina had
affair.
pulled him into it. Molotov never did agree with Stalin
about the necessity for arresting Zhemchuzhina. When
the question of removing her from the staff of the
Central Committee came up at a Central Committee
plenum and everyone else voted aye, Molotov ab-
stained. He didn't vote nay, but he still abstained.
Stalin blew up at this, and the incident left its im-
print on Stalin's attitude toward Molotov. He started
kicking Molotov around viciously. Kaganovich's
maliciousness was a particularly good l^arometer of
Molotov's precarious position. Incited by Stalin, Ka-
ganovich played the part of a vicious cur who was un-
leashed to tear limb from limb any member of the
Politbureau toward whom he sensed Stalin's coolness,
and Kaganovich was turned loose on Molotov.
I didn't find out that Zhemchuzhina was stiQ alive
until after Stalin's death, when Molotov told me that
she was living in exile. We
all agreed she should be
freed. Beria released her and solemnly handed her
over to Molotov. Beria used to describe how Molotov
 STALIN*S LAST YEARS 277

came to his office at the Ministry of Internal Affairs to

be reunited with Zhemchuzhina. Molotov was over-
joyed that she was still alive and threw himself into
her arms. Beria expressed his sympathy to Molotov
and Zhemchuzhina at the time, but he made a point of
reminding them that she had been freed on his ini-
tiative and he told this story with a touch of irony in
his voice.
A question of substance: was it necessary to create
a Jewish Union or autonomous Republic within the
Russian Federation or within the Ukraine? I don't
think it was. A Jewish autonomous Region had al-
ready been created which still nominally exists, so it
was hardly necessary to set one up in the Crimea.^^
But this question was never discussed in substance.
We had been conditioned to accept Stalin's reasoning,
and we gave in to his absolute authority. He contend-
ed that if a Jewish Republic were created in the Cri-
mea, then Zionism, which is rampant in America,
would gain a foothold in our country. That was all
there was to it. He had made up his mind, and he had
people arrested, arbitrarily and without any regard
for legal norms, regardless of the important and posi-
tive role which the accused had played during the war
in helping to bring to light the atrocities committed by
the Germans. Theirs had been constructive work, but
now it counted for nothing. They were deprived of
their liberty and in many cases their lives. I consider
the whole affair to have been a disgrace. Stalin could
have simply rejected their suggestion and rebuked
them. But no, he had to destroy all those who actively
supported the proposal. It was only by some miracle
that Zhemchuzhina stayed alive and got off with a long
term of exile. More typical was the cruel punishment
of Mikhoels, the greatest actor of the Yiddish theater,
a man of culture. They killed him Uke beasts. They
killedhim secretly. Then his murderers were reward-
ed and their victim was buried with honors. The mind

13. This refers to the Autonomous Republic of Birobidzhan in

Siberia, designated as a national home for Soviet Jews. It
never came to much. Understandably, the Jews took to it only
in small numbers.
278 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

reels at the thought! It was announced that Mikhoels

had fallen in front of a truck. Actually he was thrown
in front of a truck. This was done very cleverly and
efficiently. And whodid it? Stalin did it, or at least
it was done on his instructions. After Stalin's death,
when we opened the archives of the Ministry of State
Security and interrogated Beria's men, we found out
that they had planned to miu-der Litvinov [Molotov's
predecessor as foreign minister] by a similar method.
Litvinov was to have been ambushed and killed om
the road while he was traveling from Moscow to his
dacha.^*
Later, a group of Jews at the Stalin Automobile
Factory were put on trial. In this case, too, Stalin was
looking for schemes of American imperialism operat-
ing through Zionists. It was all pure nonsense, of
course. But this was the sort of thing that happened
as a result of Stalin's arbitrary rule and the absolute
absence of any restraints on his authority.
It stiQ seems inconceivable to me that this kind of
thing happened in our time. I'm all for arresting peo-
ple, but the accused should be given a fair trial and
exiled or imprisoned only if an honest approach to
their cases proves that they really are criminal or
political offenders. A
prosecution and a trial should
proceed according to the norms of the law. Trials
should be conducted in the open so there will be no
doubt in anyone's mind that the accused actually are
guilty. That way no one will come to the defense of
people who have been punished, and public opinion
will genuinely support the punitive agencies. In our
day we had people lifting up their voices in court,
vouching for the truth of accusations, beating their
breasts, and swearing that the accused were enemies
—
of the people all without any real knowledge about
what had happened. A
witness would endorse the ver-
dict and raise his hand, voting for the elimination of
the accused without really knowing about the facts

14. M. M. Litvinov, Soviet foreign minister, was replaced by

Molotov after the failure of his "collective security" drive in
1939. The story of his planned assassination is new. In the end
he died a natiiral death.
 Stalin's last years 279

of the alleged crime, much less the role of the alleged

criminal. These were not real trials anyway. They
were closed courts in the hands of troikas. And who
made up the troikas? Three men who arrested, prose-
cuted, and judged the accused all by themselves. Most
of the people who lost their heads in Stalin's time
were tried by this kind of court.
I've tried to give Stalin his due and to acknowledge
his merits, but there was no excuse for what, to my
—
mind, was a major defect in his character ^his hostile
attitude toward the Jewish people. As a leader and a
theoretician he took care never to hint at his anti-
Semitism in his written works or in his speeches. And
God forbid that anyone should quote publicly from
any private conversations in which he made remarks
that smelled sharply of anti-Semitism. When he hap-
pened to talk about a Jew, Stalin often imitated in a
well-known, exaggerated accent the way Jews talk.
This is the same way that thick-headed, backward
people who despise Jews talk when they mock the
negative Jewish traits. Stalin also hked to put on this
accent, and he was pretty good at it.
I remember when I was working in Moscow, some
kind of trouble at the Thirtieth Aviation Factory was
reported to Stalin through Party channels and by
State Security. During a meeting with Stalin, while
we were sitting around exchanging opinions, Stalin
turned to me and said, "The good workers at the
factory should be given clubs so they can beat the
hell out of those Jews at the end of the working day."
When he said this, I wasn't alone. Molotov, Beria, and
Malenkov were there. (However, Kaganovich was not
there. Stalin never permitted anti-Semitic remarks in
Kaganovich's presence.) I thought to myself, "What
is he sasdng? How can he say that?"
As we left the room, Beria asked me ironically,
"Well, have you received your orders?"
"Yes," I said, "I've received them. My father was
illiterate, but he never took part in a pogrom. It was
considered a disgrace. And now this directive is given
to me as a Secretary of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of the USSR."
280 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Even though Stalin had given me a direct order, I

knew that something like what he suggested were
if

done and if it were to become public knowledge, a I

commission would no doubt be appointed and the
culprits would be severely pimished. Stalin would
have stopped at nothing to punish anti-Semitism pub-
licly. Orders or no orders, he would have strangled
anyone whose actions would have discredited his
name, especially with something as indefensible and
shameful as anti-Semitism. There were many conver-
sations like the one about the Thirtieth Aviation Fac-
tory, and we became accustomed to them. We listened
to what Stalin told us and then put it out of our heads
right away.
After I was transferred from the Ukraine to Mos-
cow, my successor as First Secretary in the Ukraine,
Melnikov, and Korotchenko were with me in Mos-
cow.^*^ Stalin invited us to the Nearby Dacha for
dinner. He pressed them to drink and achieved his
goal. Melnikov and Korotchenko were at Stalin's for
the first time. They drank eagerly; they considered
it an honor that Stalin was entertaining them. I knew
Stalin better than they did. I knew that he liked to
get people drunk and that hospitality wasn't the main
thing he had in mind. He was interested in getting his
guests into a state where their tongues would be
loosened. He wanted them to start blabbing out things
which they would have thought twice about if they'd
been sober. I sat there nervously while this was going
on. I had to answer for Melnikov since I had siun-
moned him to Moscow. There's nothing much to say
about Korotchenko. I knew him to be an honest but
a very limited man. At that time Stalin couldn't seem
to keep his anti-Semitism hidden, and he started to
make anti-Semitic remarks. Melnikov's own attitudes
made him most receptive. He was ripe for just the

15. Korotchenko was a high-powered figure who stood at

Khrushchev's right hand in the Ukraine, became Prime Minister
of the Ukraine in 1947, President of the Ukraine in 1954, and
was for a time a candidate member of the Central Committee
Presidiimi. Mehiikov succeeded Khrushchev as Ukrainian First
Secretary.
 STALIN*S LAST YEARS 281

sort of thing Stalin started sajdng. He and Korotchen-

ko let their jaws drop and listened to Stalin without
saying a word. The dinner ended and we left. Melni-
kov and Korotchenko went back to the Ukraine.
After my transfer to Moscow, the Politbureau of the
Central Committee passed a resolution instructing me
to keep an eye on the activities of the Ukrainian Com-
munist Party. In this capacity I received all the
Ukrainian newspapers. I checked the central papers,
and my assistants handled the others, reporting to me
anything that deserved attention. Shortly after that
dinner at Stalin's dacha my assistant Shuisky brought
me a Ukrainian newspaper and showed me an edi-
torial criticizing some defects and deficiencies. Sixteen
names were singled out for criticism in this editorial,
and they were all Jewish. I read it and became indig-
nant. How could this kind of thing be permitted? I
immediately imderstood which way the wind was
blowing. Melnikov and Korotchenko, who were typical
Ukrainians, had taken it into their heads that Stalin
was launching a criticism campaign against the Jewish
people. Thinking they were following Stalin's lead,
they had started to act on their own. I telephoned
Melnikov and said, "I've read your editorial. You
should be ashamed. How dare you let this sort of
thing get into the newspaper! Why, this is an invoca-
tion of anti-Semitism! Why are you doing this? I
know what you're thinking, but you misunderstood
Stalin. Keep it in mind that if Stalin should read this
editorial — ^well, I don't know what will happen to you
as Secretary of the Central Committee of the Ukraine.
Here is the central organ of the Ukrainian Party
preaching anti-Semitism! How can you fail to see that
this is ammunition for our enemies to use against us?
Our enemies will exploit this disgrace and say that the
Ukraine is raising the banner of the struggle against
the Jews, the banner of anti-Semitism!"^®

16. In referring to MelnikoVs anti-Semitic activity, Khru-

shchev ignores l£at fact that there was a mass deportation of
Jews from the Ukraine soon after the war, when Khrushchev
was in charge.
282 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Melnikov started to justify himself. Then he began

sobbing. I didn't let up on him: "If this scandal con-
tinues any further, I will report it to Stalin myself."
Of course, I was taking a risk because I had no guar-
antee that our telephone conversations weren't being
monitored. And I wasn't certain that Melnikov
wouldn't write to Stalin himself, saying that Khru-
shchev was giving him directives contradictory to those
which he had received from Stalin when he was at
Stalin's dacha. Stalin would never have stood for that
from me.
A little later Nina Petrovna [Madame Khrushche-
va] received a letter from Kiev and told me another
story which relates to Melnikov and anti-Semitism.
In Kiev there is a clinic for children with tubercu-
losis of the bone. The head of this clinic was Pro-
fessor Frumina. In the days when we lived in Kiev,
before I was transferred to Moscow, Professor Fru-
mina was often at our apartment. She treated my son
Seryozha [affectionate form of Sergei] when he had
tuberculosis, and she cured him. Now
Sergei has no
signs of the disease. He is completely recovered. We
attribute this mainly to Frumina. Another specialist
in tuberculosis of the bone, an academician in Lenin-
grad, had told Nina Petrovna that there was no better
specialist for dealing with this disease than Frumina.
Then, after we moved to Moscow, Frumina wrote Nina
Petrovna a letter teUing us that she had been fired
from her job at the clinic. The reason given was that
she lacked the necessary qualifications. I was indig-
nant and telephoned Melnikov again. I said, "How
—
could you allow this? How is this possible to dis-
charge so deserving a person, and with such an ex-
cuse? How can you say she's not qualified when this
academician in Leningrad says that no one knows
more than she does about tuberculosis of the bone?
Who could have evaluated her differently and said she
isn't qualified?"Mehiikov started to justify himself.
In cases like this there are always people available
who will assure you that everything has been handled
correctly. I said, "You're simply disgracing the name
of Communism!" As I recall, Frumina was restored in
 STALIN S LAST YEARS 283

her position, but the outrage of anti-Semitism has per-

sisted.
Why does this shameful phenomenon keep cropping
up? Partly it's because anti-Semitism was very much
with us in the old days and it's hard to get rid of. The
older generation remembers countless pogroms, and
it remembers Vladimir Purishkevich, who was the

leading representative of the Black Hundreds in the

Duma [Tsarist Parliament].^'''
In my childhood in the Donbass, I once witnessed a
pogrom with my own eyes. I went to school four
versts [two and two-thirds miles] from the mine
where my father worked. One day I was coming home
from school. It was a lovely, sunny, autumn day, with
spiderwebs flying about in the air like snow. We were
barefoot that day, like every day from spring until
late autumn. Every villager dreamed of owning a pair
of boots. We children were lucky if we had a decent
pair of shoes. We wiped our noses on our sleeves and
kept our trousers up with a piece of string. It was a
beautiful day, and we were in a carefree mood. My
schoolmates and I met a man driving a wagon. When
he saw us he stopped and started to weep. "Children,"
he said, "if only you knew what they're doing in
Yuzovka!" We started to walk faster. As soon as I
arrived home, I threw down my book bag and ran all
the way Yuzovka. When I approached the town, I
to
saw a huge crowd lined up on top of the heaps of iron
ore that were being stored next to the railway tracks.
The ore had been brought there from Krivoi Rog for
use in the blast furnaces during the winter. The sides
of these red mounds of iron ore were crisscrossed by
footpaths which the miners used coming to and from
the market in Yuzovka. I saw that the Cossacks had
already arrived. A bugle started to blow. I had never
seen soldiers before. We had no soldiers in Yuzovka,

17. Theso-called Black Hundreds were extreme reactionary

organizations, supplied with Tsarist secret police funds, whose
mission was to terrorize supporters of reformist and revolu-
tionary movements as well as Jews. The most successful and
vicious of these organizations, responsible for the worst po-
groms, was the Union of Russian People.
284 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

SO it was all When the

an exciting novelty for me.
bugle started to blow, the old soldiers among the
workers around me explained it was the signal to get
ready to open fire and any minute we would hear the
first fusillade. The mob surged to the south side of the
slope, but the soldiers didn't let the workers into the
city. A volley of rifle fire rang out. Someone shouted
that they were shooting into the air. Someone else
shouted that they were shooting with blanks and that
only one or two soldiers were shooting with live
bullets, just to scare the Jews a little. Everyone was
inventing his own version of what was happening.
The crowd dispersed late in the evening. The workers
from our mine were bragging the next day about how
many boots and other trophies they'd picked up dur-
ing the looting. One man said he had made off with ten
pairs of boots. Some of the miners were telling about
how the "yids" marched around calling the Russians
abusive names, carrying banners, and bearing their
"yid tsar" on their shoulders. When the Russians at-
tacked them with clubs, he hid in a leather factory.
The Russians set this factory on fire, and the "yid
tsar" was burned alive inside.
The day after the pogrom started I ran straight from
school to Yuzovka to see what was going on here.
There was still a lot of looting. I saw clock repair
shops which had been broken into, and feathers were
flying along the streets where the looters were ripping
open mattresses and shaking the feathers out the win-
dows of Jewish homes.
Then a rumor started that there had been a decree
that for three days you could do whatever you wanted
to the Jews. For three days there was no check on the
looting. After the three days were up, the police, who
along with the Black Hundreds had taken advantage
of the workers' primitive mentality to incite the po-
grom in the first place, started to restore order. But
nothing was done about all the looting and rampage.
The powers who had decreed the pogrom kept their
word: three days had been put at the disposal of the
Black Hundreds, and all the pillage and murder went
impunished. I heard that many of the Jews who had
 Stalin's last years 285

been beaten were in the factory infirmary. I decided

to go there and have a look with one of my friends,
another httle boy. We found a horrible scene. The
corpses of Jews who had been beaten to death were
l5dng in rows on the floor.
Later the workers came to their senses. They real-
ized that the pogroms were a provocation staged
against the people by the tsarist poHce. The workers
realized that the Jews were not their enemies when
they saw that many leaders of the factory strikes were
Jews, and the main speakers whom the workers eager-
ly listened to at political meetings were Jews.
In the late fall my father's brother Martin took me
with him from the mines to the village. My mother
and father sent me with him because they wanted me
to be close to the soil. Before taking a job in the mines,
my father had been a farmhand. We had been poor
then, and we were poor now. My mother earned extra
money by taking in washing. I used to make a few
kopeks cleaning boilers after school and on Saturdays.
Both my father and mother, but particularly my
mother, dreamed of the day when they could return to
the village, to a little house, a horse, and a piece of
land of their own. That's why I hved sometimes with
my father at the pit and sometimes with my grand-
father in a village in Kursk Province. I left for the
village when the strikes started in the Donbass. Red
flags were and huge meetings were taking
flying,
place. When I returned to tov^m from the village, I
was told about all that had happened. I was told about
the organizers and leaders of the strikes. I noticed
that the large majority of them had Jewish names.
People were saying good things about these orators.
The workers all spoke warmly of them. Thus, the
workers realized they had been duped into taking part
in the pogroms, and they were ashamed of themselves
for not resisting the Black Himdreds and disguised
policemen who organized the persecution of the Jews.
Years later, after Stalin came to power, instead of
setting an example of how to liquidate anti-Semitism
at its roots, he helped spread it. Anti-Semitism grew
like a growth inside Stalin's own brain. Then, after
286 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Stalin's death, we arrested the spread a bit, but only

arrested Unfortunately, the germs of anti-Semitism
it.

remained in our system, and apparently there still

isn't the necessary discouragement of it and resistance
to it. My guards aren't bad fellows, but anti-Semitism
crops up even in my conversations with them.

Stalin s Theoretical Writings

Here KhTushchev touches on an aspect of Stalin which I

was incomprehensible to his entourage. Stalin wished h

to leave his mark on Communist theory (he was, after

all, highly literate and had been trained as a seminar^
ian), and he felt the need to establish theoretical jus-
tification for certain of his actions. Stalin's operatioTis
in the field of linguistics, Greek to Khrushchev, im-
portant for an understanding of Stalin's mentality,
were scarcely noticed in the West. The Georgian schol-
ar referred to must have been a disciple of the linguist
Professor N. Y. Marr.
In the summer of 1950, Stalin who had made no
public utterance for years (with the exception of oc-
casional answers to questions of privileged journalists)
suddenly burst into print in Pravda with a long and
abstruse article about the falseness of the theories of
Marr (of whom not one Pravda reader in a million had
—
ever heard) and then followed it up with "answers
to correspondents," in which he elaborated his own
ideas. Pravda readers were bewildered, but the es-
sence was this: Marr, with official approval, had ar-
gued in Marxist terms that language was an aspect of
the superstructure of society and would change as
society changed; that is, in due course, with the global
advance of Communism, language differences would
wither away and there would be one universal lan-
guage. Stalin decided it was time to put a stop to
woolly internationalism of this kind. The language of
the future would be Russian. It was necessary, there-
fore, toprove in Marxist terms that language was an
aspect of the unchanging base of society, not of its
 Stalin's last years 287

swperstructure. Far from getting nothing out of this

joray into linguistics, as Khrushchev suggests, Stalin
must have derived extreme satisfaction from, a theo-
retical exercise in the grand manner.
The second example of Stalin's theorizing, to which
Khru^shchev here refers, was delivered to the world
on the eve of the ISlineteenth Party Congress as a
pamphlet entitled The Economics of Socialism. The
speakers at the Congress, the delegates too, must have
been given this to digest before it was finally pub-
lished. None of them seems to have made much of it.
It was a long and dreary polemic, but it contained one
line of thought of great importance for the future.
Until October, 1952, Stalin had to all appearances ac-
cepted Lenin's thesis that the way to world revolution
—
must lead through wars wars seen as stresses in the
disintegration of capitalist society. He clung to this ar-
ticle of faith long after the advent of the atom bcnnb
had made nonsense of it. But in his Economics of
Socialism Stalin at last announced, in effect, that
things had changed, that the Soviet Union was now so
strong that with good luck and good judgment she
could keep out of future wars, leaving the capitalist
powers to destroy themselves in the struggle for
dwindling world markets.

By the time of the Nineteenth Party Congress [1952]',

Stalin had already taken on the role of great thinker
and was the author of a number of theoretical works.
It all started a few years before the Congress, when he
became involved in a polemic about linguistics. It was
a very strange debate, and it was of absolutely no use
to him whatsoever. He invited a Georgian scholar
friend of his to dinner and for some reason started talk-
ing about linguistics with the man. Subsequently Stalin
wrote his articles on linguistics in which he attacked
this same Georgian friend of his. That's how Stalin's
theoretical works started to appear during the last
stage of his life.
He struck out at economic problems, too. He orga-
nized a public debate and pubUshed his own theories.
When Stalin began to dictate and publish installments
 288 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

of his work on the economic problems of Socialism

just before his death, he made everyone read and
study them. The whole Party was supposed to sit
down and pore over his pamphlet. Stalin went so far
as to propose that the speakers at the Nineteenth
Party Congress address themselves to the theoretical
questions he had raised. Malenkov doted at great
length over Stalin's theories in his General Report
to the Congress. All the other speakers, with the ex-
ception of myself, did the same, but it wasn't because
I was daring or clever or because I was critical of
Stalin's writings that I omitted any mention of them
in my speech. No, it was because at the Nineteenth
Party Congress I wasn't a regular speaker. I was sup-
posed to make a report on the Party Statutes, and
there was nothing in the Party Statutes that compelled
me to mention
Stalin's writings on linguistics and eco-
nomics. Besides, Malenkov had given them more than
enough attention in his General Report.
One fine summer day we were all gathered at
Stalin's dacha. We sat down to a tj^pical Stalin-
style dinner, long and painful. Suddenly Voroshilov
launched into the strangest tirade. I couldn't image
what had gotten into him. "Koba!" he said ^he often—
—
called Stalin by his nickname "you haven't read the
paper this scholar so-and-so has sent around, have
you?" And then Voroshilov started calling this scholar
all sorts of names, saying, "Look what a piece of
scum, what a scoundrel he is! He writes such-and-
such . You don't remember? You haven't read it?"
. .

StaUn said, "No, I haven't read it."

Voroshilov looked at the rest of us. We all said we
hadn't read whatever he was talking about. Malenkov
said he knew that some specialist in economics had
written a book and requested that the Academy of
Sciences organize a symposium based on his theories.
I don't remember the scholar's name, but it sounded
Ukrainian. He had gone on a rampage, writing letters
to the Central Committee, demanding that we inter-
vene and see that his work be given the attention he
felt it deserved. Malenkov went on to explain that
this scholar had also sent copies of his book around to
 Stalin's last years 289

the Central Committee. Voroshilov renewed his

stream of abuse against the author: "This chiseler
should be arrested, he should be arrested!"
Stalin supported Voroshilov: "What a swine! Arrest
him."
A short time later Stalin gave us a fierce dressing
down for carelessness in selecting people for our office
staffs. He complained that secret documents were
leaking out through our secretariats. He said there
would have to be an investigation to find out who the
culprit was. We all looked at him in bewilderment,
wondering what he was driving at. Suddenly Stalin
was coming straight for me: "It's you, Khrushchev!
The leak is through your secretariat."
I said, "Comrade Stalin, I'm certain that's not true.
My assistants are all trustworthy. I have great confi-
dence in them. They're honest Party people. It's simply
impossible that one of them would divulge secret in-
formation."
"That doesn't matter. Information has still been
leaking out through someone in your secretariat."
And Stalin started telling us that some position he had
formulated in his work on economics coincided almost
word for word with the formulation of the scholar
whom Voroshilov had denounced. "How did this man
get hold of my work?" he asked. "How did he find out
what I've written? He couldn't have overheard. This
means he received the materials which I dictated and
distributed to you. And now he's published this for-
mulation as his own."
As Stalin talked, he got angrier and angrier. Then I
understood what had happened, or at least why he was
blaming me. The scholar in question had a Ukrainian
name. Stalin knew I had a number of Ukrainians in
my secretariat, notably my assistant Shuisky, an irre-
proachably honest man. So Shuisky and the other
Ukrainians on my staff had fallen under suspicion!
Stalin thought they were the leak. I realized he was
trying to stun an admission out of me. He often did
this. He would look you in the eye, make an accusa-
tion, and watch to see if you would blink.

The next morning, I went to the Moscow Committee

290 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

office and summoned Shuisky. "Do you know this

scholar so-and-so?" I asked him cahnly.

"No," he said, "I don't know him."

"And you've never heard of him?'*
"Yes, I've heard of him."
"Is he an acquaintance of yours?'*
"No, I've never met him."
"All right. Get me his file."
Shuisky brought me the scholar's file. I familiarized
myself with it and noted that even though he had a
Ukrainian name, he was actually a Siberian. His
grandfather had left Poltava Province in the Ukraine
and moved out to Siberia. The scholar himself had
been a Party member since 1918 or 1919, and had been
through an important part of the struggle for Social-
ism as a partisan fighter against the White-Guardist
Cossacks in Siberia during the Civil War.
The next day I told Stalin, "Comrade Stalin, you
were asking me about this scholar. I got out his file.
You know, he's not from the Ukraine at all. He wasn't
even bom in the Ukraine. His grandfather left the
Ukraine, and he's a Siberian." I was trying to prove
that my secretariat wasn't involved in the leak of in-
formation.
Stalin looked at me fiercely and growled, "Hell!"
That was his way of apologizing for having accused
me. Then he softened and said, "So he's from Siberia,
is he?"
"Yes, he's a Siberian. And where won't you find
people with Ukrainian names? They're spread out
over the whole earth. There are many of them in the
Far East, in Canada, and in other countries beyond
the limits of our borders."
So I had succeeded in deflecting the blow from my-
self, but Stalin didn't let the matter rest. He was still
stung because his formulation coincided word for word
v^ith the formulation of this "half-baked scholar," as
he called him. No one was allowed to come up with
the same ideas that Stahn came up with. Only Stalin
was a genius. Everything new had to be said by him,
and everyone else was supposed to repeat after him
and to spread the new laws for the building of Social-
 Stalin's last years 291

ism which he had discovered and proclaimed. And

now some Siberian nincompoop, unknown to anyone,
had come along and written the same thing as Stalin.
If Stalin had been objective, if he hadn't been so
egotistical, if he'd been capable of analyzing his own
theories self-critically, then it wouldn't have taken
too much effort to see that the book of this "half-
baked Party theoretician" had been written consider-
ably before Stahn started writing and publishing his
own work. It was actually the Siberian scholar who
could have said to Stalin, "You stole my formulation
because you already had my paper." After all, it often
happens that a relatively unknown man makes an im-
portant discovery. Every great man is a plain, average
man before he takes the step which makes him great.
But Stalin would never allow for this possibility. As
long as he was alive, as long as he was the Great Lead-
er, he had to have the first and last word in deciding
theoretical questions.
This episode ended with the Siberian scholar's being
hounded and eventually thrown out of the Party, at-
tacked in the press, disgraced, arrested, and put in
jail. How could such a thing happen? The man had
simply written a paper. Maybe it was bad, maybe
even destructive. But he had sent it directly to the
Central Committee! It was his own point of view. He
was a Party member of long standing and a veteran
of the Civil War. Now people were branding him as a
criminal. What for? They didn't know themselves. All
they knew was that he had written a treatise on eco-
nomics which displeased Stalin. If Voroshilov hadn't
brought the matter up, this scholar would probably
have persisted in calling everyone bureaucrats, and
that would have been the end of it. As it was, he ended
up in prison.
After Stalin's death we released him. He complained
to the Moscow Committee about the way he had been
treated and took out his indignation on me personally.
Of course, he didn't know anything about my role in
the case. He criticized me for not intervening on his
behalf and for not appreciating his work. Perhaps his
work did deserve recognition. In any case, it never
292 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

came to anything. The so-called scholars who had fol-

lowed Stalin's lead in the affair, who had praised
Stalin's writings and attacked the Siberian scholar,
had no interest in changing their minds now that
Stalin was dead. Possibly this man never received the
recognition he deserved, but it's not for me to judge.
Economics is a highly specialized subject. Let expert
economists go back to his treatise, appraise it, analyze
it, and put it on the bookshelf where it belongs.

The incident about the "leak" of Stalin's economics

writings did not end with the arrest of the Siberian
scholar. After I'd convinced Stalin that the leak wasnH
through my secretariat, he came to the conclusion
that the leak must have been through Poskrebyshev.
This was shocking because Poskrebyshev had worked
for Stalin for many years. He was Stalin's faithful
dog. How could anyone believe that Poskrebyshev had
divulged official secrets? He couldn't have had sinister
connections with anyone because everyone knew
exactly who Poskrebyshev was and feared and avoid-
ed him. He wasn't a stupid man, but he had accu-
mulated so much power that he had started putting on
airs. He behaved haughtily with everyone and down-
right despicably with any member of the Presidium
who had fallen out of Stalin's favor. He used to snarl
viciously at Molotov and Mikoyan, for instance, when
they fell from grace. Poskrebyshev could be unbear-
ably offensive. He kept close to Stalin and found out
before the rest of us who had fallen under the shadow
of Stalin's suspicion or displeasure. Therefore anyone
whom Poskrebyshev turned against was likely to be
the next sacrificial victim.
And now Poskrebyshev suddenly fell under Stalin's
suspicion himself. Naturally Poskrebyshev had access
to all the documents in question. He himself had writ-
ten them down at Stalin's dictation. Stalin used to
pace up and down while dictating. He couldn't stay
seated when he was thinking. He dictated while walk-
ing around. He never used stenographers. He always
dictated to Poskrebyshev, and then Poskrebyshev
would read it back to him. If Poskrebyshev had writ-
ten down some formulation incorrectly or if a more
 Stalin's last years 293

concise wording occurred to Stalin, then Poskrebyshev

would amend the manuscript. I want to give Stalin his
due here. Right up to his very death, Stalin could ex-
press himself clearly and concisely. His formulations
were short, comprehensible, and to the point. It was
one of Stalin's great gifts. In this regard Stalin was
possessed of a tremendous power which can neither be
denied nor debased. Everyone who knew Stalin ad-
mired this talent of his, and because of it we were
proud work with him.
to
Stalin removed Poskrebyshev from his post and
promoted someone else. Poskrebyshev was put on ice.
I'm convinced that if Stalin had lived much longer,
Poskrebyshev would undoubtedly have been arrested
and eliminated as a traitor. Stalin's last word on the
subject was, "I caught Poskrebyshev passing secret
material. Nobody else could have done it. The leak of
secret documents was through Poskrebyshev. It was
he who broke secrecy." Some secrecy! What kind of
secrecy is it when everything that Stalin said had been
'leaked" had actually been published already?

The Nineteenth Party Congress

When he presided over the Nineteenth Party Congress

in October J 1952, Stalin was an old, sick man with less
than five months to live. Something of his mood in
those days is conveyed by Khrushchev in this and
the following sections of the chapter. Khrushchev also
suggests, as he did in his Secret Speech, that Stalin
was em,barking on a new purge, which would have in-
volved the liquidation of some of his closest colleagues,
senior members of the old Politbureau. But Khru-
shchev content to suggest. Indeed, he ignores the real
is
significance of a number of Stalin's actions. And he
gives no indication at all of the personal struggle for
influence and power between him^self and Malenkov
(allied with Beria) which was becoming more deadly
every day. Stalin, of course, dominated the Congress,
even though he spoke for only seven minutes. The
 294 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

two chief performers were Malenkov, who delivered

the Central Cormnittee General Report, and Khrw-
shchev himself, who made a speech of equal im,por-
tance on the reform of the Party Statutes. The two
rivals were thv^ elevated above the heads of their
seniors, and it seems likely that at this time Stalin was
putting these two forward as joint successors and at —
the same time playing thew, off against each other. For
what Khrushchev does not mention is that each in his
speech sniped viciously at the other Malenkov at- —
tacking Khrushchev, though not by nume, for his
abortive agricultural reforms; Khrushchev similarly
attacking Malenkov for corruption and dem,oralization
within the Party.

In 1952 Stalin called us together and suggested that

we should convene a Party Congress. He didn't need
to persuade us. We all considered it incredible that
there hadn't been a Party Congress for thirteen
years. Nor had there even been a Central Committee
plenum for some time. The Central Committee hadn't
met in either its policy-making or its consultative
capacity for years.^® In short, the Party at large and
the Central Committee in particular had been taking
no part v^hatever in the collective leadership. Stalin
did everything himself, bypassing the Central Com-
mittee and using the Pohtbureau as little more than a
rubber stamp. Stalin rarely bothered to ask the opin-
ion of Pohtbureau members about a given measure.
He would just make a decision and issue a decree.
At any rate, it was decided we would convene a
Party Congress in October, 1952. For some time Stalin
said nothing about the agenda or whom he wanted
to
speak. We were all trying to guess whether Stalin
would take on the General Report himself or whether

18. The Party Statutes called for a Party Congress

every
three years. It was part of the Congress's function
to elect a
new Central Committee from which the members of the
Pohtbureau, Secretariat, and other leading organs were chosen.
Stalm had ruled without a Congress since 1939, paying no at-
tention to the Central Committee and making
his own ap-
pomtments to the Politbiu-eau, etc. (see Appendix 2).
 Stalin's last years 295

he would assign it to someone else. And if he assigned

it to someone else, who would it be? We figured that

if he didn't make the report himself, it would mean

he didn't feel up to it physically and was unable to
stand for that long on the podium. Of course, he could
always distribute copies of the address to the delegates
and not bother to read it aloud at all.
Finally, Stalin decided on the agenda for the Con-
gress and announced that we would assign the General
Report to Malenkov. Stalin went on to say, "Let's give
the report on the Party Statutes to Khrushchev and
the report on the Five- Year Plan to Saburov." Sabu-
rov was Chairman of the State Planning Commis-
sion.^® As Stalin told us our assignments, they were
recorded forthwith. We listened and received our
instructions in silence. That's how the agenda for the
Nineteenth Party Congress came to be determined and
accepted.
I admit that when I was instructed to prepare the
report on the Party Statutes, I became very nervous.
Of course, the assignment was a great honor for me,
but at the same time I knew that it was difficult to pre-
pare a report on this particular subject that would be
approved by the collective. I knew that when I sub-
mitted a draft of the report, I could expect the others
—
to attack it especially Beria, who would pull Malen-
kov along with him. And that's exactly what happened.
Stalin never saw my report. He instructed Malenkov,
Beria, myself, and someone else to look over all the
reports. Beria insisted that mine was too long and that
it be abbreviated. A great deal of material was cut

out so that in the end my report took only about an

hour to read. I don't think the substance suffered. It
was shortened by taking out examples, and these were
just literaiy frills for the sake of illustrating some
statements. By padding my report with supporting

19. M. Z. Saburov, an engineer, had spent most of his career

in the State Planning Commission. A Deputy Prime Minister
in 1947, he did not enter the Central Committee until 1952. His
rise was then swift. He ran into serious trouble in 1957 by sup-
porting the "Anti-Party Group" against Elhrushchev.
296 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

examples, Ihad been imitating Zhdanov to some de-

gree. Zhdanov had given a report on the Party Stat-
utes at the Eighteenth Party Congress [in 1939], and
he had used many examples in it. I don't know how
necessary they were, but I figured that because that
particular style of report had already been approved,
I would follow it.^^
You might ask why Stalin didn't assign the General
Report to Molotov or Mikoyan, both of whom held
higher posts in the Party than Malenkov, and who
were well-known Party figures. Some of us in the
prewar leadership had even considered Molotov as
our future leader and Stalin's most likely successor,
but after the war we put any such notions out of our
heads. In the days before and after the Nineteenth
Party Congress, Stalin attacked Molotov and Mikoyan
at every meeting. These two men were out of favor,
and their lives were in danger.
The Congress was convened, the reports were deliv-
ered, and the discussion started. The discussion periods
were brief. The atmosphere in the Party at that time
was hardly conducive to debating the proposals made
in the reports delivered by the leadership. As the
Congress was drawing to a close, we discussed Sabu-
rov's report on the Five- Year Plan. It was the worst
Five-Year Plan ever accepted by a Party Congress.
It was poorly conceived and poorly presented. Later,
after Stalin's death, we were compelled to assume the
responsibility for fulfilling it. Since the plan was an
impossible one, we had no choice but to introduce
some amendments. As a rule it would be unthinkable
to amend a document once it has been ratified by a
Party Congress, but this was a special case: it was
obvious to us that this particular Five-Year Plan
wasn't going anywhere. As I recall, in our search for
some democratic way of amending the Five-Year Plan
so that its goals would correspond with some sem-
blance of reality, we even distributed the suggested

20. Khrushchev's account of his method of tackling this

speech, the supreme moment of his career up to then, is en-
gaging. Certainly it read like that.
 STALIN S LAST YEARS 297

amendments among the delegates. In short, we took

the only rational course left open to us.
At the end of the Congress, Stalin delivered his own
speech. It lasted no more than six or seven minutes.
Everyone burst into joyous applause, shouting that he
was a genius and so on and so forth. After Stalin left
the podium and the Congress was adjourned, we all
gathered in the Presidium lounge. Stalin said, "There,
look at that! I can still do it." He could stiU do it, my
foot! He could stand on the podium for six or seven
minutes, and he considered it a great triumph! It was
incredibly difficult for him to give a six- or seven-
minute speech, and he thought he was still strong
enough to go on working!
Stalin himself opened the first Central Committee
Plenum after the Congress and proposed the creation
of Presidium of twenty-five members. He took
a
some papers out of his pocket and read a list of names
—
to us the new membership. The proposal and the
nominations were accepted without discussion. We
were all too accustomed to such undemocratic pro-
cedures. When Stalin proposed something, there were
no questions, no comments. A "proposal" from Stalin
was a God-given command, and you don't haggle
—
about what God tells you to do you just offer thanks
and obey. While Stalin was reading out the list of
members, we aU lowered our eyes and squirmed in our
seats. Twenty-five people! It would certainly be diffi-
cult to work in such a large collective: It would be
difficult to decide operational questions.
When the plenum session was over, we all ex-
changed glances. What had happened? Who had put
this list himself couldn't possibly
together? Stalin
have known most of the people whom he had just
appointed. He couldn't have put the list together him-
self. confess that at first I thought Malenkov was
I
behind the new Presidium and wasn't telling the rest
of us. Later I quizzed him about it in a friendly way.
"Listen," I said, "I think that you had a hand in this.
But I detect other minds at work here, too. There
must have been some adjustments on Stalin's part,
weren't there?"
298 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Malenkov answered, "I swear I had absolutely noth-

ing to do with the list. Stalin didn't even ask for my
help nor did I make any suggestions at all about the
composition of the Presidium." Malenkov's denial
made it even more mysterious. I couldn't imagine that
Beria was involved because there were people on the
list whom Beria would never have recommended to
Stalin. But I asked him about it nevertheless. "Lav-
renty, did you put Stalin up to this?"
"No, at first I was sure it was Malenkov. But he
swears he didn't have anything to do with it."
Molotov and Mikoyan were out of the question.
Bulganin didn't know anjrthing about it either. We
kept turning these thoughts over in our minds, trying
to figure out who the man behind the scenes was.
Naturally the author was Stalin himself, but who had
helped him? Poskrebyshev was in charge of Stalin's
personal secretariat, but he couldn't have put together
the list without drawing from Malenkov's apparatus,
and Malenkov would have found out. There were peo-
ple in Malenkov's apparatus who had worked for him
for many years, and they would have told him even
if they had received secret instructions from Stalin.

So we were stumped. The Hst remained a puzzle. I

now guess on the basis of certain indications that
Stalin bypassed Malenkov altogether and made use
of Kaganovich's assistance. Some of the names were
little known in the Party, and Stalin certainly had no ,

idea who the people were. But Kaganovich knew I

them. He probably told Stalin about them and that's

how their names ended, up on the list.
You see what sort of leadership we had? Stalin j

was supposedly running the Congress, putting together

a new Central Committee, and creating a new Presid-
ium, but in fact he had very little idea of what he was
doing. I remember exchanging knowing glances with
Beria and Malenkov. The new Presidium was too
large to be workable, and the membership was too
heterogeneous. The twenty-five people selected were
of all different sorts, of different degrees of merit.
They all enjoyed the confidence of the Party and no
 Stalin's last years 299

doubt were all worthy men. But many of them weren't

prepared for a job of this importance.^i
When Stalin read off the list of the new Presidium
members, I Hstened anxiously and wondered, would
Molotov, Mikoyan, and Voroshilov be included? I
doubted it. They were men whom Stalin had cast
aside. The danger of being considered spies and ac-
cordingly declared enemies of the people hung over
their heads. But no, they were included. I took this
as a good sign.
After Stalin proposed the twenty-five names, he said
that because a group of that size would be cumber-
some, we had to select a Bureau from the Presidium
membership.22 Now, this was a nonstatutory proposal.
We had just adopted new Party Statutes at the Nine-
teenth Party Congress, and we had made no provision
for a Presidium Bureau. We were violating the Stat-
utes already! Stalin said the Bureau would meet more
often than the full Presidium and would make deci-
sions on all operational questions that might come
up. He proposed a Bureau of nine men and straight-
way appointed the staff: himself, Malenkov, Beria,
Khrushchev, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Saburov, Per-
vukhin,23 and Bulganin. Molotov and Mikeyan were
21. The appointment of a twenty-five-man Presidiima to re-
place the much smaller Politbureau was a surprise to all those
not in the know. But were Klhrushchev and Malenkov as un-
knowing as the rest of \is? The interesting thing about the new-
comers, both full members and candidate members, was that
there was a fairly even division between Malenkov men (above
all the technocrats) and Khrushchev men. This, to use Stalin's
favorite phrase, was clearly no accident. It is worth noting that
the candidate members included A. N. Kosygin, brought back
from the limbo into which he was cast after the Leningrad af-
fair, and L. I. Brezhnev, then very much a Khrushchev pro-
teg6, making his first appearance on the national stage. Stalin
was obviously enlarging the supreme Party organ in order to
cover in advance the proposed liquidation of some of its most
senior members.
22. It was assimied at the time that there must be a small
inner cabinet, or bureau, of Stalin's favored subordinates. Its
precise composition has been hitherto unknown.
23. M. G. Pervukhin was one of the technocrat ministers
(like Saburov) who made their name in industry and in
Stalin's last years rose rapidly to the top. He, too, found him-
self in trouble after the defeat of the Anti-Party Group.
 300 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

left out, but Voroshilov was included. Voroshilov's

inclusion was strange because Stalin had started hav-
ing doubts about him long before Molotov and Mi-
koyan fell out of favor. I very much regretted that
Molotov and Mikoyan weren't put on the Bureau. I
thought they should have been. Stalin made a speech
at the Plenum giving some very surprising and con-
fused explanations of why Molotov and Mikoyan
didn't deserve the confidence of the Party. He said
they appeared to be agents of certain Western govern-
ments. There was no logic in this, of course. If they
were foreign agents and didn't deserve our confidence,
then why were they being kept on the Central Com-
mittee and the Presidium? Be that as it may, Molotov
and Mikoyan were in fact excluded from the ruling
circle of the Government. But I was glad to see that
Voroshilov had been put on the Bureau. I thought
Stalin had finally realized that it was a mistake to
consider Voroshilov an English spy and God knows
what else. It all depended on Stalin's fertile imagina-
tion, who was an agent of what imperialistic country
from one day to the next.
After the Nineteenth Party Congress and the crea-
tion of the large Presidium and the new Presidium
Bureau at the Plenum, our work continued according
to the same pattern we had followed before all the
supposed changes and improvements. Out of the nine
members in the Bureau Stalin selected an inner circle
of five, according to his will and benevolence. It was
considered a great honor to be invited to meet with
Stalin. On the other hand it was considered a bad
omen if you were invited once but weren't invited
back. The usual five were Stalin himself, Malenkov,
Beria, Bulganin, and Klirushchev. He rarely invited
Kaganovich and Voroshilov and absolutely never in-
vited Molotov or Mikoyan. In actual fact, the Presid-
ium was never convened. The Bureau decided aU
questions, and the Bureau usually meant the inner
circle of five. All decisions were made by the same
methods which Stalin had put into practice after 1939.
Before the Eighteenth Party Congress the Politbureau
had preserved more or less democratic methods. But
 Stalin's last years 301

gradually democracy had been giving way to autoc-

racy. Stalin had been barking orders and stifling dis-
cussion ever since the annihilation of the basic staff
of the Central Committee which had been elected
at the Seventeenth Party Congress [1934], the "old
men," as we called them, who had been through the
struggle for the creation of our Party since before the
Revolution.
So much for collective leadership.

The Doctors' Plot

The arrest of the Kremlin doctors in January, 1953,

on charges of poisoning Andrei Zhdanov and other
Soviet luminaries was a preliminary move in what
was to have been one designed to
Stalin^ s last purge,
get rid of some above
of his closest colleagues: Beria
all, but probably Molotov and Mikoyan, too. Khru-
shchev tells us one thing new about what came to be
known as the Doctors' Plot: the case had already been
prefabricated at som,e time before the Nineteenth
Party Congress in October, 1952; otherwise Khru-
shchev would not have known that the doctor who was
treating his own illness during the Congress was
about to be charged. Unless he is muddled in his
chronology, this leaves a particularly nasty taste. In-
deed, Khrushchev's role in this whole sinister affair is
suspect. S. D. Ignatiev, a man very close to Khru-
shchev, had replaced Beria's supporter, Abakumov, as
Minister of State Security. In 1952 he was actively en-
gaged in a savage purge of Beria's men in the security
services, and heart condition or no heart condition, it
was his task to fabricate the evidence against the doc-
tors (the alleged letter from Lydia Timashuk was ob-
viously a put-up job, as Khrushchev himself suggested
in his Secret Speech) and beat confessions out of them.
When the affair was "reexamined" after Stalin's death,
it was none other than Beria who publicly denounced

the frame-up, alleging Ignatiev's responsibility. Soon

after that, Beria himself was arrested and shot, along
 302 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

with his chief associates, Ahakumov included. Igna-

tieVy who according to Khrushchev had been on the
brink of death in 1952, recovered sujjiciently to
emerge as a member of Khrushchev's own Party Sec-
retariat. Khrushchev's sketchy version of this story
diverts attention away from the larger implications of
—
the afair and from the truth, which is still obscure
in detail. He treats it as an example of Stalin's ruisti-
ness in attacking such innocents as doctors. The unfor-
tunate doctors, most of whom were Jews, were no
more than pawns in a major operation directed against
some of Khrushchev's colleagues, an operation which
was also intended to involve Soviet Jewry in a whole-
sale pogrom.

One day Stalin called us to the Kremlin and read us a

letterfrom a woman doctor named Timashuk. She
claimed that Zhdanov died because the doctors on the
case purposely administered improper treatment to
him, treatment intended to lead to his death. Naturally
if this had been true, it would have been the most out-
rageous villainy. For doctors to destroy life rather
than save it is the worst sort of crime against nature.
If Stalin had been a normal person, he wouldn't
have given Timashuk's letter a second thought. A few
such letters always turn up from people who are
psychologically unbalanced or who are scheming to
get rid of their enemies. But Stalin was more than
receptive to this sort of literature. In fact, I believe
this woman Timashuk was herself a product of Stalin-
ist policies. Stalin had instilled in the consciousness of
us all the suspicion that we were surrounded by ene-
mies and that we should try to find an unexposed trai-
tor or saboteur in everyone. Stalin called this "vigi-
lance" and used to say that if a report was ten percent
true, we should regard the entire report as fact. But
how could you find even ten percent truth in a letter
like Timashuk's?
Stalin's version of vigilance turned our world into
an insane asylum in which everyone was encouraged
to search for nonexistent facts about everyone else.
Son was turned against father, father against son, and
 Stalin's last years 303

comrade against comrade. This was called "the class

approach." I realize that the class struggle cannot help
but divide families and divide them unmercifully. The
class struggle defines the position of every member of
a family. I welcome the unrelenting combat of the
class struggle. It's necessary for the building of So-
cialism and the attainment of a better future. The
class war isn't a festive parade, but a bloody, tortuous
battle. I know this. I myself have been a participant
in the class struggle. I came to understand the class
approach during the Civil War, when I joined the
bloody struggle waged by the Red Army against the
shattered bands of Makhnovites, Grigorievites, An-
tonovites, and remnants of other White units that
were still at large. The northern Caucasus was literally
swarming with bandits; I myself took part in the as-
sembly to organize the struggle against them. Once, a
group of us was photographed with Furmanov, the
Chief of the Political Directorate. My comrade-in-
arms in the army political affairs department, Vera
Shutskina, sent me a copy of this picture. She's now
a pensioner. I'm glad she's alive and well. I don't know
how the cup passed from her when the Stalinist
butchery was going on. Anyway, even back when the
struggle was under way against the White Cossack
bands in the northern Caucasus, Lenin, in his fore-
sight, showed great restraint and humanity. He did
everything he could not to harm those who were in-
nocent and when he saw that someone was guilty, he
did everything he could to rehabilitate him rather than
punish him. Even if a man had slipped up, Lenin
would strive to support him and to reestablish him
on positive positions: first, by neutralizing the man's
negative traits and then by gradually reenlisting him
into the active struggle for the building of a new
Socialist life. But we left the Leninist stage behind.
We moved into the Stalinist stage, and the irrational
policies, policies of a sick man, terrorized us all.
Getting back to Thnashuk's letter, I should mention
that Zhdanov had been treated by Kremlin physicians.
These doctors could only have been the best and most
trusted of their profession. Only men well known and
304 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

much respected in the Soviet medical world had been

enlisted to work in the Kremlin hospital. But they
were arrested and thrown in jail like common crim-
inals.
Before his death, Zhdanov had been in poor health
for some time. I don't know what he was suffering
from, but one of his ailments was that he had lost his
will power and wasn't able to control himself when it
came to drinking. He was pitiful to watch. I even
remember that in the last days of Zhdanov's life, Stalin
used to shout at him to stop drinking. This was an
astounding thing because Stalin usually encouraged
people to get drunk. But he compelled Zhdanov to
drink fruit water and suffer while the rest of us were
drinking wine or something stronger. And it's easy
to imagine that if Stalin held him back like this,
Zhdanov would go completely out of control at home.
This same vice killed Shcherbakov, and it certainly
hastened Zhdanov's death to a considerable degree.
By no means am I putting Shcherbakov and Zhda-
nov on the same level. Since Stalin's death I've real-
ized that our intelligentsia harbors a deep-seated
resentment against Zhdanov for his role in closing the
Leningrad journals. But it should be remembered that
Zhdanov was only discharging Stalin's orders. I think
Stalin's cultural policies, especially the cultural poli-
cies imposed on Leningrad through Zhdanov, were
cruel and senseless.^^ You can't regulate the develop-
ment of Hterature, art, and culture with a stick or by
barking orders. You can't lay down a furrow and then
harness all your artists to make sure they don't deviate
from the straight and narrow. If you try to control
your artists too tightly, there will be no clashing of
opinions, consequently no criticism, and consequently
no truth. There will be just a gloomy stereotype, bor-
ing and useless. Not only will this stereotype fail to

24. The reference hereis to Zhdanov's sweeping purge of the

arts, known as the Zhdanovshchina, which was a major scan-
dal in 1947-48. Magazines were closed down, celebrated writers
were proscribed, distinguished composers had to confess to past
errors and promise to compose for the msisses. It was, in effect,
a cultural Terror.
 Stalin's last years 305

encourage the people to benefit from their art; it will

poison and relationship to art.
kill their
Anyway, the doctors connected with Zhdanov's case
were arrested. Among them was V. N. Vinogradov. He
had once treated Stalin, which was a rare distinction
because Stalin almost never let doctors treat him. But
Stalin didn't spare Vinogradov. He had him arrested
and beaten. I got to know Vinogradov after he was
released. He was brought in more than once to consult
on my own health. They also arrested V. K. Vasilenko,
a reputable physician and professor. I didn't know him
very well personally, but I had heard many good
things about him from Strazhesky, whom I respected
very much. I knew Strazhesky from Kiev. He was a
leading light not only in the Soviet medical world but
abroad as well. When the war ended, Strazhesky
asked me to take Vasilenko out of the army so that he
could work in the clinic which Strazhesky directed.
"Vasilenko is my pupil," Strazhesky had said, "and I
would like him to take over from me so that the clinic
will be sure to pass into reliable hands." Strazhesky
had foimded his clinic before the Revolution, and it
had an excellent reputation. Vasilenko was in China
when the arrests started. He was called home, and the
minute he stepped across the Soviet border he was
thrown in chains.
I remember after I made my report on the Party
statutes to the Nineteenth Party Congress, I fell ill.

I couldn't leave home when my report was being dis-

cussed at the Congress. I had to stay in bed for a
few days. An elderly doctor came to examine me.
While he was listening to my heart, he put his ear
against my chest. I was touched by his thoughtfulness
and his care. I felt terrible at that moment, but not
because I was sick. I was tormented because I had
already read the testimony against this old doctor,
whose concern for my health I found so touching, and
I knew that no matter what I said Stalin wouldn't
spare him.
After Vinogradov, Vasilenko, and the others had
been arrested, Stalin circulated and published copies
of Timashuk's letter with his own postscript, in which
 306 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

he invoked the anger of the masses against the doctors

who had "committed such villainy" by doing away
with Zhdanov. More letters started pouring in brand-
ing the doctors as traitors. These letters reflected the
opinion of people who believed that if Stalin had re-
leased such a document, the crime must have already
been proved, and they were revolted that such a thing
could have happened.
Konev,^^ himself a sick man at the time, sent a long
letter to Stalin lq which he claimed that he, too, was
being poisoned with the same medicines which had
allegedly been used to do in Zhdanov. Konev's letter
compounded the travesty. Apparently all the members
of the Presidium sensed the lack of substance in Ko-
nev's accusation, but we never discussed it openly
because, once Stalin had made up his mind and started
to deal with a problem, there wasn't anything to do.
When we got together and exchanged opinions in
private, we admitted we were indignant about Konev's
letter: since the people accused of Zhdanov's murder
were behind bars, the letter widened the circle of
suspects and fanned Stalin's distrust of doctors in gen-
eral.
The interrogations began. I heard myself how Stalin
talked to S. D. Ignatiev, who was then Minister of
State Security. I knew Ignatiev personally, and I knew
he was a very sick man. He had had a near-fatal heart
attack. He was mild, considerate, and well liked. We
all knew what sort of physical condition he was in.
Stalin used to berate him viciously over the phone in
our presence. Stalin was crazy with rage, yelling at
Ignatiev and threatening him, demanding that he throw
the doctors in chains, beat them to
a pulp, and grind
them mto powder. It was no surprise when almost aU

25. Marshal I S. Konev, an outstanding generalin World

plater showed an
Z^
tri^e.
inclination to dabble in poUtical in-
He was at various times commander in chief of Soviet
1.''^^^'''' *° Zhukov, after the latter's rustifi-
c^L m
cation i^^'foi?
1946) First Deputy Minister of Defense,
and Supreme
Commander of the Warsaw Pact forces. Two
one general and one admiral, were ma?sh^!
other
also said to have been
poisoned (not fatally) by the unfortunate
doctors
 Stalin's last years 307

the doctors confessed to their crimes. I can't blame

them for slandering themselves. Too many people have
passed before me, different sorts of people, honest
men and traitors, men of the Revolution and saboteurs,
all of whom confessed. For example, take Meretskov.
He's now nearing the end of his life. He walks about
crippled, almost bent in two. He admitted he was an
English spy. The Kremlin doctors landed in this same
situation, and they, too, confessed.^^
That's howthe so-called Doctors' Plot arose. It was
a shameful business. After the crushing of the enemy
in World War II, after our own Soviet intelligentsia
had come into its own and achieved world stature,
—
suddenly our intelligentsia or at least the doctors in
its midst —^feU subject to Stalin's suspicion. The doc-
tors' case was a cruel and contemptible thing.
Back in 1902 there were cholera riots in Makeyevka
[a city in the Donbass], during which the doctors in
the area were beaten unmercifully. Then I remember
early in my youth, around 1910, there was a cholera
epidemic throughout the Donbass. Many miners were
dying at the mines where my father and I worked.
When the miners got sick they were taken off to the
cholera barracks from which no one returned. A rumor
started to circulate among the miners that the doctors
were poisoning the patients. Witnesses were found who
claimed they had seen someone throw powder into the
well. I heard all kinds of absurdities like that. And
now, in our own time, these same dark powers were
rearing their heads again, and the persecution of intel-
lectuals and doctors came back out into the open.

Svetlanka

Khrushchev's impressions of Stalin's daughter, her re-

lationship with her father, and their homelife may he

26. The doctors were cleared of the charges against them by

a commissi©!! of inquiry set up by Beria immediately after
Stalin's death. But two had already died imder interrogation.
308 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

compared with the record in Svetlana Alliluyeva's own

two hooks, Twenty Letters to a Friend and Only One
Year. There are small discrepancies, hut in general,
Svetlana herself confirms Khrushchev's account, which
shows him at his hest and Stalin at his very remarkable
worst. The chronology, as always, is a little vague; hut
Svetlana's story hears out Khrushchev's account of
Mikoyan's intervention on her hehalf and Khrushchev's
own henevolent attitude. Unfortunately Khrushchev
,

was deposed at what, for Svetlana and Brajesh Sinqh,

was the critical moment. It was left for Kosygin and
Suslov, in person, to forhid her to marry and then to
forhid her to take Brajesh Singh hack to India to die.
When he did die and she was at last allowed to take
his ashes hack to India, the authorities tried to rush
her home. Benediktov, then the Soviet amhassador to
India, whom Khrushchev calls "straitlaced," was mere-
ly frightened. He had heen Minister of Agriculture at
one time, and then was demoted by Khrushchev hirrv-
self. Khrushchev's comments on what Soviet citizens
may naturally expect when they are summoned hack
to Moscow are sufficienly revealvng.

Stalin's character was brutiA, and his temper was

harsh; but his brutishness didn't always imply malice
toward people to whom he acted so rudely. His was a
sort of inborn brutishness. He was coarse and abusive
with everyone. I often experienced his rudeness my-
self. Stalin liked me. If he hadn't Uked me or if he had
felt the shghtest suspicion toward me, he could have
gotten rid of me anytime he pleased in the same way
he got rid of so many people who were undesirable to
him. More than once, after being rude or spiteful to
me, he would express his goodwill. But God forbid
that there should have been any kind of apology! No.
Apologies were alien to his very nature. There is a
story that gives a clearer idea of how Stalin allowed
himself to insult and abuse those closest to him.
It happened in the last year of his life. Stalin had
invited us all to the Nearby Dacha to celebrate the
New Year with him. Wewere all in a state of great
elation. A new year! Wecould count to our credit one
 STALm'S LAST YEARS 309

more year and successes! There were tables

of victories
spread with hors d'oeuvres. We had a huge dinner and
a great deal to drink. Stalin was in high spirits and
was therefore drinking a lot himself and urging every-
one else to do the same. A considerable quantity of
wine was consumed.
Stalin went over to the record player and put on
some records of Russian and Georgian folk music. We
all listened and started singing along with the records.
Then he put on some dance music, and we started to
dance. There was one acknowledged dancer among us
— Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan. All the steps he did
were based on the "Lezghinka" [a Caucasian folk
dance]. Then Voroshilov started dancing, and we all
joined in. When I dance, I don't move my feet. I dance
like a cow on the But I joined in nonetheless. So
ice.
did Kaganovich. He was a dancer of not much higher
class than myself. Bulganin apparently had done some
dancing in his youth. He was trying to stomp out
something vaguely Russian in rhythm. Stalin danced,
too. He shuffled around with his arms spread out. It
was evident that he had never danced before. (It was
too bad that Molotov wasn't with us on that occasion.
He was the city dancer among us. He had grown up
in an intellectual family, and as a university student,
he had been at many student parties and knew how to
dance the way students did. He loved music and could
even play the violin. In general he was a very musical
person. I'm not an expert in this, in fact I'm a pretty
bad judge, but in my eyes Molotov was a first-class
dancer.)
would say that the general mood of the party was
I
good. Then Svetlanka [affectionate form of Svetlana]
appeared. I don't know if she'd been sunmioned or if
she came on her own. She found herself in the middle
of a flock ofpeople older than she, to put it mildly. As
soon as this sober young woman arrived, Stalin made
her dance. I could see she was tired. She hardly moved
while dancing. She danced for a short time and tried
to stop, but her father still insisted. She went
over
and stood next to the record player, leaning her shoul-
der against the wall. Stalin came over to her, and
I
310 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

joined them. We stood there together. Stalin was lurch-

ing about. He said, "Well, go on, Svetlanka, dance!
You're the hostess, so dance!"
She said, "I've already danced. Papa, I'm tired."
With that, Stalin grabbed her by the forelock of her
hair with his fist and pulled. I could see her face
turning red and tears welling up in her eyes. I felt
so sorry for Svetlanka. He pulled harder and dragged
her back onto the dance floor.
Here you have a father's expression of tenderness
for his daughter. No doubt Stalin loved Svetlanka
very much. He loved Vasya, too, but he was critical of
Vasya's drinking and general lack of discipline. Svet-
lanka, on the other hand, was a good student. Her
behavior as a little girl was always excellent. I never
heard anything bad about her. Stalin was very proud
and fond of her. Yet look how he showed his fatherly
feelings toward his daughter! He behaved so brutishly
not because he wanted to cause Svetlanka pain. No, his
behavior toward her was really an expression of affec-
tion, but in a perverse, brutish form which was pecu-
liar to him.
As I've said, Ihad held Svetlanka's mother, Na-
dezhda Alliluyeva, in high esteem. She was very
different from Stalin. I had always liked her for her
modesty. Vasya [Vasily] was a good boy, clever but
headstrong. In his early youth he started to drink
heavily. He was an undisciplined student and brought
Stalin much grief. I think Stalin used to whip him
regularly and assigned Chekists to keep Vasya under
surveillance.
Svetlanka was different. As a little girl she would
be running around the house whenever we were there.
Stalin always called her "the hostess," and we started
calling her "the hostess," too. She was always dressed
smartly in a little Ukrainian skirt and an embroidered
blouse. She looked just Hke a dressed-up doll, but at
the same time very much like her mother with her
auburn hair and tiny "The hostess" grew up
freckles.
before our eyes. I remember that whenever we came
by, Stalin would say, "Well, hostess, entertain the
guests," and she would run out into the kitchen. Stalin
 Stalin's last years 311

explained, "Whenever she gets angry with me, she

always says, I'm going out to the kitchen and complain
about you to the cook.' I always plead with her, 'Spare
me! If you complain to the cook, it will be all over with
me!'" Then Svetlanka would say firmly that she
would tell on her papa if he ever did anything wrong
again.
Stalin had an older son Yasha [Yakov] by his first
wife, a Georgian woman. Yasha was an engineer. I
never knew him. When I started to see Stalin at home,
Yasha was there only rarely. He lived in a separate
house with his wife and baby daughter. The few times
he did come to Stalin's family dinners, he always came
alone. He never brought his wife and daughter along.
Then Nadya committed suicide. She died under
mysterious circumstances. However she died, it was
because of something Stalin did, and Svetlanka must
have known that. There was even a rumor that Stalin
shot Nadya. According to another version, which is
more plausible to me, Nadya shot herself because of an
insult hurled at her honor as a woman. Certainly
Svetlanka knew something about the way her mother
died, and she suffered very much.
After Nadya's death, Vasya and Svetlanka were al-
ways around whenever we came by to see Stalin at
his apartment. I grew accustomed to seeing Svetlanka.
I was very attached to her. I felt like a parent toward
her. I felt a certain human pity for her, as I would
feel for an orphan. Stalin himself was brutish and un-
attentive. He never showed any parental tenderness.
When he wasn't being downright abusive toward her,
he was cold and unfeeling. Everjnvhere he went he
left a trace of disagreeableness in his relations with
others. He had a bully's personality. Svetlanka's rela-
tions with her father were complicated. He loved her,
but he used to express these feelings of love in a beast-
ly way. His was the tenderness of a cat for a mouse.
He broke the heart first of a child, then of a young
girl, then of a woman and mother. It all resulted in
Svetlanka's gradual psychic breakdown. Stalin always
went on holidays alone. He never took his children
with him. Even animals like their mothers to coddle
 312 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

them in the sunshine. All creatures need affection, and

a human being who is deprived of affection becomea
psychologically stratified. This is what happened to
Svetlanka.
I don't know what sort of people brought Svetlanka
up. I remember seeing a young, beautiful Georgian
woman around. Somebody said she was Svetlanka's
tutor. I don't know what kind of tutor she was or where
she came from. There was a rumor that she was planted
by Beria, and that she was there for Beria's benefit,
not Svetlanka's. One day she just disappeared.
Svetlanka married a man named Morozov. His name
was Russian, but he was a Jew. They lived some time
together. Stalin barely tolerated him. I never saw
Morozov invited anywhere by Stalin. After Svetlanka's
first son was born, I don't think Stalin ever saw him.
This, too, distressed Svetlanka very much. Then sud-
denly, after the war, Stalin was seized by a fit of
anti-Semitism. Svetlanka and Morozov were divorced.
He is a bright man. I'm told that he's now a good econ-
omist and that he has a doctorate and a teaching
degree in economics. In short, he's a fine, upstanding
Soviet citizen.
When Stalin told Svetlanka to divorce her husband
he apparently said something about it to Malenkov.
Malenkov's daughter, a very good girl named Volya,
had married the son of Malenkov's friend Shamberg
who had worked for years in Malenkov's apparatus,
Then one day Malenkov's wife, Valeriya Alekseyevna
Malenkova, a bright woman for whom I had great
respect, told me that Volya had divorced young Sham-
berg and married someone else, an architect. I won't
try to compare the two men. That's Volya's business
I think her second husband is a good fellow, too. Bu"
I couldn't understand why she would throw out th<
son of her father's friend Shamberg. It was very upset-
ting to me at the time. Malenkov wasn't an anti-Semite
and he never told me for sure that Stalin had spokei
to him disapprovingly about his daughter being mar
ried to a Jew. But I'm sure that even if Stalin didn'1
say anything to Malenkov directly, Malenkov hear
from others that Stalin had ordered Svetlanka to di-
 Stalin's last years 313

vorce her husband because he was a Jew, and no doubt

Malenkov figured that he had better do the same
with his daughter. The episode was another manifesta-
tion of that same debasing, disgraceful anti-Semitism
I've ah-eady talked about. I'm not ascribing this senti-
ment to Malenkov. On his part, it was just a lackey's
servility to his master. Stalin had made his daughter
divorce a Jew, so Malenkov had to do it, too. Generally
speaking, I considered Malenkov a normal, healthy
human being, uncontaminatedby this vile disease.
Then Svetlanka married a second time. It was Stalin
who wanted her to marry Zhdanov's son Yury. He's
now the rector of Rostov University. I've always liked
him, and I still do. He's a bright, well-educated, sensi-
ble fellow. Stalin hked him, too, but Svetlanka did not.
After Stalin's death they were divorced. I was very
sorry about the whole thing. I've never liked to listen
to people gossip about Svetlanka's bad behavior and
her infidelity to her husbands. She lived for a long
time in loneliness, without a husband. This was unnat-
ural. She had two children, a boy by her first husband
and a little girl by young Zhdanov. The revelations
about her father's abuses of power were another severe
shock for her.
Later, Mikoyan told me that Svetlanka had come to
ask his advice. She wanted to marry an Indian journal-
ist [Brajesh Singh] . She told Mikoyan she loved this
man. He was older than she, but she had known him
for a long time and he was a decent man, a Communist.
Mikoyan said, "She asked me to find out what your
attitude is." I was surprised that she would ask my
opinion. As far as I was concerned, it was her own
business. I told Mikoyan, "If she considers him a
worthy person, then let her marry him. It's her choice.
Whatever she decides, we won't interfere. The fact that
he's not a citizen of the Soviet Union shouldn't be an
obstacle if she really is fond of him. Let her decide for
herself." So she married him. I was satisfied. I wanted
her simply to be able to lead her own life.
Then came the last straw— the death and funeral of
her third husband.
I talk of Svetlanka at such length partly because
 ,

314 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

she's now very unfortunate. When I found out thaq
she had gone to bury her husband in his homeland and^
that she wouldn't return, I wanted to beHeve it was
just the latest slanderous hoax concocted by bourgeois
joumaHsts. I refused to believe it for a few days, but
then I received indisputable confirmation. I can't un-
derstand how she decided to take this step. She aban-
doned her Homeland and her children. She gave the
enemies of the Soviet way of life something to gossip
about, and she allowed her name, the name of Stalin's
daughter, to be exploited by the enemies of Socialism
to the disservice of our country. It was an unforgivable
thing for a Soviet citizen to do. Nonetheless, I still feel
very sorry for her. When I think of her and her mis-
fortune, I recall those lines by Nekrasov: ^^

The sight of the clearing brings tears to her eyes;

She remembers the birches that flourished there.

The very thought of Svetlanka brings tears to my

eyes. It saddens me that she has come to this end.
From the very beginning of her life her fate was very
complex, and things were never easy for her. None of
this excuses what she's done, but stiU, it makes me
more sad than angry when I think about her.
I haven't read her book, but I've heard excerpts
from it over the radio. The West is broadcasting those
passages which serve its purposes. Perhaps the parts
I heard weren't characteristic of the book as a whole,
but what was broadcast sounded, at the very least,
strange. It sounded as though it were v^itten as a re-
sult of a mental or emotional breakdown of some kind.
For instance, she writes in her book that she used to
cross herself and that she was very religious. I don't
think that she was ever really religious. There's some-
thing odd and even sick about her book. I can't recon-
cile myself to it. How could a Soviet citizen who grew
up in our society write this kind of stuff?
For her to run away to the West was terribly v^rrong.

27. N. A. Nekrasov was a nineteenth-century poet; the lines

are from his poem "Sasha."
 —
Stalin's last years 315

Itcan't be justified. But there's another side to the

whole case. She did something stupid, but Svetlanka
—
was dealt with stupidly, too stupidly and rudely. Ap-
parently, after her husband's funeral she went to our
embassy in New Delhi. Benediktov was our ambassador
there. I knew him. He's a very straitlaced person.
Svetlanka said she wanted to stay in India for a few
months, but Benediktov advised her to return imme-
diately to the Soviet Union. This was stupid on his
part. When a Soviet ambassador recommends that a
citizen of the Soviet Union return home immediately,
it makes the person suspicious. Svetlanka was particu-

larly familiar with our habits in this regard. She

knew it meant she wasn't trusted. It didn't mean they
were concerned for her weKare. It meant distrust
—
political distrust and it could have meant a bad end
for her. This was an offensive, humiliating tactic, which
would throw even a stable person off balance, and
Svetlanka wasn't a stable person. Her instability is
evident from the contents of her book. She broke down
and turned to foreign powers for help. Her defection
was partly the fault of people who used police mea-
sures instead of showing tact and respect to a citizen
of our Soviet Homeland.
What do I think should have been done? I'm con-
vinced that if she had been treated differently, the
regrettable episode would never have happened: When
Svetlanka came to the embassy and said that she had
to stay in India for two or three months, they should
have told her, "Svetlana losifovna, why only three
months? Get a visa for a year or two or even three
years. You can get a visa and live here. Then, when-
ever you're ready, you can go back to the Soviet
Union." If she had been given freedom of choice, her
morale would have been boosted. They should have
showed her that she was trusted. I'm convinced that
if they had dealt with her in that way and even if she

had already written her book, either she would have

not published it at all or else she would have rewritten
it. But they treated her in such a way as to show her

she was under suspicion. She's a clever woman and

understood this, so she went to the American ambassa-
 ',
;

316 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

dor. That's how she got to Switzerland and from there
to America. She severed her ties with her Homeland!
forever. —
She parted with her children her son and
—
her daughter and her friends. She lost everything she
had knov^TQ. And thus ended her life as a Soviet citizen.
It is very, very sad. I feel so sorry for Svetlanka. I still i

caU her that automatically, even though she's been;

Svetlana losifovna, and not Svetlanka, for many years. '\

And what if we had acted the way I think we should \

have and Svetlanka still hadn't returned home from i

India? Well, that would have been too bad but no i

worse than what happened. As it was, even imder the I

existing system of issuing visas, she didn't come back.

What has happened to Svetlanka grieves me very
much, but I still think that everything has not yet been '.

lost. She can still return. Her thoughts about returning

to her children might grow stronger. She should be
given another chance. She should know that if she
wants to come back she's welcome and that the weak-
ness she showed when she left and went to America
won't be held against her. I don't excuse Svetlanka for
what she did, but neither do I excuse those people
—
who instead of giving her a helping hand to find the
—
proper course pushed her into taking this improper,
unjustifiable, and irrational step when she threw her-
self into the mire of emigre life.

Feasts and Holidays with Stalin

Of this chapter there is little that need he said. It of-

jers a vivid and horrifying picture of the dictator in
decline —andof the sycophancy, the self-seeking du-
plicity of his entourage, Khrushchev included. For it
should he rememhered that Khrushchev was now en-
gaged in a deadly struggle with Malenkov and was
contriving to ingratiate himself with Stalin to very con-
siderahle effect. Anyone who douhts the essential truth
of this picture should read Conversations with Stalin
hy the Yugoslav rehel Milovan Djilas. Here Stalin is
 STALIN*S LAST YEARS 317

shown hy Djilas among his marshals and "closest cot-

leagues" as early as 1947:
"An ungainly dwarf of a man passed through gilded
and marbled imperial halls, and a path opened before
him; radiant, admiring glances followed him,, while the
ears of the courtiers strained to catch every word. And
he, sure of himself and his works, obviously paid no
attention to all this. His country was in ruins, hungry
and exhausted. But his armies and his marshals, heavy
with fat and drunk with vodka and victory, had al-
ready trampled half of Europe underfoot, and he was
convinced that they would tram,ple over the other half
in the next round. He knew that he was the most cruel
and despotic figure in history. But this did not worry
him a bit, for he was convinced that he was carrying
out the will of history."
The descriptions by Djilas of Stalin's way of doing
business tally closely with Khrushchev's. In 1947 Stalin
was still strong and overwhelm,ingly confident. Khru-
—
shchev shows him also in his last phase the degenera-
tion of this Attila figure into a broken and paranoid old
man, scheming to destroy his closest colleagues before
they destroyed him, afraid of the food from his own
kitchens, but still striking terror into the hearts of all
around him. The colleagues, Khrushchev among them,
thought it was the jnost natural thing in the world to
lie low and never to speak up in the face of the iniquity
of the moment.

Those last years with Stalin were hard times. The

government virtually ceased to function. Stalin selected
a small group which he kept close to him at all times,
and then there was always another group of people
whom he didn't invite for an indefinite period in order
to punish them. Any one of us could find himself in
one group one day and in the other group the next.
After the Nineteenth Party Congress, StaHn created
among the new Presidium members some wide-rang-
ing commissions to look into various matters. In prac-
tice these commissions turned out to be completely
ineffectual because everyone was left to his own de-
vices. There was no guidance. There was nothing
 318 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
assigned for the commissions to look into, so they made
up their own assignments. Everyone in the orchestra
was playing on his owm instrument an3rtime he felt
like it, and there was no direction from the conductor.
We usually got together for Bureau meetings in the
following way: There were no official sessions as such.
When Stalin was coming into town from the Nearby
Dacha, where he was living then, he would call us
together through the Central Committee Secretariat.
We would meet either in his study at the Kremlin or,
more often, in the Kremlin movie theater. We would
watch movies and talk about various matters between
Stalin would get up from an afternoon nap
reels.
around seven or eight o'clock in the evening and drive
to the Kremlin. We would meet him there. He used
to select the movies himself. The films were usually
what you might call captured trophies; we got them
from the West. Many of them were American pictures.
He liked cowboy movies especially. He used to curse
them and give them the proper ideological evaluation
but then immediately order new ones. The films didn't
have subtitles, so the Minister of Cinematography, I. I.
Bolshakov, would translate them out loud. He would
translate from all languages. Actually, he didn't know
any of these languages. He had been told the plot in
advance. He would take pains to memorize it and then
would "translate" the movie. We often joked about
his translations, Beria especially. In many of the scenes,
Bolshakov would simply get the plot wrong, or else
he would just explain what anyone could see was
happening on the screen: "Now he's leaving the room
. Now he's walking across the street." Beria would
. .

then chime in and give Bolshakov some help: "Look!

He's started running! Now he's running!"
Stalin never went to the movies anywhere but in
the Kremlin theater, which was equipped with a pro-
jector outdated even at that time. The hall is no longer
used for a movie theater. We
used to watch all kinds
of movies there —
German, English, French, American,
and from other countries, too. The film archive was
huge. On the whole we didn't like these films very
much. I remember once we saw a gloomy, unpleasant,

i
 Stalin's last years 319

historical movie. It was set in England. Some treasure

had to be transported from India to London, and there
were Spanish pirates all along the way who were raid-
ing English ships and murdering their crews. When it
came time to transport the treasure, the English re-
membered a pirate captain who was in one of their
jails. He was a very crafty pirate, a ruffian and a dare-
devil. The Enghsh decided to ask him if he would do
the job for them. The pirate captain said he would,
but only if he were allowed to choose his own crew
from the other pirates who were in jail with him. The
English agreed. They gave him a ship and he headed
for India, where he picked up the treasure. On the
way back he started to get rid of his pirate crewmen
one by one. This was his system: in his cabin he would
put up a picture of the next friend he intended to
eliminate, just to remind himself. After he had elimi-
nated that person and thrown him overboard, he would
put up a picture of his next victim. I think in the end
the pirate captain was eliminated himself. They say it
was a true story. As we watched the movie and saw
the treachery of this captain, we were reminded of how
people working around Stalin often disappeared. We
were haunted by the thought, "Weren't the enemies of
the people being killed off in just this way?"
As a rule, when a movie ended, Stalin would sug-
gest, "Well, let's go get something to eat, why don't
we?" The rest of us weren't hungry. By now it was
usually one or two o'clock in the morning. It was time
to go to bed, and the next day we had to go to work.
But Stalin didn't have to work in the morning, and he
didn't think about us. Everyone would say, yes, he
was hungry, too. This lie about being hungry was like
a reflex. We would all get into our cars and drive out
to the Nearby Dacha. Beria and Malenkov would
usually get in Stalin's car, and the rest of us were
distributed according to choice. I usually rode in a
car with Bulganin. Our caravan used to make detours
into side streets from the Kremlin to the Moscow
River. I often asked those who rode with Stalin, "Why
did you make detours off the main road?"
They answered, "Don't ask us. We didn't decide the
320 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
route. Stalin himself chose the streets we would take."
Apparently Stalin had a street plan of Moscow and
marked out a different route every time. He didn't
even tell his bodyguard in advance what route he
would take. You don't have to be too clever to guess
that he was taking measures to deceive any enemies
who might have had designs on his life. As for the
Kremlin itself, no one was allowed into it in those days.
The building where the theater was located was closed
off to everyone except those who came with Stalin.
Every time we got to the Nearby Dacha, we used to
whisper among ourselves about how there were more
locks than the time before. All sorts of bolts were
attached to the gate, and a barricade had been set up.
In addition there were two walls around the dacha,
and between the walls there were watchdogs. An
electric alarm system and all sorts of other security
devices were installed. In a way this was all quite
proper. Holding the position he did, Stalin was a very
tempting target for any enemy of the Soviet regime.
This was nothing to joke about, and the precautions
—
he took seemed to make sense although it would
have been dangerous for any of us to have tried to
imitate him.
When we got to the dacha, "the session" continued,
if you can it a session. This system of work, if you
call
can call it work, continued from after the war until
Stalin's death. Neither the Central Committee, nor the
Politbureau, nor the Presidium Bureau worked regu-
larly. But Stalin's regular sessions with his inner circle
went along like clockwork. If he didn't summon us
for two or three days, we would think something had
happened to him, that he'd gotten sick.
He suffered terribly from loneliness. He needed peo-
ple around him all the time. When he woke up in the
morning, he would immediately summon us, either
inviting us to the movies or starting some conversation
which could have been finished in two minutes but
was stretched out so that we would stay with him
longer. This was an empty pastime for us. It's true
that sometimes State and Party questions were de-
cided, but we spent only a fraction of our time on
 Stalin's last years 321

those. The main thing was to occupy Stalin's time

so he wouldn't suffer from loneliness. He was depressed
by loneliness and he feared it.
He had a deep fear of more than just loneliness and
being ambushed by his enemies on the road to the
dacha. Whenever we had dinner with him, Stalin
wouldn't touch a single dish or hors d'oeuvre or bottle
until someone else had tested it. This shows that he
had gone off the deep end. He didn't even trust the
people serving him, people who had served him for
years and who were undoubtedly loyal to him. He
didn't trust anyone at all. When we went for dinner at
Stalin's we always had his favorite dishes, and the
cooks prepared them very well. They were delicious.
But we had to eat according to the following routine:
Let's say Stalin wanted something to eat; everyone
was assigned a dish which he was supposed to try be-
fore Stalin would taste it.

"Look, here are the giblets, Nikita. Have you tried

them yet?"
"Oh, I forgot." I could see he would like to take some
himself but was afraid. I would try them and only
then would he start to eat them himself.
Then he would say, "Look! Here's some herring!"
He liked it very much. He was always served his
herring unsalted and everyone else salted theirs to
taste. I would taste Stahn's, and then he would have
some. And so it was with every dish. Every dish had
its own appointed taster who would find out if it was
poisoned or not.
Beria was the only one of us who didn't have to be
a taster at Stalin's table. He was exempt because he
never ate the same dishes the rest of us were served.
Even when having dinner with Stalin, Beria always
had his own meal brought over from his dacha. Stalin's
old retainer Matryona Petrovna used to serve Beria
and say in her thick nasal voice, "Well, Comrade
Beria, here's your grass." We all used to get a big
laugh out of that. Beria really did eat greens, just as
they do in Central Asia, and sometimes he stuffed
them into his mouth with his fingers. Every now and
then he used a fork, but usually he ate with his fingers.
322 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

These dinners were frightful. We would get home

from them early in the morning, just in time for
breakfast, and then we'd have to go to work. During
the day I usually tried to take a nap in my lunch hour
because there was always a risk that if you didn't take
a nap and Stalin invited you for dinner, you might get
sleepy at the table; and those who got sleepy at Stalin's
table could come to a bad end. There were often
serious drinking bouts, too. I remember Beria, Malen-
kov, and Mikoyan had to ask the waitresses to pour
them colored water instead of wine because they
couldn't keep up with Stalin's drinking.
There had been excessive drinking at Stalin's table
ever since before the war. Prior to their deaths,
Shcherbakov and Zhdanov had been two of the worst
—
offenders in this vile activity and two of its first
casualties as well. Once, Shcherbakov even went so
far as to expose Beria, Malenkov, and Mikoyan's
arrangement with the waitresses to be served colored
water instead of wine. When Stalin realized he had
been deceived he fumed with anger and raised a
terrible uproar.We were all disgusted with Shcherba-
kov, but of course we couldn't say anything about it.
Shcherbakov ended up drinking himself to death and—
he drank not so much because he had a craving for
alcohol, but simply because it pleased StaHn when the
people around him drank themselves under the table.
To put it more generally, I'd say that Stalin found it
entertaining to watch the people around him get them-
selves into embarrassing and even disgraceful situa-
tions. For some reason he found the humiliation of
others very amusing. I remember once Stalin made me
dance the "Gopak" [a Ukrainian folk dance] before
some top Party officials. I had to squat down on my
haunches and kick out my heels, which frankly wasn't
very easy for me. But I did it and I tried to keep a
pleasant expression on my face. As I later told Anastas
Ivanovich Mikoyan, "When Stalin says dance, a wise
man dances."
At these interminable, agonizing dinners, Stalin used
to regale us with stories. I've never forgotten how he
described his first exile. The tale helped explain why
 Stalin's last years 323

he drank so much. He was sent somewhere in Vologda

Province. Many poHtical and criminal convicts were
sent there. Stalin used to say, "There were some nice
fellows among the criminal convicts during my first
exile. I hung around mostly with the criminals. I re-
member we used to stop at the saloons in town. We*d
see who among us had a ruble or two, then we'd hold
our money up to the window, order something, and
drink up every kopek we had. One day I would pay;
the next, someone else would pay and so on, in turn.
These criminals were nice, salt-of-the-earth fellows.
But there were lots of rats among the pohtical con-
victs. They once organized a comrades' court and put
me on trial for drinking with the criminal convicts,
which they charged was an offense."
I don't know what sort of sentence this comrades*
court passed on Stalin. No one ever dared ask him. We
just exchanged glances. Only afterward would we ex-
change remarks, such as, "You see, even in his youth,
he was incHned to drink too much. It's probably in-
herited." Stalin had also told us stories about his
father. He said his father was a simple shoemaker and
that he drank a lot. He used to say that his father
drank so much he had to sell his belt for drinking
money, and a Georgian has to be in desperate straits
before he will sell his belt. "My father sold his belt a
number of times," said Stalin, "and when I was still
in the cradle, he used to dip his finger in a glass of
wine and let me suck on it. He was teaching me to
drink even when I was still in the cradle!"
I don't know what's been written in Stalin's biogra-
phy about his father, but in the early days of my career
there was a rumor going around that his father wasn't
a worker and simple shoemaker at all, but that he had
a workshop with at least ten employees under him. For
those days that was a big enterprise. If this fact had
been revealed during the purges in connection with
anybody but Stalin, that person would have undergone
an interrogation that would have made his bones rattle.
People were very particular about your background
after the Revolution. If it was discovered that you
came from a nonworker's background, you were con-
324 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
sidered a second-class citizen. This attitude was under-
standable. The working class is the most revolutionary
and the most stable class in society. It has carried the
weight of all the other classes on its shoulders through-
out history. Therefore the people's attitude toward any
class other than the proletariat has always been
guarded and critical.
Here's another sample of the kind of story Stalin
used to tell:
"One winter I went on a hunt. I took my gun and
crossed the Yenisei River on skis. I went about twelve
versts [eight miles]. I saw some partridges sitting in a
tree. To tell the truth, I didn't know they were
partridges at first. I'd hunted partridges before, but I'd
always thought they were field game and that they
kept to the grass. Anyway, live and learn. I came
nearer and started to shoot. I had twelve rounds and
there were twenty-four partridges. I killed twelve, and
the rest just sat there. So I decided to go back for
more shells. I went back, got some more shells, and
returned." We were ready for him to say anything at
this point. "I arrived and they were still sitting there."
I interrupted and asked, "What do you mean, they
were still sitting there?"
"That's right," he said, "they were still sitting there."
Beria urged him to go on with the story. "I killed the
remaining twelve partridges, took a piece of string,
attached them to it, tied the end of the string to my
belt, and dragged them home with me."
After dinner, while we were washing up before leav-
ing, we were literally spitting with scorn in the bath-
room. So he had made twelve versts on a winter day,
killed twelve partridges, gone back and forth another
twelve versts, shot twelve more partridges, and re-
—
turned home another twelve versts that's forty-eight
versts on skis! Beria said, "Listen, how could a man
from the Caucasus, who never had much chance to
ski, travel a distance like that? He's lying!"
Of course he was lying. None of us had any doubt
about that. It's hard to say why Stalin felt he had to
lie. I don't know what motivated him. He must have
had some sort of inner urge. This particular story was
 STALDfS LAST YEARS 325

an entertaining lie and didn't do the cause any harm,

it

but he often lied in more

serious conversations, too.
As far as his boasts about his skill with a gun were
—
concerned I had even seen with my own eyes that
Stalin couldn't shoot at all, much less kill twenty-four
partridges with twenty-four shots. He once picked up a
gun when we were having dinner at the Nearby Dacha
and went outside to drive away some sparrows. All he
succeeded in doing was wounding one of the Chekists
in his bodyguard. Another time he was fiddling with a
gun, and it went off and just barely missed killing
Mikoyan. StaHn was sitting next to Mikoyan. The shot
ripped into the ground and spewed gravel all over the
table and all over Mikoyan. No one said a word, but
we were all horrified.
If there was anything worse than having dinner
with Stalin, it was having to go on a vacation with him.
To have dinner with him or to go on vacation with him
was, of course, a great honor. But it was also a terrible
physical strain. If only people realized what an ordeal
it was, how much unpleasantness had to be swallowed

in order to preserve relations! The friendliest relations

always had to be demonstrated outwardly. You had
to make this sacrifice. But putting up with the ordeal
had its rewards and advantages, too. Conversations
were always going on which you could use profitably
and from which you could draw useful conclusions for
your own purposes.
After I started working in Moscow, Stalin frequently
invited me to come along with him when he went to
the Caucasus for a vacation. These frequent invitations
were all part of his fear of being alone. Stalin must
have liked me particularly, because before he left for
vacation he would often call me up and say, "Let's go
south. You need a vacation, too."
"Good," I'd answer, "I'd be glad to come along." I
clearly would have preferred not to go, but to have
said so would have been absolutely unthinkable. I
always went along and suffered. I once spent a whole
month on vacation with him. He put me right next
door to him. It was sheer torture. I had to spend all my
time with him, sitting over endless meals. Whenever I
326 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

was offered up in sacrifice, Beria used to cheer me u]

by saying, "Look at it this way: someone has to suffer
it might as well be you."
Stalin usually vacationed in Sochi, and he used tt
let Voroshilov come dov^m to Sochi for old times' sake
Back when Voroshilov had been People's Commissa
of Defense and still in Stalin's good graces, he hac
built himself a huge, ostentatious dacha modeled oi
the Livadia Palace [in Yalta].
Once I was vacationing by myself in Sochi, an(
—
Mikoyan was somewhere else in Sukhumi, I think
Stalin phoned us from his resort in Borzhomi. I thinl
this was the only time he spent his vacation there. H«
summoned everyone who was vacationing in the Cau
casus plus Beria, who was working in Moscow at thi
time. We all gathered in Borzhomi. The house was bi|
but poorly equipped. It had previously been a museun
so there were no bedrooms, and we used to sleep al
crowded together. It was awful. We depended on Sta
lin for everything. Wewere on an entirely different
schedule from his. In the morning we would be uj
and have taken a walk, and Stalin would still be sleep
ing. Then he would get up, and the day would officiallj
begin.
One day Stalin called us to him and said, "Rakos
[the Hungarian dictator] has come for a vacation ii
the Caucasus. He called and asked my permission." Sc
what? This wasn't the first time Rakosi had come tc
the Caucasus for a vacation. But we were silent
"Somebody better caU Rakosi and tell him to come
over here." Someone phoned Rakosi. Then Stalin said
"How does Rakosi know whenever I'm in the Cau-
casus? Apparently some sort of intelligence network
is informing him. He should be discouraged from this.'
So Rakosi had fallen onto the hst of suspects! So he
was some sort of agent! Actually it was no mystery
how Rakosi found out when Stalin was going to the
Caucasus. He simply called up the Central Committee
Secretariat and was told that Stalin was vacationing
in the Caucasus. That's all he had to do, and that's
probably exactly what he did.
When Rakosi arrived at Stalin's, he joined us foi
I STALIN*S LAST YEARS 327

dinner and took part in our drinking parties. Once,

after he'd had a bit to drink himself, Rakosi said,
"Listen, what's going on here? Look at all this drunk-
enness!" Rakosi was calling a spade a spade. We knew
he was right, but we had all found some sort of justifi-
cation for our behavior. None of us wanted to live like
this. We were all victims of Stalin's will. But nonethe-
less we took offense at Rakosi's remark.
Beria told Stalin that Rakosi had called us a bunch
bf drunkards. Stalin answered, "All right, we'll see
about that." That very night when we sat down to
dinner, Stalin started pumping drinks into Rakosi. He
pumped two or three bottles of champagne into him
and I don't know how much wine. I was afraid Rakosi
wouldn't be able to stand it and would drink himself
to death. But no, somehow he pulled through. The
next morning he left. StaUn was in a good mood all
day and joked, "You see what sort of a state I got him
into?"
Stalin stayed there for some time, and Mikoyan and
I were detained for a while longer to keep him com-
pany. Finally we escaped and went back to our own
vacation homes.
Stalin used to have Georgian house guests when he
was in the Caucasus, mostly old men whom he'd known
in his childhood. I remember there was one old rail-
way man whom Stalin was particularly fond of. Ap-
parently he was a good, honest fellow. He was a
Communist. He told Stalin about the bad situation
among the young people in Georgia. When young men
finished their education, they were unable to find suit-
able jobs in Georgia, and they didn't want to leave,
rhey would just loaf around or start profiteering.
Everyone who had anything to do with Georgia knew
all about this, but it was all news to Stalin —
bad news.
He told me later, "Do you know what's going on in
Georgia? The young men are either loafiing or profiteer-
ing! It's disgusting!"
Beria was the boss of Georgia. He had been Secre-
tary of the Central Committee of Georgia for many
j^ears, and he was Stalin's only informant about the
Republic where Stalin himself had been born. Beria
 I

328 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

had effectively sealed off Stalin from news about th
real situation in Georgia, but now^ a draft had com
through and fanned Stalin's anger. There's no question
that there really w^ere many defects and deficienciej
which had to be combated in Georgia, but by no mean!
do I ascribe them to national faults in the Georgian!
themselves. No, the problems were the result of condii
tions of life in Georgia. Georgia is the Soviet Union'
comer of paradise. It has a warm climate, ideal fo:|
citrus crops and vineyards. There are also many humai,
charms. Naturally it's hard for a Georgian of Hmitecj
background to leave, and there are many temptation; |

for profiteers. The vices so infectious among the uni

stable elements of Georgia would be present in anj,
nationahty group living in the same conditions. I evei'
hear my guards complaining: "Georgians are all ove]
the place, profiteering everywhere you go." I alwayj
tell them that if Russians lived in Georgia, they woulc
do exactly the same.
I remember that after I had been in the leadershij
for a few years, the Georgians started profiteering ir
bay leaves. I told V. P. Mzhavanadze [Khrushchev'i
ov^m Georgian Party chieftain] and the Crimean lead
ers to make sure that bay trees were grown only or
state plantations. They tell me that now there's nc
profiteering in bay leaves at all.
Naturally, there's always a temptation to try to make
a little extra money. That's the basic reason for profi-
teering. It isn't a matter of nationality but a fact oJ
life. If Georgians are speculating in vegetables, ther
the State should start growing those vegetables in hot-
beds and hothouses so that it will no longer be profit-
able for speculators to transport these products from
Georgia and resell them in Moscow. They will be
cheaper if they're produced by state enterprises. And
once illegal trade has been discouraged, the whole
Georgian nation will be ennobled, and Georgians ir
Moscow will lose their notoriety as profiteers. But Sta-
lin never considered such a sensible, constmctive solu-
tion. He thought the way to deal with the problem oi
profiteering in Georgia was by administrative mea-
sures, and that meant arresting and exiling people.
 Stalin's last years 329

Fear and Intrigue in the Inner Circle

^ere Khrushchev gives further examples of Stalin^s

oaranoia and vindictiveness, some dating hack to the
joar years when, to all appearances, he was the stern-
'aced, imperturbable generalissim^o. What is missing
lere, and throughout this narrative (except in brief
lashes), is an insight into the qualities which enM,bled
Stalin to hold his own and argue closely and knowl-
^dgeahly with Churchill and Roosevelt. Perhaps only
Molotov could speak with authority on these. Here also
ire revealing glimpses, directed above all at Beria, of
)he sort of undercover intriguing that went on all the
)ime among Stalin's "closest colleagues." The anecdote
ibout the Georgian cook is comic relief of a high order.

