Description
Book SynopsisKhrushchev recounts how he became politically active as a young worker in Ukraine, how he climbed the ladder of power under Stalin to occupy leading positions in Ukraine and Moscow, and how as a military commissar he experienced the war against the Nazi invaders. His sincere reflections add to the value of this personal and historical document.
Trade Review“Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most important political leaders of the twentieth century. Without his memoirs, neither the rise and fall of the Soviet Union nor the history of the Cold War can be fully understood. By dictating his memoirs and publishing them in the West, Khrushchev transformed himself from the USSR’s leader to one of its first dissidents. His remarkably candid recollections were a harbinger of glasnost to come. Like virtually all memoirs, his have a personal and political agenda, but even what might be called Khrushchev’s ‘myth of himself’ is vital for understanding how this colorful figure could place his contradictory stamp on his country and the world. The fact that the full text of Khrushchev’s memoirs will now be available in English is cause for rejoicing.”
—William Taubman,winner of the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for his book Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
“One of the most extraordinary archives of the twentieth century”
—Strobe Talbott,former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
“Khrushchev had a remarkable memory, and although the style and broad outline of what he has to say will be familiar to those who read the original two-volume English version issued in the early 1970s, the detail he provides here, particularly on the war, adds a great deal.”
—Robert Legvold Foreign Affairs
“But his personal slant, conveyed in the World War II memoirs that make up half of this huge book, is important for understanding the political atmosphere during that colossal struggle. And the detail of his recall, without notes or references, is extraordinary.”
—Robert V. Daniels The New Leader
“Sergei Khrushchev (Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute, Brown Univ.) has edited an exquisitely detailed, amply documented, remarkably translated first volume of a proposed three-volume translation of his father’s memoirs, based on the four-volume Russian edition of 1999.”
—C.W. Haury Choice
“There is a lot less high politics here than one would expect. Khrushchev’s focus is very often on chance encounters and small vignettes, often told at great length, rather than on reflections on the ‘big picture’ or revelations about key historical events. Yet it is this above all else that makes this work so readable, for it allows Khrushchev’s personality to come through in the text in all its contradictions and complexity.”
—William Tompson Political Science Quarterly
“This volume far exceeds in detail earlier editions of the Khrushchev memoirs and for readers of this journal especially, his observations of the war years are intriguing.”
—Paule Wanke Journal of Military History
“Like all memoirs, this book has to be read with caution. This is a product of the love of Khrushchev’s son, Sergei, and it permeates the book. He has gone to great lengths to get this book published and keep the legacy of his father alive. As a result, the book is a s complete as one can hope. Inevitably there is also a negative side. Khrushchev’s role in the Stalinist terror in Ukraine, for example, is not discussed. Even the index uses a conditional statement: ‘Khrushchev’s alleged purging’ in Ukraine (p.932). Despite this and other shortcomings, this is a book of enormous importance that no one interested in the Soviet Union can afford to miss.”
—Hiroaki Kuromiya Harvard Ukainian Studies
Table of ContentsContents
Captions to Photographs
Translators Preface
Editors Foreword
Andrei Bitov. The Baldest and the Boldest
Abbreviations and Acronyms
The Memoirs
Prologue
Part I. The Beginning of the Road
A Little About Myself
The Fourteenth Party Conference
A Few Words About the NEP
The Fifteenth Party Congress
The Move to Kharkov
The Move to Kiev
At the Industrial Academy
Personal Acquaintance with Stalin
Moscow Workdays
The Kirov Assassination
Some Consequences of the Kirov Assassination
In the Ukraine Again
The Ukraine-Moscow (Crossroads of the 1930s)
The Second World War Approaches
The Beginning of the Second World War
Events on the Eve of War
Part II. The Great Patriotic War
The Difficult Summer of 1941
People and Events of Summer and Fall 1941
1942: From Winter to Summer
By the Ruins of Stalingrad
Turn of the Tide at Stalingrad
The Road to Rostov
Before the Battle of Kursk and at Its Beginning
To the Dnieper!
Kiev Is Ours Again!
We Liberate the Ukraine
Forward to Victory!
Postwar Reflections
The Far East After the Great Patriotic War
War Memoirs
Appendices
A Short Biography of N. S. Khrushchev
L. Lasochko. The Khrushchev Family Line: A Historical Note
Sergei Khrushchev. The History of the Creation and Publication of the Khrushchev
Memoirs (1967-1999)
Conversation with N. S. Khrushchev at the Party Control Committee
Biographies
Index
