Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev
Edited by Sergei Khrushchev
Editor’s Foreword
by Dr. Sergei Khrushchev
For information on the process by which Nikita Khrushchev
tape-recorded his memoirs, how the tapes were transcribed
and edited, how the Soviet authorities tried to confiscate
this material, and how it all came to be published, see
Sergei Khrushchev’s “The History of the Creation
and Publication of the Khrushchev Memoirs (1967–1999),”
in the Appendixes to this volume.
The First Complete Russian Edition
The four-volume Russian edition of my father’s memoirs (Vremia, Liudi, Vlast’, by Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev) produced by the Moscow News publishing company in 1999 has a total of 2,448 pages (approximately 1.5 million words). It is the first, and thus far the only, complete edition of the memoirs and is based on transcripts of all the tape recordings dictated by N. S. Khrushchev from 1966 to 1971. Moscow News has graciously granted a license for preparation of this translation based on its edition.
Other Russian Editions
During the years 1990–95, the Russian journal Voprosy Istorii (Problems of History) published the most complete version of the memoirs up to that time. However, only the basic version of the transcribed tape recordings was used; variants were omitted, which of course made that edition less informative.
In 1997 the Moscow publishing house VAGRIUS brought out a one-volume, 508-page edition of this work by N. S. Khrushchev under the title Vospominaniia: Izbrannye Fragmenty (Memoirs: Selected Fragments). It was based entirely on the Voprosy Istorii edition.
The Tape Recordings in Russian
Copies of the tape recordings dictated by my father may be found in a number of different archives, but working with them is extremely difficult because, as a result of technical difficulties when the tapes were copied, the “chapters” (or sections treating particular topics) became fragmented and dispersed among different tapes and parts of tapes. In order to bring them together, it was necessary in every case to work out a puzzle by matching up separated parts.
The archive at Brown University accomplished this arduous and challenging task, reestablishing the logical continuity of the original recordings, and restoring my father’s voice to a more or less normal quality of sound reproduction. (Because of speed fluctuations during the dubbing of the original tapes his voice was distorted, sometimes to the point where it became unrecognizable.) Now that the recordings have been digitalized and catalogued, researchers can compare published texts against the tape recordings. However, it must be kept in mind that dictated material on a particular topic is found not only in the main “chapter,” or section dealing with that topic. In one or another context dictated passages on the same subject exist on various tapes and parts of tapes.
The tape recordings served as a draft for my father’s
memoirs, and he returned more than once to a topic that
interested him, sometimes in different “chapters”
that had little to do with one another. Sometimes my father,
from forgetfulness, dictated a passage on a particular topic
more than once.
In editing the text, I placed passages united by a common
theme in one chapter or section, and repetitions were relegated
to the Appendixes of the Russian edition. (These repetitions
have been omitted from the present English-language edition.)
Thus, in order to compare a particular sentence or paragraph
of the printed Russian text with the tape-recorded version
it may be necessary not only to listen to the corresponding
part of the dictated material but also, in some cases, to
search through the entire text of the Russian edition.
During his life, N. S. Khrushchev was able to review and correct transcripts of the texts in Volume 1 of the Russian edition and, partially, the beginning of Volume 2. He made some additions to the text, and these of course do not appear in the tape-recorded version. These changes can be found in the original transcripts (on the front and back sides of the sheets containing the relevant texts), which are preserved in Moscow in the Unified Moscow City Archives (Obyedinenie Moskovskikh Gorodskikh Arkhivov). Copies of these transcripts may also be found in the archives of Brown University in the United States.
As indicated above, I have given, in a separate chapter, a detailed account entitled “The History of the Creation and Publication of the Khrushchev Memoirs.” The chapter appears in the Appendixes to Volume 1 of the present edition.
Previous American Editions
Let me say a few words about earlier editions of the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev in English.
These first appeared in the United States. In 1970 Little, Brown published a 525-page volume, Khrushchev Remembers (translated and edited by Strobe Talbott, with introduction, commentary, and notes by Edward Crankshaw). Then in 1974 the same publisher issued a 542-page volume, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament (translated and edited by Strobe Talbott, with introductions by Edward Crankshaw and Jerrold Schecter); and finally, in 1990, a 203-page volume entitled Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes (translated and edited by Jerrold Schecter with Vyacheslav Luchkov; foreword by Strobe Talbott). All three volumes are now out of print.
In the West, these books were collectively referred to as the Khrushchev memoirs. Unfortunately, the editors prepared these texts as they saw fit and drastically abridged them. Thus, what my father had to say about World War II takes up more than 400 pages in the Russian edition of his memoirs, but in the American edition, no more than 50 pages are devoted to this subject. Sections dealing with agriculture, housing construction in the USSR, and some other subjects disappeared entirely from the American volumes.
In the Brezhnev era it was impossible for the American publisher to contact my father or me, and because of the difficulties the translators encountered in dealing with the dictated material in Russian, a certain number of mistakes of meaning appeared in the Little, Brown editions. Sometimes the original idea was turned into its opposite. All it took for this to happen was the omission of “no” or a “not” by mistake.
Besides that, the American editors sometimes added their own material to what the author had said. For example, they “wrote in” a section—based on their own level of competence—about N. S. Khrushchev’s early years. Not knowing the name of my father’s first wife, they came up with “Galina,” instead of her actual name, Yefrosinya. This made it look as though my father had failed to remember his first wife’s name.
For all their shortcomings, the American editions had a tremendous impact. Until 1990 no other published version of my father’s memoirs existed. Meanwhile, the dictated tapes and the transcripts—or decodings of the recordings, edited by me—ended up “under confinement,” lying for a long time in the safes of the CPSU Central Committee in its building on Staraya Ploshchad (Old Square) near the Kremlin in Moscow.
