textfiles/reports/ACE/kruschev.txt

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Grade Level:       Type of Work           Subject/Topic is on:
 [ ]6-8                 [ ]Class Notes    [Life History on         ]
 [x]9-10                [ ]Cliff Notes    [Khrushchev              ]
 [ ]11-12               [x]Essay/Report   [                        ]
 [ ]College             [ ]Misc           [                        ]

 Dizzed: 06/94  # of Words:2024  School: ?              State: ?
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>Chop Here>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
  His story is something like a fairy tale.  A humble young peasant boy,
born to a world of famine and poverty with 100 million peasants just like
him, works and fights his way up the political ladder of Russia to one day
become its most powerful force, simultaneously holding the offices of
Premier of the U.S.S.R. and First Secretary of the Communist Party.  It
seems incredible, but it should be remembered that Nikita Khrushchev did
not accomplish this feat without much sacrifice and hard work on his part.
Coming from virtually nothing, he struggled for many years to rise among
the ranks in Revolutionary Russia before he achieved the position of a
widely-loved ruler and powerful, determining force in international
affairs.  And although, in the end, he was cast down from this climactic
position, it was not before this loquacious and personable man had employed
his keen and incisive mind toward making many gains for and improvements in
twentieth-century Russia.

  To truly understand how humble and common his beginnings were, one must
understand the situation in Russia toward the end of the nineteenth
century. Serfdom had only recently been abolished, and, as a result, there
was a severe shortage of land and widespread poverty and illiteracy.  Only
the strongest and cleverest were able to make a living from their new-found
freedom; most just struggled to survive.  It was among this majority, on
April 17, 1894, that Nikita Sergeievich Khrushchev was born.  As a boy, he
lived in Kalinovka, a poor villiage in the Ukraine, in an izba, a mud hut
with a thatched roof, with his grandfather, a large family, and the
family's animals.  His father, it is said, lived his life with the ambition
to buy a horse, but he never saved enough money to do so.  In the end, the
family was forced to give up their home and move to Yuzovka in another part
of the Ukraine.

  Throughout his childhood, Nikita was forced to work to survive.  His
education amounted to only two or three years in the village school, for he
was forced to go to work herding cows when he was nine.  Following that, he
was em- ployed as many things, including a farm hand, a factory worker, and
finally a miner in the coal pits.  It was at this time that his
determination to better himself was first made apparent, for, rather than
letting himself be destined forever to work in the pits, he offered his
services in all areas of the job, including the development of pit-heads,
elevators for the mines.  This was also the time in which the young
Khrushchev's rebellious nature began to surface, but rather than to
striking or union-organizing, it was applied toward politics.  It all began
with a visit to the mines in 1917 by a man called Kaganovich, who was sent
to recruit miners for the Revolution.  Nikita, who was 23 and viewed this
man as both a romantic figure and an opportunity to break from his social
boundaries, joined his Bolshevik group and, by doing so, took his first of
many steps in his forthcoming rise to political power.

  Soonafter, Khrushchev, a loyal but not very active Bolshevik member,
became involved with the Communist party as well.  Prior to this point, he
had been exempt from military service due to his indispensibility in the
local coal industry.  Also, he had been responsible for a family, as he had
married his wife, Galina, during his years in the coal mines, and now had
two children (Leonid and Julia), which made him want to remain near
Yuzovka.  However, in 1919, that rebellious, power-seeking inner sense of
Nikita's got the best of him, and he went off to join the Red Army.  When
the war ended, Khrushchev, whose main objective had been to emerge as a
politician until he found how difficult it was to compete with the
"higher-born," at least had succeeded in proving himself to be a loyal and
useful figure.  Soonafter, he returned home with the task of organizing a
local Communist party.

  When he arrived back in Yuzovka, however, he found the area, along with
much of the Ukraine, suffering due to a great famine.  Peasants were forced
to eat bark, grass, leather and one another to survive, and many died,
including Khrushchev's wife.  It was a very sad and difficult time for
Nikita, but he retaliated against his depression by devoting himself
wholeheartedly toward the reorganization of Russia.  At once he set about
to restore local factories and increase coal production, steps he
considered vital in order to get the economy going.  It took much toughness
and courage to get men to work under such conditions, but Khrushchev,
gifted with a talent for organizing and motivating people, was able to
succeed.  In 1921, he sent his children to live with his parents and
enrolled in a mining technology school, where he further developed himself
in engineering and politics and learned how to read.  A quick learner,
Khrushchev finished school in four years, literate and with a comprehensive
knowledge of Leninist views.  He married again, this time to a
schoolteacher named Nina Petrovna, and, at the age 31, encountered the
first of a series of very rapid steps to the supreme position he would one
day hold as Premier of the U.S.S.R.

  In 1925, Khrushchev was appointed to his first full-time and very
important Party position, Party Secretary of Petrovsko, a district of about
400 square miles in the Ukraine.  For the two years that he held that
office, Nikita encouraged peasants to work and reopened factories,
unemployment dropped and bands of mutinous peasants which roamed the
countryside were wiped out.  In addition, bands of wild Russian children,
called besprisorni, were rounded up and either put to work or shot.  By the
end of his term there, he had grown enough in importance to be a non-voting
member of the All Union Party Congress-in other words, in just seven years,
Krushchev had earned his way into the top 1300 of over one million Party
members.

