ABSTRACT
Khrushchev occupies a very special place in the roll call of leaders of the USSR. He was the only leader to be removed from power. He was the only leader to write his memoirs with the USSR still in existence. He witnessed his disappearance from official discourse and, unlike some other similarly deposed ‘liberal leaders’ of the communist bloc, did not live long enough to return to the political scene as communism Soviet-style collapsed. Khrushchev also faced the unenviable task of leading the USSR post-Stalin. How would such a leader, any leader, deal with Stalin’s legacy, from Stalin the person to his remarkable policies, including industrialization, collectivization, the Great Terror, and the spreading of the Soviet Empire during and after the Second World War? Reaching a historical recognition and balance sheet of the Stalin era while taking the USSR into a post-Stalin period of development was quite an agenda. It was furthermore an agenda that could not be approached in a scholarly, ‘objective’ manner, but one that was conditioned by current politics, both domestic and foreign. This chapter will examine how Khrushchev dealt with the complex problem of establishing a post-Stalin leadership, or, to borrow again from recent British political discourse, of creating a ‘New Soviet Communism’. It will begin with an exposition of Khrushchev’s views on leadership expressed when he was First Secretary. The case against Khrushchev’s leadership advanced by colleagues in the upper echelons of the Soviet elite will then be outlined. A historiographical survey will investigate how analysts of East and West have judged Khrushchev’s leadership. We will then return to Khrushchev through the complete version of his memoirs that became available only after communism’s collapse. These offer a credible, if overlooked, account of Khrushchev as leader.
