Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was born on April 17, 1894 in the village of Kalinovka. The Khrushchevs lived poorly. In order to somehow make ends meet, the head of the family, Sergei Nikanorovich, went to the Donetsk coal basin every winter to earn money.
When Nikita was 14 years old, the family moved to the Uspensky mine, located near present-day Donetsk (in those days the city was named Yuzovka). The father got a job as a miner, and the son as a shepherd. Nikita Khrushchev didn’t have to graze the cows for long. Soon he will move to an electrical generator factory, where he will study plumbing. In 1912, Khrushchev was fired for participating in the labor movement, but he did not sit idle for long. After some time, he gets a job as a mechanic in a coal mine in the village of Rutchenkovo.
In 1914, Khrushchev married Efrosinya Pisareva. This union will give Nikita Sergeevich two children. The first to be born in 1916 was daughter Yulia, and a year later - son Leonid. During this period of his life, Khrushchev became acquainted with the works of Karl Marx and the Manifesto Communist Party". Impressed by what he read, Khrushchev became one of the leaders of the strike movement in the coal mines of Donbass.
After the abdication of the Tsar, Nikita Khrushchev became a member of the Council of Workers' Deputies in the village of Rutchenkovo. Already at that time, Khrushchev was on the side of the Bolsheviks. After the Second Congress of the Council of Workers' Deputies, Khrushchev headed the local branch of the metalworkers' trade union of the mining industry.
In 1918, Nikita Sergeevich joined the ranks of the Bolshevik Party. During the Civil War, Khrushchev went from the head of a Red Guard detachment to an instructor in the political department of the Kuban Army. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner from the hands of the People's Commissar for Naval and Military Affairs Lev Davidovich Trotsky.
After demobilization, Nikita Khrushchev decides to get a secondary education (behind the shoulders of the future Secretary General The Communist Party at that time had only an elementary parochial school). To realize his plans, he enters the working faculty of the Don Industrial College. As a student, Khrushchev continued to be involved in party activities. Nikita Sergeevich is assigned the position of secretary of the party cell of the Dontechnikum.
In 1924, Khrushchev remarried (his first wife died of typhus in 1920). Chosen One N
Nina Petrovna Kuharchik, a teacher of political economy, becomes Sergeevich’s ikita. In this marriage, Khrushchev would have three children: two daughters and a son.
In 1925 and 1927, Khrushchev, as a representative of Yuzovka at the XIV and XV Congresses of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), had the chance to visit the real “political kitchen”. Then Khrushchev first came into contact with real power.
In 1928, Lazar Kaganovich smuggled Khrushchev into the central apparatus of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. From this moment, Nikita Sergeevich’s rapid career growth begins.
Secondary education is not enough for an official at the republican level, so in 1929 the Central Committee of the Party sent Khrushchev to study at the Moscow Industrial Academy. Simply gnawing on the granite of science was not to Khrushchev’s taste, so in parallel with educational process he began to “expose” the supporters of the disgraced Rykov and Bukharin. The authorities appreciated the efforts of the over-aged student. Khrushchev heads the party bureau of the educational institution.
The speed of Khrushchev's advance is gaining furious momentum. In the period from 1931 to 1935, Khrushchev held positions from secretary of the Bauman district party committee to head of the Moscow party organization.
In 1938, Khrushchev, as the master of the republic, was sent back to Ukraine. The first step was to restore the administrative apparatus, almost completely destroyed by the repressions of 1937. After resolving personnel issues, Khrushchev began to eliminate economic problems. National economy was literally torn to pieces by the famine of 1932-33. At the very least, Nikita Sergeevich coped with these challenges. But another misfortune befalls us. In 1939, the Red Army “chopped off” from Poland the territories inhabited by Ukrainians and Belarusians, which now also need to be Sovietized. Collectivization, the fight against the “kulaks” and so on... Nikita Sergeevich rolled up his sleeves. During 12 months of “productive work,” Comrade Khrushchev subjected a tenth of the population to repression Western Ukraine. 1,173,170 people were expelled from their native lands.
During the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was a member of the military council Southwestern Front. Historians consider Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev one of the culprits of the catastrophic defeats of the Red Army in 1941 near Kiev and in 1942 near Kharkov. In the very first days of the war, Nikita’s son Sergei went to the front
Icha, Leonid. It is worth noting that Khrushchev acted courageously and honestly and did not choose a warm, quiet place for his son, although Khrushchev, as a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, was able to do this. On March 11, 1943, Leonid carried out a combat mission near the town of Zhizdra. Senior Lieutenant Khrushchev did not return back. Nikita Sergeevich himself graduated from the war with the rank of lieutenant general. At the end of 1943, almost the entire territory of the Ukrainian SSR was free from German invaders. Nikita Sergeevich again occupies the chair of the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of the Ukrainian SSR. The tasks were similar to those that Khrushchev was engaged in before the start of the war - to restore the economy destroyed by the war and destroy those who disagreed with Soviet power in the West of the country.