  His next step was to go to Moscow, where he studied engineering and
worked actively in the Party cell of the Moscow Industrial Academy.
Working closely with important political figures, even including Stalin's
wife, Khrushchev continued to rise in importance and popularity.  By 1932,
he had reached a point where he was second in command of the Party for all
of Moscow.  With this power, he attempted to more or less renovate Moscow.
Its living conditions were deplorable and dreary.  There was a severe
shortage of food, families lived huddled two or three to a room, buildings
were falling apart.  As Peter the Great had done many years before, Nikita
attempted to "drag Russia into the twentieth century." He made many
reforms, including the construction of the Moscow Metro, and as a result
was soon appointed to the Central Committees of the All-Union Communist
Party and the Supreme Soviet.

  It should be noted that, having always concentrated on technical rather
than political accomplishment, Khrushchev was able to escape the Great
Purge, a period in the thirties in which those considered "enemies of the
people" according to Stalin were to be arrested, deported or even executed.
Rather, he was even rewarded for his service to the country.  In 1938,
Khrushchev returned to the Ukraine as first secretary of he Ukrainian
Communist Party and focused his attention primarily on agriculture, in
which he gained a reputation as an expert.  When he gained full membership
in the Politburo in March of 1939, Khrushchev became one of the most
powerful men in the U.S.S.R.

  With World War II came more accomplishments and recognition for
Khrushchev. He supervised the annexation of Polish territory, helped
supervise the evacuation of Ukranian industry when Germany attacked, and
eventually helped to expel the Germans from the Soviet Union.  After the
war, he was brought again to Moscow, where he served in the Secretariat and
the Politburo and was again head of the Moscow regional committee.  It was
those positions, and his reputation as an agricultural expert, that soon
propelled him to power.

  Upon Stalin's death, Khrushchev kept a place in power as "collective
leadership" came into being, which consisted primarily of him, Beria,
Bulganin, Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov.  There were many problems with
this concept at first, and leadership changed hands frequently.  Finally,
in 1957, Khrushchev himself was nominated for the top position as Premier,
despite the others' attempts to gain the position for themselves.  When
problems arose due to this appointment, Khrushchev, who had previously kept
a low profile and not involved himself much in the power struggle,
suddenly, at the 20th Party Congress that year, gave his famous six-hour
"secret speech" denouncing the "crimes of the Stalin era." By doing so,
many old-time Party leaders felt that he had gone too far; there were two
attempts on his life later that year. However, Khrushchev remained strong
and exposed a plot by Malenkov, Molotov and Kaganovich to oust him from
leadership; in doing so, he solidified his power, becoming both Premier and
Party Secretary in 1958.

  It should be noted now that Khrushchev, although acting as supreme ruler
of the Soviet Union, possessed certain personal characteristics that made
him lesser in the eyes of the world.  He was a stout, "bullet-headed" man
who liked to joke and talk, and, though his important positions had trained
him to carry himself as a supreme ruler would, he was still rough and a
countryman at heart. He often dressed in simple peasant smocks or plain
shirts, clothing he considered to be representative of what Communist stood
for, and he didn't see any harm in getting drunk in public.  By many he was
nicknamed "the peasant ruler of backward Russia," and laughed at.  An
example of this was Khrushchev's first trip outside the boundaries of
Russia, a visit to Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia in the late 50's that had
been to make peace after the damage Stalin had vainly sought to inflict.
The Premier, believing that he was making such a grand jesture of
reconciliation-having great Russia bow down to insignificant Yugoslavia,
was instead greeted by an arrogant ruler who intended to mock, ridicule and
disgrace him.  Tito began by walking out during a speech in which
Khrushchev was apologizing for the actions of Stalin.  He then proceeded to
parade the Russian ruler, who was used to bullet-proof cars, around in a
convertible.  Finally, at what was to be an informal dinner, Tito had all
his officials wear full evening dress when he knew that the Russians would
arrive wearing their simple summer suitings, as an attempt to embarrass
them and make them look foolish.  Khrushchev, though, surprised everyone by
overcoming this childishness and concentrating on the business at hand,
much to Tito's dismay. Events like this helped to gain this
grandfather-like ruler both popularity and great respect.

  Although for several years Khrushchev's popularity existed in Russia
also, several crucial incidents caused it to deteriorate just as quickly.
One such event was the "U-2 Incident" in 1960, when an American spy plane
was shot down over the Soviet Union.  President Eisenhower, who was
considered by Khrushchev to be a trusted friend, took responsibility for
the affair and, by doing so, greatly embarrassed the Soviet Premier.  Then,
just a few years later, when the Soviet Union was caught positioning
missiles in Cuba, Khrushchev was forced to remove them and leave Cuba.
Incidents like this began to mount, and many Party members sought to remove
him.  Finally, in October 1964, he was forced out of office.  His remaining
years were spent in "quiet retirement" in the outskirts of Russia.  He died
on September 11, 1971.

  Although those who Khrushchev had once struggled to and succeeded in
overcoming were able to remove him from power in the end, the vast changes
this peasant-turned-Premier had unleashed in the U.S.S.R.  could not be
undone, and his years in power have had a lasting effect on the Soviet
Union ever since.