Table Of Content01.Khrushchev Front Matter 11/15/04 1:44 PM Page i
memoirs of nikita khrushchev
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Memoirs of
Nikita Khrushchev
volume 1
c o m m i s s a r
[ ]
1918–1945
Edited by
Sergei Khrushchev
Memoirs translated byGeorge Shriver
Supplementary material translated byStephen Shenfield
The Thomas J.Watson Jr.Institute for International Studies
brown university • providence • rhode island
the pennsylvania state university press • university park • pennsylvania
01.Khrushchev Front Matter 11/15/04 1:44 PM Page iv
Disclaimer:
Some images in the original version of this book are not
available for inclusion in the eBook.
The translation and publication ofthe memoirs in this edition have been made possible
through funding provided by the Martha and Artemis Joukowsky Family Foundation,
David Rockefeller Sr.,David Rockefeller Jr.,Timothy Forbes and the Forbes Foundation,
the Kairis family,the Donald R.Sohn Foundation,the Carnegie Corporation ofNew York,
Harry Orbelian ofSan Francisco,Edward H.Ladd ofBoston,and the
Thomas J.Watson Jr.Institute for International Studies ofBrown University.
The donors do not take responsibility for any statements or views expressed in this work.
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Khrushchev,Nikita Sergeevich,1894–1971.
[Vremia,liudi,vlast’.English]
Memoirs ofNikita Khrushchev / editor,Sergei Khrushchev ;main translator,George Shriver.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:v.1.Commissar,1918–1945
isbn0-271-02332-5(alk.paper)
1.Khrushchev,Nikita Sergeevich,1894–1971.2.Heads ofstate—Soviet Union—
Biography.3.Soviet Union—Politics and government—1953–1985.
I.Khrushchev,Sergei. II.Title.
dk275.k5a32004
947.085’2’092—dc21
2003007060
The complete memoirs on which this translation is based were originally published in Russian
in four volumes as N.S.Khrushchev: Vremia,liudi,vlast’,by Moskovskiye Novosti.
Copyright 1999by Moskovskiye Novosti.
Copyright © 2005The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
Published by the pennsylvania state university press,
University Park,PA 16802-1003
It is the policy ofthe pennsylvania state university pressto use acid-free paper.
Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements ofAmerican National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence ofPaper for Printed Library Material,ansi z39.48–1992.
01.Khrushchev Front Matter 11/15/04 1:44 PM Page v
Contents
Translator’s Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Editor’s Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
The Baldest and the Boldest
Andrei Bitov. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxi
Abbreviations and Acronyms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxvi
Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
the memoirs
The Beginning ofthe Road
A Little About Myself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Fourteenth Party Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
A Few Words About the NEP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
The Fourteenth Party Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The Move to Kharkov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The Move to Kiev. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
At the Industrial Academy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Personal Acquaintance with Stalin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Moscow Workdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
The Kirov Assassination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Some Consequences ofthe Kirov Assassination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
In Ukraine Again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Ukraine–Moscow (Crossroads ofthe 1930s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
The Second World War Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
The Beginning ofthe Second World War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Events on the Eve ofWar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
The Great Patriotic War
The Difficult Summer of1941. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
People and Events ofSummer and Fall 1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
1942:From Winter to Summer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
By the Ruins ofStalingrad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Turn ofthe Tide at Stalingrad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
01.Khrushchev Front Matter 11/15/04 1:44 PM Page vi
The Road to Rostov. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
Before the Battle ofKursk and at Its Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
To the Dnieper! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534
Kiev Is Ours Again! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
We Liberate Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584
Forward to Victory! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614
Postwar Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
The Far East After the Great Patriotic War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 678
War Memoirs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 698
appendixes
A Short Biography ofN.S.Khrushchev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707
The Khrushchev Family Line:A Historical Note
L.Lasochko. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709
The History ofthe Creation and Publication ofthe Khrushchev
Memoirs,1967–1999
Sergei Khrushchev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
Conversation with N.S.Khrushchev at the Party Control Committee. . . . . . 827
Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 844
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 911
01.Khrushchev Front Matter 11/15/04 1:44 PM Page vii
Translator’s Preface
this is a translation of Volume 1 of the four-volume complete edition of
the memoirs (Vospominaniia) ofNikita Khrushchev (Moscow:Moskovskiye
Novosti [Moscow News] Publishing Company, 1999, 848 pp.). The title in
Russian, Vremia, liudi, vlast’ (literally, “Time, people, power”), rendered
more freely,suggests “The Times and People I Have Known,and My Years in
Power.”