In 1949, Khrushchev was returned to Moscow to his former position as head of the largest party organization in the Union.
In 1953, after the death of Stalin, battles for power began in the Kremlin. The winner in these battles unexpectedly turned out to be Khrushchev, whom no one took seriously at first. During his lifetime, Stalin often humiliated Nikita Sergeevich, and for party bosses he was a kind of illiterate simpleton. But Khrushchev turned out to be not so simple and masterfully beat all his competitors.
Having come to power, the first thing Khrushchev did was to make personnel changes, which directly affected up to 40% of party functionaries in all Soviet republics.
Khrushchev ruled in two ways. There have been stunning breakthroughs and stunning failures.
Having taken the helm of the Soviet state, Nikita Sergeevich somewhat softened his character in matters foreign policy. Relations with Yugoslavia, severed by Stalin after the end of World War II, were restored. Khrushchev withdrew troops from Austria and opened an embassy in West Germany.
On February 14, 1956, at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Nikita Sergeevich read out a closed report “On the cult of personality and its consequences” for 6 hours, in which Khrushchev places all the blame for the mistakes and crimes of the ruling elite on the dead Joseph Stalin. This shocking "closed report" led to both positive and negative consequences. After the publication of this document, a wave of mass release and rehabilitation of political prisoners took place across the country. But in some socialist countries this report led to bloody events
iyam. Poznań protests against the communist government in Poland ended with the death of 80 people. In Hungary peaceful demonstration escalated into a bloody uprising with brutal killings of communists and state security officers. In response, Khrushchev sent troops into Budapest. Result: 2652 killed Hungarians and 669 SA fighters.
Under Khrushchev, many moved from wooden barracks and communal apartments to separate housing. Now “Khrushchevka” seems like a mockery of human dignity, but then people who received their own kitchen and separate bathroom were truly happy.
By the end of the 50s, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev held all the levers of governing the country in his hands. Probably the possession of such unlimited power turned Khrushchev's head. The Secretary General has lost his sense of reality. Nikita Sergeevich set physically impossible 5-year plans for the country. When it became clearly clear that it would not be possible to cope with the assigned tasks, Khrushchev developed new plan, but with an even higher bar. By 1980, Nikita Sergeevich intended to build communism, and by 2000 to provide for every resident of the Union own apartments. But the harsh reality was not taken into account by the Secretary General's "five-year plans". Decline Agriculture led to higher food prices. Nikita Sergeevich dreamed of planting the entire country with corn. Khrushchev was not interested in such trifles as the fact that it does not grow in Siberia, and that it is more expedient to grow grapes in Georgia. Since 1963, the USSR has become a permanent importer of bread.
Khrushchev acquired many enemies among the military. Nikita Sergeevich believed that the future of the army lay in missile forces, therefore, funding for other branches of the military can be reduced.
Ultimately, all of Khrushchev’s mistakes and miscalculations led to the formation of a conspiracy around him. The organizers of the overthrow of Nikita Sergeevich were: Leonid Brezhnev, Nikolai Podgorny and Mikhail Suslov. On October 14, 1964, at an extraordinary plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Khrushchev was asked to voluntarily resign as General Secretary. Nikita Sergeevich acted wisely and signed a decree on his resignation.
Khrushchev was kept an apartment in Moscow and a dacha in the Moscow region, where he loved to grow tomatoes. On September 11, 1971, in the Central Kremlin Hospital, he died quietly from cardiac arrest.
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev is one of the most impulsive and controversial Soviet political leaders. He expanded the boundaries of freedom and earned a reputation as a fighter for democratization, condemning Stalin's terror, amnestying political prisoners, reducing repression and the influence of ideological censorship. Under him, a breakthrough into space was made and large-scale housing construction was launched, collective farmers got passports and an unprecedented openness to the world with the arrival of foreign tourists, artists, and students.But the name of the third head of the USSR (after Lenin and Stalin) is also associated with the suppression of the uprising against the pro-Soviet regime in Hungary, the shooting of protest participants in former capital Donskoy troops in Novocherkassk, death sentences by courts for thieves of public property and black marketeers, failed corn epic, persecution Nobel laureate Boris Pasternak, obscene language in the Manege at an exhibition of avant-garde artists, severance of relations with China, peak of tension " cold war"with the USA.