[ REMEMBER a striking incident that occurred when

Stalin spent his holiday in Afon. It must have been in
L951 because in 1952 he didn't go anywhere for vaca-
tion. And when Stalin didn't go on vacation, nobody
w^ent. When he was in Afon, Stalin summoned me from
Sochi and Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan from Sukhumi.
One day Mikoyan and I were taking a walk around
ihe grounds and Stalin came out on the porch of the
louse. He seemed not to notice Mikoyan and me. "I'm
inished," he said to no one in particular. "I trust no
me, not even myself."
This was a shocking admission. We had seen this
nistrust of people for a long time, but now he was
icknowledging it himself, and so categorically. Can
;^ou imagine such a statement coming from a man
^ho decided the fate of his country and influenced the
"ate of the world? It's one thing not to trust people,
rhat was his right, even if his extreme mistrust did
ndicate that he had a serious psychological problem.
But it's another thing when a man is compulsively
iriven to eliminate anyone he doesn't trust.
All of us around StaHn were temporary people. As
long as he trusted us to a certain degree, we were
330 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

allowed to go on living and working. But the moment

he stopped trusting you, Stalin would start to scruti-
nize you until the cup of his distrust overflowed. Then
it would be your turn to follow those who were no

longer among the living. That's what it was like for all
the people who worked with him and struggled beside
him in the ranks of the Party for the Party's sake.
Many of these people, Stalin's most dedicated com-
rades-in-arms, were eliminated. Kamenev and Zinoviev
are good examples of what I mean. I don't know what
sort of relations existed between StaHn and Trotsky in
the early period after the Revolution. In his written
Testament just before his death, Lenin says that Trot-
sky had never been a Marxist, while Stalin possessed
the necessary quahties of a real Marxist.^^ But Lenin
also said that Stalin was intolerant and vengeful. Sta-
lin's own admission of this in Afon in 1951 gave us a
glimpse behind the curtain which had hidden some of
the reasons for the tragedy which was played out dur-
ing the years when he led the Party and the country.
And his reign lasted a long time, a very long time.
Many completely honest, innocent people lost their
heads while Stalin ruled.
In the last days before his death, we usually met
—
with StaHn in a group Beria, Malenkov, Bulganin,
and myself. Bulganin wasn't always present at these
dinner sessions of the inner circle. Every year it be-
came more and more obvious that Stalin was weaken-
ing mentally as weU as physically. This was particularly
evident from his eclipses of mind and losses of memory.
When he was well and sober, he was still a formidable
leader, but he was declining fast. I recall once he
turned to Bulganin and started to say something but
couldn't remember his name. Stalin looked at him
intently and said, "You there, what's your name?"
"Bulganin."

28. Trotsky, of course, was a Menshevik for years before

he joined the Bolsheviks. As a former Menshevik he did not
qualify as a true Marxist in Lenin's eyes. But he made up for
it afterward. And in his Testament, to which Khrushchev here
refers, Lenin did not say that Trotsky had never been a
Marxist.
 STALIN*S LAST YEARS 331

"Of course, Bulganin! That's what I was going to

say." Stalin became very unnerved when this kind of
thing happened. He didn't want others to notice. But
these slips of memory occurred more and more fre-
quently, and they used to drive him crazy.
Kaganovich attended our meeting of the inner circle
even more rarely than Bulganin, and Voroshilov was
almost never invited. Very occasionally, Voroshilov
broke into these sessions without being invited, and
sometimes he would even call ahead to say he was
coming. But he was hardly ever around. For ten years
Stalin had suspected Voroshilov of being an English
spy, which was the greatest stupidity.^® I don't know
how far one has to go in one's distrust of people to
reach such an extreme. Stalin had worked and fought
side by side with Voroshilov for many, many years.
Voroshilov's honesty in the Party's eyes and in the
eyes of the working class couldn't possibly have been
subjected to any doubt. It's one thing to appraise the
job he did as People's Commissar of Defense, when he
showed himself to be ill prepared, careless and lazy.
But he certainly was loyal and honest. I remember
once Stalin suddenly got indignant in the middle of
one of our sessions and asked, "How did Voroshilov
worm his way into the Bureau?"
We answered, "He didn't worm his way in. You ap-
pointed him yourself." Later, Beria, Malenkov, and I
talked this over and shook our heads, wondering how
Stalin could have said such a thing.
Kaganovich was a less engaging man than Voroshi-
lov, but in terms of industriousness, Kaganovich was
a whirlwind. He worked as hard as he possibly could.
He drove himself mercilessly and never kept track of
time. All his time he devoted to the Party. He was a
careerist, but that's another matter. I'm talking now
about his style of work.
I remember once in my presence Stalin started
voicing his suspicions of Molotov. We were in the

29. It seems improbable that Stalin thought of his very old

crony, Voroshilov, as an English spy as early as 1943, whatever
he may have come to believe in his failing yesirs.
332 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

south —in Afon, I think —whensuddenly came into

it

Stalin's head that Molotov was an agent of American

imperialism. And what was the evidence for this
charge? It seemed that when Molotov was in the
United States he traveled from Washington to New
York by train. Stalin reasoned that if Molotov traveled
by train, then he must have had his own private rail-
way car. And if he had his own private railway car,
then where did he get the money? Hence, Molotov
must have sold himself to the Americans. We explained
to Stalin that Molotov couldn't possibly have owned a
railway car while he was abroad. In the United States,
all cars belong to private railway companies. Neverthe-
less, Stalin sent a telegram to Vyshinsky [chief prose-
cutor of the open trials in the thirties] who was then
,

working in the UN, and asked him to find out as much

as possible about Molotov's activities there. Did Molo-
tov have a personal railway car in the USA? Of course
Vyshinsky answered immediately that Molotov did not
have, and could not have had, a railway car. I bring
this incident up so that it will be clear what sort of
eclipses came over Stalin's mind during his last years
and what the atmosphere in the leadership was.
As I've already described, as a consequence of Sta-
lin's suspicion Molotov and Mikoyan were put on ice
after the Nineteenth Party Congress. We were all very
much alarmed about their fate. We knew that Stalin
had thought up some scheme against them when he
didn't include them in the Bureau. After the Congress,
Stalin began a policy of isolation against Mikoyan and
Molotov. I personally took their removal from the
inner circle very much to heart. I respected them both.
I considered Molotov to be very experienced, especially
in matters of foreign policy. He often talked about
foreign policy matters in my presence, and he always
expressed himself knowledgeably, logically, and force-
fully. That's why I worried that his removal would
affect the quality of the leadership's work. I also liked
Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan. I valued his judgment on
international matters, too, especially ones relating to
foreign trade.
After the Nineteenth Congress, Mikoyan and Molo-
 Stalin's last years 333

tov, continuing an old practice, used to come along

when we got together with Stalin. They wouldn't
bother to call Stahn and ask permission. They would
find out whether Stalin was at the Kremlin or at his
dacha and then simply appear. They were always
allowed in, but it was obvious Stalin wasn't very glad
to see them. They were trying to stay close to Stalin
—
because they wanted to save themselves and not just
save their positions in the Party and the leadership.
They wanted to stay alive. They were trying to regain
Stalin's confidence. I realized the danger they were in,
and was completely on their side.
Then one day Stalin said, "I don't want these two
coming around any more." He gave orders to his staff
not to tell Molotov and Mikoyan where he was. After-
ward, Molotov and Mikoyan had a talk with Beria,
Malenkov, and me. We agreed to try to soften Stalin's
attitude toward them. We also agreed to notify them
when Stalin was going out to the Nearby Dacha or
coming in to the Kremlin movie theater so that they
could meet us there. For a while, whenever we went
to the movies with Stalin, Molotov and Mikoyan
showed up too. Stalin checked with his staff and was
told that whenever Molotov and Mikoyan called, they
were never told where he was, just as Stalin had
ordered. Then Stalin noticed our maneuverings and
figured out that we were acting as Molotov and Miko-
yan's agents. One day he raised an uproar. He didn't
accuse any of us by name, but he was looking mostly
at Malenkov as he stormed: "You think I don't see
how you let Molotov and Mikoyan know when we're
going to the movies so that they can come along? Stop
this! Stop telling them where I am! I won't tolerate it!"
We saw it was useless to persist. It wouldn't do
Molotov and Mikoyan any good, and it might jeopardize
our own positions in Stalin's eyes. No one wanted that.
Stalin was irritated, and when that happened you
could expect your relationship with him to take a
sudden turn for the worse. So without bringing the
subject up again among ourselves, we decided to wait
for the natural outcome of this situation. I'm con-
334 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
vinced that if Stalin had lived much longer, Molotov
and Mikoyan would have met a disastrous end.
I would also like to say something about Beria's
relationship with Stalin toward the end of Stalin's life.
During the war Beria had become more brazen than
ever. As StaHn lost control, and even lost his will dur-
ing the period of our retreat from the Germans, Beria
became the terror of the Party. His growing influence
was obvious to me from the composition of Stalin's
entourage. When I returned to Moscow from the Front
during the war, I noticed that Stalin was surrounded
by Georgians. There was a Caucasian chef who made
shashlik for Stalin. He had been made a major general.
Every time I came to Moscow, I saw that this chef had
more and more ribbons and medals, apparently in
recognition of his skill at cooking shashlik. Once Stalin
caught me staring at the chef's ribbons and medals
and scowled at me. He knew what I was thinking, and
I knew what he was thinking, but neither of us said
anything. Everyone felt that having this chef around
in his uniform covered with medals was down-
all
right offensive, but we never mentioned
it because it
wouldn't have done any good. In addition to the major-
general chef, there was a Georgian in charge of sup-
plying wine, lamb for shashlik, and various other
provisions for Stalin's kitchen. He was made a lieu-
tenant general during the war. Whenever I came back
from the Front, I noticed that he, too, had been awarded
one or two more decorations in my absence. I think
everyone else was as revolted by this practice as I
was. I remember that once Stalin gave me a dressing
down in front of this lieutenant general in charge of
provisions. He had gotten drunk with Stalin and the
rest of us. This fellow wasn't suitable company for us
in any way. It was one thing to let him deliver all
kinds of food and drink for our table, but it was an-
other thing to let him sit dovni and eat and drink at
the same table with us. Nobody knew him, yet we
were supposed to talk intimately and freely in his
company. In my opinion it was during the war that
Stalin started to be not quite right in the head.
After the war Beria became a member of the Polit-
 SZALDV'S -LASI YEABS 335

bureau, and Stalin started to worry about Beria's

increasing influence. More than that, Stalin started to
fear Beria, I didn't know at the time what the roots
of this fear were, but later, when Beria's entire ma-
chinery for eliminating peof^ was uncovered, it all
became clear. The practical means for achieving Sta-
Hn's goals were all in Beria's hands. Stalin realized
that if Beria could eliminate anyone at wfaom Staliu
pointed his finger, then Beria could also eliminate
someone of his own choosing, on his own initiative,
Stalin feared that he would be the &rst person Beria
might choose. Naturally Stalin never told anyone about
this, but I could sense it nonetheless. I first b^an to
realize the intensity of Stalin's fear one day after the
war when I was at Stalin's for dinner. All of a sudden
Stalin looked around him at the people waiting on him
and asked angrily, **Wiiy am I surrounded by Geor-
gians?"
Beria was immediately on his guard and said, "Conv-
rade Stalin, these people are your faithful servants;
they're all devoted to yoLL"
Stalin became indignant: 'T)o€s that mean Russians
are unfaithful? Does that mean Russians aren't de-
voted to me?"
"No,'' answered Beria, "I didn't say that But the
people who have been sheeted here are all loyal
servants."
Staliu shouted, "I don't need their loyalty! Clear
— —
these people out of here!" The Georgians including
the «;V>a'>]-i1ilr cook and the provisions officer ^were
immediately whisked away, and Beria shuffled out of
the room like a man who had been beaten up.
Once he had thrown out all the Georgian help and
replaced them with Russians, Stalin probably believed
he had closed o5 Beria's access to his kitchen through
his entourage. However. Stalin was getting old and
didn't realize how powerful Beria still was. For in-
stance, the Minister of State Security, Abakumov,
would report to Stalin only after Beria had reported
to Stalin himself and received Stalin's instructions.
But, as I say, Stalin was getting old, and he didn't
understand what was happening. He thought he had
336 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

found in Abakumov a bright young man who was

dutifully carrying out his orders, but actually Aba-
kumov was reporting to Stalin what Beria had told
him Stalin wanted to hear. Furthermore, Beria still
did in fact control Stalin's entourage, even after the
Georgian service personnel had been thrown out. Beria
had worked in the Cheka for a long time, and all the
Chekists were known to him. They were all trying to
get in Beria's good graces, and it was easy for him to
use these people for his own aims. Therefore Stalin
couldn't even trust his Russian entourage, including
his Chekist bodyguard.
My
feeling that Stalin afraid of Beria was con-
was
firmed when Stalin concocted the Mingrehan affair. I
am absolutely certain that the "conspiracy" charge
was fabricated as a way of doing away with Beria, who
was a Mingrel himself. Stalin published a decree saying
that the Mingrels had connections with the Turks,
and that some of them were politically oriented to-
ward Turkey. Of course the allegation was utter non-
sense. Because Stalin was old and sick, he wasn't
consistent in following through on his scheme. Beria
turned the whole thing around in his favor and shrewd-
ly insinuated himself as Stalin's henchman. None of
the rest of us would have dared interfere in a matter
relating to the Georgian Republic. Beria assigned him-
self to go to Georgia and administer the punishment
of the Mingrels, the imaginary enemies. Those poor
fellows were led to the slaughter like sheep.^^ All this
left an awful taste in our mouths. It convinced me
personally that only if a leadership is under pubhc
control will it be protected from actions which are
Incompatible with our Socialist doctrine and harmful
to our Socialist way of life.
Beria's arrogance grew and grew. He was able— and
I was astonished that Stalin stood for it —to make some
30. In the Secret Speech Khrushchev implied that the Min-
—
grelian affair the smashing of an alleged nationalist conspir-
—
acy in Georgia was engineered by Beria. In fact, as he now
suggests, it was part of a plot to discredit Beria. It was
trumped up on behalf of Stalin by Khrushchev's own ally,
S. D. Ignatiev, who also masterminded the Doctors' Plot.
EHflUSHCHEV
ALBUM

The young Khrushchev

 'mM

/
<i

Khrushchev (third from left in front row) with fellow stu

dents at the Yuzovka Worker's Faculty in the early 1920'

Khrushchev with Party delegates fror^

the Red Presnya District of Moscow, 193

,^v. '
With his colleagues in the Donbass when he was a metal fitter
Khrushchev and Stalin, May 1, 1932

Molotov, Khrushchev and Stalin on the Leni

Mausoleum during a May Day parade (19341
Greeting the people

wB^SS^^
Supervising the construction of the Moscow Metro in the 1930's

On an inspection tou
fearing his first Order of Lenin,
awarded for his work on the Moscow
letro, Khrushchev delivers an address into an early microphone

At a Party meeting in the 1930's

Voroshilov and Beria

In Mongolian National dress, with Bulgani

 u /

In the Ukraine in the 1930's

At the time he was a member of the IVIoscow City Soviet (before 1938)
At Voronezh, November 7, 1941. To right of Khrush-
chev: General Timoshenko and Colonel Bagramyan

At the Voronezh Front, July 14, 1943, with Gen-

erals Apanasenko (left) and Rotmistrov (right)
With Generals Yepishev (center) and Moskalenko (right)

With Vasily Stalin in 1941 or 1942

M »
^

fWl^
With M. I. Kalinin, President of the USSR, 1943

At the Stalingrad Front, October, 1943, with General Yeremenko and staff
Conferring with a group of officers

With General Malinovsky in 1943 or 1944

With two other generals in January, 1944

At Rostov on its liberation, February 18, 1943

1 «fcf--
i
Kiev, November, 1943

In the Ukraine, at the time of liberation, 1943

n the job after the war, 1946
With his wife, Nina Petrovna, in Kiev, 1944

With Kaganovich (center) and Ukrainian Fori

Minister Manuilsky, in the Ukraine, 1946 or 1

siting a metallurgical factory in occupied territory, 1944

Conversing with Voroshilov

With their granddaugh- At unveiling of Lenin monu-
ter Julia in Kiev, 1947 ment, near.Moscov/, 195C

With his youngest daughter, Helen, looking ai

German trophies in Gorky Park, Moscow, 194i

e Khrushchev family in 1947. Standing in back: Julia (left), Khrushchev's
ughter by his first wife, Galina; and Rada. Middle row: Julia, the daughter
Khrushchev's son Leonid, who was killed in the war; Sergei; and the
irushchevs. Seated on the grass: Helen and an unidentified child.
f
Stalin and Svetlana
Khrushchev and Gomulka of Poland in the 1960's

Hunting near Kiev with Gomulka and Podgorny, December 22, 1962

Mme. Khrushcheva and Janos Kadar of Hungary

 Mmes. Khrushcheva and Tito in Yugoslavia (1963?)

At the Geneva summit meeting, 1955. Left to right: Molotov, Bul-

ganin, Khrushchev, Zhul(ov, Faure, iVIacmillan, Eden and Dulles
Khrushchev and Bulganin in India with Nehru and other Indian leaders, 1955

In China, 1954. Khrushchev and Bulganin at the Canton airport

 Drinking wine from traditional Georgian horns, May, 1962

VIeeting cosmonaut Titov, August, 1961, at Vnukovo airport. In the background, left:

Kozlov, Suslov, Brezhnev and Gagarin. Beyond Tito: a group of cosmonauts' wives
On a cruise along the Dnieper River in the Ukraine, 1962

With his grandson Nikita, 1963

 5>r F-^
w

At Zavidova, near Moscow, 1963

Vacationing at a former palace of Tsar Alexander III,

in the Crimea, 1961. Far left: Ulbricht of East Germany

and Gomulka of Poland. Far right: Suslov and Brezhnev

Khrushchev and his wife at a house in Usovo, in the Ukraine, with their children
Helen, Sergei, Julia, and Rada, and their son-in-law, A. I. Adzhubei, Rada's husbanc

I II .^^^ ,._ ,, _ /
I
Official portrait, 1963
 KHRUSHCHEV'S KREMLIN COLLEAGUES

Lavrenty P. Beria Nikolai A. Bulganin Lazar M. Kaganovich

Georgi M. Malenkov Rodion Y. Malinovsky Anastas \. Mikoyan

Vyacheslav M. Molotov Kliment E. Voroshilov Georgi K. Zhukov

 Stalin's last years 337

point over dinner and then, if Stalin rejected it, Beria

would slap down someone else who tried to make the
same point later on in the meal. "I've already told
you," Beria would say. "This question needn't be
raised." Stalin wouldn't say anything even though he'd
heard with his own ears that it had been Beria himself
who had raised the question in the first place.
Beria was arrogant about everything. Nothing could
be decided without him. You couldn't even report to
Stalin without getting Beria's support in advance; if
you made a report to Stalin in Beria's presence and if
you hadn't cleared it with him beforehand, he would
be sure to tear your report down in Stalin's eyes with
all sorts of questions and contradictions. All the while
Beria was consohdating his forces.
During the period after the war Malenkov began
consolidating his forces, too, even though his situation
i periodically took a turn for the worse. One time Stalin
even removed Malenkov from the Central Committee
Secretariat and sent him to Central Asia. Beria gave
Malenkov a helping hand and arranged for his transfer
back to Moscow. From then on Beria and Malenkov
appeared to be inseparable friends. Stahn used to joke
over dinner about them as "those two rogues." I
watched with great interest as this "friendship" be-
tween the two rogues developed. I could see Beria
neither liked nor respected Malenkov but was simply
using him for his own political ends. Beria once said
to me something hke the following:
"Listen, about this spineless fellow Malenkov. He's
nothing but a billy goat. He'll bolt if you don't hold
him on a leash. But he's a Russian and very proper.
He may come in handy." This business about "coming
in handy" was the key to Beria's friendship with Ma-
lenkov.^^

31. Throughout this narrative Khrushchev so successfully

writes off Malenkov as a characterless intriguer that it requires
an effort to remember that this same "billy goat" came within
a hairsbreadth of deposing Khrushchev in 1957. He was cer-
tainly an intriguer; he was also extremely able, ruthless, and
tough. In addition, he was well educated and cultivated, per-
haps inclined to look down on Khrushchev. (See Appendix 3.)
338 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS '!

I had been friends with Malenkov since the day:

when I worked in the Moscow organization before th<

war. We often spent our days off together. We ha«

dachas near each other in the country. Therefore
even though Malenkov showed a certain amount o
condescension toward me during the war, especially;
when Stalin displayed his dissatisfaction with me^
Malenkov and I never had a falling out.
Once Malenkov and Iwere together at Stalin':'
vacation home in Sochi. Ihad come from Kiev anc
Malenkov had come from Moscow. We went for a wall,
together, and I said to him, "I'm surprised you don'
realize what Beria's attitude is toward you. Don't yoi;
see what it is?" He was silent. "You think he respect;
you? I think he mocks you."
Finally Malenkov answered, "Yes, of course, I see;
But what can I do?"
"What can you do? I would just like you to under:
stand. It's true, right now you can't do anything. Bu I

the time will come."

My own anxiety was growing. Stalin was at an ag(:
which put the rest of us in a difficult position. Far froni
looking forward to Stalin's death, I actually feared it'
I was afraid of the consequences. What would happeri
to the country? Even though I already had my doubfc;
about the campaign against the enemies of the people!
I still had confidence in Stalin. I figured that perhapj!
there had been some excesses, but basically everythin|i
had been handled properly. Not only did I not con-;
demn Stalin, I exalted him for being unafraid to purge
the Party and thereby to unify it. In the late forties
was already convinced that when Stalin died, we woulc
have to do everything possible to prevent Beria froir
occupying a leading position in the Party. Otherwise ii
would be the end of the Party. I even thought thai
Beria's success might mean the failure of the Revolu-
tion. It might mean losing the gains of the Revolution
It was already my opinion that Beria might divert the
progress of the country from a Socialist to a capitalisi
course.
In the last years of Stalin's life Beria used to expres;
his disrespect for Stalin more and more baldly. He usee
 STALIN*S LAST YEARS 339

ito talk more candidly with Malenkov than with me,

(but he often spoke disrespectfully and even insultingly
about StaUn in my presence. This always offended me
and put me on my guard. It particularly put me on my
guard. The way I looked at it, Beria's apparent disre-
spect toward Stalin was probably a provocation de-
signed to pull me into making similar remarks or even
just agreeing with him so that he could then go and
(denounce me to Stalin as an anti-Stalinist and an
6nemy of the people. However, I was familiar with
Beria's treachery, so I listened but never said anything.
I never closed my ears, but I never opened my mouth

either. Nevertheless Beria continued in the same spirit,

even though I was careful not to encourage him. He
was confident that nothing threatened him. He knew
that I wasn't able to play the informer. Also I knew
he was considerably closer to Stalin than I was and
could afford to be less cautious. When Beria and Sta-
lin fought, Beria could always pretend it was just a
lovers' quarrel. When two Georgians fight, they're just
amusing themselves. They'll always make up in the
snd.
for Beria's method of provocation. He was
So much
a master of it. He was very skillful at anything that
was filthy and treacherous. Therefore I was always on
tny guard with him. I knew he was looking for a chance
to denounce me and get rid of me. He used this trick
an Bulganin, too, but Bulganin knew what Beria was
up to as well as I did. I'm sure, however, that Beria
never allowed himself to say anything against Stalin in
Kaganovich's presence. Beria not only didn't trust Ka-
—
janovich ^he hated him with a passion.
That was the general situation on the eve of Stalin's
ieath.

Stalin s Death

Radio Moscow announced to the world on the nioming

of March 4, 1953, that Stalin had been stricken with a
cerebral hemorrhage "while in his Moscow apartment."
340 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
In fact, asKhrushchev confirms here, Stalin was at
his dacha. The communique toos accompanied hy an
appeal from the Central Cormnittee and the Council of
Ministers for the Soviet people to redouble their "uni-
and vigilance in these
ty, solidarity, fortitude of spirit
troubled days." The Russian Orthodox Patriarch and
the Chief Rabbi ordered that special services be held.
Two days later about four o'clock in the morning came
the announcement, preceded by a roll of drums, that
"the heart of Lenin's com,rade-in-arms, the standard-
bearer of his genius and his cause, the wise leader and
teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union,
has ceased to beat"
Khrushchev's account of the macabre circum,stances
surrounding Stalin's death is broadly correct and is
essentially confirmed by Svetlana Alliluyeva's account
in Twenty Letters to a Friend. Each has details omitted
by the other, but it is interesting to see that both ver-
sions agree on Beria's alTnost unbelievable behavior at
the deathbed. Khrushchev makes much of his fear that
Beria would take the Ministry of State Security. The
reason for this is that although for years Beria had
been in control of the secret police, since 1946 he had
had no formal position as such. As a member of the
Politbureau he retained general control over the Minis-
try of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State
Security (MVD and MGB). Both these ministries (suc-
cessors to the old commissariats) were headed by his
proteges until 1951, when Khrushchev's friend, S. D.
Ignatiev, was made head of the MGB. Khrushchev's
worry was that with his great following in the security
services Beria would be able to get rid of IgTiatiev and
regain control of the MGB. This in fact happened, but
it did not last long.

Stalin fell ill in February, 1953. Malenkov, Beria,

Bulganin, and I had been at the Nearby Dacha with
him on a Satxirday night after watching a movie at the
Kremlin. As usual, dinner lasted until around five or
six o'clock in the morning. Stalin was pretty drunk
after dinner and in very high spirits. He didn't show
the shghtest sign that anything was wrong with him
 STALIN*S LAST YEARS 341

physically. When it was finally time for us to leave, he

came into the vestibule to show us out. He was joking
boisterously, jabbing me playfully in the stomach with
his finger and calling me "Nikita" with a Ukrainian
accent, as he always did when he was in a good mood.
So after this particular session we all went home happy
because nothing had gone wrong at dinner. Dinners at
Stalin's didn't always end on such a pleasant note.
The next day, Sunday, was supposed to be a day
off, and I was sure Stalin would call us all in for a
meeting of some kind. On Sunday evening, expecting
his call at any moment, I delayed dinner at home.
Finaly I gave up waiting and had something to eat.
After dinner there was still no call. I couldn't believe
that a whole day off would go by without Stalin sum-
moning us. But no, he didn't call. It was already very
late when I undressed and got into bed.
Suddenly the telephone rang. It was Malenkov, who
said, "Listen, the Cheka boys have just called from
Stalin's dacha. They think something has happened
to him. We'd better get over there. I've already noti-
fied Beria and Bulganin. You'd better leave at once."
I sent for my car right away. I had it with me at
my dacha. I dressed quickly and drove to Stalin's. It
took fifteen minutes to get there. When we'd all con-
vened, we stopped by to see the duty officers before
going to Stalin's room. They explained why they
were worried: "Comrade Stalin almost always calls
someone and asks for tea or something to eat at eleven
o'clock. Tonight he didn't." The Chekists said they
had sent Matryona Petrovna to check up on him.
Matryona Petrovna was an aging maid who had
worked for Stalin for many years. She wasn't very
bright, but she was honest and devoted to Stalin.
After Matryona Petrovna had looked around, she
came back and told the Chekists that Comrade Stalin
was lying asleep on the floor of the large room where
he usually slept. Apparently Stalin had gotten out of
bed and fallen. The Chekists lifted him up off the
floor and laid him on a sofa in the small, adjoining
dining room.
When we were told about all this, we decided that
342 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

it wouldn't be suitable for us to make our presence

known while Stalin was in such an unpresentable
state. We separated and all went home. Later that
night there was another call from Malenkov. "The
boys have called again from Comrade Stalin's," he
said. "They say that something is definitely wrong
with him. Matryona Petrovna said he was sleeping
soundly when we sent her to look in on him again, but
it's an unusual sort of sleep. We'd better go back."
We arranged for Malenkov to call the other mem-
bers of the Bureau, Voroshilov and Kaganovich, who
hadn't been at dinner the night before and who hadn't
come to the Nearby Dacha the first time when Ma-
lenkov, Beria, Bulganin and I went to check on the
situation. We arranged for doctors to come, too.
Among them I remember Professor Lukomsky. After
meeting at the duty officers' station, we went into the
room where Stalin was sleeping on the sofa. We told
the doctors to do what was necessary and to find out
what condition Stalin was in. Professor Lukomsky
approached Stalin very cautiously. I knew what he
was thinking. Shaking nervously, he touched Stalin's
hand as though it were a hot iron. Beria said gruffly,
"You're a doctor, aren't you? Go ahead and take hold
of his hand properly."
Professor Lukomsky said Stalin's right arm wouldn't
move. His left leg was also paralyzed. He couldn't even
speak. His condition was grave. They undressed hhn
and moved him back into the large room onto the sofa
where he usually slept and where there was more air.
The doctors arranged a rotating watch over him.
We arranged our own round-the-clock vigil among the
Presidium Bureau members, dividing it up as follows:
Beria and Malenkov were on together, Kaganovich
and Voroshilov, and Bulganin and I. It was obvious
that Malenkov and Beria determined how the vigil
would be divided up. They took the day shift for
themselves and gave the night shift to Bulganin and
me. I admit I was very upset. I was very sorry we
were losing Stalin.
Stalin was in a bad way. The doctors told us that
after such an illness it was extremely unlikely he
 —
STALESr'S LAST YEARS 343

would be able to return to work. He might live, but

he wouldn't be able to work
again. They told us that
usually illnesses like this didn't last long and ended
fatally.
We did everything we could to raise Stalin to his
feet. We saw he was unconscious and therefore com-
pletely oblivious of his condition. But then, while the
doctors were taking a urine sample, I noticed he tried
to cover himself. He must have felt the discomfort.
Once, during the day, he actually returned to con-
sciousness. Even though he still couldn't speak, his
face started to move. They had been spoon-feeding
him soup and sweet tea. He raised his left hand and
started to point to something on the wall. His lips
formed something like a smile. I realized what he was
trying to say and called for attention. I explained why
he was pointing with his hand. There was a picture
hanging on the wall, a clipping from the magazine
Ogonyok. It was a reproduction of a painting by some
artist of a little girl feeding a lamb from a horn. At
that moment Stalin was being spoon-fed and was try-
ing to say, "I'm in the same position as that lamb
which the girl is feeding from the horn. You're doing
the same for me with a spoon."
Then he began to shake hands with us one by one.
I gave him my hand, and he shook it with his left
hand because his right wouldn't move. By these hand-
shakes he conveyed his feelings.
No sooner had Stalin fallen ill than Beria started
going around spewing hatred against him and mocking
him. It was simply unbearable to Usten to Beria. But,
interestingly enough, as soon as Stalin showed these
signs of consciousness on his face and made us think
he might recover, Beria threw himself on his knees,
seized Stalin's hand, and started kissing it. When
Stalin lost consciousness again and closed his eyes,
Beria stood up and spat. This was the real Beria
treacherous even toward Stalin, whom he supposedly
admired and even worshiped yet whom he was now
spitting on.
Bulganin and I arrived one evening for the night
watch. We had been there during most of the day as
 —
344 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
well.We had to keep an eye on the doctors while they
were there, and we had to stand watch at night, too. I
was more candid with Bulganin than with the others
and even confided to him my innermost thoughts. I
told him, "Nikolai Aleksandrovich, Stalin's not going
to pull through. The doctors have already said he
won't live. You know what kind of situation we're
going to find ourselves in when Stalin passes away?
You know what post Beria will take for himself?"
"Which one?"
"He'll try to make himself Minister of State Se-
curity. No matter what happens, we can't let him do
this. If he becomes Minister of State Security it will
be the beginning of the end for us. He'll take that post
for the purpose of destroying us, and he will do it, too,
if we let him. Therefore no matter what happens, we

can't let him do it, absolutely no matter what!"

Bulganin said he agreed with me, and we began
to discuss what we should do from there. I said, "I'll
talk to Malenkov. I think he will see it our way. He
must also understand that something must be done.
If we don't do something and do it right away, it
will mean disaster for the Party. This issue involves
more than just us personally, although of course we
don't want to let Beria stab us in the back. If Beria
has his way, he could turn back the clock to 1937-38
and he could do worse, too."
As I've mentioned, I had already started having my
doubts whether Beria was even a true Communist.
I'd begun to think of him as someone who had wormed
his way into the Party. I recalled the words of Grisha
Kaminsky when he said Beria had been an agent of
the English counterintelligence service in Baku in the
first years of the Revolution [see page 99]. Beria
was a wolf in sheep's clothing who had sneaked into
Stalin's confidence and been able to secure a high po-
sitionby deceit and treachery.
Bulganin agreed with everything I said. Our watch
ended and I went home. I wanted to get some sleep
because I hadn't slept for a long time, so I took a
sleeping pill and went to bed. No sooner had I lain
down than the telephone rang. It was Malenkov, who
 Stalin's last years 345

said, "Come quickly. Stalin has had a setback. Come

over here right away." I called for my car immediately
and was on my way. When I arrived at the Nearby
Dacha I found that StaUn was indeed in a very bad
way. The others arrived. We could all see that Stalin
was near death. The doctors told us that he was dying
and that we were watching his death throes. Sud-
denly he stopped breathing. A huge man came from
somewhere and started giving him artificial respira-
tion, massaging him to get him breathing again. I must
admit I felt very sorry for Stalin, this man was racking
him so. It was painful for me to watch him working
Stalin over. I said, "Listen! Stop it, please! Can't you
see the man is dead? What do you want? You won't
bring him back to life. He's already dead." They gave
—
up trying to resuscitate him. It was true Stalin was
dead.
The moment Stalin died, Beria got in his car and
drove off.
 Succession

Plotting Berla's Downfall

As far as Khrushchev was concerned, the plotting

evidently started while he, his colleagues, and Svet-
lana Alliluyeva stood hy Stalin's deathbed. Once
again, Svetlana and Khrushchev agree about Beria's
extraordinary attitude. Both were struck by his tri-
umphant smile as he called for his car the moment
Stalin was dead; and it was plain that he was in a
hurry to be away jrom Kuntsevo to take control of
the security forces and put himself in the strongest
possible position. (It may be mentioned that Svetlana
Alliluyeva goes out of her way to pay tribute to
Khrushchev's sympathetic attitude toward her, then
and thereafter.) There can be no doubt at all that
Beria was determined to make a bid for supreme
power. So was Malenkov, who emerged for the time
—
being as Stalin's successor as Prime Minister and
—
First Secretary of the Communist Party with Beria
second in the hierarchy. The two men were tevfiporary
allies, each no doubt believing that he could use the
other. But Khrushchev also had set his sights very
high. For the moment he bowed to the coalition of
Malenkov and Beria, but within ten days Malenkov,
while still remaining Prime Minister, was compelled to
relinquish the First Secretaryship of the Party, which
was formally assumed by Khrushchev six months
later.Khrushchev's im,plicit claim to have been the
leading spirit in the plot against Beria is no doubt
broadly true; but it is permissible to doubt whether it
happened quite like that. Others besides Khrushchev
346
 SUCCESSION 347

were aware of Beria's pretensions and the danger aris-

ing from the concentration of power in his hands.
Apart from individual members of the Presidium,
these included, most importantly, virtually the whole
of the army high command, which also detested Malen-
kov for the way he had acted as Stalin's spy during
the war. It is likely that some of the marshals, many
of whom had worked closely with Khrushchev and got
on well with him, were far more active in the prelimi-
nary plotting than is suggested here. There were also
far more serious issues than the proposed dacha-build-
ing operation at Sukhumi, fantastic and bizarre as that
episode was. And the plotting itself must have been
a grimm^er undertaking than a simple vfiatter of lob-
bying the faint-hearted for support. Khrushchev's ac-
tual description of the arrest and detention of Beria
differs a good deal from, sotne of the more lurid ac-
counts with which he regaled foreign Comm,unist
visitors from time to time, but it is probably authentic.
The official communiques about the trial and sentenc-
ing of Beria and a number of his subordinates are
included in Robert Conquest's Power and Policy in
the USSR. Conquest also offers the fullest and most
coherent account of the infighting in the Kremlin
between 1945 and 1960, about which Khrushchev has
all too little to say in this narrative.

Stalin was dead, and at the time, his death seemed

like a terrible tragedy; but I feared that the worst was
still to come. Each of us took Stalin's death in his
own way. I took his death very hard. To be honest,
I took it hard not so much because I was attached to
Stalin— although I was attached to him. He was an
old man, and death had been one step behind him for
a long time. After all, death is inevitable. Everyone is
bom and everyone dies. It's a fact of life. More than
by his death itself, I was disturbed by the composition
of the Presidium which Stalin left behind and par-
ticularly by the place Beria was fixing for himself.
It all portended serious complications and some
un-
—
pleasant surprises I would even say catastrophic
consequences.
348 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
As soon as Stalin died, Beria was radiant. He was
regenerated and rejuvenated. To put it crudely, he
had a housewarming over Stalin's corpse before it was
even put in its coffin. Beria was sure that the moment
he had long been waiting for had finally arrived. There
was no power on earth that could hold him back now.
Nothing could get in his way. Now he could do what-
ever he saw fit. You could see these triumphant
thoughts in his face as he called for his car and drove
off to the city, leaving us at the Nearby Dacha.
I knew that Malenkov had never really had a
position or a role of his own and that he was just an
errand boy. Stalin used to say very accurately during
conversations with his inner circle, "This Malenkov
is a good clerk. He can write out a resolution quickly.
He's a good person for allocating responsibilities to,
but he has no capacity at all for independent thought
or initiative."^ Malenkov had always thought it was
profitable to play up to Beria, even though he knew
Beria pushed him around and mocked him. And Ma-
—
lenkov was quite right it was profitable to play up to
Beria. It was mainly because he was so close to Beria
that Malenkov stayed in favor with Stalin despite
Stalin's low opinion of him as a leader. Now that
Stalin was dead, Malenkov was sure to "come in
handy" for Beria's plans, as Beria himself had once
toldme he would.
These were the thoughts going through my mind
while I stood over Stalin's dead body at the Nearby
Dacha.
When Beria had gone, the rest of us decided to call
together all the members of the Bureau and the
Presidium. While waiting for them to arrive, Malen-
kov paced up and down nervously. I decided to have
a talk with him then and there. I went over and said,
"Yegor [Georgi], I want to talk to you."
"What about?" he asked coldly.

1. Only five months before, in October, 1952, Stalin had

showed his far from low opinion of Malenkov by putting him
up to make the General Report to the Nineteenth Party Con-
gress.
 .

SUCCESSION 349

"Now that Stalin is dead, we have something to

discuss. What do we do now?"
"What's there to talk about? We'll all get together
and then we'll talk. That's why we're having a meet-
ing." This seemed like a democratic enough answer,
but I took it differently. I took it to mean that Malen-
kov had already talked things over with Beria and
everything had been decided for some time.
"Well, all right," I said, "then we'll talk later."
Everyone gathered at the Nearby Dacha and saw
that Stalin was dead. Then Svetlanka arrived. I went
over to meet her. She was very upset and started to
cry. I couldn't control myself. I started to weep, too,
and I wept sincerely over Stalin's death.
I wasn't just weeping for Stalin. I was terribly wor-
ried about the future of the Party and the future of
the country. I already sensed that Beria would start
bossing everyone around and that this could be the
beginning of the end. I'd known for a long time that he
was no Communist. I considered him a treacherous op-
portunist who would stop at nothing to get what he
wanted. Ideologically, I didn't recognize his position
as a Communist one. He was a butcher and an
assassin.
When the meeting was convened, the distribution
of our new portfolios began. Beria immediately pro-
posed Malenkov for Chairman of the Council of
Ministers. On the spot Malenkov proposed that Beria
be appointed his first deputy. He also proposed the
merger of the ministries of State Security and of
Internal Affairs into a single Ministry of Internal
—
Affairs with Beria as Minister a seemingly modest
post for Beria to settle for.^ I was silent. I was afraid
that Bulganin might object to this improper procedure,
but Bulganin was silent, too. I could see what the
attitude of the others was. If Bulganin and I had ob-
jected to the way Beria and Malenkov were running
the meeting, we would have been accused of being
2. Not so modest. Earlier Khrushchev said that this was just
what he feared. Beria was also chosen to be a First Deputy
Chairman of the Coxmcil of Ministers (First Deputy Prime
Minister)
 !
.

350 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS i

quarrelsome and disorderly and of starting a fight i I

the Party before the corpse was cold. I could see thai
were moving in the direction I had feared.
things
Molotov and Kaganovich were each nominated Fivs[
Deputy Prime Minister along with Beria. Voroshilo
was nominated Chairman of the Presidium of th'
Supreme Soviet [President of the USSR], replacin
Shvernik.^ Beria was most disrespectful in his re
marks about Shvemik, saying he was unknown to th i

nation at large and therefore unsuited to an importani

position in the leadership. I could see that all thes!
rearrangements of positions fitted squarely into Beria'
master plan. For instance, by promoting Voroshilo^!
to the Chairmanship of the Presidium of the Supreme;
Soviet, Beria was trying to make Voroshilov intd
someone whom he could rely on when he started hi:i
next round of butchery. Then Beria proposed that I bd
released from my duties as Secretary of the Moscov'^
Committee so that I could concentrate on my work ii'
the Central Committee Secretariat. More nomination:'
and proposals were made. Then we decided on th(i
funeral arrangements and how best to announc(|,
Stalin's death to the people.* i>

Thus we lost Stalin and started to run the govemr

ment by ourselves. j.

During the funeral and right after it, Beria wajf

attentive and respectful to me, which surprised mej:
He didn't sever his demonstratively friendly connecjf
tions with Malenkov, but he did begin to estabhsH
equally friendly relations with me. Beria and Malen-f?
kov started including me in their strolls around th^j

3. N. M, Shvemik, one of Stalin's senior old faithfuls, spenij

most of his career at the head of the Soviet Trades Unions!
The Chairmanship of the Presidiimi of the Supreme Soviet, o;;,
Presidency of the USSR, was a largely ceremonial functionl|
Bulganin was also appointed a First Deputy Chairman of thd
Council of Ministers, along with Beria, Kaganovich, and Molo-
tov. Elhrushchev held no ministerial appointment. His strengtl i

reposed in his position as a member of the Presidium and o

the Paiiy Secretariat,
4. The announcement, when it came, included the celebratecj
plea to the people of the Soviet Union to avoid "panic anc
disarray."
 SUCCESSION 351
[Kremlin grounds. Naturally I didn't resist or object,
but my opinion of Beria didn't change. On the con-
trary, it was confirmed. I imderstood that his friendly
behavior toward me was a trick. It was, as we often
put it, Beria's Asiatic cunning coming into play. By
this term we meant the quality of a man who thinks
one thing but says something else. I knew that Beria
was pursuing a hypocritical policy toward me; he was
toying with me and trying to put me off my guard, all
|the while waiting for the opportunity to dispose of me
before anyone else.
It was decided that Malenkov and I would work out
the agenda for Presidium sessions. Malenkov would
preside over the sessions, and I would work with him
in setting the agenda.
Beria consolidated his forces with each passing
day, and his arrogance grew proportionally. All his
shrewdness as a provocateur was called into play.
Then came the first clash between Beria and Ma-
lenkov on the one hand and the rest of the Presidium
on the other. The Presidium had already changed
quite a bit. We
had liquidated the large Presidium and
small Bureau which Stalin had set up at the first
Central Committee Plenum after the Nineteenth Party
Congress. We
had reverted to a narrow circle of about
eleven people. At one Presidium session Beria made
the following proposal:
"Since many prison and exile terms are coming to
an end and all these former convicts and exiles will
be returning to their homes, I propose that we pass a
resolution not allowing any of them to return without
special permission from the Ministry of Internal Af-
fairs. And I propose that we require them to live in
regions dictated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs."
rhat meant dictated by Beria himself. This proposal
was an alarming sign of what Beria was up to.
I got angry and spoke against him, saying, "I cate-
gorically object to the sort of arbitrary rule you're
proposing. We've already had this sort of thing in the
past. Now that we've started thinking more critically
and more correctly about how to evaluate the past,
we know we can't impose this sort of illegality dis-
 |
'

352 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

guised as law on the people any more. These convictj
and exiles you're talking about were arrested, inter-
rogated, tried, and sentenced by State Security troi-
kas.^ They were never given the benefit of witnesses
—
prosecutors, or judge they were just hauled in and,
imprisoned, or killed. Now you're saying that these i

people, whose terms punishment were set by the;

of
troikas, should again be deprived of all their rights,
treated as criminals, and not allowed to choose where
they v^ live. This is totally unacceptable."
The others supported me. Beria shrewdly withdrew;
his proposal, and since Malenkov was taking the,
minutes, the motion was never recorded. Later Beriai
introduced what seemed to be a liberal motion. He
proposed we alter an old ruling which set prison and.
exile terms at a maximum of twenty years for people,
arrested and charged by the troikas; he suggested
lowering the maximum term from twenty to ten years, i

This seemed like a liberal enough proposal, but I knewi

what Beria had in mind.
I said, "I'm categorically opposed to this proposal,
too. I'm against it because we should be reviewing
the whole system of arrests and investigations, not'
just modifying the details. Once again, you're trying,
to promote arbitrary rule. Whether the maximum;
term is twenty or ten years doesn't really matter be-:
cause you can always sentence someone to ten years
and then another ten years. If necessary you could
keep sentencing someone you don't hke to one ten-i
year term after another, right up until he dies. What's'
required is a radical revision of the inadmissible prac-
tice of arresting and sentencing people which pre-
vailed during Stalin's time. What you want to do is;
legalize arbitrary rule —
you want to legalize the status
quo. Documents are being put together to show how;
the methods you're proposing have been applied in
the past arbitrarily and illegally, and how the Party
has been damaged as a result." ;

5. Ad hoc groups of three, who combined the duty of'

prosecutor and judge and operated with extreme and arbitrary,
dispatch.
 SUCCESSION 353

Once again Beria withdrew his motion. I had vig-

orously spoken out against him twice already. I had
no doubt that he knew exactly where I stood and
that he was planning his next move. Beria could never
reconcile himself to the fact that someone was stand-
ing in his way.
And what was this scoundrel Beria's next move?
Here's what happened. One day we were walking
—
somewhere together Beria, Malenkov, and I just —
taking a stroll, and Beria began to develop the fol-
lowing idea: "All of us are in God's hands, as they
used to say. We're not getting any younger. Anything
could happen to any one of us, and we would leave
our families behind. We should give some thought to
our old age and to our families. Therefore I'd like to
propose that the Government build dachas which it
would then turn over to the leaders of the country
for their personal use." The suggestion was typical
of Beria. I had come to expect this sort of un-Com-
munist thinking from him. It was completely in keep-
ing with his way of doing things. I was sure that the
dacha idea was part of some kind of provocation. But
I didn't say anything; I just listened. Then he said, "I
propose building these dachas in Sukhumi [on the
Black Sea coast] rather than on the outskirts of Mos-
—
cow and not on the outskirts of Sukhumi, but right
in the center. We could clear the center of the city
and turn it into a park with peach trees." He started
raving about what a marvelous city Sukhumi was
and about the peaches and grapes that grew there. He
—
had it all worked out which personnel would be used
and what resources would be needed. He was thinking
on a grand and lordly scale. He continued: "The Min-
istry of Internal Affairs will supervise this project.
First of all we'll have to build a dacha for you, Yegor
—
[Malenkov] then for you, Nikita, and then for Molo-
tov, Voroshilov, and the others."
I heard him out and didn't try to argue with him.
All the while he was talking, I just said, "Yes, yes,
—
we'll have to give it some thought" as though I were
agreeing with him.
When we finished talking and returned to our cars,
354 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Beria, Malenkov, and I went off to our own dachas in

the country. The three of us rode in one car as far
as the tumoff on the Rublev road, where Malenkov
and I were supposed to turn left and Beria was sup-
posed to keep going straight. Malenkov and I got out
of his car and into another one. Once we were alone
I said to Malenkov, "Listen, what do you think about
this idea of Beria's? It's the most blatant provocation."
"Why do you think so?"
"I can see Beria's a provocateur. He wants to build
these dachas as a provocation and nothing else. Let's
not object for a while. We'll let him do what he wants,
and he'll think no one knows what he's up to."
So Beria began to put his idea into effect. He or-
dered plans for the dachas to be drawn up. When
these were finished, he invited us to come over and
showed them to us. He proposed that the construction
start at once. A well-known builder gave a report on
the project. This comrade is now in charge of build-
ing atomic energy plants. Beria considered him a
trusty ally. He worked for Beria and did whatever
Beria told him. At the meeting Beria said that the
site for Malenkov's dacha had been carefully chosen
so that Malenkov would be able to view the Black Sea
from his window and keep an eye on the Turks. Beria
joked, "Yegor, you'll be able to see Turkey. It's beau-
tiful. You see what a nice house this will be?"
When everyone else had gone, I stayed behind with
Malenkov. I said to him, "It's crucial to Beria's plans
that your dacha be built in the very center of Su-
khumi. The plans call for a great many people to be
displaced. The Minister of Housing has said that the
dacha project will mean the eviction of a huge number
of people. The whole thing will be a calamity for
them. They have Hved on their property for genera-
tions, and now suddenly they're all to be evicted. This
is no joke. You still don't see the point of his provo-
cation? Beria wants to start a sort of pogrom, to
throw people out of their homes and tear down their
houses in order to build you some kind of palace. The
seething with resentment and indignation. People will
dacha and grounds will be walled in. The city will be
 SUCCESSION 355

ask, "Who are they doing all this building for?" And
when it's all finished, you'll arrive and people will see
you, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, get
out of your car and disappear into your palace. They'll
see that the pogrom and the eviction of people from
their homes was all done for you. The hatred against
you will spread not only through the whole city of
Sukhumi, but everywhere, throughout the land. And
this is exactly what Beria wants to happen. He's try-
ing to maneuver you into such a hopeless scandal that
you'll be forced to resign. Don't you see? Beria says
he's going to have plans drawn up for a dacha of his
own, but you'll see, he won't have it built. He'll build
one for you and then use it to discredit you."
"How can you say that? Beria talked it all over
with me!"
But this conversation started Malenkov thinking.
One day when Beria was showing me the plans for
the dachas, he said again, in his thick Georgian ac-
cent, "Won't these be lovely houses?"
"Yes, very," I said. "It's a great idea."
"Why don't you take the plans home with you?"
So I took them home, but I didn't know what to
do with them. Nina Petrovna [Madame Khrushcheva]
came across them and asked "What's this here?" I
told her what they were, and she was furious. "That's
a disgraceful idea!"
I couldn't explain, so I said, "Let's just put them
aside and we'll talk about it later."^
Beria tried to push through the construction of the
dachas in Sukhumi, but nothing had been done by the
time of his arrest. After he was arrested we canceled
the whole project. I kept the plans for the dachas at
home for a long time afterward.
But in the meantime, things started spinning. Beria
was trying to interfere in the workings of the Party,
particularly the Cheka. He fabricated some sort of
document about the state of affairs in the Ukrainian
Party leadership. So he had decided to strike his first

6. A fascinating sidelight on the domestic Ufe of Khrushchev

and his very remarkable wife.
356 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
blow against the Ukrainian organization! I was ready
for this because I figured he would try to implicate
me. I was still largely responsible for the Ukraine.
Beria started collecting evidence through the regional
departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the
Ukraine. Strokach was Chief of the MVD
[Ministry of
Internal Affairs] office in Lvov."^ He's dead now. He
was an honest Communist and a good soldier. Before
the war he had been a colonel in command of border
troops in the Ukraine. Then, during the war, he had
been in charge of the Ukrainian partisan troops' head-
quarters, so he used to report to me on the situation in
occupied territory behind enemy lines. I could see he
was an honest, decent person. After the war he was
made a representative for the Ministry of Internal
Affairs in the Lvov Region. We found out later that
when the Minister of Internal Affairs for the Ukraine,
who was Beria's henchman, got in touch with Strokach
and demanded material from him about local Party
workers. Strokach said that he wasn't responsible for
personnel and that they should get in touch with the
local Regional Party Committee. Then Beria himself
phoned Strokach and said that if he was going to
split hairs, he would be pounded into camp dust. We
found out about this incident later, after we detained
Beria, but at the time we had no idea that the Party
was being undermined and subordinated to the Minis-
try of Internal Affairs in the Ukraine.
The Presidium began to discuss a memorandum by
Beria about the ethnic composition of governing bodies
in the Ukraine. Beria's idea was that local [that is,
non-Russian] officials should be kept in positions of
leadership in their ov^n Republics and shouldn't be
promoted to the central organization in Moscow. As a
result of his memorandum, it was decided to release
MeLnikov from his duties as First Secretary of the
Ukrainian Central Committee and to put Kirichenko
[a Ukrainian] in his place, Beria also proposed put-
ting Korneichuk on the Presidium of the Central

7. T. A. Strokach, lieutenant general in the sec\irity police.

Later (1955-56) he was Chief of the Ukrainian MVD.
 SUCCESSION 357
Committee of the Ukrainian Party. This was done, and
a Ukrainian Central Committee Plenum was held.
Komeichuk didn't realize he had been promoted in
order to further Beria's anti-Party aims, so he said all
sorts of favorable things about Beria and Beria's
memorandum during the course of the Plenum. Then
a memorandum appeared concemiag the Baltic states,
followed by another concerning Belorussia. Both
stressed the principle of drawing the Republic leader-
ship from the local population. We passed a decision
that the post of First Secretary in. every Republic had
to be held by a local person and not by a Russian sent
from Moscow.^
It so happened that Beria's position on this question
was correct and that it coincided with the position
of the AU-Union Central Committee, but he was tak-
ing this position in order to further his own anti-
Party goals. He was preaching that the predominance
of Russians in the leadership of the non-Russian
Republics had to be reversed. Everyone knew that
this was right and that it was consistent with the
Party Line, but at first people didn't realize that Beria
was pushing this idea in order to aggravate nationalist
tensions between Russians and non-Russians, as well
as tensions between the central leadership in Moscow
and the local leadership in the Republics.
At this point I took Malenkov aside and said, "Listen,
Comrade Malenkov, don't you see where this is lead-

ing? We're heading for disaster. Beria is sharpening

his knives."
Malenkov asked, "Well, what can we do? I see
what's happening, but what can we do about it?"
"The time has come to resist. Surely you must see
that Beria's position has an anti-Party character. We
must not accept what he is doing. We
must reject it.

8. This refers to the still obscure operation conducted

by
Beria to encourage local leadership in the component Repub-
purpose
Ucs. He was arrested and shot before his long-range
explanation is
was clearly manifest, though Khrushchev's
Kirichenko was, in fact, a protege of
probably correct. A. I.
master's
Khrushchev, who was to rise to great heights in his
shadow until his sudden and unexplained downfall m
liJbU.
358 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

"You mean you want me to oppose him all by my-

self? I don'twant to do that."
"What makes you think you'll be alone if you op-
—
pose him? There's you and me that's already two of
us. I'm sure Bulganin will agree. I've exchanged opin-
ions with him more than once. I'm sure the others will
join us if we put forward our argument from a firm
Party position. The trouble is that you never give
anyone a chance to speak at our Presidium sessions.
As soon as Beria introduces a motion, you always
jump immediately to support him, saying, 'That's fine,
Comrade Beria, a good motion. I'm for it. Anyone op-
posed?' And you put it right to a vote. Give the rest
of us a chance to express ourselves for once and you'll
see what happens. Control yourself. Don't be so
jumpy. You'll see you're not the only one who thinks
the way you do. I'm convinced that many people are
on our side against Beria. You and I put the agenda
together, so let's include for discussion some matters
on which we beheve Beria is mistaken. Then we'll
oppose him. I'm convinced we can mobilize the other
Presidium members behind us and our resolutions will
carry. Let's just try it."
Malenkov finally agreed. I was surprised and de-
lighted. Wewrote up the agenda for the next Presid-
ium session and included some issues on which the
others supported us, and Beria was defeated. This
pattern was repeated at a number of sessions, and only
then did Malenkov become confident that we could use
Party methods against Beria in order to defeat pro-
posals which, in our view, were harmful to the Party
and to the country. When Beria realized that the other
Presidium members were overriding him, he tried to
speed things up. He put on a tremendous show of self-
importance, trying to demonstrate his superiority in
every way he could. We were going through a very
dangerous period. I felt it was time to force the situa-
tion to a confrontation. It was time to act.
I told Malenkov that we had to talk with the other
members of the Presidium and get them behind us.
Obviously it was no good trying to do this during a
session with Beria present. We'd have to talk face to
 SUCCESSION 359
face with each individual in order to discover his real
attitude toward Beria. At last Malenkov agreed and
said, "Yes, we must act."
I already knew Bulganin stood for the Party posi-
tion and fully understood the danger to the Party
which Beria represented. Malenkov and I arranged
that to begin with, I would talk to Comrade Voroshi-
lov. Voroshilov and I served together on some commis-
sion or other. I decided this would be my pretext for
going to see him. J telephoned him and said I wanted
to meet with him about the commission. Comrade
Voroshilov said he would rather come see me at the
Central Committee building. "No," I said, "please let
me come to your office." He insisted that he should
come to me, but in the end I had my way. Malenkov
and I arranged that I would stop in at his place on my
way home so that we could have dinner together and
talk over how my meeting with Voroshilov had gone.
Malenkov and I lived in the same house and on the
same staircase. My apartment was immediately above
his.
I went to Comrade Voroshilov's office at the Su-
preme Soviet, but I didn't accomplish what I'd come
for. I was barely inside his office when Voroshilov
started singing Beria's praises: "What a remarkable
man we have in Lavrenty Pavlovich, Comrade
Khrushchev! What a remarkable man!'*
I answered, "Maybe not. Maybe you overestimate
him." But after Voroshilov had greeted me in this
way, I couldn't possibly talk to him frankly about
Beria. I thought perhaps Voroshilov had spoken as
he did because he thought he was being overheard
and that he'd said it for "Beria's ears" [slang for bug-
ging devices]. On the other hand, maybe it was be-
cause he considered me Beria's ally. This was
conceivable since Beria, Malenkov, and I were often
seen together. In any case, my opinion of Beria was
completely opposite to Voroshilov's. But if I'd said
outright what I wanted to say, I would have put
Voroshilov in a very awkward position. He would
have been unable to agree with me simply out of pride.
He couldn't have come straight over to my position
 360 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

after having just praised Beria as soon as I came

through the door. After all, my own position was
committed to the need for eliminating Beria.
So Voroshilov and I exchanged a few words on
the matter about which I had officially made an ap-
pointment with him. It was some trivial question, and
I quickly left to have dinner as I'd arranged with
Malenkov. I told Malenkov that nothing had come of
my visit to Voroshilov and that I hadn't been able
to talk openly with him.
Comrade Malenkov and I then agreed that I should
talk to Comrade Molotov, who was Minister of Foreign
Affairs and who had called me earlier asking if we
could meet at the Central Committee office to dis-
cuss some matter concerning Foreign Ministry per-
sonnel. I used his call as a pretext to set up a meeting
and phoned him back, saying, "You wanted to get
together with me. I'm ready to see you anytime. If
you can, come over here right away. We'll talk about
personnel." He arrived shortly and I said, "Let's talk
about personnel, but not Foreign Ministry personnel."
I gave him my views about Beria's role. I told Molotov
what sort of person Beria was and what kind of dan-
ger threatened the Party if we didn't thwart his
scheming against the Party leadership. I had earlier
told him how Beria had already set his plan in motion
for aggravating nationalist tensions in the Republics.
Apparently Molotov had been thinking a lot about
this himself. Of course, he couldn't help but think
about it, since he knew about everything that had
happened during Stalin's rule. Back when Molotov
still enjoyed Stalin's full confidence, I had often heard
him speak out strongly against Beria, although never
in Stalin's presence. Molotov had personally been a
victim of Beria's hypocrisy and treacherous provoca-
tions during sessions with Stalin, and more than once
I heard him call Beria's activities by their proper
names to Beria's face. Therefore, as soon as I got down
to the serious matter at hand with Molotov, I could see
he was in full agreement with me.
"Yes," he said, "I agree with you fully. But I want
to ask you one thing. What is Malenkov's position?"
 SUCCESSION 361
"I'm discussing this with you on Malenkov*s and
Bulganin's behalf. We've abeady exchanged views on
the subject."
Then Molotov you should
said, "It's quite right that
raise this question. agree with you fully and you'll
I
have my complete support. But tell me something else.
What do you want to do exactly? Where is all this
leading?"
"First, we have to relieve Beria of his duties as a
Presidium member. Deputy Chairman of the Council
of Ministers, and Minister of Internal Affairs."
Molotov said that wasn't enough: "Beria's very
dangerous. Therefore I think we must, so to say,
resort to more extreme measures."
"You think maybe we should detain him for inves-
tigation?" I said "detain" rather than "arrest" because
there were still no criminal charges against Beria. I
could easily believe that he had been an agent of the
Mussavatists, as Kaminsky had said, but Kaminsky's
charge had never been verified. There had never been
an investigation of Beria's role in Baku. As far as
Beria's provocational behavior was concerned, we had
only our intuition to go on, and you can't arrest a man
on intuition. That's why I said we would have to "de-
tain" him for an investigation. Molotov and I agreed
and parted. Later I told Comrade Malenkov and Com-
rade Bulganin what had happened.
We decided that we'd better speed things up be-
cause we might be overheard by "Beria's ears" or
someone might let the cat out of the bag. In short,
information about the steps we were taking might
reach Beria, and Beria could easily have us all ar-
rested.
We agreed that should talk to Saburov, who was
I
then a member of the Presidium. When I talked to
Saburov, he answered very quickly: "I'm fully in
agreement with you." Then he asked, "But what about
Malenkov?" Everyone I talked to asked this same
question.
At that time Kaganovich wasn't in Moscow. He was
making an inspection tour of the lumber industry.
When he returned, I asked him to stop in at the Cen-
362 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

tral Committee office. He arrived in the evening, and

we and talked for a long time. He told me in great
sat
detail about Siberia and about the sawmills. I didn't
try to interrupt him, although I had other things than
sawmills on my mind. I showed proper courtesy and
tact and waited for him to get tired of talking. When
he finished his report, I said, "What you've told me
is all very well. Now I want to tell you about what's
going on here." I told him what the circumstances
were and what conclusions we had reached.
Kaganovich immediately pricked up his ears and
asked, "Who is 'we'?" He put the question like that
in order to assess the distribution of power. I said
that Malenkov, Bulganin, Molotov, Saburov, and I
were of one mind, and I told him that without him we
had a majority. Kaganovich declared right away, "I'm
with you, too. Of course I'm with you. I was only
asking." But I knew what he was thinking, and he
knew what I was thinking. Then he asked me, "And
what about Voroshilov?" I told him about my awk-
ward meeting with Voroshilov and how Voroshilov
had praised Beria. "He really said that?" Kaganovich
exclaimed. He was incredulous.
"Yes," "He started to sing Beria's praises the
I said.
moment came into his office."
I
Kaganovich cursed Voroshilov, but not maliciously:
"That sly old bastard! He was lying to you. He's told
me himself that he can't stand Beria, that Beria's
dangerous, and that Beria's likely to be the ruin of
us all."
"I thought Voroshilov wasn't being straightforward
with me, but that's what he said, all the same."
"What he said doesn't mean a thing."
"Then seems we'll have to try talking to him one
it

last time. Perhaps Malenkov will talk to him. Since

I've already spoken to him, it might be better if I
didn't bring up the subject of Beria with him again.
I wouldn't want to put him in an awkward position."
We agreed on this.
Then Kaganovich said, "And what about Mikoyan?"
"I haven't talked to Mikoyan yet. His case is a bit
more complicated." Everyone knew that Mikoyan was
 SUCCESSION 363
on the very best of terms with Beria. They were al-
ways together and always following each other
around. We'd have to talk to Mikoyan at some point,
but it would have to be done later on.
I told Malenkov about my conversation with Kaga-
novich, and he agreed that it would be better if he
talked to Voroshilov himself. That left Pervukhin.
Malenkov suddenly said, "I want to talk to Pervukhin
myself."
"By all means, if you want to, but Pervukhin is a
complex man. I know him."
"I know him, too."
"Very well then, you talk to him."
Malenkov invited Pervukhin to come see him and
then got in touch with me later, "You know, I sent
for Pervukhin and told him everything. Pervukhin
said he'd think it over. That's very dangerous. I think
you should get hold of him yourself, and you'd better
do immediately. Who knows what might happen?
it
—
think it over' that's very dangerous."
'I'll

I phoned Comrade Pervukhin. He came to see me.

I told him everything, very frankly. He said, "If
Malenkov had put it to me as clearly as you have done,
there wouldn't have been any question in my mind.
I agree with you entirely. There's no alternative." I
don't know what Malenkov had told Pervukhin, but
now it was settled.
In this way we made the rounds of all the Presid-
ium members except Voroshilov and Mikoyan. We
arranged for me to speak to Mikoyan and for Malen-
kov to speak to Voroshilov. Later, I went by to see
Malenkov and asked him about his conversation with
Voroshilov. "Well, what happened?" I asked. "Was
he still singing Beria's praises?"
"As soon as I told him about our plan," said Malen-
kov, "Voroshilov embraced me and started crying."
I don't know if this really happened, but Comrade
Malenkov had no need to lie about it.
Still another question arose. Once we had formally
resolved to strip Beria of his posts, who would actually
detain him? The Presidium bodyguard was obedient
to him. His Chekists would be sitting in the next room
364 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
during the session, and Beria could easily order them
to arrest us all and hold us in isolation. would We
have been quite helpless because there was a sizable
armed guard in the Kremlin. Therefore we decided
to enlist the help of the miUtary. First, we entrusted
the detention of Beria to Comrade Moskalenko, the
air defense commander, and five generals.® This was
my idea. Then, on the eve of the session, Malenkov
widened our circle to include Marshal Zhukov and
some others. That meant eleven marshals and generals
in all. In those days all military personnel were re-
quired to check their weapons when coming into the
Kremlin, so Comrade Bulganin was instructed to see
that the marshals and generals were allowed to bring
their guns with them. We
arranged for Moskalenko 's
group to wait for a summons in a separate room while
the session was taking place. When Malenkov gave a
signal, they were to come into the room where we
were meeting and take Beria into custody.
We arranged to convene a session of the Presidium
of the Council of Ministers but invited all the mem-
bers of the Presidium of the Central Conmiittee as
well. Malenkov opened the meeting as a Central Com-
mittee Presidium session rather than a Council of
Ministers Presidium session so that we could discuss
the situation in the Party. Comrade Voroshilov had
to be specially invited, since he was Chairman of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and therefore didn't
regularly attend sessions of either the Council of
Ministers or the Party Presidium.
As soon as Malenkov opened the session he said,
"Let us discuss Party questions. There are some mat-
ters which we must deal with right away." Everyone
agreed. As had been arranged in advance, I requested
the floor from Chairman Malenkov and proposed that
we discuss the matter of Beria. Beria was sitting on
my right. He gave a start, grabbed me by the hand,
looked at me with a startled expression on his face,

9. General K. S. Moskalenko, later marshal. At the time of

Beria's arrest he was commander of the air defense of Moscow.
 SUCCESSION 365

and said, "What's going on, Nikita? What's this you're

mumbling about?"
I "Just pay attention. You'll find out soon
said,
enough." And here is what I said. I recalled the Cen-
tral Committee Plenum of February, 1939, at which
Comrade Grisha Kaminsky had accused Beria of
having worked for the Mussavatist counterintelligence
service, and therefore for the English intelligence
service, when he was Secretary of the Baku Party
organization. I then recalled how immediately after
that meeting Grisha Kaminsky had dropped out of
sight like a stone in the water: "I've always won-
dered about Kaminsky's statement and why no one
made any attempt to explain what he said." Then I
reviewed the moves Beria had made since Stalin's
death, his interference in the Party organizations of
the Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Baltic states. I
described how Beria, like all enemies of the Commu-
nist Party, was relying on nationalist antagonisms to
undermine Soviet unity. I mentioned his latest pro-
posal concerning policy toward people in exile and in
prison camps, stressing that Beria was trying to legal-
ize arbitrary rule. I concluded by saying, "As a result
of my observations of Beria's activities, I have formed
the impression that he is no Communist. He is a
careerist who has wormed his way into the Party for
self-seeking reasons. His arrogance is intolerable. No
honest Communist would ever behave the way he
does in the Party."
After I had spoken, Bulganin asked for the floor
and said something very much along the same lines.
Then the others spoke in turn. Molotov expressed the
proper Party position on the matter. The other com-
rades stressed the same principles, with the exception
of Mikoyan, who spoke last. He repeated what he had
told me before the session when we had our talk:
namely, that Beria would take our criticisms to heart
and reform himself, that he wasn't a hopeless case, and
that he could still be useful in the collective leader-
ship.
When everyone had spoken, Malenkov, as Chair-
man, was supposed to sum things up and to formulate
 366 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
a consensus, but at the last moment he lost his nerve.
After the final speech, the session w^as left hanging.
There was a long pause. I saw^ we were in trouble, so
I asked Comrade Malenkov for the floor in order to
propose a motion. As we had arranged in advance, I
proposed that the Central Committee Presidium
should release Beria from his duties as Deputy Chair-
man of the Council of Ministers and Minister of
Internal Affairs and from all the other government
positions he held. Malenkov was still in a state of
panic. As I recall, he didn't even put my motion to a
vote. He pressed a secret button which gave the signal
to the generals who were waiting in the next room.
Zhukov was the first to appear. Then Moskalenko and
the others came in. Malenkov said in a faint voice to
Comrade Zhukov, "As Chairman of the Council of
Ministers of the USSR, I request that you take Beria
into custody pending investigation of charges made
against him."
"Hands up!" Zhukov commanded Beria.
Moskalenko and the others unbuckled their holsters
in case Beria tried anything. Beria seemed to reach
for his briefcase which was lying behind him on the
windowsill. I seized his arm to prevent him from
grabbing a weapon from the briefcase. We checked
later and found that he had no gun, either in his brief-
case or in his pockets. His quick movement had simply
been a reflex action.
Beria was immediately put under armed guard in
the Council of Ministers building next to Malenkov's
office. At this point a new question arose. Now that
we had detained Beria, where could we put him? We
couldn't hand him over to the Ministry of Internal
Affairs because those were all his own men. Beria's
deputies were Kruglov^^ and Serov. I hardly knew

10. S. N. Kruglov, colonel general of the security police, was

at one time Deputy Director of Smersh (acronym for "Death
to Spies and Diversionists") and responsible for the security of
Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill at Yalta and Teheran. Even
in that gallery he had a reputation for outstanding vengefulness
and cruelty. Unlike some of his colleagues, however, he was
personally brave. He succeeded Beria as Minister of the In-
 SUCCESSION 367

Kruglov, but I knew Serov well, and I trusted him.

I thought, and still think, Serov is an honest man. If
there are a few dubious things about him, as there
are about all Chekists, then let's just say he was a
victim of Stalin's general policy. At first I proposed
that Serov should take Beria into custody, but the
others were against this. Finally we agreed to entrust
him to the air defense commander. Comrade Moska-
lenko, who had his men transfer Beria to a bunker at
his headquarters. I could see that Comrade Moska-
lenko would do what was necessary for the Party
cause.
After it was all over, Malenkov took me aside and
said, "Listen to what my chief bodyguard has to say."
The man came over to me and said, "I have only just
heard that Beria has been arrested. I want to inform
you that he raped my stepdaughter, a seventh-grader.
A year or so ago her grandmother died and my wife
had to go to the hospital, leaving the girl at home
alone. One evening she went out to buy some bread
near the building where Beria lives. There she came
across an old man who watched her intently. She was
frightened. Someone came and took her to Beria's
home. Beria had her sit down with him for supper.
She drank something, fell asleep, and he raped her."
I told this man, "I want you to tell the prosecutor
during the investigation everything you've told me."
Later, we were given a list of more than a hundred
girls and women who had been raped by Beria. He
had used the same routine on all of them. He gave
them some dinner and offered them wine with a
sleeping potion in it.

When Beria was put in solitary confinement, he

asked for pencil and paper. We consulted among our-
selves. Some of us were doubtful, but we decided to
give him what he wanted in case an urge had come
over him to tell us candidly what he knew about the
things we had charged him with. He started writing

with reduced powers, until his fall

terior, m 1957. The head of
the MGB at this time was not Serov, but Khrushchev s ally,

S. D. Ignatiev.
368 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
notes. The was to Malenkov: "Yegor, don't you
first
know me? Aren't we friends? Why did you trust
Khrushchev? He's the one who put you up to this,
isn't he?" and so on. He also sent me two or three
notes swearing he was an honest man and so on and so
forth.
We had no confidence in the abihty of the State
Prosecutor to investigate Beria's case objectively, so
we sacked him and replaced him with Comrade
Rudenko.^^ When Rudenko started to interrogate
Beria, we found ourselves faced with a really awful
man, a beast, to whom nothing was sacred. When we
opened the archives and brought him to trial, we
found out what methods Beria had used to achieve
his goals. Not only was there nothing Communist
—
about him he was without the shghtest trace of hu-
man decency.
After Beria's arrest the question arose of what to
do about Merkulov, who was Minister of State Con-
trol.^^ I admit that I held him in high regard and con-
sidered him a good Party member. He was unques-
tionably a cultured person, and in general I liked him.
Therefore I said to the comrades, "Just because Mer-,
kulov was Beria's assistant in Georgia doesn't mean he i

was an accomplice to Beria's crimes. Perhaps he)

wasn't. We can't treat everyone who worked for Beria |

as his accompHce. Let's call Merkulov in and have ai

talk with him. He might even help us clear up some}
of the remaining questions about Beria." By arrange-
ment with the others, I summoned Merkulov to thei
Central Committee office and told him what had hap-i
pened, that we had detained Beria, and that an inves-
tigation was under way. "You worked for Beria for
many years. Comrade Merkulov," I said, "and there-:

11. R. A. Rudenko, a Ukrainian who was chief USSR prosecu-i

tor at the NurembergTrials of the Nazi leaders and became
General Public Prosecutor in 1953.
12. V. N. Merkulov, an extremely presentable but no lessi
unpleasant secret policeman and a very close associate of'
Beria's. He was replaced by Abakumov as head of the MGBn
in 1946, but soon became Minister of State Control. He wasj.
tried with Beria and shot. j,

!
 SUCCESSION 369
fore we thought you might be able to help the Central
Committee with our investigation."
"I will do whatever I can, with pleasure."
"Then write us a report."
A few days passed and Merkulov turned in a
lengthy memorandum. It was absolutely worthless. It
was more like a piece of fiction. This man Merkulov
was something of a writer. He'd written plays and was
good at fiction writing. After I sent this material to
the prosecutor's office, Rudenko called me and asked
for an appointment. When he came to my office he
told me that without Merkulov's arrest our investiga-
tion into Beria's case would be incomplete. The Cen-
tral Committee approved Merkulov's arrest. To my
regret, since I had trusted him, Merkulov turned out
to have been deeply implicated in some of Beria's
crimes, so he too was convicted and had to bear the
same responsibiUty. In his last words, after his sen-
tence had been announced by the court, Merkulov
cursed the day and the hour when he first met Beria.
He said Beria had led him to this end. Thus, in the
final analysis, Merkulov recognized the criminality of
his actions and pronounced his own judgment against
the man who had incited him to crime.
One of the people we were able to return to a use-
ful, active life after Beria's downfall was Aleksandr
Petrovich Dovzhenko, the brilliant film director who
was so unjustly disgraced during the war [see pages
183-184]. Shortly after Beria was arrested, Dovzhenko
asked me for an appointment. He came by my office
and told me the following story:
One day the director Chiaureli, who made The Fall
of Berlin, asked Dovzhenko to come and see him.
Chiaureli was totally dependent on Stalin's patronage,
and it was no accident that his film on the fall of
Berlin showed Stalin pondering military strategy in
a huge hall surrounded by empty chairs—in solitary
grandeur except for General Poskrebyshev, Chief of
the Special Section of the Central Committee. In
short, Chiaureli was a wretched httle toady. After
Stalin's death and Beria's arrest we sent him off to
the Urals. I don't know what place he holds in the
370 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
world of film arts today or whether he learned any
lessons from the criticism that came his way after his
protector Stalin died. Anyway, Chiaureli summoned
Dovzhenko and told him, "Comrade Dovzhenko, I'd
advise you to go and see Comrade Beria. He's very in- !

terested in you and has a proposition to make. It will \

be to your advantage to go hear what he has to say." ;

Dovzhenko was perplexed: Why was Chiaureli tell- !

ing him to go and see Beria? What business did he j

have with the Ministry of Internal Affairs? In the end j

he decided not to go.

I explained to Dovzhenko: "You see, Aleksandr
Petrovich, Chiaureli was trying to recruit you as an
agent for Beria. He understood, quite correctly, that
you were an influential person and would have been
useful to Beria in his plans for the Ukraine. Beria
wanted to make you his henchman so that he could
count on you when his blood bath began. His plans
could only have been bloody because Beria knew no
other methods."
I considered Dovzhenko an honest, loyal, upright
citizen. He may have sometimes said things which
were unpleasant for the leaders to hear, but it's al-
ways better to hear such things from an honest man
than from an enemy. You can always talk sense to
an honest man if he's wrong, and you can learn from
him if he's right. After Aleksandr Petrovich's death
I urged the Ukrainians to rename the Kiev Film Stu-
dio after him, and they did so.
Dovzhenko's story about Beria's attempt to com-
—
promise him was only one of the first and by no
—
means one of the most shocking in a spate of reve-
lations into Beria's past activities which came to light
after his arrest.

The Twentieth Party Congress

The arrest of Beria took place in June, 1953. As far

as domestic politics are concerned, we now jump
forward to the climacteric Twentieth Party Congress
 SUCCESSION 371

of February, 1956—and thereafter all is silence. The

period from June, 1953, to February, 1956, was make-
or-break for Khrushchev. In September, 1953, he as-
sumed the First Secretaryship of the Party, a post
which had been left vacant sin^e Malenkov had been
forced to relinquish it (while retaining the Premier-
ship) within ten days of Stalin's death. Thenceforth,
the fiction of collective leadership, so sedulously main-
tained, began rapidly to disintegrate. In February,
1955, Malenkov was forced to resign as Prime Miri-
ister. He was replaced by Bulganin, whose role was
subsidiary and indeterminate. But Malenkov was still
a power in the Politbureau, and it was clear that
Molotov, Mikoyan, and others were keeping a very
close eye on the man they had chosen to lead their
Party. Nevertheless, signs multiplied that Khrushchev
was engaged in a more or less open bid for supremacy.
He was turning industry and agriculture upside down,
above all in his Virgin Lands campaign. He was m,ak-
ing himself known both at home and abroad as the
real boss, even when some of his colleagues were
actively opposing some of his policies. Mikoyan, for
example (others too), objected to the Virgin Lands
campaign; Molotov objected and was publicly humil-
iated in consequence. Khrushchev was actively builds
ing up his own personality cult. He was also (and this
continued until Malenkov's fall) adopting the Stalinist
attitude about Russia's invulnerability in the case of
an atomic war and about the primacy of heavy in-
dustry over consumer goods (Malenkov had declared
that the Soviet Union would be annihilated along with
the rest of the world in any nuclear war, and he had
embarked on a program of diverting money and re-
sources from heavy industry to the manufacture of
consumer goods).
By the time of Twentieth Party Congress,
the
Khrushchev had reached a very commanding posi-
tion indeed, but he had another sixteen months to go
before he emerged supreme (in June, 1957, with the
destruction of the so-called Anti-Party Group— Ma-
lenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and others). Even so,
he was, unlike Stalin, vulnerable if ever his closest
372 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
colleagues should decide to act unanimously against
him, as they were to do in October, 1964. In February,
1956, however, he was still maneuvering on the last
stages of his ascent. Few students of Soviet affairs
will be satisfied with Khrushchev's account of the
background to the famous Secret Speech attacking
Stalin. Khrushchev was obviously forced into a highly
ea:posed position by his colleagues (Malenkov promi-
nent avfiong them), who were divided in their aims.
Some were concerned above all with reminding the
Party that Stalin was dead and his successors firvfily
in control. Others, reluctantly perceiving the necessity
for this, thought that by forcing Khrushchev to make
the speech, he would be the first victim, of an inevitable
storm. Khrushchev, who had opened the Congress
with his formal General Report, clearly had no inten-
tion of denouncing his late master before the Congress
was over. He then determined to turn the tables and
by sheer boldness gain the credit for the new course
which he had been resisting. It was a touch-and-go
affair, but his gamble paid off.

An ambiguous situation had arisen. Stalin was dead

and buried, but until Beria's arrest, Stalinist policies
were still in force. Business went on as usual. No one
thought to rehabilitate the people who had gone to
their graves branded as enemies of the people or to
release the prisoners from the camps, and most of them
stayed there until the Twentieth Party Congress,
three years after Stalin's death! For three years we
were unable to break with the past, unable to muster
the courage and the determination to lift the curtain
and see what had been hidden from us about the ar-
rests, the trials, the arbitrary rule, the executions, and
everything else that had happened during Stalin's
reign. It was as though we were enchained by our
own activities under Stalin's leadership and couldn't
free ourselves from his control even ^ after he was
dead. Not until 1956 could we rid ourselves of the
psychological after-effects of the hysteria which had
gripped us during the hunt for enemies of the people.
We persisted in believing the delusion perpetrated by
 SUCCESSION 373

Stalin thatwe were surrounded by enemies, that we

had do battle against them, and that by following
to
the methods justified in theory and established in
practice by Stalin, we were intensifying the class
struggle and consoHdating the gains of the Revolution.
We couldn't imagine that all those executions during
the purges were, from a legal standpoint, crimes them-
selves. But it was true! Criminal acts had been com-
mitted by Stalin, acts which would be pimishable in
any state in the world except in fascist states like
Hitler's and Mussolini's.^^
Then came and the investigation into
Beria's arrest
his case. There were shocking revelations about the
secret machinery which had been hidden from us and
which had caused the deaths of so many people. I re-
member I was particularly shocked at the revelation
that Kedrov had been executed as an enemy of the
people. Kedrov had been the first commander in the
North to organize the defense of our country against
the English. But even when our eyes were opened
during Beria's trial, we refused to believe that Stalin
himself could have been behind the terror which Beria
oversaw. For a while we gave the Party and the peo-
ple incorrect explanations about what had happened;
we blamed everything on Beria. He was a convenient
figure. We did everything we could to shield Stalin,
not yet fully relaizing that we were harboring a crim-
inal, an assassin, a mass murderer! I repeat: Not until
1956 did we set ourselves free from our subservience
to Stalin.
I sensed the falsity of our position when we
first
went to Yugoslavia and talked with Comrade Tito in
1955. When we touched on the whole subject of the
terror and mentioned Beria as the culprit behind the
crimes of the Stalin period, the Yugoslav comrades
smiled scornfully and made sarcastic remarks. We
were irritated, and we launched into a long argument
in defense of Stalin. Later I spoke out pubUcly in de-

ls. This is the first time that Khrushchev, or any other Soviet
politician, has gone to the lengths of equating Stalin's actions
with Hitler's.
374 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

fense of Stalin when

the Yugoslavs criticized him. It's
now clear to me that my position was wrong. I didn't
fully realize the necessity not only of exposing the
crimes but of putting the blame where it belonged so
that Stalinist methods would never again be used in
our Party.
I still mourned Stalin as an extraordinarily power-
ful leader. I knew that his power had been exerted
arbitrarily and not always in the proper direction, but
in the main Stalin's strength, I believed, had still been
applied to the reinforcement of Socialism and to the
consoUdation of the gains of the October Revolution.
Stalin may have used methods which were, from my
standpoint, improper or even barbaric, but I hadn't
yet begun to challenge the very basis of Stalin's claims
to a place of special honor in history. However, ques-
tions were beginning to arise for which I had no ready
answer. Like others, I was beginning to wonder why
of all those arrested no one had ever been acquitted
and why of all those imprisoned no one had ever been
released. I was beginning to doubt whether all the ar-
rests and convictions had been justified from the
standpoint of judicial norms. But then StaUn had been
Stalin. Even in death he commanded almost unas-
sailable authority, and it still hadn't occured to me
that he had been capable of abusing his power.
Nonetheless, partly because of the revelations made
during the investigation into Beria's case, I felt an
—
urge to lift the curtain a bit further to find out who
exactly had been arrested, what methods had been
used in their interrogation, and what evidence there
had been for arresting them in the first place. I
brought the matter up at a Presidium session and
proposed that we conduct an investigation in order
to get a clearer picture of what had happened under
Stalin.^* I was especially anxious to do this in view of
the approaching Twentieth Party Congress.

