Nikita Khrushchev-SOFT-CORE ANATOMY OF A STALINIST HENCHMAN

 

BOOK REVIEW

KHRUSHCHEV, ROY MEDVEDEV, ANCHOR PRESS, NEW YORK, 1983

At one time in the seemingly distant pass the name Roy Medvedev was associated very closely with the left-wing elements of the  opposition movements into the former Soviet Union at the time of  Khrushchev’s leadership. One would hardly know from reading this biography that the two were, at least formally, political opponents. Mr. Medvedev has produce a biography that beyond acting as a moving travelogue of  Mr. Khrushchev’s and activities as leader of the former Soviet Union is little more than a soft-core sell  of  an old Stalinist henchman.  It may be due to the fact that it was published in 1983 when the Soviet Union was in the early process of going to hell in a hand basket and so the Khrushchev period appeared to be a Golden Age of Stalinism-without Stalin.  Nevertheless if one is looking for a more profound analysis of the immediate post-Stalin period one will have to look elsewhere.

Mr. Medvedev cannot be faulted for the general factual presentation. He dutifully, if superficially goes through Mr. Khrushchev’s rise to the top layer of the Stalin entourage, the struggle for power after Stalin’s death in 1953,  the monumental revelations of the  crimes of Stalin at 20^th and later the 22^nd Russian Communist Party Congresses,  the various domestic crises particularly  the continuing problems in agriculture that years later would contribute to the downfall of the Soviet Union, the international disputes within the world Communist movement and the at times very heated struggle  with the West during various episodes of the Cold War and his eventual downfall from power in 1964. The reviewer grew up in American at the time of the rise and fall of the Khrushchev regime and it was interesting to be reminded of those events, their importance in the history of that period and a refreshing of my reaction to the events at the time. For those who have forgotten or do not know of the key events such as the attempts at nuclear disarmament, the crisis in Berlin and the Cuban Missile Crisis this book provide a competent review of those events.

The stumbling block to any further credit to Mr. Medvedev’s book is his rather fawning over Mr. Khrushchev’s achievements in the post-Stalin period. Yes, Mr. Khrushchev performed an important if not full service to the international communist movement by his revelation of Stalin’s crimes. But any leftist critic of Stalinism has the right to ask- Mr. Khrushchev what were you doing at the time of all these acknowledged crimes as a henchman of Stalin? It is not enough to argue that there was little one could do. The history and fate of the Left Opposition in the Russian Communists Party and of other oppositionists in the wastes of Russian testify to other routes for those who considered themselves Bolsheviks. No it will not do.  Mr. Khrushchev, Mr. Medvedev and I shared one thing in common. At one time we all stood for the defense of the Soviet Union against attack by world imperialism and internal counterrevolution. Beyond that we part ways. I note that all through this paean to the intrepid Mr. Khrushchev there is very little sense that  in the Khrushchev era despite some obvious thawing of the internal political environment  these is no sense that workers and farmers councils  could have been more e appropriate that just playing musical chairs with the top levels of the Soviet bureaucracy. The gap between that Leninist understanding of the road to socialism and Mr. Khrushchev’ s top-down operation certainly did its part to weaken the Soviet Union and cause its ultimate collapse.