A politician who sought to build better life for the people, but did not have deep encyclopedic knowledge and high culture(the old Bolsheviks called him “an ignoramus and a buffoon”), made a significant contribution to undermining the authority of Marxist philosophy in the world. "The first freak Soviet Union“- Khrushchev earned this nickname from the mouths of our contemporaries.
Childhood
The future extraordinary party leader was born on April 15, 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, located 170 km from Kursk. He became the first-born in the peasant family of Sergei Nikanorovich (died 1938 from tuberculosis) and Ksenia Ivanovna (1872 - 1945) Khrushchev. Later they had a daughter, Irina. 
They worked tirelessly, but lived poorly. Elementary education the boy received it at a parochial school. At the age of 9, when he learned to count to thirty, his father decided that he had had enough of learning (“You’ll never have more than 30 rubles anyway,” his father told him), and sent him to work as a farm laborer for a landowner.
In the 1900s, their family went to work in Yuzovka (now Donetsk, Ukraine). They lived in a barracks in a workers’ village, where (according to his recollections) “dirt, crime and stench” reigned; they slept on two-tier bunks in rooms of 60-70 people. His father worked as a miner, his mother as a laundress, and Nikita as a steam boiler cleaner. The parents dreamed of saving money to buy a horse and return to the village, but they never succeeded.
According to the recollections of family friends, Ksenia Ivanovna considered her husband a doormat all her life and kept him under her thumb. She herself was a fighting woman, with character, while Sergei Nikanorovich was described as a kind man, but spineless.
Nikita Sergeevich once told his son-in-law that when he was little and grazing cows in a meadow, an unfamiliar old woman approached him and said: “Boy, a great future awaits you.” Little Nikita told this story to his mother, who from then on called him Tsar and boasted about him to her friends.
Labor activity
At the age of 14, the boy was hired as a mechanic's apprentice at the Bosse plant (now JSC Donetskgormash), where he became a member of the trade union and actively participated in strikes. At the age of 18, he began working as a mechanic at a coal mine in the village of Rutchenkovo. His mother insisted on this - she wanted her son to become one of the people, and not repeat the fate of his “worthless” father. 
Khrushchev is jokingly called the first Soviet biker. Having once seen a photograph of a motorcycle in his boss’s office, he welded his own iron horse from scraps of bicycle pipes and assembled the motor himself. The result vehicle remained on the move for 20 years and made Nikita the life of the party among local youth. However, he never drank or smoked - from bad habits His mother saved him.
At the age of 24, as soon as the revolution died down, Khrushchev joined the Communist Party. At the beginning of the Civil War, the young communist fled from Ukraine, fearing reprisals as a “Muscovite,” moved to Kalinovka to live with his grandfather, and then was drafted into the Red Army. He was a detachment commander, a battalion political commissar in the battles for the city of Tsaritsyn, and an instructor in the political department of the 9th Kuban Army.
After the war, he returned to the Rudchenkovo mine and from 1922 to 1925 he studied at the workers' faculty of the Don Technical School, where he was elected party secretary.
Career in the CPSU
An proactive and assertive fighter for Stalin’s cause in 1925, he headed the Petrovo-Maryinsky district committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) in the Donbass. In 1928, he received his first high appointment - deputy head of the organizational department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party - and moved to Kharkov, where the republican government bodies were located. 
A year later, he became a student at the Industrial Academy in Moscow, enthusiastically took up the fight against the “right” there and soon became the party secretary of the educational institution. In 1932, he was approved as the second secretary of the city committee. He became right hand the first person of the committee, a close associate of Stalin, Lazar Koganovich. In 1934, he was already the successor to his boss as head of the Moscow State Committee, and a year later - the regional committee, although he never received a diploma from the academy.
On behalf of Koganovich, the loyal Stalinist controlled the progress of metro construction. In 1935, in honor successful completion first stage important object he was awarded his first Order of Lenin. During the same period, he demonstrated considerable zeal in organizing Stalin’s “purges” and in implementing plans to accelerate the pace of industrialization. By 1937, the politician entered the circle of the most influential people in the USSR. He was a deputy Supreme Council, member of the Presidium and first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
Arriving in 1938 in Ukraine, which had experienced a terrible famine, and replacing the repressed Stanislav Kosior in the highest position, he began forming a new administrative apparatus of the republic to replace the destroyed one. mass repressions. Punitive expulsions did not stop under him, but were carried out on a lesser scale.