14. An investigatory committee was in fact set up by the

Party Presidium in 1954, soon after Beria's execution. In the
Secret Speech Khrushchev annoimced that 7,379 individuals
had been rehabilitated as a result of the findings of this com-
mission.
 SUCCESSION 375
Not surprisingly, Voroshilov, Molotov, and Kagano-
vich weren't very enthusiastic about my suggestion.
As I recall, Mikoyan didn't support me actively, but
he didn't do anything to block my proposal either. I
explained to those who were against the idea that
since the Twentieth was to be the first Party Congress
after Stalin's death, we would have to prove that we
were able to assume full responsibility for governing
the Party and the country; that meant we had to know
exactly what had happened under Stalin and what had
motivated Stalin's decisions on various issues, partic-
ularly concerning all the people who had been arrest-
ed. One question was sure to come up at the Congress:
Why were so many people still in prison and what
was to be done about them now? In short, we would
have to answer both for what happened while Stalin
was alive and for problems stemming from his policies,
which were still with us after his death.
We set up a commission and put Pospelov in charge
of it.^^ The evidence gathered by Pospelov's commis-
sion came as a complete surprise to some of us. I'm
speaking about myself, Bulganin, Pervukhin, Sabu-
rov, and some others. I think Molotov and Voroshilov
were the best informed about the true dimensions
and causes of the Stalinist repressions, and therefore
they had the least reason to be surprised by the com-
mission's findings. Mikoyan was also more prepared
than most of us to believe the facts that were brought
to light. I can't be certain that he knew everything,
but nevertheless he had been very close to Stalin.
Many people who worked with Mikoyan and whom he
trusted had been eliminated. Knowing Anastas Ivano-
vich, his perceptiveness and his ability to generalize
about what is happening on the basis of scant indica-

15. P. N. Pospelov (real name, Feigelson) was one of the

chief Party ideologists. He was editor of Pravda from 1940-49
and director of the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute from
1949-52.A bleak and thoroughgoing dogmatist, he worked
closely with Suslov. It was not previously known that he was
responsible for the commission which produced the evidence
for the Secret Speech.
376 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
tions, I'd say that he must have known v^hat had been
going on. If he didn't know, then he at least guessed
how little justification there had been for all the
arrests and executions.
Asfor Kaganovich, I don't think he knew all the
details of what happened. Stalin hardly needed to
confide in him. Kaganovich was such a yes-man that
he would have cut his own father's throat if Stalin
had winked and said it was in the interests of the
—
cause the Stalinist cause, that is. Stalin never needed
tokeep Kaganovich reined in. Kaganovich had always
been a detestable sycophant, exposing enemies and
having people arrested right and left.
A word about Malenkov. He had been in charge of
personnel for the Central Conmiittee during the purg-
es and had played a pretty active role in the whole
business. He had actually helped promote people from
the ranks only to have them eliminated later on. I'm
not saying he took the initiative in the repressions
and executions, but the fact speaks for itself that
hundreds of people were repressed and eliminated in
those regions where Stalin sent Malenkov to establish
order. ^^

Wewere on the eve of the Twentieth Party Con-

gress. I didn'twant to give the General Report at the
Congress. It was my opinion that if we were going to
announce collective leadership, it was unwise for the
General Report to be delivered by the First Secretary
of the Central Committee. At a Presidium session just
before Congress I proposed that we discuss who
should make the General Report. As the senior mem-
ber among us, Molotov had the best credentials for
being the speaker, but he and everyone else were
unanimously agreed that I should give the report. I
felt they were saying this sincerely and not just for
the sake of appearances. One of their considerations
was that it would cause no friction if I, as First Secre-

16. Molotov and Malenkov were active in seconding and en-

couraging Stalin's crimes. So, at least in the Ukraine, was
Khrushchev himself. The others all knew about them and con-
nived at them.
 SUCCESSION 377

tary of the
Central Committee, gave the report,
whereas we —
chose another speaker and there were
if

—
plenty of candidates available it would pose complica-
tions. After StaUn's death no single man was acknowl-
edged as our leader. There were aspirants, but no
clear-cut, recognized leader.^''^ That's why I, as First
Secretary, was instructed to make the General Re-
port.
I prepared a draft and submitted it at a Central
Committee plenum for discussion and approval. The
report was the fruit of collective authorship. The
Central Committee drew from research institutes and
other groups who were, as a rule, called upon to help
in preparing general reports.
The Congress opened. I delivered the report and
discussion started. We
were facing a real test. Every-
one was asking, what kind of a Congress would this
be after Stalin's death? I would say the Congress was
going well. One speaker after another approved the
Central Committee Line. No one sensed any opposi-
tion.^®
Despite the fact that the Congress was going smooth-
ly and my report had been favorably received, I
wasn't satisfied. I was tormented by the following
thought: "The Congress will end, and resolutions will
be passed, all as a matter of form. But then what? The
hundreds of thousands of people who were shot will
stay on our consciences, including two-thirds of those
elected to the Central Committee at the Seventeenth
Party Congress [in 1934]. Almost all the active Party

17. Indeed there were "candidates" for the "recognized" lead-

ership: Khrushchev and Malenkov. For over a year inside the
Soviet Union, and abroad—in Belgrade, in Delhi, and in Ge-
neva—Khrushchev had been presenting himself on every possi-
ble occasion as the Master. In those Republics where his own
supporters were strongly in the ascendant (especially the
Ukraine and Kazakhstan) a new Khrushchev "personality
cult" was in full bloom. But Malenkov was still fighting back.
Khrushchev would never, without admitting defeat, have al-
lowed anybody else to make the General Report to the Twen-
tieth Partv Consress.
18. Should we be surprised? The neAv leadership had
had
three years to sort out any potential opposition.
378 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
members of that time were either shot or repressed."
In short, the findings of Pospelov's commission
weighed heavily on my mind. Finally I gathered my-
self together and during a recess, when only the mem-
bers of the Presidium were in the room, I brought the
whole matter up:
"Comrades, what are we going to do about Com-
rade Pospelov's findings? What are we going to do
about all those who were arrested and eliminated?
The Congress is coming to a close, and we'll all dis-
perse without having said a single word about the
abuses committed under Stalin. We now know that
the people who suffered during the repressions were
innocent. We have indisputable proof that, far from
being enemies of the people, they were honest men
and women, devoted to the Party, devoted to the
Revolution, devoted to the Leninist cause and to the
building of Socialism and Communism in the Soviet
Union. We can't keep people in exile or in the camps
any longer. We must figure out how to bring them
back."i»
As soon as I finished speaking, everyone started at-
tacking me, especialy Voroshilov: "What's the matter
with you? How can you talk like that?" he exclaimed.
"You think you can bring all this out at the Congress
and get away with it? How do you think it will reflect
on the prestige of our Party and our country? You
won't be able to keep what you say secret. Word will
get out about what happened under Stalin, and then
the finger will be pointed straight at us. What will we
be able to say about our own roles under Stalin?"
Kaganovich chimed in, fiercely opposing me along
the same lines. His position wasn't one of profound
philosophical analysis of the Party issues involved.
No, he was arguing against me out of a selfish fear

Khrushchev does not mention that Mikoyan had exploded

19.
a bomb at the Congress by making observations highly critical
of Stalin (and, by implication, of Khrushchev himself). Others
had made derogatory remarks about the "personality cult," as
yet imdefined. Khrushchev alone had gone out of his way to
praise Stalin for his determined smashing of the "enemies of
—
the people" although eleven days later he was, in his Secret
Speech, to denounce the use of this term.
 SUCCESSION 379
for his own hide. He was motivated entirely by his
eagerness to escape any responsibility for what had
happened. If crimes had been committed, Kaganovich
wanted to make sure his own tracks were covered.
I answered these attacks as calmly and convincingly
as I could: "Even looking at it from your position," I
said, "I still think it's impossible to cover everything
up. Sooner or later people will be coming out of the
prisons and the camps, and they'll return to the cities.
They'll tell their relatives, friends, comrades, and
everyone back home what happened. The whole coun-
try and the whole Party wiU find out that people
—
have spent ten to fifteen years in prison and all for
what? For nothing! The accusations against them were
trumped up! If they were brought to trial, the prose-
cution's cases against them were conjured out of thin
air! I ask you to think about something else, comrades:
we are conducting the first Congress after Stalin's
death, and therefore we're obliged to make a clean
breast to the delegates about the conduct of the Party
leadership during the years in question. We're sup-
posed to be giving an account of ourselves for the
period after Stalin's death, but as members of the
Central Committee while StaHn was still aUve, we
must teU about that period as well. How can we pre-
tend not to know what happened?
"Therefore, comrades, I ask you to support me. The
Congress is coming to an end, and the delegates will
soon be dispersing. Shortly after we adjourn, newly
released prisoners will start coming home and begin
informing people in their own way about what hap-
pened. Then the delegates to Congress will rightly ask,
'How can this be? Why didn't you tell us about these
terrible things at the Twentieth Party Congress? You
must have known.' And they will be quite right. We
won't have an answer. To say that we didn't know
anything would be a lie. We have Comrade Pospelov's
findings in hand, and now we know everything.
We
know there was a reign of repression and arbitrary
rule in the Party, and we must teU the Congress
what
we know." ,

Once again the reaction was stormy. Voroshilov and

 380 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Kaganovich repeated as though in one voice, "We'll be
taken to task! The Party has the right to hold us re-
sponsible for w^hat happened under Stalin! We were in
the leadership and even if w^e didn't know what was
—
happening, that's just too bad we'll still be made to
pay!"
"If you consider our Party to be founded on the
principle of democratic centralism," I replied, "then
we, as the Party's leaders, had no right not to know
what was happening. Some of us didn't know many
things because we were part of a regime in which you
were told what you were supposed to know and you
kept your nose out of everything else. So we kept our
noses out. But not everyone was in that position. Some
knew what was happening, and some even got their
own noses dirty in the events we're speaking about.
But while the degree of responsibility for what hap-
pened varies among us, I'm prepared, as a member of
the Central Committee since the Seventeenth Con-
gress, to bear my share of the responsibility before the
Party — even if the Party should see fit to bring to task
allthose who were in the leadership under Stalin when
arbitrary rule was imposed on the Party."
This time Molotov objected, "Don't you see what
will happen?"
Voroshilov protested vehemently that what I was
proposing needn't be done and couldn't be done with-
out calling down the v^ath of the Party on our own
heads. He kept saying over and over, "Who's asking
us to do this? Who says we have to tell the Congress
these things?"
"No one," I replied. "But the crimes have still been
committed, haven't they? We have at least to admit
that much to ourselves. It's inevitable that people will
find out what happened; if they start asking us about it
after we've kept silent, they'll already be sitting in
judgment over us. I don't want that to happen. I don't
want to accept responsibility in that way. I'd rather
we raised the matter ourselves."
But we were still a long way from an agreement. I
saw that it would be impossible to get the Presidium
to reach a decision at this rate, and I knew we couldn't
 SUCCESSION 381

bring the question to the Congress floor until we had

reached a consensus among ourselves. I decided to try
the following device: "The Party Congress is under
way and going very smoothly, but the internal disci-
pline required for unified leadership by the Central
Committee has broken down. Now that the General
Report has been given, may I remind you that every
Presidium member has the right to speak at the Con-
gress and to express his own point of view, even if it
doesn't coincide with the line set by the General
Report." I didn't need to tell them that I was prepared
if necessary to make such a speech myself, presenting

my views on the arrests and executions. I added: "In

the hfe of anyone who has committed a crime, there
comes a moment when a confession will assure him
leniency if not exculpation. If we are going to make a
clean breast of the abuses committed by Stalin, then
we must do so now, at the Twentieth Party Congress.
The Twenty-first Congress will already be too late,
even if we get that far without being brought to task."
We had reached the point where someone took the
initiativeand said, "All right, then, if that's where we
stand, someone had better make a speech about Sta-
lin's abuses." Everybody finally agreed reluctantly
that a speech should be given. I think Bulganin, Pervu-
khin, Saburov, and possibly Malenkov gave me their
personal support. That left the question of who should
actually get up and deliver the speech. I suggested it
be Pospelov since he had been the chairman of the
commission whose findings we would be using. The
others objected. They said I should make the speech.
I refused. I had already delivered the General Report
without saying a word about Pospelov's findings, so
how could I now make a new speech based on them?
But the others insisted, saying, "If Pospelov, another
Central Conmiittee Secretary, delivers the speech, it
will make people wonder, 'Why didn't IChrushchev
say anything about this business in his General Re-
port? Why Pospelov bringing up such an important
is
matter now? How could Khrushchev not have known
—or if he knew, how could he not have placed any
importance on it?' If you don't give the speech, it
382 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
could contribute to the impression of dissension in the
leadership."
This argument deserved consideration, and finally I
gave in. It was decided that I would give the speech
based on the commission's findings. Pospelov was in-
structed to turn his report into a speech.^^ We ar-
ranged for a special closed session of the Congress, and
I delivered my speech. The delegates listened in abso-
lute silence. It was so quiet in the huge hall you could
hear a fly buzzing. You must try to imagine how
shocked people were by the revelations of the atrocities
to which Party members —
Old Bolsheviks and up-and-
—
coming young men alike had been subjected. This
was the first that most of them had heard of the
tragedy which our Party had undergone a tragedy—
stemming from the sickness in Stalin's character which
Lenin had warned us against in his Testament and
which Stalin himself had confirmed in his confession
—
to Mikoyan and me "I trust no one, not even my-
self" [see page 329].
And so the Twentieth Party Congress speech on
StaHn's abuses was born. was supposed to have been
It
secret, but in fact it was far from being secret. We
took measures to make sure that copies of it circulated
to the fraternal Communist Parties so that they could
familiarize themselves with it. That's how the Polish
Party received a copy. At the time of the Twentieth
Party Congress the Secretary of the Polish Central
Conunittee, Comrade Bierut, died. There was great
turmoil after his death, and our document fell into the

20. The genesis of the Secret Speech must have been more
complicated than Khrushchev suggests here. The speech, twenty
thousand words long, packed with detail, a composite effort if
ever there was one (with short passages obviously interpolated
at the last minute by Khrushchev himself), must have been in
existence before the Congress opened. If Khrushchev had in-
tended to denounce Stalin he would have prepared the way in
his General Report (as Mikoyan did in his own speech). It
can only have been that Khrushchev was under pressure to
speak, pressure such as would make it impossible for him to
develop his own personality cult further. Then, boldly acting
to make the best of a bad situation, he contrived to turn the
occasion to his own advantage by presenting himself as the
one man who dared to speak out.
 —
SUCCESSION 383
hands of some Polish comrades who were hostile to-
ward the Soviet Union. They used my speech for their
own purposes and made copies of it. I was told that it
was being sold for very little. So Khrushchev's speech
delivered in closed session to the Twentieth Party
Congress wasn't appraised as being worth much! Intel-
ligence agents from every country in the world could
buy it cheap on the open market.
That's how the document came to be published. But
we didn't confirm it. I remember that when journalists
would ask me, "What can you tell us about this speech
which has been attributed to you?" I used to say I
knew nothing about it and they'd have to direct their
—
questions to Mr. [Allen] Dulles that is, American
intelligence.^^
In retrospect I think the matter of what to do with
Pospelov's findings was handled absolutely correctly
and at the right time. I'm satisfied that I seized the
proper moment when I insisted that the speech be made
at the Twentieth Congress,
It could have turned out differently. We were just
coming out of a state of shock. People were still in
prison and in the camps, and we didn't know how to
explain what had happened to them or what to do with
them once they were free. We could have fallen back
on what might crudely be caUed "the Beria version"
and have claimed that Beria was completely responsi-
ble for the abuses committed by Stalin. After Beria's
trial we had found ourselves trapped by the version
which we'd created in the interests of protecting Sta-
lin's reputation. It would have been easier, perhaps, to
continue blaming Beria and to have left the illusion
unchallenged that Stalin was "the People's Father and
Friend." Even today, long after the Twentieth Party
Congress, there are still people who have clung to the
Beria version and who refuse to accept the truth about
Stalin. Some people want to beheve that it wasn't God
who was guilty but one of his angels; one of his angels
gave God false reports, and that's why God sent hail

21. It is worth recording that Khrushchev has never before

admitted publicly that the Secret Speech in fact existed.
 384 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
and thunder and other disasters down on mankind;
the people suffered not because God wanted them to,
but because that evil angel Beria sat at God's right
hand.
Not too long ago I was listening to the radio and
heard a reading of a chapter from Sholokhov's novel,
They Fought for Their Homeland. Mikhail Aleksandro-
vich tries to explain, in a conversation between two
fishermen, what happened during the period of Stalin's
abuses. One fisherman asks the other, "What do you
make of Comrade Stalin? They say he overlooked all
these terrible things that were going on. All sorts of
honest, loyal people were brought to trial and put to
death. How could Comrade Stalin have let it happen?"
The other fisherman says, "Yes, it's hard to believe."
Then the first asks, "Wasn't Beria the main culprit?
Wasn't it he who reported to Stalin?"
"Yes, it was all that av^ul Beria's doing."
Now, Mikhail Aleksandrovich is an intelligent man
and a fine writer, but it's no credit to him that he's
perpetuating this explanation of the tragedy which
Stalin inflicted on our Party. One thing is absolutely
elementary: Beria didn't create Stalin, Stalin created
Beria. And before him Stalin created Yezhov. "The
Blackberry" and "the Mailed Fist"— those were Stalin's
nicknames for Yezhov. And before Yezhov there was
Yagoda. Stalin invented Yagoda, too. One by one they
made their entrances and exits. The rapid turnover
among the main characters created by Stalin was very
much part of Stalin's logic. He used henchmen to
destroy honest men who he knew perfectly well were
guiltless in the eyes of the Party and the people. Then
Stalin stood above it all while the terror consumed its
own executors. When one band of thugs got too em-
broiled in the terror, he simply replaced it with an-
other. That's how the three echelons came about: first
Yagoda, then Yezhov, then Beria. The chain was bro-
ken with Stalin's death, and Beria faced the people's
court as a criminal.
Just before the Twentieth Party Congress I sum-
moned the State Prosecutor, Comrade Rudenko, who
had been involved in many of the cases during the
 SUCCESSION 385

purges of the thirties. I asked him, "Comrade Rudenko,

I'm interested in the open trials. Tell me, how much
basis in actual fact was there for the accusations made
against Bukharin, Rykov, Syrtsov, Lominadze, Krestin-
sky, and many, many other people well known to the
Central Committee, to the Orgbureau, and to the Polit-
bureau?"
Comrade Rudenko answered that from the stand-
point of judicial norms, there was no evidence whatso-
ever for condemning or even trying those men. The
case for prosecuting them had been based on personal
confessions beaten out of them imder physical and
psychological torture, and confessions extracted by
such means are unacceptable as a legitimate basis for
bringing someone to trial.
Nevertheless, we decided not to say anjrthing about
the open trials in my speech to the Twentieth Party
Congress. There was a certain ambiguity in our con-
duct here. The reason for our decision was that there
had been representatives of the fraternal Communist
parties present when Rykov, Bukharin, and other
leaders of the people were tried and sentenced. These
representatives had then gone home and testified in
their own countries to the justice of the sentences. We
didn't want to discredit the fraternal Party representa-
tives who had attended the open trials, so we indefi-
nitely postponed the rehabilitation of Bukharin, Zino-
viev, Rykov, and the rest. I can see now that our
decision was a mistake. It would have been better to
tell everything. Murder will always out. You can't
keep things like that a secret for long.
But despite that one mistake, the Twentieth Party
Congress still accomplished a great deal. Its main
achievement was that it touched off the process of
purifying the Party of Stalinism and reestablishing in
the Party those Leninist norms of life for which the
best sons of our country had struggled. ^
 TWO

The World Outside

 10

The Fraternal Countries

Khrushchev's expedition to Warsaw in 1945 was more

important than he suggests. He was chairman of the
committee that planned the reconstruction of an ap-
pallingly devastated city, whose center then appeared
to he nothing more than an immense heap of fire-hlack-
ened ruhhle. Indeed, it says something for Khrushchev
that he makes so little of the immense difficulties that
faced him in Warsaw and, more intimately, in the
ruined towns and cities of his own Ukraine, where
sometimes nothing at all was left to show that a town
—
had once existed apart from, irregular rows of hrick
chimney breasts sticking up out of the snow to give the
effect of monstrous cemeteries. On the other hand,
Khrushchev's account of Soviet relations with the
satellites is so remote from reality that, apart from a
handful of anecdotes, its chief interest is in the light
it throws on the mentality of a man who can blandly

say about Moscow's attitude toward Poland, Czecho-

slovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary with their
puppet governments: ". we deliberately avoided
. .

applying pressure on other Socialist countries." He is

referring to a part of the world where Communist
rule had been established by Stalin's agents backed by
the might of the Soviet Army, and where the Russians
later inspired and supervised the notorious series of
trials and murders (Rajk in Hungary, Kostov
judicial
in Bulgaria, Slansky in Czechoslovakia, and others too
numerous to mention) which were to transform the
Communist Parties of Central and Eastern Europe into
faithful replicas of the Soviet Communist Party as
it

had been shaped by the great purges of the 1930' s.

389
390 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

In January, 1945, Stalin phoned me in the Ukraine and

asked, "Can you come to Moscow immediately? We
need you here urgently." I flew to Moscow from Kiev.
Stalin met me in high spirits. He said, "The PoUsh
comrades have asked us to help them restore their
municipal services, especially their water supply and
sewage system. We have Hberated Warsaw, but they're
in a helpless situation. They say Warsaw is in ruins,
and they don't know what to do or where to begin.
You've already had considerable experience with the
rapid restoration of essential city services, so we want
to send you to Warsaw to oversee the work there."
"Very well," I answered. "I will go with pleasure.
But I would like to take with me some municipal ad-
ministrators and electrical engineers. The first thing is
to get the Poles' power station working, then their
water and sewage works." Iasked Comrade Stramen-
tov to come along. I knew he was a good organizer
and an expert manager of electrical facilities. I also
included some engineers who specialized in power sta-
tions, water supply, and sewage. We all flew to War-
saw.
The Polish government, or "Committee," as it was
called at that time, was situated in Praga, a suburb of
Warsaw on the right bank of the Vistula. Osobka-
Morawski was Prime Minister, and Comrade Bierut
was Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish
Communist Party.^ General Spychalski was mayor of
Warsaw. had met Bierut earlier, but this was the
I
first timemet Spychalski. I liked them both. Spy-
I
chalski was young, energetic, and hard-working. He
was an architect by training. As for Bierut, I consid-
ered him an honest Communist, devoted to the cause
of Marxism-Leninism. He had one weakness: he was
too nuld, good-natured, and trusting. This led to some

1. These were all members of the notorious 'Tliublin Commit-

tee," formed by the Russians to act as the first puppet govern-
ment of Communist Poland. Osobka-Morawski was the first
Prime Minister, 1944-47, He was then demoted and finally dis-
graced in the purge of 1949. Bierut was very quickly to become
the first President. The office of Secretary General of the Party
was in fact assumed by W, Gomulka in 1945.
 THE FRATERNAL COUNTRIES 391

complications in Poland later when his colleagues took

advantage of him.
Our engineers divided up into three groups with the
Polish engineers. One group was detailed to restore
electric power as quickly as possible. The second group
was to take care of the water supply, and the third was
to repair the sewage system. The Poles were to look
after cleaning up the city by themselves. Our services
weren't required for that job. I put Comrade Stra-
mentov in charge of the whole operation, so he had
both Polish and Russian specialists under him. He was
to handle all the specific problems which arose and
then report to me and the other Polish comrades on
the general situation.
Our men soon had some good news to report. It
turned out that only the outside of the power station
had been ruined and the equipment inside was still
in working order. The Poles had thought that the sta-
tion was completely destroyed. The machinery to pump
water through the city was also still usable. The sew-
age system apparently wasn't badly damaged either.
I was very glad to hear all this. After a few days of
exhaustive investigation into the condition of the ma-
chinery and turbines, I jokingly said to Comrade
Bierut, "Why don't you pay for our trip and our con-
sultations by giving us half the electric power which
we will restore in Warsaw? We could certainly use it
in Kiev." I was referring to the disastrous situation in
Kiev at that time. The power station there had been
completely demolished by the Germans.
Warsaw got its electricity and water supply back.
Bierut was radiant. He thanked us profusely and asked
us to pass on his thanks to Comrade Stalin. He was
obviously speaking very sincerely. Before we left,
Comrade Bierut made a suggestion to me: "We have
a very important figure in the Polish Communist Party
here, a comrade named Wladyslaw Gomulka. I would
like to ask that you pay a call on him at his apartment.
He's quite sick and can't come out."
"All right," I said. "I will be pleased to." I was given
someone to accompany me and went to see Comrade
Gomulka. I remember being taken to a gloomy, sooty,
 392 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

one-room apartment. Gomulka*s wife was washing

clothes when we arrived. Gomulka himself was sitting
in a chair with some sort of black kerchief drawn up
high around his neck.
Comrade Gomulka didn't speak Russian very well,
but with the help of the interpreter we could under-
stand each other. Gomulka gave me his appraisal of
the general state of affairs in Poland and told me how
Party work was being organized. He impressed me.
He seemed to know where to start in organizing the
activities of theParty and government. In short, he
impresed me as being an able political leader and
statesman. "I'm sick for the time being," he said, "but
I will be up and around before long."
When I reported to Comrade Stalin about my trip,
I told him about Gomulka. I don't know if Stalin had
heard of him earlier. None of the rest of us had, and I
doubt Stalin had either. I reconmiended Gomulka very
highly to Stalin.2
Stalin was very satisfied with my
report about Po-
land. He was pleased that we had been able to help
the Poles, and he knew this assistance would make
good marks for us with the Polish people, especially
the citizens of Warsaw. The treaty of 1939 [the Rib-
bentrop-Molotov Pact] had deeply wounded the Poles,
and the wound was still fresh. Stalin wanted to do
everything he could to heal it as soon as possible.
Naturally, he didn't say this to me outright, but I could
sense what he was thinking.

2. Gromulka had survived Stalin's deliberate destruction of the

Polish Communist Party only because he was lucky enough to
be in prison in Poland when his colleagues were being mur-
dered in Moscow. Almost immediately after this first encounter
with Khrushchev he became Secretary CJeneral of the Polish
Party, reborn, until he was imprisoned again (this time by
—
Stalin) in 1949 accused of Titoism. He was lucky not to be
shot. Khrushchev was to meet him again in very different cir-
cumstances, when he put himself at the head of the Polish
revolt in the autimin of 1956 and, in a head-on collision, re-
jected the demands made by a high-powered Soviet delegation
(Khrushchev, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, and Molotov) which had
flown to Warsaw to intimidate the Poles.
 THE FRATERNAL COUNTRIES 393
At the end of the war we had troops stationed in
Poland and Hungary. Stalin took an active personal
interest in the affairs of these countries,^ as well as of
Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Rumania. The rest of
us in the leadership were careful not to poke our noses
into Eastern Europe unless Stalin himself pushed our
noses in that direction. He jealously guarded foreign
policy in general and our policy toward other Socialist
countries in particular as his own special province.
Stalin had never gone out of his way to take other
people's advice into account, but this was especially
true after the war. The rest of us were just errand
boys, and Stalin would snarl threateningly at anyone
who overstepped the mark.
One reason for Stalin's obsession with Eastern Eu-
rope was that the Cold War had already set in. Church-
ill had given his famous speech in Fulton urging the

imperiahstic forces of the world to mobilize against

the Soviet Union. Our relations with England, France,
the USA, and the other countries who had cooperated
with us in crushing Hitlerite Germany were, for all
intents and purposes, ruined.
America was conducting its foreign policy from a
position of strength. The Americans had the atomic
bomb,- and they knew we didn't. For the atomic bomb
to be in our enemy's hands was bad enough. To make
matters worse, the President at that time was Truman,
who had neither an oimce of statesmanship nor a flexi-
ble mind and who was hostile and spiteful toward the
Soviet Union. I can't imagine how anyone ever con-
sidered Tnmian worthy of the Vice-Presidency, much
less the Presidency. The whole world knows from the
newspapers how he slapped a journalist who criticized
his daughter for being a poor singer.* That incident
alone told us something about Truman's statesmanship,
to say nothing of his suitability for so important a
post
as the President of the United States. America's
air

this
3. This, conceivably, is the biggest understatement in
book. ,, TT J- J •+
4. In fact, Truman did not hit the man at
aU. He did write
a scurrilous letter to a Washington music critic who
had writ-
smgmg.
ten an unfavorable review of his daughter Margarets
394 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS "

force at that time was the best in the world both in the
quality and quantity of its planes. The American "fly-
ing fortresses" and "super-fortresses" had played a big
part in winning the war against Germany and Japan,
and they were still unmatched by any other planes in
the world. I would even say that America was in-
vincible, and the Americans flaunted this fact by send-
ing their planes all over Europe, violating borders and
even flying over the territory of the Soviet Union
itself, not to mention a country like Czechoslovakia.
Not a single day went by when American planes didn't
violate Czechoslovak airspace. In the Soviet Union
there was considerable alarm that the US might send
its troops into Czechoslovakia and try to restore the
capitalist government which had been overthrown in
1948 by the working classes under the leadership of
the Communist Party.
This danger was another reason for Stalin to take
such a direct, and jealous, interest in the affairs of the
fraternal Socialist coimtries and Czechoslovakia in
particular. The Czechoslovak Communist Party was
outstanding among European Parties. It had good pro-
letarian leadership and enjoyed high prestige. Gottwald
was President.^ I had heard many good things about
Gottwald over the years, and I knew Stalin thought
very highly of him. I had met Gottwald myself in 1948,
after the victory of the Communist Party in Czecho-
slovakia over the bourgeoisie and the proletariat's
assumption of the leadership. One day I got a telephone
call from Stalin. He was in a good mood and invited
me to come to the Crimea, where he was spending his
vacation. He told me that Gottwald and his wife had
also come to the Crimea on vacation. "Come on down
here," he said. "Gottwald says he can't live another
day without you." I flew to the Crimea the very next
day.

5. Klement Gottwald was Czechoslovak Prime Minister in

1946-48 and President from the Communist take-over in 1948
imtil his death in 1953. The Party Secretary from 1945 until
his arrest in November 1951 was RudoU Slansky. After Slan-
sky*s arrest, Gottwald assumed his duties as Party Secretary
without taking the title.
 THE FRATERNAL COUNTRIES 395

Stalin was then staying in a tsarist palace in Yalta

which had been the site of his meeting with Roosevelt
and Churchill during the war. Gottwald was staying
in the same palace. We had many long talks, usually
at the dinner table. These were just casual conversa-
tions; there was nothing formal or official about them,
but we —
talked about serious subjects ^namely, agricul-
ture and the economy.
For some time Stalin kept asking me incredulously,
—
"Is this true what Gottwald says that the Czechs get
sugar beet harvests of 250 to 300 centners [563 to 675
pounds], and that before the war we were getting only
160 or so centners [366 or so pounds] in the Ukraine?"
"Comrade Stalin, that is true," I answered. Gott-
wald's claim was completely new to him. He asked
how it was possible. I had our agronomists look into it.
They reported that, in the first place, Czechoslovakia
wasn't plagued by the species of weevil that devours
the sugar beet crop in the Ukraine and that, further-
more, Czechoslovakia gets more precipitation in the
summer months than the regions of the Ukraine where
we grow sugar beets.®
Stalin was obviously displeased. He wanted to lord
the superiority of our agriculture and our collective
farm system over Gottwald. He wanted us to be the
best in every way, in agriculture and in industry. Since
our best agriculture was then in the Ukraine, he had
summoned me to the Crimea so that I could back up
his claims in his dispute with Gottwald over whose
agriculture was the more advanced. But I set the record
straight at the outset of our discussion. There was
nothing to argue about: the Czechs had clearly reached
a higher level in this regard than we had in the
Ukraine.
A few years later I saw Gottwald again, when he led
a Czechoslovak delegation to Stalin's funeral. Gottwald
fell seriously ill himself in Moscow and had to be
taken back to Prague. He died not long afterwards.

6.Czechoslovak agriculture was, of course, as advanced as

any in Europe and more advanced than most. This had more
of
to do with skill and fertilizers than with the absence
weevils.
396 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Bulganin, who was then our Minister of Defense, was
instructed to represent the Soviet Union at Gottwald's
funeral. When he returned to Moscow he reported that
the situation in Prague was very fluid and that it was
difficult to predict what Gottwald's successors would
be like. Even though our relations with Czechoslovakia
were excellent, Gottwald's death caused us some ap-
prehension because our close relationship with him
had been the main thread binding our Parties and our
states together.
Zapotocky, who had been Prime Minister under
Gottwald, was made President of the Czechoslovak
RepubHc. After the death, or rather the arrest [and
execution], of General Secretary Slansky, Novotny
became head of the Party. I don't know very much
"^

about the events leading up to Novotny's ascendancy.

I can tell only about the period when I visited Czecho-
slovakia, after Novotny had already become Secretary
of the Central Committee.
I had very little idea who Novotny was when word
of his promotion reached us. This was his first entrance
into the international arena. We
were told, however,
that he had been Secretary of the Prague City Com-
mittee, which was the most powerful Party organiza-

7. Gottwald died soon after Stalin in 1953 and was succeeded

as President by Zapotocky, who had been Prime Minister since
1948. A. Novotny then became Party Secretary. Zapotocky died
in 1957 and was succeeded as President by Novotny, who also
retained the Party Secretaryship, so that he was, in effect,
dictator of Czechoslovakia. Novotny had gained a bad reputa-
tion for himself during the four years he spent in a Nazi
concentration camp (Mauthausen): he had quickly established
himself as a Kapo, or trusty, winning privileges for himself
and his friends at the expense of less fortunate prisoners and
using his special position to break his enemies. Novotny's swift
rise after the war was largely due to the part he played in
helping to unmask the alleged conspiracy of his colleague
Slansky and others, which led to charges of treason and to
trialsand executions in the manner of the Soviet treason trials
of the 1930's.Once Novotny had established himself, he ruled
Czechoslovakia in the Stalinist manner, resisting change, until
in the spring of 1968 he was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of
popular indignation, expressing itself in the great reform move-
ment, presided over by Alexander Dubcek, which was to end
so tragically with the Soviet invasion.
 THE FRATERNAL COUNTRIES 397
tion in Czechoslovakia, and that he enjoyed wide
prestige throughout the Czechoslovak Party. But this
was little more than rumor.
When I first met Novotny
I liked him very much. I
still think he
a good, honest Commimist, dedicated
is
to Marxism-Leninism and the cause of the working
never had any doubt about it. When I saw
class. I've
him in action, I realized that here was a man whose
whole life was devoted to the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia. In short, my relations with him were
good.
I also met Novotny's Minister of Internal Affairs.^
He was a loyal and active friend of the Soviet Union.
But then he was arrested and brought to trial and so
on. I admit I felt very bad about this, but there was
nothing I could say in his defense because indisputable,
damning evidence had been brought against him.
Furthermore, in those days we deliberately avoided
applying pressure on other SociaHst countries. as-We
sumed that every Communist Party should, and would,
handle its own internal problems by itself. Therefore
when we received information about developments
which we we sometimes expressed
didn't approve of,
our opinions and our doubts, but we usually let the
fraternal Party make its own decisions. This practice
held true in the case of the Czechoslovak Party.
However, I do remember one episode when there
was a certain amount of tension between the Czecho-
slovak leaders and myself. I was to be part of a Soviet
delegation which was preparing to leave for Czechoslo-
vakia. I told my comrades during a meeting before
we left that I wanted very much to pay a special visit
to General Svoboda and to take him some typical Rus-
sian souvenirs as a token of both my own personal
esteem for him and the gratitude of the Soviet people
for his role in the war.

sentenced
8. Rudolf Barak. Novotny had him arrested and
to fifteen years' imprisonment in 1962, by this
means getting
rid of his only dangerous rival and at the same time makmg hmi
Novotny's, own failure to satisfy Khru-
a scapegoat for his,
progress towara
shchev's rather sharp demands for a Uttie more
de-Stalinization in Czechoslovakia.
398 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

In 1943, Vatutin and I had a Czechoslovak battalion

under the command of Colonel Svoboda that was at-
tached to our army. This battahon distinguished itself
outside Kharkov. Later I got to know Svoboda better
after his men formed a crack brigade. I remember the
Czechoslovak Communists telling me during the war
that he was an active political leader as well as an
outstanding military commander. According to the con-
stitution of Czechoslovakia at that time, it was forbid-
den to set up pohtical cells in the ranks of military
units, and therefore the Communist organization in the
Czechoslovak brigade was technically illegal. But that
didn't stop Svoboda from summoning the leaders of
the Party organization and telling him what sort of po-
litical work needed to be done. The Czechoslovaks
fought side by side with us on the First Ukrainian
Front. I was a member of the Military Council, and
Svoboda was one of my subordinates. I had another
chance to meet Svoboda and the other Czechoslovak
leaders after their country was liberated by our troops.
The newly formed Czech government traveled back to
Prague through Kiev where I received them. Svoboda
was decorated by the Soviet Union with the Order of
Lenin. Thus, his record and my own association with
him meant it would have been simply indecent for me
to go to Czechoslovakia without paying a personal visit
to him.
However, by the time I finally had a chance to go to
Czechoslovakia with our delegation, Svoboda was in
disgrace. According to information we received, he was
working as a bookkeeper on a collective farm. It hard-
ly made sense. He had done nothing to deserve this
humiliation. I told my comrades I thought Svoboda
should be put to constructive use and given a position
worthy of his important contribution as the only mili-
tary leader of the Czechoslovak army who had fought
by our side against Germany. We had to do something
to boost his prestige and to return him to active politi-
cal life. My comrades in the leadership of the Soviet
Communist Party and the Soviet Government agreed
with me.
When I spoke to our Czechoslovak friends about my
 THE FRATERNAL COUNTRIES 399
desire to see General Svoboda, I tried to impress on
them that I considered him a good warrior and an
honest comrade and therefore I couldn't just forget
about him, as though he'd never existed. I asked them
if they had anything against my meeting with Svoboda.

I could tell that they weren't very happy about my

request, but they knew I wouldn't take no for an
answer. I wouldn't say they gave me their blessing,
but they didn't do anything to stop me. They said that
if I wanted to meet with Svoboda it was my own busi-
ness. So I made a point of seeing hrm during our trip
to Czechoslovakia.®

There are strong brotherly feelings for the Soviet

Union among all the peoples of the SociaHst countries,
but I've always found the Bulgarians' friendship for us
to be particularly ardent. Their feelings are under-
standable. Not all that many years have passed since
the battlefields of Bulgaria were littered with the bones
of Russian warriors who died winning Bulgaria's inde-
pendence from the Turks.

9. L.Svoboda became President of Czechoslovakia after

Novotny's fall in 1968 and put up a gallant resistance to Soviet
bullying. Much earlier he had been the pro- Communist Minister
of Defense under Benes and, as such, had played an active part
in the overthrow of parliamentary democracy in Czechoslovakia.
He did not actually join the Commimist Party until 1948 and
was regarded with extreme suspicion by Stalin, who had him
demoted in 1950. In 1951 he vanished from the scene, spent
some time in prison, was released, and made a living as an ac-
countant on a beekeeping cooperative. It is perfectly true that
his return from obscurity was due entirely to Khrushchev. He
had sunk so deep into anonymity that it took Novotny's min-
ions quite a long time to discover where he was.
 11

The Korean War

Here again the predominant impression is of the almost

casual amateurishness with which Stalin approached
prohlem,s not immediately ajfecting the security of the
Soviet Union as he understood it. Presumably he re-
ceived detailed advice about the Korean situation from
his Foreign Ministry; but he seems to have encouraged
the North Koreans without giving the matter serious
thought. The important point emerging from this chap-
ter is that Khrushchev makes no bones about North
Korean responsibility for the war: he does not pretend
that South Korea was guilty of aggression or even
provocation. The whole affair, as presented by Khru-
shchev, was a North Korean invasion connpounded by
a gross miscalculation on Stalin's part. But it is also
clear that Stalin saw his own error a great deal sooner
than Khrushchev did. Khrushchev could not under-
stand why his master withdrew all Soviet advisors and
—
stood aloof except for a propaganda barrage when—
what should have been a walkover for the North Ko-
reans developed into a major war. No wonder Stalin
showed contempt for Khrushchev's suggestions. They
were the su^ggestions of a man still wholly ignorant of
—
the actual working of world forces unaware, even, of
the leading role played in the whole affair by the
United Nations, as distinct from the USA.

About the time I was transferred from the Ukraine to

Moscow at the end of 1949, Kim Il-sung arrived with
his delegation to hold consultations with Stalin. The
North Koreans wanted to prod South Korea with the
point of a bayonet. Kim Il-sung said that the first poke
400
 THE KOREAN WAR 401
would touch off an internal explosion in South Korea
and that the power of the people would prevail that
is, the power which ruled in North Korea. Naturally
—
Stahn couldn't oppose this idea. It appealed to his
convictions as a Communist all the more because the
struggle would be an internal matter which the Kore-
ans would be settling among themselves. The North
Koreans wanted to give a helping hand to their breth-
ren who were under the heel of Syngman Rhee. Stalin
persuaded Kim Il-sung that he should think it over,
make some calculations, and then come back with a
concrete plan. Kim went home and then returned to
Moscow when he had worked everything out. He told
Stahn he was absolutely certain of success. I remem-
ber Stalin had his doubts. He was worried that the
Americans would jump in, but we were inclined to
—
think that if the war were fought swiftly and Kim
Il-sung was sure that it could be won swiftly then —
intervention by the USA could be avoided.
Nevertheless, Stalin decided to ask Mao Tse-timg's
opinion about Kim Il-sung's suggestion. I must stress
that the war wasn't Stalin's idea, but Kim Il-sung's.
Kim was the initiator. Stalin, of course, didn't try to
dissuade him. In my opinion, no real Communist would
have tried to dissuade Kim Il-sung from his compelHng
desire to hberate South Korea from Syngman Rhee
and from reactionary American influence. To have
done so would have contradicted the Commimist view
of the world. I don't condemn Stalin for encouraging
Kim. On the contrary, I would have made the same
decision myself had been in
if I his place.
Mao Tse-tung also answered ap-
affirmatively. He
proved Kim Il-simg's suggestion and put forward the
opinion that the USAwould not intervene since the
war would be an internal matter which the Korean
people would decide for themselves.
I remember a high-spirited dinner at Stalin's
dacha.
Kun Il-sung told us about the conditions of liie m
Korea, and he stressed the many attractive things
about South Korea—the good soil and excellent climate
and
for growing rice, the prosperous fishing industry,
reunification of South and
so on. He said that after the
402 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
North Korea, Korea as a whole would benefit. Korea
would be able to ensure the supply of raw materials
for her industry from the north and to meet the food
requirements to feed her people from the fish, rice, and
other agricultural products which flourished in the
south. We wished every success to Kim Il-sung and
toasted the whole North Korean leadership, looking
forward to the day when their struggle would be won.
We had already been giving arms to North Korea
for some time. It was obvious that they would receive
the requisite quantity of tanks, artillery, rifles, ma-
chine guns, engineering equipment, and antiaircraft
weapons. Our air force planes were being used to
shield Pyongyang and were therefore stationed in
North Korea.
The designated hour arrived and the war began. The
attack was launched successfully. The North Kore-
ans swept south swiftly. But what Elim Il-sung had
—
predicted an internal uprising after the first shots
were fired and Syngman Rhee was overthrown —un-
fortunately failed to materialize. The elimination of
Syngman Rhee and his cHque was supposed to be
accomplished with the advance of the North Korean
troops. At first it looked as though Kim Il-sung had
been right. The South Korean regime was unstable
and wasn't able to defend itself. The resistance was
weak. SjTngman Rhee indeed didn't have much sup-
port within South Korea, but there still weren't enough
internal forces for a Communist insurrection in South
Korea. Apparently the Party's preparatory organiza-
tional work had been inadequate. Kim had believed
that South Korea was blanketed with Party organiza-
tions and that the people would rise up in revolt when
the Party gave the signal. But this never happened.
The North Koreans occupied Seoul. We were all de-
lighted and again wished Kim Il-sung every success
because this was a war of national liberation. It was
not a war of one people against another, but a class
war. Workers, peasants, and intelligentsia under the
leadership of the Labor Party of North Korea, which
then stood and today still stands on Socialist principles,
 THE KOREAN WAR 403

were united in battle against the capitalists. This in

itself was a progressive development.
However, just as Kim Il-sung's army got as far as
Pusan, its strength gave out. This was the last port city
in the south. It would have to be seized before the war
could end. If it had been seized, Korea would have
been united. It would no longer have been divided. It
would have been a single powerful Socialist country,
rich in raw materials, industry, and agriculture.
But that didn't happen. The enemy took advantage
of the resistance organized by Syngman Rhee in Pusan.
He had prepared his troops for a landing at Chemulpo.
The landing assault was staged, and the situation be-
came very serious for the North Koreans. Actually, the
entire North Korean army in the south was cut off by
this landing, and all its weapons fell into the hands of
Syngman Rhee. It was a moment of crisis, and the
threat of catastrophe was hanging over North Korea
itself.
Stalin was partly to blame for the precarious situa-
tion which the North Koreans were in. It's absolutely
incomprehensible to me why he did it, but when Kim
Il-simg was preparing for his march, Stalin called
back all our advisors who were with the North Korean
divisions and regiments, as well as all the advisors who
were serving as consultants and helping to build up
the army. I asked Stalin about this, and he snapped
back at me, "It's too dangerous to keep our advisors
there. They might be taken prisoner. We don't want
there to be evidence for accusing us of taking part in
this business. It's Kim Il-sung's affair." So our advisors
were recalled. As a result, the North Korean army was
in trouble from the very start. When the pitched bat-
tles began after Chemulpo, I took very much to heart
the reports we received about the tragic situation Kim
Il-sung had gotten himself into. I felt sorry for Kim
Il-sung and once even suggested to Stalin:
"Comrade Stalin, wouldn't it be a good idea to lend
more qualified help to Kim Il-sung? He wants to fight
for his people to make all Korea free and independent.
But he's not a military man himself, and now he s
facing crack American units. Our ambassador to
North
404 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Korea is a former Second Secretary of the Leningrad

Regional Committee. Even though he's been given a
wartime rank of Ueutenant general, he's not a profes-
sional soldier. He hasn't ever had even basic military
training, and his advice couldn't possibly substitute for
the advice of a qualified man trained in the conduct of
military operations. Now take Malinovsky, for instance
[Khrushchev's future defense minister]. He's in com-
mand of the Far Eastern Military District. Why
shouldn't we send Malinovsky to North Korea so that,
incognito, he could help Kim Il-sung to wage the war
more effectively?"
Stalin reacted to my remarks with extreme hostility.
I was astonished. Hadn't Stalin given his blessing to
Kim Il-simg? Hadn't we given arms to Kim Il-sung?
Weren't we on Kim's side? Without our help he
wouldn't have stood a chance, but this aid had been
in arms only. If we hadn't refused him aid in qualified
personnel to assess the distribution of forces and to
direct operations, there's no doubt that North Korea
would have been victorious. I think if Kim had re-
ceived just one tank corps, or two at the most, he could
have accelerated his advance south and occupied Pu-
san on the march. The war would have ended then
and there. Later, the American press said that if Pusan
had been captured, the USA would not have inter-
vened with its armed forces.^
As it was, after a long delay, the Americans staged a
landing strike of their own. Their troops retook Seoul
and moved north, past the 38th parallel—the demarca-

1. Khrushchev's memory fails him here. Immediately fol-

lowing the North Korean attack, the Americans "intervened"
with air power, then with such ground forces as General
Douglas MacArthur could assemble from his under-strength
garrisons in Japan. The Americans took heavy casualties in the
early days of the war and lost one divisional major general
taken prisoner. But there were enough men left to hang onto
the Pusan beachhead at the southern tip of Korea by their
fingernails. Without the Americans, Pusan certainly would
have been ovemm. Meanwhile, MacArthur was preparing the
shattering amphibious blow at Inchon which for the time being
destroyed the North Korean army. The Chinese intervention
in the autunm of 1950 then turned the war aroimd again.
 THE KOREAN WAR 405
tion line established by the peace treaty after the fall
of Japan. The situation had turned catastrophic for
North Korea and for Earn Il-sung.
The North Korean air force was armed mostly with
MIG-15's, our newest, best, and most maneuverable
jet fighters. In the course of the war, the Americans
rearmed their air force and introduced a new fighter
which was faster and more powerful than ours. Our
MIG-15's were simply outclassed and began to suffer
defeat. We lost our dominance in the air. The Ameri-
cans could cut through our air defenses and bomb
North Korea with impunity. We weren't able to pro-
vide air cover for cities and power stations any more.
While this tragic situation in North Korea was de-
veloping and while we were feeling most sorry for
Khn Il-sung and the people of the North Korean Re-
public, Chou En-lai suddenly appeared. I wasn't pres-
ent during his meeting with Stalin. Stalin was then in
the South [in Sochi] and Chou En-lai flew directly
,

there to see him. Afterward, when Stalin returned to

Moscow, he said that Chou En-lai had flown to see him
on the instructions of Mao Tse-tung. By this time the
North Korean army was nearly decimated. Chou asked
Stalin whether Chinese troops ought to be moved into
North Korean territory in order to block the path of
the Americans and South Koreans. At first, Stalin and
Chou seemed to conclude that it was fruitless for
China to intervene. However, just before Chou En-lai
was to —
return home, one of them either Chou En-
lai on Mao Tse-tung's instructions or else Stalin him-
self—reopened the whole matter. They then agreed
that China should give active support to North Korea.
Chinese troops were already stationed along the bor-
der. Stalin and Chou believed these troops could
man-
age the situation completely. They would beat back
the American and South Korean troops and save
the
situation from disaster.
Chou En-lai flew back to Peking. He was Mao Tse-
advisor and
tung's most influential and most briUiant
Stalin regarded him with respect. We
aU considered
him a bright, flexible, and up-to-date man with whom
we could talk sensibly.
406 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
China didn't declare war but simply sent volunteers
into Korea. These troops were commanded by P'eng
Te-huai, whom Mao Tse-tung held in the highest
esteem. Mao used to say that P'eng was the brightest
star on the Chinese military horizon.
The fighting started anew. The Chinese succeeded
in stopping the advance of the Americans and South
Koreans. Pitched battles were fought. In the archives
you can find documents in which P'eng Te-huai gave
his situation reports to Mao Tse-tung. P'eng composed
lengthy telegrams expounding elaborate battle plans
against the Americans. He declared categorically that
the enemy would be surrounded and finished off by
decisive flanking strikes. The American troops were
crushed and the war ended many times in these battle
reports which P'eng sent to Mao, who then sent them
along to Stalin.
Unfortunately, the war wasn't ended quickly at alL
The Chinese suffered many huge defeats. We received
the news that Mao Tse-tung's son, a general, was killed
in an air raid on a command post. So Mao Tse-tung's
own son was killed in South Korea! China bore ter-
rible losses because her technology and armaments
were considerably inferior to those of the Americans.
On both the offensive and the defensive, Chinese tactics
depended mostly on sheer manpower.
The war began to draw out. As the two sides dug in,
the fighting became bloodier and bloodier. The fronts
seemed to be stabilizing. When the North Koreans
started to put pressure on the South Koreans, the
American troops occupied Pyongyang and pushed the
North Koreans back to the border which had been set
by the Japanese surrender treaty.
My memories of the Korean War are unavoidably
sketchy. I didn't see any of the documents in which
the question of military-technical aid to the North
Koreans was discussed. But I basically understood our
policies. I read all the documents we received from
our ambassador. By the time the war started, I had
been given my citizenship rights and was put on the
government mailing list. While working in the Ukraine
I hadn't received any Politbureau mail except on those
 THE KOREAN WAR 4Q7
subjects which related directly to the Ukraine or to
me personally. Then, when I was transferred to Mos-
cow, Stalin said that confidential documents could be
distributed to me because I hadn't been getting any
interoffice mail before. That's how I started to see the
battle reports which Mao Tse-tung received from P'eng
Te-huai and transmitted to Stalin, and that's how I was
able to famiHarize myself with the situation which
was developing in South Korea.
 12

Burying the Hatchet with Tito

Khrushchev's journey to Yugoslavia in the summer of

1955 to repair the damfiage done by Stalin when he
excommunicated Tito in 1948 was his first appearance
in the international arena. He was accompanied by
Bulganin, then Prime Minister of the Soviet Union,
and also by Mikoyan and the new foreign minister,
Shepilov. Bulganin acted throughout as an amiable and
boozy stooge, doing what Khrushchev told him, to do.
Mikoyan kept in the background, making occasional
warning noises when Khrushchev talked too much and
—
too wildly for at this tirne Khrushchev was still drinh-
ing very heavily and was at times spectacularly drunk.
In these wholly unfamiliar surroundings Khrushchev
made mistake after mistake, beginning with his speech
at the airport in which he angered Tito by pretending
that Soviet treatment of Yugoslavia had been Beria's
fault, not Stalin's. But he never made the same m^istake
twice and showed himself to be a quick learner and to
possess unsuspected reserves of perscmal authority. It
should be recalled that in 1949 Stalin had used every
—
method short of war frontier troop movements, eco-
nomic blockade, active subversion, and violent and
—
vicious propaganda to bring about Tito's downfall.

At the time of Stalin's death I was a Secretary of the

Central Committee of the CPSU, and First Secretary
of both the Moscow City and Regional committees.
After Stalin's death I was released from my duties on
the Moscow Party Committee but remained on the
Secretariat of the Central Committee. For a while we
had no First Secretary of the Party at all. Then Bul-
408
 BURYING THE HATCHET WITH TTTO 409
ganin proposed at a Central Committee plenum that
we reinstate the position of First Secretary and nomi-
nated me for the job. That's how, with the sanction of
the Presidium, I became First Secretary of the Central
Committee of the CPSU. In that capacity I led a dele-
gation to Yugoslavia in 1955 to restore good relations
with Comrade Tito.
. Tito had been well known, and well liked, in the
]
Comintern before World War II. During the great
struggle of the Yugoslav people against the Hitlerite
invaders, Tito achieved widespread fame as a partisan
leader. I don't think anybody would take offense if I
were to say that the most impressive resistance against
the Nazi occupation in any country early in the war
was waged by the national partisan movement orga-
^ nized by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. There
were great movements in France, Italy, and other
European countries, too, but Yugoslavia's was the first
and the most massive.
I first met Tito after the war when he came to Mos-
cow with Kardelj and Djilas to see Stalin. The Yugo-
slav comrades returned to their homeland by train and
came by way of Kiev. They wanted to see some of the
I country, even if only from a railway car window. Stalin
phoned me and said, "Organize a good reception and
look after them well while they're in Kiev. Make Tito
feel that our country harbors a deep sense of friend-
ship toward Yugoslavia, and see that the Ukraine goes
all out for them."
"Very well," I said. "Everything will be done as you
say. We wiU be happy to meet Comrade Tito."
When they arrived, we gave them the appropriate re-
ception, laying on everything that Russian and Ukrain-
ian hospitality could offer. Wewere still poor, but we
were able to treat our guests well. At Tito's request,
I organized a visit to a collective farm. He said he was
impressed by what he saw, even though our economy
was still devastated and our agriculture wasn't much
to brag about.
I liked Tito. He had a lively personality, and he was
a simple man. I liked Kardelj, too. When I first met
Djilas, he impressed me with his quick and subtle wit.
410 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
He struck me as a good man. I won't deny that I now
have quite a different opinion of him, but that's beside
the point. I remember that one evening between acts
at the opera [in Kiev], Djilas told us a nimiber of
fables which he'd thought up himself. One in particular
sticks in my mind, and I'd like to tell it here:
Once upon a time a dog, a cow, and an ass lived in a
village somewhere in Yugoslavia. Things went from
bad to worse there, and finally the dog, the cow, and
the ass decided to run away into the mountains. They
wandered around in the mountains for some time until
they started to get hungry and homesick. They decided
to send the dog back to town to see if the situation
there had improved. Soon the dog came running back
as fast as his legs would carry him. "It's still too hard
to live in the village," he reported. "They don't allow
barking. How can a dog live if he's forbidden to bark?"
So the three of them continued to wander through the
mountains for a little while longer. Then they decided
to send the cow to reconnoiter. "Since you don't bark,"
said the dog and the ass to the cow, "it won't bother
you that they don't allow barking." So off the cow
went. Some time passed, and the cow returned, obvi-
ously in great distress. "It's impossible," she said,
"simply impossible, I tell you! As soon as I arrived in
town people started attacking me. They grabbed me
by my nipples and started sucking and tugging! I kept
bolting away, and they almost tore my nipples off! I
just barely escaped!" So they continued to live in the
mountains. Finally they decided to try one last time,
and the ass agreed to go down to the village. A short
time passed, and the ass came running back as fast as
his legs would carry him. "It's impossible, absolutely
Impossible to live in town!" he cried. "Why?" the
others asked. "What happened?" "Well," said the ass,
"as soon as I arrived in town they tried to put me up
for office. They were having their elections, and they
wanted to elect me to parliament. I barely got away!"
Tito looked at Djilas sternly and said, "Are you try-
ing to teU us by your fable that we elect asses to
parliament?" But Tito was just joking. He laughed,
Djilas laughed, and we all laughed.
 "

BURYESTG THE HATCHET WITH TITO 411

Later I told Stalin about the friendly, casual atmo-

sphere which had prevailed during the Yugoslavs' \dsit.
Stalin was very pleased that we had been able to play
host to Tito and that the Yugoslavs had enjoyed their
stopover in the Ukraine. At that time Stalin wanted us
to have, and was sure we would have, the best, most
fraternal relations with Yugoslavia.
Some time later, our ambassador in Belgrade, an
academician and philosopher named Yudin [P. F.
Yudin, later Ambassador to Peking], informed Stalin
that at some Party meeting the Yugoslavs had started
making all sorts of sarcastic, disrespectful, and even
insulting remarks about the Soviet Union and particu-
larly about our military and technical advisors who
had been sent there at Tito's request to help with the
reconstruction of the country. Yudin described this
meeting in detail, and Stalin sent copies of his report
to members of the Politbureau. I received it in Kiev.
Then the official Yugoslav leadership started finding
fault and trying to pick a fight with us. Many Yugo-
slavs who were our friends and who didn't agree with
this new anti-Soviet line taken by their government
were put in prison. Some of them even paid with their
lives. They were punished not because they were our
friends, but because they were against the leadership
of th Yugoslav Communist Party and the Yugoslav
government. This situation came to a head when the
Soviet Union recalled all of its advisors who had been
industry, science,
helping Yugoslavia reorganize its

economy, and army.^

suggeste that
not clear why at this stage Khrushchev
1. It is
the quarrel. In his Secret
the Yugoslavs were to blame for
reported as
Speech he categorically blamed Stalin, who is
no
saying: "I will shake my Uttle finger-and there wiU be
more Tito. will faU." Khrushchev commented:
He " ^as a
Edvard Karel] and l^o-
shameful role that Stalin played here."
van Djilas were both close colleagues of Marshal Titos^^f
still an elder stetesm^
delj, who was his Prime Minister, is
Montenegrin, was to f^
Djilas, a passionate and intelligent
old "^^ster for
from grace and be twice imprisoned by his
turning against the Communist bureaucracy and "^ ^i^ i^e
New ClJs attacking the very foundations ^^ J^^^^^l^/r^n
possible, even
caused, if
system. His Conversations with Stalin
412 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

After Stalin died, we began to exchange opinions in

our leadership about the possibility of reestabhshing
contact with the Yugoslavs and liquidating the hostil-
ity which had been created by Stalin between the
Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. This idea ran into sharp
opposition from the outset. How could we restore rela-
tions v^dth the Yugoslavs, "people argued," when they
had already slipped back into capitaHsm? Their econ-
omy had been swallowed up by American monopolistic
capital; private property had been reinstated; private
banks had been set up. Mikhail Suslov was particularly
adamant in resisting the idea of trying to reHeve the
tension between us and the Yugoslavs. He insisted that
Yugoslavia was no longer a Socialist country.
I think the reason for all these ridiculous claims was
that we had been so estranged from the Yugoslavs and
we had thought up so many accusations against them
that we'd started to believe what we'd been telling
ourselves. It's like in that old story about the mullah
[a Muhammadan religious teacher] who is walking
through the village square telling people that back
where he's just come from they're giving away free
lamb and rice. Word quickly spreads through the town,
and everybody starts running in the direction where
he pointed. When the mullah sees everyone running,
he stops somebody and asks, "What's happening?"
"They're giving away free lamb and rice over there!"
So the mullah hikes up his skirts and runs along with
the crowd to get free food, even though he made the
whole story up himself. It was just the same with
Yugoslavia. We'd made up a story about all the ter-
rible things the Yugoslavs were doing, and we'd heard
the story so often that we started to believe it our-
selves.
In trying to deal with the stubbornness of some peo-
plewho refused to budge from their old position, which
had been formed during Stalin's time, we obviously
had to counter their arguments with argioments of our

more offense. It is evident that the seeds of his disLUusionment

with Stalin in particular and Communism in general were sown
on this visit.
 BURYING THE HATCHET WITH TITO 413

own. We weren't going to get anywhere simply by

denying that Yugoslavia was a capitalist state. We had
to prove it. So I suggested, "Why don't we study the
problem objectively? We can set up a commission of
economists and other specialists who will analyze all
the pertinent factors and decide what sort of economy
and social-political structure Yugoslavia really has.
We'll study all the evidence very carefully, point by
point."
Shepilov and some other comrades were appointed
to this commission, and after a thorough investigation
they presented us with a report, which can be found
in the Central Committee archives. Their conclusion
was that there was no reason for considering Yugo-
slavia a capitalist state. Granted, the peasantry lived
in conditions of private ownership and had personal
use of their land, but there were still collective and
state farms. Banks, commerce, and the means of pro-
duction were all in the hands of the state, and the
power of the state was in the hands of the people;
the state relied on the dictatorship of the working
class. Therefore Yugoslavia qualified as a Socialist
state. I had never had any doubts about this myself,
but it took an authoritative commission to prove it to
others.
Once Yugoslavia's good standing in the Socialist
community had been established, the basis for the con-
flict which had been created by Stalin was no longer
valid, and the arguments against reconciliation col-
lapsed like a house of cards. We decided to reestablish
contacts and restore good relations between our Par-
ties. But since other Parties, particularly those of the
Socialist countries, had been implicated in our own
conflict with Yugoslavia, we had to get their agreement
before we could approach Tito directly. We sent a
letter to the Communist Parties of the Socialist states
as well as to the English, French, Italian, and other
Western Parties. They all gave us their approval.
When the question arose of how best to approach
Tito, there were voices raised which said we should
ask the Yugoslavs to come to us for negotiations. I
said that this was out of the question. First, I doubted
414 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

they would accept. It would have looked as though

they had come begging, with their hats in their hands.
Second, we had taken the initiative in breaking off
relations with them; we had attacked them publicly
before they attacked us. Therefore we should take the
initiative in closing the rupture. Third, we were a big
country, a big Party, with great authority and prestige
in the world Communist arena. The Yugoslav leaders
would have been running a big risk if they had met us
on our territory and we hadn't been able to reach an
agreement.
So we decided to send a delegation to Belgrade. I
would lead the delegation, and it was to include Bul-
ganin, Mikoyan, and Shepilov. At that time, our em-
bassy in Yugoslavia was operating with only a skeleton
staff. We addressed ourselves to the Yugoslav com-
rades with our proposal, and they agreed to receive
our delegation and to exchange views. When we landed
in Yugoslavia, we were met with all the courtesy due
a visiting foreign delegation. However, there were no
displays of brotherly feeling. Both the leadership and
the people seemed restrained and cautious. I was of-
fered the microphone to make a speech. My remarks
had been drafted by the collective leadership. There-
fore they weren't as much my own personal opinion
as the opinion of the leadership of the Central Com-
mittee of the CPSU. After I finished speaking, Tito
said, "Well, we don't need to have your speech trans-
lated because everyone here understands Russian." I
think he was deliberately demonstrating the restraint
which we sensed in the atmosphere. After all, I know
Ukrainian, but I can't catch everything when an orator
speaks Ukrainian rapidly, and Ukrainian is much
closer to Russian than Russian is to Serbo-Croatian.
I must confess that I was somewhat disappointed by
the cool reception we got at the airport because I knew
it might encourage those in our own leadership who

opposed the restoration of good relations.^

2. Khrushchev was more than disappointed by Tito's snub at

the airport.He was visibly furious. It was worth noting that
earlier Khrushchev accepts responsibility for his unfortunate
 BURYING THE HATCHET WITH TITO 415

When discussions started, we took the initiative in

suggesting that we bury our differences. I said I was
absolutely sure we would be able to reach some sort
of mutual understanding. I admit there were still some
flaws in our position. The Yugoslavs quite correctly
blamed Stalin for the spUt between our Parties. They
didn't hold it against us personally, but against Stalin.
We, too, were proceeding from the assumption that
Stalin had started the conflict, but we tried to avoid
bringing up the subject of who was to blame when we
actually set about normalizing our relations with
Yugoslavia. We were only beginning to realize the
extent of Stalin's abuses of power and the carnage he
had caused when he cut down the flower of our Party.
As I've said before [see pages 373-374], psychologi-
cally we were not prepared for our meeting with the
Yugoslavs. We still hadn't freed ourselves from our
slavish dependence on Stalin. However, the Yugoslavs
agreed that we could come to some sort of understand-
ing. They seemed receptive to our intentions.
The Yugoslav leaders organized a tour of the coun-
try for us. Once again, our reception in cities and towns
was restrained. It was evident that the people lined up
in the streets hadn't come out spontaneously to meet
us. They were organized Party people. Not that they
were hostile, but I wouldn't say they were very
friendly, either. Mostly they chanted, "Long live Tito,
Tito, Tito!"3
We were, however, glad to see during our trip
around the coimtry that the Yugoslav people treated
with all due respect the memory of our soldiers who
had given their lives in the liberation of Yugoslavia
from Hitler.* The graves of our fallen warriors were in

speech.He put the blame on Beria because, he says, neither

he nor his colleagues had yet quite taken in the wickedness
of btaiin.
oi Stalin. ,

3. Khrushchev is quite correct about the attitude of the

Yugoslav people. They were politely hostile.
4. The Yugoslavs Uberated themselves from
the Germans,
although their fate depended absolutely on Allied victory m
take
other theaters. This was one reason for Tito's refusal to
orders from Stalin.
416 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

good condition, and marked with plaques giving their

names.
The country, of course, was very poor. It had been
a poor peasant country before the war, and the Hitler-
ite occupation had been long and hard. We saw that
the farmers had only very primitive agricultural im-
plements and were still largely without tractors. Their
backwardness was very understandable. Yugoslavia
was an isolated and ravaged country, even though the
capitalists were pretending to help.^
I remember talking to Vukmanovic-Tempo. He im-
pressed me very much with his sincerity, his genuine-
ness, his human naturalness. I Hked him even though
he spoke out very strongly against us. I don't think
he should have let himself get so carried away. He told
us how he had gone to America to negotiate a credit
loan. "We were facing the most severe hardships," he
explained. "Our harvest had failed and we were threat-
ened with famine. The tension between our country
and the Soviet Union was at its height. The Americans
knew how desperate we were and tried to take ad-
vantage of it. They tried to impose on us the most
one-sided, shackling sort of conditions in exchange for
their credit loan. They thought we had no choice but
to accept. Their conditions were clearly of a political
character, designed to throw Yugoslavia off its Social-
ist course and force us toward capitahsm. I told them
we'd rather die than face conditions like that. I walked
out and slammed the door. I stayed around for a few
days and gave the Americans a chance to reopen nego-
tiations. They were compelled to give in a little because
they were afraid of pushing us too far. They knew
that if we went home angry they would have lost all
hope of prying Yugoslavia away from the Socialist
camp. Their prime goal was to prevent our reconcilia-
—
tion with the Soviet Union or, as they said it, to

5. The capitalist West was for some time extremely reluc-

tant to give aid to Tito, being skeptical about the seriousness of
his quarrel with Stalin. In due course it helped a good deal,
not to swallow up Yugoslavia, as Khrushchev says, but cer-
tainly to enable her to maintain her independent nationalist
existence outside the Soviet bloc.
 BURYING THE HATCHET WITH TITO 417

protect us from having to capitulate to Stalin. They

wanted to encourage a schism in the Sociahst world
and to fortify their own imperiahstic camp."
I liked to see a man with such a flair for expressing
class hatred, but I did resent it when Vukmanovic-
Tempo had sharp words for me. I said at one meeting,
"If ever again you want to aggravate tensions in your
relations with some country, the man for the job is
Comrade Tempo." Tito glanced at me, then burst out
laughing. Later Vukmanovic-Tempo and I got along
fine. I respected him very much. His fierce temper
stemmed from his hatred for the enemies of the work-
ing class. That's why he permitted himself some intem-
perate language with us. After all, we had shown, to
put it mildly, a certain lack of sympathy for Yugoslavia
when it was facing the most arduous hardships.®
At the end of our first visit to Yugoslavia, we re-
leased a joint communique. This declaration was only
a point of departure. Tito insisted on our commitment
to the principles of complete noninterference in the
internal affairs of other countries and other Parties
and the right of every country to assert its own will
without pressure from the outside. We agreed to this,
believing sincerely as we did that relations must be
built on mutual trust. The joint communique raised
some questions that might better have been avoided,
but most of the rough spots were smoothed over. This
accord, of course, was only the beginning. After such
a long period of hostility, there was more to restoring
relations than just sitting down at a table and drinking
a glass of wine together.

6. The negotiations were extremely tense and often on the

to re-
point of being broken off. Khrushchev was determined
Yugoslav
establish intimate relations between the Soviet and
Commimist Parties—in a word, to reincorporate Yugoslavia
into the monolithic Communist bloc. Tito would
have nothing
relations with the
to do with this. He wished to reestablish
independent
Soviet Union on a government level as between
states. This is happened. Vukmanovic-Tempo for long
what
trade union orgamzation, and an
om
head of the Yugoslav
partisan, was, and is,an exceptionally honest and forthright
expressed m
man. On the occasion of Khrushchev's visit he
undiplomatic terms what others were thinking.
418 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Once we arrived back in Moscow we reported on

how our meetings with the Yugoslavs had gone. We
said that Yugoslavia appeared to be a country firmly
set on the course of Socialism; both the people and
the Party seemed to be solidly committed to Marxism-
Leninism. We decided in Moscow that in order to meet
the Yugoslavs halfway and in order to lay the founda-
tion for further economic cooperation with them, we
would v^rrite off their large debt to us. Then the Yugo-
slavs asked us for credit. I forget how much, but it was
a considerable sum. They wanted it in order to build a
steel mill. We gave them the credit loan they asked for,
on the condition that we could make the loan in the
form of machinery to use in building and equipping
the mill.
Tito has always been a good Comnnanist and a man
of principle, but before our relations with him began
to improve, Yugoslavia had been trading mostly with
American, British, and other Western companies in
exchange for credit loans. The rumor had even been
spread that Yugoslavia was forbidden by treaty to
trade with the Soviet Union. In fact, this was a fabri-
cation circulated by Yugoslavia's many ill-wishers in
the USSR. Yugoslavia had no such treaty with the
West. But at the same time, there's no question that
the imperialists weren't giving the Yugoslavs gifts just
because they liked their looks. It was very profitable
for the capitalist countries then, and it's stiU profitable
for them today, to use tempting trade agreements to
try and coax the fraternal countries away from the
Socialist camp one by one. In this connection I remem-
ber a conversation of a private but friendly nature
that I once had with Comrade Gomulka. He had re-
quested that we sell grain to Poland. I saw through to
the real motive for his request and said to him very
frankly, "Comrade Gomulka, I have a feeling that
you'd like to buy grain from us for some reason other
than to meet your own internal needs. Of all the So-
cialist countries, with the exception of the Soviet
Union of course,Poland has the best-developed agri-
culture. Surely you have enough grain to satisfy your
 BURYING THE HATCHET WITH TITO 419
own needs. Consequently, I think you must have some-
thing else in mind."
He looked at me intently for a moment; then, seeing
that I understood him, he smiled: "Yes, Comrade
Khrushchev, you're quite right. Of course we don't
need grain as a food product. We need it as fodder. We
want to buy grain from you so that we can feed the
hogs on which our bacon industry depends." The Poles
make excellent bacon, and it brings a very good price
on the American market. When the Americans were
blockading imports from the Soviet Union and other
Socialist countries, they made sure there was a loop-
hole for Polish bacon.
Similarly, the West was always making special deals
with Yugoslavia. There was naturally a lot of resent-
ment in the Soviet Union against Yugoslavia because
of the amount of trade it did with the West. This
resentment was based more on jealousy than ideology.
It would have been profitable for us to have bought
machine equipment from the United States, but the
Americans wouldn't sell to us. All right, so the Ameri-
cans did sell to the Yugoslavs, but I don't see why we
should have taken out our anger at the Americans on
the Yugoslavs, who were simply taking advantage of
an opportunity we would have loved to have had our-
selves. Therefore I didn't see any reason for irritation
with Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia always took a special, independent posi-
tion in foreign policy, especially when it came to
its
coping with the antagonistic forces of the imperiaUst
countries. Yugoslavia always took care not to affiliate
itself with one bloc or the other. This poHcy of
theirs
with our foreign policy,
was not always compatible
and there was sometimes friction between us. The
Yugoslavs refused to join the Warsaw Pact because
the
they had a special commercial relationship with
be-
West. That refusal left an unextinguished spark
tween us even after our relations began to improve in
refused
1955. Of course, another reason the Yugoslavs
had a border
to sign the Warsaw treaty was that they
dispute with Bulgaria. r i +
became strained again after the events
Our relations
420 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

of 1956 in Hungary, and we abandoned some of the

measures which we had taken to improve relations
with Yugoslavia. For example, we suspended our
agreement on credit loans. But we had no reason to
let another rupture develop with the Yugoslavs, so
Tito and I smoothed this conflict over at a special
meeting in Bucharest.
In this connection, consider Yugoslavia's position at
the two important Party Conferences which were held
in 1957 and 1960. The Yugoslav delegation attended
the conferences in little more than an observer's
capacity. They may have taken some part in the dis-
cussions, but they didn't sign the conference resolu-
tions. I won't deny that their position irritated me very
much at the time.'^ I couldn't understand why they
were behaving Uke that, but there was nothing we
could do about it. Apparently the Yugoslav comrades
didn't want to take on any of the mutual obligations
which signing the resolutions would have meant. I
think their refusal to commit themselves was a mis-
take, but now at least I can imderstand their reasons.
As Tito said during a conversation with me, "Surely
you'll agree that if we want to remain unaligned to
any one bloc, we can't sign the conference resolution."
The Yugoslavs wanted to be able to speak for the
newly emerging countries, the countries which were
just liberating themselves from colonialism, and which
found themselves somewhere in between the Socialist
and capitalist worlds. The Yugoslavs were, and still
are, perfectly entitled to take this position and we
should be able to preserve our own relations with them,
despite their refusal to join forces with us more closely.
Nonetheless, the Yugoslav Communist Party's policy of
aloofness has been something of a stumbling block
over the years.
After our trip to Yugoslavia in 1955, we invited a
Yugoslav delegation led by Comrade Tito to visit the

7. Irritation is a mild word for Khrushchev's feelings toward

Tito for his refiisal to participate actively in the two big Mos-
cow conferences of all the Communist parties in 1957 and I960.
He raged. And heavy pressure was put on the Yugoslavs in
consequence.
 BURYING THE HATCHET WITH TITO 421

Soviet Union. He made more than one such trip and

became well acquainted with our country. Once we
invited him to the Crimea for a few days of rest and
for a hunting trip. The hunt, of course, has been used
for centuries as an opportunity for leaders of two or
three different countries to get together and discuss
issues of mutual interest and importance. The atmo-
sphere of my discussions with Tito during our hunt
together was warm and friendly.
The Yugoslavs invited us to make a return visit to
their country. I went a number of times. These trips
gave me a chance to see at first hand many of the new
and rather unusual things Yugoslavia was doing with
itseconomy.
As the whole world knows, Yugoslavia claims to
have discovered new administrative methods and eco-
nomic procedures to facilitate the transition from capi-
taUsm to SociaHsm. Their claim is that these new
organizational forms are more democratic because they
permit more participation by workers, office personnel,
and scientists in the management of the people's econ-
omy. At first, we came out against these supposed
reforms. However, I was interested to see them in
operation when I visited factories in Yugoslavia. I
wanted to ascertain to what extent these new proce-
dures might be applicable to our own conditions in the
Soviet Union.
I remember once the Yugoslav comrades took me
to see a tractor factory on the outskirts of Belgrade.
Engineers, directors, supervisors, trade-union repre-
sentatives, and Party organizers all tried to explain to
me how their output plan was determined by demo-
cratic methods. I never could really make sense out
of what they were trying to tell me about their
new
conception of property and ownership. All their talk
about participation in ownership seemed like so much
window dressing to me. No matter what they said, it

still looked to me as though the government

prescribed
how it was put
their output plan and tightly controUed
into effect. I expressed my doubts to the
Yugoslav
comrades very candidly, and they seemed to be half
convince
in agreement with me. But they still tried to
422 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
me that their system was somehow different from
what we had in the Soviet Union, and that theirs was
more democratic and more conducive to the participa-
tion of the people in the establishment of production
goals.®
Despite my doubts, their reasoning unquestionably
deserved a certain amount of attention. During the
period that I have lived, worked, and been in the lead-
ership of the government, our economy has always had
centralized management. I think that for my time,
centralization was the best and most efficient system.
But recently I have begun to feel that while centralized
management is still necessary, it's no less important for
the workers in a given enterprise to have more say
than they did before in determining their quotas and
conditions. While output plans will always have to be
worked out at the top and supervised from above, I
think in the future there will certainly have to be
more active participation by the workers themselves
in the establishment of plans and quotas and the de-
termination of how these plans shall be carried out. In
other words, I think there was at least a grain of sense,
at least the beginnings of a useful contribution to the
management of our economy in the new organizational
forms introduced by the Yugoslavs, and there's no
point in denying this.
The Yugoslavs claimed that they were creating bet-
ter economic conditions for meeting consumer de-
mands, but they had their share of problems, too.
During one of my visits Tito confessed to me, "We're
trying to cope with some unfortunate developments
here. I think some of our p^eople who administer the
state enterprises have foreign currency accounts in
capitalist banks abroad. In other words they're em-
bezzling from us." Well, in my opinion, this sort of
abuse was a natural and inevitable result of Tito's

8. Here Khinshchev is referring specifically to the workers'

councils set up in Yugoslavia in an attempt to achieve a new
sort of socialism, free of centralized planning, by making fac-
tories, banks, enterprises, and institutions of aU kinds self-
governing. On his first visit to Yugoslavia Khrushchev poured
scorn on this idea.
 BURYING THE HATCHET WITH TITO 423

economic policies. Perhaps by now the Yugoslavs have

either liquidated the problem or devised some sort of
control for it.
Abuses and blunders will always occur when a so-
ciety experiments with a new system, and it's hardly
surprising that not all aspects of the Yugoslav experi-
ment have proved successful. But by the same token,
not all aspects of the Yugoslav experiment can be
rejected out of hand, either. Weshould examine the
situation dispassionately and decide what features of
the Yugoslav system might profitably be adapted to
the economic organization of other Socialist countries.
I admit that our own examination of these issues
wasn't always calm and objective. Sometimes there
were mutual recriminations and reproaches, with both
sides claiming to have found the one and only truth.
I never felt that either side was completely right. It's
always a mistake to pretend to have an exclusive
claim on truth. To insist stubbornly that yours is the
only way of doing something is wrong, and it's stupid.
One area in which the Yugoslavs seemed to be on
the right track was agriculture. I once had a very
interesting conversation with Tito on this subject.
"When our relations with the Soviet Union were sev-
ered," he said, "we wanted to make very sure that we
weren't considered renegades from Sociahsm, so we
took administrative measures to see collectivization
through to the end. In strictly quantitative terms, we
may have done all right with collectivization, but we
had great difficulty producing sufficient harvests to
meet the demands of the urban population and the
working class. Nevertheless, only after we had fol-
lowed through on collectivization did we begin to make
the transition from collective farms to state farms."
He cited a large figure representing the percentage of
land on which state agricultural enterprises had been
set up for wheat growing, truck farming, dairying, and
poultry and cattle raising. The state was buying up
farms from the peasants and turning this land into
state farms very much along the lines of our own
Soviet state farms.
Far from contradicting our conception about how
424 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
to build Socialism, Comrade Tito's policy of coopera-
tive state agriculture deserved our careful attention.
Lenin himself used to say that peasant cooperatives
and state farms represented the most advanced stage in
the development of agriculture. I think the Yugoslavs
took the right step when they began to replace collec-
tive farms with state farms.®
We ourselves tried to make sweeping improvements
in our agricultural system when we tried to resettle
collective farmers on the Virgin Lands. You can
imagine the difficulties that the Virgin Lands cam-
paign posed for a family which had to be picked up
and moved from the home where it had lived for
generations. It was a great hardship for them, but we
—
had to resettle many such famihes Ukrainians, Belo-
—
russians, and Russians thousands of kilometers from
the graves of their ancestors. Enormous material ex-
penditures went into the resettlement campaign.
Among other things, we had to give credit loans and
financial aid to the youths who went out to build settle-
ments in the Virgin Lands. We became convinced that
we shouldn't set up collective farms out there; a collec-
tive farm is an artificial organization; that is, it's not a
real community, and it would have been too expensive
to resettle people on collective farms. Therefore we de-
cided on the alternative of state farms. While I was in
the leadership, our cheapest bread was grown by state
farms on the Virgin Lands.^*^

9. Before the quarrel with the Soviet Union in 1948, and for
some time afteirward, the Yugoslav economy, industry, and agri-
culture were run most rigidly on Soviet lines. In industry, cen-
tral control gave way to "self -management"; in agriculture, the
collective farms were abolished in the teeth of peasant hostility,
in favor of peasant cooperatives which small-holding peasants
were urged to join. Most did. State farms, always dear to
Khrushchev (very large farms owned by the state, managed by
paid officials, and worked by wage -earning workers) are not in
fact widespread in Yugoslavia and were chiefly set up for special
purposes, for example, stockbreeding. Collective farms are
theoretically owned by the peasants of a village, or group of
small villages, and worked by them for communal profit.
10. The Virgin Lands campaign to which IQirushchev here
refers was a gargantuan operation designed to open up a vast
tract of steppe land, mainly in Elazakhstan, for grain. The area
 BURYING THE HATCHET WITH TITO 425

I was glad to see that Tito, while he saw the benefits

of cooperative farming over collectivization, also came
to understand the importance of central planning. Cen-
tral planning, the function which the State Planning
Commission in the Soviet Union, is essential to
fulfills
the management of a Socialist economy. Without cen-
tral planning, the rule of the marketplace —
supply
and demand, which are the elements of a capitalist
—
state ^will undermine and soon replace true Socialist
relationships between individuals and enterprises. It
was gratifying to me when the Yugoslav state, under
the leadership of Comrade Tito, realized that central
planning is crucial to maintaining a true Socialist
economy.
During my visits to Yugoslavia and my conversations
with Tito, I developed great respect and trust for his
abilities as an imaginative and enterprising leader.
Once, when I went out into the country with him, I
saw that conditions were much improved from what
they had been when our delegation first traveled there
in 1955. The people were much better off. Factories
were going up all over the place. I remember visiting
the construction site of a plastic fiber plant which was
equipped with machinery purchased from the United
States. It was very interesting equipment, and the
plant promised to be a great boon for the people of
Yugoslavia when it was finished.
Comrade Tito once told me that in the year 1963
Yugoslavia received a revenue of something like $70
million from tourists. This amount would have been
negligible for countries like Italy, Switzerland, Swe-
den, and other Western countries; but for any Socialist
country, including the Soviet Union, it was an impres-
sive sum. Tito told me the Yugoslavs were building

initiallyplowed up in 1954 was no less than ninety million acres

and
—more than the whole cultivated area of England, France,from
Spain combined. Half a million "volunteers" were moved
European Russia into the empty steppe, where they lived
m
farms Alter an
primitive conditions, organized into huge state
initial (but costiy) success, the experiment
had to be neayuy
the land was rapidly bemg
curtailed: as many had predicted,
turned into a dust bowl.
426 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
hotels and new roads in order to attract more tourists.
Tourism yields foreign currency, which is necessary
for foreign trade. I would even say that we, the Soviet
Union, were somewhat envious at Yugoslavia's success
in attracting tourism.
I started asking around to find out how the Yugo-
slavs managed to build up such a flourishing tourist
trade. They said that good roads were the most im-
portant thing, followed by decent hotels and restau-
rants. They explained that in order to guarantee good
service for tourists in Yugoslav hotels, they sent their
people to capitalist countries to study how to receive
visitors, how to prepare food, and how to manage
a hotel properly. I visited some of their tourist hotels;
they were sparkling clean and modern; the service
was excellent.
Of course Yugoslavia has a big natural advantage.
It's one of the most beautiful of all the European So-
cialist countries. Before visiting Yugoslavia, I thought
that our own Crimea and our Caucasian coast were
the scenic masterpieces of the world, and they certainly
are breathtaking. But when I saw Dubrovnik and other
spots in Yugoslavia, I was humbled. I realized that we
weren't the only Socialist country who could claim
such natural charms. Perhaps Yugoslavia's climate,
coastal landscape, and wealth of historical monuments
even surpass the beauties of our own country.
Tourists, of course, sometimes cause problems, and
I once asked Comrade Tito, "Tell me, how do you
check all the Western tourists who enter Yugoslavia
by car?" In the USSR we have a huge bureaucratic
apparatus that puts many roadblocks in a tourist's way.
He laughed and said, "You know, we've solved the
problem very simply. There are all kinds of ways that
undesirable tourists, spies, and so forth, can get into
our country. Border checks are no guarantee against
them, and there are other ways of waging the struggle
against infiltration. Therefore border guards in our
country subject tourists to a minimum of formal checks.
The whole routine takes a matter of minutes, both on
entering and leaving the country. There's usually no
identity check at all. A man simply says where he's
 BURYING THE HATCHET WITH TITO 427
going, the barrier is raised, and drives through. This
goes for people coming into Yugoslavia from other
countries, and it's just as free for citizens of Yugo-
slavia going abroad. For instance, we have many min-
ers who leave Yugoslavia to work for a while in West
Germany. They simply tell the border guard, I'm
leaving to earn enough money to buy a car,' and
they're let right through."
I was intrigued by this whole approach to the prob-
lem of border control. When I returned to our Home-
land, I reported this practice to our comrades who
were in charge of tourism and told them to think about
it.We also began a large program to build hotels and
to take advantage of our own tourist attractions.
During another conversation with Comrade Tito, I
asked him, "Would you permit us to send our people
here so that they could learn from your great experi-
ence how to handle a large tourist trade?"
"By all means," said Tito. "We'll be happy to show
you and tell you anything that's of interest to you. Of
course, the average tourist who comes here isn't rich;
he's not a big capitahst. He's probably a working man,
from West Germany or Italy. He has a middle-range
income and drives his own car. Our tourists don't bring
huge amounts of capital with them to spend right and
left, but they patronize our services and pay with
foreign currency."
I alsoasked Comrade Tito if they had much of a
problem with fashion-conscious young men and women
chasing after tourists, trying to buy all sorts of trinkets
off them, especially aroimd the hotels. "In our coun-
try," I said, "we are ashamed to see oiu- own people
buying and bartering and begging from foreigners.
How do you deal with this problem?"
"We don't really have that problem here," said Tito,
"and I'll you why. When some item becomes
tell
fashionable among our young people, we buy the neces-
sary equipment for a factory and start manufacturing
the item ourselves. Of course consumer tastes are
always changing, but all you have to do is use your
head and make sure your industries keep up with
fashions and adapt to changing consumer demands."
428 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

I proposed to my comrades that we follow Tito's

example and thereby put an end to the disgrace of our
young people running around after tourists.
I don't know how many of my suggestions were ever
actually put in practice, but I think we did send some
of our people to study the tourist trade in Yugoslavia.
I see from the press that there are a great many hotels
going up around the Soviet Union.
My experience with Comrade Tito showed me that
there are different ways of goiQg about the building of
Socialism. There's no single model or mold which fits
all the countries of the world. To think that there is is
just plain stupid. Every Party knows how best to as-
sure unity in its own ranks. More patience should be
shown to Parties that are experimenting with slightly
different approaches to the basic problems of the peo-
ple. Every working class should be able to choose its
own course of development on the basis of local his-
torical and economic circumstances — on the one vital
condition, of course, that the means of production and
the banks belong to the people, and that the state is
run by the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the interaction and interrelationship of different
Parties and states, we should be tolerant of others and
avoid faultfindiQg, especially in public. Unfortunately,
however, there are times when it's impossible to re-
strain ourselves, but I won't cite examples. All right-
thinking people know very well whom I'm talking
about.
 13

The Geneva Summit

At Belgrade, Khrushchev found himself for the first

time meeting a foreign head of state and subjected to
the scrutiny of foreign diplomats and foreign jourTwl-
ists away from his own base. At Geneva a vnonth or
two later he had his first meeting with the leaders of
—
the imperialist powers President Eisenhower and
Messrs. Eden and Faure, to say nothing of Mr. John
Foster Dulles. It was clearly an ordeal. It was also a
climacteric. The peasant from Kalinovka, the Party
chieftain who had worked his way up in Stalin's shad-
ow, was meeting as an equal the elected heads of the
Western world with their backgrounds of West Point,
Eton and Oxford, the Lycee and the Sorbonne. Khru-
shchev and Bulganin were still dressed as they had
—
dressed for Yugoslavia in their baggy pale-mauve
summer suits with flapping trousers; and Bulganin
wore his light-beige summer overcoat coming down to
the ground, which made him look like a pre-1914
motorist (it was after Geneva that the Soviet leader-
ship took an interest in good tailoring). Khrushchev
gives a fairly vivid idea of the strain, the strangeness,
and the deep inferiority complex from which he, not
unnaturally, sufered. His feelings of embarrassment
about the two-engined Ilyu^hin in which they arrived
from Moscow are very revealing.

Right up death Stalin used to tell us, "You'll

tintil his
see, when I'm gone the imperialistic powers will wring
your necks like chickens." We never tried to reassure
him that we would be able to manage. We knew it
wouldn't do any good. Besides, we had doubts of our
429
430 KHPUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

own about Stalin's foreign policy. He overemphasized

the importance of military might, for one thing, and
consequently put too much faith in our armed forces.
He Hved in terror of an enemy attack. For him foreign
policy meant keeping the antiaircraft units around
Moscow on a twenty-four-hour alert.
After StaHn died it was an interesting challenge for
us to try to deal with the foreign powers by ourselves.
In 1955 we went abroad a number of times to meet
with the representatives of the bourgeois states and
to feel them out on various issues. Our trip to Geneva
that year gave the bourgeois heads of state a chance to
look us over. The Geneva meeting was a crucial test
for us: Would we be able to represent our country
competently? Would we approach the meeting soberly,
without unreahstic hopes, and would we be able to
keep the other side from intimidating us? All things
considered, I would say we passed the test.
A word about the background of the Geneva meet-
ings:
Ever since Churchill gave his speech in Fulton call-
ing for the capitahst countries of the world to encircle
the Soviet Union, our relations with the West had been
strained.^ I think it was actually Churchill's idea for
the Western powers to open lines of communication
with the new Soviet Government after Stalin's death
and to do so quickly. Churchill believed that the West
could take advantage of the fact that the new Soviet
Government wasn't yet fully formed and would there-
fore be more vulnerable to pressure. The Western
press was suddenly filled with articles urging a meet-
ing of the four great powers. We, too, were in favor of
such a meeting. It was our feeling in the Soviet leader-
ship that after such a bloody war, we and the West
could come to terms and agree among ourselves on

1. It is interesting to find Khrushchev using the term "en-

circlement" here. What he referring to is the American policy
is
of containment inaugurated after the sovietization of a great
part of Central and Eastern Europe. From the Soviet side of the
hill, defensive containment no doubt looked like potentially
offensive encirclement.
 THE GENEVA SUMMIT 431
rational principles of peaceful coexistence and nonin-
terference in the internal affairs of other states.
Through diplomatic channels a place for the meeting,
Geneva, and a date in the summer of 1955 were set.
By that time Bulganin was already Chairman of the
Council of Ministers. I think that one reason we were
able to agree to the Geneva meeting at all was that
Malenkov had by then been released from his duties
as Chairman. As anyone who knew Malenkov will teU
you, after StaUn's death he was completely without
initiative and completely unpredictable. He was unsta-
ble to the point of being dangerous because he was so
susceptible to the pressure and influence of others. It
was no accident that he had fallen into Beria's clutches.
Beria may have been no smarter than Malenkov,
but he was much more shrewd and strong-willed.
As Prime Minister, Bulganin was to head our delega-
tion to Geneva even though he wasn't very well versed
in foreign poUcy nor very adept at diplomatic negotia-
tions. Since the foreign ministers of the other three
—
governments the United States, England, and France
— would be accompanying their premiers, the Presid-
ium of the Central Committee decided to send our
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Molotov. It was then sug-
gested that I should be included in the delegation. I
warned that my presence might be difficult for the
other delegations to understand since I didn't hold any
ministerial post; I only represented the Party [as First
Secretary]. Molotov replied, "It's our own business
whom we decide to include. And besides, you're also
a member of thePresidium of the Supreme Soviet,
which is the highest governing body of the Soviet
Union. I think you should come."
I'm still not sure whether or not it was
proper for
to
me to attend the Geneva meeting but it's too latewas
worry about that now, and I won't deny that I
representa-
very anxious to have a chance to meet the
and to ]om m
tives of the USA, England, and France
the solution of international problems.
was
The basis of Soviet foreign policy at that trnie
leaders, however,
peaceful coexistence. The Western
had other things on theh- minds. They wanted to reach
432 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
an agreement with us about the political situation in
the Near East, but they wanted to do so on their own
terms. They had no desire to consider the interests or
wishes of the Soviet Union and the other Socialist
countries. It was also their goal, of course, to restore
capitalism in the countries which had been liberated
by the Soviet Army after World War II, and they
particularly wanted to tear Poland away from the
Socialist bloc. But we knew that the number one goal
which the English, American, and French would be
pursuing in Geneva would be what they called "the
reunification of Germany," which really meant the ex-
pulsion of Socialist forces from the German Democratic
Republic: in other words, the liquidation of Socialism
in the German Democratic Republic and the creation
of a single capitalist Germany which would, no doubt,
be a member of NATO. As for our own position on this
issue, we wanted simply to sign a peace treaty that
would recognize the existence of two German states
and would guarantee that each state be allowed to
develop as its own people saw fit.
I felt at the time of the Geneva meeting that the
main thing was to preserve peace, but the Western
powers were still reluctant to take even the basic
measures necessary for laying the foundations of a
secure peace. Therefore the Geneva meeting was prob-
ably doomed to failure before it even began. But it was
still useful in a number of important respects. For one
thing, it gave the leaders of the four great powers an
opportunity to see each other at close quarters and to
exchange views informally among themselves, usually
over dinner after the official sessions.
Unfortunately, our own delegation found itself at a
disadvantage from the very moment we landed at the
Geneva airport. The leaders of the other three delega-
tions arrived in four-engine planes, and we arrived in
a modest two-engine Ilyushin [11-14]. Their planes
were certainly more impressive than ours, and the
comparison was somewhat embarrassing.
There was a ceremony in honor of the four delega-
tions at the airport, a military parade followed by an
invitation for the head of each delegation to review the
 THE GENEVA SUMMIT 433

troops. An unpleasant incident occurred during this

ceremony. Bulganin, as the head of our delegation,
was supposed to step forward after the parade and
inspect the honor guard.^ Just before he did so, a
Swiss protocol officer suddenly stepped right in front
of me and stood with his back up against my nose. My
first impulse was to shove him out of the way. Later I
realized he had done this on the instructions of the
Swiss government. He had been told to make sure that
I couldn't step forward with Bulganin to review the
troops. I wasn't permitted to join in that part of the
ceremony, so the Swiss government very rudely had
that man stand in front of me!
As we drove off to our residences, I noticed that
Eisenhower's bodyguards had to run along behind his
car. This struck us as being extremely odd. For a man
to keep up with a moving car is no mean trick, nor is
it easy for a car to pace itself to a man on foot. Four
years later I saw the same thing again when Eisen-
hower met me at the airport in Washington at the
beginning of my visit to America. Once again, there
were those hearty fellows from his personal bodyguard
running along behind the car in which he drove me
back into the city.
The Geneva meeting was not the first time I met
Eisenhower. I'd met him at the end of the war when
he came to Moscow and was on the reviewing stand of
the Lenin Mausoleum to view the Victory Parade on
June 24, 1945. But that had been earlier in our careers,
when Eisenhower was a general and I was head of the
Ukrainian Party and State. Now, in Geneva ten years
later, we met again as representatives of our respec-
tive countries. Before we had stood side by side on a
reviewing stand together; now we were to sit on oppo-
from each other.
site sides of the negotiating table
If I had to compare the two American presidents
—
with whom I dealt Eisenhower and Kennedy the —
comparison would not be in favor of Eisenhower. Our

2. Khrushchev still likes to pretend that he was not

in charge
of the Soviet delegation. Indeed, he went through the motions of
deferring to Bulganin. But his commanding position was clear
for all to see.
 434 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
people whose job it was to study Eisenhower closely
have told methat they considered him a mediocre mili-
tary leader and a weak President. He was a good man,
but he wasn't very tough. There was something soft
about his character. As I discovered in Geneva, he was
much too dependent on his advisors. It was always
obvious to me that being President of the United States
was a great burden for him.
Our conversations with the American delegation
were generally constructive and useful for both parties,
although neither side changed its position substantially
on any of the issues facing us. The United States in
those days refused to make even the most reasonable
concessions because John Foster Dulles was still alive.
It was he who determined the foreign poHcy of the
United States, not President Eisenhower. To illustrate
that statement, I can describe something I observed at
a plenary session in Geneva. The heads of all four
delegations took turns chairing the plenary sessions,
and when Eisenhower's turn came, there was Dulles at
his right. I was on Bulganin's left, which put me right
next to Dulles, or maybe there was an interpreter be-
tween us. In any case I watched Dulles making notes
with a pencil, tearing them out of a pad, folding them
up, and sliding them under President Eisenhower's
hand. Eisenhower would then pick up these sheets of
paper, unfold them, and read them before making a
decision on any matter that came up. He followed this
routine conscientiously, like a dutiful schoolboy taking
his lead from his teacher. It was difficult for us to
imagine how a chief of state could allow himself to lose
face like that in front of delegations from other coun-
tries. It certainly appeared that Eisenhower was letting
Dulles do his thinking for him.
A word about Dulles. A few years later, when I led
the Soviet delegation to the United Nations General
Assembly in New York, Mr. Nehru asked about Dulles.
Nehru, by the way, was a most attractive person. He
was always smiling and had such a gentle expression
on his face. "Tell me, Mr. Khrushchev," he said, "how
did you get along with Mr. Dulles in your negotiations
in Geneva?" His question didn't surprise me; Nehru
 THE GENEVA SUMMIT 435
knew that Dulles's policies and our own were unalter-
ably opposed. I answered that I had had a chance to
talk with Dulles informally over dinner in Geneva and
had found him to be a very dry character; we hadn't
talked about anything much except what dishes we
liked most.
Dulles often said that the goal of the United States
was to push Socialism in Europe back to the borders
of the Soviet Union, and he seemed to be obsessed with
the idea of encirclement. He extended America's eco-
nomic embargo of the Soviet Union to include a boy-
cott on cultural exchange. Not even Soviet tourists
and chess players were permitted to visit the United
States. I remember, too, that when the US sponsored
some sort of international convention of chefs, our own
delegation wasn't allowed to attend.
However, I'll say this for him: Dulles knew how far
he could push us, and he never pushed us too far. For
instance, when the forces of our two countries con-
fronted each other in the Near East during the events
in Syria and Lebanon in 1958, Dulles stepped back
from the brink of war. The reactionary forces of the
United States and England pulled back their troops,
partly under the pressure of world opinion but also
partly as a result of Dulles's prudence. The prestige of
the Soviet Union was enhanced in all the progressive
countries of the world.
When Dulles died, I told my friends that although
he had been a man who Uved and breathed hatred of
Communism and who despised progress, he had never
stepped over that brink which he was always talking
about in his speeches; and for that reason alone we
should lament his passing.
Because Eisenhower brought his Secretary of De-
fense [Charles E. Wilson] with him to Geneva in 1955,
we made a point of including our own Minister of
Defense, Marshal Zhukov, in our delegation. Zhukov
had been a friend of Eisenhower's during the war, and
we thought their acquaintance might serve as the basis
for conversations that would lead to an easing of the
tension between our countries. We hoped that Eisen-
hower and Zhukov might have a chance to talk alone
436 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

together and that they would exchange views about the

need for peaceful coexistence. But that vicious cur
Dulles was always prowling around Eisenhower, snap-
ping at him if he got out of line. Dulles could not
tolerate the idea of peaceful coexistence with the
Soviet Union. Eisenhower, however, did give Zhukov a
spinning reel and sent personal greetings to Zhukov's
wife and daughter; but other than such pleasantries,
nothing came of Zhukov's conversations with Eisen-
hower.
After the Geneva meetings got under way, Eisen-
hower suggested that after each plenary session we
meet for refreshments so that we might end the day
on a pleasant note. His idea was that if there had been
any hard feelings or tensions aroused during the day's
session, we could wash them away with martinis. I
remember at one of these informal gatherings Eisen-
hower introduced me to [Nelson] Rockefeller, who
was accompanying the American delegation as an ad-
visor of some sort. There was nothing special about
him as far as I could tell. He was dressed fairly
democratically and was the sort of man who didn't
make much of an impression one way or the other.^
When I met him, I said, "So this is Mr. Rockefeller
himself!" and I playfully poked him in the ribs with
my fists. He took this as a joke and did the same thing
to me.
We were interested in talking to Rockefeller about
the possibility of getting credit from the United States,
something on the order of six billion dollars. But the
Americans were already pressing us to repay them the
money we owed them from the Lend-Lease. We told
them we were willing to pay them a certain amount,
but not all, of what we owed from the Lend-Lease if
they would give us six billion dollars' credit. We had
some discussions about this, but nothing ever came
of it.

Our best relations in Geneva were with the French.