Dr. Sergei Khrushchev of Brown University, son of Nikita Khrushchev,
has been the editor of this English edition.I have translated the main text,
and Stephen Shenfield has translated the supplementary material,as well as
the notes from the Russian edition and the photo captions. For American
readers—or more broadly, for readers in the English-speaking world—
explanatory notes have been added that were not in the Russian edition.Some
ofthese notes were written by Sergei Khrushchev (SK),and some by Stephen
Shenfield (SS),or by me (GS)—in consultation with Dr.Khrushchev.
Certain materials in this English edition did not appear in the Russian
version,while some parts ofthe Russian edition were omitted.In the Editor’s
Foreword,Dr.Khrushchev specifies what was added or left out.
This first volume,I think,will be ofinterest to the general reader,not just
the specialist. It tells far more about the author’s life during the 1920s and
1930s,and through World War II,than did Khrushchev Remembers, a selec-
tion from these memoirs that was published in 1970.I make this point,not
to derogate Khrushchev Remembers, but to stress the much fuller picture of
the author’s life that is presented in this edition.
Although times have changed, many readers in the English-speaking
world will find this more complete version of the Soviet leader’s memoirs
still of interest. After all, Nikita Khrushchev is remembered by many as
America’s “main enemy” in the first post-Stalin decade of the Cold War
(roughly 1954–1964),especially in a number of Cold War crises.Many recall
the incident when he reportedly pounded his shoe at the United Nations.
(An Appendix in a later volume explains this incident.) Also frequently
remembered is the notorious quotation,“We will bury you” (Khrushchev
discusses this unfortunate phrase in his account of his 1959 visit to the
United States,which will appear in Volume 3ofthe present edition).
More important, Nikita Khrushchev is remembered as the Soviet leader
who denounced Stalin in 1956 and began a process of “de-Stalinization,”
[ ]
01.Khrushchev Front Matter 11/15/04 1:44 PM Page viii
’
which ultimately led to Gorbachev and perestroika.The many readers curi-
ous about what the Soviet Union was and what went on in its internal life,
what Stalinism was,how it arose and operated,and what contributed to “de-
Stalinization”will find much material to ponder in this first volume of the
memoirs.
Despite the truism about translation—“If it’s faithful, it isn’t beauti-
ful”––our policy has been to stay very close to the Russian original.And we
have sought to retain the informal, “storytelling” tone generally used by
N. S. Khrushchev when he taped these memoirs, often in the presence of
friends or family to whom he was recounting what he remembered (and
what he did not),usually without references to published sources or archival
documents, and with frequent digressions, as might occur with anyone
retelling “the story ofmy life.”
Nikita Khrushchev had a very good memory (as described in Sergei
Khrushchev’s “The History ofthe Creation and Publication ofthe Khrushchev
Memoirs [1967–1999]” elsewhere in this volume), and his account of events
generally seems to be accurate.Here we are speaking not ofhis interpretations,
but of the chronology of events,what happened and when.Notes have been
added where his recollection or understanding offacts is clearly in error.
Researchers consulting the four-volume Russian edition or the original
tape recordings archived at several locations can easily see instances in
which we may have departed a little from the original for the purpose of
making the text more readable or clearer for English-language readers.