The most striking moments from Khrushchev's speeches
During the Second World War, the politician was a member of the military councils of a number of fronts. In 1943 he deserved high rank Lieutenant General A year later, on the 50th anniversary of his birth, he was awarded the second Order of Lenin. He led the brutal suppression of anti-Soviet partisan movement in the western regions of Ukraine, shooting more than 150 thousand and deporting about 200 thousand people out of 3.5 million inhabitants of this region. He was the Prime Minister of the Ukrainian SSR, then the newly elected party secretary of the republic. As a member of the Politburo, he often visited the capital and met with the leader of the state.
Since 1949, the Ukrainian leader was transferred to Moscow. The head of the USSR instructed him to restore order in the capital's party organization and entrusted him with the post of secretary of the CPSU (b), although he did not have much respect for him. For example, during feasts at the leader’s dacha, where they discussed critical issues state, Joseph Vissarionovich forced his bald, short and plump comrade-in-arms to dance the hopak, bursting into laughter.
General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee
Nevertheless, after Stalin passed away in 1953, the politician, whom many perceived as a poorly educated simpleton, managed to beat the all-powerful head of the special services Lavrenty Beria, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Grigory Malenkov and all other contenders in the fight for the throne, becoming the new sole party leader. 
During the years of being at the top of the political Olympus, Khrushchev did not build communism, as he promised, but he saved the country from many years of fear, rehabilitated more than 20 million people (though many of them posthumously), actively supported the development of science and technology, organizing the launch of the world's first nuclear power plant located in the Kaluga region, the first satellite and astronaut.
Among his successes in the agricultural sector are the lifting of the ban on collective farmers changing their place of residence, issuing them passports, cash payment labor, development of virgin lands. The positive results of his management also include the construction of free housing, the adoption of the “Peace Program”, cultural exchange with foreign countries, a reduction of a third of the army.
However, he often acted inconsistently and too emotionally. For example, due to the ill-conceived military reform, many officers were left without housing and work, and the villagers, who under Stalin received 7 centners of grain as payment, began to receive money, but equivalent to only 3.7 centners. Collective farmers began to flee to the cities, and a shortage of bread arose. The country had to allocate 860 tons of gold to purchase grain from capitalist countries. Prices on the market increased by 13-17%, whereas under Stalin, prices traditionally decreased on April 1 of each year.
Nikita Khrushchev's speech at the UN (1960)
By 1964, the average annual growth rate of the economy had fallen from 11 to 5 percent. Due to the reduction in the number of collective farmers and low labor productivity, shortages in bread began, residents middle zone were forced to go to the capital for food. At the same time, gratuitous assistance from the USSR developing countries reached 3.5 billion rubles: India, Iraq, Syria, Ethiopia.
The big disadvantage of his activities was the destruction of individual farms (the number of livestock was halved, personal plots decreased to 15-25 acres), “corn madness”, disappearance from stores white bread, the strengthening of the Cold War, the Caribbean crisis, the cessation of payments on “Stalinist” bonds, an increase in retail prices, which provoked mass unrest, including the tragedy in Novocherkassk.
Khrushchev's policies led to the division of socialist countries into three blocs. Three “leaders” stood out: the USSR, Romania with Yugoslavia and China. Relations with the latter were spoiled after Khrushchev called Mao Zedong an “old galosh.”
Trying to create the image of a “peacemaker,” Khrushchev acted illogically: he brutally dispersed a rally in support of Stalin in Georgia, and no less brutally suppressed the uprising in Hungary in 1956. In 1957, he stopped payments on “Stalinist” bonds, which led to a 30% increase in prices for meat and dairy products. This led to popular unrest; in 1962, machine gun fire was opened on participants in a rally in Novocherkassk.
Another “invention” of Khrushchev is the famous five-story panel buildings. At one time, the Secretary General dispersed the USSR Academy of Architecture because they did not share Khrushchev’s opinion on the economic feasibility of building five-story buildings. In fact, with the money allocated for one “Khrushchev”, it was possible to build two 9-story buildings, saving on infrastructure - the costs of water supply and sewerage in 5-story buildings were higher.
Against the backdrop of many miscalculations, which led, instead of the promised abundance, to the threat of famine in the country, in 1964, the fighter against the cult of personality was removed from all positions at the October Plenum of the Central Committee. According to rumors, he said goodbye to his colleagues that the possibility of changing leadership without bloodshed was his main achievement. Khrushchev's successor was Leonid Brezhnev.
Personal life of Nikita Khrushchev
Khrushchev was married three times. His first chosen one was Efrosinya Pisareva, the sister of his fellow miner, whom he married before the revolution. In those years, Nikita Sergeevich, who received 40-50 rubles in gold per month, was provided with a government apartment and was exempt from military service as a highly qualified specialist, was known as an enviable groom. 