3. The remark about Nelson Rockefeller being dressed "fairly

democratically" is a gem and throws a great deal of light on the
Soviet image of the West.
 THE GENEVA SUMMIT 437
Edgar Faure, whom we nicknamed "Edgar Fyodoro-
vich," was a very prepossessing man who went out of
his way to be friendly and hospitable toward us. How-
ever, in those days there was a rapid turnover in the
French government, and therefore there was no point
in paying serious attention to the French delegation
to the Geneva meetings.*
Our relations v^th the British delegation weren't
quite as friendly as with the French, but the atmo-
sphere of our conversations with Eden was certainly
warm. Naturally he was following the same general
line as the Americans, but he seemed to be more
flexible and receptive to reasonable arguments. During
dinner one evening Eden asked us, "What would you
say if you were invited to make an official visit to
Great Britain? Don't you think such a trip would be
useful for both of our governments?" We said that it
would indeed be useful and we would accept such an
invitation with pleasure. We almost agreed then and
there. The British were to issue us a formal invitation,
and we would accept.
At the end of the Geneva meeting we prepared a
joint statement setting forth the position of iie four
delegations. This statement was formulated in such a
way as to leave each delegation with the possibiHty of
interpreting it in its own way. The wording was the
result of various compromises which allowed all of us
to sign. We didn't want to disperse without having any-
thing to show for the meeting. On the other hand none
of us wanted any point in the statement to be inter-
preted as a concession in principle or policy to the
other side.
We stopped off in West Berlin on the way back to

our Homeland, and there we joined the leaders of the

German Democratic Republic and issued another joint
statement. greeted with full honors in Berlin.
We were
Huge crowds of people came out to cheer us. I had
been to Germany before, but this was the first time I

4. Khrushchev's dismissal of the need to take

M. Faure
French ministries
seriously, although he liked him, because
commentary on the limita-
kept on changing, is an interesting
tions of Soviet governmental thinking.
438 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
had been there in an official capacity. I expected there
to be some displays of hostility toward us, but there
were none. There were a few sour faces, but not many.
On the main we were welcomed enthusiastically. Our
warm reception in Berlin reinforced our conviction
that the Germans were fed up with making war, and
that now they wanted to build strong, friendly rela-
tions with us.
We returned to Moscow from Geneva knowing that
we hadn't achieved any concrete results. But we were
encouraged, realizing now that our enemies probably
feared us as much as we feared them. They rattled
their sabers and tried to pressure us into agreements
which were more profitable for them than for us be-
cause they were frightened of us. As a result of our
own showing in Geneva, our enemies now realized
that we were able to resist their pressure and see
through their tricks. They now knew that they had to
deal with us honestly and fairly, that they had to re-
spect our borders and our rights, and that they couldn't
get what they wanted by force or by blackmail. They
realized that they would have to build their relations
with us on new assumptions and new expectations if
they really wanted peace. The Geneva meeting was an
important breakthrough for us on the diplomatic front.
We had established ourselves as able to hold our own
in the international arena. Our success was confirmed
by Eden's invitation for us to pay a state visit to Great
Britain.
 14

Visit to London

By the time he made his London visit with Bulganin

in the spring of 1956, Khrushchev had already been to
Peking in 1954, and in 1955 he had made his notorious
tour of India as well a^ his pilgrimage to Belgrade and
his journey to Geneva. He was becoming a seasoned
traveler. He had the Twentieth Party Congress and
the SecretSpeech behind him,, aifid even though
Bulganin was Prime Minister, there was no question
at all of who wa^ in commands—though it was not until
the summer of 1957 that Khrushchev shattered the
opposition, finally breaking Malenkov, Molotov, Ka-
ganovich, and others. Khrushchev does not mention
the fact that Malenkov, no longer Prime Minister but
still a member of the Party Presidium, had mude an
earlier and very successful visit to England to prepare
the way and take the country's temperature. The ar-
rival of Khrushchev and Bulganin was somewhat
marred by the fact that they had sent the notorious
police chief General Serov to supervise the security
aspects of the great visit. The British press was loud in
protest, and Serov had to go back to the Soviet Union.
Khrushchev was never able to understand why the
British disapproved of Serov.

The Labour government in England after the war had

been fairly unfriendly toward the Soviet Union, and
our efforts to develop good trade ties didn't get very
far. Our relations with Great Britain were only
sUghtly
improved after Stalin's death, when the Labourites
came to see us and opened discussion on various mat-
ters. Then the Conservatives replaced the Labourites,
439
 440 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
and Eden became Prime Minister.^ We considered
Eden relatively progressive for a Conservative, and we
still remembered with appreciation that when he had
been in the Foreign Office before the war he had
favored a treaty uniting the forces of Great Britain and
the Soviet Union against Hitlerite Germany. Eden had
resigned when Chamberlain started his harshly anti-
Soviet poHcies designed to incite Hitler against us.^
Therefore Eden's return to power gave us hope that
we would be able to improve relations with Great
Britain.
After agreeing with Eden in Geneva on the desir-
ability of a state visit to England, we arranged every-
thing by an exchange of diplomatic notes, and our
delegation was to leave for London in April, 1956. It
must have been in the second half of April because I
remember very well celebrating my birthday on the
way to England, and my birthday is April 17.
Bulganin was still Chairman of the Council of Minis-
ters and therefore formally head of our delegation.^
I was included because I had developed the best work-
ing relationship with Eden in Geneva. He had talked
more to me than to anybody else, and I had spoken for
our delegation in answering his questions. We also
took Academician Kurchatov with us to London be-
cause we wanted to establish contacts with the British
scientific community.* Kurchatov is an attractive and
witty man
as well as a brilliant scientist.
We traveled to England on a battle cruiser. We
wanted to come by ship so that we could then take the

1. Churchill was Prime Minister when the Conservatives re-

turned to power. Eden succeeded him later.
2. Anthony Eden resigned as Foreign Secretary primarily
because of Neville Chamberlain's attempted appeasement of
Mussolini in an attempt to detach him from Germany. Chamber-
lain did nothing to "incite Hitler" against Russia: Hitler needed
no inciting. Chamberlain's policy was to appease Hitler by al-
lowing him to take part of Czecholovakia. When that did not
work, he did in fact make a half-hearted attempt to achieve an
alliance of sorts with Russia.
3. As already observed, Khrushchev was in fact in command.
4. I. V. Kurchatov, the famous atomic physicist, who was
father of the Russian A-bomb.
 VISIT TO LONDON 441
train to London. That way we would be able to see
much more of the countryside. Before we left, the
British Embassy in Moscow asked us if we could let
one of their naval attaches accompany us on the trip.
We consented. Of course there were some people who
worried that the British attache would be on the look-
out for military secrets and technical specifications on
board our cruiser. Such stupidity was a holdover from
the Stalinist period. The English naval attach^ turned
out to be well-mannered and pleasant. On April 17, my
birthday, we decided to invite him to dine with our
delegation. Naturally there was some drinking, and
the Englishman showed that he had a well-developed
taste for spirits. In fact, he drank so much that he
was barely able to get back to his cabin, much less go
snooping around the ship looking for military secrets.
Later I joked with Eden about this. He asked, "Well,
Mr. Khrushchev, did our mihtary attache behave him-
self on board your ship?"
"He behaved himself very well indeed. He repre-
sented Great Britain very conscientiously."
"You mean he didn't spy on you? He didn't crawl
around the whole ship, examining everything?"
"Oh, yes, he was simply impossible! He kept squeez-
ing himself into comers that a bug couldn't have fitted
into. He saw everything there was to see." Eden
laughed. I don't know if he'd already been told how
drunk this attache had been. In any case, he was will-
ing to joke with Bulganin and me about him.
When our ship came to port in England, we were
met with full military honors and a regulation salute.
We took the train up to London. We could see much
more of the country thanwe'd been able to see of
Switzerland. Not counting Geneva, I'd never been
abroad before. My first and most lasting impression
of England is the long stretches of the Uttle
red-bnck
re-
houses. They stuck in my memory because they
minded me so much of houses I had seen during my
boyhood in the Donbass. My father worked in a mme
near the Yuzovka Metal Factory which once belonged
built tor
to the Welshman John Hughes.^ Hughes had
John Hughes.
5. Yuzovka—or Hughes-ovka—was named after
442 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
his technicians and administrators little red-brick
houses just like the ones I saw on my trip to England.
I remember that during the summertime in the Don-
bass you could only see the windows of these houses
because ivy covered all the rest.
Our hotel in England was excellent. The service was
superb. All this was very new to us. We had never had
much contact with foreigners before. I think we made
quite an impression on the local population. I remember
one day we were walking to our hotel from our cars,
and Londoners immediately started crowding around
us. They were particularly fascinated by Academician
Kurchatov, who had a beard. Little boys pointed at
him, laughed, and jumped up and down in excitement,
as little boys do the world over.
After we were settled, we began discussions with
the British government leaders. Their side was led by
Eden and Lloyd. I think Macmillan also took part in
these negotiations. Substantively our talks didn't add
much to what had come out of our Geneva meeting.
The main issues were still Germany, disarmament, and
peaceful coexistence. We had already seen that the
West wasn't yet ready to deal seriously with these
very important issues. The Western powers were still
trying to coax us into an accommodation on their
teiTQS.
I remember one incident that captures the atmo-
sphere of our talks in London. Bulganin, Lloyd, and I
were riding in the same car on our way to visit some
educational institution. Lloyd was very proper and
friendly. At one point he turned to me and said, "You
know, a little birdie perched on my shoulder the other
day and chirped into my ear that you are selling arms
to Yemen."
"Well, apparently there are all sorts of little
I said,
birds flying about these days, chirping all kinds of
different thiags, because one perched on my shoulder,
too, and told me that you're selling arms to Egypt and
Iraq. This little birdie told me that you'll try to sell
arms to anyone who will buy them from you and some-
times even to people who don't want to buy them from
you."
 VISIT TO LONDON 443
"I guess it's true: there are all sorts of birdies. Some
of them are chirping in your ear, and some in ours."
"Yes,"
I said, "but wouldn't it be nice if all the Uttle
birdies started chirping the same thing in both of our
—
ears that we should assume a mutually binding obli-
gation not to sell arms to anyone? Then wouldn't all
the birdies be making a contribution to the common
cause of peace ?"^
This kind of conversation was just banter, of course.
It shouldn't be taken to mean we didn't have a very
serious interest in our meetings with the English.
Above aU, these meetings gave us a chance to clarify
our position. The West was interested in our talks for
the same reason. Moreover, I think Britain had a spe-
cial interest in preventing a military conflict, particu-
larly in the Near East. They wanted us to agree not to
sell arms to Egypt. We were willing in principle, but
we told them we could sign an agreement only on the
condition that the pact would be binding on them not
to sell arms to countries in the Near East.
One Sunday, Eden invited Bulganin and me out to
his "dacha," as we called his country house. He ex-
plained to us that some wealthy capitalist had given
this country house to the government for the personal
use of whoever happened to be Prime Minister, regard-
Before dinner, Bulganin and I went for
less of party.
a walk along a road near the house. The landscape
reminded us of the countryside in our own Orel and
Kursk provinces.
Eden's country house, which was called Chequers,
had flowers planted all around it. It was heated by
iron stoves which burned anthracite coal. As I knew
from my own experience in the Donbass, anthracite
coal contains large amounts which explains
of sulphur,
why there was an unpleasant odor and a sticky film aU
over everything inside the house.
Macmillan, Lloyd, and some influential Conservative
politician joined us for dinner. Eden's wife was the
hostess. Our embassy had informed us that she was

6. Only Mr. Selwyn Lloyd can say whether this inane conver-
sation is accurately reported.
444 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Churchill's niece and that apparently she had inherited
some of Churchill's traits in the matter of drinking.
Well, she certainly didn't refuse us her company when
drinks were served, but as far as we could tell, I
wouldn't say she abused this particular Churchill tra-
dition.
During dinner Mrs. Eden asked us, "Tell me, what
sort of missiles do you have? Will they fly a long way?"
"Yes," I said, "they have a very long range. They
could easily reach your island and quite a bit farther."
She bit her tongue. It was a little rude of me to have
answered her as I had. Perhaps she took it as some
sort of a threat. We certainly didn't mean to threaten
anyone. We were simply trying to remind other coun-
tries that we were powerful and deserved respect, and
that we wouldn't tolerate being talked to in the lan-
guage of ultimatums.
Eden invited Bulganin and me to spend the night at
Chequers. We were shown to separate rooms upstairs.
In the morning I woke up early and went out into the
hall, looking for Bulganin 's room so I could wake him
up. I knocked on a door, thinking it was Bulganin's.
A woman's voice rang out; she was obviously sur-
prised and frightened. I realized that I had almost
walked in on Eden's wife. I turned around and hurried
back to my room without apologizing or identifying
myself. Bulgardn and I had a good laugh over this
incident, but we decided not to mention it to our hosts.
The next day we had an appointment to visit with
Queen Elizabeth. We didn't have to wear any special
sort of clothes. We had told Eden in advance that if the
Queen didn't mind receiving us in our everyday busi-
ness suits, it was fine. If she did object, then it was just
too bad. We had some preconceived notions about this
kind of ceremony, and we weren't going to go out of
our way to get all dressed up in tails and top hats
or anything else that they might have insisted on for
an audience with the Queen. I remember once in Mos-
cow we were watching a documentary film which
showed Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan all decked out as
our official emissary in Pakistan. We all roared with
laughter at the sight of him. He really did look like
 VISIT TO LONDON 445
an old-fashioned European gentleman. I might mention
that the fancy airs required of ambassadors by foreign
diplomats were not alien to Anastas Ivanovich.
Anyway, we arrived at the Queen's palace on a
warm, pleasant day. According to Eden, April is the
best time of year, with the least rain. There were
throngs of tourists sight-seeing on the palace grounds.
Eden told us that we would find the Queen to be a
simple, but very bright and very pleasant woman. She
met us as we came into the palace. She had her hus-
band and two of her children with her. We were intro-
duced. She was dressed in a plain, white dress. She
looked like the sort of young woman you'd be Hkely
to meet walking along Gorky Street on a bahny sum-
mer afternoon.
She gave us a guided tour around the palace and
then invited us to have a glass of tea with her.*^ We sat
around over tea and talked about one thing and an-
other. Her husband showed a great interest in Lenin-
grad. He said he'd never been there and dreamed of
going someday. We assured him it was a very interest-
ing city and said we were very proud of it. We also
told him that it would be easy for us to make his
dream come true. We offered to invite him to Lenin-
grad anytime he cared to come and said he could visit
—
us in any capacity he wished as a government repre-
sentative or as a commander of the army. He thanked
us and said he'd take us up on our kindness when he
had the opportunity to do so.
The Queen was particularly interested in our plane,
the Tu-104, which flew our mail to us while we were
in England. Actually, part of the reason we had the
Tu-104 fly to London while we were there was to show
the English that we had a good jet passenger plane.
This was one of the first jet passenger planes in the
world, and we wanted our hosts to know about it. The
Queen had seen the plane in the air as it flew over her
palace on its way to land. We thanked her and agreed
that, yes, it was an excellent plane—very modem,
un-
doubtedly the best in the world.

7. Riissians drink tea by the glass, not by the cup.

446 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
I was very impressed by the Queen. She had such a
gentle, calm voice. She w^as completely unpretentious,
completely without the haughtiness that you'd expect
of royalty. She may be the Queen of England, but in
our eyes she was first and foremost the wife of her
husband and the mother of her children. I remember
sometime later during our trip around England I met
an English woman who said, "So you met the Queen.
What did you think of her?" I answered that we'd
liked the Queen very much. The woman shook her
head sadly and said, "I feel so sorry for her. She doesn't
have an easy Ufe."
"Why do you say that?" I asked.
"Well, she's a young woman. She'd probably like to
live the normal life of a woman her age, but she can't
because she's the Queen. She lives in a fishbowl. She's
always on display, and she has to make siu*e she bears
herself in a manner suitable to her royal position at all
times. It's a very weighty responsibility, and it makes
her life hard. That's why I feel great sympathy and
even sorrow for her." I liked this woman. What she
said about the Queen was a very human and feminine
reaction. Maybe Nekrasov [N. A. Nekrasov, the nine-
teenth-century poet] was right when he said in "Who
in Russia Lives a Carefree Life?" that not even the
tsar had it easy. The same thing applies to Queen
Elizabeth II.
Technically Bulganin was our chief of state and the
head of our delegation, and I was simply a member of
the delegation. But as it turned out, I had to handle
our end of the negotiations with the English. I cer-
tainly didn't intend it to be this way, but Bulganin,
kept asking me to take over for him. There were
times when a statement of some kind would be re-
quired by our side, and I would wait for Bulganin to
say somethiQg; there would be an awkward pause, and
he would turn to me and say, "You go ahead and
answer." Of course, I had no choice but to say some-
thing myself if we were going to avoid embarrassment.
For example, the First Lord of the Admiralty held
an informal reception for us. There were all sorts of
people there, mostly naval officers. When we had to
 VISIT TO LONDON 447

decide how we would reply to the First Lord's speech,

Bulganin said, "You do
the talking." I decided to make
a fairly hard-hitting, straightforward speech and to
take the offensive against the English. I said, "Gentle-
men, here you are, the representatives of Great Britain,
and the whole world knows there was a time when
Britannia ruled the waves. But all that era is now
past, and we must look at things realistically. Every-
thing has changed. Your specialists have told me how
much they admire the battle cruiser which brought us
here. Well, I'll tell you something. We will be happy
to sell you this cruiser if you really want it because
it's already obsolete. Its weapons have been outdated
by new weapons. Besides, cruisers like ours no longer
play a decisive role. Nor do bombers. Now it's sub-
marines that rule the sea, and missiles that rule the
—
air missiles that can strike their targets from great
distances."® During the question-and-answer period
following my speech, we had a frank exchange of views
in which neither side had to commit itself to any par-
ticular position. Nobody was being threatening or war-
like. There was an undercurrent of irony in the
questions the English asked, and there were even a
few chuckles. It was not a formal negotiation, but just
a casual chat over a bottle of whiskey.
When we met with Eden the next day, he asked
with a smile, "Well, how did you get along with our
sailors?"
"You have good sailors. They're known
the world
over. But I see from your smile that you must already
know about our discussion."
"Yes," he said, "I know about it. It was reported to
me. So were your remarks.'*
"And what did you think of my remarks?"
"Well, you know, I rather agree with you. But Tm
the Prime Minister and I can't talk to our naval
officers

the way you can; I can't very weU tell them

that their

ships and weapons are obsolete. After all,

except for

time. But, as
8. This was in fact Khrushchev's view at the
have since changed their mmds
everybody knows, the Russians was
construcUon
and constructed a powerful surface fleet. This
started while Khrushchev was still in power.
 448 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
some bombers, our surface fleet is all we have. I can't
undermine their faith in the only weapons they've got,
now can I?" 1
My remarKs to the Admiralty were eventually pub-
lishedamid great hue and cry in the American press.
The Americans hurled all kinds of arguments against
my claim that surface ships and bombers were out of
date. But life has borne me out, and now the Ameri-
cans admit that bombers have outlived their usefulness |

and should be replaced by missiles.

Eden had planned an exhausting itinerary for our
tour of the country. From early morning until late at
night we rushed about in cars and planes. The pace
was grueling, and I began to let my dissatisfaction be
known. I finally put my foot down just before we were
supposed to dash off for some city in England and then
fly on to Scotland. I took Eden aside and said, "Mr.
Eden, my legs won't carry me another step. Tomorrow
I'm going out on strike, and I'm not going to set foot
outside the hotel."
He laughed. "Mr. Khrushchev, please, I implore
you. We'll skip the city we were supposed to visit
today, but please go ahead with the trip to Scotland.
We'll fly there directly. Haven't you heard about the
Scots? They're fierce nationalists. They don't give me
a moment's peace. If you don't go to Scotland, they'll
stage a rebellion and secede from the British Com-
monwealth. I beg you, please!"
Bulganin and I exchanged glances, and we agreed
to go even though neither of us thought the trip would
be worth it. As it turned out, Scotland was very inter-
esting, but we only saw it in passing — at a gallop, so
to say. We were prevented from having any contact
with the local citizenry other than the officials whom
we were scheduled to meet. This was true generally
of our stay in Great Britain.
When we arrived in Scotland there was an honor
guard which marched and played music for us. We
watched the parade under a tent which protected us
from the light, freezing rain. We had been warned that
it always rains in Scotland. I had heard about the
Scottish military uniforms before, and I had seen them
 VISIT TO LONDON" 449

a few times in Berlin and Vienna at the end of the

war. Their uniforms are very imusual steel-gray —
—
skirts and their music is odd, too; it's played on
special Scottish musical instruments.®
We were told that a dinner had been prepared in our
honor, with the compliments of the Queen. So she was
the Queen of Scotland, too! The house where the
dinner was served had been, we were told, the palace
of Mary Stuart. Our hosts all spoke very reverently
about this queen and about their country's past. My
son Seryozha [Sergei] was with me on this trip. He
was seated at a table with two elderly women. One of
them was an interpreter. She kept trying to impress
Seryozha with the fact that the other woman at their
table was some sort of princess. When she saw that this
made no particular impression on him, she said very
emphatically that this was no commoner dining with
them but a real princess. Seryozha later told me what
had happened and we had a good laugh about it. I
don't think that his interpreter was pretending; I think
she really was thrilled at the idea of sitting at the same
table with a princess, and she was a bit irritated that
this young man from Russia didn't appreciate the full
significance of the honor.
When we returned from Scotland to London, Eden
gave a dinner for us somewhere in the government
complex. Before dinner we went by Eden's office.
There I saw what I first took to be a portrait of Tsar
Nicholas II on the wall. I mentioned that the man in
the portrait bore a striking resemblance to our former
tsar. Eden explained that it was Nicholas's cousin
[King George V]. I let the subject drop because it
would have been impleasant for them if I had reminded
them that the cousin of the man in the portrait was
kiUed in Sverdlovsk in 1918.1^
Before we went in to dinner Eden warned us that
Churchill would be there, too. I was seated right next

9. Scots will be interested to see themselves through Russian

eyes.
10. King George V of England had a close resemblance to the
Tsar, who was in fact murdered with his wife and
children
last
in a cellar at Sverdlovsk, then Ekaterinburg.
450 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

to Churchill. He was very old and fat and doddering.

We sat thereexchanging occasional phrases, not really
saying much of anything to each other. Then we were
served oysters. Churchill asked me, "Have you ever
eaten oysters?"
"No, Mr. Churchill."
"Then watch how I eat them. I love oysters."
"All right, I'll watch you and learn how it's done."
He started eating while I sipped my soup and watched.
He downed his oysters, and I finished my portion, too.
"WeU," he asked, "did you like them?"
"Frankly, not very much."
"Well, that's because you're not used to them." That
may have been true, but I still didn't like them.
That was the extent of my
conversation with
Churchill. He once brought up the subject of StaUn:
"You know, I had the greatest respect for Mr. Stalin
during the war." Churchill was obviously making an
effort to avoid business talk. He wasn't head of the
government any more, and he left serious matters for
Eden to discuss.
I saw Churchill a second time when we were in-
vited to watch a session of Parliament from the visitors*
gallery. A young Conservative who spoke excellent
Russian was attached to our delegation as a guide and
interpreter. He had complete mastery of Russian and
could even express himself lq the language of truck
drivers. He was trying very hard both to impress us
with his command of Russian and at the same time
to appear to be a man of the common people, but we
pretended to be indifferent to him and not to notice
the act he was putting on for us. While the debate
was going on down on the floor of the Parliament, this
young fellow suddenly whispered to us, "Look, here
comes Churchill!" Churchill entered the chamber and
went to his seat. "He can't sit for more than five or ten
minutes without going to sleep," said our guide. We
watched, and sure enough, after a short time Church-
ill leaned his head against the side of his seat and went

fast asleep.
We were once taken on a sight-seeing tour of Lon-
don. We saw the Tower, the place where the kings and
 VISIT TO LONDON 451
queens used to have people executed, and we watched
the changing of the guard. Such a colorful ceremony!
I could see why it was such a great tourist attraction.
In general I enjoyed seeing how the English paid trib-
ute to their past and how they reenacted their history
in pageants such as the changing of the guard. How-
ever, there was one tradition I saw that struck me as
ludicrous. When we visited the House of Lords, the
chairman [Lord Chancellor] came out to meet us
wearing an absolutely comic outfit. He had on a red
gown and a red robe and a huge wig. He showed us
the seat from which he chaired sessions of the House
of Lords. It was nothing but a sack of wool! I was
astonished that serious men could conduct serious
meetings in such silly clothes surrounded by so much
humbug. couldn't help smiling as I watched this
I
bizarre theatrical spectacle.
Unfortunately, there were two unpleasant incidents
toward the end of our stay in England.
One occurred in the harbor where our battle cruiser
was docked. We
had told the captain to take the neces-
sary security precautions. Suddenly we got a report
that our sailors had noticed someone swimming under-
water around our cruiser, but apparently he evaded
our men before they could do anything; that was the
last that was seen of him. We reported what had
happened to our hosts. I forget what sort of explana-
tion they had. We let the subject drop, although we
didn't overlook the possibility that someone might have
been trying to attach a magnetic mine to the hull of
our cruiser. Some of our military people proposed that
as one theory to explain what had happened. Later,
after the corpse of an intelligence officer named Com-
mander Crabbe was discovered in England, our own
intelligence service suggested that the EngHsh might
have been trying to gather information on the pro-
pellers and hull construction of our ship. In any case,
we didn't too much out of this episode. But it
make
was worth noting that the English weren't satisfied
that we had let their naval attache travel on board
our ship from the Soviet Union, and that they weren't
above trying to spy on their guests. Partly because of
 452 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

this incident, but not completely because of it, we

decided not to waste any more time in England and to
return to our Homeland.^^
During our stay in London a meeting was arranged
for us with the Labour Party opposition. The Labour-
ites suggested that we have dinner with them. We
consented, even though we didn't expect that this
meeting would serve any useful purpose. We had
found that the Labourites were consistently more hos-
tile toward us than the Conservatives. I think I can
explain this seeming paradox. We were completely at
opposite poles from the Conservatives. They repre-
sented big capital and big business; we represented
the working class and the Communist Party. We knew
where they stood, and they knew where we stood.
They made no pretenses to being anything except what
they were, and we, of course, didn't have any illusions
about them or high expectations of them. Therefore
we could deal with each other on a down-to-earth,
statesmanly basis. The Labourites were another mat-
ter altogether. They considered themselves the repre-
sentatives of the working people, and they believed
that theirs were the poHcies of the working class. In
short, they made all sorts of claims which we neither
accepted nor recognized. Hence there was considerable
tension between us.
The Labour Party's dinner for us was held in some
sort of restaurant in the Parliament building. One of
the leaders of the Labour Party at that time was
Wilson, who was considered our friend. Even though
he was fairly conservative, he claimed that if he were
in power his policy toward us would be friendlier
than that of the Eden government. But look how many
years he's been in power now, and he's had exactly
the same policy toward us as the Conservatives be-
fore him!
When we took our seats for dinner, out came the
inevitable EngHsh [sic] whiskey. The first toast was,

11. The affair of Commander Crabbe created a great scandal

at the time, and as far as the public is concerned, it remains a
mystery. Did the Russians killhim or was he drowned? And
why was he swimming under the Soviet battle cruiser at all?
 VISIT TO LONDON 453

as always at a public dinner, to the Queen. We, too,

raised our glasses and drank to the Queen. Then our
two delegations toasted each other.
Gaitskell at least showed a certain amount of tact
in his after-dinner remarks, but suddenly [George]
Brown butted in and took the floor. At that time Brown
had ambitions for the leadership of the Labour Party,
and he was extremely hostile toward us. He dehvered
a speech that was absolutely scandalous and complete-
ly unacceptable. Here we were, his guests, and he
launched into a harangue against our policies! I didn't
mince words in responding to his attack. I said, "Mr.
Brown, I'm going to tell you exactly what I think of
your speech. We are your guests and expect to be
treated accordingly. If you insist on insulting us, then
I'm afraid we have no choice but to thank you for your
invitation and to leave." With that, we made a demon-
strative exit, and the dinner ended.^^
A day or so later, there was a reception for us at the
House of Lords. Brown was there. He came up and
offered me his hand. I looked him in the eye and said,
"Mr. Brown, after the other evening's incident, I sim-
ply cannot shake hands with you."
"You mean you won't shake my hand?" He thrust
out his hand and pulled it back twice.
I didn't move and said: "No, I won't."
He let his hand drop to his side, and we walked
away from each other. The other Labourites who
watched as I gave this rebuff to Brown were very
cautious as they came up to say hello to me; they
offered me their hands very tentatively, as if to de-
termine whether I would accept their hand or not. I

12. The affair of the Labour Party dinner, which took place at
Gaitskell
the House of Commons, was headline news at the time.
was then leader of the British Labour Party. And Gaitskell

himself annoyed Khrushchev by handing him a list of H^ast

who had vanished, askmg him to
European SociaHst poHticians
had aU, of course
find out what had happened to them (they
shouted at
been shot). Mr. George Brown lost his temper and
reasons mdi-
Khrushchev, who took extreme offense. For the
Communists have always de-
cated by Khrushchev, the Soviet
far more wholeheartedly than they
tested European sociaUsts
detest conservatives.
454 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

shook hands with all of them. We exchanged pleasant-

rieseven though I was upset about Brown and
still
told them so. Later, a delegation of three Labourites
apologized for Brown's rudeness and assured us that
he had been speaking only for himself. Brown was
considered very anti-Soviet. He had decided to take
advantage of our visit as an opportunity to poison our
relations and he had succeeded.^^
When I saw Eden after the incident with Brown, he
was, so to say, smiling in his moustache. "Well, how
did your party with the Labourites go?" Naturally he
knew very well what had happened.
I smiled back at him and said, "Well, you know, it
wasn't everything it might have been."
"I told you that you'd be better off dealing with the
Conservatives. Those Labourites are just impossible."
Eden wasn't about to miss his chance to take full
political advantage of the conflict we had had with the
Labour Party. The Conservatives were delighted that
our first contact with the Labour leaders had turned
out badly.
We jokingly told Eden that we were trying to make
up our minds about which Party to join. He laughed
and said, "I'd strongly urge that you choose the Con-
servatives."
"We'll think it over. Perhaps we'll do as you sug-
gest."
In the course of our negotiations in London we
invited Eden to let us return his hospitality by visiting
the Soviet Union. He thanked us for our invitation
and accepted. However, it never worked out for him
to make the trip. After our return from London, there
occurred the events in Poland, the events in Hungary,
— —
and most important the attack by Great Britain,
France, and Israel against Egypt. We
were on Egypt's
side and took firm diplomatic steps to put pressure on
the aggressors to halt the war. The war ended only

13. The remark about poisoning relations is revealing. Neither

Khrushchev nor any other Soviet leader is capable of under-
standing that a man may speak out against Communist oppres-
sion out of honest depth of feeling and without an ulterior
purpose.
 VKrr TO LONDON 455

twenty-two hours after we stepped in. But the polemics

in the press had reached fever pitch, and therefore it
was out of the question for Eden to visit the Soviet
Union.
 15

Restoring Order in Hungary

Khrushchev's highly defensive account of the Hun^

garian uprising of 1956 diverges so widely from the
generally accepted facts that it would require a small
hook to counter his version point hy point and set out
the true sequence of events. But a few major points
should he made. Imre Nagy was not responsible for the
uprising. He was swept into temporary power hy a
popular revolt, which he was never able to control.
The Stalinist Party Secretary, Matyas Rakosi, was de-
posed in July, 1956, at a Hungarian Central Committee
meeting presided over hy Mikoyan. (Mikoyan had
flown out from Moscow hecau^e the Soviet ambassador
to Budapest had reported that there would he a revolu-
tion unless Rakosi was removed.) Rakosi was replaced
as First Secretary hy Gero, who continued with op-
pressive measures. Nagy at that time was under arrest.
Students and intellectuals were soon joined hy Com-
munists in demanding greater freedom. The explosion
took place on October 23, when more than two hun-
dred thousand demonstrators marched through Buda^
pest demanding freedom and Imre Nagy. There was
bloodshed. When Gero called out the army and the
ordinary police, they handed over their arms to the
students and sometimes joined them,. Imre Nagy did
not come forward himself. In response to popular de-
mand he was belatedly put forward hy Mikoyan and
Suslov in the hope that he would be able to rally the
Party and control the revolt. Even now, Nagy was held
hack at Party headquarters hy the rump of the Stalin-
ists, who appealed to the Soviet Army. The result was
that the greater part of the Hungarian army turned
456
 RESTORING ORDER IN HUNGARY 457
against the Russians. The Hungarian Communist Party
virtually ceased to exist. All were behind Nagy,
who
requested the Russians to pull out their troops. The
Russians did so only after much indecision, hut they
returned in strength. It was after the violent sm^^hing
of all resistance that Janos Kadar, who had sought
sanctuary with the Russians, came forward to estab-
lish, under Soviet protection, the regime which contin-
ues today.

In 1956 a bloody struggle broke out in Budapest. Imre

Nagy used deceitand intimidation to draw people into
mutiny and a fratricidal war. He shoved prominent
citizens in front of microphones and forced them to
endorse his leadership and to denounce the Rakosi
regime. Some people gave in to Nagy's demands out of
fear, some out of incomprehension of what was hap-
pening. Active Party members and especially Chekists
were being hunted down in the streets. Party com-
mittees and Chekist organizations were crushed. People
were being murdered, strung up from lampposts, and
—
hanged by their feet there were all kinds of outrages.
At first, the counterrevolution was waged mostly by
boys. They were well armed because they had pillaged
military depots and munitions warehouses. Then armed
detachments joined in, and skirmishes started in the
streets of Budapest. Some of these armed detachments
captured artillery, mostly antiaircraft guns, which they
turned against the city. Hungarian emigres started
returning to Budapest, mostly from Vienna. These were
reactionary elements who had been forced to flee after
Hitler was crushed and a Socialist government was
established. The NATO coimtries were already insinu-
ating themselves into the affair. They were adding fuel
to the flames of the civil war in hopes that the revolu-
tionary government would be overthrown, the gains
of the revolution liquidated, and capitalism
would be
would be restored in Hungary.
Imre Nagy issued a demand that we pull all Soviet
troops out of Himgary. According to our obligations
under the Warsaw treaty, we could pull out our troops
only if asked to do so by a legally constituted govern-
 458 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

ment. We certainly had no intention of doing what the

leader of a putsch told us to do. From our viewpoint,
a small clique, taking advantage of the blunders com-
mitted by the Rakosi regime, had overthrown the
legitimate government of Hungary. From a strictly
legal viewpoint, Nagy's demands had no parliamentary
backing and therefore did not have the force of law.
Although he was a Communist, Nagy no longer
spoke for the Hungarian Communist Party. He spoke
only for himself and a small circle of emigres who had
returned to help the counterrevolution.
We quickly determined that the uprising and the
Nagy government were without a mandate from
the workers, the peasants, and the intelligentsia of the
country as a whole. The working class refused to sup-
port the counterrevolution, and despite Nagy's appeals
for the collective farmers to join him, the peasantry
stayed on the sidelines and didn't let itself be duped
by Nagy. Many collective farms went right on working
and ignored the anti-collective farm slogans that were
broadcast from Budapest.^
Completely independently of Imre Nagy's demands,
we decided to pull our troops out of Budapest and to
station them at the airfield outside the city. But even
though our troops were no longer in Budapest, we kept
ourselves advised of the situation through our embassy
staff, which remained in the city.
We discussed the mutiny in the Presidium of the
Central Committee and came to the conclusion that it
would be inexcusable for us to stay neutral and not to
help the working class of Hungary in its struggle
against the counterrevolution. We passed a unanimous
resolution to this effect. Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan
and Suslov were not present at this meeting. They
were in Budapest. They went into the city during the
day and returned at night to the airport where our
troops were stationed.

1. The only grain of truth here is that many of the peasants

did keep out of the fighting. They went on working in the fields,
leaving the battle to be fought by the workers and the students
—
in the cities and by parts of the Hungarian army.
 —
RESTORING ORDER IN HUNGARY 459

This was a historic moment. We

were faced with a
crucial choice: Should we move our troops back into
the city and crush the uprising, or should we wait and
see whether internal forces would liberate themselves
and thwart the counterrevolution? If we decided on
the latter course, there was always the risk that the
counterrevolution might prevail temporarily, which
would mean that much proletarian blood would be
shed. Furthermore, the counterrevolution did suc-
if
ceed and NATO took root in the midst of the Socialist
countries, it would pose a serious threat to Czechoslo-
vakia, Yugoslavia, and Rumania, not to mention the
Soviet Union itself.
Whichever course we chose, we would not be pursu-
ing nationalist goals, but the internationaUst goal of
fraternal proletarian solidarity. To make sure that all
countries understood us correctly on this point, we
decided to consult with the other Socialist countries
first and foremost with the fraternal Communist Party
of China.
We asked Mao Tse-tung to send a representative to
consult with us about the events in Hungary. The
Chinese responded quickly. Adelegation led by Liu
Shao-chi flew in. Liu was a man of great experience
and prestige, much respected by us.
The Central Committee Secretariat delegated me to
represent our side. Ponomarev was also a member of
our delegation.
Our consultations with the Chinese were held at
Lipky, which had formerly been one of Stalin's dachas
and is now a rest home. We sat up the whole night,
weighing the pros and cons of whether or not we
should apply armed force to Hungary. First Liu Shao-
chi said it wasn't necessary; we should get
out of
Hungary, he said, and let the working class build itseit
up and deal with the counterrevolution on its own.
TX/g affreed

then, after reaching this agreement, we

started
But
warned
discussing the situation again, and someone
take a tancy
of the danger that the workmg class might
to the counterrevolution. The youth in
Hungary was
especially susceptible.
460 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
I don't know how many times we changed our minds
back and forth. Every time we thought we'd made up
our minds about what to do, Liu Shao-chi would con-
sult with Mao Tse-tung. It was no problem for Liu to
get in touch with him on the telephone because Mao
is Hke an owl; he works all night long. Mao always
approved whatever Liu recommended. We finally fin-
ished this all-night session with a decision not to apply
military force in Hungary. Once we had agreed on that,
I went home. Liu and his delegation stayed on at the
dacha.
When I climbed into bed that morning, I found I was
stilltoo preoccupied with the whole problem to rest. It
was like a nail in my head and it kept me from being
able to sleep.
Later in the morning the Presidium of the Central
Committee met to hear my report on how our discus-
sion with the Chinese delegation had gone. I told them
how we had changed our position a number of times
and how we had finally reached a decision not to apply
military force in Hungary. However, I then told the
Presidium what the consequences might be if we didn't
lend a helping hand to the Hungarian working class
before the counterrevolutionary elements closed ranks.
After long deliberation, the Presidium decided that
it would be unforgivable, simply unforgivable, if we
stood by and refused to assist our Hungarian comrades.
We asked Marshal Konev, who was the commander of
the Warsaw Pact troops, "How much time would it
take if we instructed you to restore order in Hungary
aad to crush the counterrevolutionary forces?"
He thought for a moment and repHed, "Three days,
no longer."
"Then start getting ready. You'll hear from us when
it's time to begin."
So it was decided. But Liu Shao-chi was supposed
to fly to Peking that same evening, and he still thought
we had agreed not to apply military force in Hungary.
We thought we should inform him that we had recon-
sidered our position, so we arranged to consult with
him at Vnukovo airport. We asked him to leave earlier
than he had planned so we might meet him at the air-
 RESTORING ORDER IN HUNGARY 461

port; that way he would be able to take off without

delay.
The entire Presidium went out to the airport. Liu
and his comrades arrived, and we had our meeting.
There were no arguments at all. The conversation pro-
ceeded in a particularly fraternal atmosphere, and the
Chinese side showed that it obviously shared the con-
cerns of the Soviet people. We were all thinking about
the well-being of the Hungarian working class and
about the future of the Hungarian people. Liu agreed
that our revised decision to go ahead and send in the
troops was right.
"I can't get Comrade Mao
Tse-tung's consent at this
moment," he said, "but I think he will support you. As
soon as I arrive in Peking I'll inform the PoUtbureau
of the Chinese Communist Party, and we will relay
back to you our formal decision. But you may assume
that you have our backing."
Once that was settled, we saw the Chinese delega-
tion off.^
The next thing we had to do was to consult with
Poland. The trouble we had had there was far less
serious than the trouble in Himgary. There hadn't
been an armed uprising in Poland, and an acceptable
PoUsh leadership had already been formed by Com-
rades Gomulka and Cyrankiewicz and by other com-
rades we trusted. We had reason to believe that the
situation in Poland was stabilizing.^ We had all the
more reason to consult with Poland in view of the Pol-
ish people's concern about the fate of their own coun-
try; they had a large stake in the outcome of the
events in Hungary. We not only wanted to know
the opinion of the Polish comrades before taking such

2. The Chinese hadearlier advised against military action in

Poland. After much hesitation they pressed for it in Himgary.
Later they took much credit for this.
3. Khrushchev appears to have nothing to say
about the at-
tempted Soviet intervention in Poland. The army was poised
to strike there, but Marshal Rokossovsky, then PoUsh
Minister
of Defense, though a Soviet army commander, warned the
Kremlin leadership that the PoHsh army was hostile and woiild
put itself behind Gomulka and fight as a body. J. Cyrankiewicz
was Prime Minister of Poland at the time of the 1956 upheavaL
462 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
—
a decisive step as sending troops into Budapest ^we
also wanted the Polish comrades' response to be posi-
tive. We wanted their support. So we arranged for
Comrade Gomulka along with Cyrankiewicz and the
other comrades to meet us at a spot just inside Soviet
territory on the Soviet-Polish border. The Presidium
appointed a troika of Khrushchev, Molotov, and Malen-
kov to represent our side.
After consulting with the Poles, Malenkov and I flew
to Bucharest. In addition to the Rumanian comrades,
the representatives of the Czechoslovak Party led by
Novotny were there and the Bulgarian comrades led
by Zhivkov. All we had to do was explain the state of
affairs. We didn't have to convince anyone of the need
to take decisive action because these comrades had
already been thoroughly informed by their ambas-
sadors in Budapest about the situation which was
developing there. Furthermore, some of the border
regions in Hungary were already starting to seek arms
from Czechoslovakia and Rimiania in order to defend
themselves against the counterrevolutionary govern-
ment of Imre Nagy. The leaders of the fraternal So-
cialist countries were unanimous: we had to act, and
we had to act swiftly.
The Rumanians and the Bulgarians said that they
wanted to join us in contributing military aid to the
revolutionary workers of Hungary in their struggle
against the counterrevolution. We rephed that there
was no need to involve any troops in this operation
other than the Soviet troops who were already sta-
tioned in Hungary in accordance with the Potsdam
agreement. We joked with the Rumanian comrades
about how Rumania was now so eager to throw itself
into battle against counterrevolution, whUe in 1919
Rumania had been on the side of the counterrevolution
which crushed the Hungarian revolution of Bela Kim.
The Rumanian comrades laughed. Then they wished
us success and told us to hurry.
Late that evening Malenkov and I took off for Yugo-
slavia to consult with Comrade Tito. The weather
couldn't have been worse. We had to fly through the
mountains at night in a fierce thunderstorm. Lightning
 RESTORING ORDER IN HUNGARY 463

was flashing all around us. I didn't sleep a wink. I had

flown a great deal, especially during the war, but I'd
never flown in conditions this bad. We had a very-
experienced pilot named General Tsybin. During the
storm we lost contact with our escort reconnaissance
plane which was flytQg ahead of us. We were heading
toward Brioni Island off the coast of Yugoslavia. The
local airfield was poorly equipped. It was one of those
primitive airstrips built during the war. But thanks to
the skill of Comrade Tsybin, we made it. When we
landed, we asked if our other plane had arrived. The
Yugoslavs told us they didn't know anything about it.
We were very distressed about the fate of the crew.
There was a car waiting for us which took us to a
pier. We cHmbed into a motor launch and headed to-
ward Comrade Tito's place on Brioni Island. Malenkov
was pale as a corpse. He gets carsick on a good road.
We had just landed after the roughest flight imagin-
able, and now we were heading out into choppy sea in
a small launch. Malenkov lay down in the boat and
shut his eyes. I was worried about what kind of shape
he'd be in when we docked, but we didn't have any
choice. As the old Russian saying goes, we couldn't
sit on the beach and wait for good weather.
Tito was waiting for us when we arrived at the
island. He welcomed us cordially. We embraced and
kissed each other, although until recently our relations
had been strained, and they were becoming more and
more strained as the events in Hungary developed. We
differed over the most advisable course of action.
We reported to Tito on why we had come and con-
fronted him with our decision to send troops into
Budapest. We asked for his reaction. I expected even
more strenuous objections from Tito than the ones we
had encountered during our discussions with the Pol-
ish comrades. But we were pleasantly surprised. Tito
said we were absolutely right and that we should
send
our soldiers into action as quickly as possible. He
the
said we had an obHgation to help Hungary crush
counterrevolution. He assured us that he completely
understood the necessity of taking these measures.
We
had been ready for resistance, but instead we received
464 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

his wholehearted support. I would even say he went

further than we did in urging a speedy and decisive
resolution of the problem.
Once that was decided we said, "Well, we'd better
get some rest now because we have to return to Mos-
cow early in the morning."
"No," said Tito, "don't go. Why
don't you stay here
for a day or two?" We
thanked Comrade Tito but
explained that we didn't have time because we had to
get back to Moscow right away. "Tell me," he asked,
"when are you planning to begin restoring order in
Budapest?"
I said that we still hadn't decided on the exact day
but that it to be soon. Tito must have
would have
realized that this wasn't entirely true and that we had
already designated the day to strike, but I didn't want
to tell anyone when our troops were going to move
into Budapest. The Yugoslavs were taking no direct
part in this business, and therefore they didn't need to
know. The fewer people who knew, including our
friends, the better. It would have cost us dearly if
word had leaked out about when we were going to
begin.
I said, "I think we'll try to get some sleep now."
"Listen," he said, "why go to bed now? What's your
hurry? Why don't we spend the night talking? There
are still a few hours until dawn, and I'd hke to spend
with you what little time we have together."
"Well, all right," I said. "We'll take a nap in the
plane on the way back to Moscow."
We managed to stay up until dawn. In the morning
Tito said he'd see us off. He took the wheel of the car
himself and drove us to the pier. We said farewell hke
old friends and kissed each other on both cheeks. He
wished us a good journey and success in what we had
to do.4
We arrived in Moscow toward evening. The members
4. Tito's toward the Hiingarian affair was uncertain.
attitude
He had urged on the Russians the imperative need to get rid of
Rakosi, but he seems to have been alarmed at the violence of
the uprising, though highly sympathetic toward Nagy.
 RESTORING ORDER IN HUNGARY 465
of the Presidium came to meet us at the ahrport, and
we went straight to the Kremhn.
We told Konev to move in his troops, and order was
restored ahnost immediately everywhere in Hungary
except in Budapest, where the people put up rather
stubborn resistance. Officers of the Hungarian army
had joined the uprising, and our troops found them-
selves faced with well-organized defenses. Cannons
were even pulled to the upper floors of buildings and
used to cover the streets. But, as Marshal Konev had
predicted, the resistance in Budapest lasted less than
three days. The mutiny could have been crushed more
quickly but we would have had to take more destruc-
tive measures and it would have required more sacri-
fices. That wouldn't have been in our interest.
Imre Nagy hid in the Yugoslav Embassy along with
a great many other leaders of his movement. This
development put a definite strain on our relations with
Yugoslavia. The Himgarian comrades demanded that
Nagy and his men be handed over so that they could
be brought to justice for their crimes. The Yugoslavs
resisted stubbornly. The Temporary Revolutionary
Government of Hungary led by Kadar and Munnich
simply waited until the Yugoslav comrades couldn't
keep Nagy and all his men any longer.^ When the

5. The Temporary Revolutionary Government of Himgary, so

called, was set up by the Russians on their own soil when it
looked as though the Nagy government in Budapest had come
to stay. It was a puppet organization made up of remnants of the
old Hungarian Communist Party, which had completely dis-
integrated. Janos Kadar, the present ruler of Himgary, had
actually joined the Nagy government and appeared publicly
m
support of it, together with Ferenc Mimnich, who for a few
days was Nagy's Minister of the Interior. But these two
men
deserted
suddenly disappeared without warning on November 2,
Nagy at the moment of crisis, and turned up in the Soviet camp
at Uzhgorod. Two days later Kadar made his
famous broadcast,
aUegedly from eastern Hungary, claimmg that he had formed a
new government and appealed to the Russians to send m
troops

to crush the revolt. Together with Munnich

he returned to
Budapest in the wake of the Russian troops, and backed by
the new regime, which he has
Russian tanks, he established
Defense and Minister
headed ever since. Munnich, as Minister of
mea-
for the harshly repressive
of the Interior, was responsible
hne. He became Prime
sures which brought Hungary back into
466 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Yugoslavs released Nagy, they insisted on assurances

concerning his safety. The Hungarian comrades re-
fused, and as soon as Nagy was delivered to his apart-
—
ment, he was put under arrest as well he should have
been!^ Then Comrade Kadar proposed that Nagy be
flown to Bucharest until order was completely restored
and the new government had a chance to normalize
the situation in Hungary.
The Temporary Revolutionary Government of Hun-
gary, which had moved into Hungary from Uzhgorod
[in the SovietUkraine] when order was first restored,
changed its name to the SociaHst Workers' Party. The
new leaders began to gather their forces, and the situ-
ation began to stabilize very satisfactorily.
When everjrthing had settled down, the Rumanian
comrades returned Imre Nagy to Hungary. Some ten-
sion had arisen between the Soviet Union and Yugo-
slavia because of the position Yugoslavia took during
the events in Hungary, so Comrade Tito proposed that
we meet and talk in order to restore our good relations.
At first he suggested meeting secretly on a boat in the
Danube River, on the border between Rumania and
Yugoslavia. Then, just before I left, he changed his
mind and suggested that we meet openly in Bucharest
instead. We had already liquidated one conflict with
Yugoslavia after Stalin's death, and we had no reason
to want to start another. We talked about how to im-
prove our trade relations. I said that we made no claims
to hegemony as far as Yugoslavia was concerned, and

Minister in 1958, while Kadar remained Party Secretary. Since

Munnich's death (natural), Kladar has contrived, after many
false starts, to introduce a degree of reform in Hungary and
thus in a measure to live down his treacherous and quisling
past. Khrushchev's evaluation of Munnich illuminates his own
character as well as his attitude, that of a no-nonsense Soviet
leader, to the satellites.
6. Thisis untrue. The Hungarians did in fact promise Tito
that no harm would come to Nagy if he left the sanctuary of the
Yugoslav Ehnbassy in Budapest. Tito was furious when he was
arrested. Khrushchev does not mention the little fact that Nagy
was later taken from prison and shot. Nor does he refer to the
arrest and shooting of General Pal Maleter when he met the
Russians under safe-conduct to negotiate.
 RESTORING ORDER IN HUNGARY 467

I reiterated our commitment to the principle of non-

interference in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia.

Some time passed, and we saw that things weren't

going very well in Hungary. We discussed the situa-
tion in the Presidium and decided that we couldn't let
it go on any longer. The Presidium instructed me to
fly to Budapest for talks with the Hungarian leaders.
My own hopes rested with Munnich. I thought I
could deal with him better than with Kadar. Munnich
was a cunning and battered old wolf who had been
through the Hungarian revolution with Bela Kun. He'd
lived in the Soviet Union for a long time, and I thought
he was better prepared than anyone else to handle
the problems which were still facing Hungary.
I was met at the airport and driven into the city. I'd
been in Budapest in 1946, and was still as beautiful
it

as I remembered it, although there were some traces of

the street fighting such as bullet-scarred walls and
even some ruins.
A banquet was given for me in a dark hall. I don't
know why the lighting was so bad. In the West I had
attended candlehght banquets, but those were always
held on triumphal occasions. Here in Budapest it wasn't
a triumphal occasion, and it was dimly lit simply be-
cause the lighting was poor. The entire leadership was
there. The Himgarians served their delicious goulash
and excellent wine.
The conversation soon came around to politics. In
answer to my criticisms, Munnich said, "You know, I
was our country's ambassador to Moscow during the
Rakosi period, so Ibe held responsible for what
can't
happened then." I asked about the Hungarian press,
which was obviously still out of line, and he said,
"Look here. Comrade Khrushchev, I'm not in charge
other
of overseeing the newspapers. That's the job of
comrades." -

In short, there were still problems. It's always

like

that when a country and a Party undergo such a

severe upheaval. One unhealthy after-effect of the mu-

tinywas that the Hungarian army was demoralized.
The army as a whole had not taken part in the counter-
468 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

revolution, but individual officers in small numbers

had participated actively J After the counterrevolution
was crushed and Imre Nagy's gang was toppled, there
remained a certain amoimt of vacillation among the
army officers. Therefore, the new government of Com-
rades Kadar and Munnich required that all army
officers define their political attitude toward the events
which had transpired by signing an oath swearing that
they would honorably serve the Hungarian people and
carry out the orders of the Hungarian government. A
few officers were reluctant to take this oath. Their
vacillation led to a purge of those elements who re-
fused to accept the necessary conditions for the build-
ing of Socialism in Hungary. As a result, the army was
diminished in quantity but improved in quahty.
The life of the country was already beginning to
return to normal, despite the accusatory howls of
the bourgeois press and slanderous propaganda from
abroad to the effect that the Soviet Union had sup-
pressed a popular revolution in Hungary.
Comrade Kadar and the Central Committee of the
Hungarian Communist Party appealed to the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union to send consultants to help them reorganize
their coal industry which was in a shambles. At the
behest of the Hungarian government and the Hun-
garian Central Committee I made a number of trips
to Hungary in 1957. i

Once, when I was there in the sunmier, Kadar said I

that they were holding a rally on the square in front of

the United States Embassy. It was to be a particularly
important meeting because [Cardinal] Mitidszenty
and the staff of the American Embassy were sure to be
watching from the balcony. Mindszenty was head of
the Catholic Church in Hungary. He represented the
most reactionary wing of the counterrevolutionary
forces which had struck against the Hungarian govern-
ment and the building of Socialism in Hungary in 1956.1
After the counterrevolution was crushed, he hid in the!

7. The greater part of the Hungarian army did in fact join thej
revolt. 1
 RESTORING ORDER IN HUNGARY 469
American Embassy, and he was there for years after-
ward.
Even
if Mindszenty and the Americans were unable

to hear the speeches on the square, they were sure to

have agents circulating through the crowd, taking notes
on everything that happened.
We had another reason to be interested in the meet-
ing. When became known that I had come to Hun-
it
gary, American journalists started tooting their horn
that Khrushchev wouldn't dare show his face in public
because Khrushchev knew he'd be in trouble if he
followed his usual custom and went walking in the
streets; the Hungarians would never forgive him for
having used mihtary force to crush the counterrevolu-
tion.We knew what sort of bunk to expect from the
American press!
Kadar opened the meeting. The Hungarian comrades
urged me to speak, and I couldn't very well refuse. In
my speech, I reproached the workers and intelligentsia
of Hungaryfor permitting a coimterrevolutionary mu-
tiny to take place in their country.
During the meeting Kadar said, "Look over there to
the left and you'll see the American ambassador stand-
ing with his men. I can see Mindszenty, too."
When the meeting was over, I said, "Comrade Kadar,
let's go down from the speaker's platform and walk
straight into the crowd."
He smiled and said, "There's a lot of people down
there, you know."
"All the better. This way we'll show the American
journalists and the American ambassador and Mind-
szenty that Khrushchev isn't afraid to stick his neck
out, and that he still mixes with the people.
Well
give them a good brainwashing, as the American
Soviet
journalists would say—those ill-wishers of the
Union and Hungary!" -

gave a similar speech at the biggest machine

tool
I
Kadar and
factory in Hungary. From there Comrade
I went to the coal-mining region where he had been
the war. Because
an underground Party leader during
could take a tough
I was a former miner myself, I felt I
ashamed ot my
line with the coal miners. I said I was
 470 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

brother miners who hadn't raised either their voices

or their fists against the counterrevolution. They hadn't
taken an active part in the mutiny, but they hadn't put
up any resistance either. They had let themselves be-
come demoralized and apathetic. When I finished
speaking, the miners said they were sorry. They re-
pented for having committed a serious political blun-
der, and they promised that they would do everything
they could not to let such a thing happen ever again.
Next we went to a rally at a steel factory on the
Danube which had been equipped on a credit loan
from us. It was in a town which used to be called
Stalinovarash, but its name had been changed. At one
point Comrade Kadar asked me, "Would it be all right
if we met with representatives of our intelligentsia?
We'll call a meeting of the workers from the Academy
of Sciences and other institutions of intellectual labor."
I consented and was pleased to find at the meeting that
the intelligentsia, too, understood the necessity for the
measures which had been taken.
At all of these meetings we gave speeches exposing
the schemes of world counterrevolution and world
imperialism to reestablish capitalism in Hungary. For
their part, the Hungarian comrades demonstrated to
the bourgeois press that, far from harboring any ill-
will toward the Soviet Union, the Hungarian people
were grateful to us and our army for having fulfilled
our internationalist duty in helping to hquidate the
counterrevolutionary mutiny. And it wasn't because
only people who sided with us were allowed to speak at
these meetings, either. Everyone who spoke expressed
his true feelings, and anyone present was perfectly
|
free to say what was on his mind. The atmosphere j
at the meetings was charged with great elation and
enthusiasm. The Hungarian people put their stamp of
approval on the measures which were being taken by
the new leadership of the Hungarian Party and govern-
ment.
We agreed with the new leadership that the mutiny
had been engendered by Stalin's abuse of power and
that the seeds of discontent had been sown in Hungary
by Stalin's advisor, Rakosi. In other words, the coun-
 —
RESTORING ORDER IN HUNGARY 471
terrevolution was another consequence of Stalin's sick
character, which Lenin had warned us about in his
Testament.®
I remember when we proposed a plan to reduce the
size of the Soviet Army garrisoned throughout Eastern
Europe, I asked the Hungarians for their reaction:
"Comrade Kadar, what do you think about the prospect
of us pulling our troops out of Hungary? Is this ad-
visable? We rely on your judgment here. We'll do
whatever you decide."
"Comrade Khrushchev, I think you had best decide
this for yourself. I can only tell you two things. First,
there is absolutely no resentment whatsoever in our
country against the presence of your troops on our
territory. I say this very frankly. Second, I think there's
only one thing which worries the Hungarian people
workers, peasantry, and intelligentsia alike: that is,
that Rakosi not return to Hungary." At the time Rakosi
was living in the Soviet Union. Apparently there were
still forces in Hungary which sympathized with him
and regretted his fall from power, just as there were
forces in the Soviet Union who would have given their
vote to Stalin even after we established his guilt in
the eyes of the Party.
Now, I realize there are some people who might
claim that the Kadar government was pro-Moscow,
that it had been created under our sponsorship and
influence. Well, we can kick this ball back to the other
end of the field simply by asking, under whose sponsor-
ship was the government of Imre Nagy created? In
whose planes were waves of bourgeois agents and
counterrevolutionary emigres flown back into Hun-
gary? The answer is, under the sponsorship and in the
planes of the imperialistic forces of the world, espe-

8. Having once declared that the whole affair was due to Nagy,
Khrushchev now turns around and says it was due to Stalin
and Rakosi.
9. It is impossible to tell whether Khrushchev really
believes
that the West played an effective part in the Hungarian revolt.
Certainly a number of Hungarian emigres found their way back
to Hungary in the first flush of the revolt. But the
Western
powers, with Suez on their hands, held aloof and passed by on
the other side.
472 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS \

cially the United States.® Besides, the members of the

Kadar government had been elected to their original
positions of leadership at a Hungarian Party Congress
presided over by none other than Rakosi himself.
Thus I refute the reasoning of those people w^ho
claim that Kadar and his government were, to put it
crudely, our stooges.
I want to make myself quite clear on this point: we,
the Soviet Union, support the revolutionary forces of
the world. We do so out of our internationalist obliga-
tions. We wholeheartedly join in the struggle being
waged by the working classes under the red banner
emblazoned with the slogan, "Proletarians of the World
Unite!" We are against the export of revolution, but
we are also against the export of counterrevolution.
That is why it would be unthinkable and unforgivable
for us to refuse help to the working class of any country
in its struggle against the forces of capitahsm.
Our goal in Hungary was to support progressivism
and to assist the people's transition from capitalism to
Socialism. The enemies of Sociahsm had the opposite
goal: wherever a SociaHst way of Ufe had been
achieved, they wanted to liquidate it, to suppress the
working class, and to restore capitalism.
By helping the Hungarian people to crush the coun-
terrevolutionary mutiny we have prevented the enemy
from impairing the unity of the entire Socialist camp,
rigorously tested during the Hungarian events. We
were aware that by helping Hungary to suppress the
uprising and eliminate its aftermath as quickly as
possible we were also helping all the other countries
of the Socialist camp. The help we gave the Hungarian
people in crushing the counterrevolution was approved
unanimously by the working people in the Socialist
countries, by all progressives throughout the world.
So I say, yes! We did help Hungary in 1956. As I
once said at a Party rally, we repaid a debt to Hungary
which had been hanging over our heads since 1848. In
that year there was a successful revolution in Buda-
pest, but Nicholas I threw in his legions, crushed the
revolution, and helped restore the rule of the Austrian
monarchy in Hungary. That was a disgrace. Of course
 RESTORING ORDER IN HUNGARY 473

that black deed was committed by Nicholas I and those

around him; the disgrace did not rub off onto the
working class and peasantry of the former Russian
Empire. But our country still owed a historical debt
to the people of Hungary. In 1956 we finally paid it
off. Now we're even.^^

10. The Hungarians saw it differently. In 1848 their national

revolt against Austria was crushed by the Russians; in 1956
the Russians were back again.
 16

Nasser, Suez, and the Aswan Dam

In his account of the Kremlin's relations with Presi-

dent Nasser, Khrushchev is fuller, more detailed, more
straightforward, and less inhibited than he is about
Eastern Europe. Soviet penetration of the Middle East,
facilitated American withdrawal from the As-
by the
wan Dam, and the subsequent Suez crisis, has
project
been very much a su^ccess story; and although Khru-
shchev twists certain facts to make the Soviet role
appear more decisive and creditable than it was, he
ha^ little to hide about the actions, as distinct from
the motives, of the Kremlin. The most interesting
general point that emerges is Soviet ignorance of the
real state of affairs in Egypt before the nationalization
—
of the Suez Canal in 1956 and later, in Iraq.

I won't deny thatit created certain difficulties for us

when anti-Soviet elements stirred up a critical sit-

uation in Poland and Hungary. While we were deal-
ing with those problems, second-echelon English and
French diplomats in London and Paris met with our
embassy people over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine
and said, "You seem to have some trouble on your
hands in Poland and Hungary. We understand how it
is sometimes. We're having some troubles of our own
in Egypt. Let's have a tacit understanding between us
that you'll Hquidate your difficulties by whatever
means you see fit, and you won't interfere while we do
the same." In other words, the imperialists tried to
take advantage of the troubles we were having in
474
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 475
Poland and Hungary so that they could send their
troops into Egypt to reestablish colonial rule.^
Well, we disposed of the troubles in Poland quickly,
and as soon as we had liquidated the mutiny in Hun-
gary, we faced head-on the task of how to end the
war which the colonialists were waging against Presi-
dent Nasser of Egypt.^
Our use of our international influence to halt En-
gland, France, and Israel's aggression against Egypt in
1956 was a historic turning point. Before that time, the
—
Soviet Union and Imperial Russia before it ^had al- —
ways treated the Near East as belonging to England
and France. King Farouk had once asked Stalin to
give him arms so that he could force Great Britain to
evacuate its troops from Egypt, but Stalin refused.
Stalin said in my presence that the Near East was part
of Britain's sphere of influence and that therefore we
couldn't go sticking our nose into Egjrpt's affairs. Not
that Stalin wouldn't have liked to move into the Near
— —
East ^he would have liked to very much but he real-
istically recognized that the balance of power wasn't in
our favor and that Britain wouldn't have stood for our
interference.
Things changed during the intervening years. Our
economy, our armed forces, and the weight of our in-
fluence in international affairs all increased mightily,
and by 1956 we were able to step in and assist Presi-
dent Nasser and the Arab peoples. It wasn't that we
wanted to replace England as an exploiter of Egypt
and other Arab countries. We weren't motivated by
selE-centered, mercantile interests. Quite the contrary,
we wanted only to help these peoples to cast off the
yoke of their servile dependence on
their colonialist
masters. Ours has been a noble mission in the Near
East. We have incorporated into our diplomacy the
1. Khrushchev's remark about Western diplomats offering
the Russians a free hand in Poland and Hungary are
m direct
contradiction to his earHer insistence that the Hungarian revolt,
sustained by the "impenahst
at least, was supported and

^2.^^e use of the word "mutiny" is revealing.

The Hungarian
on November the Suez war was
revolt was finally crushed 9;

opened on October 29.

476 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

tenets of Lenin'sown foreign policy, and we have al-

ready begun to reap the fruits of our iavestment in the
future of the Arab nations.
When we began to take an active interest in the
first
affairs of Egypt, our attitude was cautious and our
optimism was guarded. When Nasser came to power
after the revolution in Egypt,^ we were not convinced
by his policies that he was going to do what was neces-
sary to reform the social-poHtical structure of his
country. For a certain period after the coup and
Colonel Nasser's emergence as chief of state, we
couldn't be sure what direction this new government
of army officers would take, either in foreign or in
domestic policies. The new Egyptian leadership came
mostly from the upper ranks of the Egyptian army, in
other words from the bourgeoisie and not from the
working class. On the whole these were men of priv-
ileged background and propertied status, although the
new regime was far from being socially homogeneous.
We were inclined to think that Nasser's coup was
just another one of those military take-overs which
we had become so accustomed to in South America.
We didn't expect much new to come of it. However, we
had no choice but to wait and see what would happen.
We liked what we saw. The Egyptians began to pur-
sue a policy that had considerable merit. They started
actively to put pressure on the English to pull their
troops out. The English were left with no alternative,
and they complied with the Egyptians' demand.
Now we respected Nasser and realized that his wasn't
just another in a series of new governments that seize
power and then follow old policies. No, the new Egyp-
tian government had the national interest of its people
at heart and therefore deserved oiar respect and sup-
port. We wanted to help Nasser continue his struggle
against the colonialists.
But it remained very difficult to definethe social-
pohtical goals of the new government in Egypt. There

3.Events are somewhat telescoped in these paragraphs. Gen-

eralNaguib launched the Egyptian nationalist and republican
movement; he was then replaced by Nasser.
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 477

was a great deal of foreign capital in the country,

still

and the government had left the private banks alone.

Nasser's government was obviously nationalistic, but
it looked as if it were turning out to be a bourgeois

government. Nevertheless, it was in our interest to sup-

port Nasser's bourgeois leadership because it promised
to weaken the influence of English colonialism in the
—
Near East and that was in the interest of the Soviet
Union.*
Nasser's relations with Comrade Tito were even
better than his relations with us. When Tito traveled
to India, he went by ship through the Suez Canal. The
Yugoslav press lavished praise on the Egyptian gov-
ernment. At that time we still hadn't improved our
own relations with Yugoslavia; but shortly afterward,
when Comrade Tito and I first met to exchange views
on international matters, Tito spoke very flatteringly
about Nasser and his policies.
We were impressed but pointed out that it was hard
to be sure from Nasser's speeches whether or not he
intended to create a progressive regime in Egypt. He
still hadn't laid a finger on the bourgeoisie and the

banks.
Comrade Tito replied that Nasser was a young man
without much political experience; he had good in-
tentions, but he hadn't yet found his fulcrum of power.
Tito pointed out that if we gave Nasser the benefit of
the doubt, we might later be able to exert a beneficial
influence on him, both for the sake of the Communist
movement and for the sake of the Egyptian people. In
Egypt, the interests of the people and the interests of
Socialism were interwoven. After all, Socialism can
bear its fruits to all the peoples of the world. Tliere-
fore, our desire to affect the course of the Egyptian
government was not a conspiracy by one country

4. Khrushchev seems unable to make up his mind whether

part
Russia helped Egypt "in the interest of the Soviet Union as
for purely
of the campaign against Western imperiaUsm, or
altniistic motives of the most noble kind.
478 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

against another; it was the natural outgrowth of our

desire to share our experience with another nation.^
Soon after the coup, when the Egyptians decided to
try to oust the EngHsh, Nasser's representatives came
to us with a request for military aid. They said they
needed to have their own army in order to put pres-
sure on the English. We
agreed. We
gave them weapons
ranging from rifles to regular artillery, but as I recall,
we didn't give them any planes at first. We
did, how-
ever, give them tanks and naval equipment. Nasser
said he particularly needed torpedo boats. I think we
gave them military aid on a commercial basis, but at a
reduced price.
After buying arms from us, Nasser ^who was by—
—
now very close to Tito started to talk about building
Socialism in his coimtry. However, he talked about
Socialism in such a way as to make us uncertain
whether he really imderstood what he was sajring. It
also seemed possible that he might have some ulterior
motive for espousing the Socialist cause. In modem
times the word Socialism has become very fashionable,
and it has also been used very loosely. Even Hitler
used to babble about Sociahsm, and he worked the
word into the name of his Nazi [National Socialist]
party. The whole world knows what sort of Socialism
Hitler had in mind. Therefore we were cautious toward
people who adopted the word Sociahsm but who
seemed mostly interested in getting military aid from
us.
The fondest dream of the Egyptian people was to
harness the mighty Nile River to their economy. Since
ancient times the Egjrptians had used the waters of the
Nile to irrigate their farmlands along its banks. In
addition to being the lifeblood of their agriculture, the
waters of the Nile were also an untapped source of
hydroelectric power. When Nasser came to power, he
began vigorously promoting the idea of building a dam
which would use the Nile to drive generator turbines.
He entered into negotiations on this subject with the
5.Here we see the Soviet Union assuming what used to be
called the White Man's Burden, Compare his earlier remarks
about Stalin's attitude to Soviet penetration of the Middle East.
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 479
United States and eventually reached an agreement
with some American bank, a so-called "international"
bank, which promised to give Egypt credit loans for
the construction of the dam. The Egyptians let them-
selves be deluded into thinking that the dream which
they had cherished for centuries was about to come
true.
But their delusion didn't last long. Egypt refused to
follow the path set for it by the United States, England,
and France, and as a result the imperialists were irri-
tated. Suddenly it was announced that the credit loans
which had been promised for the dam were canceled.
President Nasser exploded with rage and announced
that Eg3^t was going to nationalize the Suez Canal.
This action sent the temperature of the international
political situation soaring dangerously.
When the imperialists attacked Egypt, I consulted
with Molotov. Even though he was no longer very ac-
tive, he had been Minister of Foreign Affairs for a long
time and was our most experienced statesman. I called
him on the phone to get his reaction to an idea I had:
"Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, I think that we should
address ourselves to the President of the United States
with a proposal to take joint action against the aggres-
sors who haveattacked Egypt."
Molotov pointed out, quite correctly, "Eisenhower
will never agree to join forces with us against England,
France, and Israel."
"Of course he won't, but by putting him in the posi-
tion of having to refuse, we'll expose the hypocrisy
of

his public statement condemning the attack

agamst
^^0^*^
Egypt. We'll make him put his money where his
aggression, then he d
is. If he were really against the
for us jomtly to
accept the Soviet Union's proposal
safeguard Egypt's independence." xx + +v,
I told Molotov we should put
this matter to the
members ot
Presidium right away. I summoned the
urgent meetmg
the Presidium to the Kremlin for an
a Proposal
We discussed my suggestion and drafted Foreign Aff^rs
of
which Shepilov, our new Minister
to Eiser^ower
sent to President Eisenhower. Our note
flag ot
stressed that we should join forces under the
480 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

the United Nations. We also sent notes to the prime

ministers of Britain, France, and Israel demanding the
immediate halt of their aggressive attack on Egypt.
Shortly after delivering our message to Eisenhower,
we published it in the press. We were informed that
when the President received our note, he told journal-
ists, "This is incredible! Can the Russians be serious?
To think that we would join them against Britain,
France and Israel! It's inconceivable!" So our note had
done exactly what it was supposed to do; it had put
the lie to the Americans' claim of being fighters for
peace and justice and nonaggression. They may have
been fighters in words, but not in deeds, and we had
unmasked them.^
In the spring of 1956, when we were in London and
had talks with Messrs. Eden, Lloyd, MacmiUan, Butler,
and other British statesmen, we told them frankly that
we had rockets of various ranges. Later, when Israel,
Britain, and France attacked Egypt, the Soviet Govern-
ment stated in a message to the British Prime Minister:
What would be the position of Britain herself if she
were attacked by stronger states possessing modern
destructive weapons of all kinds? And such countries,
the message said, could even do this without sending a
navy or an air fleet to British shores, but could use
other means, for instance rocketry. This statement by
the Soviet Government evidently influenced them.
Previously they had apparently thought that we were
simply bluffing when we openly said that the Soviet
Union possessed powerful rockets. But then they saw
that we really had rockets. And this had its effect.
It was about this time that I flew to Brioni Island off
the coast of Yugoslavia for consultations with Tito on
the events in Hungary [see pages 462—464]. Tito was
on the island because he was ill and his physicians had
prescribed saltwater baths for him. I remember asking

6. Khrushchev seems to be unaware of the fact that the

Suez operation was called off because of extreme American
pressure. It is impossible to tell whether he really believed, and
believes, that the operation was launched without reference to
Washington and in the teeth of American disapproval.
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 481

him, "Don't you think it's dangerous to be here while

there's a war raging in Egypt? A plane could easily
drop a bomb on this island and there'd be nothing left
of you or your dacha. No one could prove it wasn't
an accident. Remember, the EngHsh and the French
know all about your relations with Nasser, and any-
thing could happen."
Rankovic [the Yugoslav Minister of Internal Affairs]
said, "Yes, I keep telling Comrade Tito to go back to
Belgrade for the duration of the conflict in the Near
East, but he doesn't want to. He says he needs these
saltwater baths for his health." But even though he
didn't admit that he was in personal danger, I could
see that Comrade Tito was very alarmed about the
situation in the Near East. He was worried for Yugo-
slavia as well as for Egypt and Nasser.
In our notes to the three governments who led the
aggression against Egypt, we said, "You have attacked
Egypt, knowing that it is considerably weaker than
you are, that it does not have much of an army, and
that it does not have many weapons. But there are
other countries which are entirely capable of coming
to Egypt's defense." We were clearly hinting that the
Soviet Union was such a country, and that we were
ready to intervene if necessary. We warned that we
couldn't remain neutral because, if the conflict in the
Near East spread, it would threaten our own national
interests. The governments of England and France
knew perfectly well that Eisenhower's speech con-
demning their aggression was just a gesture for the
sake of pubhc appearances. But when we delivered our
own stem warning to the three aggressors, they knew
opinion.
that we weren't playing games with public
They took us very seriously. I've been told that when
Guy MoUet received our note, he ran to the telephone
in his pajamas and called Eden. I don't know if this
trousers
story is true, but whether or not he had his
on doesn't change the fact that twenty-two hours after
halted. We
the delivery of our note the aggression was
Chinese
only had to issue our warning once—unhke the
 482 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

variety, which has to be repeated about a thousand

times before it has any impact/
I think I can explain why Israel retreated from the
territory it had captured with the help of France and
England. In addition to getting the United Nations to
censure the aggression, we announced in the press that
we were recruiting volunteers to serve with the Egyp-
tian army as tank operators, pilots, artillery specialists,
and so on. In other words we decided to give Egypt
concrete assistance in the form of men who were
able
to handle sophisticated weaponry. We
put our condi-
tions to Israel in very unambiguous terms: either the
Israelis pull back their troops and obey the United
Nations resolution, or else they would clash with the
—
armed forces of Egypt and in so doing, they might
find themselves faced with our volunteers.
Our policy was very much appreciated by the Egyp-
tian people and by President Nasser. It was a great
victory for us when we ended the crisis. It was also a
great victory for the progressive forces of the world.
It enhanced the prestige of the Soviet Union not only
among the Egyptian people, but among all peoples who
had recently freed themselves from colonial slavery or
who were still waging their struggles for independence.
Nasser said many flattering but nonetheless accurate
things about our policies after we intervened on Egypt's
behalf in 1956. There had been no strings attached to
our defense of Egypt. Our actions were based on purely
humanitarian, not mercenary, concerns. Mercantile
interests had nothing to do with it. In fact, we didn't
really need anything that we might have been able to
get from Egypt. We
have almost everything they pro-
duce and many things they don't produce. We have
rice and oil of our own. We're a much richer country,
and we can rely on our own natural wealth. And if
there is something we do need, we always try to ac-
quire it from other countries by fair trade arrange-
ments. Unlike the colonialists, we don't need to resort
to war or political machinations to get what we want.
7. See note 6 above. The Soviet warnings were not issued until
the danger was past, although most people did not realize this
at the time.
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 483
Even after the threat of coloniaHst aggression had
been removed, the Egyptians were in serious difficulty.
Prior to July, 1956, the service personnel managing the
facilities of the Suez Canal and the pilots who took
ships through the canal had mostly been Frenchmen.
When Nassar nationalized the canal, all these people
were called home, and there was no one to operate
the canal. The West believed, and hoped, that Egypt
would prove itself unable to run the canal by itself,
that it would foimder in financial and political troubles,
and that the Nasser regime would discredit itself. The
Egyptian government turned to us for assistance, and
we immediately sent them pilots and engineers. As a
result,Egypt managed the take-over smoothly, and the
canal was soon reopened under Egyptian management.
This whole situation had generated white-hot fric-
tion between the Great Powers in the Near East. The
crisiswas another result of DuUes's high-handed pres-
sure politics. But in the final analysis, Dulles's policies
backfired and helped bring us and Egypt closer to-
gether. In a way Dulles did Egypt a service by showing
Nasser who his real friends and his real enemies were.
Nasser appreciated this fact, and [in 1958] he asked us
if he might visit the Soviet Union. After discussing his
request in the collective leadership, we said we were
ready to receive him any time. We exchanged views
in the leadership about all the issues which Egypt
might care to discuss. We made sure that there was a
consensus on our own position, and then I was in-
structed to meet with Nasser on a one-to-one basis. It
was to be my first acquaintance with him.
Nasser came to see us after vacationing in Yugo-
slavia. He impressed me from the moment I met him.
He was a yoimg man, self-contained and intelli-
still
gent, and there was always a smile twinkling at the
comers of his mouth. If you want to know my personal
impression, I liked him very much. Our meeting was
held just outside the city of Novoye Ogarevo. Nasser
had his ambassador Ghaleb with him. Ghaleb was a
bright and very interesting man, completely deserving
of our respect. He spoke Russian well and served
as
Nasser's interpreter.
484 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Suddenly word came to us that there had been a

military coup in Baghdad. Naturally we welcomed the
news because it meant the long-overdue end of one of
the most reactionary, terroristic regimes in the world.
The dictator, a sly old agent of English imperialism,
was killed.® The coup could justly be called a revolu-
tionary overthrow, and we could see that the new
leader Kassem represented the progressive forces of
Iraq. We already had some information on Kassem. He
had had sporadic contacts with Communists and even
called himself a Communist. We could tell from Nas-
ser's reaction when he was told about the coup that
the news came as a complete surprise to him. He was
obviously very excited and said he must return to the
Near East immediately. Shortly before the coup in
Iraq, Egypt and Syria had formed the United Arab
Republic, and Nasser nourished the hope that the new
Iraqi government would fall into Hne with the policies
of Egypt. This was a completely understandable desire,
but as it turned out, neither Nasser's hopes nor our
own information about Kassem were borne out. Kas-
sem turned out to be highly unstable politically.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. When word of the
coup in Iraq first reached us, Nasser was determined
to return to Yugoslavia and travel from there with his
family to Alexandria by boat.
I thought about this for a moment and then offered
my own thoughts on the matter for his consideration.
"Mr. President," I said, "I wouldn't advise you to re-
turn by boat across the Mediterranean. The coup in
Iraq has touched off a very volatile situation through-
out that whole area. The USA, England, and other
countries are moving their military units into place
and preparing for action. Tension is mounting. You
don't exactly enjoy the sympathy of the Western coun-
tries. It would be easy for them to sink your ship at
sea and impossible for anyone to prove what happened.
There you would be, the President of the United Arab
—
Republic, aboard an unarmed yacht a sitting duck for

8. The reference here is to the assassination of Nuri Pasha.

The Russians appear to have been wholly ignorant of the situa-
tion in Iraq. They knew as little about Kassem, as anybody else.
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 485

any airplane or submarine that happened to be snoop-

ing around in the area. I would strongly advise you to
fly from Baku [in Soviet Azerbaidzhan] to Iran, then
on to Iraq, and from there to Syria. You won't have
any trouble getting back to Cairo from Damascus."
Nasser thought it over and agreed. At that time our
relations with Iran weren't bad, but they weren't very
good either. Therefore we never used Iran's territorial
airspace without requesting special permission to do
so. However, I was sure that the Shah wouldn't refuse
because during his visit to the Soviet Union we had
sensed on his part considerable interest in improving
our relations. Naturally, when we requested permis-
sion to fly over Iran, we didn't say that our passenger
was going to be the President of the UAR. We thought
up some story and received permission almost imme-
diately. Not long after Nasser left we got word that he
had arrived safely in Syria.
The Egyptian military delegations which visited us
regularly were usually led by Amer, the commander
in chief of the Egyptian army.® I should mention that
this man Amer later came to a tragic end. He com-
mitted suicide as a result of the disastrous defeat suf-
fered by the Egyptian army. He took responsibility for
the defeat. Perhaps he was partially to blame; it's hard
for me to judge. However, when I knew him he always
impressed me as an honest, decent man, devoted to
the cause of the Egyptian people.
After preliminary approaches to our embassy people
in Cairo, Amer came to Moscow with a proposal that
we should build the Aswan Dam. At first we refused.
I thought at the time that Tito had put this idea ia
the Egyptians' heads, urging them to bring to bear on
us all the friendly pressure they could muster in order
to persuade us to build the dam fo;r them. The reason
I believed that, and still do, is that whenever Tito and
I met, he always defended Nasser vigorously and
praised him to the skies. He always said that we must
help Egypt, and he was absolutely right. Life has borne

9. Deputy Supreme Commander of the Egyptian forces,

ar-
rested after the six-day war in August, 1967; he committed
suicide in September, 1967.
486 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

him out [a favorite Khrushchevism] And, in the long

.

run, w^e've followed Tito's advice. Of course we've had

our differences. Our press has sometimes had critical
things to say about Egypt, but the Egyptians have al-
ways been able to count on us to take their side at
crucial moments.
The Egyptians wouldn't take no for an answer about
the Aswan Dam. Amer knew how to be persistent with-
out being annoying. Whenever he came to Moscow he
always asked for a personal appointment with me. He
kept trying to convince me that Egypt's request that
we build the dam was based on a consideration of our
mutual interests, and that it would be profitable for us
as well as for Egypt. He stressed that the dam would
allow the Egyptians to increase their arable land by
one third, and that this would mean great wealth for
his country and for anyone willing to invest in its
future.
I told him we agreed, but that we couldn't afford the
huge capital investments required to build the dam.
After one of these meetings we talked over the Egyp-
tian request in the leadership and instructed our
economists at the State Planning Commission to study
the Egyptian proposal carefully. They did so and some
time later gave us a projection of what the dam would
yield in the way of an economic as well as poHtical
return on our investment. We were interested in de-
termining whether it would be a profitable business
transaction. Naturally we would be glad to have an
opportunity to bolster the economy of our friends and
in so doing to strengthen our relations with them. But
that was a poHtical consideration, and we had also to
make sure that we wouldn't simply be giving our
money away. We had to make sure that the Egyptians
could repay us in regular deliveries of their best long-
fiber cotton, rice, and other goods. ^^
However, I don't want to give the impression that
we were helping them out of mercenary motives. Not
at all. We were more interested in politics than eco-

10. Compare with Klhrushchev's earlier remark: "We didn't

really need anything we might have been able to get from
Egypt."
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 487

nomics. By building the dam we would be winning the

priceless prize of the Egyptian people's trust and
gratitude. And not just the trust of the Egyptian peo-
ple, but the trust of all Arabs. And not just the trust
of all Arabs, but of all other underdeveloped countries,
especially in Africa. Our assistance to the Egyptians
would demonstrate that the Soviet Union could be
counted on to aid needy peoples the world over who
were liberating themselves from colonial rule. Further-
more, we knew that strengthening the Arab countries
meant weakening the camp of our enemies.
So we signed an agreement with the Egjrptians on
the building of the Aswan Dam.
During the negotiations the Egyptians suggested
that weshould take the role of contractor in the proj-
ect. We hadrejected this arrangement in the past with
other countries, and we rejected it now with Egypt.
We refused to put ourselves in the position of con-
tractor because it would have meant hiring Egyptian
manpower. It would have led to an employer-employee
relationship between us and the Egyptian people, and
they would have begun to resent us as exploiters. In
order to avoid conflict with local populations we had
made it a matter of policy never to be a contractor in
countries to whom we gave credit loans.
Therefore we told the Egyptians, "We'U supply you
with all the equipment, plans, maintenance facilities,
and technical supervision you need; but our specialists
wiU report to you for approval on all matters, and you
will take care of hiring the work crews yourselves."
The signing of the Aswan Dam treaty was another
turning point in our relations with Egypt. It gave them
an accurate and promising picture of our intentions
with regard to all countries who were emerging from
under the yoke of colonialism.
Our by studying the
engineers and scientists started
blueprints for the dam which had been drawn up and
submitted by Western engineers. Our men beheved
they could find a more advanced, more ingenious, and
more efficient of harnessing the resources of the
way
river to a hydrostation. I think it's a realistic assess-
ment of the facts, and not just boasting, when I say
 488 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

that our specialists are the most exi>erienced in the

world when it comes to building hydroelectric plants.
When work was ready to start, the Egyptian leaders
suggested that a Soviet delegation come to Aswan to
acquaint itself on the spot with Soviet-Egyptian co-
operation in action. The Egyptians made a point of
inviting me to lead the Soviet delegation, and I under-
stood why: they wanted to foster better relations, and
they thought they had best go straight to the top and
talk to me personally.
I don't deny that I had a great desire to visit 'Egypt
and to see that fabled land and its ancient culture with
my ov^m eyes. I would have loved to attend the founda-
tion-stone ceremony at the site of the Aswan Dam
project, but I was unable to accept the invitation.
Some time passed. The work went on apace, in the
construction of the Aswan Dam and of other projects
as well. We built, or rather financed, a steel mill, a
pharmaceutical factory, and a number of other plants,
too. The construction of the Aswan Dam brought us
together with the Egyptian people as well as with the
Egyptian government. Our specialists worked side by
side on the same machines with their engineers and
peasants, and a great reservoir of mutual trust and
respect was built up.
As the construction of the Aswan power plant neared
its final —
stage the closing of the river channel and
—
the mounting of the hydroturbines the Egyptians in-
sisted that I be present for the triumphant occasion
when the prayers of the Egyptian people would finally
be answered. Nasser asked me not to come just for
the ceremony but to stay for a while, to take a vaca-
tion in Egypt. He said it would give us a chance to
conduct talks in a relaxed atmosphere, and that it
would be very useful for both of us. As an added
incentive for me to come, the Egyptians reminded us
that there were still a few Communists left in jail in
Egypt, and the Premier promised that these prisoners
would be released in honor of my visit.
We agreed to make the trip. We went in May, 1964.
I was accompanied by our Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko, and Deputy Minister
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 489
of Defense Grechko. We included Grechko in our dele-
gation because we wanted him to handle negotiations
with the military comrades from the Arab Republic.
As for Gromyko, his wide knowledge of foreign affairs
was indispensable to us.
The moment we arrived in Aswan we felt as though
we had stepped into an oven. I had been warned that it
was scorching hot in Egypt and that it rained only once
every few years. Of course, for some illnesses this is
the most therapeutic sort of climate, but for us it was
almost unbearable. There was no escape from the burn-
ing sun. Fortunately, our quarters were air-condi-
tioned, but there was no way of taking a cold shower.
The cold water was "cold" only in the sense that it
wasn't heated artificially.
We were given a welcome appropriate to my high
position and to our good relations with Egypt. When
the triumphant hour came for the damming of the
river, President Nasser turned to me during the cere-
mony and said, "This is our dam, but in fact you have
built it, you have financed it, your people designed it,
and without you we would never have been able to
begin. Therefore I ask you please to join me in throw-
ing the switch which will divert the waters of the Nile
from their ancient course." Well, this was certainly a
great honor, and there was no sense in my refusing,
so I thanked him and agreed with pleasure. The Presi-
dent and I threw the switch together. An explosion
shook the air, and the water rushed into its new course.
There were huge crowds of people attending the cere-
mony, and I can't express how marvelous it was to see
all the faces light up and the eyes sparkle with triumph
as the mighty waters of the Nile began to turn the
turbines which would give Egypt a new way of hfe.
Later Iwas told that two men were caught in the
tunnels and washed away. This accident was certainly
careless and shortsighted on somebody's part.
That afternoon there was a reception for me at a club
which belonged to our own specialists. They invited
me to appear before them and to give a speech. I ac-
cepted with pleasure. Their spirits were high. I brought
them good news about the state of affairs back home.
490 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

That evening, about sunset, a large meeting w^as

scheduled. President Nasser was going to give a speech,
and we were invited. The meeting was held in the
evening because it would have been impossible for
people to sit outside in the heat listening to speeches
during the day.
I believe that evening in his speech was the first
time Nasser said Egypt was going to build Socialism.
Actually, he said the Egyptians were going to build
their society on the basis of "scientific socialism," which
we took to mean Marxism. He did not cite Marx or
Lenin by name for a number of reasons. First, he was
still having trouble coming to terms with Marxism in
his ov^m mind. Second, he had to take into account the
attitude of some of his enemies. But most important,
some of his allies still failed fully to understand what
Marxism had to offer them. Therefore his choice of the
phrase "scientific sociahsm" was a concession to all
these different elements and considerations, but it also
represented a big step forward. In short, I was pleased
by his speech.
I had a brief speech of my ovni prepared, and it was
well received by the audience. The next person to
speak was Ben Bella [of Algeria] He was one of the
.

most impressive men I met in Egypt. He struck me as

a man of culture, an educated man who understood
the issues involved in the building of Socialism. He
gave an excellent speech.
Then Aref [of Iraq] spoke. His speech was full of
talk about the Arab people this, the Arab people that,
the interests of the Arab people, and so on. While Aref
was speaking, Ben Bella kept glancing over in my
direction. He was smiling. He knew
shared his dis-
I
agreement vdth Aref's speech. After Aref finished,
Ben Bella came over to me and tried to persuade me
that I should reply to what Aref had said. I said that I'd
already spoken once and that I didn't have another
speech prepared. Furthermore, it would be inappropri-
ate for me as a guest to turn the meeting into a debate.
I said it would be very unpleasant for Nasser if I
started an argument. But at this point Nasser himself
intervened and said to me, "I'd like to ask you to go
ahead and answer Aref. You won't be starting a polem-
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 491

ic.You don't even have to mention Aref by name. Go

ahead and express your viewpoint on this subject. It
will be useful for Aref as well as for the rest of us to
hear."
So I agreed. I took the floor and here is what I
said:
Aref seemed to be suggesting that all Arabs have
the same interests, that Arab peoples are not divided
into classes, and that Arab leaders have a commitment
to the Arab people as a whole. Well, I had had a dis-
pute with Nasser on this same subject a few years
earlier, but now Nasser had left that stage behind in
the development of his own thinking. Apparently Aref
had yet to overcome a very common misunderstanding
about the nature of Arab society. I said it was certainly
a mistake to regard the Arab people as a single, unified
entity. Arab society, I explained, has a complicated
social structure like every other society. The Arab
world is not a monolith. There are Arab slaves and
Arab capitalists; there are Arab peasants and Arab
landowners; there is an Arab working class and an
Arab bourgeoisie. I said I felt it was reasonable to ask
an Arab leader exactly whom he was speaking for
when he talked about "the Arab people" and "Arab
interests." An Arab peasant wants to work his own
land, while an Arab landowner doesn't want to give
up his land; he wants to exploit the peasant. Arab
workers want shorter hours and higher wages, while
Arab capitaHst employers want them to work longer
hours for lower wages. "So what Arabs are you speak-
ing for?" I asked, "For Arab workers or Arab capital-
ists?"
It perfectly clear to everyone that I was taking
was
issue with Aref, but no one seemed to mind. When I
finished, I was pleased with what I had said. I felt I

had sown the seeds of a correct understanding of the

class structure of society.
I could, however, sympathize with the reasons
for
Aref's emphasis on "Arab socialism." For years the
Arab people had been under the yoke of the English
colonialists, and then they had to wage war
against
the Israelis, who had seized theu: lands. To them, "Arab
socialism" meant Arab imity against a common ex-
492 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
temal enemy. I knew that when Aref espoused the
cause of "Arab socialism" rather than "scientific social-
ism," it wasn't because he opposed Nasser. Not at all.
In Aref's eyes, Nasser represented absolute authority.
I think Aref simply hadn't gone far enough in his own
thinking. The fruit of class consciousness still hadn't
ripened in him, and he hadn't yet come to grips with
the question of the class struggle.
Ben Bella and Nasser were both very pleased with
my speech. Ben Bella was obviously delighted because
he had been the first to encourage me to speak. He
—
came up to me afterwards and said now calling me
—
comrade, I noticed "Comrade Khrushchev, I'm sure
you understand that even though you're quite right in
your criticism of Aref's position, we still have to deal
with him. More than that, we will support him to the
end. Aref is with us all the way and he will never
stray. For the time being he stands for Arab unity as
he understands it, but the day will come when he will
understand what you're saying."
Later, our people who understood Arabic informed
me that my speech had been exceptionally well re-
ceived among the Arabs in the audience. One of our
specialists told me that his Arab chauffeur had told
him that my speech had opened his eyes to a whole
new conception of Arab unity. "I'd never realized it
before," this chauffeur told our specialist, "but of
course we Arabs have different class interests among
ourselves!" For us, of course, this realization is as
elementary as A-B-C, but for the Arabs it was some-
thing new. No one had told them before. Part of the
reason was that the Communist Party had to remain
imderground in the Arab world, and as a result its
message never reached the common people.
My stay in Egypt was very pleasant. We visited the
Nile Delta, took a train ride along the Suez Canal, and
spent two or three days on board a ship in the Red
Sea. Some of our comrades went svdmming, but I
passed that up. I did do some fishing, however. The
fishing was excellent. The coastal landscape of the Red
Sea reminded us very much of the shoreline along our
ov^m Caspian Sea. We had many informal but useful
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 493
conversations during this boat trip. For one thing, it
was much easier to breathe here than in the desert
around Aswan.
We visited Luxor, the ancient capital of the Egyptian
kingdom, with rich historical monuments which we
would have to save from being submerged in the flood
caused by the Aswan Dam.^^
We also visited factories, some of them already in
operation, which had been built with our assistance
and cooperation. I remember being shown around a
pharmaceutical plant which we had financed. In the
old days, the Egyptians, who are a poor people, had
been paying huge sums of money for medicines from
England, and now they would be able to produce drugs
much cheaper by themselves.
I knew enough geography to realize that the land on
either side of the Nile Valley was desert, but I was
still startled v/hen I flew over the area and could see
from the air how the rim of green, which was life, met
the waterless expanse of the desert, which was death.
I can't compete with people who have a gift for fancy
description, but I'd still like to offer my own impres-
sions of Egypt. Despite the climate, which is so hard
to get used to, with its sweltering, enervating atmo-
sphere, it's nonetheless a rich and beautiful country.
When, as a boy, I studied the scriptures in the parish
school, the priest used to show us pictures and tell us
stories about paradise. The Nile Valley reminded me
very much of what I had imagined heaven would be
like in childhood. It's a country rich in all the
my
fabled beauties of nature, lush green foUage, and exotic
birds.
One interesting thing about Egyptian hosts was
my
I had
that they abstained from drinking any liquor
known before, of course, that Mushms are forbidden
by their religion to drink, but not aU Muslims abide
by the counsel of their prophet. However, at banquets
nothing but
in Egypt I found that my hosts served
sculp-
monuments
11. The saving of the ancient Egyptian ^f
waters of the dam
tures from being submerged forever by the
international operation on a tremendous
was, of course, an
scale.
494 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
fruit juice. These juices were delicious and thirst-
quenching. They were made from many different kinds
of fruit. My experience was that Egyptian fruit juices
provided the best possible relief from the awful heat,
and I'd like to express my own gratitude for the wis-
dom their prophet showed when he told the Muslims
not to drink alcohol.
I was very much impressed by Nasser's tremendous
prestige as a leader among the Egyptian people. Every-
where we went, he was hailed enthusiastically with
chants of "Nasser! Nasser! Nasser!" I was, however,
somewhat alarmed about Nasser's health. During one
—
excursion with hhn I think it was outside of Alex-
—
andria ^he suddenly felt faint. He had the car stop.
His eyeballs rolled back in his head, and he lay down
on the back seat. He excused himself and was driven
back to Alexandria, but he insisted that we continue
our tour. Amer was almost always with us. He and
Nasser were the closest of friends. They had neighbor-
ing apartments, and their two families lived together
like one. Their children played with each other and so
on. I was pleased to see two such good friends, both
men of intelligence and sound judgment, working to-
gether to elevate Egypt from its primitiveness and
poverty into a progressive society and a prosperous
economy.
When Nasser and Amer took me out into the coun-
tryside, I could see that the farmers were trying their
best to put their plots of land to good use and that the
government was trjdng to create more humane condi-
tions for the population of rural villages. Butmy gen-
eral impression was that the agricultural reforms then
under way were not based on any very advanced prin-
ciples of revolutionary organization. Naturally I kept
my observations to myself. As a guest I should look
and listen, not offer imsolicited advice. Yet I couldn't
help but compare all the trouble the Egyptians were
having with the remarkable success we were having in
our own agricultural campaigns in such Central Asian
Republics as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tadzhik-
istan. As an old pro at opening up new lands, I felt
a strong urge to tell Nasser what I thought.
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 495

A few days later Nasser and I were having dinner

together alone at his villa in Alexandria. I raised the
subject very cautiously. I forget whether I called him
Comrade Nasser or Mr. President, but I remember the
gist of what I said: "I have a few thoughts I'd like to
share with you, although I'm hesitant to comment on
what is completely your own business."
"Go ahead. Tell me what's on your mind."
"I've been thinking about the lands which you're
going to open up when you start using the dam for
irrigation."
"Well, what about them? We're going to develop
the land by dividing it up and distributing it among
the people. Right now there's a terrible shortage of
land for our peasants."
This was nothing new to me. I decided to push a
little further. "Of course, you're undertaking a huge
project, and I knowwill yield enormous rewards for
it
you. But please permit me to make a few observations.
I'll ask you in advance not to be offended. I realize

that it is inappropriate for me, as your guest, to impose

on your indulgence like this. These are my own
thoughts, and they're in no way binding on you. You
can just hear me out, and it will be up to you whether
or not to take my
advice."
"Please go ahead," he said. "I'm listening."
"If I were in your place, I would not divide up the
land and portion it out to individual peasants. I would
—
instead set up state farms what we call Soviet State
Agricultural Enterprises. We've had a lot of experience
with this system in the Central Asian Republics where
climate and soil conditions are very comparable to
yours. We are proceeding with huge land-development
projects on the barren steppes. We have decided not
to set up collective farms there but rather to found
city-like conmiunities with everything from schools to
barbershops, everything that's necessary to service the
farmers' daily needs. Naturally this requires enormous
funds and capital investments, but our experience has
shown us that three or four good harvests are enough
to recoup our investment in a state farm. I guarantee,
a state farm system will make a mint of money for you.
 496 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

"And I hope you won't be offended if I tell you some-

thing else. When I was in school in the old pre-Revolu-
tionary days, we used to see pictures of the irrigation
system that was used in Egypt back in the time of
Rameses I. From what I've seen, I'd say Egypt uses
exactly the same system today, under Nasser I, yet
thousands of years have gone by. Why is this? It's be-
cause a man working a tiny plot of land can't possibly
afford to install a pump in his well, just as he can't
afford a seed-sowing machine or a cotton baler. Big
pieces of modem equipment like that wouldn't even
have room to turn around on a tiny patch of land.
"I realize that if you share out the land the peasants
will accept it and they will deify you for your progres-
sivism and your generosity. But you still won't be able
to introduce technology as part of your agricultural
reforms because modern farm machinery is neither
necessary nor even feasible on a tiny plot. Believe me,
if you share out small pieces of land to individual
farmers, the Egyptian peasant will remain just as much
a slave to his ov^m land as he has been for centuries."
Nasser hstened to me attentively and said, "I'm
afraid what you're suggesting simply isn't possible for
us. We don't have the necessary specialists and super-
visors to institute a state farm system. There's also the
problem of corruption. We simply wouldn't be able to
establish sufficient controls to prevent embezzlement
and black-marketeering, and as a result our state
farms would run at a heavy loss."
"Well," I said, "that's up to you to decide. I've told
you my recommendation. You know your people better
than I do, and you know the problems and potential of
your economy better than I. But on the matter of con-
trolling corruption, I can tell you that we've had to put
up with a certain amount of pilfering, too, but we've
managed to keepunder control. Now, as far as spe-
it
cialists areconcerned, you can simply take them from
among your army officers. Send them to us in the
Soviet Union. We'll let them work for a year on our
own state farms so that they can learn the system
there while we're finishmg the Aswan Dam here. That
way, you'll be ready to develop the land to its full
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 497

potential without losing time when the dam is finished

and the new lands are opened up."
On the subject of irrigation I told him about a French
farm I once visited at de Gaulle's invitation near the
border of Spain. I was amazed at how fertile it was. I
was entranced at how the irrigation system worked.
The water was channeled through reinforced concrete
races so that there would be no leakage. The hillslopes
were carefully angled to control the level of water, and
the whole system was mechanized. I had been very
impressed and subsequently sent our own engineers to
France to study their system.^^ I told Nasser I thought
the French irrigation method might be very effective
in Egypt and easy to introduce. I could see that he was
starting to listen even more closely and began to ask
some questions.
A few days later we were driving from the palace
where I was staying to Nasser's villa. He turned to me
and smiled, "You know, Comrade Khrushchev, I've
been thinking about our conversation of the other day.
I told Amer about it. That was a very alluring offer
you made, and I now see that it would be much to our
advantage for us to take you up on it. It might be
profitable for you, too."
I replied, "If you think that what I suggested might
be a progressive course for you to follow, then it will
have been more than worth while to have made
my
this trip." I told him that in order to consummate the
all the
revolution, the Egyptian leadership should take
peasants who were trying to cultivate their own tmy
techniques and
farms with primitive equipment and
consoHdate them into large administrative
umts—in
I tully
other words, collectivize them. I told Nasser
appreciated how difficult a task this
was. We had
experienced troubles of our own when
agriculture m
the Soviet Union was collectivized—
and when 1 say
But once the
"troubles," that's an understatement.
state control,
Egyptians brought all the land under

12. In his genuine admiration of and e^^^^X^llev^hows

French irrigation system below the Pyrenees f\r^^^f ^^^^.^
which does not appear
his liveliest and' most sympathetic side,
in this narrative as often as it might.
 498 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

they could organize the peasants into cooperatives and

set up state farms. From then on they would develop
smoothly and profitably. Later I found out from the
newspapers that Nasser followed through on the idea
he and I had discussed. An Egyptian delegation did
come to the Soviet Union to study the state farm sys-
tem. I was very pleased to read that my counsel had
remained in force even after I retired from the post
which I held during the time I was in Egypt. It proved
that Nasser wasn't simply deferring to my position
when he expressed interest in my offer; he must have
really been convinced of the wisdom of my advice.
In summary, I think our policy toward Egypt was
unquestionably sound, and it has already repaid us in
full. I'm still convinced my own judgments were cor-i
—
rect despite the grumbliiig of those skunks, thosd
narrow-minded skunks who raised such a stink and
tried to poison the waters of our relations with Egypt.^^-

Egypt is in grave straits today. I remember my last;

conversation with President Nasser during my visit
there in 1964. He told me that he had a troublesome
situation on his hands within his own country and
within the Arab world. He said that the wounds in-
flicted on the Arab people by the creation of the state
of Israel would never heal because Arabs had been
driven off their lands, and these Arabs now found
themselves in severe trouble, both economically and
politically. Before I retired, I made speeches from time
to time against Isi^el's aggressive pohcy. I certainly"
sympathized with Nasser's position.
There's no question in my mind that Israel started
the war against Egypt [in 1967], and I think it's only
a propaganda trick when Israel says it's ready to enter
into direct negotiations with Egypt to work out a nego-
tiated settlement of the conflict. In fact, since the war
Israel has taken a more aggressive stance than ever
and is looking for a chance to use military means to

13. This sudden and surprisingly bitter outburst evidently

refers to some conflict inside the Kremlin about which we know
nothing.
 NASSER, SUEZ, AND THE ASWAN DAM 499
destroy the Egyptian armed forces and to compel Egypt
to sign a peace treaty on Israel's own terms.
But there are a couple of things I can't understand
that happened before Israel's attack on Egypt. It's not
at all clear to me why Egypt demanded that U Thant
remove the UN troops from the border between Egypt
and Israel. These forces were a restraining influence
on the Israeli aggressors. They were helping to neu-
tralize the threat of a clash along the border. I remem-
ber we voted in favor of sending a UN peace-keeping
force to the Near East in order to prevent war from
breaking out between the two hostile states, Egypt and
Israel. It's simply incomprehensible to me why Egj^pt
demanded that these forces be removed.
Nor can I understand what goal Egypt thought it was
pursuing when it closed the Suez Canal, which was the
main waterway used by Israel from the Mediterranean
Ocean to the Red Sea.
Israel took advantage of these actions on Egypt's
part. The Israeh aggressors seized Egyptian territories,
and Israel is still exploiting them today, thereby mak-
ing things very hard on Egypt.
And another thing: If Egypt was prepared for war
against Israel, then why was Israel able to crush the
Egyptian army in six days?
All these questions puzzle me, and I don't have any
idea what the answer to them is because I was already
in retirement when these events developed. All I know
is that during the period when we were actively con-
cerned with the Near East, we conducted a policy
which was Leninist in spirit. Our policy has already
borne fruit for our own Soviet people and for the
peoples of all countries of the world who beHeve in
peaceful coexistence and self-determination.
 17

The Berlin Crises

Here we are ojfered a view from Moscow of all-too'

familiar ground: the conflict over Germany as seen
through Khrushchev's eyes. Of 'particular interest is
the account of the armed confrontation between Soviet
and American forces at the time of the building of the
Berlin Wall, which Khrushchev refers to as the es-
tahlishment of border control. Khrushchev telescopes
the chronology of the two Berlin crises: the first was
in November, 1958, when Moscow gave the Western
powers six m^onths to evacuate Berlin; the second was
in 1961, after the m^eeting in Vienna between Khru-
shchev and President Kennedy, from which Khru-
shchev gained the erroneous idea that he could bully
the new President.

