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Title: Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman ISBN: 0-393-05144-7 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: March, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (30 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Superb Biography Of Stalin
Comment: No one is less understood in the so-called Western democracies than former Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, who assumed the reins following the death of long-time ruler Joseph Stalin under somewhat mysterious circumstances in 1953. One of the reasons he is so poorly understood and appreciated not only here in the West but within greater Russia itself is largely due to the internal contradictions that marked his many-starred career as Soviet apparatchik and eventual ascension to the seat of power. After all, he rose due largely to the sponsorship and special status he held with Stalin himself, a man noted for his treachery and endless paranoid actions against enemies and allies alike. With this book, entitled "Khrushchev: The Man And His Era", we are presented with what is by far the most comprehensive, nuanced and carefully researched biographical effort to date. Indeed, this wonderful study by acclaimed history scholar, Professor William Taubman of Amherst College, in Amherst Massachusetts will likely become the benchmark study by which all others are henceforth compared.
Given his long association with Stalin, and having been complicit with all of the atrocities associated with the Stalinist era, including thousands of politically motivated arrests, executions, and deportations to the endless locations within the Gulag, as well as his well-known public endorsements of Stalin and his policies, it may be hard to understand how the same man could so quickly rebound to the other end of the ball park in terms of his subsequent harsh and quite critical public denouncements of the policies of the years under Stalin. Indeed, it was Khrushchev who more than anyone else within the Politburo who dared to reveal to the public the sheer scope and scale of Stalin's crimes against the Soviet people, using the shocking revelations as a political screen for the introduction of a wide series of reforms that began to allow the emergence of a rudimentary smattering of civil society where none had been allowed before. In this sense, Taubman maintains that Khrushchev deserves historical credit for having originated the beginnings of a thaw in Cold War relations that would eventually lead to the policy of "perestroika" under Mikhail Gorbachev three decades later.
However, this is not to suggest that Nikita Khrushchev boldly walked away from the policies instituted by Stalin into the cold light of another, more enlightened era in Soviet politics. Instead, he moved quite cautiously and with great care and aplomb amid the swirling quicksilver currents of Politburo politics, having learned from personal experience what it takes to survive in such a Machiavellian environment. What he had was a natural gift for political compromise and accommodating his colleagues; without it this rough and tumble man who was so limited in terms of education would not have survived in the murderous political atmosphere of the soviet Union in the Stalin years. His intellectual limitations made him less suspect in Stalin's eye, however, and Khrushchev later took particualr delight in embarrassing and even persecuting the better-educated elements of the intelligentsia. His poor stumbling efforts at public speaking belied his cleverness and political adroitness in dealing with comrades and enemies alike. In one amusing passage one of his successors, Leonid Brezhnev, complaining aloud to other Politburo members of how difficult a man to deal with Nikita could be; crocodile tears shed in the company of other reptiles.
Khrushchev was in many ways unprepared to be launched onto the international scene in terms of his native abilities or his legendary difficulty with elocution in particular or public oratory in general. Neither was he particularly adept at the more theoretical and intellectual aspects of ruling the Soviet Union. Bu the was easily the single best choice the Politburo had in terms of who to forward as the front man for the years immediately following Stalin's demise, and he provided the Soviet Union with the necessary leadership to survive the decade of the fifties and was quietly shelved in a bloodless removal n the early 1960s. This is a superb historical biography of one of the most enigmatic and least well understood public figures of the 20th century. This is surely a biography that will enjoy a long and sustained readership. Enjoy!
Rating: 5
Summary: Absolutely brilliant.
Comment: One of the less commented upon consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union--an event that, in many ways, Nikita Khruschev set in motion--is the access into Russian documents and society the event has provided to historians trying to understand and document various aspects of the Soviet Communist experience. It is unlikely a book such as this could ever have been written before the collapse. One can only hope many more like it are in the offing.
Using access to documentation about and personalities surrounding Khruschev, Professor Taubman has written what will surely stand as the definitive Khruschev biography for a long time to come. Professor Taubman has vividly captured the essence of Khruschev-the insecure bombastic and idiosyncratic nature of this truly unique historical figure who owed both his rise as well as his fall to his love-hate relationship with Stalin, the man who he supported wholeheartedly and then denounced and debunked. The boo does a marvelous job of providing an insight into the truly ethnic Russian aspects of Khruschev's personality and behavior-his passions, his profanity, his impulsiveness-aspects that at once render him all too human in both genuinely sympathetic and concomitantly repulsive ways.
Khrushchev represents an intermediary between the cult-of-personality communism of Lenin and Stalin and the more corporate, politburo oriented communism of the Brezhnev/Andropov era. Professor Taubman also provides clear-cut and insightful analysis of Khrushchev's role in this area as well. Moreover, all of this is deftly presented within the context of the wider Soviet and international political events of the times.
Well written and very well paced for a genuinely scholarly historical work. This is one of the best biographies I have read in many, many years.
A brilliant effort.
Rating: 5
Summary: Fantastic...Fantastic
Comment: This is one of the best written biographies I have read. With so much action going on in this book who needs Fiction. In terms of a historical biography it gives a clear insight into the workings of Khruschev. It looks at his strength and his weaknesses. It covers so much ground and so well that I think this book is an indispensible guide to Cold War, how it came about and how it was played out. It also offers a great insight into the workings of the USSR and the beginning of its end. But above all it offers a look into one of the most complicated man in history.
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