She died of typhus in 1919 while her husband was fighting at the front, and left her 25-year-old husband with her 3-year-old daughter Yulia and 2-year-old son Lenya in her arms. In 1922, Khrushchev became involved with Maria, a woman with a child from a previous marriage, but their relationship lasted little more than a year.
The third wife of the political leader and faithful life partner for 47 years was Nina Kukharchuk (born 1900), a teacher at the Yuzovsky party school, where they met and began living as a family in 1924. Nina Kukharchuk adequately represented the country on her husband’s trips abroad
They officially registered their marriage only after Nikita Sergeevich retired. In addition to two children from his first marriage, they raised three children together: daughters Radu and Elena and son Sergei.
The politician loved cinema, theater, folk and classical music. His favorite songs were Ukrainian songs performed by Ivan Kozlovsky, “I Amazing at the Sky” and “Black Eyebrows, Brown Eyes.”
Last years and death
After his resignation, the disgraced leader became a personal pensioner and lived in a dacha near Moscow, walking in the company of a shepherd named Arbat and the rook Kava (who fell out of the nest, fed by Khrushchev and became tame). Former Secretary General communicated with security officers, talked with vacationers from a neighboring holiday home, recorded his memories on a tape recorder (he was denied a stenographer to record his memoirs at the Central Committee). 
Later he became interested in photography and gardening. In the evenings, I often listened to broadcasts from Western radio stations “Liberty”, “Voice of America”, and the BBC, then expressing my opinion on the events taking place. He treated Academician Sakharov with sympathy, was sincerely indignant about attempts to rehabilitate Stalin, and was immensely shocked by Svetlana Alliluyeva’s flight from the country. It happened that he fell into depression, talked about the meaninglessness of his life, but then again, with a constant smile, he joked, walked, and told stories.
In 1970, Khrushchev’s health deteriorated and he suffered his first heart attack. A year later, he died in hospital from a massive myocardial infarction. The ex-head of the USSR was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery. The monument at his grave was sculpted by Ernst Neizvestny from white and black marble - as a symbol of the contradictory contribution of Nikita Khrushchev to the history of the country.
- Childhood and adolescence
- At the head of the USSR
- Foreign policy
- Reforms within the country
- Death
- Personal life
- Biography score
Bonus
- Other biography options
- Interesting Facts
Childhood and adolescence
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was born on April 3 (15), 1894, in the village of Kalinovka, in Kursk province, in a miner's family.
In the summer he helped his family by working as a shepherd. In winter I studied at school. In 1908, he became an apprentice to a mechanic at the machine-building and iron foundry plant of E.T. Bosse. In 1912 he began working as a mechanic at a mine. For this reason, in 1914 he was not taken to the front.
In 1918 he joined the Bolsheviks and took direct part in the Civil War. After 2 years he graduated from the army party school and participated in military events in Georgia.
In 1922 he became a student at the workers' department of the Dontechnikum in Yuzovka. In the summer of 1925, he became the party leader of the Petrovo-Maryinsky district of the Stalin district.
At the head of the USSR
Khrushchev took the initiative to remove and subsequently arrest L.P. Beria.
At the 20th Congress of the CPSU, he exposed the cult of personality of J.V. Stalin.
In October 1957, he took the initiative to remove Marshal G.K. Zhukov from the Presidium of the Central Committee and relieve him of his duties in the Ministry of Defense.
March 27, 1958 He was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU he came up with the idea new program parties. She was accepted.
Foreign policy
Studying a short biography Nikita Khrushchev Sergeevich , you should know that he was a prominent player on the foreign policy scene. He has repeatedly taken the initiative for simultaneous disarmament with the United States and an end to nuclear weapons testing.
In 1955 he visited Geneva and met with D. D. Eisenhower. From September 15 to 27, he visited the United States and spoke at the UN General Assembly. His bright, emotional speech went down in world history.
On June 4, 1961, Khrushchev met with D. Kennedy. This was the first and only meeting between the two leaders.
Reforms within the country
During the reign of Khrushchev state economy sharply turned towards the consumer. In 1957, the USSR found itself in a state of default. Most citizens lost their savings.
In 1958, Khrushchev took the initiative against private farming. Since 1959, people living in the villages have been prohibited from keeping livestock. The personal livestock of collective farm residents was bought by the state.
Against the backdrop of mass slaughter of livestock, the situation of the peasantry worsened. In 1962, the “corn campaign” began. 37,000,000 hectares were sown, but only 7,000,000 hectares managed to mature.