After Hitler was crushed, East and West Germany

each chose a different political system. East Germany
decided in favor of building Socialism, and West Ger-
many went the route of capitalism.^
When we began to face up to the problem of West
Berlin after Stalin's death, we realized that the agree-
ment which had liquidated the blockade of West Berlin
[1948-49] was unfair. ^ The West had managed to ex-

1. East Germany had no choice. It was sealed off from the

West by Soviet troops and ruled by Moscow-trained Com-
munists (Otto Grotewohl, WLlhelm Pieck, and Walter Ulbricht).
Three months after Stalin's death in 1953, a popular uprising
was put down expeditiously by Soviet tanks.
2. Hie blockade, defeated by the Allied airlift, was imposed
by the Russians to strangle West Berlin by preventing access
to it. The tensions referred to here were thus set up by Stalin,

500
 THE BERLIN CRISES 501
ploit the tension generated by the blockade and to
impose conditions on East Germany which were even
more constraining and one-sided than the ones set by
the Potsdam agreement. The international situation
throughout Europe was highly unstable, and therefore
internal stabilization was impossible for the German
Democratic Republic [East Germany]. Germany was
a sort of barometer. The slightest fluctuation in the
pressure of the world political atmosphere naturally
registered at that point where the forces of the two
sides were squared off against each other.
We wanted very much to reheve the tension which
was building up dangerously over West Berlin, and
we knew that the only way we could do it would be
to conclude a peace treaty with the West. This posed
a problem: on what basis would it be possible to reach
an agreement with the Western powers? It was al-
ready too late to talk about a treaty that would reunify
Germany because neither East Germany nor West
Germany wanted to accept the social-political system
of the other side. That much we understood and ac-
cepted. But we still sincerely wanted to find some
workable and mutually beneficial terms for a treaty
that would stabilize the situation, further the cause of
peace, and uphold the rights of everyone involved. It
was clear that the existing situation was dangerous,
and also that both sides wanted to avoid mihtary
confrontation.
Therefore we came to the conclusion that we should
work out a peace treaty which would consolidate the
status of Germany as fixed by the Potsdam agreement.
The Potsdam agreement was considered a temporary
solution pending the Allies' conclusion of a peace treaty
with Germany. Our proposal would have legitimized
the provisional de facto situation and made it perma-
nent. We were simply asking the other side to acknowl-
edge that two irreconcilable social-pohtical structures
existed in Germany, Socialism in East Germany and
capitalism m West Germany. We were asking only for
formal recognition of two German Republics, each of
which would sign the treaty. According to our pro-
502 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

posal West Berlin would have special status as a free

city.^
Clearly, some of the terms of the Potsdam agreement
were already out of date. At the very least, adjustments
in the treaty were required as regarded the use of East
German territory for access to West BerHn. Strictly
for the sake of adhering to international law, the West
should have come to terms with us on this account. As
it was, the West was putting its own, very one-sided
interpretation on the question of the GDR's right to
control its borders. The problem had not been foreseen
—
by the Potsdam agreement an omission in the treaty
which the West was turning to its own purposes.* This
was another reason why a permanent peace treaty was
required. The legal rights of the GDR
were at stake.
The issue still exists today.
The Western powers rejected our proposal for the j

recognition of two German RepubHcs. In response, we

warned that we might have no choice but to initiate a
peace treaty unilaterally, and we proposed a date for j
a meeting of all countries who wanted to sign the
treaty. Wewarned that even if certain countries re-
fused to sign, the rest of us would go ahead and
conclude a treaty with the GDR. We
would then be
obliged to act according to the terms of the new treaty
on various matters, iacluding the matter of access to
West Berlin.
Meanwhile, Walter Ulbricht and our other comrades
in the GDR were facing serious troubles directly stem-
ming from the ambiguous status of West Berlin. Berlin
was an open city, which posed two problems: First,
there was the problem of people crossing from East
Berlin into West Berlin. The GDR had to cope with
an enemy who was economically very powerful and
therefore very appealing to the GDR's own citizens.
West Germany was all the more enticing to East Ger-

3.This refers to iiie 1958 crisis. The Russians were asking for
much more than a formal recognition of the divisions of Ger-
many. They demanded the evacuation of West Berlin by Allied
forces.
4. The Potsdam Agreement had not foreseen the forcible and
permanent division of Germany.
 —
F THE BERLIN CRISES 503
mans because they all spoke the same language. An
East German with adequate professional qualifications
had no difficulty finding a job if he moved to West
Germany. The resulting drain of workers was creating
a simply disastrous situation in the GDR, which was
already suffering from a shortage of manual labor, not
to mention specialized labor. If things had continued
like this much
longer, I don't know what would have
happened. I spent a great deal of time trying to think
of a way out. How
could we introduce incentives in
the GDR
to counteract the force behind the exodus of
East German youths to West Germany? Here was an
—
important question ^the question of incentives. How
could we create conditions in the GDR
which would
enable the state to regulate the steady attrition of its
working force ?^
The second problem was the problem of the West
Berliners' easy access to East Berlin. Residents of
West Berlin could cross freely into East Berlin, where
they took advantage of all sorts of communal services
like barbershops and so on. Because prices were much
lower in East Berlin, West Berliners were also buying
up all sorts of products which were in wide demand
products like meat, animal oil, and other food items,
and the GDR was losing millions of marks.
Of course, even if we had a peace treaty, it wouldn't
have solved these problems because Berlin's status as
a free city would have been stipulated in the treaty
and the gates would have remained open.
I discussed this situation with Comrade
Ulbricht and
the other leaders of the member Parties of the
Warsaw
Pact. I stressed that Ulbricht had an especially
heavy
burden on his shoulders. Every other country had its

was free to decide

own laws, its own border rights, and
interests ot
domestic and foreign policy for itself, in the
its own people. But the GDR had
neither these rights

nor this freedom.

5. Khrushchev has now moved on to the ^,°|, *ii^ (l^l

"^^^^f
crisis. By July the flood of refugees pouring ^'^J^^f^^l^^^
many into West Germany had assumed ^^""'^^IZZZ^hT-
economy was be
(ten thousand a week) and the East German
coming impossibly strained in consequence.
504 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

The GDR's economic problems were considerably

relieved by the establishment of border control be-
tween East and West Berlin.^ Comrade Ulbricht him-
self told me that the economy of the GDR immediately
began to improve after the establishment of border
control. The demand for food products in East Berlin
went down because West Berliners were no longer
able to shop there. This meant that the limited supply
of consumer products was available exclusively to the
citizens of East Berlin.
Furthermore, the establishment of border control in
Berlin had a very p>ositive effect on the consciousness
of the people. It strengthened them and reminded them
that the task of building Socialism was a challenge of
solid and lasting importance, dwarfing the temporary
phenomenon West German propaganda which had
of
been used totempt East Germans over to the side of
capitalism. The establishment of border control re-
stored order and discipline in the East Germans' lives:
(and Germans have always appreciated discipline).
Seeing that their government had reasserted control
over its own frontiers, the East Germans were heart-
ened by the solidification and fortification of their state.
Of course there were some difficulties. The East
Berliners who had jobs in West Berlin were suddenly
out of work. But there was never any problem of
unemployment. On the contrary, most of the people
affected were construction workers, who were very
much needed in East Germany. They were all given
jobs suitable to their qualifications.
There were illegal attempts to cross over to the
West, resulting in some incidents along the border,
some of them with unpleasant outcome. Such un-
pleasantness had to be expected. Border guards were
forced to use the means which had been put at their
disposal to prevent violation of the border."^ The inci-
dents were exploited by the West and blown complete-
ly out of proportion.

6. The phrase "establishment of border control" refers to the

Berlin Wall, started on August 13, 1961.
7. Border guards in most countries are employed to keep
imdesirable strangers out, not to keep their feUow citizens in.
 THE BERLIN CRISES 505
know there are critics, especially in bourgeois so-
I
cieties,who say we ignored the will of the East
German citizens when we reinforced the sovereignty
of the GDR by closing the borders. I know there are
people who claim that the East Germans are impris-
oned in paradise and that the gates of the Socialist
paradise are guarded by armed troops. I'm aware that
a defect exists, but I believe it*s a necessary and only
temporary defect. We have always wanted to create the
conditions in the GDR which the citizens want. If the
GDR had fuUy tapped the moral and material potential
which will someday be harnessed by the dictatorship
of the working class, there could be unrestricted pas-
sage back and forth between East and West Berlin.
—
Unfortunately, the GDR and not only the GDR ^has —
yet to reach a level of moral and material development
where competition with the West is possible. The
reason is simply that West Germany possesses more
material potential and therefore has more material
goods than the GDR. Of course, there are some of our
more clever Communists who will protest, "No, you
are underestimating our achievement!" and so on.
Well, let's just look at the whole thing soberly. If we
had at our disposal more material potential and had
more abihty to supply our material needs, there's no
question but that our people would be content with
what they would have and they would no longer try
to cross over to the West in such numbers that the
drain has become a major threat to a state like the
GDR.8
It was my dream to create such conditions in Ger-
many that the GDR would become a showcase of
moral, political, and material achievement— all attrac-
tively displayed for the Western world to see and
ad-
mire. Part of the reason for struggling to convince
our
former aUies to sign a peace treaty and thereby to
was to permit
normalize relations between our states,
the development of trade, cultural exchange,
and tour-
ism.

of these admissions does

Khrushchev credit
8. The frankness pohticians.
It strikes a new note in the utterances of Soviet
 506 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Even if we were able to create the conditions in the
GDR which want, we would still have to
its citizens
guard the borders. We
would introduce as much free-
dom as the material conditions would permit, but
naturally under the dictatorship of the working class
there can be no such thing as absolute freedom. As for
other countries which brag about all their freedoms, if
v^e analyze their societies carefully, we'll find that
they have no such thing as absolute freedom either. In
order to feel moral constraint, moral oppression, or
moral bondage, a man must have a highly developed
and highly refined conception of what human freedom
is all about. Most people still measure their own free-
dom or lack of freedom in terms of how much meat,
how many potatoes, or what kind of boots they can get
for one ruble.®
When we established control on the borders of the
GDR, we relied heavily on our own armed forces which
were stationed in Germany after the war. But even as
we took measures to protect the interests of our Ger-
man comrades, we didn't withdraw our proposal, which
would have legitimized the existing borders and guar-
anteed the neutrality and self-determination of West
Berlin as a free city. But the West again rejected our
proposal and now demanded that the border which we
had established be removed. The Western powers
threatened to resort to force. They said they would
use bulldozers to knock out the roadblocks and to level
the barriers which we had erected. They said if neces-
sary they would back up these measures with military
force, and that they were going to take it upon them-
selves to restore conditions which would allow unob-
structed passage back and forth between East and
West Berlin.
We had erected what we thought were solid struc-
tures along the border, but some trucks smashed
through them at full speed and hurtled into West
Berlin. Even more solid structures were then built
in those spots so that the same thing wouldn't happen
again.

9. These philosophical observations on the nature of freedom

strike an equally unusual note.
u
 THE BERLIN CRISES 507
If the Western powers had so desired, they
could
have gone ahead and staged a provocation. But such
an action on their part would have had fairly serious
consequences. Fortunately, articles written with at
least a grain of sense were beginning to appear in the
American press about the risks involved in trying to
use military means to Uquidate the situation which had
developed.
We assumed that the West didn't want to start a war
and our assumption turned out to be correct. Starting
a war over Berlin would have been stupid. There was
no reason to do so. Our establishment of border control
in the GDR didn't give the West either the right or the
pretext to resolve our dispute by war.
By this time President Kennedy was in the White
House. Not long before the events in Berlin came to
a head, I had met Kennedy in Vienna. He impressed
me as a better statesman than Eisenhower. Unlike
Eisenhower, Kennedy had a precisely formulated opin-
ion on every subject [see page 434]. I joked with him
that we had cast the deciding ballot in his election to
the Presidency over that son-of-a-bitch Richard Nixon.
When he asked me what I meant, I explained that by
waiting to release the U-2 pilot Gary Powers until after
the American election, we kept Nixon from being able
to claim that he could deal with the Russians; our ploy
made a difference of at least half a million votes, which
gave Kennedy the edge he needed.
Actually, I had met Kennedy two years before, dur-
ing my visit toAmerica, when Lyndon Johnson intro-
duced me to the yoimg Senator at a Senate Foreign
Relations Committee reception in my honor. I was
impressed with Kennedy. I remember hking his face,
which was sometimes stem but which often broke into
a good-natured smile. As for Nixon, I had been all
too
familiar with him in the past. He had been a puppet of

[Joseph] McCarthy until McCarthy's star began to

him. So
fade, at which point Nixon turned his back on
which the most
he was an unprincipled puppet, is

dangerous kind. I was glad Kennedy won the election,

and I was generally pleased with our meeting in Vi-

enna. Even though we came to no concrete agreement,
508 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
I could tell that he was interested in finding a peaceful
solution to world problems and in avoiding conflict
with the Soviet Union. He was a reasonable man, and
I think he knew that he wouldn't be justified in start-
ing a war over Berlin.
Nevertheless, Kennedy decided to demonstrate his
strength. He reinforced the American garrison and
appointed a general named Clay to take command of
the Western forces in BerUn. Kennedy seemed to be
turning back the clock to the period just after World
War 11.10

The bourgeois press started to grind out propaganda

against us.At this point we were heading toward the
Twenty-second Party Congress. We decided to accept
the challenge which Kennedy had issued. We knew
from our intelHgence what steps the West was taking
to intensify its concentration of troops in Berlin, and
we built up our own garrison accordingly. We ap-
pointed Marshal Konev commander of our troops in
Berlin. We had picked up the gauntlet and were ready
j
for the duel.
I should it clear that our appointment of Mar-
make
shal Konev cormnander was actually just an "admin-
as
istrative" appointment to demonstrate to the West that
we regarded the situation as seriously as they did.^^
Our regular commander in Berlin, who was junior in
rank Konev, remained in charge while Konev re-
to
ported to us in Moscow. The fact that Konev spent
most of his time in Moscow proves that we weren't
expecting the confrontation to escalate into a full-scale
mihtary conflict.
Konev reported he had learned through intelli-
that
gence channels on what day and at what hour the
Western powers were going to begin their actions
against us. They were preparing bulldozers to break
down our border installations. The bulldozers would

10. General Lucius Clay, who had been commandant of

the
American sector of Berlin during the blockade. The clock had
certainly been turned back. But by whom?
11. Marshal I. S. Konev had recently relinquished
command
of theWarsaw Pact forces. His bogus, or "administrative," ap-
pointment was an interesting example of Soviet bluff.
 THE BERLIN CRISES 509
be followed by tanks and wave after wave of jeeps with
infantrymen. This action was timed to coincide with the
opening of the Twenty-second Party Congress.
We went into consultation and worked out in ad-
vance what our response would be. We concentrated
our own infantry units in side streets near the check-
points along the border. We also brought in our tanks
at night and stationed them nearby. Then there was
nothing for us to do but wait and see what the West
would do next.
Then Konev reported that the American bulldozers,
tanks, and jeeps had moved out and were heading in
the direction of our checkpoints. Our men were waiting
calmly and did not move, even when the bulldozers
came right up to the border. Then all at once our tanks
rolled out of the side streets and moved forward to
meet the American tanks.
The American bulldozers and tanks came to a halt.
The jeeps drove past them and crossed over the border
into East Berlin. We didn't try to stop them because,
according to special terms in the Potsdam agreement,
Allied military vehicles were allowed to cross from
one zone to another in Berlin. Therefore we opened
the gates and let the American jeeps through. After
they'd gone a short distance beyond the checkpoint,
the Americans saw our troops stationed in the side
streets and our tanks coming toward them. The Amer-
icans immediately turned their jeeps around and sped
back into West Berlin.
The tanks and troops of both sides spent the night
lined up facing each other across the border. It was
late October and chilly. It certainly must have been
invigorating for oxir tank operators to sit up all night
in cold metal boxes. The next morning Marshal Konev
reported to us that both the American tank crews and
our own had climbed out of their tanks in turn to warm
themselves, but that the barrels of their cannons re-
mained trained on each other across the border.
After Marshal Konev's report I proposed that we
turn our tanks around, pull them back from the border,
and have them take their places in the side streets
Then we would wait and see what happened next. 1
510 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
assured my comrades that as soon as we pulled back
our tanks, the Americans would pull back theirs. They
had taken the initiative in moving up to the border in
the first place, and therefore they would, so to say,
have been in a difficult moral position if we forced
them to turn their backs on the barrels of our cannons.
Therefore we decided that at this point we should
take the initiative ourselves and give the Americans
an opportunity to pull back from the border once the
threat of our tanks had been removed. My comrades
agreed with me. I said I thought that the Americans
would pull back their tanks within twenty minutes
after we had removed ours. This was about how long
it would take their tank commander to report our
move and to get orders from higher up of what to do.
Konev ordered our tanks to pull back from the
border. He reported that just as I had expected, it did
take only twenty minutes for the Americans to re-
spond.
Thus the West had tested our nerve by prodding us
with the barrels of their cannons and found us ready
to accept their challenge. They learned that they
couldn't frighten us. I think it was a great victory for
us, and it was won without firing a single shot.^^ By
refusing to back down in the face of intimidation by
the West, we guaranteed the GDR's right to control
its own territory and its own borders. We
had good
reason to celebrate this moral and material victory,
for we had forced the West to recognize the GDR's
imwritten rights.

12. By aU means the Western Allies gave way over the Wall.
But their troops remained in West Berlin.
 18

Mao Tse-tung and the Schism

In this highly personal and anecdotal account of Kfint-

shchev's and Stalin's relations with Mao Tse-tung
there is nothing to contradict the accepted Western
reconstruction of the genesis and development of the
Sino-Soviet split and there is a good deal to confirm it.
Khrushchev does not add to the story (indeed, he
leaves out much that we know) so much as embroider
it. He concentrates on the personal aspects of the great

schism (whether seen primarily as an ideological con^

flictj or as a conflict of interest between two great
powers) and its seismic effects on the world Commu-
nist movement. He does give us, nevertheless, new and
valuable insights into the bitterness of the conflict, and
above all, his own cTnotional approach to the whole
affair. It is clear that, like most Russians, he found,
and still finds, the Chinese character incomprehensible
and distasteful in the extreme. It is with a visible
effort that he pulls himself together and forces himself
to differentiate Mao and his supporters from the Chi-
nese people, who, he declares with striking lack of
conviction, "are human beings just as we are." Here
we have an echo of the old, loud-mouthed Khrushchev
with his contempt for Chinese ways made strident by
an undercurrent of fear.

Politics is a game, and Mao Tse-tung has played

politics with Asiatic cunning, following his own
rules
of cajolery, treachery, savage vengeance, and deceit.
He deceived us for a number of years before we saw
through his tricks. Talleyrand once said that a diplo-
mat is given a tongue in order to conceal his thoughts.
511
 512 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
The same goes for a politician, and Mao Tse-tung has
always been a master of concealing his true thoughts
and intentions. Why, I remember after the Twentieth
Party Congress, Mao said, "Comrade Khrushchev has
opened our eyes and given us light that we might see.
He has told us the truth at last. We will reform." But
I was always on my guard v^th him. I could tell when
he was wheedling us.
A few years after I retired, the story started circu-
lating that I was the one who started the quarrel
between the USSR and China. I won't even bother to
refute this slander. History has already made nonsense
out of that allegation.
—
Ever since I first met Mao, I've known and I've told
—
my comrades that Mao would never be able to recon-
cile himself to any other Communist Party being in
any way superior to his own vidthin the world Commu-
nist movement. He would never be able to tolerate it.
If Stalin had lived a little longer, our conflict with
China would have come out into the open earlier, and
it probably would have taken the form of a complete

severance of relations.^
Stalin was always fairly critical of Mao Tse-tung. He
had a name for Mao, and it describes him accurately
from a purely Marxist point of view. Stalin used to
say that Mao was a "margarine Marxist" [peschany
Tnarksist] .

When Mao's victorious revolutionary army was ap-

proaching Shanghai, he halted their march and refused
to capture the city. Stalin asked Mao, "Why didn't you
take Shanghai?"
"There's a population of six million there," answered

1. This is a dubious thesis. There was indeed no love lost be-

tween Stalin and Mao. Stalin had supported Chiang BHai-shek
and insulted Mao in doing so. He had also told Mao, shortly
before he achieved his victorious drive in 1948, that any idea of
revolution in China was premature. But Mao respected him as
he never dreamed of respecting Khrushchev. And Stalin would
never have allowed himself to be carried away on a highly
emotional tide of indignation as Khrushchev did. Had Stalin
lived longer, sooner or later Mao would have collided with him,
but later rather than sooner.
 MAO TSE-TUNG AND THE SCHISM 513
Mao. "If we take the
then we'll have to feed all
city,
those people. And where
do we find food to do it?"
Now, I ask you, is that a Marxist talking?
Mao Tse-tung has always relied on the peasants and
not on the working class. That's why he didn't take
Shanghai. He didn't want to take responsibility for
the welfare of the workers. Stalin properly criticized
Mao for this deviation from true Marxism. But the
fact remains that Mao, relying on the peasants and
ignoring the working class, achieved victory. Not that
his victory was some sort of miracle, but it was cer-
tainly a new twist to Marxist philosophy since it was
achieved without the proletariat. In short, Mao Tse-
tung is a petty-bourgeois whose interests are alien,
and have been alien all along, to those of the working
class.
After Mao came to power, his relations with Stalin
soon became strained at the level of trade and indus-
trial cooperation as well as at the level of ideology. At
one point Stalin concluded a treaty with China for the
joint exploitation of mineral resources in Sinkiang.
The treaty was a mistake on Stalin's part. I would
even say it was an insult to the Chinese people. For
centuries the French, English, and Americans had been
exploiting China, and now the Soviet Union was
moving in. This exploitation was a bad thing, but not
unprecedented: Stalin had set up similar "joint" com-
panies in Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
and Rumania. Later we liquidated all these companies.
There was another such incident. One day Stalin
called aroimd to all of us and asked if anyone knew
where China's gold and diamond mines were. Of
course, none of us knew. We had no way of knowing.
We used to joke about it in whispers among ourselves.
Beria said, "You know who knows? Kozlovsky does.^
He's always singing that song, 'You can't count the
diamonds .'
.[from Bizet's opera The Pearl Fishers]"
.

Beria liked to egg Stalin on, saying that there were

2. I. S. Kozlovsky, the great Russian tenor of

the Bolshoi
Opera; in his prime, though unknown in the West, he was
per-
haps the greatest tenor since Caruso.
514 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
enormous riches in China, that Mao Tse-tung was hid-
ing them from us, and that if we gave Mao a credit
loan he would have to give us something in return.
Then one day we were sitting around at Stalin's,
trying to figure out some way to meet the demands of
our rubber industry without having to buy crude rub-
ber from the capitalists. I suggested getting Mao to let
us set up a rubber plantation in China in exchange for
credit loans and technical assistance. We sent Mao a
cable proposing this plan. The Chinese replied that if
we would give them credit, they would let us use the
island of Hainan for our plantation. We drew up an
agreement between us, but it turned out that the area
we were given on Hainan was too small for a decent
rubber plantation, and the idea was dropped.
Then all of a sudden Stalin took a liking to canned
pineapple. He immediately dictated a message to Ma-
lenkov, who was always a handy clerk: "Get off a
message to the Chinese that I'd like them to give us an
area where we can build a pineapple cannery."
I spoke up and said, "Comrade Stalin, the Commu-
nists have just recently come to power in China. There
are already too many foreign factories there, and now
the Soviet Union, a fellow Socialist country, is going
to put up a factory of its own in China! This is sure
to offend Mao Tse-tung."
Stalin snapped at me angrily, and I said nothing
more. The cable was sent. A day or two later we re-
ceived the Chinese reply. Mao Tse-tung said, "We ac-
cept your proposal. If you are interested in canned
pineapples, then give us a credit loan and we will build
the cannery ourselves. We will then pay back your loan
with the produce from this cannery." I was silent while
Stalin cursed and fumed. Just as I had suspected, Sta-
lin had offended Mao.
No such cables proposing to exploit China were ever
sent to Mao over my signature or the signature of our
government in my time. We took great care never to
offend China until the Chinese actually started to cru-
cify us. And when they did start to crucify us — well,
I'm no Jesus Christ, and I didn't have to turn the other
cheek.
 MAO TSE-TTJNG AND THE SCHISM 515
When the malicious rumor started circulating that I
was responsible for the Soviet Union's quarrel with
China, I was particularly astounded, distressed, and
angered that Yudin was among those spreading the
story that goaded Mao into becoming the sort of
I
person he now. Well, if Yudin were here and said
is
this to me in person, I would be able to give him
documentary proof that it was actually he who first
brought our conflict with Mao Tse-tung to a head. He
was our ambassador to China at the beginning of the
quarrel. And if Yudin were to force me to embark on
such an unsavory exchange of accusations with him,
then I might remark with some justification that we
were sure to have discord with any country where
Yudin was sent as ambassador. Yudin was sent to
Yugoslavia, and we had a falling-out with Tito [see
page 411]. Yudin went to China, and we had a
falling-out withMao. This was no coincidence.
At one point I had respect for Yudin. Why was he
sent to China in the first place? It happened like this:
Mao Tse-tung wrote a letter to Stalin asking him to
recommend a Soviet Marxist philosopher who might
come to China to edit Mao's works. Mao wanted an
educated man to help put his works into proper shape
and to catch any mistakes in Marxist philosophy before
Mao's writings were pubHshed. Yudin was chosen and
sent to Peking.^
For a while Yudin worked hand in glove with Mao.

3. P. F. Yudin was the onetime editor of the Cominform

newspaper with the stirring title For hasting Peace, for People's
Democracy!, which was published in Belgrade until the Stalin-
Tito quarrel. He was a byword for his combination of servility
toward those set above him and pompous arrogance toward
those below him. He appeared to nourish the illusion that the
latter included all foreigners, which did not go down well with
the Yugoslavs and the Chinese with whom he was required to
work. In Moscow he was known as the best philosopher in the
Cheka and the best Chekist among the philosophers. His philos-
ophy consisted in dressing up the turns and twists of the Krem-
lin line in quasi-Marxist jargon. Khrushchev was quite right to
hold him in contempt; but it was largely Khrushchev's fault
that he was retained as Soviet ambassador to China from 1953
until the great quarrel.
516 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Mao went to see Yudin more often than the other way
around. Stalin was even a bit worried that Yudin
wasn't treating Mao with proper respect because he
permitted Mao to come to him instead of going to Mao.
Everything was going along fine.
Then, out of the blue, we received from Yudin a long
coded dispatch in which he described all sorts of in-
credible things which he had heard from Mao Tse-tung
about the Soviet Union, our Communist Party, and
about Yudin himself. There was no longer any need
to worry that Mao was fawning over Yudin. Now it was
obvious that Mao had no respect for Yudin at all. We
decided we'd better get Yudin out of China. As an
ambassador, Yudin had been a weak administrator and
poor diplomat, but he had been useful as long as his
personal relations with Mao remained friendly. To hell
with his strictly ambassadorial work; we could always
let our embassy officials in Peking take care of that.
But when he clashed with Mao on philosophical
grounds, he was no good to us either as an ambassador
or as a contact with Mao. So we recalled him.
And now this philosopher is trying to pin the blame
on others.
As far as my own relations
with Mao are concerned,
I always bent over backwards to be fair and friendly.
Unlike Stalin, I never tried to take advantage of Mao.
In fact, just the opposite happened: the Chinese tried
to take advantage of us. For instance, in 1954, when
our country was still hungry and poverty-ridden from
the war, we were in Peking and Chou En-lai asked,
"Perhaps you could make us a gift of a university?"
"We're poor ourselves, you know," I said. "We may
be richer than you, but the war has just ended and we
are still not back on our feet." Even though we had
troubles of our ov^m, we had given Port Arthur and
Dalny to the Chinese free, and we had invested huge
amounts of money in China.^

4. The reference is to the handing over to the Chinese of Port

Arthxir and Dalny (Dairen) in May, 1955, after a long, un-
settled history involving China, Japan, and Russia. Soviet credits
were in fact no more than a drop in the ocean of Chinese need.
 MAO TSE-TUNG AND THE SCHISM 517
We had also built the road
from Ulan Bator to Pe-
king. When Maomentioned this in 1957, he said, "The
road from Ulan Bator isn't much use to us. What we
really need is a road from Peking through the moim-
tains to Kazakhstan."
I said, "You know your own territory better than
we do. We thought the road from Ulan Bator would
be a more direct route for you, but we'd be willing to
open a road to China through Kazakhstan, too. Why
don't you build the road on your territory, and we'll
build our section of the road so that it connects at the
border?"
Later Chou En-lai brought up the subject of this
road again: "Maybe you could build the section of the
road on our territory, too?" We looked at the map and
saw that this would have meant cutting through moun-
tains and building bridges over rivers.
Weanswered, "No, let's each build our own sections
of the road as we originally agreed."
We started our share of the work. During the process
of the construction, the Chinese came to us again
asking us to build their part of the road, and when we
finally reached the border, the Chinese were nowhere
to be seen.
I remember that when I came back from China in
1954 I told my comrades, "Conflict with China is in-
evitable." I came on the basis of
to this conclusion
various remarks Mao had made. During my visit to
Peking, the atmosphere was typically Oriental. Every-
one was unbelievably courteous and ingratiating, but
I saw through their hypocrisy. After I had arrived,
Mao and I embraced each other warmly and kissed
each other on both cheeks. We used to lie around a
of
swimming pool in Peking, chatting like the best
friends about aU kinds of things. But it was all too
In
sickeningly sweet. The atmosphere was nauseatmg.
addition, some of the things Mao said put
me on my
understood
guard. I was never exactly sure that I
have
what he meant. I thought at the time that it must
Chmese
been because of some special traits in the
character and the Chinese way of thinkmg.
Some ot
Mao's pronouncements struck me as bemg much too
 518 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
simplistic, and others struck me as being much too
complex.
I remember, for example, that Mao once asked me,
"Comrade Khrushchev, what do you think of our slo-
gan, 'Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom' ?"^
I answered, "Comrade Mao Tse-tung, we simply can't
figure out what this slogan of yours means. There are
all kinds of flowers —
beautiful flowers, nauseating
flowers, and evenlethal flowers." Mao agreed that
maybe it wasn't a good slogan for Russians. We
had
made a point of not pubhshing anything in our own
press about the "Hundred Flowers" slogan. Mao was
no fool; he realized that our silence meant we didn't
agree with him. In fact, of course, I realize perfectly
well what "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" means. It
means let different tendencies develop in art and cul-
ture. But now it's clear to everyone that the slogan
was intended as a provocation. It was proclaimed in
order to encourage people to express themselves more
openly so that any flowers whose blossom had the
wrong color or scent could be cut down and trampled
into the dirt.
Then there was Mao's other famous slogan: "Im-
perialism Is a Paper Tiger." I found it perfectly incredi-
ble that Mao could dismiss American imperialism as
a paper tiger when in fact it is a dangerous predator.
The "Paper Tiger" slogan was first proclaimed when
our relations with China were still good, and it caused
us a certain amount of embarrassment, coming as it
did from our friend Mao Tse-tung, the leader of the
Chinese people. Now it seems the Chinese have quieted
down for the time being about the "Paper Tiger."
They're not chanting it all the time the way they used
to.
I remember once in Peking, Mao and I were lying
next to the swimming pool in our bathing trunks, dis-
cussing the problems of war and peace. Mao Tse-tung
said to me, "Comrade Khrushchev, what do you think?

5. *T.et a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools con-

tend": Mao introduced this short-lived policy of apparent
toleration early in 1957. Khrushchev then and thereafter was
obsessively irritated by the phrase.
 MAO TSE-TUNG AND THE SCHISM 519
Ifwe compare the military might of the capitalist world
with that of the Socialist world, you'll see that we
obviously have the advantage over our enemies. Think
of how many divisions China, the USSR, and the other
Socialist countries could raise."
I said, "Comrade Mao Tse-tung, nowadays that sort
of thinking is out of date. You
can no longer calculate
the alignment of forces on the basis of who has the
most men. Back in the days when a dispute was settled
with fists or bayonets, it made a difference who had
the most men and the most bayonets on each side.
Then when the machine gun appeared, the side with
more troops no longer necessarily had the advantage.
And now with the atomic bomb, the number of troops
on each side makes practically no difference to the
alignment of real power and the outcome of a war. The
more troops on a side, the more bomb fodder."
Mao replied by trying to assure me that the atomic
bomb itself was a paper tiger! "Listen, Comrade Khru-
shchev," he said. "All you have to do is provoke the
Americans into military action, and I'll give you as
many divisions as you need to crush them a hundred,—
two hundred, one thousand divisions." I tried to ex-
plain to him that one or two missiles could turn all the
divisions in China to dust. But he wouldn't even listen
to my arguments and obviously regarded me as a
coward.^
Mao certainly changed his tune in 1957, when he
came to the Moscow Conference of Communist and
Workers' Parties and during an amiable and can-
said,
did conversation, "Comrade Khrushchev, I see in the
newspaper that your defense minister, Zhukov, says
that if any Socialist country is attacked by any im-
perialist power, you will strike back swiftly. That
would be a mistake."

6. In this precious vignette of the two leaders of

the Com-
munist world, relaxing in the shallow end of a Peking swmi-
ming pool as they discuss war, peace, and the atom bomb m
kindergarten terms, we see the beginning of Khrushchev s per-
sonal exasperation with the man who was later to say that
even
after an atomic war there would stiU be three hundred million
Chinese left.
 520 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
"Comrade Mao Tse-tung, Zhukov wasn't just
I said,
He was speaking for the Central
speaking for himself.
Committee and voicing our collective decision. I've
said the same thing myself." We weren't quarreling;
we were just having a friendly discussion.
Mao replied, "I think if the imperialists were to
attack China, you shouldn't intervene. We would fight
them by ourselves. Your job would be to survive. Let
us watch out for ourselves. What's more, if you were
attacked, I don't think you should retaliate."
"And what should we do?"
"Retreat."
"Where to?"
"You've retreated before. You retreated all the way
to Stalingrad during World War II, and if you're at-
tacked again you could retreat all the way to the Urals
and hold out for two or three years. You'd kave China
at your back."
"Comrade Mao Tse-tung, if a war started now, how
long do you think it would last? It wouldn't be like
the last war. That was a war of air forces and tanks.
Now there are missiles and atomic bombs. What makes
you think we'd have three years in which to retreat to
the Urals? We'd probably have only a few days, and
after that there would be nothing left of us but a few
tattered remnants scratching along. If we told the
enemy that we won't retaliate, we'd be inviting him to
attack. That's why we must let him know that our
warning serves to deter him."
Clearly, there was a fairly basic disagreement be-
tween us. But our split with China went even deeper.
The Chinese knew that they were in a dangerous posi-
tion in the world Conmiunist movement after the
Twentieth Party Congress. They understood the im-
plications for themselves of the Congress's repudiation
of personahty cults, autocratic rule, and all other anti-
democratic, anti-Party forms of life. Stalin was exposed
and condemned at the Congress for having had hun-
dreds of thousands of people shot and for his abuse of
power. Mao Tse-tung was following in Stalin's foot-
steps.
Mao's own personality cult is a complicated phe-
 MAO TSE-TUNG AND THE SCHISM 521
nomenon. A personality cult is a little like a religion.
For centuries people have been droning, "Lord, have
mercy upon us; Lord, help us and protect us." And
have all the prayers helped? Of course not. But people
are set in their ways and continue to believe in God
despite all the evidence to the contrary.
There have even been echoes of the Maoist personal-
ity cult here in our country. In about 1962, I discovered
that our military men had been printing Mao Tse-tung's
works on warfare. I immediately sent for the Minister
of Defense and said, "Comrade Malinovsky, I under-
stand your department is pubUshing the works of Mao.
:
This is absurd! The Soviet Army crushed the crack
forces of the German army, while Mao Tse-tung's men
have spent between twenty and twenty-five years pok-
ing each other in the backsides with knives and bay-
onets. Now you're publishing Mao's works on warfare!
What for? To learn how to make war in the future?
What were you using for your head when you made
this decision?" Malinovsky and the other military com-
rades were intelHgent men, but publishing Mao Tse-
tung on warfare was a stupid waste of time. I don't
know whatever happened to the copies they printed.
They're probably lying in some storeroom somewhere,
or maybe they've been burned.
I remember well how Mao Tse-tung rebuffed our
efforts to cooperate on military matters in 1958. Ac-
cording to a treaty, our planes were supposed to be
able to use airfields in China for layovers and refuel-
ing. Then, when we put our long-range submarines
into service, we needed a radio station in China
to

keep in contact with our fleet. The Chinese, by the

way, had already asked that we turn over o^r sub-
marine designs to them and teach them how to build
submarines. So we felt justified in asking
them tor
on their territory.
permission to build a radio station
that we
Their answer was no. It wasn't long afterward
anti-Soviet atti-
got Yudin's coded dispatch about the
tudes of the Chinese leadership.
to protocol, its
I said to my comrades, "According
before we go
Mao's turn to make a state visit here
the present situation,
maybe
there again. But given
522 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
we'd better go talk to him. It had better be a private
meeting so that we can find out where we stand with
the Chinese comrades."
This was our last trip to China. It was in 1959."^ Our
discussions were friendly but without concrete results.
Among the things discussed was the subject of the
radio station. I said, "Comrade Mao Tse-tung, we will
give you the money to build the station. It doesn't
matter to us to whom the station belongs, as long as
we can use it to keep in radio contact with our sub-
marines. We
would even be willing to give the station
to you, but we'd Hke to have it built as soon as possi-
ble. Our fleet is now operating in the Pacific Ocean,
and our main base is in Vladivostok. Comrade Mao
Tse-tung, couldn't we come to some sort of agreement
so that our submarines might have a base in your
country for refueling, repairs, shore leaves, and so on?"
"For the last time, no, and I don't want to hear any-
thing more about it."
"Comrade Mao Tse-tung, the countries of the At-
lantic Pact have no trouble cooperating and supplying
—
each other, and here we are unable to reach an
agreement on so simple a matter as this!"
"No!"
I couldn't understand why he got so angry. I made
one last attempt to be reasonable: "If you want, you
can use Murmansk as a port for your submarines."
"No! We don't want anything to do with Murmansk,
and we don't want you here. We've had the British
and other foreigners on our territory for years now,
and we're not ever going to let anyone use our land
for theirown purposes again." We never did get his
permission for the submarine base.®
7. This meeting took place immediately after Khrushchev's
America, when he was full of what was called "the
first visit to
spirit of Camp David" and infuriated Mao by his warm praise
of the statesmanlike qualities of President Eisenhower. The ill-
feeling arising from this unfortunate meeting resulted in the
precipitate withdrawal of Soviet technicians engaged in super-
vising the construction of a number of factories: they took their
blueprints back to Moscow with them, leaving the factories
unfinished.
8. The Chinese, on their part, asked for atomic know-how,
which the Russians refused to give them.
 MAO TSE-TUNG AND THE SCHISM 523

When Mao started pushing the idea that China could

catch up with America in five years, he took the of-
fensive against us, and he did so out in the open. It was
about this same time that he started to organize com-
munes and to build his samovar blast furnaces.^ At
Mao's instigation, the Chinese started to claim that the
Soviet belief in the distribution of material goods ac-
cording to the quantity and quality of labor expended
was a bourgeois concept. Statements started appearing
in China to the effect that we, the Soviet Union, were
hanging on the coattails of the bourgeoisie. So some
basic questions of principle had arisen about the future
direction of our movement and we had reached a
parting of the ways with China.
I
Mao Tse-tung also declared that peaceful coexistence
was a bourgeois pacifist notion. Since then China has
recklessly slandered the Communist Party of the So-
viet Union for its policy of peaceful coexistence. But,
as I say, it's always difficult to know what the Chinese
are really thinking. It's difficult to figure out whether
China is really for or against peaceful coexistence. I
remember that after I retired I heard on the radio
that Mao had given an interview to some American
writer who put the question to him directly: "Do you
really want to unleash war upon the world?" Mao
answered, "No, the Chinese don't want war. We'll go
to war only if there is a direct attack against our
territory." Under the pressure of questioning by bour-
geois journalists, Mao Tse-tung has repeated several
times that China stands behind peaceful coexistence.
It's my own feeling that the so-called Mao
Tse-tung
Declaration was actually authored by Chou En-lai.

I've never known for sure Mao's own

position. Its
impossible to pin these Chinese down.
There is, however, one thing I know for sure about
Mao. He's a nationaUst, and at least when I knew
to rule
him, he was bursting with an impatient desire

Forward of
9. The reference is to the celebrated Great Leap
Peasants^^ into prole-
1958, which involved an attempt to turn
tarians by building "backyard" blast furnaces
and rural steel-
into
works" and organizing the farmworkers ^fg^^^^^^^^^-
to the Kussians.
munes. The whole conception was anathema
 524 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
the world. His plan was to rule first China, then Asia,
then . what? There are seven hundred milUon peo-
. .

ple in China, and other countries like Malaysia, about

half the population is Chinese. The foUovdng innocent
conversation which Mao and I once had over tea is
very interesting for the light it throws on Mao's own
version of Chinese nationalism.
He asked me, "How many conquerors have invaded
China?" He answered the question himself: "China
has been conquered many times, but the Chinese have
assimilated conquerors."
all of their
He was setting his sights on the future. "Think about
it," he said. "You have two hundred million people,
and we have seven hundred milhon."
Then he started to discourse on the distinctiveness
of China. As an example he mentioned that there are
no foreign words in the Chinese language. "All the
rest of the world uses the word 'electricity,' " he
boasted. "They've borrowed the word from English.
But we Chinese have our ov^n word for it!" His
chauvinism and arrogance sent a shiver up my spine.
Later the Chinese press took Mao's lead and started
to claim that Vladivostok was on Chinese territory.
They wrote that the Russians had stolen it from China. |

It's true; at one point in history the Chinese ruled in

that part of Siberia before our tsars expanded into
the area. We consented to negotiate with the Chinese
about our borders. They sent us their version of how
the map should read. We took one look at it, and it was
so outrageous that we threw it away in disgust.^^
Mao Tse-tung may be a nationalist, but he's no fool.
When China began its supposedly egalitarian reforms,
literature on the subject came across the border and
started circulating widely in Soviet Siberia. When I

10. This refers to the border conflict which has persisted until
this day, now smoldering, now flaring up. In the nineteenth
century a weak China had been compelled to cede considerable
territories, which included Vladivostok and what is now the
Soviet Maritime Province, to Imperial Russia. At the height of
the Sino-Soviet quarrel, Mao was to insist that the "unequal
treaties" which had formalized these cessions could no longer
be considered valid: the whole border question was thrown
open.
 MAO TSE-TtJNG AND THE SCHISM 525
found out what was happening, I told my comrades,
This must stop immediately. The slogans of the
Chi-
nese reforms are very alluring. You're mistaken if you
don't thmk the seeds of these ideas will find fertile
soil in our country."
We had to respond in substance to Mao's assump-
tions and propositions. To put it mildly, we didn't
agree with his position. Actually, I had already run
out of patience with him. If you read my report to the
Twenty-second Party Congress, you'll see that I dedi-
cated many of my remarks to the problems of China,
although I didn't mention China by name. But it was
there at the Twenty-second Party Congress that we
rejected the main tenets of Mao's position.^^
However, I do subscribe to one of Mao's "egalitarian"
reforms. He was right to remove epaulets from Chi-
nese army uniforms. I think this was a sensible thing
to do, and by the same token, I think it was a mistake
on our part when we put epaulets and stripes back
onto our own mihtary uniforms. Who the hell needs
them? We won the Civil War, and I didn't have any
epaulets or stripes even though I held the rank of
commissar. The soldiers didn't need to see fancy stripes
to know who their commissar and their commander
were. Back in those days we were able to crush our
enemies without epaulets. Nowadays our military men
are all dressed up like canaries.
During the Conference of Communist and Workers'
Parties at the Kremlin in 1960, the Chinese delegation
— —
which was led by Liu Shao-chi opposed us right
down the hne, and the Albanians spoke out against us
in support of China.^^ Especially shameless was the

11. At the Twenty-second Party Congress in October, 1961,

Khrushchev first brought the quarrel out into the open with
a
without
sharp attack on Albania (China's improbable aUy) and
mentioning China by name. j * *v,
12. Khrushchev's first onslaught on
China occurred at the
Communist Party at Bucharest
Third Congress of the Rumanian
in June, 1960, immediately after the abortive
Pans Summit
It shocked
meeting (wrecked, ostensibly, by the U-2 affair)
but was kept very secret.
all the foreign Party leaders present,
was mounted at the Moscow Con-
The second stage of his attack
ference of the world Communist Parties
m November of the
526 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
behavior of that agent of Mao Tse-tung, Enver Hoxha.
He bared his fangs at us even more menacingly than
the Chinese themselves. After his speech, Comrade
Dolores Ibarruri, an old revolutionary and a devoted
Communist movement, got up indignant-
ViTorker in the
ly and said, very much to the point, that Hoxha was
like a dog who bites the hand that feeds it.
We wanted to do everything we could to prevent a
schism between the Albanians and ourselves, but all
our efforts were to no avail. Our conflict with the
Albanians developed in stages, as we gradually became
aware that the Albanians were conspiring with the
Chinese against us. We got wind of their treachery
when an Albanian delegation was passing through
Moscow on its ways back from China. One of the Al-
banians, an honest woman, came to us and told us
what was going on. I think she was strangled a short
time later, poor woman. And it wasn't the Gestapo
who strangled her. No, it was her own "brothers." I
say this because she was a Communist and they were
Communists, too. They strangled her because she, a
Communist, had come to us at the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and told
us about the Albanians' secret meetings with the
Chinese.
How naive we
were! At the same time Mehmet
Sheku was USSR, taking some
in a hospital in the
sort of medical treatment. When we confronted him
with the fact that we knew talks were going on be-
tween his country and China, he jumped up from his
hospitalbed and flew straight back to Albania.
Enver Hoxha, Mehmet Sheku, and Ballutu had come
to power in Albania by staging an uprising and over-

same year. On both occasions Khrushchev attacked Mao bluntly,

not to say coarsely, in highly emotional terms which are re-
flected, though more diffusely, in this chapter. The Chinese gave
as good as they got. The Albanian leader, Enver Hoxhei, made
the most vicious speech of all, arraigning Khrushchev for black-
mailing Albania and trying to starve her into submission and
for betraying Stalin. But the quarrel was still hidden from the
outer world. For an account of these climacteric meetings, and
the development of the quarrel generally, see The New Cold
War: Moscow Verstts Peking by Edward Crankshaw.
* MAO TSE-TUNG AND THE SCHISM 527
throwing the original First Secretary of the Albanian
Party, a very good comrade whom Tito had always
spoken well of and whom the Yugoslavs had generally
supported. He had been from soUd workers' stock,
and he was the founder of the Communist Party of
Albania. Tito told me that Mehmet Sheku personally
strangled this man. These three—Hoxha, Sheku, and
—
Ballutu used to bring someone to trial and sentence
him themselves, without ever putting anything in
writing; then they would look for an opportunity to
have their victim murdered secretly. It was all very
similar to the system used by Stahn and Beria.^^
The rift which developed between the Soviet Union
and Albania stemmed mainly from the Albanians' fear
of democratization. Even though there was a time
when I thought all was not lost, I now believe that the
rift was inevitable. The final break with the Albanians
occurred at the Rumanian Communist Party Congress
in Bucharest in July, 1960, where we met to exchange
views on international matters and in particular mat-
ters pertaining to relations between fraternal Com-
munist Parties on the one hand and the Chinese
Communist Party on the other. Now that our break
with the Albanians is complete, I stand all the more
firmly for those principles of democratic leadership
which the Albanians could never accept.
Democracy is certainly desirable, but in a democracy
it is difficult for a leader to stay in power if
he doesn't

Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Albanian Communist

13.
Party, rose to power as a member of the Albanian
wartime re-
him by the AlUes and the
sistance by using arms supplied to
agamst the
Yugoslavs against his nationalist rivals as well as
Germans. Khrushchev is evidently referring to Hoxha s liquida-

Vice-Premier and Minister of the Interior, in

tion of Koci Xoxce,
of iito
1949. This was after Stalin's excommunication ^°^f
Khrushchev has forgotten ( but
had been a friend of Yugoslavia. Hoxha
he may never have known) that it was Stalin who egged
ruthless of the
on to get rid of Xoxce. Mehmet Sheku, the most
in succession
Albanian Communists, was Minister of the Interior
to Xoxce and a merciless purger; he later became P"me Minis-
Minister of Defense and a member
ter. Bequir Ballutu, Albanian
the Moscow Military
of the PoUtbureau, attended a course at
account of the modus oper-
Academy in 1952-53. Khrushchev's
trutn.
andi of this triumvirate is close enough to the
 —
528 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
make a point of consulting with his followers. demo- A
cratic leader must have a good mind and be able to
take advice. He must realize that his position of leader-
ship depends on the people's will to have him as their
leader, not on his ov^m will to lead the people. And the
people will accept a leader only if he shows himself to
be of the same flesh and blood as the Party. leader A
must be motivated by the interests of the people, and
not by greed or vanity. A
leader must have mastered
knowledge, humility, and the ability to live as part of
the collective. I repeat, he holds his position of leader-
ship by the will of the Party. In other words, he is not
above the Party, but the servant of the Party, and he
can keep his position only as long as he enjoys the
Party's satisfaction and support.^*
In their own Party careers, Enver Hoxha, Mehmet
Sheku, and Ballutu haven't lived up to these principles.
Neither has Mao Tse-tung.
However, while Mao Tse-tung may have abused his
power and misled his Party, he's not as some claim —
a madman. People are starting to say that Mao Tse-
tung is a lunatic, that he has taken leave of his senses.
This isn't true. Mao
very intelligent and very cun-
is
ning. I remember how only a few years ago people
were predicting that Mao Tse-tung would never win
the power struggle which was going on in China. At
that time I said, "Nonsense, of course Mao will win."
And I was right. Mao certainly seems to be getting
the upper hand in China now. But by what means?
The Chinese don't recognize any law except the law of
power and force. If you don't obey, they tear your
head off. And they do this very artfully: they strangle
you in the middle of a square in front of thousands of
people. What sort of "politics" is that? You can't even
call it barbarism. It's something more than that. After
all, we're living in the twentieth century!
Even though Mao is winning in China, Liu Shao-chi
hasn't given up. He's against Mao's policies, and he's
putting up a fight. Liu Shao-chi is a very intelligent

14. In the light of these observations it would be interesting

to see what would happen if Khrushchev could live his life over
again.
 MAO TSE-TUNG AND THE SCHISM 529
man, and he has a great many people on his side, but
they don't have any real power. The reason Liu Shao-
chi is still alive is his popularity. Mao could have Liu
strangled without much effort. But Liu's murder
would incur the wrath of the masses. Mao Tse-tung
knows this, and he doesn't fight against Liu Shao-chi
as an individual, but as a standard-bearer of a particu-
lar political system. In other words, Mao wants to
defeat Liu by isolating him politically.^^
Of course, it's one thing for us to talk about Mao
Tse-tung and another thing to talk about China as a
whole. If we started reviling the Chinese people, we
would be stepping over the line that separates objec-
tive analysis from nationaUstic prejudice. We are being
nationalistic when we let ourselves believe that one
nation has special rights and superiorities over other
nations. That's how Nazism got started.
Therefore we must realize that the Chinese are our
brothers. They are human beings just like us. And if
Chinese youths attack our embassy in Peking, it doesn't
mean we should hate the Chinese people as a whole.
A country's youth is not the entire nation. Besides,
there are aU different kinds of youths. Not everyone
in China was on that square stoning our embassy, and
not everyone who was on that square was shouting in
support of Mao Tse-tung's policies, either. Think how
many Chinese there must be who are bemoaning what
has happened to their country. There's a great struggle
going on in China, and people are killing each other.
I believe that all our efforts should be devoted to
resolving the conflict which now exists between the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the other
Communist Parties on the one hand and the Commu-
nist Party of China on the other. We should do
every-
thing we can to see that the Communist movement will

once again be united and monolithic. This goal must be

of the
achieved! It is in the interests of the peoples

Mao's heir
15. Liu Shao-chi, a moderate, was for a long time
Chinese delegation to the Moscow Con-
apparent. He led the
the fierce hard-Un^
ference in 1960, but took a back seat to
with Mao, Liu was lucky to
Feng Chen. In his recent confUct
escape with his life.
530 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Soviet Union. It is in the interests of the Chinese

people, and it is in the interests of all peace-loving peo-
—
ples of the world. Long live the struggle for peace and
peaceful coexistence!
 19

Ho Chi Minh and the War in Vietnam

Khrushchev, the elder statesman, reflects on the Viet-

nam tragedy without dwelling on the barbarity of the
war. In so doing he ojfers a glimpse of the conflict as
seen from "the other side of the hill." His view, at
least in part, is shared by many on this side.

When the American aggressors were forced to stop

their bombing attacks against the territory of North
Vietnam, they suffered an important defeat. It*s now
obvious from the press that the United States is not
strictly abiding by the commitment it made when it
ceased the bombing, but the very fact that the bomb-
ing was halted attests to the courageous resistance of
the Vietnamese people. Their resistance was organized
under the leadership of their late president, that re-
markable man. Comrade Ho Chi Minh. I've met many
people in the course of mypoHtical career, but Ho Chi
Minh impressed me in a very special way. Religious
people used to talk about the holy apostles. Well, by
the way he hved and by the way he impressed other
people. Ho Chi Minh was like one of those "holy
apostles." He was an apostle of the Revolution.
I'll never forget the look in his eye, the way his
gaze
shone with a special kind of sincerity and purity. It
was the sincerity of an incorruptible Communist and
the purity of a man devoted in principle and in prac-
tice to the cause. He could win anyone over with
his

honesty and his unshakable conviction that the Com-

munist cause was the right one for his people and for
all people. His every word seemed to
underscore his
belief that aU Communists are class brethren
and con-
531
532 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
sequently that all Communists must be sincere and
honest in their dealings with each other. Ho Chi Minh
really was one of Communism's "saints."
I first met him while Stalin was still alive. Ho Chi
Minh had flown to Moscow directly from the jungles
of Vietnam. He told us how he had made his way
through the jungles for days on foot until he came to
the Chinese border and how from there he had traveled
to the Soviet Union.
During our conversation, Ho Chi Minh kept watch-
ing Stalin intently with his unusual eyes. I would say
that there was in his gaze an almost childlike naivete.
I remember once he reached into his briefcase and took
—
out a copy of a Soviet magazine I think it was The
—
USSR Under Construction and asked Stalin to auto-
graph it. In France everyone chases after autographs,
and apparently Ho Chi Minh had picked up this bug.
He liked the idea of being able to show people Stalin's
autograph back in Vietnam. Stalin gave Ho his auto-
graph but shortly afterward had the magazine stolen
back from him because he was worried about how Ho
might use it.
Ho Chi Minh told us about the struggle his people
were waging against the French occupation forces and
asked us to give him material aid, particularly arms
and ammunition. After he left Moscow, Ho Chi Minh
asked us in writing to send him quinine because his
people were suffering from a malaria epidemic. Our
pharmaceutical industry produced quinine on a large
scale, so Stalin went overboard with generosity and
said, "Send him half a ton."
Subsequently I met with Ho Chi Minh many times.
I remember our work together during the Geneva
Conference [of 1954].^ At that time we still had very

1. This was the historic conference of the spring and earlj

summer of 1954 that brought to an end the fighting between the
French and the Vietnamese Communists, partitioning Vietnan:
along the 17th parallel, on July 20. Dienbienphu fell while the
conference was sitting on May 7, and there seemed nothing tc
prevent the whole of Vietnam from being overrun by the Com-
munists. The Americans debated intervention with carrier-
based air power but Eiisenhower decided against it. Khrushchev
himself was not in CJeneva on this occasion. The main negotia-
 HO CHI MINH AJSro THE WAR IN VIETNAM 533
good relations with the Communist Party of China.
Before the Geneva Conference there was a preparatory
meeting in Moscow. China was represented by Chou
En-lai and Vietnam by President Ho Chi Minh and
Prime Minister Pham Van Dong. We worked out the
position we would take in Geneva, basing it on the
situation in Vietnam. The situation was very grave.
The resistance movement in Vietnam was on the brink
of collapse. The partisans were counting on the Ge-
neva Conference to produce a cease-fire agreement
which would enable them to hold on to the conquests
which they had won in the struggle of the Vietnamese
people against the French occupation. Hanoi was se-
curely in the hands of the French. If you looked at a
map on which our own demands for a settlement were
marked out, you'd see that North Vietnam was pock-
marked with enclaves which had been captured and
occupied by the French.
After one of these sessions in Catherine Hall of the
Ejremlin, Chou En-lai buttonholed me and took me
into a comer. He said, "Comrade Ho Chi Minh has told
me that the situation in Vietnam is hopeless and that
if we don't attain a cease-fire soon, the Vietnamese
won't be able to hold out against the French. Therefore
they've decided to retreat to the Chinese border if
necessary, and they want China to be ready to move
troops into Vietnam as we did in North Korea. In other
words, the Vietnamese want us to help them drive out
the French. We simply can't grant Comrade Ho Chi
Minh's request. We've already lost too many men in
—
Korea that war cost us dearly. We're in no condition
to get involved in another war at this time."^
I made a request of my own to Comrade Chou En-
lai. "An important struggle is going on," I said, "and
the Vietnamese are putting up a good fight. The French
are taking heavy losses. There's no reason why you
should tell Ho Chi Minh that you will refuse to help

torswere Mr. Anthony Eden (later Lord Avon) for Britam,

M. Mendes-France for France, Chou En-lai for China, and Ho
Chi Minh himself. . , ,.. .

2. Nobody in the West knew that the situation of the Viet-

namese was so desperate.
534 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

him if his troops retreat to your border under the

blows of the French. Why don*t you just tell him a
white lie? Let the Vietnamese believe that you'll help
them if necessary, and this will be a source of inspira-
tion for the Vietnamese partisans to resist the French."
Chou En-lai agreed not to tell Comrade Ho Chi Minh
that China wouldn't come into the war against the
French on Vietnamese territory.
Then a miracle happened. When the delegation ar-
rived in Geneva for the conference, the Vietnamese
partisans won a great victory and captured the fortress
of Dienbienphu. At the first session of the conference,
the French head of state, Mendes-France, proposed to
restrict the northern reach of the French forces to the
17th parallel. I'll confess that when we were informed
of this news from Geneva, we gasped with surprise and
pleasure. We hadn't expected anything like this. The
17th parallel was the absolute maximum we would
have claimed ourselves. We
instructed our representa-
tives in Geneva to demand
that the demarcation line
be moved farther south, to the 15th parallel, but this
was only for the sake of appearing to drive a hard
bargain. After haggling for a short time, we accepted
Mendes-France's offer, and the treaty was signed. We
had succeeded in consolidating the conquests of the
Vietnamese Comimunists.'
I should take this opportunity to give Mendes-France
his due. He soberly and accurately evaluated the situ-
ation facing him. Granted, the partisans were having
trouble in Vietnam, but they weren't having any more
trouble than the French army. Mendes-France took the
only sensible step when he ended the war which the
French were waging in Vietnam. France pulled out of
the war and evacuated its troops.
All would have been well if everyone had adhered
to the commitments of the Geneva Accords. After
two years, general elections should have been held,
and we had no doubt that Ho Chi Minh—that is, the

3. The British and the French were extremely pleased with

the 17th parallel agreement. It is nice to know that Ho Chi Minh
and IQirushchev were too. Mr. Dulles was not.
 —
HO CHI MINH AND THE WAR IN VIETNAM 535
I Communists and the progressive forces of Vietnam
would have emerged victorious. But then that sinister
man Dulles and the United States stepped in and im-
posed a long, bloody war on the Vietnamese people, a
v/ar which is still going on today.
I won't go into the war itself because the whole
thing has been thoroughly covered in the press. How-
ever, I would like to say something about the difficul-
ties which face the Vietnamese because of the Soviet
Union's conflict with China.
During the concluding stage of the Conference of
Communist and Workers' Parties in I960,* everyone
agreed to sign the Conference Declaration except for
the Chinese, who stubbornly refused to accept one
point in the document. This was an important point,
and its inclusion in the declaration was a matter of
principle for us. Therefore we couldn't meet the Chi-
nese halfway.
Ho
Chi Minh came up to me and said, "Comrade
Khrushchev, you'll have to concede to the Chinese on
this point."
"How can we concede?" I replied. "This is a matter
of principle."
"Comrade Khrushchev, China a very big country
is
with a very big Party. You can't permit a schism in
the movement. You must make sure that the Chinese
sign this declaration along with the rest of us. Only if
it is imanimously endorsed will this document have
great international importance."
"Comrade Ho Chi Minh, our delegation is devoting
maintaining unity in the Communist
all its efforts to
movement. Don't think we underestimate the stature
and power of the Communist Party of China. We're
doing everything we can to keep China inside the fold
of fraternal Communist But surely you will
Parties.
imderstand that we cannot compromise our principles.

4. This was the Conference of Communist and Workers'

Parties (eighty-one of them were represented) referred to in
the previous chapter. The fact that the Chinese did in the end
sign a face-saving, compromise resolution induced the
world to
beUeve in the monoUthic character of the world Commumst
movement for some time to come.
 536 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

That's what we would be doing if we yielded to the

Chinese on Their position contradicts our
this point.
whole Communist world outlook. You say that China
is a big country and the Chinese Party is a big party.'
Surely you'd agree that ours is not a small country
nor a small party. But that's beside the point. All
Communist Parties are equal and must enjoy equal;
rights and equal opportunities. And as long as that is
the case, all our aspirations must be subordinated to I

one goal, and that goal is the victory of the Commu-

nist movement." I

Ho Chi Minh agreed with me, but he said, "For us!

it is doubly difficult. Don't forget, China is our neigh-
bor." After speaking to me, he apparently went to talk
to the Chinese. Eventually, after prolonged efforts on!
the part of our representatives to negotiate with thej
Chinese, we found a mutually acceptable formula, and.
China agreed to sign the declaration.
I was very grieved when China finally did in fact;
break off all working political relations with us. When'
the rupture between the Communist Party of the So-
viet Union and the Communist Party of China camel
out into the open, China began to lead the Vietnamese!
Laborers' Party around by a halter. A
large segment}!
—
of the population in Vietnam and therefore of the!
—
Party is Chinese. China began to use its considerable!
influence to start quarrels between Vietnam and theh
Soviet Union and to turn the Vietnamese Party against h
us. Some of the key positions in the leadership of then
Vietnamese Party are now held by pro-Chinese com-p
rades. At a time when we have been doing everything
p
we could to help Vietnam, the pro-Chinese elements b
in Vietnam have been doing everything they could to i

please China. In other words, they have been working n

not only against us, but against Vietnam's own best i
interests. It's a great pity.
Wehave been sincere and unsparing in our efforts
to assist Vietnam, and the hostility toward us of the
pro-Chinese elements in Vietnam has been a bitter pill (f
to swallow. Why am I bringing this up now? I'm bring-
ing it up because it relates to the subject of what we jv

can expect now that Ho Chi Minh is dead.

I
 HO CHI MINH AND THE WAR IN VIETNAM 537

According to what I read in the press, it appears

that all is going smoothly in Soviet- Vietnamese rela-
tions. Vietnamese delegations are visiting the Soviet
Union, and delegations of our reporters go to Viet-
nam to report on the struggle of the Vietnamese peo-
ple.Their reports are regularly in the press as well as
on television and on the newsreels.
But certain information that has reached me indi-
cates that, as a matter of fact, everything is not going
as smoothly as the newspaper articles and the television
reports proclaim. According to my information, the
Vietnamese are showing a certain unwarranted re-
straint toward the Soviet Government and Party. This
must mean that there still exist some pro-Chinese
forces in the Vietnamese government and in the leader-
ship of the Vietnamese Laborers' Party. From the
outside, it would seem that friendly relations and mu-
tual understanding are developing between Vietnam
and the Soviet Union. But it's possible that this ap-
pearance is just a fagade thrown up by the Vietnamese
—
leadership perhaps even with China's blessing in —
order not to lose the help of the Soviet Union and the
other fraternal Communist Parties. I certainly hope
this is not the case, although I would still allow for the
possibility that it is. I would like to believe that Viet-
nam really does desire good relations with the Soviet
Union, but I don't think China will release Vietnam
from its paws, and pro-Chinese forces will remain
powerful in Vietnam, They will do all they can to make
Vietnam eat out of China's hand.
Now, v^dth the death of Comrade Ho Chi Minh, the
infectious growth of pro-Chinese influence will be able
to spread more virulently than ever before. If that
happens, it will be a great pity, and it will be a poor
memorial to Comrade Ho Chi Minh, who invested so
much of his thought and energy in the strengthening
of his country's friendship with the Soviet Union.
Since Comrade Ho Chi Minh's death there have been
many speeches and articles, by people of various po-
litical inclinations, all trying to answer the questions
which are troubling everyone: How will Vietnam's
relations develop with the Soviet Union? With capital-
 538 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
ist countries? With Communist Parties whose view
differ from those of Mao Tse-tung? How will Vietnam'
relations develop with the leadership of the Chines-
Party? What changes will there be in the policies o
Vietnam? I would like now to share my own impres
sions about the things I've read and heard and try t(
express a few of my own thoughts about the prospect;
for the development of Soviet- Vietnamese relations.
No one can predict what will happen, of course;
There are some signs of what to expect next, but W(.
should be cautious about making predictions because
nothing is constant. Everything is in a state of flux
Things can change anytime. For instance, there were
once flawless relations between the Soviet Union anc
the Chinese People's Republic. There were even gooc
relations between the Soviet leadership and Mao Tse
tung. But now all that has changed. The same thin^
could happen with Vietnam. Our relations were origi
nally very good; and if they later deteriorated, it wasn'
the fault of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Rather, I believe, it was entirely the result of Mac
Tse-tung himself and his influence on Vietnam.
The documents which give me a basis for predicting
or at least guessing, the future course of Vietnam art
the so-called "Testament" of Ho Chi Minh and the
famous speech by Le Duan.^ I've read both documents
twice, and I made myself read them attentively ir
order to interpret them correctly.
In the Testament of Ho Chi Minh there is nothing
said about the enormous, imselfish help which the So-
viet Union is giving Vietnam. Our assistance has beer
decisive because, without material aid from the Soviei
Union, it would have been impossible for Vietnam tc
survive under the conditions of modern warfare anc
to resist as rich and powerful an aggressor as thei
United States. In order to receive adequate arms andD
equipment, Vietnam has had no choice but to rely on
the Soviet Union. In order to achieve victory, they
must have the appropriate arms, and these arms they

5. Le Duan, senior member of North Vietnamese leadership

after Ho's death.
 HO CHI MINH AND THE WAR IN VIETNAM 539

'can obtain only from the Soviet Union. China can't

give Vietnam what it needs today. The world press,
including the enemies of Communism, acknowledge
fthat Vietnam wouldn't be able to conduct its policies
Iof military resistance against American aggression if
it weren't for the economic and material aid provided

by the Soviet Union. For example, take an announce-

ment that the North Vietnamese army of liberation has
launched a rocket attack on a US air base. Naturally
these rockets weren't manufactured in the jungles of
Vietnam. They came from factories in the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union, untainted by any mercenary mo-
tives, is dedicated to assisting all those forces and all
those peoples who are fighting for their independence,
who are fighting for economic and political freedom,
and who are fighting against imperialist aggression.
More recently, even the pro-Chinese elements in
Vietnam have begun to understand the necessity of
friendship with the Soviet Union and Ho Chi Minh's
tradition has been partly restored. The Vietnamese
acted wisely when they reoriented their policies. I say
"reoriented" because they didn't change their policy
—
fundamentally, they just reoriented it taking into
account the necessity of continuing the war into the
future and realizing that only the Soviet Union, and
not China, can give them the help they need.
Today the brutal struggle rages on and victory is
still far from won. But the light of Vietnam's victory
over American imperialism can already be seen, glim-
mering in the distance. Therefore our efforts must not
flag. Everything must be mobilized in order to bring
the struggle of the Vietnamese people to a successful
conclusion. There is more at stake in this war than
just the future of the Vietnamese people. The Viet-
namese are shedding their blood and laying dov^n their
lives for the sake of the world Communist movement.
Will Ho Chi Minh's successors show sufficient wisdom
for the struggle to be won? Only time will tell.
 20

Fidel Castro and the Caribbean Crisis

Khrushchev's account of the Cuban crisis is perhaps,

the most open, coherent, and circumstantial passage in
his entire narrative. The om,ission of certain details^
from so familiar a story hardly matters. It was clear
at a very early date to most sensible observers thai
Khrushchev's motives were more or less precisely as,
he now describes them. In the West too much was
made (though not by President Kennedy) of his hu-
miliation in being forced to withdraw his missiles. The
Chinese exploited this up to the hilt, and so did Khru-
shchev's adversaries at home. The fact remains that he
achieved what he set out to do, though not quite in the
manner he intended: he secured Castro's Cuba from
the standing threat of invasion. And he achieved an
understanding with President Kennedy, whose assassi-
nation was for him a profound and very persoTial mis-
fortune,

I WILL explain what the Caribbean crisis of October,

1962, was all about. It came to a head this way:
At the timethat Fidel Castro led his revolution to'
victory and entered Havana with his troops, we had no
idea what political course his regime would follow. We
knew there were individual Communists participating
in the movement which Castro led, but the Commu-
nist Party of Cuba had no contact with him. The
Secretary of the Central Committee of the Cuban Party
had even resigned from the Party in order to join
Castro in the hills. When Castro's men captured Ha-
vana, we had to rely completely on newspaper and
radio reports, from Cuba itself and from other coun-
540
 FIDEL CASTRO AND THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS 541

tries,about what was happening. The whole situation

was very unclear. The man Fidel appointed to be
president was someone we'd never heard of. Further-
more, Cuba hadn't recognized our Government, so for
a long time we had no diplomatic relations with the
new regime.
However, our people who handled Latin American
affairs and who had traveled in the area did know
some of the Cuban leaders. They knew Raul Castro in
particular. Apparently by chance, one of our comrades
had been on a ship to Mexico with Raul Castro. This
comrade told me that he and Raul had met and talked
together, and that later in Mexico Raul Castro was
arrested before our comrade's very eyes. Based on
information gathered through various channels, we
knew that Raul Castro was a good Communist, but it
appeared that he kept his true convictions hidden from
his brother Fidel. Che Guevara was a Communist, too,
—
and so were some of the others or so we thought. We
had no official contacts with any of the new Cuban
leaders and therefore nothing to go on but rumors.
Events started to develop quickly.
We decided to send Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan to
America as a guest of our ambassador, Anatoly Dobry-
nin. Mikoyan's mission was to establish unofficial con-
tacts with the leaders of the American business world.
We wanted to find out what the prospects were for
developing trade with America. Anastas Ivanovich was
the logical person to lead such a mission. He had been
in the US before the war and still had some of his old
contacts. We beUeved that when he appeared in Wash-
ington he would be approached by people from the
business world who would want to look into oppor-
tunities for trade with us. In any event, Anastas Ivano-
vich would be able to get a sense of which way the
wind was blowing.
While Mikoyan was in the US, Fidel invited him to
visit Cuba. Mikoyan accepted. He traveled around
Cuba, looked things over, and talked with people. We
still had no diplomatic relations with Cuba, and Castro
was pursuing a very cautious pohcy toward us. There
is a story that characterizes the situation in Cuba and
 '';
; ; 11

542 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Fidel Castro's role at that time: The leaders of the
Cuban revolution go up to heaven; Saint Peter comes I

out to meet them as God's official representative and

orders them all to line up. Then he says, "All Com-
munists, three steps forward!" Guevara steps forward; i

Raul steps forward; so does someone else. But all the!

rest, including Fidel, stay in line. Peter glares at Fidel
j

and shouts, "Hey! you, the tall one with the beard!
What's wrong, didn't you hear what I said? All Com-
munists three steps forward!" |

The point of this story is that while Saint Peter and)

everyone else considered Fidel a Conununist, Fidel j

himself did not. He thought Peter's command didn't!

pertain to him.
Shortly after Mikoyan's visit we established diplo-j
matic relations with Cuba, and we sent a delegation,
there. The Americans had cut off the Cubans' supply i

of oil, their main source of power, and the Cubans

were obliged to turn to us for help. Life on the island
was in danger of coming to a standstill. It was urgent
that we organize an oil delivery to Cuba on a massive
We
j

scale. But that was easier said than done. didn't:

have enough oceangoing vessels in our own tanker j

fleet. Our efforts to provide. Cuba with the petroleimi,

products it needed put a heavy burden on our own;
shipping system and forced us to order extra tankers
from Italy. When Italy agreed to sell us the necessary
tankers, it caused a sharp conflict between Italy and
America. The Americans accused the Itahans of violat-
ing the spirit of sohdarity with their fellow capitalists.
The lesson of the whole incident was that if a capital-
ist country sees a chance to make some extra money
from trade with a Communist country, it couldn't care
less about economic solidarity.
Once we set up diplomatic relations with Cuba, we
sent a veteran diplomat to be our ambassador in Ha-
vana. We also had Alekseyev there, a journalist who
i
was friendly with Fidel and even more so with RauL
When the Cuban leaders needed something from us,
tiiey would more often address themselves to Ale-
kseyev than to our ambassador. Alekseyev would im-
mediately get in touch with Moscow and inform us
 FIDEL CASTRO AND THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS 543

of the Cubans' request. It was a lucky thing we had

Alekseyev there because our ambassador turned out
to be unsuited for service in a country just emerging
from a revolution. One of his problems was that he
got bogged down in bureaucracy. Another problem
was that when the situation heated up and shooting
started, he demanded that the Cubans give him a
special bodyguard. The Cuban leaders, who were all
guerrilla fighters fresh from the hills, were astonished
and irritated by this request. Here they were, offering
the enemies of the revolution far more enticing targets
and going around without any bodyguards at all, and
now this Communist aristocrat of ours starts demand-
ing somesort of special protection from any possible
unpleasantness! We could see that our ambassador
was doing more to harm our relations with Cuba than
to help them, so we recalled him and made Alekseyev
ambassador in his place. The Cubans already knew
and trusted Alekseyev, and he turned out to be an
excellent choice; he was their kind of diplomat.
Meanwhile the plot was thickening. Castro was no
longer sitting on the fence; he was beginning to behave
like a full-fledged Communist, even though he still
didn't call himself one. He was enlisting Communists
into his government.
Castro's policies, however, were earning him many
enemies. The President whom he'd appointed when he
first came to power fled to America, and many of the
men who had fought at his side during the struggle
for independence were turning away from him. The
reason for this was that many of them didn't want
Socialist reforms. They had been fed up with Batista
I
and eager to overthrow the corrupt old regime, but
they were against Castro's nationalization of all busi-
nesses, his restrictive policies against the landowners,
and his confiscation of property belonging to wealthy
Americans.
All the while the Americans had been watching
Castro closely. At first they thought that the capitalist
underpinnings of the Cuban economy would remain
intact. So by the time Castro announced that he was
going to put Cuba on the road toward Socialism, the
544 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Americans had already missed their chance to do any
thing about it by simply exerting their influence: there
were no longer any forces left which could be orga
nized to fight on America's behalf in Cuba. That lef
—
only one alternative invasion!
The Cubans asked us for arms. We gave them tank;
and artillery and sent them instructors. In additior
we sent them antiaircraft guns and some fighter planes
As a result of our assistance Cuba was soHdly armed'
The Cuban army lacked mainly in experience. The^
had never used tanks before; they had always fought
—
with light arms only automatic rifles, grenades, and
pistols. But with the help of our instructors the>
learned quickly how to use the modem weapons thai
we supplied them with.
We first heard on the radio that a counterrevolu-
tionary invasion had been launched against Cuba.^
We didn't even know who the invaders were: were
they Cuban conspirators or Americans? However, we
knew that no matter under whose banner the invasion
was launched, it had to have the backing of the Amer-
icans.
Fidel's forces swung into action and made short work
of the invaders. The Americans had put too much
faith in the conspirators. They had assumed that with
American support behind the invasion, the Cubans
would rally to the conspirators and topple Castro by
themselves.
After Castro's crushing victory over the counter-
revolutionaries, we intensified our military aid to Cuba.
We gave them as many arms as the Cuban army could
absorb. But the real problem remained a matter not of
the quantity or quality of the weapons, but of the
availabihty of personnel who knew how to handle
modem equipment.
Before the forces of invasion had been entirely
crushed, Castro came out with a declaration that Cuba
would follow a Socialist course. We had trouble under-
standing the timing of this statement. Castro's declara-
tion had the immediate effect of widening the gap

1. This was the Bay of Pigs fiasco in April, 1961.

 FIDEL CASTRO AND THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS 545

^between himself and the people who were against

Socialism, and it narrowed the circle of those he could
count on for support against the invasion. As far as
Castro's personal courage was concerned, his position
was admirable and correct. But from a tactical stand-
J)oint, it didn't make much sense.^
However, Castro was victorious anyway. He defeated
the counterrevolutionaries and took many of them
prisoner. We welcomed Castro's victory, of course, but
at the same time we were quite certain that the [Bay
'!of Pigs] invasion was only the begimiing and that the

Americans would not let Cuba alone. The United

States had put its faith in the Cuban emigres once and
it would do so again. The emigre conspirators had
learned some lessons from their defeat, and they
wouldn't refuse a chance to repeat their aggression.
Cuba's geographical position has always made it very
vulnerable to its enemies. The Cuban coast is only a
few miles from the American shore, and it is stretched
jout like a sausage, a shape that makes it easy for
and incredibly difficult for the island's de-
'attackers
There are infinite opportunities for invasion,
fenders.
jespecially if the invader has naval artillery and air
I
support.
We were sure that the Americans would never rec-
oncile themselves to the existence of Castro's Cuba.
They feared, as much as we hoped, that a Socialist
Cuba might become a magnet that would attract other
Latin American countries to Socialism. Given the con-
tinual threat of American interference in the Carib-
bean, what should our own policy be? This question
was constantly on my mind, and I frequently discussed
it with the other members of the Presidium. Everyone

agreed that America would not leave Cuba alone un-

less we did something. We had an obligation to do
everything in our power to protect Cuba's existence
as a Socialist country and as a working example to the
3ther countries of Latin America. It was clear to me

2. open declaration of Socialist principles at this

Castro's
stage ofthe game flew in the face of Lenin's teaching on revo-
utionary tactics, which places a high value on deception.
546 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
that we might very well lose Cuba if we didn't tak<
some decisive steps in her defense. , I

The fate of Cuba and the maintenance of Sovie

prestige in that part of the world preoccupied me eve;
when I was busy conducting the affairs of state ij

Moscow and traveling to the other fraternal countries

While I was on an official visit to Bulgaria, for instance!
one thought kept hammering away at my brain: wha
will happen if we lose Cuba? I knew it would hav
been a terrible blow to Marxism-Leninism. It wouL
gravely diminish our stature throughout the world, bu;
especially in Latin America. If Cuba fell, other Latii!
American countries would reject us, claiming that fo:i
allour might the Soviet Union hadn't been able to d{
anything for Cuba except to make empty protests tc
the United Nations. We had to think up some way o
confronting America with more than words. We had t(
establish a tangible and effective deterrent to Ameri
can interference in the Caribbean. But what exactly'
The logical answer was missiles. The United States hac
already surrounded the Soviet Union with its owi
bomber bases and missiles. We knew that Americai
missiles were aimed against us in Turkey and Italy, t(
say nothing of West Germany. Our vital industria
centers were directly threatened by planes armed witl
atomic bombs and guided missiles tipped with nuclea:
warheads. As Chairman of the Council of Ministers,
found myself in the difficult position of having to de
cide on a course of action which would answer th(
American threat but which would also avoid war. Anj
fool can start a war, and once he's done so, even th(
—
wisest of men are helpless to stop it especially if it':
a nuclear war.
It was during my visit to Bulgaria that I had thf
idea of installing missiles with nuclear warheads ii
Cuba without letting the United States find out thej
were there until it was too late to do anything abou
them. I knew that first we'd have to talk to Castn
and explain our strategy to him in order to get th(
agreement of the Cuban government. My thinking
went like this: if we installed the missiles secretly anc
then if the United States discovered the missiles were
 FIDEL CASTRO AND THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS 547

there after they were ahready poised and ready to

strike, the Americans would think twice before trying
to liquidate our installations by military means. I
knew that the United States could knock out some of
our installations, but not all of them. If a quarter or
—
even a tenth of our missiles survived even if only
—
one or two big ones were left we could still hit New
York, and there wouldn't be much of New York left.
I don't mean to say that everyone in New York would
—
be killed ^not everyone, of course, but an awful lot of
people would be wiped out. I don't know how many:
that's a matter for our scientists and military personnel
to work out. They specialize in nuclear warfare and
know how to calculate the consequences of a missile
strike against a city the size of New York. But that's
all beside the point. The main thing was that the in-
stallation of our missiles in Cuba would, I thought,
restrain the United States from precipitous military
action against Castro's government. In addition to pro-
tecting Cuba, our missiles would have equalized what
the West likes to call "the balance of power." The
Americans had surrounded our country with military
bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and
now they would learn just what it feels like to have
enemy missiles pointing at you; we'd be doing nothing
more than giving them a httle of their own medicine.
And it was high time America learned what it feels
like to have her own land and her own people threat-
ened. We Russians have suffered three wars over the
last half century: World War I, the Civil War, and
World War II. America has never had to fight a war
on her own soil, at least not in the past fifty years.
She's sent troops abroad to fight in the two World
—
Wars and made a fortune as a result. America has
shed a few drops of her own blood while making bil-
lions by bleeding the rest of the world dry.
All these thoughts kept churning in my head the
whole time I was in Bulgaria. I paced back and forth,
brooding over what to do. I didn't tell anyone what I
was thinking. I kept my mental agony to myself. But
all the while the idea of putting missiles in Cuba was
ripening inside my mind. After I returned to Moscow
 j ;

548 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

from Bulgaria continued to think about the possi-
I
bihty. Finally we conveneda meeting and I said I had
some thoughts to air on the subject of Cuba. I laid out
all the considerations which I've just outlined. I pre-
sented my idea in the context of the counterrevolution-
ary invasion which Castro had just resisted. I said that
it would be foolish to expect the inevitable second

invasion to be as badly planned and as badly executed

as the first. I warned that Fidel would be crushed if
another invasion were launched against Cuba and said
that we were the only ones who could prevent such a
disaster from occurring. '

In the course of discussions inside the Government,

we decided to install intermediate-range missiles,
launching equipment, and 11-28 bombers in Cuba. Even
though these bombers were obsolete, they would be
useful against an enemy landing force. The 11-28 was
too slow to fly over enemy territory because it could
easily be shot down, but was well suited for coastal:
defense. The 11-28 was our first jet bomber. In its
time it had been god of the air, but by the time we
gave military assistance to Cuba, the 11-28 had already
been taken out of production.
Soon after we began shipping our missiles to Cuba,
the Americans became suspicious. Their intelUgence
told them that the number of our ships going to Cuba
had suddenly and substantially increased and that our
own people were unloading the ships once they reached
Cuban ports. We didn't allow the Cubans to do any
of the unloading or installation of the missiles them-
selves. While the Americans had no direct information
about what we were dehvering, they knew that what-
ever we were doing, we were doing with our own
hands. It was not long before they concluded on the i

basis of reconnaissance photographs that we were in-d

stalling missiles. They also knew about our 11-28 |y
bombers which had been flown to Cuba.
The Americans became frightened, and we stepped j

up our shipments. We had delivered almost everything;!

by the time the crisis reached the boiling point.
There are people who argue with the benefit of
hindsight that antiaircraft missUes should have been!
 FIDEL CASTRO AND THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS 549

installed before the ballistic missiles so as to close the

airspace over Cuba. This doesn't make sense. How
many surface-to-air missiles can you fit on a tiny
sausage-shaped island? There's a limit to the number
of missile installations you can put on an island as
small as Cuba. Then, after you've launched all your
missiles, you're completely unprotected. Moreover,
antiaircraft missiles have a very short range. Antiair-
craft batteries can easily be knocked out from the sea
and air.
I want to make one thing absolutely clear: when we
put our Cuba, we had no desire to
ballistic missiles in
start a war. On the contrary, our principal aim was
only to deter America from starting a war. We were
well aware that a war which started over Cuba would
quickly expand into a world war. Any idiot could have
started a war between America and Cuba. Cuba was
eleven thousand kilometers away from lis. Only a fool
would think that we wanted to invade the American
continent from Cuba. Our goal was precisely the op-
posite: we wanted to keep the Americans from invad-
ing Cuba, and, to that end, we wanted to make them
think twice by confronting them with our missiles. This
—
goal we achieved ^but not without undergoing a period
of perilous tension.
When the Americans figured out what we were up
to in Cuba, they mounted a huge press campaign
against us, claiming that we were threatening the se-
curity of the United States and so on and so forth. In
short, hostihty began to build up, and the American
press fanned the flames. Then one day in October
President Kennedy came out with a statement warn-
ing that the United States would take whatever mea-
sures were necessary to remove what he called the
"threat" of Russian missiles on Cuba. The Americans
began to make a belligerent show of their strength.
They concentrated their forces against Cuba, com-
pletely surrounding the island with their navy. Things
started churning. In our estimation the Americans
were trying to frighten us, but they were no less scared
than we were of atomic war. We hadn't had time to
deliver all our shipments to Cuba, but we had installed
 550 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
enough missiles already to destroy New York, Chicago
and the other huge industrial cities, not to mention s
little village like Washington. I don't think Americ?
had ever faced such a real threat of destruction as at
that moment.
Meanwhile we went about our own business. We
didn't let ourselves be intimidated. Our ships, with the
remainder of our deliveries to Cuba, headed straight
through an armada of the American navy, but the
Americans didn't try to stop our ships or even check'
them. We
kept in mind that as long as the United
States limited itself to threatening gestures and didn't'
actually touch us, we could afford to pretend to ignore
the harassment. After all, the United States had no
moral or legal quarrel with us. We hadn't given the
Cubans anything more than the Americans were giving
to their alHes. We had the same rights and opportuni-
ties as Our conduct in the international
the Americans.
arena was governed by the same rules and limits as
the Americans'.
We had almost completed our shipments. As the
crisis approached the boiling point, the Western press
began to seeth with anger and alarm. We replied,
accordingly, although not so hysterically. Our people
were fully informed of the dangerous situation that
had developed, although we took care not to cause
panic by the way we presented the facts.
I remember a period of six or seven days when the
danger was particularly acute. Seeking to take the heat
off the situation somehow, I suggested to the other,
members of thegovernment: "Comrades, let's go to,
the Bolshoi Theater this evening. Our own people as
well as foreign eyes will notice, and perhaps it will
calm them down. They'll say to themselves, 'If Khru-
shchev and our other leaders are able to go to the
opera at a time like this, then at least tonight we cam
sleep peacefully.' " We were trying to disguise our
own anxiety, which was intense.^

3. When the top men in the Kremlin turn up at the Bolshoi

Theater in a body, aU smiles, it frequently (though not infal-
libly) means that a crisis of some kind is brewing. One of the
 FIDEL CASTRO AND THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS 551

Then the exchange of notes began. I dictated the

messages and conducted the exchange from our side. I
spent one of the most dangerous nights at the Council
of Ministers office in the Klremlin. I slept on a couch
in my office —
and I kept my clothes on. I didn't want
to be like that Western minister who was caught liter-
ally with his pants down by the Suez events of 1956
and who had to run around in his shorts until the
emergency was over [see page 481]. I was ready for
alarming news to come any moment, and I wanted to
be ready to react immediately.
President Kennedy issued an ultimatum, demanding
that we remove our missiles and bombers from Cuba.
I remember those days vividly. I remember the ex-
change with President Kennedy especially well be-
cause I initiated it and was at the center of the action
on our end of the correspondence. I take complete
responsibility for the fact that the President and I
entered into direct contact at the most crucial and
dangerous stage of the crisis.
The climax came after five or six days, when our
ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, re-
ported that the President's brother, Robert Kennedy,
had come to see him on an luiofficial visit. Dobrynin's
report went something like this:
"Robert Kennedy looked exhausted. One could see
from his eyes that he had not slept for days. He him-
self said that he had not been home for six days and
nights. 'The President is in a grave situation,' Robert
Kennedy said, 'and he does not know how to get out
of it. We are under very severe stress. In fact we are
under pressure from our military to use force against
Cuba. Probably at this very moment the President is
sitting down to write a message to Chairman Khru-
shchev. We want to ask you, Mr. Dobrynin, to pass
President Kennedy's message to Chairman Khrushchev
through unofficial channels. President Kennedy im-
plores Chairman IChrushchev to accept his offer and

Dest remembered of such occasions was the evening before

3eria's arrest. Beria himself, of course, was included in the
)arty.
552 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
to take into consideration the peculiarities of the,
American system. Even though the President himseli
is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an
irreversible chain of events could occur against his
will. That is why the President is appealing directly to
Chairman Khrushchev for his help in Uquidating this
conflict. If the situation continues much longer, the
President is not sure that the miHtary will not over-
throw him and seize power. The American army could,
get out of control.' "*
I hadn't overlooked this possibility. We
knew that
Kennedy was a young President and the the security
of the United States was indeed threatened. For some
time we had felt there was a danger that the President
would lose control of his military, and now he was
admitting this to us himself. Kennedy's message ur-
gently repeated the Americans' demand that we re-
move the missiles and bombers from Cuba. We
could
sense from the tone of the message that tension in the
United States was indeed reaching a critical point.
We wrote a reply to Kennedy in which we said that
we had installed the missiles with the goal of defend-
ing Cuba and that we were not pursuing any other
aims except to deter an invasion of Cuba and to guar-
antee that Cuba could follow a course determined by
its own people rather than one dictated by some third
party.
While we conducted some of this exchange through
official diplomatic channels, the more confidential let-
ters were relayed to us through the President's broth-
er. Hegave Dobrynin his telephone number and asked
him any time. Once, when Robert Kennedy
to call at
talked with Dobrynin, he was almost crying. "I haven't
seen my children for days now," Robert Kennedy said,
"and the President hasn't seen his either. We're spend-
ing all day and night at the White House; I don't know
how much longer we can hold out against our gen-
erals."

