Nikita Khrushchev was the main leader of the USSR and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964. From"Mr. K" , history will remember his famous stunt at the UN rostrum in 1960 and his showdown with Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis two years later. Stalin's successor will denounce the excesses of the Red Tyrant at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and will initiate a "normalization" and pacification of the Soviet regime, paving the way for "peaceful coexistence" with the West. His economic reforms, on the other hand, will remain short-lived. Khrushchev is removed from office in October 1964 and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
Khrushchev:an exemplary career
Nikita Kroutchev was the son of a miner, born on April 3, 1894. He had an exemplary "career":worker, then soldier during the First World War, he joined the Ukrainian Communist Party at the start of the civil war, and then continued his rise in Moscow before returning to Ukraine where he led the party for ten years. The Second World War gave him the opportunity to shine:he organized resistance to the Wehrmacht and took part in the fierce battle of Stalingrad (1942). Member of the Politburo, Khrushchev is already one of the main leaders of the USSR.
When Stalin died in March 1953, he held the key post of First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev participates in the elimination of the "diadochi", the potential successors of Stalin:Beria then Malenkov. Its role in the collegial direction becomes preeminent. In 1958, he combined the function of President of the Council of Ministers.
The break with Stalinism
A pure product of the Stalin period (he himself participated in the purges ordered by the dictator), Khrushchev nevertheless felt that the Soviet population felt a deep need for change. He promotes a domestic policy of political (liberalization of the regime and amnesty for former opponents) and economic reforms. Priority is thus given to the production of consumer goods in order to improve the living conditions of Russians.
At the 20th Party Congress (1956), he denounces, in a secret report, the "crimes of Stalin" and his "cult of personality". This position, which is all the more important in that it emanates from a "Stalinist creature", has considerable repercussions in the communist world, including in the western communist parties, which must then admit facts which, until then , had always been denied.
A new era is dawning for world communism. The relations of the USSR with the people's democracies as with the rest of the world are modified. De-Stalinization goes further:Khrushchev establishes more liberal political conditions in the USSR and Eastern Europe. But, to avoid any overflow, he leads an interventionist policy in the popular democracies, and the tanks will be used in Budapest in 1956 to suppress a popular uprising.
Between Cold War and détente
Internationally, Khrushchev's famous thunderous statements and angry outbursts actually conceal a prudent policy based on the idea of "peaceful coexistence" of USSR and USA. Khrouchtchev seeks to impulse a new course with the relations between the two blocks. Under his leadership, the Cold War entered a phase of detente. He rejects the idea of a possible conflict with the United States and affirms the need to measure up to the Western world on the economic rather than the military level. After leading the reconciliation of his country with Tito's Yugoslavia, he took part in the Geneva conference in 1955, which brought together, for the first time since 1945, the former victors of Nazi Germany. Relations with the United States improve:Khrushchev meets Eisenhower and then Kennedy.
Paradoxically, he erected the Berlin Wall in 1961, then supported the Castro regime which precipitated the world to the brink of a third world war during the rocket crisis in Cuba in 1962. He nevertheless preferred to avoid confrontation with the United States, gave the order to withdraw the missiles installed in the island and signed in 1963, in Moscow, a treaty prohibiting nuclear tests in the atmosphere.
The fall of Khrushchev
To revive economic activity and make it competitive with the West, Khrushchev initiates a vast movement of reforms agriculture, thus denouncing the priority given by Stalin to industry. He thus launched the great campaign of clearing virgin lands in the regions of Siberia. He also worked to deconcentrate and decentralize the management of the Soviet economy.
The economic disorders linked to the reforms undertaken, the international crises and the break with China (1961) weakened the Soviet position and therefore that of Khrushchev. What's more, the leader's original and imposing personality did not fit well with the rules of “collegial leadership” put in place after Stalin's death. He was removed from office by the plenum of the Central Committee in October 1964, and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
Khrushchev was one of the main players in the Cold War which, in 1962, during the rocket crisis in Cuba, almost degenerated into world and nuclear war. In the USSR, the “Khrushchev years” were marked by profound political change, in particular a pacification of Soviet political life. Sign of the times:when Khrushchev was forced to resign, he was not worried and was able to lead a peaceful retirement, in the heart of the capital, until his death in September 1971...
To go further
- Khrushchev, the impossible reform, by Jean Jacques Marie. GLDM, 2010.
- Khrushchev and the West, by K.S Karol. Julliard, 1960.
- History of the Soviet Union from Khrushchev to Gorbachev, by Nicolas Werth. PUF, 2013.