Under Khrushchev, a course was set for the development of virgin lands and the rehabilitation of victims Stalin's repressions. The principle of “permanence of personnel” was gradually implemented. The heads of the union republics received more independence.
In 1961, the first manned space flight took place. In the same year, the Berlin Wall was erected.
Death
After being removed from power, N.S. Khrushchev lived in retirement for some time. He passed away on September 11, 1971. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Personal life
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was married 3 times. With my first wife , E.I. Pisareva, he lived in marriage for 6 years, until her death from typhus in 1920.
Khrushchev's great-granddaughter, Nina, now lives in the USA.
Other biography options
- In 1959, during the American National Exhibition, Khrushchev tried Pepsi-Cola for the first time, unwittingly becoming the advertising face of this brand, since the next day all publications in the world published this photo.
- Khrushchev’s famous phrase about “Kuzka’s mother” was translated verbatim. IN English version it sounded like “Mother of Kuzma,” which took on a new, ominous connotation.
Biography score
New feature! average rating, which this biography received. Show rating
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev still remains one of the most significant personalities V political history peace. His decisions were controversial and controversial. He was a reformer and a tyrant, the one who first dared to abolish the cult of Stalin, however, at the same time being the initiator of brutal anti-religious reprisals and the introduction death penalty for parasitism and currency fraud.
Secret prophecy
To answer the question “Who is Khrushchev”, we are transported to the very origins. Let's return to the village of Kalinovka, Kursk province, where in 1894. Nikita Sergeevich was born into a family of poor peasants. Little is known about his childhood, because Khrushchev himself forbade “rummaging” in his biography and said that his life began with joining the party. Nikita Sergeevich had a sister, Irina.
Happened to Nikita in childhood mysterious case: he got lost in the forest, and when he came out into a clearing, he met an old woman there. She said then quite little boy that he will live long life and will become a great man. Whether these are real memories or fantasies, one can only guess.
Young and promising
Nikita Sergeevich recalled in his own memoirs that the family lived very poorly. Potatoes, salt and water - that’s all the Khrushchev family ate X. They had a hard time making ends meet and in search of work they moved to the Donbass city of Yuzovka. Nikita Sergeevich then firmly decides that he will change his life. By that time, the future head of state becomes a first-class mechanic, gets married, gets an apartment, and earns 45–50 rubles. per month. Big money for a young worker. But this was not enough for Nikita; he is thinking of becoming an engineer and even immigrating to the USA. However, the Great October Revolution changes all his plans.
Revolution - a time of opportunity
In 1918 he is drafted into the Red Army. Civil War leads to the fact that the working working class becomes the head of power. The mines have collapsed and enormous efforts are required to restore them. In 1920 The civil war takes Nikita Sergeevich's wife Frosya away from him. Khrushchev took an active part in the repair of mines, threw himself headlong into work, and in 1922 married Nina Kukharchuk for the second time.
Able-bodied and active Nikita notices the Regional Committee and makes him a party member. In 1925 Nikita Sergeevich even goes to the capital, to the party congress, where the dawn of the NEP is just taking place. All this makes an indelible impression on a simple village guy. He comes to the hall before everyone else to take a place in the front rows, actively, enthusiastically, applauding Stalin. Since then, the career of the young politician has been going up. He enters the Donbass Industrial Institute at the working faculty, and at the same time leads an active political career.
At one of the political congresses, he meets his guide to the world of high ranks - Lazar Kaganovich. In 1929 on his promotion Khrushchev enters the Moscow Academy of Industry and becomes secretary of the party committee. All his life, Khrushchev dreams of getting an education, “becoming a man,” but his interest in political career takes over. Nikita Sergeevich, guided by the interests of Stalin, seeks out opposition-minded students, the so-called right-wingers. Such dedication does not go unnoticed. Dreams of studying fade into the background, Khrushchev becomes second secretary of the Moscow City Committee. In 1934 he takes the place of the head of the Moscow party organization, which was previously occupied by the same Lazar Kaganovich.
Shirt guy
Nikita Sergeevich admired Stalin at that time, he spoke of him as an attentive, penetrating person. And most importantly, he was unconditionally loyal to the leader. It was precisely these people that Stalin needed to cleanse the party apparatus. Khrushchev later called that time a “massacre.” Everyone could come under suspicion: both ordinary workers and senior party officials.
The entire world of the Red Army was arrested and shot. N.S. Khrushchev becomes especially close to Stalin. Every day, documents from the “traitors” with whom he sat at the same table yesterday land on his desk. Nikita Sergeevich not only did not question the decision of the leader of the people, he was surprised and angry that he himself could not recognize the enemies among his entourage.