4. Obviously, this is Khrushchev's own version of what was

reported to him. There is no evidence that the President was
acting out of fear of a military take-over.
 FIDEL CASTRO AND THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS 553

We could see that we had to reorient our position

swiftly. "Comrades," I said, "we have to look for a
dignified way out of this conflict. At the same time,
of course, we must make sure that we do not compro-
mise Cuba." We sent the Americans a note saying that
we agreed to remove our missiles and bombers on the
condition that the President give us his assurance that
there would be no invasion of Cuba by the forces of
the United States or anybody else. Finally Kennedy
gave in and agreed to make a statement giving us such
an assurance.
I should mention that our side's policy was, from the
outset, worked out in the collective leadership. It
wasn't until after two or three lengthy discussions of
the matter that we had decided it was worth the risk
to install missiles on Cuba in the first place. It had
been my feeling that the initial, as well as the subse-
quent, decisions should not be forced down anyone's
throat. I had made sure to give the collective leader-
ship time for the problem to crystallize in everyone's
mind. I had wanted my comrades to accept and support
the decision with a clear conscience and a full under-
standing of what the consequences of putting the mis-
siles on Cuba might be —
namely, war with the United
States. Every step we had taken had been carefully
considered by the collective.
As soon as we announced publicly that we were
ready to remove our missiles from Cuba, the Ameri-
cans became arrogant and insisted on sending an in-
spection team to the island. We answered that they'd
have to get the Cuban government's permission to do
that. Then the Chinese and American press started
hooting and shouting about how Khrushchev had
turned coward and backed down. I won't deny that
we were obliged to make some big concessions in the
interests of peace. We even consented to the inspection
—
of our ships but only from the air. We never let the
Americans actually set foot on our decks, though we
did let them satisfy themselves that we were really
removing our missiles.
Once the evacuation was begun, there was some
question in our minds whether the Americans would
554 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

pull back their naval forces which surrounded the i

island. We were worried that as soon as we retreated ;

the Americans might move in on the offensive. But no,

good sense prevailed. Their ships started to leave >

Cuba's territorial waters, but their planes continued |

to circle the island. Castro gave an order to open fire, ;

and the Cubans shot down an American U-2 recon- ;

naissance plane. Thus another American spy, just like

Gary Powers, was downed by one of our missiles.* [

The incident caused an uproar. At first we were con- ,

cerned that President Kennedy wouldn't be able to ,

'

stomach the humiliation. Fortunately, however, noth-

ing happened except that the Americans became more ,

brazen than ever in their propaganda. They did every-

thing they could to wound our pride and to make
Kennedy look good. But that didn't matter as long as
they pulled back their troops and called off their air
force.
The situation was Almost immediately
stabilizing. .

after the President and I had exchanged notes at the

peak of the crisis, our relations with the United States
started to return to normal. Our relations with Cuba,
on the other hand, took a sudden turn for the worse. '

Castro even stopped receiving our ambassador. It

seemed that by removing our missiles we had suffered
a moral defeat in the eyes of the Cubans. Our shares
in Cuba
instead of going up, went down.
We decided to send Mikoyan to Cuba. "We have no
better diplomat that Mikoyan for a mission like this,"
I said. "He will discuss the situation with the Cubans
'

calmly." Not everyone understands what Mikoyan is '

saying when he talks, but he's a reasonable man. He

had, over the years, played an important role in the
development of our foreign trade and had proved him-
self a skillful negotiator.
Then Castro came out with his four or five conditions
for normalizing relations with the United States. We
wholeheartedly supported him in his demand that the
Americans should give up their naval base at Guan-

5. Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr., tiie pilot of the U-2, was in

fact killed when his plane was shot down on October 27, 1962.
 FIDEL CASTRO AND THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS 555

tanamo Bay. To this very day we support him. in this

demand, but the Americans are still there and no one
knows when they will leave.
In our negotiations with the Americans during the
they had, on the whole, been open and candid
crisis,
with Robert Kennedy. The Americans
us, especially
knew thatRussian blood were shed in Cuba, Amer-
if

ican blood would surely be shed in Germany. The

American government was anxious to avoid such a
development. It had been, to say the least, an interest-
ing and challenging situation. The two most powerful
nations of the world had been squared off against each
other, each with its finger on the button. You'd have
thought that war was inevitable. But both sides showed
that if the desire to avoid war is stong enough, even
the most pressing dispute can be solved by compro-
mise. And a compromise over Cuba was indeed found.
The episode ended in a triumph of common sense. I'll
always remember the late President with deep respect
because, in the final analysis, he showed himself to be
sober-minded and determined to avoid war. He didn't
let himself become frightened, nor did he become reck-
less. He didn't overestimate America's might, and he
lefthimself a way out of the crisis. He showed real
wisdom and statesmanship when he turned his back
on right-wing forces in the United States who were
trying to goad him into taking military action against
Cuba. It was a great victory for us, though, that we
had been able to extract from Kennedy a promise that
neither America nor any of her allies would invade
Cuba.
But Castro it that way. He was angry that
didn't see
we had removed the missiles. All the while, the Chi-
nese were making a lot of noise publicly as well as
buzzing in Castro's ear, "Just remember, you can't
trust the imperialists to keep any promises they make!"
In other words the Chinese exploited the episode to
discredit us in the eyes of the Cubans.
After consulting with Mikoyan on his return from
Havana, I decided to write a letter to Castro, candidly
expressing my thoughts about what had happened.
"The main point about the Caribbean crisis," I wrote,
556 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
"is that it has guaranteed the existence of a Socialist i

Cuba. If Cuba had not undergonethis ordeal, it's very

likely the Americans w^ould have organized an inva-
sion to hquidate Cuba's Socialist way of life. Now that \

the climax of the tension has passed and we have

|

exchanged commitments with the American govern- '

ment, it will be very difficult for the Americans to :

interfere. If the United States should invade now, the ;

Soviet Union v^dll have the right to attack. Thus we i

have secured the existence of a Socialist Cuba for at '

least another two years while Kennedy is in the White I

House. And we have reason to believe that Kennedy !

will be elected for a second term. Consequently, he i

may be in office for another six years altogether. To ,

make it through six years in this day and age is no :

small thing. And six years from now the balance of i

power in the world will have probably shifted and — -

shifted in our favor, in favor of Socialism!"

My letter to Castro concluded an episode of world '

history in which, bringing the world to the brink of

atomic war, we won a Socialist Cuba. It's very consol-
ing for me personally to know that our side acted :

correctly and that we did a great revolutionary deed ;

by not letting American imperialism intimidate us. The ;

Caribbean crisis was a triumph of Soviet foreign policy i

and a personal triumph in my ov^n career as a states-

man and as a member of the collective leadership. We ;

achieved, I would say, a spectacular success without ;

having to fire a single shot!

A number of years have passed, and we can be

gratified that the revolutionary government of Fidel
Castro still lives and grows. So far, the United States ;

has abided by its promise not to interfere in Cuba nor '

to let anyone else interfere.

I remembermy very last conversation vdth Comrade
Fidel Castro. We were at Pitsunda [a resort in the :

Caucasus, the site of a government dacha], and were ;

discussing Cuba's sugar crop. Castro's eyes burned

'

with the desire to get started as soon as possible with

the task of revolutionizing Cuban agriculture. He
knew that the only reahstic way to elevate the Cuban '
 FIDEL CASTRO AND THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS 557

economy was to increase the sugar output, and in order

to do that he needed tractors, harvesting combines, and
modem sugar refineries. During our conversation Cas-
tro said his goal was to dominate the international
sugar market. I pointed out to him that world sugar
prices, which were sharply inflated after the blockade
against Cuban sugar, would undoubtedly return to
normal when other countries expanded their own
sugar production to meet the world demand. It turned
out that I was right: the inflated sugar prices, which
would have been so lucrative for Cuba if the transitory
market situation which caused them had lasted longer,
quickly fell back to normal.
But the fact remains that Cuba has done extremely
well. I've read in the newspapers that Cuba assigned
itself the task of producing a sugar crop of ten million
tons for 1970, a year which is significant for all progres-
sive humanity because it is the one hundredth anni-
versary of the Great Lenin's birth. I'm very happy for
the Cuban people that they have come this far.
Today Cuba exists as an independent Socialist coun-
try, right in front of the open jaws of predatory
American imperialism. Cuba's very existence is good
propaganda for other Latin American countries, en-
couraging them to follow its example and to choose the
course of Socialism. Other Latin American peoples are
already beginning to realize what steps they can take
to liberate themselves from American imperialists and
monopolists. HopefuUy Cuba's example will continue
to shine.
As for Kennedy, his death was a great loss. He was
gifted with the ability to resolve international con-
flicts by
negotiation, as the whole world learned during
the so-called Cuban crisis. Regardless of his youth he
was a real statesman. I believe that if Kennedy had
lived, relations between the Soviet Union and the
United States would be much better than they are.
Why do I say that? Because Kennedy would have
never let his country get bogged down in Vietnam.
After President Kennedy's death, his successor, Lyn-
don Johnson, assured us that he would keep Kennedy's
promise not to invade Cuba. So far the Americans have
558 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

not broken their word. If they ever do, we still have

the means necessary to make good on our ov^ni com-
mitment to Castro and to defend Cuba.
 21

Defending the Socialist Paradise

This chapter offers a remarkably clear picture of the

limitations and the no less striking virtues of Khru-
shchev as statesman. It opens with a view of the inter-
national scene which, apart from individual obliquities
of outlook, is blinkered by Communist preconceptions;
but it moves on to show a breadth of understanding
and a depth of vision unusvul in politicians of any
stamp. With all his faults, which he carried with him
to the end of his career, the extraordinary thing about
Khrushchev is that he went on growing and develop-
ing. The peasant from Kalinovka, rough, domAneering,
violent, sometimes vindictive, boastful, filled with peas-
ant cunning, quite uneducated in the conventional
sense, and with a mind that was never fully trained,
nevertheless eTnbodied certain qiialities of character,
imagination, perhaps even humility, which set him,
apart from his colleagues and above all of them. He
could never escape entirely from the prison of his own
past and the defects of his temperament; but in these
pages he emerges, as he showed himself increasingly
in his last years of activity, as a courageous statesman
with flashes of deep wisdom, who in other circum-
stances might have become an outstanding world figure
held in wide respect.

It'sno small thing that we have lived to see the day

when the Soviet Union is considered, in terms of its
economic might, the second most powerful country in
the world. MacmiUan once said to me, "What is En-
gland today? England isn't the power she was when
she ruled the waves and had the deciding voice in
559
 560 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
world politics. Nowadays it's the United States and
you, the Soviet Union, who decide everything." Mr.
de Gaulle, the President of France, told me the same
thing, almost in the same words, and he's a sober-
minded man: "Well, Mr. Khrushchev, today the United
States and the Soviet Union are the two great powers.
France doesn't have the stature and influence she
once had." So you see, both Macmillan and de Gaulle
readily acknowledged our importance in the world
arena.
Over the years the Soviet Union has gained great
prestige in the eyes of all people who fight for peace,
progress, and Hberation from colonialism. The goal of
our foreign policy hasn't been to enrich our own state
at the expense of other states; we have never believed
in the exploitation of man by man, of state by state.
On the contrary, both by our stated policies and by
our deeds we have encouraged countries to enjoy the
fruits of their own labor. We have aided these coun-
tries not only with our counsel and by the example
we have set, but we have also given them gratuitous
material aid or sold them goods and equipment at re-
duced prices. Our foreign policy is rooted in our con-
viction that the way pointed out to us by Lenin is the
way of the future not only for the Soviet Union, but
for all countries and all peoples of the world.
Take for example our policy toward Afghanistan. I
went there with Bulganin, who was then head of our
delegation, on our way back from India [in 1955]. We
were invited by the king of Afghanistan to stop over
in Kabul. As a result of our discussions with the king
and his ministers, we had a fairly clear idea of what
an economically backward country Afghanistan was.
We could sense that the Afghans were looking for a
way out of all their problems.
It was also clear that America was courting Afghani-
stan. In its desire to encircle us with military bases,
America will thjrow itself all over a country like
Afghanistan, appearing to give that country economic
aid but actually being much more interested in curry-
ing political favors. The Americans were undertaking
all kinds of projects at their own expense — building
 DEFENDING THE SOCIALIST PARADISE 561
r
•oads, giving credit loans, and so on. But they weren't
)ffering their help out of some compassionate or chari-
table desire on the part of the rich to assist the poor.
No, America's so-called foreign aid program is actually
part of a campaign to take advantage of the severe
economic difficulties of a country like Afghanistan. And
the Americans don't even go to much trouble to con-
ceal their real aims; they hardly bother to put a fig
leaf over their self-centered, militaristic motives. We
have already seen what has happened when the Amer-
ican capitalists, imperialists, monopolists, and militar-
ists —^the whole gang of them— ^have gone poking their
noses into other countries' business in Asia. They
would go in offering all kinds of economic aid and
come out with another signature to the SEATO treaty.
Pakistan joined SEATO, and the Americans tried to
get India to join, too. But India, thanks to Nehru's
progressive leadership, refused, and India stood firm as
a country independent of all military blocs.
At the time of our visit there, it was clear to us that
the Americans were penetrating Afghanistan with the
obvious purpose of setting up a military base.
For our part, we have built a bakery, a railroad, and
educational institutions, and we have undertaken the
construction of several hundred kilometers of road.
The road is now of great political and economic im-
portance because it passes near the Afghan-Iranian
border.
It's my strong feeling that the capital which we've
invested in Afghanistan hasn't been wasted. We have
earned the Afghans' trust and friendship, and it hasn't
fallen iato the Americans' trap; it hasn't been caught
on the hook baited with American money.
There's no doubt that if the Afghans hadn't become
lour friends, the Americans would have managed to
[ingratiate themselves with their "humanitarian aid,"
as they call it. The amount of money we spent in
gratuitous assistance to Afghanistan is a drop in the
ocean compared to the price we would have had to
pay in order to counter the threat of an American
military base on Afghan territory. Think of the capital
we would have had to lay out to finance the deploy-
562 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
ment of our own military might along our side of tt'
Afghan border, and it would have been an expen*
that would have sucked the blood of our people witl
out augmenting our means of production one whit. |i

I think our foreign policy should be based in paij

on an old folk custom which I remember from my ow[
childhood. If a housewife went to another village 1
visit friends or relatives, she would never go withoi
—
taking a bundle of pastries or, in our Kursk Provinct'
—
a dozen eggs as a house present for her hosts. I thinji
this tradition should be adopted by one state in illi
dealings vnth another. This custom should be pra(|J
ticed reasonably and moderately, mind you. It doesn';
take much brains or skill to earn the reputation of th
kindly uncle who squanders money on gifts for othe
families without leaving enough to buy the groceriei
for his ov^n family. That's obviously an extreme to b
avoided. The policy of giving "house presents" to othe
countries must be pursued intelligently and in modera
tion so that our generosity will always repay us botli
economically and politically.^ F
We must never forget that our enemies are alwayj
working against us, always looking for a chance ti
exploit some oversight on our part. There is a battl!
going on in the world to decide who will prevail ovei
whom: will the working class prevail, or the bouri
geoisie? The working class is convinced that th4
bourgeoisie has exhausted itself, while the bourgeoisil
believes it can rule forever. Every right-thinking per|[
son can see clearly that the basic questions of ideology
can be resolved only by struggle and only by the vici
tory of one doctrine over the other. k

We Communists, we Marxists-Leninists, believe thaf

progress is on our side and victory will inevitably b<l
ours. Yet the capitalists won't give an inch and still
swear to fight to the bitter end. Therefore how can W(i
talk of peaceful coexistence with capitalist ideology'
Peaceful coexistence among different systems of gov|
emment is possible, but peaceful coexistence amon|!
,1

1. Even on Khrushchev's showing there does not seem muCi

difference between Soviet motives and the motives he attribute
to the USA for giving aid to underdeveloped coimtries.
 DEFENDING THE SOCIALIST PARADISE 563

iifferent ideologies is not. It would be a betrayal of

)ur Party's first principles to believe that there can be
peaceful coexistence between Marxist-Leninist ideol-
)gy on the one hand and bourgeois ideology on the
;)ther.
i
Wehave always said this. When I spoke out on this
subject at press conferences, during the years when
i;he direction of our policies depended largely on me,

always said that there can be no such thing as ideo-

logical peaceful coexistence. I always stressed that we
vould fight to the end, and that we were sure we
^v^ould prevail.

j
Therefore I allowed myself at one point to use the
Expression, "We will bury the enemies of the Revolu-
ion." I was referring, of course, to America. Enemy
Propaganda picked up this slogan and blew it all out
hi proportion
—
"Khrushchev says the Soviet people
Ivant to bury the people of the United States of Amer-
ca!" I had said no such tlung. Our enemies were
listorting and exploiting a phrase which I'd simply
|et drop. Later at press conferences I elaborated and

ilarified what I had meant: We, the Soviet Union,

veren't going to bury anyone; the working class of the
jJnited States would bury its enemy the bourgeois
lass of the United States. My slogan had referred to
In internal question which every country will decide
|or itself: namely, by what course and by what meth-
>ds will the working class of a given country achieve
ts victory over the bourgeoisie?
The main thing that I noticed about the capitalist
ITest when I was in New York, which Gorky once
aUed the City of the Yellow Devil, is that it's not the
jian that counts but the doUar. Everyone thinks of
tow to make money, how to get more dollars. Profits,
pe quest for capital, and not people are the center of
jttention there.
The ruling quarters of the United States describe
le so-called American way of life as a model for the
free world." But what kind of freedom is that? It is
le freedom to exploit, the freedom to rob, the free-
iom to die of starvation when there are surpluses, the
I'eedom to be unemployed when production capacities
564 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

stand idle. Freedom in the United States is a freedon

for monopoly capital to oppress the working people
to bamboozle people with the bi-partisan system, tc
impose its will on their partners in military blocs. Sucl'
a society provides the basis for wars between coun-
tries because the tendency toward reaction inside th<;
country and toward expansion and aggression outside:
is characteristic of monopoly capitalism and imperial
ism.
The liquidation of the capitalist system is the crucia!
question in the development of society. After the vic-i
tory of the working class, working peasantry, anc
working inteUigentsia, there will be neither social, na-
tional, nor any other causes for the outbreak of wai
in any country. But this will be only under the com-
plete domination of the Socialist, communist systen:
throughout the world. Mankind will then be united ir
a true commonwealth of equal nations. This was saic
long ago and scientifically proved by the founders oi
Marxism-Leninism.
The the struggle going or
crucial struggle, then, is

within each country between its own bourgeoisie anc

its own proletariat. This fact has some bearing on the
question of how large a standing army the Soviel
Union should try to maintain on its own territory anc
on the territories of the fraternal Socialist countries
My own thinking on this subject has evolved consider-
ably over the years.
Not long after Stalin's death I was in Rumania anc
had a talk with the Rumanian Minister of War, Com-
rade Bodnaras.^ He was a good friend of the Sovie'

2. E. Bodnaras started as an artillery subaltern in thir

life
Rumanian army; he became a Communist and deserted to thrt
Soviet Union in 1932. After various vicissitudes he took OU)
Soviet citizenship and underwent training in the Moscow se-'
cret police school. Back in Rumania after the war he wa
active and effective in assisting the Communists, backed hy
Soviet bayonets, in destroying all non-Commimist parties. H<f
became Minister of National Defense in the fellow-travelinii
Groza government in December, 1947, thus bringing the arm;t
under Communist control at the moment when Ruma ni a becanKjii
a People's Republic. He went on from strength to strength-
 DEFENDING THE SOCIALIST PARADISE 565

Union, an Old Bolshevik who had spent some time

in prison in Rumania and who enjoyed our absolute
confidence and respect. Without warning he brought
up the question, "What would you think about pulling
your troops out of Rumania?"
I must confess that my initial reaction to his sug-
gestion wasn't very sensible. I would even go so far
as to say I lost my temper. "What are you saying?
How can you ask such a question?"
"Well," he explained, "Rumania shares borders only
with other Socialist countries and there's nobody across
the Black Sea from us except the Turks."
"And what about the Turks?" I asked.
"Well, we have you right next door. If it were
necessary, you could always come to our assistance."
"It's not just the Turks I'm thinking about. They
control the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Hence the
enemy could always invade Rumania by bringing land-
ing forces into the Black Sea."
The Rumanians exchanged glances. Obviously they
had already talked this matter over among themselves.
"Well, all right," they said, "if that's how you feel,
we'll withdraw the question. We just didn't want you
to think that we were standing firm on Socialist posi-
tions because your troops are stationed on our terri-
tory. We're standing firm because we beheve in
building Socialism and in following Marxist-Leninist
policies, and because our people recognize us as their
leaders and support us completely." I was more than
I
satisfied with this elucidation of their reason for pro-
posing the removal of Soviet troops from their terri-
tory. I believed that the Rumanian comrades were
j
sincere in reaffirming their dedication to the building
'
of Socialism.
A
few years later we did start reducing the size of
the Soviet Army, cutting it to almost half of what it
had been under Stalin.
I We
exchanged opinions in the
leadership of the Central Committee and came to the
conclusion that we would be able to puU troops out of
Poland, Hungary, and Rumania. We didn't have any
 1

566 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

troops in Czechoslovakia or in Bulgaria.^ We
left troops
only in Germany. It was perfectly clear to everyone
—
that until our former allies who had organized NATO
— agreed to a peace treaty, our troops would have to
stay in East Germany.
We had a number of reasons for deciding to pull ourl
troops out of the fraternal countries. One reason was!
political. We didn't want anyone to think that wei
didn't trust the Polish, Hungarian, and Rumanian;
people. These were our allies. They were building'
Socialism in their countries because it was in their-
own interest to do so, not because there were Soviet-
troops stationed in their midst. Marxist-Leninist in-i
temationalism has been the main attraction and unify-'
ing force for the people of the other Socialist countries. jj

You can't herd people into paradise with threats andji

then post soldiers at the gates. People have to choose
a better life on their own, and given the opportunity,
they will. Therefore we wanted to remove a trump
card from the hand of enemy propaganda. We wanted
to give the lie to the enemy's insinuation that the
Hungarian, Polish, and Rumanian people were being,
prodded along the path of Socialism at bayonet point|
by Soviet troops.
There was, of course, an economic reason as well as
a political one for pulling our troops out of the frater-
nal countries. The maintenance of a division abroad,!
on the territory of another Socialist country, costs!
twice as much as the maintenance of a division on ourf
own territory. We had to economize on our standing!
army at home as well as abroad. So we cut back sub-
stantially on military spending, particularly in the area
of personnel. After I retired from my posts as First
Secretary of the Party and Chairman of the Council
of Ministers, I heard repercussions of dissatisfaction
from people who ascribed to me the decision to cut
salaries in the Soviet Army. I don't deny that military

3. Under Khrushchev the Soviet Army was indeed very

sharply reduced. Stalin had not considered it necessary to keep k
troops in Czechoslovakia: it was left to Brezhnev to remedy
this omission. But there were still Soviet troops in Himgary,
Poland, and Rumania.

M .
 DEFENDING THE SOCIALIST PARADISE 567

salaries were cut under me, but it was actually Mar-

shal Zhukov's idea. I certainly supported him because
there were obviously many excesses which had to be
curtailed. These matters were worked out when Zhu-
kov was Minister of Defense and then later after
Malinovsky became Minister. I have to give Zhukov
his due here. He realized the necessity of reducing
i expenses in the army, and he took the initiative in
I
trimming expendable personnel from the command
i staff and ordered salary cuts for some categories of
officers.
—
j

Now, I know you can find people especially in the

\

5
—
military ^who will tell you that our reduction of the
Soviet Union's armed forces was a mistake. They'll tell
you that the imperialist camp has been dreaming for
years of a chance to annihilate the Soviet Union, and
that the only thing holding back the aggressors has
I been our armed might. Well, people who say this are
wrong. Once it was important how many troops, how
many rifles, how many bayonets a country had. But
we live in a new and different age. The number of
troops and rifles and bayonets is no longer decisive.
Now the important thing is the quality and quantity
of our nuclear missile arsenal. The defense of our
country and our ability to deter imperialist aggression
depends on our nuclear and thermonuclear fire power .^
Even honest people who want to avoid the use of
atomic and hydrogen weapons can't ignore the ques-
tion of how many such arms are available to us in case
a global war should break out. That's why we must
decide realistically on priorities for the allocation of
funds.
When I was the leader of the Party and the Govern-
ment, I decided that we had to economize drastically
in the building of homes, the construction of communal
services, and even in the development of agriculture
in order to build up our defenses. I even suspended

4. Khrushchev came tinder very heavy fire indeed for run-

ning down conventional forces in favor of reliance on the
nuclear deterrent. It was one of the contributory factors behind
his downfall in October, 1964.
 .
:;.;
! .

568 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

the construction of subways in Kiev, Baku, and Tblisi
so that we could redirect those funds into strengthen-
ing our defense and attack forces. We also built fewer
athletic stadiums, swimming pools, and cultural facili-
ties. I think I was right to concentrate on military,
spending, even at the expense of all but the most:
essential investments in other areas. If I hadn't put
such a high priority on our military needs, we couldn't
have survived. I devoted all my strength to the rearma- (.

ment of the Soviet Union. It was a challenging and I:

important stage of our lives. Now that I'm living with|f

my memories and little else, I think back often to that J
period when in a creative surge forward we rearmed b
our Soviet Army. I'm proud that the honor of super- jj

vising the transition to the most up-to-date weaponry jj

fell on me as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers

p
and the First Secretary of the Central Committee. l'

—
Our potential enemy our principal, our most power- •

ful, our most dangerous enemy — was so far away from J,

us that we couldn't have reached him with our air-
force. Only by building up a nuclear missile force could
we keep the enemy from unleashing war against us. i.
As life has already confirmed, if we had given the'
West a chance, war would have been declared while
Dulles was alive. But we were the first to launch i

rockets into space; we exploded the most powerful L

nuclear devices; we accomplished those feats first, j;
ahead of the United States, England, and France. Our j

accomplishments and our obvious might had a sober- 1

uig effect on the aggressive forces in the United States, i

England, France, and, of course, inside the Bonn gov- 1

ernment. They knew that they had lost their chance I

to strike at us vnth impunity.

Now that it's the size of our nuclear missile arsenal j

and not the size of our army that counts, I think the i

army should be reduced to an absolute minimum. I

There's no question in my mind that we have indeed!

reached the stage where that's possible. When I led-r
the Government and had final authority over our mili-
tary allocations, our theoreticians calculated that we
had the nuclear capacity to grind our enemies into
dust, and since that time our nuclear capacity has been

i
 DEFENDING THE SOCIALIST PARADISE 569

greatly intensified. During my

leadership we accumu-
lated enough weapons to destroy the principal cities
of the United States, not to mention our potential
enemies in Europe.
I remember that President Kennedy once stated in
a speech or at a press conference that the United
States had the nuclear missile capacity to wipe out the
Soviet Union two times over, while the Soviet Union
had enough atomic missiles to wipe out the United
States only once. When journalists asked me to reply
to Kennedy's statement, I said jokingly, "Yes, I know
what President Kennedy claims, and he's quite right.
But I'm not complaining as long as the President un-
derstands that even though he may be able to destroy
us two times over, we're still capable of wiping out
the United States, even if it's only once. I'm grateful
to the President for recognizing that much. We're not
a bloodthirsty people. We're satisfied to be able to
wipe out the United States the first time around. Once
is quite enough. What good does it do to annihilate a
country two times over?" These remarks of mine al-
ways drew some smiles.
In this regard must give our departed enemy
I
Adenauer credit for his sober-mindedness. Whenever
joumahsts attacked him and accused West Germany
of being a potential aggressor bent upon unleashing
another world war, Adenauer always pretended to be
a perfect little Christ. "I don't know what you're talk-
ing about," he would say. "If a third world war is un-
leashed. West Germany will be the first country to
perish." I was pleased to hear this, and Adenauer was
absolutely right in what he said. For him to be making
public statements like that was a great achievement on
our part. Not only were we keeping our number one
enemy in line, but Adenauer was helping us to keep
our other enemies in line, too.
I have always been against war, but at the same time
I've always realized full well that the fear of nuclear
war in a country's leader can paralyze that country's
defenses. And a country's defenses are paralyzed,
if

then war really the enemy is sure to

is inevitable:
sense your fright and try to take advantage of it. I
570 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
always operated on the principle that I should be
clearly against war but never frightened of it. Some-
times retreat is necessary, but retreat can also be the
beginning of the end of your resistance. When the
enemy is watching your every move, even death is a
thing to be faced bravely. And if the enemy starts a
war against you, then it is your duty to do everything
possible to survive the war and to achieve victory in
the end.
We must not lower our guard. Under no circum-
stances should we let our nuclear missile force fall
below the necessary level. There are other weapons,
too, which are necessary to have in any eventuality,
namely, chemical and bacteriological weapons. Fortu-
nately, the Second World War passed without these
arms being used, but they were used in the First World
War. Our army would be in a miserable situation if
our enemy were to use chemical and bacteriological
weapons against us and we didn't have any of our own.
As long as two opposing systems exist, we will be
obliged to keep all possible means of warfare stock-
piled. I*m emphasizing this because I want my belief
in the importance of vigilance and effective deterrence
against imperialist aggression to be clearly understood.
However, we must also keep in mind the true
character of all imperialists, capitalists, monopolists,
and militarists who are interested in making money
out of the political tension between nations. We must
make sure that wedon't allow ourselves to get involved
in a lot of senseless competition with the West over r:

military spending. If we try to compete with America ,

in any but the most essential areas of military pre-

paredness, we will be doing two harmful things. First,
we will be further enriching wealthy aggressive capi-
talistic circles in the United States who use our own
military buildups as a pretext for overloading their
own country's arms budget. Second, we will be ex-
hausting our material resources without raising the
living standard of our people. Wemust remember that u
the fewer people we have in the army, the more people ij

we will have available for other, more productive kinds

of work. This realization would be a good common

I
 DEFENDING THE SOCIALIST PARADISE 571

point of departure for the progressive forces of the

world in their struggle for peaceful coexistence. If one
side were to curtail its accumulation of military means,
it would be easier for the other side to do the same.
We must be prepared to strike back against our
enemy, but we must also ask, "Where is the end to
this spiraling competition?"
I know from experience that the leaders of the
armed forces can be very persistent in claiming their
share when it comes time to allocate funds. Every
commander has all sorts of very convincing arguments
why he should get more than anyone else. Unfortu-
nately there's a tendency for people who run the
armed forces to be greedy and self-seeking. They're
always ready to throw in your face the slogan "If you
try to economize on the country's defenses today, you'll
pay in blood when war breaks out tomorrow." I'm not
denying that these men have a huge responsibility,
and I'm not impugning their moral qualities. But the
fact remains that the living standard of the country
suffers when the budget is overloaded with allocations
to unproductive branches of consumption. And today
as yesterday, the most unproductive expenditures of
all are those made on the armed forces. That's why I
think that military leaders can't be reminded too often
that it is the government which must allocate funds,
and it is the government which must decide how much
the armed forces can spend.
Apparently the control of mihtary spending is a
universal problem. I remember a conversation I once
had with President Eisenhower when I was a guest at
his dacha at Camp David. We went for walks together
and had some useful informal talks. During one of
these talks, he asked, "TeU me, Mr. Khrushchev, how
do you decide the question of funds for military ex-
penses?" Then, before I had a chance to say anything,
he said, "Perhaps first I should tell you how it is with
us."
"Well, how is it with you?"
He smiled, and I smiled back at him. I had a feeling
what he was going to say. "It's like this. My
military
leaders come to me and say, *Mr. President, we need
 '

572 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

such and such a sum and such a program.* I

for such |

say, 'Sorry, we don't have the funds.' They say, *We

have reliable information that the Soviet Union has
already allocated funds for their own such program. ,

Therefore if we don't get the funds we need, we'll fall

behind the Soviet Union.' So I give in. That's how they |

wring money out of me. They keep grabbing for more

and I keep giving it to them. Now tell me, how is it with
you?"
"It's just the same. Some people from our military |

department come and say, 'Comrade Khrushchev, look ;

at this! The Americans are developing such and such

'

a system. We could develop the same system, but it :

would cost such and such.' I tell them there's no

money; it's all been allotted already. So they say, 'If
we don't get the money we need and if there's a war,
then the enemy will have superiority over us.' So we
'

discuss it some more, and I end up by giving them the

money they ask for."
"Yes," he said, "that's what I thought. You know,
we really should come to some sort of an agreement in
order to stop this fruitless, really wasteful rivalry."
"I'd like to do that. Part of my reason for coming (

here was to see if some sort of an agreement would

come out of these meetings and conversations."
But we couldn't agree then, and we can't agree now.
I don't know. Maybe it's impossible for us to agree. On .

the basis of my own experience, I can certainly say ;

it's very difficult. But even if a Soviet- American agree- i?

ment on bilateral reduction in military spending is ;c

impossible, I keep coming back to my own feeling that i

we should go ahead and sharply reduce our own Ij

expenditures, unilaterally. If our enemy wants to go i}

ahead inflating his military budget, spending his ovm 1^

money right and left on all kinds of senseless things,

then he's sure to lower the living standards of his own
people. By so doing he will be strengthening the posi-
tion of the Commimist and progressive forces in his
own midst, enabling them to cry out in a still louder
voice against the reactionary forces of monopolistic
capital.
There you have it. That's the substance of my view-

1
 DEFENDING THE SOCIALIST PARADISE 573

point, and I think it has some merit. My time has

ah'eady come and gone. There's nothing I can do now
but share my experience with anyone who cares to
listen and hope that somebody pays attention. It's too
late for me to do anything active. I make all these
observations as a man who no longer works. But from
my position as a pensioner, I can't help noticing that
the economizing trend we started seems to have been
reversed, that now money is being wasted on unneces-
sary items and categories, and that this new trend of
military overspending is putting a pinch on some of
the more important, but still underfinanced, areas of
our country's life.

When I was the head of the government, the young

pianist Ashkenazy married an Englishwoman who had
studied in one of our conservatories. They had a baby
and went to England to visit the wife's parents. Short-
ly afterwards Gromyko reported to me that our am-
bassador in London had cabled the following story:
Ashkenazy came to our embassy in London and said
that his wife refused to go back to the Soviet Union.
He loved her very much and asked our embassy what
to do. Now, I should mention that I had heard Ashke-
nazy play and had personally congratulated him when
he won first prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition.
He's an excellent pianist, and I often hear him on the
radio. I consulted with my comrades and proposed,
"Let's give Ashkenazy permission to live in England
however long he wants. That way he'll always be able
to return to the Soviet Union. We really have no alter-
native. If we insist that he leave his wife and return
home, he'll refuse. He's not an anti-Soviet, but we
could turn him into one if we put him in the pKDsition
of having to choose between staying with his wife and
obeying his government. He would immediately fall
into the clutches of emigres and other types who would
start working on him, beating all sorts of anti-Soviet
ideas into his head. We don't want that to happen.
What's wrong with him living in London while keeping
his Soviet citizenship? He can come back to Moscow
574 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

anytime to give concerts. After all, he*s a musician,

and that's a free profession."
Everyone agreed, and my suggestion was accepted.
These days I often listen to the radio. My radio is
my constant companion when I go out for walks. I get
both information and pleasure from it. I love folk music
and folk songs. I also like some contemporary music,
but I'll confess that a man of my age is more inclined
to the things which were part of his youth.Most radio
programs are pretty good, but there's a certain amount
of trash polluting the air. It always gives me special ,

pleasure when I turn on the radio and hear it an-

nounced that Ashkenazy has come to Moscow to give a
concert. I'm glad we protected his good name as a great
Soviet pianist and saved his family life in the process.
Perhaps the time will come when Ashkenazy and his
wife will want to come back and settle in Moscow for
good. Or perhaps they will settle in London. I'm not
excluding that possibility. So what. Let them live
where they want. think the time has come to give
I
every Soviet citizen that choice. If he wants to leave
our country and live somewhere else for a while, all
right; we should give him that opportunity. It's in-
credible to me that after fifty years of Soviet power,
paradise should be kept imder lock and key.^
We Commimists believe that capitalism is a hell in :

which laboring people are condemned to slavery. We

are building Socialism. We have already been success- ;

ful in respects, and we will be even more

many
successful in the future. Our way of life is undoubted- i

ly the most progressive in the world at the present r

stage of himianity's development. To use the language :

of the Bible again, our way of life is paradise for ;:

mankind. It's not paradise in the sense that the horn it

of plenty is overflowing and that all you have to do is

open your mouth and you will be fed. No, we don't
jj

j|

5. In August, 1969, Soviet diplomats pointed to Ashkenazy as

an example of a Soviet artist who could travel freely in and out
of the USSR. Ashkenazy branded the statement as imtrue. He
said, •'When an official Soviet spokesman says I move freely !|

between Russia and the West, as I only wish I could, it is a "

gross and unfair distortion of the truth."

 —
DEFENDING THE SOCIALIST PARADISE 575

have that kind of paradise —at

least not yet. I don't
know if we ever will. But, as they say, everything is
relative. And relative to the capitaHst world, our way
of life is a great accomplishment. We
have accom-
plished many things, and we have created the condi-
tions for still greater successes.
So why should we contradict ourselves? Why should
we build a good life for a people and then keep our
border bolted with seven locks? Sometimes our own
Soviet citizens scoff, "So you're driving us into para-
dise with a club, eh?" People used to make that sort
of complaint when compulsory collectivization and
other campaigns were under way. I think it's time to
show the world that our people are free; they work
willingly; and they are building Socialism because of
their convictions, not because they have no choice.
I have no doubt that it's practically as well as theo-
retically feasible for us to open our borders. If it were
not feasible, then what kind of freedom would we
have? All right, I know some people argue, "Look, we
have a class structure of society, and we can't let the
class enemies of the proletariat come and go at will.'*
For thinking people, that's a different period of our
existence. We
liquidated the hostile classes fifty years
ago, and any argument that raises the specter of class
enemies inside the Soviet Union is for fools.
I can think of another incident from my
own lead-
ership which illustrates how we can rid ourselves of
this disgraceful heritage of the closed border which
lies likea chain on the consciousness of the Soviet
State. Our number one ballerina, Maya Plisetskaya
who was not only the best ballerina in the Soviet
—
Union, but the best in the whole world used to be
excluded from the company whenever the Bolshoi
Theater went abroad. It was reported to me that she
couldn't be trusted, that she might not come back.
Well, I didn't know her personally; I'd never even
spoken to her; I had no idea what her attitudes were.
There's no question that it would have been very-
unpleasant if someone of Plisetskaya's reputation were
suddenly to abandon the Soviet Union. Her defection
would have been useful for the West as anti-Soviet
576 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
propaganda, and we would have been painfully stung, |

Then one day, when a ballet troupe was getting |

ready to go abroad, I received a letter from Maya

Plisetskaya. It was addressed to me in my capacity as '

Secretary of the Central Committee. It was a long and '

forthright letter. She wrote that she was a patriot and i

that she was hurt and insulted by the distrust which !

was being shown toward her. I made copies of her

letter and passed it around among the other members
j

of the Presidium. I raised the question of what we

should do. It was my recommendation that she be <

allowed to go on the tour. There were some doubts I

expressed that she might not come back. "Maybe," I i

replied. "That's something that could happen. But I

trust her, even though I don't know her. It's impossi-
ble to live without trusting people. If she wrote this
letter dishonestly, if she's just trying to trick us into !

letting her break out . . well, it will certainly be a

.

big loss for us, and very embarrassing. But we'll

survive."
Maya Plisetskaya went on the tour, and I was re-
warded many times over by her briUiant performances
abroad. She enhanced the fame of Soviet ballet and
Soviet cultiu-e. And she came back. This was our re-
ward for the labor invested in building a Socialist so-
ciety of which Plisetskaya was proud to be a citizen.
And what if we had continued our "no exit permit"
policy? What if we had continued to keep Maya Pli-
setskaya securely locked in? We probably would have
turned her into a crippled human being and an anti-
Soviet as well. The human psyche is a terribly fragile
thing. It has to be treated with the utmost respect. One
careless move can throw it fatally out of balance. I'm
proud of my decision to let Maya Plisetskaya travel
abroad, and I'm glad she properly appreciated our
gesture of confidence in her.
If we were to open our borders, is it possible that
our confidence and trust in individuals will ever be
betrayed? Of course it is. Among 240 million people
you're bound to find some impure elements. And the
impure will come bobbing to the surface as the light,
less substantial matter in a solution always does. So
 DEFENDING THE SOCIALIST PARADISE 577

let the garbage, the dregs, the scum of our society float
to the surface, and let the waves carry it far away
from our shores. What I'm saying here is perfectly
consistent with Lenin's policy in the first years of the
Revolution, when we used to send the enemies of the
Soviet Union into exile abroad. All those desiring to
leave found no obstacles in their way. "You want
lO leave?" we told them. "Fine, pack your bag and
get out!" And they left.
Now, fifty years later, we've got to stop looking for
i defector in everyone. We've got to stop designing
Dur border policy for the sake of keeping the dregs
md scum inside our country. We must start thinking
about the people who don't deserve to be called scum
—people who might undergo a temporary vacillation in
heir own convictions, or who might want to try out
he capitalist hell, some aspects of which may still
ippear attractive to our less stable elements. We can't
:eep fencing these people in. We've got to give them a
hance to find out for themselves what the world is
ike.
If we don't change our position in this regard, I'm
fraid we will discredit the Marxist-Leninist ideals on
/hich our Soviet way of life is based.
Appendixes
 Appendix 1

Chronology of Khrushchev's Career

1894 April 17. Bom

in Ka- Accession of Tsar Nicholas
linovka, Kursk Prov- 11.

|,
ince near Ukrainian
r border.

1903 Lenin splits Russian Social

Democratic Labor Party into
Bolshevik and Menshevik
wings at Second Party Con-
gress in London.

1904-5 Russo-Japanese War,

1905 The 1905 Revolution.
1906 First Duma (Parliament).

1909 Moves to Yuzovka

(later StaBno, now
Donetsk) in Donbass
region of Ukraine,
where father works
in mine.

1909-12 Learns metal fit-

ter's trade at Bosse
factory in Yuzovka.

1912-18 Works as metal fit-

ter in generator plants
of French-owned Ru-
chenkov and Pastu-
khov mines.
581
582 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
1914 Outbreak of World War I.

1915 Becomes "avid reader

of Pravda."

1917 Represents miners at February Revolution; dhdv'

politicalmeetings and cation of Tsar; formation of
rallies, meets Lazar Provisional Government.
Kaganovich.
October Revolution; Lenin
overthrows Provisional Gov-
ernment and establishes So'
Viet Rule.

1918 Becomes Bolshevik.

1919 Joins Red Army.
1919-21 Soldier and Party Civil War arid Allied Inter-
worker in ranks of vention.
Ninth Rifle Division,
then attached to Bu-
dyonny's First Mount-
ed Army for offensive
to Black Sea.
1921 Death of first wife in Famine; introduction of New
famine. Economic Policy (NEP).
1922 Back to Yuzovka from
Front
Assigned by Yuzovka
Party organization to
be deputy director of
Ruchenkov mines.
Offered directorship
of Pastukhov mines
but asks permission
to study at Yuzovka
Workers' Faculty.
1923 Student and political
leader at Yuzovka
Workers' faculty.
1924 Holds various posts in Death of Lenin.
Yuzovka Party orga-
nization-
 CHRONOLOGY OF KHRUSHCHeVs CAREER 583
Marries Nina Petrov-
na.

1925 Appointed Party Sec-

retary of Petrovsko-
Marinsk District of
Stalino (formerly Yu-
^ zovka) Region.

Attends Ninth Ukrain-

ian Party Congress
with Kaganovich in
chair.

Consulting (ie., non- Stalin moves against Zino-

voting) delegate to viev and Kamenev.
Fourteenth All-Union
Party Congress in
Moscow; first expo-
sure to Stalin.

1926 First recorded public

speech at Ukrainian
Party Conference in
Kharkov.
1927 Delegate to Fifteenth Defeat of Zinoviev and Ka-
All-Union Party Con- menev.
gress in Moscow.

Promoted from Sta-

lino District to Re-
gional Party appara-
tus.

1928 Promoted by Kagano- First Five-Year Plan; start

vich to be Deputy of collectivization.
Chief of Organization-
al Section of Ukrain-
ian Central Commit-
tee in Klharkov.

Promoted by Kagano-
vich to be Chief of Or-
ganizational Section of
Kiev Party apparatus.
1929 Thirty-five years old; Kaganovich transferred to
requests permission to Moscow.
584 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

study metallurgy
at Stalin Industrial
Academy in Moscow.
1929-30 Political worker Trotsky banished.
and student at Indus-
trial Academy.

Voted down as acade-

my delegate to Six-
teenth Party Con-
gress; candidacy to
bureau of Party cell
blocked.

"Leads struggle for

Party Line against
rightists, parasites,
and Old Guard in
academy."

Associated with Na-

dezhda Alliluyeva,
Stalin's wife and
group organizer at
academy.
Sent to inspect Stalin
Collective Farm in Sa-
mara Region; first
glimpse of conditions
caused by collectivi-
zation.

Recruited by Mekhlis
to lead pro-Stalin
forces at academy;
chairs meeting to re-
call "rightist" dele-
gates to Bauman Dis-
trict Party Confer-
ence; leads new dele-
gation to Conference.

1931 Elected First Secre-

tary of Bauman Dis-
trict; six months later
promoted to First Sec-
#'
 CHRONOLOGY OF KHRUSHCHEV'S CAREER 585
retary of Red Presnya
District

1932 Leaves academy with- Death of Nadezhda Allilw'

out graduating; pro- yeva, Stalin's wife.
moted to Second Sec-
retary under Kagano-
vich of Moscow City
Party Committee.

Associated with Na-

dezhda Krupskaya,
Lenin's widow, in
Moscow City admin-
istration,

1933 Becomes Second Sec-

retary of Moscow Re-
gional Committee.

Active in reconstruc-
tion of Moscow and
building of Metro un-
der Kaganovich.

1934 Elected to Central Kirov murdered.

Committee at Seven-
teenth Party Congress
("Congress of Vic-
tors").

1935 Takes Kaganovich's Years of blood purges, great

place as First Secre- terror, and show trials begin.
tary of Moscow City
and Regional commit-
tees.

Zinoviev and Kamenev tried

and executed (August).
Yezhov replaces Yagoda as
secret police chief (Septem-
ber).

Death of Ordzhonikidze
(February).

Execution of Tukhachevsky
and generals (June).
586 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
1938 Appointed First Sec- Bukharin and Rykov tried
retary of Ukrainian (March).
Central Committee.

Beria replaces Yezhov (De-

cern berj.

1939 Attends February

Central Committee
Plenum at which Ka-
minsky denounces Be-
ria; Kaminsky then
disappears.

Made full member of

Politbureau (March).
Rihhentrop-Molotov Pact
(August).

As Ukrainian First
Secretary and civilian
member of Kiev Mili-
tary Council, moves
into Western Ukraine
(occupied Poland).

1939-40 Winter War with Finland

(November-March).

1940 Supervises sovietiza-

tion of Western
Ukraine.

1941-43 As a member of Germany invades Russia

Military Council and (June '41); Operation Bar-
Politbureau repre- harossa begins.
sentative, serves on
Fall of Kiev (September '41).
various fronts as com-
missar with wartime Battle of Moscow (winter
rank of lieutenant '41-42).
general
Kharkov disaster (May '42).

Battle of Stalingrad (July

'42^winter '43).

Battle of Kursk (summer

'43).
 CHRONOLOGY OF KHRUSHCHeVs CAREER 587

Begins reconstruction Liberation of Kiev (Novem-

of Ukrainian economy ber '43).
and Party.
Teheran Conference (No-
vember '43).

1944 Appointed Chairman Soviet offensive toward Ber-

of Ukrainian Council lin (spring).
of Ministers while re-
taining position as Allied inva^on of France
First Secretary of (June).
Ukrainian Party.

Soviet troops capture Berlin

(May).

Meets Eisenhower in Victory Parade in Moscow

Moscow. (June).

Leads commission of
experts to help Poles
with reconstruction of
Warsaw.
1946-47 Temporary eclipse Famine in Ukraine.
and demotion; re-
placed by Kaganovich
as First Secretary of
Ukraine; near-fatal
bout with pneumonia.

L948 Restored to full power Stalin breaks with Tito.

in Ukraine.

L949 Recalled by Stalin to The Leningrad Affair.

Moscow, made head of
Moscow Party orga-
nization (December).

1950 Made overlord of Stalin publishes letter on

agriculture; amalga- linguistics in Pravda.
mates collective farms
and pushes agro-town Outbreak of Korean War.
scheme.

L952 Delivers report on Stalin lets Malenkov deliver

amendments toParty General Report on his behalf
Statutes at Nineteenth at Nineteenth Party Con-
588 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Party Congress (Oc- gress.

I

tober) . I

1953 Doctor's Plot (January-Feh-

ruary). i

Ranked behind Ma- Malenkov he-

Stalin* s death; |

lenkov, Molotov, Be- conies Prime Minister and I

ria, and Kaganovich. First Secretary (March). \

Replaces Malenkov as
First Secretary (Sep-
tember) .

1954 Visits Peking with

Bulganin.

Begins Virgin Lands

campaign.

1955 Visits Yugoslavia (bur- Bulganin replaces Malenkov

ies hatchet with Tito); as Prime Minister.
Geneva for simmiit
meeting; Afghanistan;
and India ("We shall
bury you!").

1956 Delivers Secret

Speech on crimes of
Stalin at Twentieth
Party Congress (Feb-
ruary).

Visits London (April).

1957 Begins decentraliza- Defiance of Poland (June). ,

tion of industry (May).

Smashes opposition of Suez Crisis (October-No-

"Anti-Party Group"— vember).
Malenkov, Molotov,
Kaganovich, Shepilov, Hungarian Revolt (October).
and others (July).

Dismisses Marshal Sputnik I launched (Octo-

Zhukov from post of ber).
Minister of Defense
(October).
 CHRONOLOGY OP KHRUSHCHEV*S CAREER 589

Moscow meeting of world

Communist Parties, attended
by Mao Tse-tung (Novem-
ber).

1958 Takes over Premier-

ship from Bulganin
(March).

Middle East Crisis (July-

August).

First Berlin Crisis (autum,n).

Refuses to give China

atomic weapons infor-
mation (summer).
First visit to USA,
consultations with Ei-
senhower at Camp
David (September).

Announces downing
of U-2 reconnaissance
plane and capture of
Gary Powers (May).
Wrecks Paris summit
meeting (May).

Attacks China behind

closed doors at Ru-
manian Party Con-
gress in Bucharest
(June) and at Moscow
Conference of World
Communist Parties
(November).

Major Y. Gagarin, first man

in space (April).

Meets with Kennedy Second Berlin Crisis (June).

in Vienna.

Makes public attack

on China, thinly dis-
guised as Albania, at
590 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Twenty-second Party
Congress (October).
Has Stalin's body re-
moved from Mauso-
leum.

1962 Goes to brink of war

over missiles in Cuba
—and steps back (Oc-
tober).

1963 Cracks down on writ- Nuclear test-han treaty i

ers and artists. (August) .

Disastrous harvest.

1964 Prepares for show-

down with China at
world Party Confer-
ence scheduled for
December.
Resigns all ofl&ces;
succeeded by Brezh-
nev as First Secretary
and Kosygin as Prime
Minister (October).
 Appendix 2

Soviet Institutions and Terminology

The Soviet Union consists of fifteen constituent Re-

publics (the Russian Federation and the Ukraine are
two), each formally a sovereign state with the con-
stitutional right of secession.
The institutions of Party and State, which have their
counterparts at both Republic and AU-Union levels,
are theoretically separate but equal. In fact, however,
real power resides in the Party.

THE PARTY
The Party, which includes about five percent of the
Soviet population in its membership, is administered
by a pyramidal hierarchy of committees. The lowest
organizational unit is formed around an enterprise,
such as a factory, a mine, a collective farm, a military
I outfit, or an educational estabUshment. The primary
Party organization was for many years called a cell;
for example, the Party cell of the Industrial Academy.
The Party pyramid is built of territorial boxes-within-
^ boxes, each with its own steering committee called a
bureau and its executive adjunct called a secretariat.
The Party committees in ascending order of purview
and power are: district, city, region. Republic Central
Committee, and at the apex, the All-Union Central
Committee.
Party procedure is constitutionally governed by a
set of rules called the Party Statutes, which were codi-
591
 ;,'

592 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

fied before the Revolution and are regularly amended. •

According to the Party Statutes, the "supreme or-

gan" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is
the Party Congress, a meeting of delegates from all the '

RepubHcs who elect the AU-Union Central Committee.

The Party Statutes stipulate that a Congress shall be I

convened at least every three years. How much au- ;

thority the Party Congress and, for that matter, the

j

Party Statutes themselves really have is indicated by

the fact that Stalin let thirteen years elapse between |

the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Party Congresses. i

Business at the district, city, regional, and Republic i

levels is conducted at Party Conferences. j

The All-Union Central Committee meets semiannu-l

ally in plenums, or plenary sessions. Between plenums,
|

the work of the Central Committee is carried out byi

its administrative organ, the Central Committee Sec-j
retariat, which does the bidding of the innermost circle \

of the Party leadership, the Polithureau (renamed the j

Presidium just before Stalin's death and changed back

to Politbureau after Khrushchev's downfall) . Al- j

though technically elective and accountable to the|

Central Committee, the Politbureau is virtually self-j
perpetuating and is the real power center of the|
Partocracy. The First Secretary of the Party Central j

Committee is always the head of the Politbureau ori

Presidium, and he is able to pack the whole Party'
apparatus with his supporters. I

THE STATE
The State is divided into executive and legislative
branches, the former supposedly responsible to the
latter, but both in fact subservient to the Party.
The executive function is fulfilled at the Republic
and All-Union levels by m,inistries (which until shortly
after World War 11 were called comimissariats) and at
the district, city, and regional levels by executive com,-
mAttees. At both the Republic and All-Union levels the
various areas of management (transport, electricity,
mining, agriculture, industry, and the Hke) are over-
 SOVIET INSTITUTIONS AND TERMINOLOGY 593

seen by a Council of Ministers (formerly, Council of

People's Comni.issars) The Chairman of the Council
.

of Ministers of the USSR is commonly referred to as

the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union. He is always
a member of the Politbureau or Presidium.
The structure of the legislative system corresponds
closely to the territorial breakdown of the Party or-
ganization.
The basic representative unit is the soviet or council,
ranging from a rural or district soviet at the primary
level to the SiipreTne Soviet at both the Republic and
All-Union levels.
The chairman of a city soviet in effect, the mayor
is,

of the city, and the Chairman of the Presidium of the

Supreme Soviet of the USSR is titularly the President
and chief of state.
Stalin's 1936 Constitution declares the Supreme So-
viet to be "the highest organ of State power in the
USSR" and invests it with the law-making powers of
a democratic parliament. In fact, however, the Supreme
Soviet is the rubber stamp of the State just as the
Central Committee is the rubber stamp of the Party.
The PoHtbureau controls both with a firm hand.

THE SECRET POLICE

The Soviet police establishment has undergone a
complex evolution and has been known by ten differ-
ent names, depending on period and realm of activity
(that is, State, Party, or military)It figures in this
.

book primarily as the NKVD,

or Peo-pWs CoTUVfiissar-
iat of Internal Affairs, during the purge years. During
World War II it was the Political Directorate of the
armed forces. After the war the police establishment
was split for a time into the Ministry of Internal Affairs
and the Ministry of State Security, often referred to
here simply as "State Security." As Khrushchev's
own occasional confusion attests, it is almost impossi-
ble to keep the profusion of initials straight, so the
acronym Cheka (for Lenin's "Extraordinary
original
Commission for Combating Counterrevolution, Profi-
 594 ,
KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

teering, and Sabotage") is still common parlance for

the secret police, as in the term Chekist for a func-
tionary of the security apparatus.
Until Stalin's death the Cheka was a leviathan of
surveillance and repression which infiltrated every
level and organ of State and Party life and did its best
to penetrate the private life of the individual citizen
as well. It had at its command a vast administrative
bureaucracy, its own armed forces, and unchecked
powers of extralegal, summary procedure as well as
facihties for arresting, uiterrogatuig (often under tor-
ture), trying, and executing its victims. The secret
police organization reached its apotheosis as a kind of:
para-government under Lavrenty Beria, when prisons
and concentration camps provided the state with an
enormous work force of slave labor.
Stalin himself was never so secure in his autocracy
that he did not fear the NKVD's immense accretions
of power. When he decided that the Yezhov purges
were gathering dangerous momentum, he had Yezhov
himself, the 'bloodthirsty dwarf," thrown under its
*

wheels in order to halt the Juggernaut. Khrushchev

says that Stalin toward the end of his life began to
fear Beria hut did not know how to get rid of him. The
urgency of getting rid of Beria was apparently the
one thing on which Klirushchev and the other contend-
ers for Stalin's throne could agree. Shortly after Beria's
elimination, the State Security apparatus was rele-
gated from its status as a ministry and empire to that
of a committee (the KGB) firmly subordinated to the:
Council of Ministers.
 Appendix 3

Khrushchev's Kremlin Colleagues

Lavrenty P. Beria. Promoted by Stalin as a reli-

able countryman and courtier to be overlord of the
NKVD's state-within-the-state, he was then liquidated
by Stalin's heirs as an evil genius and traitor. Beria
fully deserved his reputation as Stalin's bloody right
hand, but his role in the history of Stalinist terror was
nonetheless paradoxical. It was under his supervision,
and partially on his initiative, that the brakes were
applied to the Yezhov purges in the late thirties (see
Appendix 2). Furthermore, Beria may have been an
intended victim, rather than an instigator, of three
notorious postwar purges: the Crimean affair (he was
responsible for organizing the Jewish Anti-Fascist
Conmiittee, which Stalin accused of harboring a Zion-
ist-imperialist conspiracy), the MingreHan affair, and
the Doctors' Plot.
Beria's origins are obscure. He is thought to have
come from a middle-class background. Until Stalin
brought him to Moscow to replace Yezhov, Beria's
career was confined to Georgia, first in the Cheka,
then in the Party apparatus. Through effective schem-
ing against other Georgians (like Ordzhonikidze and
Yenukidze), he made himself indispensable to Stalin
as the Kremlin's number one informer and inquisitor
in Transcaucasia. In 1935 he delivered to the Ninth
Congress of the Georgian Party a two-day address,
"On Stalin's Early Writings and Activities," thus
595
596 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
establishing himself as one of Stalin's official biogra-
phers.
Compared to his colleagues Malenkov, Voroshilov,
Molotov, Kaganovich, Bulganin, Mikoyan, and Khru-
shchev, Beria w^as a late-comer to Stalin's inner circle.
But once he w^as transferred to Moscow in July, 1938,
he made up for lost time. He was able to ingratiate
himself with Stalin and at the same time to manipulate
Stalin's suspicions of others in his ovvm interest. Before
the war he became Deputy Chairman of the Council
of People's Commissars and national coordinator of
security operations. He was almost certainly the main
culprit behind the massacre of four thousand Polish
officers at Katyn Forest near Smolensk. When the
Germans invaded, Stalin appointed Beria to the State
Defense Committee (along with Molotov, Voroshilov,
and Malenkov) and put him in charge of domestic
policy. He played an important part in the evacuation
and resettlement of industry during the German ad-
vance, and during the German retreat two years later,
he was made a member of Malenkov's Committee on
the Rehabilitation of Liberated Areas; both jobs
brought him into frequent and, by all evidence, not
very harmonious contact with Khrushchev. The day
after the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiro-
shima, Stalin designated Beria to supervise a Soviet
version of the Manhattan Project, an assignment
which culminated in the nuclear explosion on the Ust-
Urt Desert between the Caspian and Aral seas in
July, 1949.
Beria often opposed Khrushchev, particularly on
issues of agricultural policy. He and Malenkov led
the attack against Khrushchev's agro-tov^m scheme in
1951. Beria may have been a master of intrigue, but 'P

he arrogantly flaunted his power and his ambition in

the faces of his comrades, and this was his undoing.
In his last years Stalin himself began to fear and dis-
trust Beria, but it remained for Stalin's successors to
close their otherwise divided ranks against Beria and
have him shot within months after the dictator's death
in 1953.
 Khrushchev's Kremlin colleagues 597

Nikolai A. Bulganin. The son of an office worker

and a consummate apparatchik, Bulganin spent his
early Party career in the ranks of the Cheka, com-
bating "counterrevolution" in the Russian Federation
and in Turkestan. He w^as elected Chairman of the
— —
City Soviet ^in effect, mayor of Moscov^ in 1931, a
position which brought him into close contact with
Khrushchev. A beneficiary of the purges, Bulganin
was appointed Chairman of the Council of People's
Commissars for the Russian Federation in 1937 and
a fiiQ member of the All-Union Central Committee in
1939. During the war he was Khrushchev's counter-
part as commissar on the Moscow, Western, Baltic,
and Belorussian fronts with the rank of lieutenant
general. He was promoted to full general and made
a member of Stahn's war cabinet in 1944. At the end
of the war he succeeded Stalin himself as Minister of
the Armed Forces and became a Marshal of the Soviet
Union. In 1948 he became a full member of the PoHt-
bureau.
Bulganin's greatest asset seems to have been that
he was relatively tolerable to the men around him,
who were at each other's throats. A compromise can-
didate acceptable to everyone, as well as a trusty
stalking horse for Khrushchev, he became Minister of
Defense shortly after Stalin's death and replaced Ma-
lenkov as Prime Minister in 1955. The low-keyed,
goateed Bulganin made a good straight man to the
hvelier and shrewder Khrushchev during the cele-
brated "B & K road shows" to Peking, Delhi, Belgrade,
Geneva, and London.
When Khrushchev had maneuvered himself into a
position from which he could seize the Premiership,
he toppled Bulganin with the back of his hand, adding
his name almost as an afterthought to the black list
of the Anti-Party Group. Bulganin obediently bowed
out of active life at a Central Committee plenum in
1958 at which he confessed his own guilt and roundly
denoimced his alleged co-conspirators, Molotov, Ma-
lenkov, and Kaganovich. He was given a comfortable
598 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

pension and retired to a dacha on the outskirts of

Moscow.

Lazar M. KcLganovich. in these reminiscences

Kaganovich figures as the number three villain, rank-
ing behind only Stalin and Beria in general despic-
ableness. The reader might be forgiven for not realiz-
ing that Kiirushchev owed his career to Kaganovich.
Ever since he first met the Bolshevik organizer known
as "Zhirovich" during the February, 1917, Revolution,
Khrushchev was Kaganovich's protege and right-hand
man. It was largely on Kaganovich's coattails that
Khrushchev was pulled up the Party ladder in the
Ukrainian organization during the twenties; and not-
withstanding Khrushchev's implausible claim that his
real benefactor in Moscow was Stalin's wife, it was
Kaganovich who promoted him quickly through the
Moscow apparatus all the way to the Central Com-
mittee and the Politbureau. The hard-driving, un-
tiring, and thoroughly ruthless Kaganovich had a
reputation for being the best administrator in the
USSR. His heyday was during the reconstruction of
Moscow in the thirties, and his crowning glory was the
Moscow Metro, which he superintended and which for
years bore his name. As head of the Party Control
Commission, he was one of Stalin's most reliable
henchmen during the collectivization, when he was
dispatched to aceclerate "the liquidation of the kulaks
as a class" in the Ukraine and Siberia, and during the
purges, when he was turned loose against "opposition-
ist elements" in the trade unions.
Khrushchev's enmity toward Kaganovich probably
stems from 1947, when his former mentor replaced
him as Ukrainian First Secretary during Khru-
shchev's brief fall from grace. Kaganovich was First
Deputy Chairman of the Coimcil of Ministers after
Stalin's death. A "Malenkov man" during the rivalry
among Stalin's would-be successors, Kaganovich was
lumped into the Anti-Party Group and expelled from
the Presidium in 1957, twenty-seven years after being
elected to a full membership in that august body.
 Khrushchev's Kremlin colleagues 599

Khrushchev has accused Kaganovich, a Ukrainian

Jew, of being anti-Ukrainian and anti-Semitic as w^ell
as "having exaggerated his contribution to the de-
velopment of transport and construction" and being
Stalin's "chained cur and toady." There is basis for
the charges, but Khrushchev is hardly the one to be
casting these particular stones. In disgrace, Kagano-
vich was appointed manager of a cement works in
Sverdlovsk. More recently he has been seen browsing
in hbraries, taking in the theater, and giving advice
to students on park benches in Moscow.

Georgi M. Malenkov. Far from being what

—
Khrushchev makes him out to be Stalin's half-wit
—
clerk and Beria's obsequious "billy goat" "Yegor"
Malenkov was a man of formidable intelligence, abil-
ity, toughness, and ambition. He was much more
sophisticated in backgroimd and manner than Khru-
shchev, whom he probably considered a loud-mouthed,
ham-handed bumpkin. With the death in 1948 of An-
drei Zhdanov (whom Khrushchev damns here by
ignoring altogether), Malenkov became the second
most important and powerful figure in the Soviet
leadership. He was widely regarded as Stalin's heir
apparent, an impression which seemed to be confirmed
when Stalin designated him to deliver the General
Report on his behalf at the Nineteenth Party Congress
in 1952.
For a short time after Stalin's death, Malenkov was
both Party First Secretary and Prime Minister. Dur-
ing the interregniun, while Khrushchev was consoli-
dating his forces, Malenkov led the way in reshaping
Soviet foreign and domestic policies to fit the realities
of the post-war world. It was Malenkov who first pub-
licly suggested that the Leninist dogma about the in-
evitability of all-out war between Communism and
capitalism might be obsolete in the age of thermo-
nuclear —
weapons a suggestion which Khrushchev
initially attacked as revisionist heresy but later can-
onized as his own "peaceful coexistence" doctrine. It
was Malenkov who first called for a higher standard
600 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
of living for the people and a higher priority on the
—
production of consumer goods long before Khru-
shchev began to rail against the "steel-eaters" of the
military-industrial complex who were devouring state
resources at the expense of the people's material
interests. And it was under Malenkov that the Doc-
tors' Plot was repudiated as a fabrication and the
—
defendants rehabihtated an action which might be
taken as precursory to the Twentieth Party Congress's
repudiation of Stalin's methods and its rehabilitation
of his victims.
As the rivalry between Malenkov and Khrushchev
developed, Malenkov tried unsuccessfully to turn the
ministries, the State apparatus, and the technocracy
into a power base from which he could hold Khru-
shchev and the Partocracy in check. Outmaneuvered
and outvoted, Malenkov was forced to relinquish the
Premiership on grounds of "inexperience" to Khru-
shchev's alter ego, Bulganin, in 1955. After forming
a loose, ad hoc coalition of old Stalinists in an abortive
effort to oust Khrushchev from the top spot in the
Party, Malenkov was eclipsed once and for all in 1957.
Klirushchev threw the book at Malenkov a year later,
charging him with everything from incompetence dur-
ing the war and responsibility for the 1949 Leningrad
purge to un-Leninist economic and agricultural poli-
cies and participation in an "anti-Party plot." Malen-
kov was packed off to be the director of a power
station in a remote part of Kazakhstan. For a long
time he seemed to have dropped out of sight alto-
gether, but recently he has been seen alive and well
in Moscow.

Rodion Y. Malinovsky. The rugged, burly, out- I

spoken commander was a favorite with rank-and-file
troops and commissars alike. As these reminiscences
make clear, he had an admirer of long standing in
Nikita Khrushchev. Bom of peasant stock in Odessa,
Malinovsky joined the Tsarist army at the age of six- \\

teen and served as a machine gunner with the Russian

Expeditionary Force in France until the Revolution.
 Khrushchev's Kremlin colleagues 601

He commanded a Red Aimy battalion against the

White forces of Admiral Kolchak in Siberia during
the Civil War and joined the Party in 1926. Except
for a temporary demotion after the Soviet defeat at
Rostov, Malinovsky distinguished himself during
World War II. Throughout the war he was in close,
and apparently friendly, contact with KJirushchev:
first as the architect of a masterful Soviet delaying
action against the Germans in Bessarabia and the
Ukraine; then as one of the commanders under Zhu-
kov, who turned the tide of the German advance at
Stalingrad; then as the director of an operation to
drive the Germans out of IChrushchev's native Don-
bass region and the southern Ukraine, including
Malinovsky's own birthplace, Odessa. In 1944 he ac-
cepted the German surrender in Rumania and spear-
headed the Soviet thrust from Budapest to Vienna.
The end of the war found him fighting the Japanese
(and wreaking havoc on the Chinese as well) in
Manchuria. He remained in the Far East until he was
recalled to Moscow to become First Deputy Minister
of Defense in 1956, when he also became a full mem-
ber of the Centr^ Committee. A year later he re-
placed as Defense Minister his old superior from
Stalingrad days, Marshal Zhukov.
Malinovsky was at Khrushchev's right hand during
the abortive Paris Summit Conference in 1960. He did
some tough talking of his own on his return to Moscow
from Paris, when he warned that from then on im-
mediate action would be taken against the bases from
which any aircraft violating USSR airspace operated.
Malinovsky was succeeded by his own deputy. Mar-
shal Grechko, with whom Klirushchev was on friendly
terms during the war. Malinovsky died in 1967.

Anastas I. Mikoyan. The dour and wily Arme-

nian, known to the West as the Soviet Union's num-
—
ber one traveling salesman, is a classic but at the
—
same time an almost unique study in survival. His
biography and political ascendancy were, one would
have thought, much too close to Stalin's for his own
 1
!
:
''

602 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

good. Like Stalin a Caucasian and like Stalin a one-
time seminarian, Mikoyan joined the Bolsheviks in
1915, the same year he received his theological de-
gree. He was prominent in the Baku and Tiflis Party j

organizations, and narrowly escaped execution at the i

hands of the Menshevik, White, German, Turkish, and |

British forces, who vied with the Reds for control of ;

the Caucasus after the Revolution. He was an early I

—
ally of Stalin's against Trotsky and along with the j

less fortimate, perhaps less flexible Sergo Ord-

—
zhonikidze a member of the Kremlin's Caucasian
threesome. Mikoyan became a candidate member of I

the Politbureau in 1926, when he was appointed

People's Commissar of Internal Trade and later, of
Foreign Trade. Foreign trade has been his specialty •

ever since. He toured the United States in 1936 to

study food production methods and again in 1959, i

dnimrning up commerce between what he billed "the j

two greatest powers." According to Khrushchev,

Mikoyan along with Molotov fell out of favor with
Stalin during the dictator's last years; Stalin ostra-
cized them from the ruling circle and was gunning for i

them until the day he died. KJirushchev doubts that \

either of the foreign policy overlords would have sur-

vived if Stalin had lived much longer. I

Mikoyan's role in the scenario of Khrushchev's own \

career is zunbiguous: he apparently defended Lav-

renty Beria against the kangatroo court of his peers
which Khrushchev claims to have organized in 1953;
then, in 1956, "Anastas Ivanovich" primed the Twen-
tieth Party Congress for Khrushchev's Secret Speech
by openly criticizing Stalin at a regular session.
Mikoyan exuded charm and a good-natured sense of
humor when traveling on his own. But when at-
tached to Khrushchev on trips abroad, he had the
thankless task of trying to head off his boss's most
outrageous indiscretions and to neutralize the embar-
rassment of Khrushchev's frequent drimkenness with
his own doleful sobriety. Mikoyan was the only mem-
ber of the Old Guard (MalerJkov, Molotov, Kagano-
vich, et al.) to survive Elirushchev's assault on the
Anti-Party Group. After a short term as titular Pres-
 Khrushchev's Kremlin colleagues 603

ident of the USSR, he passed from the active scene

a little over a year after Khrushchev's downfall. He
retired at the Twenty-third Party Congress and now
lives quietly on a state pension in downtovm Moscow.

Vyacheslav M. Molotov. Born Scriabin, he was

the nephew of the Russian composer of that name,
the son of a shop assistant, and one of the few Bol-
sheviks with a bourgeois background to attach himself
to Stalin from the very early days. As a young man
in his twenties he held the tiny Petrograd Party to-
gether while Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, and others
were in exile abroad and StaUn and Kamenev were
in Siberia. Lenin once called him "the best filing clerk
in Russia," and Trotsky, less generously, dismissed
him as "mediocrity incarnate." When the Tsarist re-
gime was overthrown in the February Revolution, he
was a twenty-seven-year-old with a bad stammer, a
pince-nez, and a stuffed-shirt manner which were to
stay with him throughout his career; he was also the
senior Bolshevik in Petrograd. Molotov took the name
"hammer" just as Stalin had taken the name "steel,"
and Stalin did indeed use Molotov to smash his op-
position into submission and to pound his own power
base into shape. On Stalin's behalf Molotov led the
liquidation of the Mensheviks and then, with Voro-
shilov, went to Leningrad in 1926 to crush the Zino-
viev opposition. He preceded Kaganovich and Khru-
shchev as head of the Moscow Party organization, and
[
in 1931 he was promoted to take the place of the de-
posed "rightist" Rykov as nominal Prime Minister
(Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars).
In 1939 he surrendered the Premiership to Stalin and
became foreign minister when Maxim Litvinov's
pohcy of collective security was abandoned in favor
of Stalin's preparations to make a deal with Hitler.
Molotov's first major act as foreign minister was to
sign a nonaggression and friendship pact with his
Nazi opposite number, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Ac-
cording to Khrushchev, Molotov fell into perilous dis-
favor during Stalin's last years; the decrepit and para-
noid old dictator took it into his head tiiat Molotov,
 604 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
perhaps his most loyal lieutenant, was in the employ
of the American government. An inveterate Stalinist
nonetheless and a poker-faced master of "stone-wall-
ing," Molotov acquired an international reputation
as the principal exponent of hard-line foreign pohcy in
the first, grim days of the Cold War.
After Stalin's death Molotov opposed Khrushchev
at every major turn: he was against de-Stalinization,
against reconciliation with Tito, and against a re-
strained response to the Polish defiance of 1956.
Khrushchev branded him an enemy of the Party along
with Malenkov and Kaganovich in 1957. Molotov was
accused of having been the "chief theoretician" for
the opposition. He was dispatched to the most ob-
scure foreign service outpost of all, Ulan Bator, as
ambassador. His successor as foreign minister was
Shepilov, who soon became another casualty of Khru-
shchev's vengeance against the Anti-Party Group.
Shepilov was in turn replaced by his own deputy, the
current foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko. Molotov
reemerged from Outer Mongolian limbo in 1960 to
become the Soviet representative at the International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. However, any
thought of his return to good standing was dispelled
at the Twenty-second Party Congress in 1961, when he
was accused of having been an accomplice in Stalin's
crimes and specifically of having drawn up death lists
during the purges. Molotov was most recently seen
by foreigners in Moscow at the funeral of his wife
Zhemchuzhina in 1970.

Kliment E. Voroshilov. A "political general" j

rather than a professional soldier, he had a long ca-ji:
reer, marked by vainglory, folly, and durable good'!
luck. After breaking the White Army's siege of Tsa-
ritsyn (later Stalingrad) during the Civil War and sup-j
pressing the Kronstadt insurrection in 1921, Voroshi-I
lov rose swiftly to be People's Commissar of Defense,!
a marshal of the Soviet Union, and Stalin's "top]
marksman." He relished the limelight, spending, asj
Khrushchev says, most of his time being seen at the!
 Khrushchev's Kremlin colleagues 605

opera and posing in his medals for photographers. And

all the while, Hitler was preparing for war and
Voroshilov's charge, the Red Army, was in a
shambles. With some justification Stalin blamed
Voroshilov for the humiliation the USSR suffered at
the hands of the Finns in the Winter War of 1939-40.
Voroshilov was sacked and "kept around only as a
whipping boy," according to Khrushchev. Having
risen so high and suddenly sunk so low, he managed
to secure a place for himself as the battered but ven-
erable old pro of Stalin's war cabinet. Stalin was
apparently reluctant to put the old war-horse out to
—
pasture or to send him to the glue factory along with
a number of Voroshilov's former subordinates (they
were punished for "treason" during the first year of
I the war, when Hitler's blitzkrieg roUed right over the
i Red Army's defenses). In the years between the end
i
of the war and Stalin's death, Voroshilov managed
to avoid both Stahn's serious suspicion and the en-
mity of Stalin's heirs. Khrushchev tells us that Stalin
in his dotage used to mumble sometimes about Voro-
shilov's being an English spy, but that did not keep
him from letting Voroshilov vacation next door to him
in SochL
OnStalin's death in 1953, Voroshilov was elected
Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme
Soviet. He remained titular President of the Soviet
Union when he retired on grounds of ill-
until 1960,
health. A
year and a half later, at the Twenty-second
Party Congress, he was suddenly denoimced for hav-
ing participated in the Anti-Party Group's activities of
the mid-1950's. Voroshilov confessed his sins, and
Khrushchev asked clemency for him. Surprisingly,
Voroshilov was re-elected to the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet in April, 1962. He died at the age of
eighty-nine in 1970.

Georgi Zhukov. Marshal Zhukov was Stalin's

K.
most outstanding commander in the USSR's painful
triumph over Germany and Khrushchev's most im-
portant ally in his narrow victory over the Anti-
 1''

606 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Party Group. He began his military career as an en- |

sign in a Cossack cavalry unit of the Tsarist army

|

during World War I. He joined the Red Army in 1918 ;

and the Party the following year. In 1936 Zhukov w^as '

the principal Soviet observer in the Spanish Civil

War. He escaped the fate of many other "Spaniards," !

v^ho were liquidated in Stalin's purge of the Red Army

j

high command. Three years later he commanded a bril-

j

Hant counteroffensive against the Japanese in Outer j

Mongolia near the Halkin-Gol River. As recently as t

the summer of 1969 Soviet propaganda has been re- i

— —
minding the world and China in particular of the I

Halkin-Gol battle as historic proof that the USSR isj

ready and able to protect its Far Eastern frontier.!
During World War II, Zhukov directed the first major j

Soviet success in the defense of Moscow, turned thej

German tide at the Battle of Stalingrad, lifted thej
siege of Leningrad, and led the Russian advance fromj
Warsaw to Berlin. Zhukov*s immense professional!
prestige and grass-roots popularity provoked Stalin's
resentment, and after the war he was relegated to a
series of secondary commands.
It was Khrushchev who brought Zhukov out of the
obscurity into which Stalin had cast him. He became {

First Deputy Minister of Defense in 1953 and replaced

—
Bulganin as Minister two years later ^the first time
\

in Soviet history that a professional soldier, as op-

posed to a commissar or "political general," had been i

'

put in charge of the armed forces. He continued to

rise and became a full member of the Presidium in '

return for his help in mustering Central Committee {

support for Khrushchev against the Anti-Party Group i

in Jime, 1957. Four months later Zhukov was sent to

Belgrade on a state visit and returned to find himself
dismissed as defense minister, divested of his Central i

Committee and Presidium memberships, and dis-

graced for "adventurism" and "Bonapartism." The
most cynical charge made against him by Khrushchev i

was complicity in Stalin's negligence at the beginning i

of World War II. Zhukov retired and wrote his own

war memoirs, which have been published in the West.
As an example of a Soviet military leader who briefly
 Khrushchev's Kremlin colleagues 607

wielded spectacular political power, Zhukov has

proved to be an exception rather than a precedent.
Neither of his successors as defense minister, Malinov-
sky or Grechko, has been admitted to the Party
Presidium or Politbureau.
 Appendix 4

Khrushchev's Secret Speech

1
(as released hy the U.S. Department of State on
June 4, 1956)

Comrades! In the report of the Central Committee of

the Party at the XXth Congress, in a number of
speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also for-
merly during the plenary CC/CPSU sessions, quite
a lot has been said about the cult of the individual
and about harmful consequences.
its
After Stalin's death the Central Committee of the
Party began to implement a policy of explaining con-
cisely and consistently that it is impermissible and
foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate
one person, to transform him into a superman possess-
ing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a
god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees
everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is
infallible in his behavior.
Such a belief about a man, and specifically about
Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years.
The objective of the present report is not a thorough
evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning
Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books,
pamphlets and studies had already been written in
his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and
execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War,
and in the fight for the construction of Socialism in
our country is universally known. Everyone knows
this well. At the present we are concerned with a
question which has immense importance for the Party
608
 Khrushchev's secret speech 609

—
now and for the future [we are concerned] with how
the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually
growing, the cult which became at a certain specific
stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly
serious and grave perversions of Party principles, of
Party democracy, of revolutionary legality.
Because of the fact that not all as yet realize fully
the practical consequences resulting from the cult of
the individual, the great harm caused by the violation
of the principle of collective direction of the Party and
because of the accumulation of immense and limitless
—
power in the hands of one person the Central Com-
mittee of the Party considers it absolutely necessary
to make the material pertaining to this matter avail-
able to the XXth Congress of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union.
Allow me first of all to remind you how severely the
classics of Marxism-Leninism denounced every mani-
festation of the cult of the individual. In a letter to
the German political worker, Wilhelm Bloss, Marx
stated: "From my antipathy to any cult of the indi-
vidual, I never made public during the existence of
the International the numerous addresses from various
countries which recognized my merits and which an-
noyed me. I did not even reply to them, except some-
times to rebuke their authors. Engels and I first joined
the secret society of Communists on the condition that
everything making for superstitious worship of au-
thority would be deleted from its statute. Lassalle sub-
sequently did quite the opposite."
Sometime later Engels wrote: "Both Marx and I
have always been against any public manifestation
with regard to individuals, with the exception of cases
when it had an important purpose; and we most
strongly opposed such manifestations which during
our lifetime concerned us personally."
The great modesty of the genius of the revolution,
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is known. Lenin had always
stressed the role of the people as the creator of history,
the directing and organizational role of the Party as a
living and creative organism, and also the role of the
Central Committee.
 610 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Marxism does not negate the role of the leaders of

the workers' class in directing the revolutionary liber-
ation movement.
While ascribing great importance to the role of the
leaders and organizers of the masses, Lrenin at the
same time mercilessly stigmatized every manifestation
of the cult of the individual, inexorably combated the
foreign-to-Marxism views about a "hero" and a
"crowd" and countered all efforts to oppose a "hero"
to the masses and to the people.
Lenin taught that the Party's strength depends on
its indissoluble unity with the masses, on the fact that

—
behind the Party follow the people workers, peasants
and intelligentsia. "Only he will win and retain the
power," said Lenin, "who beheves in the people, who
submerges himself in the fountain of the living crea-
tiveness of the people."
Lenin spoke with pride about the Bolshevik Com-
munist Party as the leader and teacher of the people;
he called for the presentation of all the most important
questions before the opinion of knowledgeable work-
ers, before the opinion of their Party; he said: "We
believe in it, we see in it the wisdom, the honor, and
the conscience of our epoch."
Lenin resolutely stood against every attempt aimed
at beUttling or weakening the directing role of the
Party in the structure of the Soviet State. He worked
out Bolshevik principles of Party direction and norms
of Party hfe, stressing that the guiding principle of
Party leadership is its collegiality. Already during the
pre-revolutionary years Lenin called the Central Com-
mittee of the Party a collective of leaders and the
guardian and interpreter of Party principles. "During
the period between congresses," pointed out Lenin,
"the Central Committee guards and interprets the
principles of the Party."
Underlining the role of the Central Committee of
the Party and its authority, Vladimir Ilyich pointed
out: "Our Central Committee constituted itself as a
closely centralized and highly authoritative group..
.".

During Lenin's life the Central Committee of the

Party was a real expression of collective leadership of
 Khrushchev's secret speech €11

the Party and of the nation. Being a militant Marxist-

revolutionist, always unyielding in matters of prin-
ciple, Lenin never imposed by force his views upon
his co-workers. He tried to convince; he patiently ex-
plained his opinions to others. Lenin always diligently
observed that the norms of Party life were realized,
that the Party statute was enforced, that the Party
congresses and the plenary sessions of the Central
Committee took place at the proper intervals.
In addition to the great accomplishments of V. I.
Lenin for the victory of the working class and of the
working peasants, for the victory of our Party and for
the application of the ideas of scientific Communism
to life, his acute mind expressed itself also in this,
that he detected in Stalin in time those negative char-
acteristics which resulted later in grave consequences.
Fearing for the future fate of the Party and of the
Soviet nation, V. I. Lenia made a completely correct
characterization of Stalin, pointing out that it was
necessary to consider the question of transferring
Stalin from the position of the Secretary General be-
cause of the fact that Stalin is excessively rude, that
he does not have a proper attitude toward his com-
rades, that he is capricious and abuses his power.
In December 1922 in a letter to the Party Congress
Vladimir Ilyich wrote: "After taking over the position
of Secretary General Comrade Stalin accumulated in
his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain
whether he will be always able to use this power with
the required care."
—
This letter a political document of tremendous im-
portance, known in the Party history as Lenin's
—
"testament" ^was distributed among the delegates to
the XXth Party Congress. You have read it, and will
undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might
reflect on Lenin's plain words, in which expression is
given to Vladimir Iljdch's anxiety concerning the
Party, the people, the State, and the future direction
of Party policy.
Vladimir Ilyich said: "Stalin is excessively rude,
and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our
midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes
612 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the

position of the Secretary General. Because of this, I
propose that the comrades consider the method by
which Stalin would be removed from this position and
by which another man would be selected for it, a man,
who above all, would differ from Stalin in only one
quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty,
greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward
the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc."
This document of Lenin's was made known to the
delegates at the Xlllth Party Congress, who dis-
cussed the question of transferring Stalin from the
position of Secretary General. The delegates declared
themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post,
hoping that he would heed the critical remarks of
Vladimir Ilyich and would be able to overcome the
defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety.
Comrades! The Party Congress should become ac-
quainted with two new documents, which confirm
Stalin's character as already outlined by Vladimir
Ilyich his "testament." These documents are
Lenin in
Nadezhda Konstantinovna Elrupskaya to
a letter from
Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Political
Bureau, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich
Lenin to Stalin.
I will now read these documents:

Lev Borisovich!
Because of a short letter which I had written in words
dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the
doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually
rude outburst directed at me. This is not my first day in
the Party. During all these thirty years I have never heard
from any comrade one word of rudeness. The business of
the Party and of Ilyich are not less dear to me than to
Stalin. I need at present the maximum of self-control. What
—
one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know
better than any doctor, because I know what makes him
nervous and what does not, in any case I know better than
Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigory as to much clos-
er comrades of V. I. and I beg you to protect me from rude
interference with my private life and from vile invectives
and threats. I have no doubt as to what will be the unani-
 —
Khrushchev's secret speech €13

mous decision of the Control Commission, with which

Stalin sees fit to threaten me; however, I have neither the
strength nor the time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And
I am a living person and my
nerves are strained to the
utmost.
N. Krupskaya

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on De-

cember 23, 1922. After two and a half months, in
March 1923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the
following letter:

The Letter of V. I. Lenin

To Comrade Stalin.