Although the responsibility for the final wording of the translation is
mine, I wish to acknowledge several individuals who helped in various
aspects ofproducing the final translation.In addition to indispensable input
by Sergei Khrushchev, I wish to thank Stephen Shenfield and Ann Farkas,
the copy editor, for many helpful suggestions (although I did not always
take them). Also I wish to thank Dara Noyes, Todd Miller, Alice Whitten-
burg,and Alicja Mann.
Spelling ofRussian Names
In Volume 1 we have used, and propose to use in all volumes, the more
familiar and readable forms of Russian names (rather than employing
across the board the Library of Congress system of transliteration). This
way ofspelling Russian names is more accessible to the general reader.
For example,most newspapers,magazines,and books in English that are
aimed at the general reader will speak of the notorious Beria (which the
Library ofCongress system would spell as “Beriia”).
[ ]
01.Khrushchev Front Matter 11/15/04 1:44 PM Page ix
’
Another example is a family name of some prominence in Soviet history,
the Alliluyevs. Stalin married Nadezhda Alliluyeva, and in these memoirs
Nikita Khrushchev tells about her tragic death. Svetlana Alliluyeva, the
daughter of Nadezhda and Stalin, attracted considerable attention in the
late 1960s when she left the Soviet Union and eventually became an Ameri-
can citizen. The name is generally recognized in English in the form given
above—Alliluyev for male members of the family, Alliluyeva for female
members.But the Library of Congress system would inadequately represent
the name as “Alliluev.”This is like spelling “Hallelujah”without the j.
We have generally used -y- rather than -ii,-yi,or other variants,and gen-
erally have not used diacritical marks to indicate the “soft sound”or “hard
sound”in Russian.The Russian letter called “ee kratkoye”has usually been
transliterated as i.
Thus, we have Vyshinsky, Tukhachevsky, Rokossovsky, and Malinovsky
(not “Vyshinskii,”“Tukhachevskii,”“Rokossovskii,”or “Malinovskii”),Yagoda,
Yezhov, and Mikoyan (not “Iagoda,”“Ezhov,”or “Mikoian”), Biryuzov and
Blyukher (not “Biriuzov”or “Bliukher”),Penkovsky,Rozengolts,and Vasil-
kovsky (not “Pen’kovskii,” “Rozengol’ts,” or “Vasil’kovskii”), Sergei (not
“Sergey”),Demyan Bedny (not “Dem’ian Bednyi”),Yuzovka (not “Iuzovka”),
and so on.
On the other hand,in a few cases the title of a publication in Russian may
be given according to the Library ofCongress system as an aid to readers seek-
ing that publication in a library catalogue. Note, however, that the spelling
Izvestia is used for the main Soviet government newspaper, rather than
Izvestiyaor Izvestiia.
Also,in some cases,we have used -yo- rather than -e- or -ë- to render a
letter of the Russian alphabet that is spelled like an e but pronounced like
“yoh.”For example,Budyonny (rather than “Budennyi”) and the river Psyol
(rather than Psel). Also the spelling Oryol is used (rather than “Orel”) for
the city whose name in Russian means “eagle” and which is pronounced
“or-YOL”(with the stress on the second syllable). Of course, Khrushchev’s
name itself contains this letter e that is pronounced “yoh”(or “oh”),but to
render his name,as some do,with the spelling Khrushchov is not advisable.
The familiar form ofthe spelling is the one used.
As an exception to our general transliteration style,the names oftsars are
Anglicized––for example, Tsar Alexander, Nicholas II, Peter the Great. (We
use the spelling tsar rather than czar.) Similar exceptions to our translitera-
tion style occur in the case of well-known individuals, the spellings of
whose names have become established in English––for instance,Leo Tolstoy
[ ]
Description:Nikita Khrushchev's proclamation from the floor of the United Nations that 'we will bury you' is one of the most chilling and memorable moments in the history of the Cold War, but from the Cuban Missile Crisis to his criticism of the Soviet ruling structure late in his career the motivation for Khru