Stalin instructed Nikita, as he called it, find and destroy more than 35 thousand. enemies. And Khrushchev completed this task, he did it, he destroyed thousands of people whose guilt was not proven; people who were not enemies, but their activities or ideas simply did not suit Stalin. The leader was so pleased with the work of his ward that he sent him to Ukraine, making him the head political party Ukrainian SSR.
Achievements during the war
Nikita Sergeevich resisted. He said that he could not cope, however, Stalin’s decisions were not discussed. When Khrushchev arrived in Ukraine, it was as if he had broken out of Stalin's hypnosis. He increasingly began to wonder whether it was worth shedding so much blood for the sake of a bright communist future. During the years of his reign of the Ukrainian SSR, the Great Patriotic War occurred. And everyone unites against the external enemy - Nazi Germany. Nikita Sergeevich does not sit idle. He takes an active part. The assessment of Khrushchev's activities can be either positive or negative. However, during the war he deservedly receives the rank of “lieutenant general.”
With his active participation, the victory at Stalingrad and the liberation of Kyiv take place. Stalin orders Khrushchev to return to politics, explaining that for him the war is over. And in 1945 the war ends for the entire Soviet Union.
After the war
Khrushchev began to restore Ukraine with his former youthful zeal. It seemed that life was starting from scratch. The war changed people, they became freer. However, in 1946 a new misfortune came - an unusually lean year. All reserves from the Ukrainian treasury were redirected to Moscow. And how N.S. Khrushchev did not ask Stalin to return at least something to Ukraine - he was unshakable. Ukraine was in for a terrible famine. Desperate, Khrushchev tries to circumvent Stalin's decisions. The leader is furious. He removes Khrushchev from the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian SSR, after which Khrushchev is seriously ill for a long time.
Later, Stalin shows unusual mercy and not only does not punish Khrushchev, but again makes him the main political figure of Ukraine.
After some time, the leader returns Nikita to his place in Moscow. In the second half of the 40s. Khrushchev becomes the closest person to Stalin. Nobody around him takes Nikita Sergeevich seriously, but in vain...
Khrushchev's rise to power
In 1953 Stalin dies, leaving the country on the brink of the Cold War with the United States. M.G. becomes the first secretary of the Central Committee. Malenkov, however, it is clear that this post is temporary. Beria and Khrushchev laid claim to the role of head of state. However, the steps taken by the all-powerful at that time L.P. Beria, frightened members of the Presidium of the Central Committee. And they decided to choose a safer and more predictable leader. Beria was taken out of the Kremlin and declared an enemy of the people and a spy. And Khrushchev, having secured the support of the party bureaucracy, became the main person in the Soviet Union.
The main merit of N.S. Khrushchev
In 1956 At the 20th Party Congress, Nikita Sergeevich gave a two-hour speech on the abolition of Stalin’s personality cult. This speech was filled with shocking facts and promises. He spoke about the erroneous lists of those convicted in the 30s; about Lenin’s will, where he asked to remove Stalin from the post of General Secretary and about losses in the Great Patriotic War, in which Stalin played a central role. It was a speech that destroyed all previous achievements. A wave of indignation swept across the country
Mistakes of foreign and domestic policy
Perhaps this one historical phrase Nikita Sergeevich will be remembered by other generations. But during his reign, many innovative decisions were made. All the merits of Khrushchev united under the name “Khrushchev Thaw”:
- Debunking Stalin's personality cult.
- Softening censorship, conducting many International festivals, exchange of experience between students.
- Rehabilitation of victims of Stalinist repressions.
- Bringing the village to a new stage of development - village residents received passports, improved general level life.
- Many reforms regarding pensions, working hours, social security, solving the housing problem.
However, some economic views of Khrushchev were not only disadvantages, but frankly disastrous:
- Excessive enthusiasm for the confrontation with the United States.
- Incorrect military reform, as a result of which a large number of the military were left without a livelihood.
- Khrushchev's attempts to reduce the influence of the church on the state through harsh anti-religious campaigns
- Construction of the Berlin Wall.
- The planting of corn in unfavorable areas, which plunged the country into economic crisis.
- The abolition of the cult of personality is taking place formally, since now in every office, instead of a portrait of Stalin, there hangs a portrait of Khrushchev
Historical failure of power
All reforms of N.S. Khrushchev's plans were inconsistent and not completed. He changed his policy many times without adhering to a single course. N. Khrushchev’s ambitions guided his decisions, so, along with the abolition of the cult of Stalin, many effective and high-quality Stalinist reforms were canceled. The country was approaching its biggest crisis in years.