Copies for: Kamenev and Zinoviev.

Dear Comrade Stalin!

You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the

telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact
that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said,
nevertheless Zinoviev and Kamenev heard about it from
her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is
being done against me, and I need not stress here that I
consider as directed against me that which is being done
against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh care-
fully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words
and apologizing or whether you prefer the severance of
relations between us.
[Commotion in the hall]
Sincerely,
Lenin
March 5, 1923

Comrades! I will not comment on these documents.

They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin
could behave in this manner during Lenin's life, could
thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna
Krupskaya, whom the Party knows well and values
highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active
fighter for the cause of the Party since its creation
we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other peo-
ple. These negative characteristics of his developed
614 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

steadily and during the last years acquired an abso-

lutely insufferable character.
As later events have proven, Lenin's anxiety was
justified: in the first period after Lenin's death Stalin
still paid attention to his [i.e., Lenin's] advice, but
later he began to disregard the serious admonitions
of Vladimir Ilyich.
When we analyze the practice of Stalin in regard to
the direction of the Party and of the country, when
we pause to consider everything which Stalin perpe-
trated, we must be convinced that Lenin's fears were
justified. The negative characteristics of Stalin, which,
in Lenin's time, were only incipient, transformed
themselves during the last years into a grave abuse of
power by Stalin, which caused untold harm to our
Party.
We have to consider seriously and analyze cor-
rectly this matter in order that we may preclude any
possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of
what took place during the life of Stalin, who ab-
solutely did not tolerate coUegiality in leadership and
in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only
toward everything which opposed him, but also toward
that which seemed to his capricious and despotic
character, contrary to his concepts.
Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation,
and patient co-operation with people, but by imposing
his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his
opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to
prove his viewpoint, and the correctness of his posi-
tion, was doomed to removal from the leading col-
lective and to subsequent moral and physical annihi-
lation. This was especially true during the period
following the XVIIth Party Congress, when many
prominent Party leaders and rank-and-file Party
workers, honest and dedicated to the cause of Com-
munism, fell victim to Stalin's despotism.
We must affirm that the Party had fought a serious
fight against the Trotskyites, rightists and bourgeois
nationalists, and that it disarmed ideologically all
the enemies of Leninism. This ideological fight was ;

carried on successfully, as a result of which the Party

I
 Khrushchev's secret speech 615

became strengthened and tempered. Here Stalin

played a positive role.
The Party led a great political ideological struggle
against those in its own ranks who proposed anti-
Leninist theses, who represented a political Hne hos-
tile to the Party and to the cause of sociaHsm. This
was a stubborn and a difficult fight but a necessary
one, because the political line of both the Trotskyite-
Zinovievite bloc and of the Bukharinites led actually
toward the restoration of capitalism and capitulation
to the world bourgeoisie. Let us consider for a moment
what would have happened if in 1928-1929 the politi-
cal line of right deviation had prevailed among us, or
orientation toward "cotton-dress industrialization," or
toward the kulak, etc. We would not now have a pow-
erful heavy industry, we would not have the kol-
khozes, we would find ourselves disarmed and weak in
a capitalist encirclement.
It was for this reason that the Party led an inexorable
ideological fight and explained to all Party members
and to the non-Party masses the harm and the danger
of the anti-Leninist proposals of the Trotskyite oppo-
sition and the rightist opportunists. And this great
work of explaining the Party line bore fruit; both the
Trotskyites and the rightist opportunists were politi-
cally isolated; the overwhelming Party majority sup-
ported the Leninist line and the Party was able to
awaken and organize the working masses to apply
the Leninist Party line and to build socialism.
Worth noting is the fact that even during the prog-
ress of the furious ideological fight against the Trot-
skyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites and others,
extreme repressive measures were not used against
them. The fight was on ideological grounds. But some
years later when socialism in our country was funda-
mentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were
generally liquidated, when the Soviet social structure
had radically changed, when the social basis for politi-
cal movements and groups hostile to the Party had
violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of
—
the Party were long since defeated politically ^then
the repression directed against them began.
616 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
It was precisely during this period (1935-1937-
1938) that the practice of mass repression through the
government apparatus was born, first against the
—
enemies of Leninism Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bu-
kharinites, long since politically defeated by the Party,
and subsequently also against many honest Commu-
nists, against those Party cadres who had borne the
heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most
difficult years of industrialization and collectivization,
who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the
rightists for the Leninist Party line.
Stalin originated the concept "enemy of the people."
This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that
the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a
controversy be proven; this term made possible the
usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms
of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any
way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were
only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had
bad reputations. This concept, "enemy of the people,"
actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideo-
logical fight or the making of one's views knov^n on
this or that issue, even those of a practical character.
In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt
used, against all norms of current legal science, was
the "confession" of the accused himself; and, as subse-
quent probing proved, "confessions" were acquired
through physical pressures against the accused.
This led to glaring violations of revolutionary le-
gality, and to the fact that many entirely innocent
persons, who in the past had defended the Party line,
became victims.
We must assert that in regard to those persons who
iQ their time had opposed the Party line, there were
often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical
annihilation. The formula, "enemy of the people," was
specifically introduced for the purpose of physically
annihilating such individuals.
It is a fact that many persons, who were later anni-
hilated as enemies of the Party and people, had
worked with Lenin during his life. Some of these per-
sons had made errors during Lenin's life, but, despite
 Khrushchev's secret speech 617

this, Lenin benefited by their work, he corrected them

and he did everything possible to retain them in the
ranks of the Party; he induced them to follow him.
In this connection the delegates to the Party Con-
gress should familiarize themselves with an unpub-
lished note by V. I. Lenin directed to the Central
Committee's Political Bureau in October 1920. Out-
lining the duties of the Control Commission, Lenin
wrote that the Commission should be transformed into
a real "organ of Party and proletarian conscience.'*

As a special duty of the Control Commission there is rec-

ommended a deep, individualized relationship with, and
sometimes even a type of therapy for, the representatives
—
of the so-called opposition those who have experienced a
psychological crisis because of failure of their Soviet or
Party career. An effort should be made to quiet them, to
explain the matter to them in a way used among comrades,
to find for them (avoiding the method of issuing orders)
a task for which they are psychologically fitted. Advice and
rules relating to this matter are to be formulated by the
Central Committee's Organizational Bureau, etc.

Everyone knows how irreconcilable Lenin was with

the ideological enemies of Marxism, with those who
deviated from the correct Party line. At the same time,
however, Lenin, as is evident from the given docu-
ment, in his practice of directing the Party demanded
the most intimate Party contact v^th people who had
shown indecision or temporary nonconformity with
the Party line, but whom it was possible to return to
the Party path. Lenin advised that such people should
be patiently educated without the application of ex-
treme methods.
Lenin's wisdom in dealing with people was evident
in his work with cadres.
An entirely different relationship with people char-
—
acterized Stalin. Lenin's traits ^patient work with
people; stubborn and painstaking education of them;
the ability to induce people to follow him without us-
ing compulsion, but rather through the ideological
—
influence on them of the whole collective were en-
tirely foreign to Stalin. He [Stalin] discarded the
618 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Leninist method of convincing and educating; hi
abandoned the method of ideological struggle for tha
of administrative violence, mass repressions, anc
terror. He acted on an increasingly larger scale an(
more stubbornly through punitive organs, at the sami
time often violating all existing norms of morality anc
of Soviet laws.
Arbitrary behavior by one person encouraged anc
permitted arbitrariness in others. Mass arrests anc
deportations of many thousands of people, executioi
without trial and without normal investigation createc
conditions of insecurity, fear and even desperation.
This, of course, did not contribute toward unity o;
the Party ranks and of all strata of working people
but on tiie contrary brought about annihilation anc
the expulsion from the Party of workers who wen
loyal but inconvenient to Stalin.
Our Party fought for the implementation of Lenin*{
plans for the construction of socialism. This was ai
ideological fight. Had Leninist principles been ob
served during the course of this fight, had the Part^j
devotion to principles been skillfully combined witl
a keen and solicitous concern for people, had they no
been repelled and wasted but rather drawn to ou]
—
side we certainly would not have had such a bruta
violation of revolutionary legality and many thou-
sands of people would not have fallen victim of th(
method of terror. Extraordinary methods would ther
have been resorted to only against those people whc
had in fact committed criminal acts against the Sovie
system.
Let us recall some historical facts.
In the days before the October Revolution twc
members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevil
—
Party Kamenev and Zinoviev—declared themselve;
against Lenin's plan for an armed uprising. In addi
tion, on October 18 they published in the Menshevil
newspaper, Novaya Zhizn, a statement declaring tha
the Bolsheviks were making preparations for an up-
rising and that they considered it adventuristic
Kamenev and Zinoviev thus disclosed to the enemj
the decision of the Central Committee to stage the up-
 Khrushchev's secret speech 619

rising, and that the uprising had been organized to

take place within the very near future.
This was treason against the Party and against the
revolution. In this connection, V. I. Lenin wrote:
"Kamenev and Zinoviev revealed the decision of the
Central Committee of their Party on the armed up-
rising to Rodzyanko and Kerensky. .
." He put be-
.

fore the Central Committee the question of Zino-

viev's and Kamenev's expulsion from the Party.
However, after the Great Socialist October Revolu-
tion, as is known, Zinoviev and Kamenev were given
leading positions. Lenin put them in positions in which
they carried out most responsible Party tasks and
participated actively in the work of the leading Party
and Soviet organs. It is known that Zinoviev and
Kamenev committed a number of other serious errors
during Lenin's life. In his "testsiment" Lenin warned
that "Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was
of course not an accident." But Lenin did not pose
the question of their arrest and certainly not their
shooting.
Or let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At
present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we
can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with
complete calm and can analyze this matter with suf-
ficient objectivity. After aU, around Trotsky were
people whose origin cannot by any means be traced
to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the
Party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited
from among the workers. We can name many indi-
viduals who in their time joined the Trotskyites; how-
ever, these same individuals took an active part in
the workers' movement before the revolution, during
the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in
the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of
revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism
and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to
EUinihilate such people?We are deeply convinced that
ad Lenin lived such an extreme method would not
lave been used against many of them.
Such are only a few historical facts. But can it be
aid that Lenin did not decide to use even the most
 J

620 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

I
severe means against enemies of the revolution when
this was actually necessary? No, no one can say this.
Vladimir Ilyich demanded uncompromising dealings
with the enemies of the revolution and of the working
class and when necessary resorted ruthlessly to such
methods. You will recall only V. I. Lenin's fight with)
the Socialist Revolutionary organizers of the anti-i
Soviet uprising, with the counter-revolutionary kulaks
in 1918 and with others, when Lenin without hesi-
tation used the most extreme methods against the
enemies. Lenin used such methods, however, only
against actual class enemies and not against those who
blunder, who err, and whom it was possible to lead
through ideological influence, and even retain in the
leadership.
Lenin used severe methods only in the most neces-
sary cases, when the exploiting classes were still in
existence and were vigorously opposing the revolu-
tion, when the struggle for survival was decidedly as-
suming the sharpest forms, even including a civil war.
Stalin, on the other hand, used extreme methods
and mass repressions at a time when the revolution
was already victorious, when the Soviet state was
strengthened, when the exploiting classes were al-
ready liquidated and Socialist relations were rooted
solidly in all phases of national economy, when our
Party was politically consolidated and had strength-
ened itself both numerically and ideologically. It is
clear that here Stalin showed in a whole series of
cases his intolerance, his brutality and his abuse of
power. Instead of proving his political correctness and
mobilizing the masses, he often chose the path of re-
pression and physical annihilation, not only against
actual enemies, but also against individuals who had
not committed any crimes against the Party and the
Soviet government. Here we see no wisdom but only
j

a demonstration of the brutal force which had once |

so alarmed V. I. Lenin. i

Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria

gang, the Central Committee has looked into a series
of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a
very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with
 Khrushchev's secret speech 621

the incorrect behavior of Stalin. As facts prove, Stalin,

using his unlimited pow^er, allow^ed himself many
abuses, acting in the name of the Central Committee,
not asking for the opinion of the Committee members
nor even of the members of the Central Committee's
Political Bureau; often he did not inform them about
his personal decisions concerning very important
Party and government matters.

Considering the question of the cult of an individual

we must first of all shov^ everyone w^hat harm this
caused to the interests of our Party.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had always stressed the
Party's role and significance in the direction of the
socialist government of workers and peasants; he saw
in this the chief precondition for a successful building
of socialism in our country. Pointing to the great re-
sponsibility of the Bolshevik Party, as a ruling party
in the Soviet state, Lenin called for the most meticu-
lous observance of all norms of Party life; he called
for the realization of the principles of collegiality in
the direction of the Party and the state.
Collegiality of leadership flows from the very nature
of our Party, a party built on the principles of demo-
cratic centralism. "This means," said Lenin, "that all
Party matters are accomplished by all Party members
— —
directly or through representatives who without
any exceptions are subject to the same rules; in addi-
tion, all administrative members, all directing collegia,
all holders of Party positions are elective, they must
account for their activities and are recallable."
It is knovvm that Lenin himself offered an example
of the most careful observance of these principles.
There was no matter so important that Lenin himself
decided it without asking for advice and approval of
the majority of the Central Committee members or of
the members of the Central Committee's PoHtical
Bureau.
In the most difficult period for our Party and our
country, Lenin considered it necessary regularly to
convoke congresses, Party conferences, and plenary
sessions of the Central Committee at which all the
622 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
most important questions were discussed and where
resolutions, carefully worked out by the collective of
leaders, were approved. '

We can recall, for an example, the year 1918 when)

the country was threatened by the attack of the im-i
perialistic interventionists. In this situation the Vllth!
Party Congress was convened in order to discuss a!
vitally important matter which could not be postponed'
— the matter of peace. In 1919, while the Civil War
was raging, the Vlllth Party Congress convened'
which adopted a new Party program, decided such
important matters as the relationship with the peasant
masses, the organization of the Red Army, the leading
role of the Party in the work of the Soviets, the cor-
rection of the social composition of the Party, and
other matters. In 1920 the IXth Party Congress was
convened which laid down guiding principles per-
taining to the Party's work in the sphere of economic
construction. In 1921, the Xth Party Congress ac-
cepted Lenin's New
Economic Policy and the histori-
"About Party Unity."
cal resolution called
During Lenin's life Party Congresses were con-;- '

vened regularly; always, when a radical turn in the

development of the Party and the country took place,
Lenin considered it absolutely necessary that the
Party discuss at length all the basic matters pertain-,,
ing to internal and foreign policy and to questions
bearing on the development of Party and government.
It is very characteristic that Lenin addressed tc
the Party Congress as the highest Party organ his
last articles, letters and remarks. During the period
between congresses the Central Committee of the
Party, acting as the most authoritative leading col
lective, meticulously observed the principles of the
Party and carried out its policy.
So it was during Lenin's life.
Were our Party's holy Leninist principles observed
Vladimir Iljdch?
after the death of
Whereas during the first few years after Lenin's
death Party Congresses and Central Committee pie
niuns took place more or less regularly, later, wher
Stalin began increasingly to abuse his power, thesi
 khrushcheVs secret speech 623

principles were brutally violated. This was especially

evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a
normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between
the XVIIIth and XlXth Party Congresses, years during
which our Party and our country had experienced so
i many important events? These events demanded cate-
gorically that the Party should have passed resolu-
tions pertaining to the country's defense during the
Patriotic War and to peacetime construction after the
war. Even after the end of the war a Congress was
not convened for over 7 years.
Central Committee plenums were hardly ever
called. It should be sufficient to mention that during
all the years of the Patriotic War not a single Central
Committee plenum took place. It is true that there
was an attempt to call a Central Conmiittee plenum
in October 1941, when Central Committee members
from the whole country were called to Moscow. They
waited two days for the opening of the plenum, but
in vain. Stalin did not even want to meet and to talk
to the Central Committee members. This fact shows
how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the
war and how haughtily and disdainfully he treated
the Central Committee members.
In practice Stalin ignored the norms of Party life
and trampled on the Leninist principle of collective
Party leadership.
Stalin's willfulness vis-a-vis the Party and its Cen-
tral Committee became fully evident after the XVIIth
Party Congress which took place in 1934.
Having at its disposal numerous data showing brutal
willfulness toward Party cadres, the Central Commit-
tee has created a Party Commission under the control
of the Central Committee Presidium; it was charged
with investigating what made possible the mass re-
pressions against the majority of the Central Commit-
tee members and candidates elected at the XVIIth
Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshe-
viks).
The Commission has become acquainted with a
large quantity of materials in the NKVDarchives and
with other documents and has established many facts
 — '
''',

624 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Com-
munists, to false accusations, to glaring abuses of
—
socialist legality ^which resulted in the death of in-
nocent people. It became apparent that many Party,
Soviet and economic activists who were branded in
1937-1938 as "enemies" were actually never enemies, [

spies, wreckers, etc., but were always honest Com-

munists; they were only so stigmatized, and often, no
longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged
themselves (at the order of the investigative judges
falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and imlikely crimes.
The Commission has presented to the Central Com-
mittee Presidium lengthy and documented materials
pertaining to mass repressions against the delegates i

to the XVIIth Party Congress and against members

of the Central Committee elected at that Congress.
These materials have been studied by the Presidium |

of the Central Committee. \

It was determined that of the 139 members and

|

candidates of the Party's Central Committee who

were elected at the XVIIth Congress, 98 persons, i.e.,
70 percent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937-
1938) (iTidignation in the hall.)
.

What was the composition of the delegates to the

XVIIth Congress? It is known that 80 percent of the
voting participants of the XVIIth Congress joined the
Party during the years of conspiracy before the Revo-
lution and during the Civil War; this means before
1921. By social origin the basic mass of the delegates
to the Congress were workers (60 percent of the vot-
ing members).
For this reason, it was inconceivable that a Congress
so composed would have elected a Central Conmiittee,
a majority of which would prove to be enemies of the
Party. The only reason why 70 percent of the Central
Committee members and candidates elected at the
XVIIth Congress were branded as enemies of the
Party and of the people was that honest Communists
were slandered, accusations against them were fabri-
cated, and revolutionary legality was gravely under-
mined.
The same fate met not only the Central Committee

i
 Khrushchev's secret speech 625

members but also the majority of the delegates to

the XVIIth Party Congress. Of 1,966 delegates with
either voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were
arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes, i.e.,
decidedly more than a majority. This very fact shows
how absurd, wild and contrary to common sense were
the charges of counter-revolutionary crimes made out,
as we now see, against a majority of participants at
the XVIIth Party Congress. (Indignation in the hall.)
We should recall that the XVIIth Party Congress is
historically known as the Congress of Victors. Dele-
gates to the Congress were active participants in the
building of our socialist state; many of them suffered
and fought for Party interests during the pre-revolu-
tionary years in the conspiracy and at the Civil War
fronts; they fought their enemies valiantly and often
nervelessly looked into the face of death. How then
can we believe that such people could prove to be
"two-faced" and had joined the camps of the enemies
of socialism during the era after the political liquida-
tion of Zinovievites, Trotskyites and rightists and after
the great accomplishments of socialist construction?
This was the result of the abuse of power by Stalin,
who began to use mass terror against the Party cadres.
What is the reason that mass repressions against ac-
tivists increased more and more after the XVIIth
Party Congress? It was because at that time Stalin
had so elevated himself above the Party and above
the nation that he ceased to consider either the Cen-
tral Committee or the Party. While he still reckoned
with the opinion of the collective before the XVIIth
Congress, after the complete political liquidation of
the Trotskyites, Zinovievites and Bukharinites, when
as a result of that fight and socialist victories the
Party achieved imity, Stalin ceased to an ever greater
degree to consider the members of the Party's Central
Committee and even the members of the Political
Bureau. Stalin thought that now he could decide all
things alone and all he needed were statisticians; he
treated all others in such a way that they could only
listen to and praise him.
After the criminal murder of S. M. Kirov, mass re-
626 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
pressions and brutal acts of violation of socialist legal-
ity began. On the evening of December 1, 1934, on
Stalin's initiative (without the approval of the Polit-
ical Bureau —
which was passed two days later, casual-
ly) the secretary of the Presidium of the Central
Executive Committee, Yenukidze, signed the following
directive.

L Investigative agencies are directed to speed up the

cases of those accused of the preparation or execution
of acts of terror.
n. Judicial organs are directed not to hold up the execu-
tion of death sentences i>ertaining to crimes of this
category in order to consider the possibility of pardon,
because the Presidium of the Central Executive Com-
mittee [of the] USSR does not consider as possible the
receiving of petitions of this sort
III The organs of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs
[NKVD] are directed to execute death sentences against
criminals of the above-m.entioned category immediately
after the passage of sentences.

This directive became the basis for mass acts of abuse

against socialist legality. Duriug many of the fabri-
cated court cases the accused were charged with
"the preparation" of terroristic acts; this deprived
them of any possibility that their cases might be re-
examined, even when they stated before the court
that their "confessions" were secured by force, and
when, in a convincing manner, they disproved the ac-
cusations against them.
It must be asserted that to this day the circum-
stances surrounding Kirov's murder hide many things
which are inexplicable and mysterious and demand a
most careful examination. There are reasons for the
suspicion that the killer of Kirov, Nikolayev, was
assisted by someone from among the people whose
duty it was to protect the person of Kirov. month A
and a half before the killing, Nikolayev was arrested
on the grounds of suspicious behavior, but he was re-
leased and not even searched. It is an unusually sus-
picious circumstance that when the Chekist assigned
to protect Kirov was being brought for an interroga-
 Khrushchev's secret speech 627

tion, on December 2, 1934, he was killed in a car "ac-

cident" in which no other occupants of the car were
harmed. After the murder of Kirov, top functionaries
of the Leningrad NKVD were given very light sen-
tences, but in 1937 they were shot. We can assume
that they were shot in order to cover the traces of
the organizers of Kirov's killing. (Movement in the
hall.)
Mass repressions grew tremendously from the end
of 1936 after a telegram from Stalin and Zhdanov,
dated from Sochi on September 25, 1936, was ad-
dressed to Kaganovich, Molotov and other members of
the Political Bureau. The content of the telegram was
as follows:
"We deem it absolutely necessary and urgent that
Comrade Yezhov be nominated to the post of People's
Commissar for Internal Affairs. Yagoda has definitely
proved himself to be incapable of unmasking the
Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc. The OGPU is 4 years
behind in this matter. This is noted by all Party work-
ers and by the majority of the representatives of the
NKVD." Strictly speaking we should stress that Sta-
lin did not meet with and therefore could not know
the opinion of Party workers.
This Stalinist formulation that the "NKVD is 4
years behind" in applying mass repression and that
there is a necessity for "catching up" with the neglect-
ed work directly pushed the NKVD workers on the
path of mass arrests and executions.
We should state that this formulation was also
forced on the February-March plenary session of the
Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks) in 1937. The plenary resolution approved
it on the basis of Yezhov's report, "Lessons flowing
from the harmful activity, diversion and espionage of
the Japanese-German-Trotskyite agents," stating:

The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union

Communist Party (Bolsheviks) considers that all facts re-
vealed during the investigation into the matter of an anti-
Soviet Trotskyite center and of its followers in the prov-
inces show that the People's Commissariat of Internal
628 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Affairs has fallen behind at least 4 years in the attempt to
unmask these mLOst inexorable enemies of the people.

The mass repressions at this time were made under

the slogan of a fight against the Trotskyites. Did the
Trotskyites at this time actually constitute such a
danger to our Party and to the Soviet state? We
should recall that in 1927 on the eve of the XVth
Party Congress only some 4,000 votes were cast for
the Trotskyite-Zinovievite opposition, while there
were 724,000 for the Party line. During the 10 years
which passed between the XVth Party Congress and
the February-March Central Committee Plenum
Trotskyism was completely disarmed; many former
Trotskyites had changed their former views and
worked in the various sectors building socialism. It
is clear that in the situation of socialist victory there
was no basis for mass terror in the country.
Stalin's report at the February-March Central Com-
mittee Plenum in 1937, "Deficiencies of Party work
and methods for the liquidation of the Trotskyites
and of other two-facers," contained an attempt at theo-
retical justification of the mass terror policy under the
pretext that as we march forward toward socialism,
class war must allegedly sharpen. Stalin asserted that
both history and Lenin taught him this.
Actually Lenin taught that the application of revo-
lutionary violence is necessitated by the resistance
of the exploiting classes, and this referred to the era
when the exploiting classes existed and were power-
ful. As soon as the nation's political situation had
improved, when in January 1920 the Red Army took
Rostov and thus won a most important victory over
Denikin, Lenin instructed Dzerzhinsky to stop mass
terror and to abolish the death penalty. Lenin justi-
fied this important political move of the Soviet state
in the following manner in his report at the session
of the AU-Union Central Executive Conmiittee on
February 2, 1920:

We are forced to use terror because of the terror prac-

ticed by the Entente, when strong world powers threw
 Khrushchev's secret speech 629

their hordes against us, not avoiding any tjrpe of combat

We w^ould not have lasted two days had we not answered
these attempts of officers and White Guardists in a merci-
less fashion; this meant the use of terror, but this was
forced upon us by the terrorist methods of the Entente.
But as soon as we attained a decisive victory, even before
the end of the war, immediately after taking Rostov, we
gave up the use of the death penalty and thus proved that
we intend to execute owe own program in the manner that
we promised. We say that the application of violence flows
out of the decision to smother the exploiters, the big land-
owners and the capitalists; as soon as this was accomplished
we gave up the use of all extraordinary methods. We have
proved this in practice.

Stalin deviated from these clean and plain precepts

of Lenin. Stalin put the Party and the NKVD
up to
the use of mass terror when the exploiting classes had
been liquidated in our country and when there were
no serious reasons for the use of extraordinary mass
terror.
This terror was actually directed not at the rem-
nants of the defeated exploiting classes but against
the honest workers of the Party and of the Soviet
state, against them were made lying, slanderous and
absurd accusations concerning "two-facedness," "es-
pionage," "sabotage," preparation of fictitious "plots,"
etc.
At the February-March Central Committee Plenum
in 1937 many members actually questioned the right-
ness of the established course regarding mass repres-
sions imder the pretext of combating "two-facedness."
Comrade Postyshev most ably expressed these
doubts. He said:

I have philosophized that the severe years of fighting have

passed; Party members who have lost their backbones have
broken down or have joined the camp of the enemy;
healthy elements have fought for the Party. These were
the years of industrialization and collectivization. I never
thought it possible that after this severe era had passed
Karpov and people like him would find themselves in the
camp of the enemy. (Karpov was a worker in the Ukrainian
 .

630 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

Central Committee whom Postyshev knew welL) And
now, according to the testimony, it appears that Karpov
was recruited in 1934 by the Trotskjdtes. I personally do
not believe that in 1934 an honest Party member who had
trod the long road of unrelenting fight against enemies, for
the Party and for Socialism, would now be in the camp of
the enemies. I do not believe it ... I cannot imagine how
it would be possible to travel with the Party during the
diflacult years and then, in 1934, join the Trotskyites. It is
an odd thing. . .

(Movement in the hall.)

Using Stalin's formulation, namely that the closer
we are to socialism, the more enemies we will have,
and using the resolution of the February-March Cen-
tral Cormnittee Plenum passed on the basis of Ye-
—
zhov's report the provocateurs who had infiltrated
the state security organs together with conscienceless
careerists began to protect with the Party name the
mass terror against Party cadres, cadres of the Soviet
state and the ordinao^ Soviet citizens. It should suffice
to say that the number of airests based on charges of
counter-revolutionary crimes had grown ten times be-
tween 1936 and 1937.
It is known that brutal willfulness was practiced
against leading Party workers. The Party Statute, ap-
proved at the XVIIth Party Congress, was based on
Leninist principles expressed at the Xth Party Con-
gress. It stated that in order to apply an extreme
method such as exclusion from the Party against a
Central Committee member, against a Central Com-
mittee candidate, and against a member of the Party
Control Commission, "it is necessary to call a Central
Committee Plenum and to invite to the Plenimi all
Central Committee candidate members and all mem-
bers of the Party Control Commission"; only if two
thirds of the members of such a general assembly of
responsible Party leaders find it necessary, only then
can a Central Committee member or candidate be
expelled.
The majority of the Central Committee members
and candidates elected at the XVIIth Congress and
 Khrushchev's secret speech 1 631

arrested in 1937-1938 were expelled from the Party

illegallythrough the brutal abuse of the Party Statute,
because the question of their expulsion was never
studied at the Central Committee Pleniun.
Now when the cases of some of these so-called
"spies" and "saboteurs" were examined it was found
that all their cases were fabricated. Confessions of
guilt of many arrested and charged with enemy ac-
tivity were gained with the help of cruel and inhuman
tortures.
At the same time Stalin, as we have been informed
by members of the Political Bureau of that time, did
not show them the statements of many accused politi-
cal activists when they retracted their confessions be-
fore the military tribunal and asked for an objec-
tive examination of their cases. There were many such
declarations, and Stalin doubtless knew of them.
The Central Committee considers it absolutely nec-
essary to inform the Congress of many such fabricated
"cases" against the members of the Party's Central
Committee elected at the XVIIth Party Congress.
An example of vile provocation, of odious falsifica-
tion and of criminal violation of revolutionary legality
is the case of the former candidate for the Central
Committee Political Bureau, one of the most eminent
workers of the Party and of the Soviet government.
Comrade Eikhe, who was a Party member since 1905.
{Commotion in the hall.)
Comrade Eikhe was arrested on April 29, 1938, on
the basis of slanderous materials, without the sanction
of the Prosecutor of the USSR, which was finally re-
ceived 15 months after the arrest.
Investigation of Eikhe's case was made in a manner
which most brutally violated Soviet legality and was
accompanied by willfulness amd falsification.
Eikhe was forced imder torture to sign ahead of
time a protocol of his confession prepared by the in-
vestigative judges, in which he and several other
eminent Party workers were accused of anti-Soviet
activity.
On October 1, 1939, Eikhe sent his declaration to
Stalin in which he categorically denied his guilt and
632 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
asked for an examination of his case. In the declara-
tion he wrote:

There is no more bitter misery than to sit in the jail of a

govemment for which I have always fought

A second declaration of Eikhe has been preserved

which he sent to Stalui on October 27, 1939; in it
he cited facts very convincingly and countered the
slanderous accusations made against him, arguing that
this provocatory accusation was on the one hand the
work of real Trotskyites whose arrests he had sanc-
tioned as First Secretary of the West Siberian Krai
Party Committee and who conspired in order to take
revenge on him, and, on the other hand, the result of
the base falsification of materials by the investigative
judges.
Eikhe wrote in his declaration:

.... On October 25 of this year I was informed that the

investigation of my case has been concluded and I was
given access to the materials of this investigation. Had I
been guilty of only one hundredth of the crimes with which
I am charged, I would not have dared to send you this pre-
execution declaration; however, I have not been guilty of
even one of the things with which I am charged and my
heart is clean of even the shadow of baseness. I have never
in my life told you a word of falsehood and now, finding
my two feet in the grave, I am also not lying. My whole
case is a typical example of provocation, slander and viola-
tion of the elementary basis of revolutionary legality. . . .

.... The confessions which were made part of my file

are not only absurd but contain some slander toward the
Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks) and toward the Council of People's Com-
missars because correct resolutions of the Central Com-
mittee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
and of the Council of People's Commissars which were
not made on my initiative and without my participation
are presented as hostile acts of counter-revolutionary or-
ganizations at my suggestion.
made . . .

I am now alluding to the most disgraceful part of my

life and to my really grave guilt agaiast the Party and
against you. This is my confession of counter-revolutionary
 Khrushchev's secret speech 633

activities. . . The case is as follows: not being able to

.

suffer the tortures to which I was submitted by Ushakov

—
and Nikolayev and especially by the first one ^who uti- —
lized the knowledge that my
broken ribs have not properly
mended and have caused me great pain I have been—
forced to accuse myself and others.
The majority of my confession has been suggested or
dictated by Usakov, and the remainder is my reconstruc-
tion of NKVD materials from western Siberia for which
I assumed aU responsibility. If some part of the story which
Ushakov fabricated and which I signed did not properly
hang together, I was forced to sign another variation. The
same thing was done to Rukhimovich, who was at first
designated as a member of the reserve net and whose name
later was removed without telling me anything about it;
the same was also done with the leader of the reserve net,
supposedly created by Bukharin in 1935. At first I wrote
my name in, and then I was instructed to insert Mezhlauk.
There were other similar incidents.
.... I am asking and begging you that you again ex-
amine my case and this not for the purpose of sparing me
but in order to unmask the vile provocation which like a
I snake wound itself around many persons in a great degree
due to my meanness and criminal slander. I have never
betrayed you or the Party. I know that I perish because of
vile and mean work of the enemies of the Party and of the
people, who fabricated the provocation against me.

It would appear that such an important declaration

was worth an examination by the Central Committee.
This, however, was not done and the declaration was
transmitted to Beria while the terrible maltreatment
of the Political Bureau Candidate, Comrade Eikhe,
continued.
On February 2, 1940 Eikhe was brought before the
court. Here he did not confess any guilt and said as
follows:

In the so-called confessions of mine there is not one

all
letter writtenby me with the exception of my signatures
under the protocols which were forced from me. I have
made my confession under pressure from the investigative
judge who from the time of my arrest tormented me. After
that I began to write all this nonsense. The most im-
. . .
634 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
portant thing for me is to tell the court, the Party an
Stalin that I am not guilty. I have never been guilty of an
conspiracy. I will die believing in the truth of Party polic
as I have beUeved in it during my whole life.
On February 4 Eikhe was shot. (IndigTiation in th
hall.) It had been defimtely established now tha
Eikhe's case was fabricated; he has been posthumous
ly rehabilitated.
Comrade Rudzutak, candidate member of the Pc
litical Bureau, member of the Party since 1905, wh
spent 10 years in a Tsarist hard labor camp, complete
ly retracted in court the confession which was forcet
from him. The protocol of the session of the Collegiun
of the Supreme Military Court contains the followini
statement by Rudzutak:

.... The only plea which he places before the court is tha
the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Part;
(Bolsheviks) be informed that there is in the NKVD
ai'

as yet not liquidated center which is craftily manufacturinj

cases, which forces innocent persons to coriess; there is n«
opportunity to prove one's nonparticipation in crimes t<
which the confessions of various persons testify. The in
vestigative methods are such that they force people to li(
and to slander entirely innocent persons in addition t<
those who already stand accused He asks the Court tha
he be allowed to inform the Central Committee of the All
Union Commimist Party (Bolsheviks) about all this ii
writing. He assures the Court that he personally had neve
any evil designs in regard to the policy of our Party be
cause he has always agreed with the Party policy pertain
ing to aU spheres of economic and cultural activity.

This declaration of Rudzutak was ignored, despite

the fact that Rudzutak was in his time the chief of the
Central Control Commission which was called intc
being in accordance with Lenin's concept for the pur-
pose of fighting for Party unity. ... In this mannei
fell the chief of this highly authoritative Party organ.
a victim of brutal willfulness: he was not even called'
before the Central Committee's Political Bureau be-
cause Stalin did not want to talk to him. Sentence was
 Khrushchev's secret speech 635

pronounced on him in 20 minutes and he was shot.

(Indignation in the hall.)
After careful examination of the case in 1955 it was
established that the accusation against Rudzutak was
false and that it was based on slanderous materials.
Rudzutak has been rehabilitated posthumously.
The way in which the former NKVD
workers manu-
factured various fictitious "anti-Soviet centers" and
"blocs" with the help of provocatory methods is seen
from the confession of Comrade Rozenblum, Party
member since 1906, who was arrested in 1937 by the
Leningrad NKVD.
During the examination in 1955 of the Komarov case
Rozenblum revealed the following fact: when Rozen-
blum was arrested in 1937 he was subjected to terrible
torture during which he was ordered to confess false
information concerning himself and other persons. He
was then brought to the office of Zakovsky, who offered
him freedom on condition that he make the court a
by the
false confession fabricated in 1937 NKVD
con-
cerning "sabotage, espionage and diversion in a terror-
istic center in Leningrad." (Movement in the hall.)
With unbelievable cynicism Zakovsky told about the
Vile "mechanism" for the crafty creation of fabricated
anti-Soviet plots."
"In order to illustrate it to me," stated Rozenblimi,

Zakovsky gave me several possible variants of the organiza-

tion of this center and of its branches. After he detailed
the organization to me, Zakovsky told me that the NKVD
would prepare the case of this center, remarking that the
trial would be public.
Before the court were to be brought 4 or 5 members of
this center: Chudov, Ugarov, Smorodin, Pozem, Shaposhni-
kova (Chudov's wife) and others together with 2 or 3
members from the branches of this center. . . .

.... The case of the Leningrad center has to be built

fsolidly and for this reason witnesses are needed. Social
origin (of course, in the past) and the Party standing of
the witness will play more than a small role.

("You, yourself," said Zakovsky,

 — i

636 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

will not need to invent anything. The NKVD will prepare
for you a ready outline for every branch of the center;
you will have to study it carefully and to remember well
all questions and answers which the Court might ask. This
case will be ready in 4-5 months, or perhaps a half year.
During all this time you will be preparing yourself so that
you will not compromise the investigation and yourself.
Your future will depend on how the trial goes and on its
results. If you begin to lie and to testify falsely, blame
yourself. If you manage to endure it, you will save your
head and we will feed and clothe you at the government's
cost until your death.

This isthe kind of vile things which were then

practiced. (Movement in the hall.)
Even more widely was the falsification of cases
practiced in the provinces. The NKVD headquarters of
the Sverdlov oblast "discovered" the so-called "Urali
—
uprising staff" an organ of the bloc of rightists, Trot-
skjdtes, Socialist Revolutionaries, church leaders \

whose chief supposedly was the Secretary of the Sverd-sj

lov Oblast Party Committee and member of thej
Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party (Boli
sheviks), Kabakov, who had been a Party member
since 1914. The investigative materials of that time
show that in almost all krais, oblasts and republics
there supposedly existed "rightist Trotskyite, espio-i
nage-terror and diversionary-sabotage organizations
and centers" and that the heads of such organizationsj
— —
as a rule ^for no known reason ^were first secretaries|
of oblast or republic Commimist Party committees oi'
Central Conmiittees. {Movement in the hall.)
Many thousands of honest and innocent Commimists
have died as a result of this monstrous falsification oi
such "cases," as a result of the fact that all kinds oi^
slanderous "confessions" were accepted, and as a re-
sult of the practice of forcing accusations against one-
self and others. In the same manner were fabricated
the "cases" against eminent Party and state workers—
Kossior, Chubar, Postyshev, Kosarev, and others.
In those years repressions on a mass scale were api
plied which were based on nothing tangible and whiclj
resulted in heavy cadre losses to the Party.
 ,

Khrushchev's secret speech 637

The vicious practice was condoned of having the

NKVD prepare lists of persons whose cases were under
the jurisdiction of the Military Collegium and whose
sentences were prepared in advance. Yezhov would
send these lists to Stalin personally for his approval
of the proposed punishment. In 1937-1938, 383 such
lists containing the names of many thousands of Party,
Soviet, Komsomol, Army and economic workers were
sent to Stalin. He approved these lists.
A large part of these cases are being reviewed now
and a great part of them are being voided because they
were baseless and falsified. Suffice it to say that from
1954 to the present time the Military Collegium of the
Supreme Court has rehabilitated 7,679 persons, many
)f whom were rehabilitated posthumously.

Mass arrests of Party, Soviet, economic and military

vorkers caused tremendous harm to our country and
the cause of socialist advancement.
I Mass repressions had a negative influence on the
(noral-political condition of the Party, created a situa-
tion of uncertainty, contributed to the spreading of
(mhealthy suspicion, and sowed distrust among Com-
nunists. All sorts of slanderers and careerists were
'ictive.
Resolutions of the January Plenum of the Central
'

''ommittee, All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

1 1938 had brought some measure of improvement to
Lie Party organizations. However, widespread repres-
lon also existed in 1938.
Only because our Party has at its disposal such
(reat moral-political strength was it possible for it to
iirvive the difficult events in 1937-1938 and to educate
ew cadres. There is, however, no doubt that our
larch forward toward socialism and toward the prepa-
ition of the country's defense would have been much
lore successful were it not for the tremendous loss
I the cadres suffered as a result of the baseless and
iilse mass repressions in 1937-1938.
We
are justly accusing Yezhov for the degenerate
ractices of 1937. But we have to answer these ques-
3ns: Could Yezhov have arrested Kossior, for in-
ance, without the knowledge of Stalin? Was there an
638 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
exchange of opinions or a Political Bureau decisioi
concerning this? No, there was not, as there was non«
regarding other cases of this type. Could Yezhov hav«
decided such important matters as the fate of sucl
eminent Party figures? No, it would be a display o
naivete to consider this the work of Yezhov alone. I
is clear that these matters were decided by Stalin
and that without his orders and his sanction Yezho-*
could not have done this.
We have examined the cases and have rehabilitate(
Kossior, Rudzutak, Postyshev, Kosarev and others
For what causes were they arrested and sentenced'
The review of evidence shows that there was no reasoi
for this. They, like many others, were arrested with
out the Prosecutor's knowledge. In such a situatioi
there is no need for any sanction, for what sort of i

sanction could there be when Stalin decided every

thing. He was the chief prosecutor in these cases. Sta
lin not only agreed to, but on his own initiative issued
arrest orders. We must say this so that the delegates t<
the Congress can clearly undertake and themselve
assess this and draw the proper conclusions.
Facts prove that many abuses were made on Stalin*
orders without reckoning with any norms of Party an(
Soviet legality. Stalin was a very distrustfiil man
sickly suspicious; we knew this from our work witl
him. He could look at a man and say: "Why are you
eyes so shifty today," or "Why are you turning so mucl
today and avoiding to look me directly in the eyes?
The sickly suspicion created in him a general distrus
even toward eminent Party workers whom he ha'
known for years. Everywhere and in everything h
saw "enemies," "two-facers" and "spies."
Possessing urdimited power he indulged in grea
willfulness and choked a person morally and physi
cally. A situation was created where one could no
express one's own will.
When Stalin said that one or another should b
arrested, it was necessary to accept on faith that h,
was an "enemy of the people." Meanwhile, Beria*!
gang, which ran the organs of state security, outdi
itself in proving the guilt of the arrested and the
trut;
 Khrushchev's secret speech 639

of materials which it falsified. And what proofs were

offered? The confessions of the arrested, and the in-
vestigative judges accepted these "confessions." And
how is it possible that a person confesses to crimes
which he has not committed? Only in one way ^be- —
cause of appUcation of physical methods of pressuring
him, tortures, bringing him to a state of unconscious-
ness, deprivation of his judgment, taking away of his
human dignity. In this manner were "confessions"
acquired.
When the wave of mass arrests began to recede in
1939, and the leaders of territorial Party organizations
'

began to accuse the NKVD

workers of using methods
\of physical pressure on the arrested, Stalin dispatched
:a coded telegram on January 20, 1939, to the committee
[secretaries of oblasts and krais, to the Central Com-
i
mittees of republic Communist Parties, to the People's
j
Commissars of Internal Affairs and to the heads of
NKVD organizations. This telegram stated:

The Central Committee of the AU-Union Communist Party

(Bolsheviks) explains that the application of methods of
physical pressure in NKVD practice is permissible from
1937 on in accordance with permission of the Central Com-
mittee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). . . .

It is known that all bourgeois intelligence services use

methods of physical influence against the representatives
of the socialist proletariat and that they use them in their
most scandalous form. The question arises as to why the
socialist intelligence service should be more humanitarian
against the mad agents of the bourgeoisie, against the dead-
ly enemies of the working class and the kolkhoz workers.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks) considers that physical pressure should still
be used obligatorily, as an exception applicable to known
'and obstinate enemies of the people, as a method both justi-
fiable and appropriate.

Thus Stalin had sanctioned in the name Cen-

of the
tral Conmnittee of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks) the most brutal violation of socialist le-
gality, torture and oppression, which led as we have
640 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
seen to the slandering and self-accusation of innocem
people.
Not long ago —only several days before the present
Congress —we called to the Central Committee Presid-
ium sessionand interrogated the investigative judg€
Rodos, who in his time investigated and interrogatec
Kossior, Chubar and Kosarev. He is a vile person, witl
the brain of a bird, and morally completely degenerate
And it was this man who was deciding the fate oJ
prominent Party workers; he was making judgments
also concerning the politics in these matters, because
having established their "crime," he provided there-
with materials from which important political implica-
tions could be drawn.
The question rises whether a man with such ar
intellect could alone make the investigation in a man-
ner to prove the guilt of people such as Kossior anc
others. No, he could not have done it without propei
directives. At the Central Committee Presidium ses-
sion he told us: "I was told that Kossior and Chubai
were people's enemies and for this reason, I, as ar
investigative judge, had to make them confess thai
they are enemies." {Indignation in the hall.)
He could do this only through long tortures, whicl:
he did, receiving detailed instructions from Beria. We
must say that at the Central Committee Presidiun"
session he cynically declared: "I thought that I waf
executing the orders of the Party." In this mannei
Stalin's orders concerning the use of methods of physi-
cal pressure against the arrested were in practice i

executed.
These and many other facts show that all norms o:
correct Party solution of problems were invalidatec
and everything was dependent upon the willfulness o:
one man.
The power accumulated in the one person
hands of
Stalin, led to serious consequences during the Grea
Patriotic War.
When we look at many of our novels, films and his;
torical "scientific studies," the role of Stalin in th(
Patriotic War appears to be entirely improbable. Sta
lin had foreseen everything. The Soviet Army, on th(
 Khrushchev's secret speech 641

basis of a strategic plan prepared by Stalin long before,

used the tactics of so-called "active defense," i.e., tac-
tics which, as we know, allowed the Germans to come
up to Moscow and Stalingrad. Using such tactics the
Soviet Army, supposedly, thanks only to Stalin's geni-
us, turned to the offensive and subdued the enemy.
The epic victory gained through the armed might of the
Land of the Soviets, through our heroic people, is
ascribed in this type of novel, film and "scientific
study" as being completely due to the strategic genius
of Stalin.
We have to analyze this matter carefully because it
has a tremendous significance not only from the his-
torical, but especially from the political, educational
and practical point of view.
What are the facts of this matter?
Before the war our press and all our political-educa-
tional work was characterized by its bragging tone:
when an enemy violates the holy Soviet soil, then for
every blow of the enemy we will answer with three
blows and we will battle the enemy on his soil and we
will win without much harm to ourselves. But these
positive statements were not based in all areas on con-
crete facts, which would actually guarantee the immu-
nity of our borders.
During the war and after the war Stalin put forward
the thesis that the tragedy which our nation experi-
enced in the first part of the war was the result of
the "unexpected" attack of the Germans against the
Soviet Union. But, Comrades, this is completely un-
true. As soon as Hitler came to power in Germany he
assigned to himself the task of liquidating Commu-
nism. The Fascists were saying this openly; they did
not hide their plans. In order to attain this aggressive
end all sorts of pacts and blocs were created, such as
the famous Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis. Many facts irom
the pre-war period clearly showed that Hitler was go-
ing all out to begin a war against the Soviet state and
that he had concentrated large armed units, together
with armored units, near the Soviet borders.
Documents which have now been published show
thatby April 3, 1941, Churchill, through his ambassa-
642 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
dor to the USSR, Cripps, personally warned Stalin
that the Germans had begun regrouping their armed
units with the intent of attacking the Soviet Union. It
is self-evident that Churchill did not do this at all
because of his friendly feeling toward the Soviet na-
tion. He had in this his own imperialistic goals —
^to

bring Germany and the USSR into a bloody war and

thereby to strengthen the position of the British Em-
pire. Just the same, Churchill affirmed in his writings
that he sought to "warn Stalin and call his attention to
the danger which threatened him." Churchill stressed
this repeatedly in his dispatches of April 18 and in the
following days. However, Stalin took no heed of these
warnings. What is more, Stalin ordered that no cre-
dence be given to information of this sort, in order not
to provoke the initiation of military operations.
We must assert that information of this sort concern-
ing the threat of German armed invasion of Soviet
territory was coming in also from our own military
and diplomatic sources; however, because the leader-
ship was conditioned against such information, such
data was dispatched with fear and assessed with reser-
vation.
Thus, for instance, information sent from Berlin on
May 6, 1941, by the Soviet military attache, Capt.
Vorontsov, stated: "Soviet citizen Bozer . commu-
. .

nicated to the deputy naval attache that according to

a statement of a certain German officer from Hitler's
Headquarters, Germany is preparing to invade the
USSR on May 14 through Finland, the Baltic countries i

and Latvia. At the same time Moscow and Leningrad

will be heavily raided and paratroopers landed in bor-
der cities. .
.".

In his report of May 22, 1941, the deputy military f

attache in Berlin, Khlopov, communicated that "... the
attack of the German army is reportedly scheduled for
June 15, but it is possible that it may begin in the
first days of June. ..."
A cable from our London Embassy dated June 18,
1941, stated: "As of now Cripps is deeply convinced
of the inevitability of armed conflict between Germany
and the USSR which will begin not later than the

J
 Khrushchev's secret speech €43

middle of June. According to Cripps, the Germans

have presently concentrated 147 divisions (including
air force and service units) along the Soviet bor-
ders. . .
."

Despite these particularly grave warnings, the neces-

sary steps were not taken to prepare the country
properly for defense and to prevent it from being
caught unawares.
Did we have time and the capabilities for such
preparations? Yes, we had the time and capabilities.
Our industry was already so developed that it was
capable of supplying fully the Soviet army with every-
thing that it needed. This is proven by the fact that
although during the war we lost almost half of our
industry and important industrial and food production
areas as the result of enemy occupation of the Ukraine,
northern Caucasus and other western parts of the
country, the Soviet people was still able to organize
the production of military equipment in the eastern
parts of the country, install there equipment taken
from the western industrial areas, and to supply our
armed forces with everything which was necessary to
destroy the enemy.
Had our industry been mobilized properly and in
time to supply the army with the necessary material,
our wartime losses would have been decidedly smaller.
Such mobilization had not been, however, started in
time. And already in the first days of the war it be-
came evident that our army was badly armed, that we
did not have enough artillery, tanks and planes to
throw the enemy back.
Soviet science and technology produced excellent
models of tanks and artillery pieces before the war.
\
But mass production of all this was not organized and
[as a matter of fact we started to modernize our mili-
[tary equipment only on the eve of the war. As a result,
at the time of the enemy's invasion of the Soviet land
I

I
we did not have sufficient quantities either of old
imachinery which was no longer used for armament
production or of new machinery which we had planned
to introduce into armament production. The situation
with antiaircraft artillery was especially bad; we did

I
644 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
not organize the production of antitank ammunition.
Many fortified regions had proven to be indefensible as
soon as they were attacked, because the old arms had
been withdrawn and new ones were not yet available
there.
This pertained, alas, not only to tanks, artillery and
planes. At the outbreak of the war we did not even
have sufficient numbers of rifles to arm the mobilized
manpower. I recall that in those days I telephoned to
Comrade Malenkov from Kiev and told him, "People
have volunteered for the new army and demand arms.
You must send us arms."
Malenkov answered me, "We cannot send you arms.
We are sending all our rifles to Leningrad and you have
to arm yourselves." (Movement in the hall.)
Such was the armament situation.
In this connection we cannot forget, for instance, the
following fact. Shortly before the invasion of the Soviet
Union by the Hitlerite army, Kirponos, who was Chief
of the Kiev Special Military District (he was later
killed at the front), wrote to Stalin that the German
armies were at the Bug River, were preparing for an
attack and in the very near future would probably
start their offensive. In this connection Kirponos pro-
posed that a strong defense be organized, that 300,000
people be evacuated from the border areas and that
several strong points be organized there: antitank
ditches, trenches for the soldiers, etc.
Moscow answered this proposition with the assertion \

that this would be a provocation, that no preparatory

defensive work should be undertaken at the borders,
that the Germans were not to be given any pretext for
the initiation of military action against us. Thus, our
borders were insufficiently prepared to repel the ene- j
my.
When the Fascist armies had actually invaded Soviet
territory and mihtary operations began, Moscow issued
the order that the German fire was not to be returned.
Why? It was because Stalin, despite evident facts,
thought that the war had not yet started, that this was
only a provocative action on the part of several un-
disciplined sections of the Germany army, and that our
 Khrushchev's secret speech 645

reaction might serve as a reason for the Germans to

begin the war.
The following fact is also known. On the eve of the
invasion of the territory of the Soviet Union by the
Hitlerite army a certain German citizen crossed our
border and stated that the German armies had re-
ceived orders to start the offensive against the Soviet
Union on the night of June 22, at 3 o'clock. Stalin was
informed about this immediately, but even this warn-
ing was ignored.
As you see, everything wasignored: warnings of
certain army commanders, declarations of deserters
from the enemy army, and even the open hostility of
the enemy. Is this an example of the alertness of the
Chief of the Party and of the state at this particularly
significant historical moment?
And what were the results of this carefree attitude,
this disregard of clear facts? The result was that al-
ready in the firsthours and days the enemy had
destroyed in our border regions a large part of our
air force, artillery and other military equipment; he
annihilated large numbers of our military cadres and
disorganized our military leadership; consequently we
could not prevent the enemy from marching deep into
the country.
Very grievous consequences, especially in reference
to the begimiing of the war, followed Stalin's annihila-
tion of many military commanders and political work-
ers during 1937-1941 because of his suspiciousness and
through slanderous accusations. During these years
repressions were instituted against certain parts of
military cadres beginning literally at the company and
battalion commander level and extending to the higher
military centers; during this time the cadre of leaders
who had gained military experience in Spain and in
the Far East was almost completely liquidated.
The poHcy of large-scale repression against the mili-
tary cadres led also to undermined military discipline,
because for several years officers of all ranks and even
soldiers in the Party and Komsomol cells were taught
to "unmask" their superiors as hidden enemies. {Move-
ment in the hall.) It is natural that this caused a
 646 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
negative influence on the state of military discipline
in the first war period.
And, as you know, we had before the war excellent
military cadres which were unquestionably loyal to the
Party and to the Fatherland. Suffice it to say that those
of them who managed to survive despite severe tor-
tures to which they were subjected in the prisons, have
from the first war days shown themselves real patriots
and heroically fought for the glory of the Fatherland;
I have here in mind such comrades as Rokossovsky
(who, as you know, had been jailed), Gorbatov, Me-
retskov (who is a delegate at the present Congress),
Podlas (he was an excellent commander who perished
at the front) and many, many others. However, many
,

such commanders perished in camps and jails and the

army saw them no more.
All this brought about the situation which existed
at the beginning of the war and which was the great
threat to our Fatherland.
It would be incorrect to forget that after the first ;

severe disaster and defeats at the front, Stalin thought

that this was the end. In one of his speeches in those
days he said: "All that which Lenin created we have
lost forever."
After this Stalin for a long time actually did not
direct the military operations and ceased to do any-
thing whatever. He returned to active leadership only
when some members of the Political Bureau visited
him and told him that it was necessary to take certain
steps immediately in order to improve the situation at
the front.
Therefore, the threatening danger which hung over
our Fatherland in the first period of the war was
largely due to the faulty methods of directing the na-
tion and the Party by Stalin himself.
However, we speak not only about the moment when
the war began, which led to serious disorganization of I
our army and brought us severe losses. Even after the
war began, the nervousness and hysteria which Stalin
demonstrated, interfering with actual military opera-
tions, caused our army serious damage.
Stalin was very far from an understanding of the
 Khrushchev's secret speech 647

real situation which was developing at the front. This

was natural because during the whole Patriotic War
he never visited any section of the front or any liber-
ated city except for one short ride on the Mozhaisk
Highway during a stabilized situation at the front. To
this incident were dedicated many hterary works full
of fantasies of all sorts and so many paintings. Simul-
taneously, Stalin was interfering with operations and
issuing orders which did not take into consideration the
real situation at a given section of the front and which
could not help but result in huge personnel losses.
I will allow myself in this connection to bring out
one characteristic fact which illustrates how Stalin
directed operations at the fronts. There is present at
this Congress Marshal Bagramyan who was once the
Chief of Operations in the Headquarters of the South-
western front and who can corroborate what I will tell
you.
When there developed an exceptionally serious situa-
tion for our army in 1942 in the Kharkov region, we
had correctly decided to drop an operation whose ob-
jective was to encircle Kharkov, because the real
situation at that time would have threatened our army
with fatal consequences if this operation were con-
tinued.
We communicated this to Stalin, stating that the situ-
tiondemanded changes in operational plans so that the
enemy would be prevented from liquidating a sizable
concentration of our army.
Contrary to commonsense, Stalin rejected our sug-
gestion to continue the operation
and issued the order
aimed at the encirclement of Klharkov, despite the fact
that at this time many army concentrations were
themselves actually threatened with encirclement and
liquidation.
I telephoned to Vasilevsky and begged him, "Alex-
ander Mikhailovich, take a map (Vasilevsky is present
here) and show Comrade Stalin the situation which
has developed." We should note that Stalin planned
operations on a globe. {Animation in the hall.) Yes,
comrades, he used to take the globe and trace the
frontline on it. I said to Comrade Vasilevsky: "Show
648 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
him the situation on a map; in the present situation
we cannot continue the operation which was planned.
The old decision must be changed for the good of the
cause."
Vasilevsky replied saying that Stalin had already
studied this problem and that he, Vasilevsky, would
not see Stalin further concerning this matter, because
the latter didn't want to hear any arguments on the
subject of this operation.
After my talk with Vasilevsky I telephoned to Stalin
at his villa. But Stalin did not answer the telephone
and Malenkov was at the receiver. I told Comrade
Malenkov that I was calling from the front and that I
wanted to speak personally to Stalin. Stalin informed
me through Malenkov that I should speak with Malen-
kov. I stated for the second time that I wished to in-
form Stalin personally about the grave situation which
had arisen for us at the front. But Stalin did not con-
sider it convenient to raise the phone and again stated
that I should speak to him through Malenkov, although
he was only a few steps from the telephone.
After "Hstening" in this manner to our plea Stalin
said, "Let everything remain as it is!"
And what was the result of this? The worst that we
had expected. The Germans surrounded our army
concentrations and consequently we lost hundreds of
thousands of our soldiers. This is Stalin's military
"genius"; this is what it cost us. (Movement in the
hall.)
On one occasion after the war, during a meeting of
Stalin with members of the Political Bureau, Anastas
Ivanovich Mikoyan mentioned that Khrushchev must
have been right when he telephoned concerning the
Kharkov operation and that it was unfortunate that
his suggestion had not been accepted.
You should have seen Stalin's fury! How could it be
admitted that he, Stalin, had not been right! He is
after all a "genius," and a genius cannot help but be
right! Everyone can err, but Stalin considered that he
never erred, that he was always right. He never
acknowledged to anyone that he made any mistake,
large or small, despite the fact that he made not a few
 khrushcheVs secret speech 649

mistakes in the matter of theory and in his practical

activity. After the Party Congress we shall probably
have to re-evaluate many wartime military operations
and to present them in their true light.
The tactics on which Stalin insisted without knowing
the essence of the conduct of battle operations cost
us much blood until we succeeded in stopping the
opponent and going over to the offensive.
The military know that already by the end of 1941
instead of great operational maneuvers flanking the
opponent and penetrating behind his back, Stalin de-
manded incessant frontal attacks and the capture of
one village after another. Because of this we paid with
great losses until our generals, on whose shoulders
rested the whole weight of conducting the war, suc-
ceeded in changing the situation and shifting to flexible
maneuver operations, which immediately brought seri-
ous changes at the front favorable to us.
All the more shameful was the fact that after our
great victory over the enemy which cost us so much,
Stalin began to downgrade many of the commanders
who contributed so much to the victory over the
enemy, because Stalin excluded every possibility that
services rendered at the front should be credited to
anyone but himself.
Stalin was very much interested in the assessment
of Comrade Zhukov as a military leader. He asked me
often for my opinion of Zhukov. I told him then, "I
have known Zhukov for a long time; he is a good gen-
eral and a good military leader."
After the war Stalin began to tell all kinds of non-
sense about Zhukov, among others the following, "You
praised Zhukov, but he does not deserve it. It is said
that before each operation at the front Zhukov used to
behave as follows: he used to take a handful of earth,
smell it and say, *We can begin the attack,' or the
opposite, 'The planned operation cannot be carried
out.' " I stated at that time, "Comrade Stalin, I do not
know who invented this, but it is not true."
It is possible that Stalin himself invented these things
for the purpose of minimizing the role and military
talents of Marshal Zhukov.
 —
650 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
In this connection Stalin very energetically popu-
larized himself as a great leader; in various ways he
tried to inculcate in the people the version that all
victories gained by the Soviet nation during the Great
Patriotic War were due to the courage, daring and
genius of Stalin and to no one else. Exactly like Kuzma
Kryuchkov [a famous Cossack who performed heroic
feats against the Germans] he put one dress on 7 peo-
ple at the same time. (AniTnation in the hall.)
In the same vein, let us take, for instance, our his-
torical and military films and some literary creations;
they make us feel sick. Their true objective is the
propagation of the theme of praising Stalin as a mili-
tary genius. Let us recall the film, "The Fall of Ber-
lin." Here only Stalin acts; he issues orders in the hall
in which there are many empty chairs and only one
man approaches him and reports something to him
that is Poskrebyshev, his loyal shield-bearer. {Laugh-
ter in the hall.)
And where is the military command? Where is the
Political Bureau? Where is the Government? What
are they doing and with what are they engaged? There
is nothing about them in the film. Stalin acts for every-
body; he does not reckon with anyone; he asks no one
for advice. Everything is shown to the nation in this
false light. Why? In order to surround Stalin with
glory, contrary to the facts and contrary to historical
truth.
The question arises: And where are the military on
whose shoulders rested the burden of the war? They
are not in the film; with Stalin in, no room was left
for them.
Not Stalin, but the Party as a whole, the Soviet
Government, our heroic army, its talented leaders and
—
brave soldiers, the whole Soviet nation these are the
ones who assured the victory in the Great Patriotic
War. (Tempestuous and prolonged applause.)
The Central Committee members, ministers, our eco-
nomic leaders, leaders of Soviet culture, directors of
territorial Party and Soviet organizations, engineers,
—
and technicians every one of them in his own place
 —
khrushcheVs secret speech 651

of work generously gave of his strength and knowledge

toward ensuring victory over the enemy.
Exceptional heroism was shown by our hard core
surrounded by glory is our whole working class, our
kolkhoz peasantry, the Soviet intelligentsia, who under
the leadership of Party organizations overcame untold
hardships and, bearing the hardships of war, devoted
all their strength to the cause of the defense of the
Fatherland.
Great and brave deeds during the war were ac-
compHshed by our Soviet women who bore on their
backs the heavy load of production work in the fac-
tories, on the kolkhozes, and in various economic and
cultural sectors; many women participated directly in
the Great Patriotic War at the fronts; our brave youth
contributed immeasurably at the front and at home to
the defense of the Soviet Fatherland and to the an-
nihilation of the enemy.
Inmiortal are the services of the Soviet soldiers, of
our commanders and political workers of all ranks;
after the loss of a considerable part of the army in the
first war months they did not lose their heads and
were able to reorganize during the progress of combat;
they created and toughened during the progress of the
war a strong and heroic army and not only stood off
pressure of the strong and cunning enemy but also
smashed him.
The magnificent and heroic deeds of hundreds of mil-
lions of people of the East and of the West during the
fight against the threat of Fascist subjugation which
loomed before us will live centuries and millennia in
the memory of thankful humanity. (Thunderous
applause.)
The main role and the main credit for the victorious
ending of the war belongs to our Communist Party,
to the armed forces of the Soviet Union, and to the tens
of millions of Soviet people raised by the Party. (T/iitn-
derous and prolonged applause.)
Comrades, let us reach for some other facts. The
Soviet Union is justly considered as a model of a
multinational state because we have in practice as-
652 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
sured the equality and friendship of all nations which
live in our great Fatherland.
All the more monstrous are the acts whose initiator
was Stalin and which are rude violations of the basic
Leninist principles of the nationahty policy of the So-
viet state. We refer to the mass deportations from
their native places of whole nations, together with all
Communists and Komsomols without any exception;
this deportation action was not dictated by any military
considerations.
j

Thus, already at the end of 1943, when there oc-J

curred a permanent breakthrough at the fronts of thel
Great Patriotic War benefiting the Soviet Union, a
decision was taken and executed concerning the depor-
tation of all the Karachai from the lands on which they
lived. In the same period, at the end of December
1943, the same lot befell the whole population of the
Autonomous Kalmyk Republic. In March 1944 all
the Chechen and Ingush peoples were deported and
the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was liqui-
dated. In April 1944, all Balkars were deported to
faraway places from the territory of the Kabardino-
Balkar Autonomous Republic and the Republic itself
was renamed the Autonomous Kabardin Republic. The
Ukrainians avoided meeting this fate only because
there were too many of them and there was no place
to which to deport them. Otherwise, he would have *

deported them also. (Laughter and animation in the

hall.)
Not only no Marxist-Leninist but also no man of
common sense can grasp how it is possible to make
whole nations responsible for inimical activity, includ-
ing women, children, old people, Communists and
Komsomols, to use mass repression against them, and
to expose them to misery and suffering for the hostile
acts of individual persons or groups of persons.
After the conclusion of the Patriotic War the Soviet
nation stressed with pride the magnificent victories
gained through great sacrifices and tremendous efforts.
The country experienced a period of political enthusi-
asm. The Party came out of the war even more united;
in the fire of tiie war Party cadres were tempered and
 Khrushchev's secret speech 653

hardened. Under such conditions nobody could have

even thought of the possibihty of some plot in the
Party.
And it was precisely at this time that the so-called
"Leningrad Affair" was born. As we have now proven,
this case was fabricated. Those who innocently lost
their lives included Comrades Voznesensky, Kuzne-
tsov, Rodionov, Popkov, and others.
As is known, Voznesensky and Kuznetsov were
talented and eminent leaders. Once they stood very
close to Stalin. It is sufficient to mention that Stalin
made Voznesensky first deputy to the Chairman of the
Council of Ministers and Kuznetsov was elected Sec-
retary of the Central Committee. The very fact that
Stalin entrusted Kuznetsov with the supervision of the
state security organs shows the trust which he enjoyed.
How did it happen that these persons were branded
as enemies of the people and liquidated?
Facts prove that the "Leningrad Affair" is also the
result of willfulness which Stalin exercised against
Party cadres.
Had a normal situation existed in the Party's Central
Committee and in the Central Committee Political
Bureau, affairs of this nature would have been exam-
ined there in accordance with Party practice, and all
pertinent facts assessed; as a result such an affair as
well as others would not have happened.
We must state that after the war the situation be-
came even more complicated. Stalin became even more
capricious, irritable and brutal; in particular his suspi-
cion grew. His persecution mania reached unbelievable
dimensions. Many workers were becoming enemies be-
fore his very eyes. After the war Stalin separated
himself from the collective even more. Everything was
decided by him alone without any consideration for
anyone or anything.
This unbelievable suspicion was cleverly taken ad-
vantage of by the abject provocateur and vile enemy,
Beria, who had murdered thousands of Communists
and loyal Soviet people. The elevation of Voznesensky
and Kuznetsov alarmed Beria. As we have now proven,
it had been precisely Beria who had "suggested" to
654 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Stalin the fabrication by him and by his confidants of
materials in the form of declarations and anonymous
letters, and in the form of various rumors and talks.
The Party's Central Committee has examined this
so-called "Leningrad Affair"; persons who innocently
suffered are nov^ rehabilitated and honor has been re-
stored to the glorious Leningrad Party organization.
Abakumov and others who had fabricated this affair
were brought before a court; their trial took place in
Leningrad and they received what they deserved.
The question arises: Why is it that we see the truth
of this affair only now, and why did we not do some-
thing earlier, during Stalin's life, in order to prevent
the loss of innocent lives? It was because Stalin per-
sonally supervised the "Leningrad Affair," and the
majority of the Political Bureau members did not, at
that time, know all of the circumstances in these mat-
ters, and could not therefore intervene.
When Stalin received certain materials from Beria
and Abakumov, without examining these slanderous
materials, he ordered an investigation of the "Affair"
of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov. With this their fate
was sealed. Instructive in the same way is the case of
the Mingrelian nationalist organization which suppos-
edly existed in Georgia. As is known, resolutions by
the Central Committee [of the] Communist Party of
the Soviet Union, were made concerning this case in
November 1951 and in March 1952. These resolutions
were made without prior discussion with the Political
Bureau. Stalin had personally dictated them. They
made serious accusations against many loyal Commu-
nists. On
the basis of falsified documents it was proven
that there existed in Georgia a supposedly nationalistic
organization whose objective was the liquidation of the
Soviet power in that Republic with the help of im-
perialist powers.
In this connection, a number of responsible Party
and Soviet workers were arrested in Georgia. As was
later proven, this was a slander directed against the
Georgian Party Organization.
We know that there have been at times manifesta-
tions of local bourgeois nationalism in Georgia as in

2'
 Khrushchev's secret speech 655

several other republics. The question arises: Could

itbe possible that in the period during which the
resolutions referred to above were made, nationalist
tendencies grew so much that there was a danger of
Georgia's leaving the Soviet Union and joining Tur-
key? (Animation in the hall, laughter.)
This is, of course, nonsense. It is impossible to
imagine how such assumptions could enter anyone's
mind. Everyone knows how Georgia has developed
economically and culturally under Soviet rule.
Industrial production of the Georgian Republic is 27
times greater than it was before the revolution. Many
new industries have arisen in Georgia which did not
exist there before the revolution: iron smelting, an
oil industry, a machine construction industry, etc.
Illiteracy has long since been liquidated, which, in
pre-revolutionary Georgia, included 78 percent of the
population.
Could the Georgians, comparing the situation in their
Republic with the hard situation of the working masses
in Turkey, be aspiring to join Turkey? In 1955 Georgia
produced 18 times as much steel per person as Turkey.
According to the available 1950 census, 65 percent of
Turkey's total population are illiterate, and of the
women, 80 percent are illiterate. Georgia has 19 insti-r
tutions of higher learning which have about 39,000
students; this is 8 times more than in Turkey (for each
1,000 inhabitants) The prosperity of the working peo-
.

ple has grown tremendously in Georgia under Soviet

rule.
that as the economy and culture develop,
It is clear
and the socialist consciousness of the working
as
masses in Georgia grows, the source from which bour-
geois nationahsm draws its strength evaporates.
As it developed, there was no nationalistic organiza-
tion in Georgia. Thousands of Innocent people feU vic-
tim of willfulness and lawlessness. All of this happened
imder the "genial" leadership of Stalin, "the great son
of the Georgian nation," as Georgians liked to refer to
Stalin. (Animation in the hall.)
The willfulness of Stalin showed itself not only in
decisions concerning the internal life of the country
656 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
but also in the international relations of the Soviet
Union.
The July Plenum of the Central Committee studied
in detail the reasons for the development of conflict
with Yugoslavia. It was a shameful role which Stalin
played here. The "Yugoslav Affair" contained no prob-
lems which could not have been solved through Party
discussions among comrades. There was no significant
basis for the development of this "affair"; it was com-
pletely possible to have prevented the rupture of rela-
tions with that country. This does not mean, however,
that the Yugoslav leaders did not make mistakes or
did not have shortcomings. But these mistakes and
shortcomings were magnified in a monstrous manner
by Stalin, which resulted in a break of relations with
a friendly country.
I recall the first days when the conflict between the
Soviet Union and Yugoslavia began artificially to be
blown up. Once, when I came from Kiev to Moscow, I
was invited to visit Stalin who, pointing to the copy of
a letter lately sent to Tito, asked me, "Have you read
this?" Not waiting for my reply he answered, "I will
—
shake my little finger and there will be no more Tito.
He will fall."
We this "shaking of the little
have dearly paid for
finger." This statement reflected Stalin's mania for
greatness, but he acted just that way: "I will shake my
little finger —
and there will be no Kossior"; "I will
shake my little finger once more and Postyshev and
Chubar will be no more"; "I will shake my Httle finger
—
again and Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and many others
will disappear."
But this did not happen to Tito. No matter how much
or how little Stalin shook, not only his little finger but
everything else that he could shake, Tito did not fall.
Why? The reason was that, in this case of disagree-
ment with the Yugoslav comrades, Tito had behind
him a state and a people who had gone through a se-
vere school of fighting for liberty and independence, a
people which gave support to its leaders.
You see to what Stalin's mania for greatness led. He
had completely lost consciousness of reality; he demon-
 —
Khrushchev's secret speech 657

strated his suspicion and haughtiness not only in rela-

tion to individuals in the USSR, but in relation to
whole parties and nations.
We have carefully examined the case of Yugoslavia
and have found a proper solution which is approved
by the peoples of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia
as well as by the working masses of all the People's
Democracies and by all progressive htimanity. The
liquidation of the abnormal relationship with Yugo-
slavia was done in the interest of the whole camp of
socialism, in the interest of strengthening peace in the
whole world.
Let us also recall the "Affair of the Doctor-Plotters."
{Animation in the hall.)Actually there was no "Af-
fair" outside of the declaration of the woman doctor
Timashuk, who was probably influenced or ordered
by someone (after all, she was an unofficial collabo-
rator of the organs of state security) to write Stalin a
letter in which she declared that doctors were applying
supposedly improper methods of medical treatment.
Such a letter was sufficient for Stalin to reach an
immediate conclusion that there were doctor-plotters
in the Soviet Union. He issued orders to arrest a group
of eminent Soviet medical specialists. He personally
issued advice on the conduct of the investigation and
the method of interrogation of the arrested persons.
He said that the academician Vinogradov should be
put in chains, another one should be beaten. Present
at this Congress as a delegate is the former Minister of
State Security, Comrade Ignatiev. Stalin told him curt-
ly, "If you do not obtain confessions for the doctors
we will shorten you by a head." (Tumult in the hall.)
Stalin personally called the investigative judge, gave
him instructions, advised him on which investigative
methods should be used; these methods were simple
beat, beat and, once again, beat.
Shortly after the doctors were arrested we mem-
bers of the Political Bureau received protocols with
the doctors' confessions of guUt. After distributing
these protocols Stalin told us, "You are blind Hke
young kittens; what wUl happen without me? The
 658 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
country will perish because you do not know how to
recognize enemies."
The case was so presented that no one could verify
the facts on which the investigation was based. There
was no possibility of trying to verify facts by contact-
ing those who had made the confessions of guilt. 'm
We felt, however, that the case of the arrested doc-
tors was questionable. We knew some of these people
personally because they had once treated us. When we
examined this "case" after Stalin's death, we found it
to be fabricated from beginning to end.
This ignominious "case" was set up by Stalin; he did
'

not, however, have the time iq which to bring it to an

end (as he conceived that end) and for this reason the
,
<

doctors are still alive. Now all have been rehabilitated;

'

they are working in the same places they were work- '

ing before; they treat top individuals, not excluding

members of the government; they have our full con-
fidence; and they execute their duties honestly, as they
did before.
In organizing the various dirty and shameful cases, a
very base role was played by the rabid enemy of our
—
Party, an agent of a foreign intelligence service Beria,
who had stolen into Stalin's confidence. In what way
could this provocateur gain such a position in the Party
and in the state, so as to become the First Deputy
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet
Union and a member of the Central Committee Politi-
cal Bureau? It has now been established that this
villain had climbed up the government ladder over an
untold number of corpses.
Were there any signs that Beria was an enemy of
the Party? Yes, there were. Already in 1937, at a
Central Committee Plenum, former People's Commis-
sar of Health Protection, Kaminsky, said that Beria ;

worked for the Mussavat intelligence service. But the •

Central Committee Plenum had barely concluded when i

Kaminsky was arrested and then shot. Had Stalin

examined Kaminsky 's statement? No, because Stalin
believed in Beria, and that was enough for him. And
when Stalin believed in anyone or anything, then no
one could say anything which was contrary to his
 khrushcheVs secret speech 659

opinion; anyone who would dare to express opposition

would have met the same fate as Kaminsky.
There were other signs also. The declaration which
Comrade Snegov made at the Party's Central Com-
mittee is interesting. (Parenthetically speaking, he was
dlso rehabilitated not long ago, after 17 years in prison
camps.) In this declaration Snegov writes:

In comiection with the proposed rehabilitation of the for-

mer Central Committee member, Kartvelishvili-Lavrentiev,
I have entrusted to the hands of the representative of the
Committee of State Security a detailed deposition con-
cerning Beria's role in the disposition of the Kartvelishvili
case and concerning the criminal motives by which Beria
was guided.
In my opinion it is indispensable to recall an important
fact pertaining to this case and to communicate it to the
Central Committee, because I did not consider it as proper
to include it in the investigation documents.
On October 30, 1931, at the session of the Organizational
Biu*eau of the Central Committee, All-Union Communist
Party (Bolsheviks) Kartvelishvili, Secretary of the Trans-
,

Caucasian Krai Committee made a report All members of

the Executive of the Krai Committee were present; of
them I alone am aHve. Diunng this session J. V. Stalin
made a motion at the end of his speech concerning the
organization of the Secretariat of the Trans-Caucasian Krai
Committee composed of the following: First Secretary,
Kartvelishvili; Second Secretary, Beria (it was then for
the first time in the Party's history that Beria's name was
mentioned as a candidate for a Party position) Kartvelish-
.

vili answered that he knew Beria well and for that reason
refused categorically to work together with him. Stalin
proposed then that this matter be left open and that it be
solved in the process of the work itself. Two days later a
decision was arrived at the Beria would receive the Party
post and that Kartvelishvili would be deported from the
Trans-Caucasus.

This fact can be confirmed by Comrades Mikoyan

and Kaganovich who were present at that session.
The long unfriendly relations between Kartvelishvili
and Beria were widely known; they date back to the
time when Comrade Sergo [Ordzhonikidze] was ac-
 : .

660 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

tive in the Trans-Caucasus; Kartvelishvili was the
closest assistant of Sergo. The unfriendly relationship
impelled Beria to fabricate a "case" against Kartvelish-
vili.
It is a characteristic thing that in this "case" Kart-
velishvili was charged with a terroristic act against
Beria.
The indictment in the Beria case contains a discus-
sion of his crimes. Some things should, however, be
recalled, especially since it is possible that not all
delegates to the Congress have read this document. I
wish to recall Beria's bestial disposition of the cases
of Kedrov, Golubiev, and Golubiev's adopted mother,
—
Baturina persons who wished to inform the Central
Conmiittee concerning Beria's treacherous activity.
They were shot without any trial and the sentence was
passed ex-post facto, after the execution.
Here is what the old Communist, Comrade Kedrov,
wrote to the Central Committee through Comrade
Andreyev (Comrade Andreyev was then a Central
Committee secretary)

I am
calling to you for help from a gloomy cell of the
Lefortosky prison. Let my
cry of horror reach your ears;
do not remain deaf; take me under your protection; please,
help remove the nightmare of interrogations and show that
this is all a mistake.
I suffer innocently. Please believe me. Time will testify
to the truth. I am
not an agent-provocateur of the Tsarist
Okhrana; I am not a spy; I am not a member of an anti-
Soviet organization of which I am being accused on the
basis of denunciations. I am also not guilty of any other
crimes against the Party and the government I am
an old:
Bolshevik, free of any stain; I have honestly fought for
almost 40 years in the ranks of the Party for the good and
the prosperity of the nation. . .

. Today, I, a 62-year-old man, am being threatened by

. .

the investigative judges with more severe, cruel and de-

grading methods of physical pressure. They [the judges]
are no longer capable of becoming aware of their error and
of recognizing that their handling of my case is illegal and
impermissible. They try to justify their actions by picturing
me as a hardened and raving enemy and are demanding
 Khrushchev's secret speech 661

increased repressions. But let the Party know that I am

innocent and that there is nothing which can turn a loyal
son of the Party into an enemy, even right up to his last
dying breath.
But I have no way out. I cannot divert from myself the
hastily approaching new and powerful blows.
Everything, however, has its limits. My torture has
reached the extreme. My health is broken, my strength
and my energy are waning, the end is drawing near. To
die in a Soviet prison, branded as a vile traitor to the
—
Fatherland ^what can be more monstrous for an honest
man. And how monstrous all this is! Unsurpassed bitterness
and pain grips my heart. No! No! This will not happen; this
—
cannot be ^I cry. Neither the Party, nor the Soviet gov-
ernment, nor the People's Commissar, L. P. Beria, will per-
mit this cruel irreparable injustice. I am firmly certain that
given a quiet, objective examination, without any foul rant-
ings, without any anger and without the fearful tortures,
it would be easy to prove the baselessness of the charges.
I believe deeply that truth and justice will triumph. I be-
lieve. I believe.

The old Bolshevik, Comrade Kedrov, was found in-

nocent by the Military Collegium. But despite this, he
was shot at Beria's order, (Indignation in the hall.)
Beria also handled cruelly the family of Comrade
Ordzhonikidze. Why? Because Ordzhonikidze had tried
to prevent Beria from realizing his shameful plans.
Beria had cleared from his way all persons who could
possibly interfere with him. Ordzhonikidze was always
an opponent of Beria, which he told to Stalin. Instead
of examining this affair and taking appropriate steps,
Stalin allowed the liquidation of Ordzhonikidze*s
brother and brought Ordzhonikidze himself to such a
state that he was forced to shoot himself. (Indignation
in the hall.) Such was Beria.
Beria was unmasked by the Party's Central Com-
mittee shortly after Stalin's death. As a result of the
particularly detailed legal proceedings it was estab-
lished that Beria had committed monstrous crimes and
Beria was shot.
The question arises why Beria, who had liquidated
662 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
tens of thousands of Party and Soviet workers, was
not unmasked during Stalin's life? He was not un-
masked earlier because he had
utilized very skillfully
Stalin's weaknesses; feeding him with
suspicions, he
assisted Stalin in everything and acted with his sup-
port.
Comrades! The cult of the individual acquired such
monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all
conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his
own person. This is supported by numerous facts. One
of the most characteristic examples of Stalin's self-
glorification and of his lack of even elementary mod-
esty is the edition of his Short Biography ^ which was
published in 1948.
This book is an expression of the most dissolute
flattery, an example of making a man into a godhead,
of transforming him into an infallible sage, "the great-
est leader," "sublime strategist of all times and nations."
Finally no other words could be found with which to
lift Stalin up to the heavens.
We need not give here examples of the loathsome
adulation filling this book. All we need to add is that
they all were approved and edited by Stalin personal-
ly and some of them were added in his own handwrit-
ing to the draft text of the book.
What did Stalin consider essential to write into this
book? Did he want to cool the ardor of his flatterers
who were composing his Short Biography? No! He
marked the very places where he thought that the
praise of his services was insufficient.
Here are some examples characterizing Stalin's ac-
tivity, added in Stalin's own hand:

In this fight against the skeptics and capitulators, the Trot-

skyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites and Kamenevites, there
was definitely welded together, after Lenin's death, that
leading core of the Party . that upheld the great banner
. .

of Lenin, rallied the Party behind Lenin's behests, and

brought the Soviet people into the broad road of indus-
trializing the country and collectivizing the rural economy.
The leader of this core and the guiding force of the Party
and the State was Comrade Stalin.
 Khrushchev's secret speech 663

Thus writes Stalin himself! Then he adds:

Although he performed his task of leader of the Party and

the people with consummate skill and enjoyed the imre-
served support of the entire Soviet people, Stalin never
allowed his work to be marred by the slightest hint of
vanity, conceit or self-adulation.

Where and when could a leader so praise himself?

Is this worthy
of a leader of the Marxist-Leninist type?
No. Precisely against this did Marx and Engels take
such a strong position. This also was always sharply
condemned by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
In the draft text of his book appeared the following
sentence: "Stalin is the Lenin of today." This sentence
appeared to Stalin to be too weak, so in his own hand-
writing he changed it to read: "Stalin is the worthy
continuer of Lenin's work, or, as it is said in our Party,
Stalin is the Lenin of today." You see how well it is
said, not by the nation but by Stalin himself.
It is possible to give many such self-praising ap-
praisals written into the draft text of that book in
Stalin's hand. Especially generously does he endow
himself with praises pertaining to his military genius,
to his talent for strategy.
I will cite one more insertion made by Stalin con-
cerning the theme of the Stalinist military genius.
"The advanced Soviet sciene of war received further
development," he writes,

at Comrade Comrade Stalin elaborated the

Stalin's hands.
theory of the permanently operating factors that decide the
issue of wars, of active defense and the laws of counter-
offensive and offensive, of the co-operation of all services
and arms in modem warfare, of the role of big tank masses
and air forces in modem war, and of the artillery as the
most formidable of the armed services. At the various
stages of the war Stalin's genius found the correct solutions
that took account of all the circumstances of the situation.

(Movement in the hall.) And further, writes Stalin:

Stalin's military mastership was displayed both in defense

and offense. Comrade Stalin's genius enabled him to divine
664 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
the enemy's plans and defeat them. The battles in which
Comrade Stalin directed the Soviet armies are brilliant
examples of operational military skilL

In this manner was Stalin praised as a strategist.

Who did this? Stalin himself, not in his role as a
strategist but in the role of an author-editor, one of
the main creators of his self-adulatory biography.
Such, comrades, are the facts. We should rather say
shameful facts.
And one additional fact from the same Short Biog'
raphy of Stalin. As is known. The Short Course of the
History of the All-Union Conmnunist Party (Bolshe'
viks) was written by a commission of the Party Cen-
tral Committee.
This book, parenthetically, was also permeated with
the cult of the individual and was written by a desig-
nated group of authors. This fact was reflected in the
following formulation on the proof copy of the Short
Biography of Stalin:

A commission of the Central Committee, All-Union Com-

munist Party (Bolsheviks) under the direction of Comrade
,

Stalin and with his most active personal participation, has

prepared a Short Course of the History of the All-Union
Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

But even this phrase did not satisfy Stalin; the fol-
lowing sentence replaced it in the final version of the
Short Biography:
"In 1938 appeared the book, History of the All-Union
Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , Short Course, written
by Comrade Stalin and approved by a commission of
the Central Committee, All Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks) ." Can one add anything more? (Anima^
tion in the hall.)
As you see, a surprising metamorphosis changed the
work created by a group into a book written by
Stalin. It is not necessary to state how and why this
metamorphosis took place.
A pertinent question comes to our mind: If Stalin
is the author of this book, why did he need to praise
the person of Stalin so much and to transform the
 khrushcheVs secret speech 665

whole post-October historical period of our glorious

Communist Party solely into an action of "the Stalin
genius"?
Did this book properly reflect the efforts of the Party
in the socialist transformation of the country, in the
construction of socialist society, in the industrializa-
tion and collectivization of the country, and also other
steps taken by the Party which undeviatingly traveled
the path outlined by Lenin? This book speaks prin-
cipally about Stalin, about his speeches, about his re-
ports. Everything without the smallest exception is
tied to his name.
And when Stalin himself asserts that he himself
wrote the Short Course of the History of the All-Union
Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , this calls at least for
amazement. Can a Marxist-Leninist thus write about
himself, praising his own person to the heavens?
Or let us take the matter of the Stalin Prizes. (Move-
ment in the hall.) Not even the tsars created prizes
which they named after themselves.
Stalin recognized as the best a text of the national
anthem of the Soviet Union which contains not a word
about the Cormnunist Party; it contains, however, the
following unprecedented praise of Stalin:

Stalin brought U£ up in loyalty to the people.

He inspired its to great toil and acts.

In these lines of the anthem is the whole educational,

directional and inspirational activity of the great Len-
inist Party ascribed to Stalin. This is, of course, a clear
deviation from Marxism-Leninism, a clear debasing
and behttling of the role of the Party. We should add
for your information that the Presidium of the Central
Committee has already passed a resolution concerning
the composition of a new text of the anthem, which
will reflect the role of the people, and the role of the
Party. (Loud, prolonged applause.)
And was it without Stalin's knowledge that many of
the largest enterprisesand towns were named after
him? Was it without his knowledge that Stalin monu-
—
ments were erected in the whole country these "me-
 666 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
morials to the living"? It is a fact that Stalin himself
had signed on July 2, 1951, a resolution of the USSR
Council of Ministers concerning the erection on the
Volga-Don Canal of an impressive monument to Sta-
lin; on September 4 of the same year he issued an
order making 33 tons of copper available for the con-
struction of this impressive monument. Anyone who
has visited the Stalingrad area must have seen the
huge statue which is being built there, and that on a
site which hardly any people frequent. Huge sums
were spent to build it at a time when people of this
area had lived since the war in huts. Consider yourself,
was Stalin right when he v^ote in his biography that
". . he did not allow in himself
. . .even a shadow of
.

conceit, pride, or self -adoration"?

At the same time Stalin gave proofs of his lack of
respect for Lenin's memory. It is not a coincidence
that, despite the decision taken over 30 years ago to
build a Palace of Soviets as a monument to Vladimir
Ilyich, this Palace was not built, its construction was
always postponed, and the project allowed to lapse.
We cannot forget to recall the Soviet government
resolution of August 14, 1925, concerning "the founding
of Lenin prizes for educational work." This resolution
was published in the press, but until this day there are
no Lenin prizes. This, too, should be corrected. (Tv^-
multuous, prolonged applause,)
During Stalin's life, thanks to known methods which
I have mentioned, and quoting facts, for instance, from
—
the Short Biography of Stalin all events were ex-
plained as if Lenin played only a secondary role, even
during the October Socialist Revolution. In many films
and in many literary works, the figure of Lenin was
incorrectly presented and inadmissibly depreciated.
Stalin loved to see the film "The Unforgettable Year
of 1919," in which he was shown on the steps of an
armored train and where he was practically vanquish-
ing the foe with his own saber. Let Kliment Yefremo-
vich, our dear friend, find the necessary courage and
w^te the truth about Stalin; after all, he knows how
Stalin had fought. It will be difiicult for Comrade
Voroshilov to undertake this, but it would be good if
 Khrushchev's secret speech 667

he did it. Everyone will approve of it, both the people

and the Party. Even his grandsons will thank him.
(Prolonged applause.)
In speaking about the events of the October Revolu-
,
tion and about the Civil War, the impression was
created that Stalin always played the main role, as if
everywhere and always Stalin had suggested to Lenin
what to do and how to do it. However, this is slander
of Lenin. (Prolonged applause.)
I will probably not sin against the truth when I say
that 99 percent of the persons present here heard and
knew very little about Stalin before the year 1924,
while Lenin was knovm to all; he was known to the
whole Party, to the whole nation, from the children
up to the graybeards. (Tumultuous, prolonged ap-
plause.)
All this has to be thoroughly revised, so that history,
literature, and the fine arts properly reflect V. I. Len-
in's role and the great deeds of our Communist Party
—
and of the Soviet people the creative people. (Ap-
plause.)
Comrades! The cult of the individual has caused the
employment of faulty principles in Party work and in
economic activity; it brought about rude violation of
internal Party and Soviet democracy, sterile adminis-
tration, deviations of all sorts, covering up of short-
comings and varnishing of reality. Our nation gave
birth to many flatterers and specialists in false opti-
mism and deceit.
We should also not forget that due to the numerous
arrests of Party, Soviet and economic leaders, many
workers began to work uncertainly, showed over-
cautiousness, feared all which was new, feared their
own shadows and began to show less initiative in their
work.
Take, for instance, Party and Soviet resolutions.
They were prepared in a routine manner often with-
out considering the concrete situation. This went so
far that Party workers, even during the smallest ses-
sions, read their speeches. All this produced the danger
of formahzing the Party and Soviet work and of
bureaucratizing the whole apparatus.
668 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
Stalin's reluctance to consider life's realities and the
fact that he was not aware of the real state of affairs
in the provinces can be illustrated by his direction of
agriculture.
All those who interested themselves even a little in
the national situation saw the difficult situation in agri-
culture, but Stalin never even noted it. Did we tell
Stalin about this? Yes, we told him, but he did not
support us. Why? Because Stalin never traveled any-
where, did not meet city and kolkhoz workers; he did
not know the actual situation in the provinces.
He knew the country and agriculture only from
And these
films. films had dressed up and beautified
the existing situation in agriculture.
Many films so pictured kolkhoz life that the tables
were bending from the weight of turkeys and geese.
Evidently Stalin thought that it was actually so.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin looked at life differently; he
was always close to the people; he used to receive
peasant delegates, and often spoke at factory gather-
ings; he used to visit villages and talk with the peas-
ants.
Stalin separated himself from the people and never
went anjrwhere. This lasted tens of years. The last
time he visited a village was in January 1928 when he
visited Siberia in connection with grain deliveries.
How then could he have known the situation in the
provinces?
And when he was once told during a discussion that
our situation on the land was a difficult one and that
the situation of cattle breeding and meat production
was especially bad, a commission was formed which
was charged with the preparation of a resolution
called, "Means toward further development of animal
breeding in kolkhozes and sovkhozes." We worked out
this project.
Of course, our propositions of that time did not con-
tain all possibilities, but we did charter ways in which
animal breeding on the kolkhozes and sovkhozes would
be raised. We had proposed then to raise the prices of I

such products in order to create material incentives

for the kolkhoz, MTS and sovkhoz workers in the de-
 Khrushchev's secret speech 669

velopment of cattle breeding. But our project was not

accepted and in February 1953 was laid aside entirely.
What is more, while reviewing this project Stalin
proposed that the taxes paid by the kolkhozes and by
the kolkhoz workers should be raised by 40 billion
rubles; according to him the peasants are well off and
the kolkhoz worker would need to sell only one more
chicken to pay his tax in full.
Imagine what this meant. Certainly 40 biUion rubles
is a sum which the kolkhoz workers did not realize
for all the products which they sold to the government.
In 1952, for instance, the kolkhozes and the kolkhoz
workers received 26.280 miUion rubles for all their
products delivered and sold to the government.
Did Stalin's position then rest on data of any sort
whatever? Of course not.
In such cases facts and figures did not interest him.
If Stalin said anything, it meant it was —after
so all,

he was a "genius" and a genius does not need to count,

he only needs to look and can immediately tell how
it should be. When he expresses his opinion, everyone

has to repeat it and to admire his wisdom.

But how much wisdom was contained in the pro-
posal to raise the agricultural tax by 40 biUion rubles?
None, absolutely none, because the proposal was not
based on an actual assessment of the situation but on
the fantastic ideas of a person divorced from reality.
We are currently beginning slowly to work our way
out of a difficult agricultural situation. The speeches
of the delegates to the XXth Congress please us aU;
we are glad that many delegates deUver speeches, that
there are conditions for the fulfillment of the Sixth
Five- Year Plan for animal husbandry, not during the
period of five years, but within two to three years. We
are certain that the commitments of the new Five- Year
Plan will be accomplished successfully. (Prolonged
applause.) Comrades! If we sharply criticize today the
cult of the individual which was so widespread during
Stalin's life and if we speak about the many negative
phenomena generated by this cult which is so alien to
the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, various persons may
ask: How could it be? Stalin headed the Party and
 ,

670 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS

the country for 30 years and many victories were

gained during his lifetime. Can we deny this? In my
opinion, the question can be asked in this manner
only by those who are blinded and hopelessly hjrpno-
tized by the cult of the individual, only by those who
do not understand the essence of the revolution and
of the Soviet state, only by those who do not under-
stand, in a Leninist manner, the role of the Party and
of the nation in the development of the Soviet society.
The socialist revolution was attained by the working
class and by the poor peasantry with the partial sup-
port of middle-class peasants. It was attained by the
people under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party.
Lenin's great service consisted of the fact that he cre-
ated a militant Party of the working class, but he was
armed with Marxist understanding of the laws of social
development and with the science of proletarian vic-
tory in the fight with capitalism, and he steeled this
Party in the crucible of revolutionary struggle of the
masses of the people. During this fight the Party
consistently defended the interests of the people, be-
came its experienced leader, and led the working
masses to power, to the creation of the first sociahst
state.
You remember well the wise words of Lenin that
the Soviet state is strong because of the awareness
of the masses that history is created by the millions
and tens of millions of people.
Our historical victories were attained thanks to the
organizational work of the Party, to the many provin-
cial organizations, and to the self-sacrificing work of
our great nation. These victories are the result of the
great drive and activity of the nation and of the Party
as a whole; they are not at all the fruit of the leader-
ship of Stalin, as the situation was pictured during the
period of the cult of the individual.
If we are to consider this matter as Marxists and as
Leninists, then we have to state unequivocally that the
leadership practice which came into being during the
last years of Stalin's life became a serious obstacle in
the path of Soviet social development.
Stalin often failed for months to take up some im-
 Khrushchev's secret speech 671

usually important problems concerning the life of the

Party and of the state whose solution could not be
postponed. During Stalin's leadership our peaceful re-
lations with other nations were often threatened, be-
cause one-man decisions could cause and often did
cause great compHcations.
In the last years, when we managed to free our-
selves of the harmful practice of the cult of the indi-
vidual and took several proper steps in the sphere
of internal and external policies, everyone saw how
activity grew before their very eyes, how the creative
activity of the broad working masses developed, how
favorably all this acted upon the development of econ-
omy and of culture. (Applause.)
Some comrades may ask us: Where were the mem-
bers of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee?
Why did they not assert themselves against the cult
of the individual in time? And why is this being done
only now?
First of all we have to consider the fact that the
members of the PoHtical Bureau viewed these matters
in a different way at different times. Initially, many of
them backed Stalin actively because Stalin was one
of the strongest Marxists and his logic, his strength
and his will greatly influenced the cadres and Party
work.
It is known that Stalin, after Lenin's death, espe-
ciallyduring the first years, actively fought for Lenin-
ism against the enemies of Leninist theory and against
those who deviated. Beginning with Leninist theory,
the Party, with its Central Committee at the head,
started on a great scale the work of sociaUst indus-
trialization of the country, agricultural collectivization
and the cultural revolution. At that time Stalin gained
great popularity, sympathy and support. The Party
had to fight those who attempted to lead the country
'

away from the correct Leninist path; it had to fight

Trotskyites, Zinovievites and rightists, and the bour-
geois nationalists. This fight was indispensable. Later,
however, Stalin, abusing his power more and more,
began to fight eminent Party and government leaders
and to use terroristic methods against honest Soviet
672 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS I
people. As we have already shown, Stalin thus handled
such eminent Party and government leaders as Kos-
sior, Rudzutak, Eikhe, Postyshev and many others.
Attempts to oppose groundless suspicions and charg-
es resulted in the opponent falling victim of the repres-
sion. This characterized the fall of Comrade Postyshev.
In one of his speeches Stalin expressed his dissatis-
faction with Postyshev and asked him, "What are you
actually?"
Postyshev answered clearly, "I am a Bolshevik,
Comrade Stalin, a Bolshevik."
This assertion was at first considered to show a lack
of respect for Stalin; later it was considered a harmful
act and consequently resulted in Postyshev's annihila-
tion and branding without any reason as a "people's ^

enemy."
In the situation which then prevailed I have talked
often with Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin; once when
we two were traveling in a car, he said, "It has hap-
pened sometimes that a man goes to Stalin on his
invitation as a friend. And when he sits with Stalin,
he does not know where he will be sent next, home
or to jail."
It is clear that such conditions put every member of
the Political Bureau in a very difficult situation. And
when we also consider the fact that in the last years
the Central Committee plenary sessions were not con-
vened and that the sessions of the Political Bureau
occurred only occasionally, from time to time, then we
will understand how difficult it was for any member
of the Political Bureau to take a stand against one or
another injust or improper procedure, against serious
errors and shortcomings in the practices of leadership.
As we have already shown, many decisions were
taken either by one person or in a roundabout way,
without collective discussions. The sad fate of Political
Bureau member. Comrade Voznesensky, who fell vic-
tim to Stalin's repressions, is known to all. It is a
characteristic thing that the decision to remove him
from the Political Bureau was never discussed but
was reached in a devious fashion. In the same way
 Khrushchev's secret speech 673

came the decision concerning the removal of Kuznetsov

and Rodionov from their posts.
The importance of the Central Committee's Political
Bureau was reduced and its work was disorganized
by the creation within the PoHtical Bureau of various
commissions —the so-called "quintets," "sextets," "sep-
tets" and "novenaries." Here is, for instance, a resolu-
tion of the PoHtical Bureau of October 3, 1946.

Stalin's Proposal:
1. The Political Bureau Commission for Foreign Affairs

("Sextet") is to concern itself in the future, in addition to

foreign affairs, also with matters of internal construction
and domestic policy.
2. The Sextet add to its roster the Chairman of the
is to
State Commission of Economic Planning of the USSR,
Comrade Voznesensky, and is to be known as a Septet
Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee, J. Stalin.

What a terminology of a card player! (Laughter in

the hall,) It is clear that the creation within the
Political Bureau
—
of this type of commission "quin-
tets," "sextets," "septets," and "novenaries" ^was —
against the principle of collective leadership. The re-
sult of this was that some members of the Political
Bureau were in this way kept away from participation
in reaching the most important state matters.
One of the oldest members of our Party, Kliment
Yefremovich Voroshilov, found himself in an almost
impossible situation. For several years he was actually
deprived of the right of participation in PoHtical Bu-
reau sessions. Stalin forbade him to attend the Political
Bureau sessions and to receive documents. When the
PoHtical Bureau was and Comrade Voro-
in session
shilov heard about it, he telephoned each time and
asked whether he would be allowed to attend. Some-
times Stalin permitted it, but always showed his dis-
satisfaction. Because of his extreme suspicion, Stalin
toyed also with the absurd and ridiculous suspicion
that Voroshilov was an English agent. (Laughter in
the hall) It's true— an EngHsh agent. A special tapping
device was installed in his home to Hsten to what was
said there. (Indignation in the hall.)
 —
674 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
By unilateral decision Stalin had also separated one
other man from the work of the Political Bureau
Andrei Andreyevich Andreyev. This was one of the
most unbridled acts of willfulness.
Let us consider the first Central Committee Plenum
after the XlXth Party Congress when Stalin, in his
talk at the Plenum, characterized Vyacheslav Mikhai-
lovich Molotov and Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan and
suggested that these old workers of our Party were
guilty of some baseless charges. It is not excluded that
had Stalin remained at the helm for another several
months, Comrades Molotov and Mikoyan would prob-
ably have not deUvered any speeches at this Congress.
Stalin evidently had plans to finish off the old mem-
bers of the Political Bureau. He often stated that Po-
litical Bureau members should be replaced by new
ones.
His proposal, after the XlXth Congress concerning
the selection of 25 persons to the Central Committee
Presidium, was aimed at the removal of the old
Political Bureau members and the bringing in of less
experienced persons so that these would extol him in
all sorts of ways.
We can assume that this was also a design for the
future annihilation of the old Political Bureau mem-
bers and in this way a cover for all shameful acts of:
Stalin, acts which we are now considering.
Comrades! In order not to repeat errors of the past,;
the Central Committee has declared itself resolutely,
against the cult of the individual. We consider that
Stalin was excessively extolled. However, in the past
StaUn doubtless performed great services to the Party,
to the working class, and to the international workers*
movement.
This question is complicated by the fact that all this
which we have just discussed was done during Stalin's
life under his leadership and with his concurrence;
here Stalin was convinced that this was necessary for
the defense of the interests of the working classesT
against the plotting of the enemies and against the!
attack of the imperialist camp. He saw this from thej
position of the interest of the working class, of the in-l
 KHRUSHCHEV*S SECRET SPEECH 675

terest of the laboring people, of the interest of the

victory of socialism and Communism. We
cannot say
that these were the deeds of a giddy despot. He con-
sidered that this should be done in the interest of the
Party; of the working masses, in the name of the de-
fense of the revolution's gains. In this lies the whole
tragedy!
Comrades! Lenin had often stressed that modesty is
an absolutely integral part of a real Bolshevik. Lenin
himself was the living personification of the greatest
modesty. We cannot say that we have been following
this Leninist example in all respects. It is enough to
point out that many towns, factories and industrial
enterprises, kolkhozes and sovkhozes, Soviet institu-
tions and cultural institutions have been referred to by
—
us with a title ^if I may express it so of private —
property of the names of these or those government or
Party leaders who were still active and in good health.
Many of us participated in the action of assigning our
names to various towns, rayons, undertakings and
kolkhozes. We
must correct this. (Applaiise).
But this should be done calmly and slowly. The Cen-
tral Committee will discuss this matter and consider it
carefully in order to prevent errors and excesses. I can
remember how the Ukraine learned about Kossior's
arrest. The Kiev radio used to start its programs thus:
"This is radio [in the name of] Kossior." When one
day the programs began without naming Kossior, ev-
eryone was quite certain that something had happened
to Kossior, that he probably had been arrested.
Thus, if today we begin to remove the signs every-
where and to change names, people wiU think that
these comrades in whose honor the given enterprises,
kolkhozes or cities are named also met some bad fate
:and that they have also been arrested. {Animation in
\the hall.)
\
How the authority and the importance of this or
is
[that leader judged? On the basis of how many towns,
industrial enterprises and factories, kolkhozes and sov-
[khozes carry his name. Is it not about time that we
ehminate this "private property" and "nationalize" the
factories, the industrial enterprises, the kolkhozes and
 676 KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS
the sovkhozes? (Laughter, applause, voices: "That is
right") This will benefit our cause. After all the cult
of the individual is manifested also in this way.
We should in all seriousness consider the question
of the cult of the individual. We cannot let this matter
get out of the Party, especially not to the press. It is
for this reason that we are considering it here at a
closed Congress session. We should know the limits;
we should not give ammunition to the enemy; we
should not wash our dirty linen before their eyes. I
think that the delegates to the Congress will under-
stand and assess properly all these proposals. (Tu~
multuous applause.)

Comrades: We must abolish the cult of the individ-

ual decisively, once and for all; we must draw the
proper conclusions concerning both ideological-theo-
retical and practical work.
It is necessary for this purpose: I
First, in a Bolshevik manner to condemn and eradi- ;

cate the cult of the individual as alien to Marxism-

Leninism and not consonant with the principles of
Party leadership and the nornis of Party life, and to
fight inexorably all attempts at bringing back this
practice in one form or another.
To return to and actually practice in all our ideo-
logical work the most important theses of Marxist-
Leninist science about the people as the creator of
history and as the creator of all material and spiritual
good of humanity, about the decisive role of the Marx-
ist Party in the revolutionary fight for the transforma-
tion of society, about the victory of Communism.
In this connection we will be forced to do much work
in order to examine critically from the Marxist-Lenin-
ist viewpoint and to correct the widely spread errone-
ous views connected with the cult of the individual in
the sphere of history, philosophy, economy and of other
sciences, as well as in literature and the fine arts. It
is especially necessary that in the immediate future
we compile a serious textbook of the history of our
Party which will be edited in accordance with scientific
Marxist objectivism, a textbook of the history of Soviet

a
•am
 Khrushchev's secret speech 677

society, a book pertainingto the events of the Civil

War and the Great Patriotic War.
Secondly, to continue systematically and consistently
the work done by the Party's Central Committee dur-
ing the last years, a work characterized by minute
observation in all Party organizations, from the bottom
to the top, of the Leninist principles of Party leader-
ship, characterized, above all, by the main principle of
collective leadership, characterized by the observa-
tion of the norms of Party life described in the Statutes
of our Party, and finally, characterized by the wide
practice of criticism and self-criticism.
Thirdly, to restore completely the Leninist principles
of Soviet socialist democracy, expressed in the Con-
stitution of the Soviet Union, to fight willfulness of
individuals abusing their power. The evQ caused by
acts violating revolutionary socialist legality which
have accimiulated during a long time as a result of the
negative influence of the cult of the individual has to
be completely corrected. Comrades! The XXth Con-
gress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has
manifested with a new strength the unshakable unity
of our Party, its cohesiveness around the Central Com-
mittee, its resolute will to accomplish the great task
of building Communism. {Tumultuous applause.) And
the fact that we present in all their ramifications the
basic problems of overcoming the cult of the individual
which is alien to Marxism-Leninism, as well as the
problem of liquidating its burdensome consequences,
is an evidence of the great moral and political strength
of our Party. {Prolonged applause.)
We are absolutely certain that our Party, armed
with the historical resolutions of the XXth Congress,
will lead the Soviet people along the Leninist path to
new successes, to new victories. {Tumultuous, pro-
longed applause.)
—
Long live the victorious banner of our Party ^Len-
inism! {Tumultuous, prolonged applause ending in
ovation. All rise.)
 Index

Abakumov, G. T., 21, 62-63 in West, 314-16; and Stalin's

Abakumov, V. S. (Beria's dep- death, 346, 349
uty), 103, 271, 301, 335-36 Alliluyeva-Stalina, Nadezhda
Abramson (Leningrad opposi- Sergeyevna (Stalin's wife),
tionist), 27 43-44, 58, 310, 311; death,
Academy of Sciences: Ukrain- 311
ian, 32, 121; USSR, 288 Alvayansk sector, Southern
Adenauer, Konrad, 569 Front, 193
Afghanistan, 560-61 Amer, Hakim, 485-86, 494, 497
Afon, 329, 332 Anapa, 12
Africa 487 Andreyev, A. A., 250-53
agricuiture, 29, 111, 118, 567 anti-fascism, 133
Ukrainian, {Kjstwar, 243-60 anti-Party elements, 263
and Stalin, 246-49, 252-55 Anti-Party Group, 371
Czech, 395; Polish, 418-19 anti-Semitism, 113, 274-86; and
Yugoslav, 423-24; Egyptian, Kaganovich, 258, 276, 279;
494-98; Cuban, 555-56 and pogroms, 279, 283-85;
aircraft, 123, 168-69 and Morozov, Svetlana's
air raids, World War U, 203 husband, 312; and Malen-
Albania, 525-27 kov, 312-13
Albanian Communist Party, Antonov, 85
527 Antonovites, 303
Alekseyev (journalist, later "Arab socialism," 490-92
ambassador to Cuba), 542- Arab world. See Near East;
43 United Arab Republic
Alexandria, 484, 495 archives, 278; Feng Te-huai's
Allies, World War H, 231-39; reports from Korea, 406, 407;
intentions of, 235-37; recog- and Shepilov's report on
nition of merits, 237 Yugoslavia, 413
AUiluyev (mining engineer), Ardennes, 235
44 Aref, Abdul Salen, 490-92
AUiluyev, Mr. and Mrs., par- armaments, 168-71, 179-80, 442,
ents of Nadezhda Sergeyev- 447; to Nasser, 478. See also
na Alliluyeva, 58 disarmament
Alliluyeva, Svetlana, 309-16; arms race, 566-73
and her mother's death, 311; army. See Red Army
emotional instability, 311-12, Ashkenazy, Vladimir, 573-74
314-15; marriage to Moro- Aswan Dam, 478-79, 485-86,
zov, 312-13; marriage to 496; political considerations,
Yury Zhdanov, 313; and 486-87; Soviets reject sug-
Brajesh Singh, 313; asylum gestion to be contractors
679
680 INDEX

Aswan Dam (cont.) 132, 135, 139, 160, 247, 312,

for, treaty, 487; open-
487; 318, 327; replaces Yezhov,
ing ceremonies (1964), 488- 96, and Malenkov, 96-97,
93 269, 295, 336-37, 348, 350,
Atlantic Pact, 522. See also 431; and Cheka-NKVD, 96-
NATO 99, 336, 355, 363-64; Kamin-
atomic bomb, 393; and Mao sky's accusations against, 99;
Tse-tung, 519. See also nu- sinister character, 100, 101-
clear warfare 3, 339, 343, 348-50, 351; in
Austrian Front, World War Stalin's collective leader-
II, 233 ship, 100-1, 199, 265, 267,
automotive industry, 179, 238 301, 344, 348-65; and Mere-
aviation, Soviet: World War tskoVs arrest, 103; Stalin's
n, 268; MIG-15's in North fear of, 265, 335; and Lenin-
Korea, 405; 11-14, 430, 432; grad case, 267-68, 269-71;
Tu-104, 445; n-28 bombers and release of MolotoVs
in Cuba, 549 wife, 276-77; and Stalin's
anti-Semitism, 279-80; and ^
Babi Yar, massacre, 273 expansion of Presidium, 298, '

Badayev, A. Y., 27 299; at Stalin's dinners, 321,

Baghdad, 484 324; as Stalin's source of
Bagramyan, I. K., 188-89, 193- information about Georgia,
94, 196 327-28; and inner circle dur-
Baku, 99, 344, 361, 365, 485, ing Stalin's last days, 330,
568 331, 334, 340; growth of in- ,

Ballutu, Bequir (Albanian fluence of,334-39; arro-

Party leader), 526, 527 gance of, 336-37, 351, 365;
Baltic republics, 156-58, 357, and Stalin's death, 340-43,
365 345, 346; and post-Stalin
Bandera, Stepan, 146 power struggle, 344, 347,
Banderites, 228, 229 349-61; anti-Party behav-
Bandrovska, Wanda, 149 ior, 347, 352-57, 360; down-
Barbarossa. See Operation fall of, plotted, 347-70; ar-
Barbarossa rest of, 347, 355, 361-67,
Batista, Fulgencio, 543 372, 373; "friendship" with
Bauman, K. Y., 69 Khrushchev, 350-51; con-
Baimian District, 50, 82; Party solidation of his forces, 351-
Conference (1930), 40-43, 45, 52; his perfidy disclosed,
46; January 1931 Confer- 367-68, 369-70; interrogation
ence, 43 of, 368-69; trial of, 373, 374,
Bay of Pigs, 544-45 383; blamed for crimes of
Bazulin, Vasily, 81 Stalinist era, 384; and Sino-
Beck, Colonel, 142 Soviet relations, 513-14; bio-
Bedny, Demyan, 77-78 graphical sketch, 595-96
Begma (Soviet partisan com- Berlin, 140, 229, 232, 500-8;
mander), 228 in Potsdam decision, 236;
Belgrade, 414, 421 blockade (1948-1949), 500.
Belorussia, 123, 145, 260, 357, See also East Berlin; West
365; sovietization of, 155-56, Berlin
157; during World War II, Berlin Wall, 504-5, 506; illegal
179, 185-86, 199 border-crossing attempts;
Ben Bella, Ahmed, 490, 492 504; risk of Western prov-
Benediktov, I. A., 308, 315 ocation concerning, 506-7;
Beria, L. P., 92, 94, 95, 99-104, troop buildups, 507-10
 INDEX 681

Bessarabia, 173 361-62; and detention of

Bierut, Boleslaw, 107, 382, 390- Beria, 364, 365; and inves-
91 tigation of Stalinist repres-
Birobidzhan, Jewish autonom- sion, 375, 381; Soviet rep-
ous region of, 277 resentative at Gottwald's
Biron, E. J., 272 funeral, 396; nominates
Black Hundreds, 283, 284-85 Klhrushchev as First Sec-
Black Sea, 12, 565 retary of the Party, 408-
blitzkrieg, 166 9; in delegation to Bel-
Blucher, V. K., 86-87 grade, 414; and Geneva
Bodnaras, Emil, 564 summit, 431, 432; heads
Bogomolets (president of delegation to London, 440,
Ukrainian Academy of Sci- 441, 442, 446, 448; visits
ences), 114, 121 Chequers with Khrushchev,
Bolshakov, I. I., 318 444; urges Klhrushchev to
Bolshevik Revolution (1917). handle negotiations with
See October Revolution English, 447; and delegation
Bolshevism, 130; and terror, to Afghanistan, 560; bio-
67 graphical sketch, 547
Bolshoi Theater, 550-51, 575 Bulgaria, 393, 399, 419, 462, 513;
Bonn, 568 Khrushchev visits (1962),
Borzhomi, 326 547, 548
Bosporus, 565 Bulgarian Communist Party,
bourgeoisie, 13; bourgeois spe- 462
cialists, 15-17 Burmistenko, M. O., 108, 112
Brioni Island, 463, 480 Butler, R. A., 480
Brovari, 182
Brown, George, 453-54 Cairo, 485
Bucharest, 420, 466 Camp David, 571
Budapest, 457; Soviet troops cannibalism, 247-48, 255
in, 458-59, 462, 463, 465; put- Caribbean crisis. See Cuba
ting down resistance in, 465; Castro, Fidel, 540-58; invites
IChrushchev visits (after up- Mikoyan to visit Cuba, 541;
rising), 467-70; in Revolu- doesn't consider himself a
tion of 1848, 472 Commimist, 542-43; declares
Budyonny, S. M., 12, 175, 188- Cuba will follow Socialist
89 course, 544; and Soviet mis-
Bukharin, N. I., 27-28, 38, 39, siles in Cuba, 546-47, 555;
40-41, 45, 71, 174; The Khrushchev's letter to, 555-
A-B-C of Communism, 28, 56; Khrushchev's last con-
78-79; in purge, 78; reha- versation with, 556-57
bilitation, 385 Castro, Raiil, 542
Bulba, Taras (Ukrainian na- Catherine U, of Russia, 272
tionalist), 228 Caucasus, 325-26; northern,
Bulganin, N. A., 58, 130, 273, 180, 210, 239, 253; White Cos-
298, 309, 319, 371; and
339, sack bands in, 303
the reconstruction of Mos- Central Asian Republics, 269,
cow, 59, 60, 62; and the 494, 495
Metro, 66; and Presidium Central Committee (CPSU),
Bureau, 299; and inner cir- 4, 80, 123, 320, 357; Person-
cle in Stalin's last days, 330- nel Section, 92, 94; Plenum
31; and
Stalin's death, 340, (February 1939), 97, 366;
342, 344; and post-Stalin Plenum (1946), 249; post-
power struggle, 349, 358, Nineteenth Congress Pie-
682 INDEX

Central Committee (cont.) ("Iron Curtain" speech),

nmn, 297, 300; Khrushchev 393, view of post-
395;
becomes First Secretary, Stalin East-West relations,
409; and reduction of size 395; during visit of Soviet
of Soviet Army, 565. See delegation to London (1956),
also Communist Party of 449-50
the Soviet Union civil defense, 64, 65-66. See
Chamberlain, Neville, 440 also defense
Cheka (Chekists), 75, 82, 135, Civil War, 12, 13, 14, 17, 290,
248, 367; Stalin's dependence 291, 303, 547; and New Eco-
on, for military intelligence nomic Policy, 17;military
(World War n), 182; and leadership in, 85-88 passim,
surveillance of Vasily Sta- 171, 186
lin, 310; and Beria, 336, 355, Clark, Alan, his Barharossa,
363-64; and Stalin's death, 220
341; in Himgarian uprising, class struggle, 233-34, 303, 372
457. See also NKVD Clay, General Lucius, 508
Chemulpo, 403 Cold War, 213, 393
Cherepin (Ukrainian Party collective farms, 40, 243-44,
official), 110-11 245, 246, 253-57, 395, 495;
Chemyshev (city planner), 60 postwar quotas, 244-46, 251;
Chiang Kai-shek, 87, 201 and production of spring
Chiaureli, Mikhail, 369 . whea^ 252-53; shallow till-
China, People's Republic of age method, 257; Tito's visit
(Communist), 4, 87, 201, 481; to, 409; Hungarian, 458
and Korean War, 405-6; collective leadership: Beria in,
Ambassador Yudin in, 515- 100-1, 199, 265-66, 267, 268,
16; Khrushchev visits, 516- 301, 344, 349-50, 366; Malen-
17, 522; Soviet investments kov in, 101, 265-66, 295;
in, 516; power struggle in, Party and Central Commit-
528-29; reaction to Cuban tee roles in (1952), 294; and
missile crisis, 553, 555. See expanded Presidium, 297-
also Sino-Soviet relations 301; during Stalin's last
Chinese Communist Party days, 329-39; after Stalin's
(CCP), 459; Politbureau, death, 347-51; and Twen-
461; and Twentieth Party tieth Party Congress, 376,
Congress, 520; anti-Soviet 382; and Nasser's visit to
line, 521, 523-24, 529-30; USSR, 483-84; and construc-
relations with fraternal Par- tion of Aswan Dam, 486; and
ties, 527, 528-29; and war in Cuban missile crisis, 552-53,
Vietnam, 532-33, 534-37, 538- 555-56
39. See also Mao Tse-timg collectivization, 67-71, 497-98.
Chistyakov, I. M., 208 See also agriculture; collec-
Chou En-lai, 405, 516, 517; and tive farms
*'Mao Tse-tung Declaration," Comintern (International
523; and war in Vietnam, Communist organization),
533-34 26, 107, 160; and "Hto, 409
Chubar, V. Y., 23, 30; arrest Communist Parties, fraternal,
and elimination, 106-7 382, 385, 390-99; degree
Chuikov, V. 204I., of internal autonomy, 397;
Chuyanov, General, 202 and conflict with Yugo-
Churchill, Winston S., 232, 233, slavia, 413-14; and self-
329, 395; Stalin's opinion determination principle, 417,
of, 234-35; Fulton, Missouri 467, 499; and capitalist trade
 INDEX 683

Communist Parties (cont.) er and Policy in the USSR,

treaties, 418; and different 347
roads to Socialism, 428; and Conservative Party, Great
Soviet strategy in Hungar- Britain, 439-40, 452, 454
ian uprising, 458-67; and conspiracy, 262-65. See also
Chinese Communist Party, Leningrad affair
527, 528-29, 535; and Viet- consumer demands, 422, 427
nam, 537 cooperatives, state, 17
Communist Party of the So- Council of People's Commis-
viet Union (CPSU), 50; sars, 56, 78, 91, 119
training and conditioning of Crabbe, Commander, 451
members, 6; and self-puri- Crimea, 86, 275-76, 277, 394,
fication, 7; opportunists in, 395, 426; Tito's visit to, 420-
14; intra-Party struggle 21
(1925), 25; early idealism Cuba, 540-58; Castro's take-
and self-sacrifice in, 54, 57- over, 540; Mikoyan's visit
58; competition for self- (1962), 541-42; establishment
glorification among mem- of diplomatic relations with
bers, 65, 122; and Stalin's Soviets, 542-43; Bay of Pigs,
purges, 73, 78; careerists in, 544-45; Soviet military aid
191, 365; post-Stalin leader- to, 545; Klhrushchev's pre-
ship struggle, 340, 344, 348- occupation with mainte-
50; and Beria, 347-59; in- nance of Soviet prestige
vestigation into Stalinist in, 546; missile crisis, 546-
repression, pre -Twentieth 55; and the Chinese, 553,
Congress, 375-82; and self- 555; worsening of relations
determination principle, 417, after missile crisis, 554, 555;
467, 499. See also Central agriculture, 556-57; continu-
Committee; Politbureau; ing Soviet commitment to,
Presidium 557
Communist Party for the De- Cuban Communist Party, 540
fense of the Ukraine, 151 cult of personality. See per-
competition: among Politbu- sonality cult
reau members, 65; for self- cultural exchange, 435, 573-
glorification, 122; among 74, 576-77
workers, 126-27 cultural policy, 304
Conference of Communist and Curzon Line, 145
Workers' Parties, 420; (1957), Cyrankiewicz, Jozef, 461, 462
519; (1960), 525-26, 535 Czechoslovak Communist Par-
Congresses, Party: Fourteenth ty, 394; and Novotny, 396-97;
(1925), 21-24, 26; Fifteenth consulted about Hungarian
(1927), 25-29; Sixteenth uprising, 462
(1929), 40; Seventeenth Czechoslovakia, 136, 155, 393,
(1934), 50-51, 59, 301, 377; 395-99, 513; Stalin's interest
Eighteenth (1939), 296, 300; in affairs of, 394; agricul-
Nineteenth (1952), 287-88, ture, 395; effect of Hungar-
293-301, 305, 317, 332, 351;
ian uprising in, 458; and
Soviet troops, 565
Twentieth (1956), 5, 88, 187,
371-85, 512, 520; Twenty- Dalny, 516
first (1959), 381, 525; Twen- Damascus, 485
ty-second (1961), 508 Danzig, 139
Conquest, Robert, his The Dardanelles, 565
Great Terror, 73; his Pow~ defection, from USSR, 573-77
684 INDEX

defense: nuclear deterrents, East Berlin, 509

568-70; chemical and bac- East Germany (German Dem-
teriological weapons, 570 ocratic Republic), 238-39,
de Gaulle, Charles, 497, 560 246, 500-1; and access
432,
Demchenko, N. N., 31, 34, 70; to West Berlin, 502-3;
and purge of Ukrainian Par- defection of workers to
ty, 107-8 West Germany, 502-3; bor-
democratic leadership, Khru- der rights, domestic and
shchev's view, 527-28. See foreign policy, 504, 506;
also collective leadership and establishment of Ber-
de-Stalinization. See Twen- lin WaU, 504-7; Khru-
tieth Party Congress shchev's dream of, as show-
developing countries. See case,505; Soviet troops in,
emerging countries 566
deviationists, 39 East Prussia, 198
Dictatorship of Labor, The Eastern Europe, 142, 393. See
(newspaper), 27 also Communist Parties, fra-
Dienbienphu, 534 ternal
diesel engines, 168-69 Eastern Ukraine, 150. See also
disarmament, 442 Ukraine
"Dizzy with Success" (Stalin economics, Stalin's theoretical
speech), 68 works on, 286, 287-92 I

Djilas, Milovan, 316-17, 409-10 Economics of Socialism (Sta- '

Djugashvili, V. (Stalin's fa- lin), 287

ther), 323 economy, the Soviet, 13-14,
Dnieper River, 32, 221, 224 422, 559-62, 567; postwar
Dniepropetrovsk, 30, 39, 95 restoration of, 242-43, 275;
Dobrotko (Ukrainian acade- and withdrawal of Soviet
mician), 115 troops abroad, 566
Dobrjoiin, Anatoly, 541, 551, Eden, Anthony, 438, 440-41,
552 452, 454, 480, 481; at Geneva,
Doctor's Plot, 301-7. See also 429, 437-38; discussion with
anti-Semitism Khrushchev in London, 441,
Don Front, 209-11 447; entertains Khrushchev
Donbass region, 23, 30, 33, 39, and Bulganin at Chequers,
62, 111, 271, 307, 442, 443; 443-44; and Khrushchev's
famine in (1922), 12-13; tour of the country, 448-
postwar reconstruction of, 49; at government dinner
243; pogrom in, 283-85; for delegation, 449-50; ac-
strikes in, 285 cepts invitation to visit
Donets River, 198 USSR, 454
Donetsk. See Yuzovka Eden, Mrs. Anthony, 443
Dovzhenko, Aleksandr P., 183- Egypt, 443, 454, 474-99; Soviet
84, 369-70 interest in affairs of, 475-
76, 482-83, 485-86; Nasser's
Dubovoy, I. N., 87-89
Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, 426
coming to power, 476-78;
Soviet military aid, 478, 482;
Dulles, Allen W., 383
imperialist attack on (1956),
Dulles, John Foster, 568; anti- 479-80; and signing of As-
Communist policy, 429; at wan Dam treaty, 487; So-
Geneva, Khrushchev's
434; viet delegation to, 488; So-
opinion of, 434-36; and Mid- viet-financed projects, 487-
dle East, 435, 483; and Viet- 88, 493; Khrushchev visits
nam, 535 (1964), 488-98; Khrushchev's
 INDEX 685

Egypt (cont.) Fifteenth Party Congress, 25-

impressions See
of, 493-94. 28; Leningrad delegation to,
also United Arab Republic 26
Eideman, R. P., 86 Finland, 158-66; and security
Eighteenth Party Congress of Leningrad, 158, 159; Sta-
(1939), 296, 300 ultimatum to, 160-61.
lin's
Eikhe, R. I., 59 See also Russo-Finnish War
Einsiedebi, Heinrich von, his Finnish war. See Russo-Fin-
The Shadow of Stalingrad, nish War
217 First Ukrainian Front, 224;
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 232- Svoboda's Czechoslovak bri-
34; decorated by Stalin, 234; gade at, 398
at Geneva sumniit, 429, 433- First World War. See World
36; Khrushchev's evaluation War I
of, 433-34; Khrushchev com- Five- Year Plan, 295, 296
pared to Kennedy, 433, 507; food, 55, 239
and Zhukov, 435; and Suez foreign policy, Soviet, 393-94;
crisis (1956), 479-80, 481-82; and Yugoslavia, 419, 477;
Camp David meeting with and Geneva summit, 429-
Khrushchev, 571-72 38; and London meeting,
Elizabeth n, of England, 444- 439-55; and Polish upheav-
46, 449; Khrushchev im- al (1956), 454, 461-62, 463,
pressed with, 446 474; and Hungarian uprising
embargo, economic, 435 (1956), 454-58; and Egypt,
emerging countries, 420, 486, 474-99; and Germany, 500-
487 8;and Sino- Soviet relations,
England, 131-33, 139; and allies 511-30;and Vietnam, 531-39;
in World War H, 235-38; So- and Cuban crises, 540-55;
viet postwar relations with, goals of, 560; policy of
393; and Yugoslavia, 418; and 'Tiouse presents" in, 562.
CJeneva simimit, 431, 437-38; See also Stalin, J. V., and
postwar Labour government, foreign policy
439; Khrushchev's visit to, Fourteenth Party
Congress,
439-55; and Suez (1956), 474- 21-23, 26; Khrushchev
a
75, 479-80, 481; and emer- consulting delegate to, 21-
gence of Nasser, 476, 477; 23; Stalin at, 23-25
and Iraq, 484; as secondary France, 131-33, 454, 474, 532;
world power, 560; and So- World War 11 capitulation
viet nuclear feats, 568-69 of, 176; and Potsdam
138,
English Communist Party, 413 decisions, 236; Soviet post-
Estonia, 155-56 war relations with, 393; and
Geneva summit, 432, 436-37;
factories, construction of, 46- and Suez (1956), 475, 479,
47 480, 481; and Vietnam, 533-
Fall of Berlin, The (film), 369 34; as secondary world pow-
famine, 13; in Ukraine, dur- er, 560; and Soviet nuclear
ing collectivization contro- feats, 568
versy, 70-71; in Ukraine af- Free Germany Committee,
ter World War II, 246-60 Moscow, 217
Far Eastern Military District, freedom, 506; and closed bor-
87 ders, 575-601
Farouk, of Egypt, 475 French Communist Party, 139,
Faure, Edgar, 437 409, 413
February Revolution, 30 Frumina, Dr., 282
686 INDEX

Frunze Military Academy, 80 Great Britain, 439, 454. See

Furmanka, 173 also England
Furmanov (Soviet command- Great Patriotic War. See
er), 303 World War II
fusion welding, 118-19 Grechko, A. A., 225, 489
Greece, 155
Gaitskell, Hugh, 453 Gromyko, Andrei A., 448-49,
Galan, Y. A., 262 573
Gamamik, Y. B., 85, 170 Grushitsky (Ukrainian nation-
GDR. See East Germany alist), 32
General Line of Party, 28, 38, Guantanamo Bay, 554-55
39, 42, 44, 47 Guevara, Ernesto (Che), 542
Geneva summit, 429-38, 440; Gulf of Finland, 157
background of, 430-31; and Gurov, General, 197, 204
German reunification, 432;
airport ceremony in honor Hainan, 514
of fo\ir delegations, 432; Hango Peninsula, 164
joint statement issued, 437; Havana, 540
and Vietnam, 532-34; and Hess, Rudolf, 137 ,

Geneva Accords, 534 Hitler, Adolf, 12, 49, 85, 87, 89,
George V, of England, 449 132-33, 222, 373, 457, 478; his
Georgia, 327-28, 334, 335-36 Mein Kampj, 129-30; dis-
Gerasimov (photographer), patches von Ribbentrop to
169 Moscow, 130-32; attempts to
German army, 129, 217, 232- fulfill stipulations of non-
33; SS armored divisions, aggression treaty, 135-36,
221-22 144-45; MolotoVs charac-
German Democratic Republic. terization of, 136-37; at-
See East Germany tempts to himiiliate Rus-
Germany, 129-30, 133, 139, 393, sians, 139-40; and invasion
394, 513; and Operation of Russia, 145-46, 235; and
Barbarossa, 142-43, 182-83, Russo-Finnish War, 161-62,
222, 223, 224, 232; and Pots- 164-65, 166; death of, 230;
dam decision, 236, 501-2; re- and the British, 440
unification, 432-33, discussed Ho Chi Minh, 531-39; Khru-
at London conference, 442. shchev's impressions of, 531-
See also East Germany; 32; visits the Soviet Union,
Soviet - German relations; 532; and the Geneva Con-
West Germany ference (1954), 532-34; seeks
Gero, E., 456 Chinese aid, 533; death of,
Gestapo, 147-48 536, 537-38; and Sino-Sovi-
Ghaleb, Murad, 483 et dispute, 535-37; "Testa-
Ginzburg, Yevgenia S., her ment," 538
Into the Whirlvnnd, 73 House of Lords (British), 451,
Goebbels, Paul Joseph, 146 453
Gogol, N. v., 152, 228 housing, 46-47, 565
Golikov, P. I., 144, 204-6 Hoxha, Enver, 526-28
Gomel, 183 Hughes, John, 441
Gomulka, Wladyslaw, 107, 391- Hundred Flowers (Mao's slo-
92, 418; consulted about gan), 518
Hungarian uprising, 461-62 Hungarian Communist Party,
Gordov, General, 181 458, 465, 468
Gorky, Maxim, 183, 266, 563 Hungary, 155; Soviet troops
Gottwald, Klement, 394-96 in, 393, 457-58, 462-63, 565,
 INDEX 687
Hungary (cont.) against Zhdanov, 304; and
566; 1956 uprising, 420, 454, Doctors' Plot, 307; Himgar-
457-73, 474; consultation ian, 469, 471
with fraternal Parties about Internal Affairs, Ministry of,
uprising in, 459-65; quelling 349, 351, 353
of resistance, 466; Tempo- International Communist
rary Revolutionary Govern- movement. See Comintern
ment, 466; stabilization of internationalism. See foreign
situation, 466; Khrushchev policy, Soviet
meets with leaders of, 467- Iran, 485
70; army demoralized by Iran, Shah of (Reza Pahlevi),
uprising, 467; Western im- 485
perialist interference in, 471- Iraq, 443, 484
72 Iron Torrent, The (film), 87
Israel, 454, 491; and Suez cri-
Ibarruri, Dolores, 201, 526 sis (1956), 475, 479, 480, 482;
Ibamu-i, Ruben, 201 and Six-Day War (1967),
ideology, 562; and "We will 485,498-99; Nasser-Khru-
hury the enemies" speech, shchev position on, 498-99
563, 564; Rumanian dedica- Italian Communist Party, 409,
tion to, 565 413
Ignatiev, S. D., 301, 306-7, 340 Italy, 139, 542; American mis-
n-14 (plane), 429, 432 sile bases in, 546
n-28 bomber, 548
India, 315, 316, 477; Khru- Japan, 139, 201, 394
shchev visits (1955), 560; Jewish Anti-Fascist Commit-
and SEATO, 561 tee of Sovinformbureau, 274
Industrial Academy, Moscow, Jewish autonomous region.
34, 35, 44, 50, 106; Party See Birobidzhan
organization at, 36-37, 38- Jewish Soviet Republic, pro-
40, 93, 174; shirkers at, 37, posed, 275-77
42; rightists at, 38-42; repre- Jews, 147-48; of Western
sentatives at Bauman Con- Ukraine, 151-52; of Kiev, 227;
ference, 40-43; role in strug- Kaganovich's persecution of,
gle against opposition, 42; 258. See also anti-Semitism
and Stalin Collective Farm, Johnson, Lyndon, 507, 557
68
Industrial Plan, 89. See also Kabul, 560
Five-Year Plan Kabulov (NKVD official), 96
industrialization, 13-14, 15-16, Kadar, Janos, 457, 465, 468, 469,
37, 46 471-72
industry, 13, 29, 111-12, Kaganovich, L. M., 23, 29-32,
118; conversion to wartime 33, 56, 125-26, 160, 184, 242,
needs, 168; during World 309, 371, 439; helps Khru-
War n, 179-80, postwar shchev remain at Industrial
restoration of, 242-43 Academy, 35-36, 106; and
intelligence: World War II, Khrushchev's advancement
135; in Russo-Finnish War, in Moscow apparatus, 43,
163, 164-65; Stalin's depen- 50; Stalin's lackey, 48-49,
dence on Cheka for, 182; 339, 376; viciousness, 48-49,
American, 383 276; appointed People's
intelligentsia, 5, 15; Ukrainian, Commissar of Transport, 51;
32, 106; in Western Ukraine, Second Secretary of Central
148, 150, 151; resentment Committee, 53, 54-55; and
 ,

688 INDEX

Kaganovich, L. M. (cont.) Keys to Berlin, The (play),

reconstruction and modern- 140
ization of Moscow, 60, 61-63, Khakharev (Industrial Acad-
64, 65, 66; devotion to Party emy Secretary), 38
and cause, 62; and collec- Kharkov, 29-31, 34, 39; Veteri-
tivissationcontroversy, 69; nary Institute, 112; Institute
and the purges, 73-74, 77- of Animal Husbandry, 112,
78, 81-82; and Beria, 101; and 113; tank factory, 119; loco-
postwar agricultural prob- motive factory, 168-69; dur-
lems, 254-60; persecution of ing World War II, 192-200,
Ukrainian nationalists and 398; liberation of, 221
the Jews, 258; transferred Khrushchev, Leonid (son), 13,
back to Moscow (1949), 260; 201
and Molotov, 276; and Sta- Khrushchev, Martin (uncle),
lin's anti-Semitism, 279; and 285
expanded Presidium, 298-99; Khrushchev, Sergei (father)
and inner circle in Stalin's 119, 279, 285, 441
last days, 331; and Stalin's Khrushchev, Sergei (son), 282,
death, 342; in i>ost-Stalin 449
power struggle, 350; and Khrushcheva, Galina (first
Beria's arrest, 362-63; and wife), 13
pre-Twentieth Congress in- Khrushcheva, Julia (daugh-
vestigation of Stalinist re- ter), 13
pression, 375-76; opposition Khrushcheva, Nina Petrovna
to rehabilitation of Stalin's (second wife), 13, 282, 355
victims, 378-79; biographi- Khryukin, T. T., 201
cal sketch, 598-99 Kiev, 31-33, 70, 90, 91, 92, 155,
Kaganovich, Mikhail, 48-49 263, 568; Regional and City
M. I., 37, 234
Kalinin, committees, 70, 108; Military
Kamenev, L. B., 26, 71, 78, 330 District, 88, 171-72; during
Kaminsky, G. M., 36, 37, 99, World War II, 178, 182-83,
344, 361, 365 190; liberation of, 224-30
Kardelj, Edvard, 409 Kim n-sung, 400-5; Khru-
Karelia, 160 shchev urges Stalin to aid,
Karelian isthmus, 162, 164 403-4. See also Korean War
Karelo-Finnish SSR, 160 Kirichenko, A. I., 248, 356
Kassem, Abdul Karim, 484 Kirilkin, I. T., 81
Katyn Forest massacre, 141 Kirov, Sergei M., 57-58, 74-
Kazakhstan, 317 76. See also Leningrad af--
Kedrov (Soviet commander), fair
373 Kirponos, M. P., 172, 187, 189?
Kennedy, John 433; and
F., Kolchak, A. V., 85, 214
Berlin crisis, 507-8; Vienna Komsomol (Lenin League of
meeting with Klhrushchev, Communist Youth), 7, 82
507; and Cuban missile cri- Konev, I. S., 306; and Hungar-
sis, 540, 549, 551-52; and ian uprising, 460, 465; com-
downing of U-2 over Cuba, mander of troops in Berlin,!
554; Khrushchev's respect 508-9
for, 555, 556; effect of death Korea. See North Korea;
on Soviet-American rela- South Korea
tions, 557; and nuclear arms Korean Communist Party, 40J
race, 569 Korean War, 400-7; initiate
Kennedy, Robert F., 551, 552, by Kim Il-sung, 400-1; So-:
555 viet arms in, 402; as W2
 INDEX 689
Korean War (cont.) leadership. See collective lead-
of national liberation, 403; ership
American intervention, 404; Lebanon, 435
Chinese intervention, 405-7, Le Duan, 538
533 Lend-Lease, 231; repayment
Komeichuk, A. E., 263, 356 436
of,
Korotchenko, D. S., 95, 280-81 Lenin, V. I., 2, 3-4, 5, 12, 13,
Kossior, S. V., 33, 90-91, 105- 25, 54, 73, 78; warnings about
6, 108 Stalin, 2-4, 87, 330, 382, 471;
Kostenko (Ukrainian Party Testament, 3, 330, 382, 471;
official), 110-11 and creation of Soviet Ar-
Rostov, T., of Bulgaria, 389 my, 11-12, 15; and recruit-
Kosvinsky, Ivan, 18 ment of specialists, 15-17;
Kosygin, A. N., 246, 261, 266, New Economic Policy, 17;
267-68, 272, 308 and Bukharin, 28, 78; Sta-
Kotelnikovo, 209 lin'streatment of widow
Kovtyukh, General, 87 (Krupskaya), 45-48; revered
Kozlovsky, I. S., 513 by Khrushchev, 46; and
Krasnodar, 69 Tukhachevsky, 85; nation-
Kremenchug, 183 alities policy, 243; humanity
Kremlin, 22-23; movie theater, of, 303; and development of
318-19 agriculture, 424; foreign-
Krestinsky, N. M., 385 policy tenets, 476, 560; him-
Kronstadt operation, 85 dredth anniversary of birth,
Kniglov, S. N., 366-67 557; policy of exiling ene-
ECrupskaya, Nadezhda Kon- mies, 577
stantinova (Lenin's widow), Lenin Forge factory, Kiev, 179
46-48 Lenin League of Communist
Kuban Cossacks, 69 Youth. See Komsomol
Kuibyshev, V. V., 36 Lenin Mausolexim, 232, 433
Kuibyshev (earlier Samara) Leningrad, 74-75, 158, 159, 164,
Region, 68, 201, 265 165, 304, 445; Party organi-
kulaks 17 71 zation, 26-27, 57, 266; during
Kulik, 'Marshal, 161, 173, 186- World War II, 180; affair,
87 263, 265, 266-72
Kun, Bela, 462, 467 Leningrad opposition, 77-78.
Kuntsevo, 346 See also Zinovievites
Kurchatov, I. V., 440, 442 Likhachev, Aleksei I., 61
Kursk Province, 27, 443 linguistics, Stalin's polemic on,
Kursk Salient, Battle of, 219- 286-88
23; defector's warning, 221- Lithuania, 109, 155-56
i
22; and Stalin, 222-23; tum- Litvinov, M. M., 129, 278
; ing point of war, 223 Liu Shao-chi, 459-60, 528; at
Kuusinen, O. V., 160 1960 Conference of Commu-
Kuznetsov, A. A., 261, 266,
nist and Workers' Parties,
525
267-68, 270-72
living, standard of, in USSR,
13 243 571
Labour Party, Great Britain, Lloyd, Selwyn, 442, 443, 480
439-40, 452-53 Lominadze, V. V., 28-29, 39, 83,
Lake Ladoga, 162 385
Larin, Commissar, 212, 214-16 Lomov, G. I., 82
fLatin America, 541, 545, 557 London, 439-55; arrival of So-
^Latvia, 155-56 viet delegation in, 441; dele-
690 INDEX

London (cont.) 67, 368; and Stalinist re-

gation's sight-seeing tour, pression, 376, 381; instability
450-51; unpleasantness at after Stalin's death, 431; and
end of visit, 451-54 Hungarian uprising, 462-63;
Lozovsky, S. A., 274-76 biographical sketch, 599-600
Lubyanka, the (prison), 247 Malenkova, Valeriya A. (Ma-
Lukashov (Ukrainian official), lenkoVs wife), 312
109 Malenkova, Volya (MalenkoVs
Lukomsky, P. E., 342 daughter), 312-13
Luxor, Egypt, 493 Malinovsky, General Rodion
Lvov, 144-49, 150-55, 204, 262. Y., 212-17, 218, 233, 521, 567;
356; Polytechnic Institute, World War I experiences,
146; Revolutionary Commit- 212-14; Stalin's suspicions
tee, 150-51 of, 214-17; and assistance
for North Koreans, 404; bio-
McCarthy, Joseph, 507 graphical sketch, 600-1
Macmillan, Harold, 442, 443, Maloarkhangelsk, 14
480, 559-60 Maltsev, T. S., 252
Makayev metal works, 81 Malyshev, V. A., 202
Makeyevka, 307 Mannerheim, Carl G. von, 159
Makhnovites, 303 Mannerheim Line, 162, 165
Makovsky (engineer), 63-65 manpower, postwar, 241, 243,
Malenkov, G. M., 84, 92, 93, 244
108, m, 130, 179, 247, 262, Manstein, E. von, 208, 209, 215
312-13, 371-72, 439, 514; and Mao Tse-tung, 4, 401, 406, 407,
YezhoVs arrest, 96; and 511-30, 538; loses son in
Beria, 96-97, 269-70, 295, Korea, 406; consulted about
337-38, 348, 349-50, 354-55, Hungarian uprising, 460, 461;
358, 360-61, 368, 431, 438; at Khrushchev's description o^
February 1939 Plenimi, 98- 511-12, 525-26; and Stalin,
100; influence with Stalin, 513-16, 520; relations with
101, 265-66, 267, 268, 319, Khrushchev, 515, 516, 517,
333; and Dovzhenko, 183- 518-20; and Yudin, 515-16;
84; during World War n, Hundred Flowers slogan,
189, 195-96, 207-8; and post- 518; paper tiger slogan, 518;
war agriculture, 242, 249, personality cult, 520; pub-
253-54; in postwar Polit- lication of his works on
bureau, 266; and Leningrad warfare, 521; rebuffing of
affair, 267-69; and Stalin's efforts of military coopera-
anti-Semitism, 279, 312-13; tion, 521-22; anti-Soviet at-
and Stalin's theoretical titudes, 523; and Chinese
works, 287-88; and Nine- nationalism, 523; egalitarian
teenth Party Congress, 294- reforms, 524-25; and prin-
96; and expansion of Presi- ciple of democratic leader-
dium, 297-300; at Stalin's ship, 528; in power struggle,
dinners, 322; and inner cir-
528-29; and Vietnam, 538
cle in Stalin's last days, 330,
Marr, N. Y., 286
333, 340; postwar consolida-
Marx-Engels Institute, 60
tion of his forces, 337-38;
and Stalin's death, 341-42, Marxism - Leninism, 2, 28;

344, 346; and post-Stalin contradicted by personality

power struggle, 344, 346-49, cult, 73; and sovietization
351, 353-55, 357-61; and of Western Ukraine, 153;
Beria's arrest, 361-64, 365- victory of, 563, 564; interna-
 INDEX 691

tionalism of, 564. See also 72. See also defense

ideology militia (uniformed police), 59
Mary Stuart, of Scotland, 449 Mindszenty, Josef Cardinal,
Matryona Petrovna (Stalin's 468-69
maid), 321, 341-42 Mingrelian affair, 336
mechanization, agricultural, missiles, 444, 447, 480; Soviet,
244, 251 in Cuba, 545-56; American
Medved (Ukrainian political on Soviet borders, 545-47,
figure), 116 560, 561; as deterrents, 568-
Mein Kampf (Hitler), 129-30 69
Mekhlis, L. Z., 40-41, 98, 173- Mitrokhin (Yaroslavl factory
74 director), 125, 127
Melnikov, L. G., 2B0-83, 356 Mogilchenko (Ukrainian col-
Mendes-France, Pierre, 534 lective farmer), 256-57
Mensheviks, 32 Moiseyenko, Kostyan V^ 21-
Meretskov, Marshal K. A^ 22, 23
102-3, 164, 307 Moiiet, Guy, 481
Merkulov, V. N, 368-69 Molotov, V. M., 38, 62, 69, 91,
Metro, Moscow, 61-66; recruit- 94, 160, 170-71, 268, 309, 370,
ment of personnel for, 62-63; 439; friendship with Stalin,
I
open trench-closed tunnel 56, 199, 360; during purges,
[
dispute, 64; bomb- shelter 74, 77, 78; and Beria, 101,
i
use, 64; escalator- elevator 353, 360; and Nazi-Soviet
j
dispute, 65-66; Myasnitsky relations, 130, 134-35, 139
I
Gates station, 65, 66 (see also Ribbentrop-Molo-
=Mezhgora, 225 tov Pact); and Jewish Anti-
iMiddle East. See Near East Fascist Committee, 274; and
|mG-15 (jet fighter), 405 arrest and exile of his wife,
Mikhoels, Solomon M., 274, 274, 276-77; and Stalin's an-
276, 277-78 ti-Semitism, 279; fall from
Mikoyan, A. I., 70-71, 78, 83, grace, 292, 296, 298, 299-300,
123, 160, 268, 309, 371, 382, 331-32; and Nineteenth Par-
444; closeness to Stalin, 70- ty Congress, 296, 332; Sta-
71, 199; and Ordzhonikidze's lin's suspicions of, 331-32;
death, 84; loses son at Sta- in post- Stalin power strug-
lingrad, 201; and World US gle, 350, 360-61; and deten-
War n aid, 238-39; fall from tion of Beria, 365; and
grace, 292, 296, 298, 299, 300, investigation of Stalinist re-
332-33; and Nineteenth Par- pression before Twentieth
ty Congress, 296; and Svet- Congress, 375; and Twen-
lana, 309, 313; at Stalin's tieth Party Congress, 376;
dinners, 322; and Stalin's and acknowledgment of Sta-
vacations, 325, 326, 327, 329; lin's abuses, 380; and Gene-
and Beria's arrest, 363, 365; \'a summit, 431; and Hun-
and pre-T\^^entieth Congress garian uprising, 462; and
investigation of Stalinist re- Suez (1956), 479; bio-
crisis
pression, 375; and delegation graphical sketch, 603-4
to Belgrade, 414; and Hun- Montgomery, Bernard L., 232,
garian uprising, 458; mission 233, 234
to US (1962), 541; visits to Morozov, Grigory, 312
Cuba, 541, 554, 555; bio- Moscow: housing shortage, 46-
graphical sketch, 601-3 47; City Soviet, 46, 58; re-
lilitary spending, 570-72; construction and moderniza-
problem of control of, 571- tion, 54, 60-61; public toilets
692 INDEX

Moscow (cont.) 494;health, 494; and agri-

of, 59-60; and the Metro, cultural reform, 494-98; po-
61-62; Military District, 70; sition toward Israel, 498-99
"purge" of 76-89; battle for. nationalism, Ukrainian, 32,
World War II, 180, 190, 220; 145-47, 150, 184, 228, 243;
conspirators, 262-64, 266; £ind Kaganovich, 258
British Embassy, 441 nationalities policies, Lenin's,
Moscow Conference of Com- 243
munist and Workers' Par- NATO, 432, 457, 459, 566
ties. See Conference of Nazi-Soviet Pact. See Ribben-
Communist and Workers' trop-Molotov Pact
Parties Near East, 431, 435, 443, 474-
Moscow Party organization, 99; Soviet aims in, 475-76;
27, 54-55; Khrushchev's UNpeace- keeping force in,
early activity in, 35-43; See also Egypt
499.
Khrushchev's rise in, 43- Nehru, Jawaharlal, 434-35, 561
44; Regional and City com- Nekrasov, N. A., quoted, 314,
mittees, 44, 46, 50, 51, 54- 446
55, 56, 80-81, 85, 262;
69, Nevsky, Alexander, quoted,
and collectivization contro- 230
versy, 69; and NKVD, 80- New Delhi, 315
81; Conference (1937), 80, New Economic Policy, 11, 17-
81. See also Comrminist 18
Party of the Soviet Union New York, 547, 550, 563
Moscow-Volga Canal, 60 Nicholas I, tsar, 249, 472
Moskalenko, K. S., 229, 364, Nicholas II, tsar, 449
366 Nikolayev, L., 74
Mtsensk, 12 Nikolayeva, K. I., 27
Mimnich, Ferenc, 465, 467, 468 Nile River, 478; Delta, 492;
Murmansk, 155, 238, 522 Valley, 493
Mussavat government, 99, 361, 1905 uprising, 50
365 Nineteenth Party Congress
MussoHni, Benito, 155, 373 (1952), 287, 288, 293-301,
Muzychenko, General L N^ 305, 332; Stalin's health at,
181 294-95, 297; and expansion
Myzsnikov (tsarist command- of Presidium, 297-300, 317,
er), 198 351
Mzhavanadze, V. P., 328 Nixon, Richard M., 507
NKVD, 92-93; after Kirov's
58,
Nagy, Imre, 456, 457-58, 462, murder, 75; Party's sub-
465-66, 468; US support of servience to, 80-81; and
regime, 471 Yezhov, 93-94; and Beria,
Nasser, (jramal Abdel, 475; ini- 94, 96-99, 335, 356, 363-64;
tial Soviet evaluation of, and February 1939 Plenimi,
475-78; relations with Tito, 97-100; and Ukrainian Par-
477-78, 480, 485-86; and So- ty, 108-17 passim. See also
viet military aid, 478, 482; Cheka
visit to Soviet Union (1958), North Atlantic Treaty Organi-
483-84; Khrushchev's im- zation. See NATO
pression of, 483; and Iraqi North Korea, 400, 533; Soviet
coup, 484-85; invites Khru- arms to, 402, 403; recall of
shchev to Egypt, 488-90; and Soviet advisors in, 404; Chi-
"scientific socialism," 490, ense support of, 405-6. See
492; prestige of, as leader, also Korean War
 ,

INDEX 693

North Vietnam, 531, 538-39. patriotism. World War 11, 178-

See also Vietnam 79 243
Norway, 155, 238 Paulus, Friedrich, 200, 209, 210,
Novikov, A. A., 207, 269-70 211, 215, 220
Novosibirsk, 59 Pavlov, D. G., 185-87, 199
Novotny, Antonin, 396-97, 462 peaceful coexistence, 499, 570;
Novoye Ogarevo, 483 and Hitler, 130, 132-33; and
nuclear warfare, 546, 547, 549, Geneva summit, 431, 432,
569 436; discussed at London
meeting, 442; Chinese view,
October Revolution, 46, 73, 78, 523; and Sino-Soviet rela-
120, 173, 213, 226, 243, 374 tions, 529-30; and ideologi-
Oder-Neisse line, 142 cal differences, 563
Odessa, 212 peasant uprising, 69
Ogonyok (magazine), 343 peasantry, 5, 458; and Mao
Operation Barbarossa, 166; Tse-tung, 513
Red Army on eve of, 166- Peking, 4, 405, 461, 515-16;
74, 183; Soviets warned of, Khrushchev visits (1954)
177-78; Stalin's fear of, 178, 515-18; (1959), 522-23. See
180-81; Soviet ill-prepared- also Chinese Communist
ness, 179-80, 201; German Party
occupation of Ukraine, 179; Feng Te-huai, 406, 407
Soviet generals, 181, 185-91; Penkovsky, General, 209
Kharkov disaster, 192-200; personality cult, 73, 520; Mao's,
Stalingrad, 200-12; Kursk 4, 471
Salient, 220-23 Pervukhin, M. G., 299, 363, 375,
oppositionists, 39; and Molo- 381
tov, 56 Petlura, Sunon V., 32
Order of Lenin, 66 Petrov (photographer), 24
Order of the Red Star, 66 Petrovsko-Marinsk District,
Ordzhonikidze, G. K. (Sergo), 22
26, 71, 126; during purges, Petrovsky, G. P., 23, 30
77; suicide, 82-85; Beria's Pham Van Dong, 533
hostility toward, 101-2 Philip, Prince, 445
Orel, 12, 443 Pilsudski, Josef, 107, 145, 152
Orgbureau, 385 Pilsudski-ites, 149
Osobka-Morawski, Edward, Pitsunda, Caucasus resort, 556
390 PHsetskaya, Maya, 575-76
pogroms, 279, 283-85
Pakistan, 444, 561 Poland, 109, 142-49, 432; fall
Pan-Slavism, 20 of, 139, 143-44; intelligen-
Paris, 138, 176, 212-13 tsia, 148-49; liberation of,
Party Conferences (1957, 218, 229; Soviet aid to (af-
1960). See Conference of ter World War H), 246, 390-
Commimist and Workers* 92, 393; Soviet troops in, 393,
Parties 565; trade with West, 418-
Party Congresses. See Con- 19; 1956 uprising, 454, 461-
gresses, Party 62, 463, 474; Soviet "joint"
Party Line. 5ee General Line companies in, 513
of Party Polish Commimist Party, 107,
Pastukhov mines, 21 149, 382, 390; and Gomulka,
Patolichev, N. S., 124, 255, 258 391; consulted concerning
Paton, Y. O., 118-20 Himgarian uprising, 461
694 INDEX

Politbureau, 24, 56-57, 122, 123, der, 74-76; and public opin-
294, 300, 320, 385; Khru- ion, 77; Kirilkin, 81; Bazu-
shchev's election to, 51-52; lin, 81; and Ordzhonikidze's
and the Metro, 65; compe- death, 82-85; and Old Guard
tition among members, 66; of Red Army, 85-89; braked
Stalin's view of sharing in- by February 1939 Plenimi,
formation with, 137, 186; and 100; Polish and Western \
Yugoslav anti-Soviet line, Ukrainian, 107, 108-18. See
J
411. See also Presidium also terror, Stalinist
Poltava, 70, 227-28, 256, 290 Purishkevich, Vladimir, 283
Pondelin, P. G., 181 Pusan, 403, 404
Ponomarev, B. N., 459 Pyongyang, 402, 406
Popov, G. M., 263, 265
Port Arthur, 516 railroads, 143
Poskrebyshev, A. N., 292-93, Rajk, L., 389
298 369 Rakosi, Matyas, 326-27, 458,
Pospelov, P. N., 375, 378, 379, 467; exile in Soviet Union,
381, 383 470-71
Postyshev, P. P., 22 Rankovic, Alexander, 481
Potapov, M. I., 181 rationing, food, 55-57, 246-47
Potsdam (agreement), 236, 462; rearmament, 568
and Berlin crisis, 500-1, 509 Red (Soviet) Army,
11-12, 15,
Powers, (Francis) Gary, 507, 29, 147, 242;
148, Khru-
554 shchev's service in, 12;
Prague, 395-96, 398 bourgeois officers in, 17;
Pravda, 20, 28, 41-42, 46, 174, diu-ing collectivization con-
260; and collectivization, 68- troversy, 70; elimination of
69; and Stalin's linguistics Old Guard, 85-89, 163, 170-
theories, 286 71, 172, 173-74; in Western
Presidium, 306, 320; expansion Ulcraine, 154; air force, 164,
of, 297-98; and creation of 201, 227-28; on eve of
Presidium Bureau, 299, 351; Barbarossa, 166-74; ill-pre- ,

and vigil over dying Sta- paredness, 179-201; troops

lin, 342; after Stalin's death, in Hungary, 393, 457-59,
347-48; clash vdth Beria and 462-63; garrisoned
troops
Malenkov, 351; and fear of throughout Eastern Europe,
Beria's growing influence, 471; troops in GDR, 506,
356, 358-59; and plotting of 565-66; size of standing ar-
Beria's downfall, 359-63; and my, 564, 565, 570; troops
Beria's detention, 363-67; withdrawn from fraternal
and Hungarian uprising, 458, countries, 565-66; salary
460, 461, 465, 467; and Suez 567; rearming of, 568;
cuts,
crisis (1956), 479-80; and and nuclear force, 568
Caribbean policy, 545-46. Red Army divisions: Ninth
See also Central Committee Rifle Division, 12; First
productivity, 125-28 Mounted Army, 12; Sec-
Profintem (Trade Union In- ond Guards Army, 214^
ternational), 274 215, 216; Sixth Army, 221;
profiteering, 328 Sixth Guards Army, 209;
propaganda, 243, 275, 576 Twenty-first Army, 209;
property, private, 17; in Yugo- Thirty- seventh Army, 189,
slavia, 411 190; Fifty-seventh Army,
purges, Party, 5, 6, 7, 28, 31, 196, 210; Sixty-second Ar-
44, 75-89, 372; Kirov's mur- my, 204, 210; Sixty-fourth
 INDEX 695
Red Army divisions (cont.) Rostov, 180, 212, 215, 216, 253
Army, 210; Ninety-ninth Roter, P. P., 61, 62, 64-65
Division, 189 Ruchenkov mines, 21, 30, 81
Red Presnya District, Moscow, Rudenko, R. A., 368, 369, 384-
50 85
Red Sea, 492 Rumania, 173, 393, 459, 462,
Red Square, Victory Parade 513; Soviet troop withdraw-
(1945), 232, 234 al from, 564-66
Redens, Anna Sergeyevna, 58 Rumanian Communist Party
Redens, S., 58, 75-76; and Congress, Bucharest (1960),
Beria, 101 527
rehabilitation, political, 5; of Russian Expeditionary Force,
Red Army generals, 89; of World War I, 212, 213
World War U generals, 181, Russian Federation, 160, 179,
187; and Twentieth Party 277
Congress, 372, 377-85 Russo-Finnish War (1939),
religion, 20, 520; and Stalin, 158-66; first salvo, 161;
25, 285; Khrushchev's use of morality of, 161; losses in,
terms of, 58, 493-94, 531, 574; 162, 164; Finnish tactics,
and Svetlana, 314 163; Russian strategy, 163-
repression, 68, 73, 93, 378; in 64; lessons drawn from, 168
Ukraine, 106-18 passim; ar- Rykov, A. I., 27, 38, 40, 41, 71;
rests and convictions, 351- in purge, 78; rehabilitation,
52, 365, 366; investigation 385
of, after Stalin's death, 374-
82;and Khrushchev's Secret sabotage, 69, 70; and poisoning
Speech, 383-85. See also ter- of Ukrainian horses, 110-15
ror, Stalinist Saburov, M. Z., 295, 296, 299;
Revolution of 1848 (in Hun- and Beria's arrest, 361; and
gary), 472-73 investigation into Stalinist
Revolution of 1918. See Oc- repression, 375, 381
tober Revolution Samara Region. See Kuiby-
Rhee, Sjnigman, 401-3 shev Region
Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 130, Saratov, 257
131 satellites. See Commimist Par-
Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, 132- ties, fraternal
39, 147; gambit to gain time, Schulenberg, W. von der, 134
132-33; attempts to fulfill "scientific socialism," 490, 492
stipulations of, 134-35; and Scotland, 448-49
Western Ukraine, 144-45, Sdobnov, Aleksandr, 68
149, 153; effect on Poland, SEATO treaty, 561
392 Second World War. See World
right-left bloc, 28, 39 Warn
rightists, 39-40, 42, 71, 174; security police. See Cheka;
and Baimian District Party NKVD
Conference (1930), 41-42 self-determination, 417, 466-67,
Rimsky, L. A., 24 499; and West Berlin, 506
Rockefeller, Nelson, 436 self-glorification, 99-100
Rodionov, M. I., 261 Seoul, 402, 404
Rokossovsky, K. K., 208, 220, Serafiinovich (author), 87
233 Sergienko (armed forces secu-
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 231, rity officer), 182
232, 329, 395; Stalin's opin- Serov, I. A., 116-17, 142, 147,
ion of, 234-35 149, 367, 439; and sovietiza-
696 INDEX

Serov, I. A. (cont.) Khrushchev's recommenda-

tion of Western Ukraine, 149 on Viet-
tions, 529-30; effect
17th parallel, Vietnam, 534 namese, 535-37
Seventeenth Party Congress, Six-Day War (Israel and
(1934), 50, 51, 59, 301, 377 Egypt, 1967), 485, 498-99
Shakhurin, A. I., 268-70 Six Great Conditions, Stalin's,
Shamberg (Malenkov's assist- 52
ant), 312 Sixteenth Party Congress
Shanghai, 512-13 (1929), 39
Shchadenko, E. A., 173 ski troops, 162
Shcherbakov, A. S., 183, 215- Skoda (munitions) works,
16, 304, 322 Czechoslovakia, 136
Shchevchenko, Lydia, 20 Skrypnik, N., 23
Shchors (Red Army com- Slansky, Rudolf, 389, 396
mander), 88-89 Sochi, 170, 247, 326, 329; Chou
Sheku, Mehmet, 526-27, 528 En-lai meeting with Stalin
Shepilov, D. T., 187, 413; in at, 405
delegation to Belgrade, 414; Social Revolutionaries, 32
and Suez crisis (1956), 479- Socialist Workers' Party, Hun-
80 gary. See Hungarian Ck)m-
Shevchenko, Taras, 249 munist Party
Shikhter (Ukrainian Party of- South America, 476, See also
ficial), 23 Latin America
Shirin, A P., 43 South Korea, 400-3, 404-7. See
Sholokhov, M. A.: his Virgin- also Korean War
Soil Upturned, 71; his They Soviet Army. See Red Army
Fought for Their Homeland, Soviet Navy, 162, 521, 522
384 Soviet-German relations, 129-
Shuisky, G. T., 281, 289-90 40; Ribbentrop's visit to
Shumilov, General, 210 Moscow, 130-32; MolotoVs
Shutskina, Vera, 303 visit to Berlin, 136; and
Shvemik, N. M., 350 faU of Poland, 142-43
Siberia, 69, 213, 290-91, 362; Soviet State Agricultural En-
families of captured World terprises. See state farms
War n generals sent to, sovietization: of Western
181; deportation of Ukrain- Ukraine, 150-55; of Belorus-
ian Jews to, 274; Chinese sia, 155-56; of Baltic repub-
claim to, 524 lics, 156-57
Simonov, Konstantin, 208 Sovinformbureau (Soviet Bu-
Singh, Brajesh, 313 reau of Information), 274,
Sinkiang, 513 276
Sino-Soviet relations, 511-30, space, 568
532-33, 538; and Stalin, specialists, 14-17, 37; and con-
513-16; under Khrushchev struction of Aswan Dam,
government, 514-15, 516-17; 487, 489; and Egyptian agri-
dispute predicted by Khru- cultural reform, 496
shchev, 517; basic disagree- Spychalski, Marian, 390
ments, 519-20; Soviet mili- Stalin, J. V, 1-3, 137-38, 304;
tary cooperation efforts Lenin's warning about, 3-4,
rebuffed (1958), 521-22; Chi- 89, 330, 382, 471; vengeful-
nese anti-Soviet attitudes, ness, 183-84, 198; intoler-
3,
521, 523; Soviet repudiation ance, 3, 56-57; manipulation
of Mao's position, 525; Al- of people, 4; compared to
banian position, 525-26; Mao, 4; demand for obedi-
 INDEX 697

Stalin, J. V. (ccmt.) Metro, 63, 66; and collec-

ence and faith, 6, 128, 277; tivization, 68-71; and the
as "specialist-eater," 14-15, NKVD, 92-96, 102-4, 181-82,
16-17; accessibility and dem- 527; and Ukrainian horse
ocratic spirit, 23-24, 36-37, sickness, 115; tire industry,
54; and religion, 25, 285; 122-24, 126-27; class ques-
leadership traits admired, tions, 233, 303; postwar agri-
37, 48, 128, 157, 374; and cultural problems, 246-48,
last word of an argument, 251-56; Leningrad Affair,
49, 290-91, 306; conciseness 266-68, 269-73; Doctors' Plot,
of formulations, 52, 293; pa- 302, 305-7; cultural policies,
tience and sympathy, 52- 304; Mingrelian affair, 336
53; in relaxed informal sur-
roimdings, 58; self-control, FOREIGN POLICY, 393, 430; ob-
75, 120; flexibility and rea- session with Eastern Eu-
sonableness, 91; treachery, rope, 393; Czechoslovakia,
98; fear of flying, 123; hunt- 395; "avoidance of pressure
ing and marksmanship, 131, tactics," 397; and Korean
324-25; need for companion- War, 401, 403-5, 406-7; and
ship, 138, 177, 320, 325; cal- Yugoslavia, 409, 410-13, 415;
culatedness, 181; inscrutabil- and discontent leading to
ity, 197, 223, 230; suspicious- Himgarian uprising, 470-71;
ness, 215-16, 273, 319-22, 326, and Farouk of Egypt, 475;
329-30; temper, 223, 246, 306- and Sino-Soviet relations,
7, 308; rudeness, 246, 247, 512; and Mao Tse-tung, 513-
308; sickness begins to en- 16
velop mind 175-76, 262,
of,
272-73, 305, 335; seventieth MILITARY MATTERS, 137-38,
birthday celebration, 263; 176, 179-81, 186; and his
mannerisms, 263; anti-Semi- generals, 85-89, 163, 170-71,
tism, 273, 274-86, 312-13; 181-82, 185-87, 199, 206-7,
paranoia over security leaks, 216; Russo-Finnish War, 160,
289-92; method of dictating 162-65, 166, 167-68; funds for
to stenographer, 292; health arms production, 169; over-
at Nineteenth Congress, 295- estimation of preparedness,
96, 297; brutishness, 308-10, 171; Mekhlis's advice on,
310-12; fear for his life, 317, 174; fear of Hitler's attack,
319-21; and American mo- 178; becomes military strat-
vies, 317; drinking bouts, egist, 180, 186, 195; refuses
322-23, 327; as story-teller, to accept responsibility for
322-23; his lying, 324-25; disasters at Front, 181-82,
vacations, 325-26; growing 192, 197; dependence on
mistnist, 329-30, 382; weak- Cheka for military intel-
ening (physical and mental) ligence, 182; criticism of
during last years, 330; death, Dovzhenko's work, 183-84;
340-45, 346-47; fimeral ar- and Kharkov counteroffen-
rangements and announce- sive, 193-200; and Battle of
ment of death, 350 Stalingrad, 202, 203-4, 209;
centralized control, 202; and
AND ASPECTS OF SOVIET LIFE,
Malinovsky, 213-17; and
119, 120; feeding the citi-
zenry, 56-57; Moscow's pub- Battle of Kursk Salient, 222-
lic toilets, 59; troUey line 23; and capitulation of Ger-
for Moscow, 61; and the many, 230; as depicted in
 ,

698 INDEX
Stalin, J. V. (cont) 49, 339, 376;Molotov, 56, 199,
film Fall of Berlin, 369. See 276, 299, 331-34; Kirov, 57-
also Stalin: world war n, 58; Mikoyan, 70-71, 199, 299-
below 300, 332-34; Beria, 93-94,
100-2, 199, 265, 267, 334-39,
AND PARTY APPARATUS, 1-7, 513-14; Zhukov, 172; Mekh-
42-44; General Line, 38-39, lis, 174; Eisenhower, 232;
42, 44, 47; selecting, limit- Roosevelt, 232; Churchill,
ing, and weighting infor- 232; Truman, 232; Svetlana,
mation for PoHtbureau, 137, 309-13; Vasily (son), 310;
186; and 1946 Central Com- his inner group, 318-28;
mittee Plenum, 248-50; sep- his father (Djugashvili)
aration of Party posts, 254- 323; Voroshilov, 331; Chou
55; absolute authority, 277, En-lai, 405; Mao Tse-t\mg,
279, 294, 297, 300-1, 317, 374, 512-14, 515-16; Ho Chi Minh,
393; expansion of Presidium, 532-33
299-301, 317; leadership dur-
ing last years, 317-18; suc- AS THEORETICIAN, 287-93; Six
cession problems, 377; and Great Conditions, 52; "Diz-
Twentietib Party Congress zy with Success" speech, 68;
exposures, 377-85; and fra- and anti-Semitism, 280; in
ternal Parties, 389-92, 394; linguistics, 286-88; econom-
and Polish Party, 390, 391- ic theories,287-89; and secu-
92; and Czech Party, 394-95 rity leaks of his formula-
tions, 289-93; and the last
AND PARTY CONGRESSES: Four- word on theoretical matters,
teenth (1925), 23; Fifteenth 290-91
(1927), 25-28; Sixteenth
(1929), 39; and Baimaan Dis- AND WORLD WAR n: and Rib-
trict Conference, 40, 41; Sev- bentrop-Molotov Pact, 131-
enteenth (1934), 51; Nine- 33; realization of inevitabil-
teenth (1952), 287-88, 294-95; ity, 136-37; reaction to fall
Twentieth (1956), 371-85 of France, 138-39; reaction
passim to Hitler's brazenness, 139-
40; and German pressure on
AND PURGES, 5, 6, 7, 28, 30,
44-45, 73-89, 92; Kirov, 73-
Ukraine, 142-43; and con-
75; Ordzhonikidze, 84; Old version of railroad track
Guard of Red Army, 85-89 gauge, 143; and annexation
of Baltic republics, 156;
quoted: on specialization, 37; and Russo-Finnish War,
on higher education, 38-39; 160; and supervision of
on air force in Winter War, munition and equipment
164; on the Jews, 279; on manufacture, 168-69; and
his first exile, 322-23; on his the Allies, 232-39; postwar
father, 323; on Malenkov,
aid to fraternal coiuitries,
348; on imperialist powers,
246, 389-91, 392
429
Stalin, Svetlana. .Sec AUilu-
RELATIONSHIPS WITH: Na- yeva, Svetlana
dezhda AUiluyeva (wife), Stalin, Vasily (son), 269, 310-
44-45, 58, 310; Lenin's sister 11
and widow, 45-47; Leninism, Stalin, Yakov (son), 310
47-48, 51; Kaganovich, 47- Stalin Automobile Factory, 278
 INDEX 699

Stalin Industrial Academy. Teheran, 233, 234-35

See Industrial Academy Ternopol, 144, 177
Stalingrad, 180, 187, 190, 224, terror, Stalinist, 77, 81, 373;
520; Battle of, 200-11, 269; and Beria's influence, 97-
German losses, 211-12 103, 372-73
Stalino. See Yuzovka Thirtieth Aviation Factory,
Stalinovarash, Himgary, 470 268, 279
Starchenko (Ukrainian agri- 38th parallel, Korea, 404
cultural expert), 245 Timashuk, Lydia, 301, 302, 303,
starvation, 13-14, 67-68 305
state farms, 254, 423-24; as Timoshenko, S. K., 138, 141,
model for Egyptian agricul- 142, 158, 164; People's
144,
tiural reform, 496-98 Commissar of Defense, 167,
State Planning Commission, 171, 173; and Kharkov oper-
257, 267, 295, 425; and As- ation. World War
II, 192-93,
wan Dam, 486 196, 197, 200
Stramentov (city administra- tire industry, 122-28
tor), 390, 391 Tito, Josip Broz, 373, 408-28;
Strazhesky, Dr., 305 as partisan leader against
strikes, 69, 75; in Donbass, 285 Hitler, 409; visit to Ukraine,
Stroganov (Ukrainian Party 409-11; attempts to normal-
official), 30 ize relations with, 413-15,
Strokach, T. A., 356 419-20, 466-67, 477; leads
Suez Canal, 492, 499; nation- delegation to USSR, 420-21;
alization of, 479, 483 economic policies, 421-22;
Suez crises: (1958), 435; (1956), agricultural collectivization,
454, 474-83 423-24; leadership traits ad-
Sukhumi, 326, 329, 347, 353-55 mired, 425; and tourism,
Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 425-28; and Hungarian up-
155 rising, 462-64, 465-67; meets
Suslov, MikhaU A., 308, 412, with Khrushchev, 462-67,
458 480-81; and Nasser, 477, 478,
Sverdlovsk, 449 480-81, 485-86; and Albanian
Svoboda, L., 397-99 Party, 526-27
Switzerland, 441. See also Tolbukhin, F. I., 219
Geneva tourism, 425-28
Syria, 435, 484, 485. See also trade, 418-19, 439, 482; with
United Arab Republic Yugoslavia, 466; and Miko-
Syrtsov, S., 28, 39, 385 yan's mission to US (1962),
541
Tabakov (of Industrial Acad- Transcarpathian Ukraine, 155.
emy), 40 See also Ukraine
Tadzhikistan, 494 Traskunov (Ukrainian jour-
Taganrog, 12 nalist), 258
Talleyrand, quoted, 511 travel, 573-77
Taman army, 87 Treivas (Youth League lead-
Taman Peninsula, 12 er), 82
tanks, 119, 180; T-34's, 169,
trolley line, Moscow, 60-61
185, 223; German Tigers, 223
Tanner, Vaino, 158 Trotsky, Leon, 15, 24, 25, 71,
Tartars, Crimean, 276 78, 82, 330
Tashkent, 269 Trotskyites, 28, 39; in Ukraine,
Tblisi, 568 32;and collectivization, 71;
technology, 16, 567-68 and Kirov's murder, 74-75
700 INDEX

Truman, Harry S., 232; Khru- 22, 23, 88, 92, 106, 184, 281;
shchev's evaluation of, 393 Central Committee, 29, 90,
Tsaritsa River, 202-3 105-6, 107, 177, 255; organi-
Tsaritsyn. See Stalingrad zational shakeup in, 106-7;
Tsybin, General, 463 purge of, 107-18 passim;
Tu-104 (jet passenger plane), postwar reorganization of,
445 242-43, 255; Politbureau, 257;
Tukhachevsky, M., 85, 92, 170 and Beria, 355-57
Turkey, 336, 565; American Ulan Bator-Peking road, 517
missile bases in, 546 Ulbricht, Walter, 217, 218-19,
Turkmenistan, 494 502, 503-4; and Berlin Wall,
Twentieth Party Congress, 88- 504
89, 370-85, 512; rehabilita- Ulyanova, Maria Ilinichna
tion of Stalin's victims, 2, (Lenin's sister), 45, 46
5, 187; investigation of Sta- underdeveloped nations. See
linist repression preceding, emerging countries
374-77, 377-78, 379; and Gen- United Arab Republic, 484,
eral Report, 376, 381; deci- 485, 489
sion to acknowledge Stalin's United Nations, 116, 332;
abuses at, 377-82, 520; Khru- Khrushchev-led delegation
shchev's Secret Speech at, to General Assembly, 434;
383-85, 608-77; implications and Suez crisis (1956), 479-
for Chinese Party, 520 80,482; and Six-Day War
Twenty-first Party Congress, (1967), 499; and Cuban cri-
381 sis (1962), 546
Twenty-second Party Con- United States, 139, 332; and
gress, 508-9, 525 World War II allies, 235-
36, 237; postwar relations
U Thant, 499 with, 393-94; and Korean
U-2 affair, 213, 507; and Cuba, War, 401, 404; and Yugo-
554 slavia, 416, 418, 425; trade
Uglanov, N. A., 38, 40, 41, 69 agreements with bloc coun-
Ukraine, 86, 90-92, 105-18, 239, tries, 418-19; and Geneva
275; nationalist elements in, simmiit, 431, 432; and As-
32, 146-48, 149-50, 183, 228, wan Dam, 479; and Suez
243-44, 258; collectivization crisis (1956), 478-81; and
controversy, 70; famine in, Iraq, 484; and Berlin cri-
70, 241-60; repression in, ses, 507-10; and Vietnam,
106-18 Tpassim; agriculture 531, 535; and Castro, 543-46,
in. 111, 242, 243-44, 395, 409; 556; and Soviet missiles in
horse sickness in^ 112-15; Cuba, 546-55; missile bases
German pressure in, World in Europe, 546, 547, 560;
War n, 140-44; and Ribben- as superpower, 560; court-
trop-Molotov Pact, 142-44, ing of Afghanistan, 560-62;
145; unification of, 144-50; foreign aid program, 560-
sovietization of, 150-55; Ger- 61; and
ideological differ-
man invasion of, 179-80, 192- ences, 562-64; and Soviet
93; Tito's visit to, 409-10. nuclear feats, 567-69; mili-
See also Kiev tary spending, 570-71
"Ukraine in Flames, The" United States Air Force, 227,
(scenario), 183-84 393-94; in Korean War, 405
Ukrainian Academy of Sci- Urals, 120, 252, 520
ences, 32, 121 Usenko (Ukrainian Youth
Ukrainian Commimist Party, League worker), 95
 INDEX 701

XJspensk, 30 erals, 170; and Stalin's the-

Uspensky, A, I., 94-96, 110, oretical works, 288-89, 291;
112, 114, 116 fall from grace, 299; and
Uzbekistan, 494 Presidium Bureau, 299, 331;
Uzhgorod, 466 vacations in Sochi, 326; and
Stalin's inner circle, 331; and
Valdai sector, 190 Stalin's death, 342; and post-
Varentsov, S. S., 226 Stalin power struggle, 350;
VasUenko, V. K., 305 and Beria, 353, 359, 362-
Vasilevsky, A. M., 194, 207-8 63, 364; and pre-Twentieth
Vatutin, N. F., 187, 222, 398 Congress investigation into
Veklishev (armed forces secu- Stalinist repression, 375; and
rity officer), 70 acknowledgment of Stalin's
Verkhne-Tsaritsjmsk, 217 abuses, 378, 379-80; bio-
Vertinsky (Ukrainian acade- graphical sketch, 604-5
mician), 115 Voznesensky, N. A., 261, 266-
Vienna, 457; in Potsdam deci- 68, 271-72
sion, 236; Kennedy-Khru- Vukmanovic-Tempo, Svetozar,
shchev meeting, 507 416-17
Vietnam, 531-39, 557; pre- Vyshinsky, A. Y., 332
Geneva Conference meeting
in Moscow (1954), 533-34; Warsaw, postwar res-
148, 392;
17th parallel, 534; pro-Chi- torationof municipal ser-
nese elements in, 536-37; vices, 390-91
relations with USSR, 537- Warsaw Pact, 419, 457, 503
39; Khrushchev's predictions Washington, D.C., 433
about, 536-39; Soviet eco- Wassilewska, Eva, 152
nomic and military aid to, Wassilewska, Wanda Lvovna,
538-39; "reorientation" of 151-52, 263
policies toward USSR, 538 West Berlin, 437, 500-2, 503,
Vietnamese Laborers' Party: 504, 506; access to East Ber-
and the Chinese, 536, 537; lin, 503; and establishment
and Soviet- Vietnamese re- of border control (Berlin
lations, 537 WaU), 504
Vinchenko (author), 43 West Germany, 427, 500, 502-
Vinitsa region, 112 3, 569; economic
achieve-
Vinogradov, V. N., 305, 306 ment, 505; American mis-
Virgin Lands campaign, 371, sile bases in, 546
424 Western Ukraine, 143-49; and
Vladivostok, 213, 522, 524 Nazi-Soviet Pact, 144, 148-
Vlasov, A. A., 189-90 49, 152; sovietization of, 150-
Volga River, 201, 203 55. See also Ukraine
Vologda Province, 323 Western Ukrainian Party, 107.
Voronezh, 180, 224 See also Ukrainian Conunu-
Voronov, G. I., 207 nist Party
Voroshilov, K. E., 74, 78, 158, White Guardists, 12, 14, 86,
160, and Ribbentrop-
309; 290, 303
Molotov Pact, 130, 132; and White Russia. See Belorussia
Russo -Finnish War, 164; re- Wilson, Charles E., 319
lieved as Commissar of De- Wilson, Harold, 452
fense, 163, 167, 169; respon- Winter War (1939). See Rus-
sibility for arms production, so-Finnish War
167, 169-70; and pre-World work stoppages. See strikes
War nelimination of gen- working class, 5, 324, 562-
702 INDEX

working class (cont.) 18; postwar So\net aid in

64; and Hungarian uprising, reconstruction, 411; anti-
458, 459, 461; and Mao Tse- Soviet line, 411; economy,
tung, 513 412; So\'iet ad\dsors re-
World War I, 86, 132, 198, 212, called, 411; attempts to liq-
214, 547 uidate hostility with, 412-
World War H, 6, 12, 127, 178, 13; So\iet commission to
547; and purge of generals, ascertain qualifications as
85-89; tank production, 120; Socialist state, 413; US
and Stalin, 132-33, 136-37, economic aid, 416, 425; So-
138-39 (see aho Stalin, viet economic cooperation,
J. V.) first German attacks
; 418, 419-20; trade with
on Russia, 177-78; Allies in, West, 419; independent for-
231-40; unifying aspects for eign policy, 419-20; recip-
Soviet society, 244. See also rocal visits of leadership,
Operation Barbarossa; So- 420-21; economic reforms,
viet-German relations 421-23; agricultural policy,
Writers' Union, 183 423-24; central planning,
425; and tourism, 425-26;
Yagoda, G. G., 54, 92, 109-10, approach to border control,
384 426-27;and Hungarian up-
Yakir, General, 86, 88 rising, 459, 461-64, 465-
Yakovlev (Epstein), Y. A., 25- 66; So\'iet commitment to
26, 97-98 principle of noninterference
Yakovlev, Y. F. (artillery in internal affairs of, 466-
commander), 144 67; and Nasser, 477-78, 483,
Yalta, 237, 395 484; Ambassador Yudin in,
Yaroslavl tire factory, 124-26 515
Yaroslavsk>% Emelyan, 80-81 Yuzovka (Stalino: Donetsk),
Yegorov, Marshal, 86 18, 20, 29-30, 32, 283-85
24,
Yemen, 442 Yuzovka Metal Facton,-, 441
Yenukidze, A. S., 83 Yuzovka Part>'' organization,
Yepishev, A. A., 119 21-22, 23
Yeremenko, A, I., 181, 190, Yuzovka Workers' Faculty', 21,
200, 203-11 passim 33, 37, 258
Yezhov, N. L, 92-93, 101. 167,
384; downfall of, 93-97 Zakharov, M. V., 204
youth: Hungarian, 459; Chi- Zapotock>', Antonin. 396
nese, 529. See also Kom- Zavenyagin, A. P., 21
somol Za\idova, 130
Youth League Ninety-Three, Zemlvachka, R. S., 81
82 Zhdanov. A. A., 139. 160. 175.
Yudin, P. F., 411, 515-16. 521 241, 261, 266, 2^6, 322: and
Yugoslav Communist Partv% Doctors' Plot 301. 302. 303-
409; anti-So\'iet line, 411; 4, 305; and Stalin's cultural
and Khrushchev-led dele- policies, 304
gation to Belgrade, 414-15; Zhdanov, Y. A., 313
position at Part\' Confer- Zhemchuzhina (Molotov's
ences (1957 and 1960), 420; wife), 274-77
aloofness, 420: and Hungar- Zhivkov, T., 462
ian uprising, 461-65 Zhukov, G. K., 167. 171-72,
Yugosla\ia, 155. 408- 373. 173, 520, 567: during World
28: Khrushchev-led dele- War n, 187, 195. 200. 224
gation to (1955), 409, 414- 22-9-30; and detention of
 INDEX 703

Zhukov, G. K. (cont.) Zinovlevites (Leningrad oppo-

Beria, 364, 366; at Geneva sition), 25, 27, 28, 39; and
summit, 435-36; biographi- failure of collectivization,
cal sketch, 605-7 71
Zhuravlev, A. G., 123, 226 Zionists, American, 276, 277,
Zinoviev, G. E., 24-25, 26, 71, 278
272, 330; in purge, 78; re- Zola, Emile, his Germinal, 21
habilitation of, 385
 —
Edward Crankshaw who has provided a general in-
troduction, commentary and notes for KHRUSHCHEV
REMEMBERS—has been closely identified with Rus-
sian affairs for the past twenty-five years. He has
visited Russia and Eastern Europe frequently, until
1968 principally as correspondent for the observer. In
addition to a biography of Khrushchev, published in
1966, he is the author of Cracks in the Kremlin Wall,
Russia Without Stalin and Khrushchev's Russia.

Strobe Talbott is a graduate of Yale and presently a

Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, where he is working on an
advanced degree in nineteenth- and twentieth-century
literature.
 One of the
great personal and
historical documents
of our time.

736 pages *275,000 words * 32 pages of fascinating photo-

graphs—many previously unpubHshed in book form in the
U.S. * A Book-of -the- Month Chib Selection * 35,000
words serialized in Life magazine ^ A hardcover sensa-
tion at $10.00 .

often is his familiar earthy self, flailing at Stalin ( and pay-

ing off old party scores ) again justifying his brashest, most
,

dangerous maneuvers, preening himself over Eisenhower,

Dulles, Mao and Malenkov, warm but a mite condescend-
ing on J.F.K. and R.F.K a fascinating document which
"gives us a Hogarthian picture of Russian life at the top
unde^-S^^alin, under Khrushchev, and as it is today. .a .

valuable testament in the history of Russian Communism

. .Page after p^^e of backstairs kitchen gossip
.
com-
. . .

plete with a marvMcms album of family snapshots."

-Harrison E. SaIisbu]^j^^e New York Times Book Review