Politics N.S. Khrushchev aroused indignation among ordinary people, and at the top ranks. Therefore, in 1964, a plan was carried out to remove Nikita Sergeevich from office, the so-called conspiracy against Khrushchev. The main agitator for the removal of N. Khrushchev was Brezhnev. After his 30-minute speech about the shortcomings of the board, by unanimous decision of the Presidium, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev resigned from his post as First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
Although Nikita Sergeevich was formally a member of the party, his time for participation in the political life of the country was over. Last years he spent his life at the dacha. Recording his memories on a dictaphone, he knew in advance that no one would ever publish them.
Once at the school where the grandson of the former head of state studied, they asked what he did former head state, the boy replied: “Grandfather is crying.”
Interesting facts from the life of N.S. Khrushchev:
- Being a mechanic's assistant, he assembled a motorcycle with his own hands.
- He played the button accordion very well.
- Often used in his speech profanity.
- Had a special glass with a double bottom to create the appearance drinking man, often used tea instead of cognac.
- He didn't actually hit the table with his shoe, he just tried to straighten it.
The key figures in the conspiracy against the seemingly all-powerful Minister of Internal Affairs were Nikita Khrushchev and the leading marshals Nikolai Bulganin and Georgy Zhukov.
1954: spicy Crimea
One of Khrushchev’s most “strange” decisions was the transfer of Crimea, which was part of a completely legally into the RSFSR, as a gift from the Ukrainian SSR.60 years later, this political act played the role of a detonator of grandiose political events. Moreover, both in the Crimean autonomy and in Ukraine, which has already acquired its sovereignty.
1955: giving birth cannot be prohibited
On November 23, the Soviet leadership pleased the country's women. The taboo on voluntary termination of pregnancy - abortion - was abolished.1956: bombshell
On February 25, the 20th Congress of the CPSU ended, which created a real sensation. More precisely, not even the congress itself, but a closed plenum Central Committee. On it, Khrushchev read the instantly famous “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,” which contained previously impossible criticism of Stalin and his policies.It was after this plenum, even if its decisions were not published in open sources, the liberation of millions of repressed people from camps and exile began. And later - rehabilitation. For many, unfortunately. This is also the year of the beginning of the development of virgin lands and the suppression of Hungarian forces by Soviet tanks.
1957: Long live the Cold War!
For some, this year, in connection with the World Festival of Youth and Students held in Moscow, became the beginning of “”. And for others, after the successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, it was the start of the Cold War.In October, again on Khrushchev’s initiative, Georgy Zhukov was forever “released” from his post and removed from the Presidium of the Central Committee.
The disgrace of “Marshal of Victory” Georgy Zhukov is the painful reaction of the head of the USSR to the data he received from the state security agencies about possible conspiracy military.
1958: bombardier Streltsov
The USSR national team took part in the World Championship for the first time. But team player Eduard Streltsov did not go to Sweden; shortly before the start of the tournament, he was deprived of his freedom, on Khrushchev’s orders.1959: Khrushchev’s visit to the “den of the enemy”
In September, Nikita Khrushchev became the first leader of the Soviet state to not only visit the United States, but also hold talks there with President Dwight Eisenhower.1961: "Let's go!"
The world remembered the first year of the decade thanks to two extraordinary events. Khrushchev was also involved in both.On April 22, the first man, Yuri Gagarin, went into space. And on August 13, the Berlin Wall was built, dividing Germany into two zones.
1962: Missiles for Cuba
The year of the Caribbean crisis. Cuban Revolution and military assistance this country from the side of the Soviet Union could have ended in the Third World War. After all, in October 1962, Soviet submarines had already aimed missiles with nuclear warheads at the United States and were just waiting for Nikita Khrushchev’s command.Approximately the same command, by the way, that the soldiers of the North Caucasus Military District received when they shot at a demonstration of citizens in Novocherkassk...
The reason for placing submarines, ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads and military units in Cuba, Khrushchev was outraged by the appearance of American missiles near Soviet border- in Turkey.
1963: no longer friends
In just a few months, the Soviet leadership managed to quarrel with two recent allies at once. But if the conflict with Albania can be considered local, then the scandalous break in relations with the PRC, which had begun to gain its power, turned out to be serious and for a long time.1964: The Last Hero
One of Nikita Khrushchev’s final acts as first secretary and chairman of the Council of Ministers with the status of “strange” was to award the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union to Algerian President Ahmed bin Bell.Just a year later, the African president shared the fate of the recipient himself, losing his post and power.