The Present Edition
The present edition, as indicated above, is based on the
four-volume complete Russian edition (Moscow News Publishers,
1999). The main difference between that Russian edition
and this English one lies in what is included in the Appendixes
(as well as the short biographies, explanatory notes, and
maps especially prepared for this edition, as described
below).
The alternate versions or repetitions dictated by my father
have been omitted from this English edition. They are nearly
as great in size as the main text, but they add practically
nothing in content. They are of interest mainly to those
researchers who are particularly fastidious and who like
to dig up nuances of difference in published materials and
other such details of lesser importance. Researchers of
that kind usually know Russian and may consult the complete
four-volume Russian edition or, better yet, the tape recordings
themselves.
Besides the above-mentioned alternate versions of the memoirs, Appendixes in the four-volume Russian edition include quite a few documents of interest. Thus, out of the total of 847 pages in Volume 1 of the Russian edition, its Appendix has 110 pages of “Documents” in small type (pp. 719–828). Volume 2 has 102 pages of such “Documents” (pp. 725–826) out of a total of 847. Volume 3 has 74 (pp. 611–84) out of a total of 703. And Volume 4, out of a total of 727 pages, has 204 pages of “Documents” and other materials in small type (pp. 487–690).
Sometimes these “Documents” and other materials in the Russian-language Appendixes do not relate directly or personally to N. S. Khrushchev. More important, the cost of translating and publishing all of them would have exceeded our budget. Therefore, only the most interesting (from our point of view, of course) were selected for inclusion in the present English-language edition.
We have included two documents in the Appendixes to the present edition that did not appear in the Russian edition—first, the memoirs of my mother, Nina Petrovna Khrushchev (maiden name, Kukharchuk); second, an excerpt from the memoirs of Nikolai Zakharov (first published in 2000), along with notes by two other key eyewitnesses, concerning the “shoe-banging” incident at the United Nations in 1960. Zakharov was head of the KGB’s Ninth Directorate, responsible for guarding top officials of the Soviet Union.
We have included the recollections by Zakharov (and others) because my father, in his memoirs, did not recall very clearly the incident that occurred at the United Nations.
As for my mother’s reminiscences, they are an organic,
highly personal, and indispensable supplement to my father’s
memoirs. My mother and father shared a long and happy life
from 1924 to 1971. Together they raised five children and
survived the repression of the Stalin era, World War II,
the joyous time of renewal after Stalin’s death, and
the sorrows of political disfavor after 1964.
The indicated divergences from the four-volume Russian edition,
which do not affect the main text of the memoirs, have made
it possible for us to produce a three-volume English edition
without losing anything fundamental. Undoubtedly, to have
three volumes rather than four will also be a greater convenience
to the reader.
Volume 1 of the present edition is essentially the same as Volume 1 of the Russian edition. In Volume 2 of the present edition we have combined material having mainly to do with domestic policy and events in the Soviet Union—including “Part I” of the memoirs from Volume 2 of the Russian edition and the full text of the memoirs from Volume 4 of the Russian edition.
In Volume 3 of the present edition we include those parts of the memoirs that deal mainly with post-Stalin foreign policy, world affairs, and international issues—materials found in “Part II” of Volume 2 and all of Volume 3 of the Russian edition. Material from the Appendixes of the Russian edition relating to domestic matters has been placed in Volume 2 of the present edition, while that concerned with international relations has been placed in Volume 3 of the present edition.
Andrei Bitov’s Introductory Essay
It is traditional for any substantial publication of historically controversial material to be preceded by an “Introduction.” Usually this gives the reader a bit of instruction on what is good or bad in the author’s work, which of the author’s opinions are correct and which are wrong. Evidently the assumption is that readers are not well enough informed to figure out such things for themselves. However, there is no guarantee that the writer of the “Introduction” understands the subject better than the author. It may simply be that the author and the “Introducer” have different views of the world, and that the latter wishes to impose his view on the reader.
That is why I never read “Introductions,” and advise others not to. What I usually say is: “Use your own head. Trust your own judgment.”
I make an exception, however, in the case of the introductory essay in the present edition. This essay by Andrei Bitov, an outstanding contemporary Russian writer, is a remarkably rich, vivid, and concise piece of writing, which gives a striking picture of who Nikita Khrushchev was, against the background of the epoch he lived in. I urge you to read it. You won’t regret it.
I wish to express my gratitude personally to Andrei Bitov for permission to reprint his essay in the present edition, and I thank Susan Brownsberger for her excellent translation.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to George Shriver for his splendid translation of the main text, the memoirs themselves. He is a professional writer who has translated or edited dozens of books on Soviet history and politics, including the autobiographical novel by Nikolai Bukharin, How It All Began (Columbia University Press, 1998), and Conversations with Gorbachev (Columbia University Press, 2002)—the latter consisting of edited transcripts of conversations between Mikhail Gorbachev and his Czech friend Zdenek Mlynar, a leader of the Prague Spring of 1968.
In consultation with the editor, the present translation
has been carefully checked for accuracy; at the same time
it seeks to retain the author’s vividness of expression
and the nuances of meaning in the Russian original. The
translator has added commentaries and notes in cases where
a literal rendering alone might not enable the English-language
reader to fully grasp the author’s intended message.
Stephen Shenfield, Ph.D., translated the supplementary material
in the Appendixes to the present edition, the notes from
the Russian edition, and the photo captions. He also compiled
short biographies on most of the persons mentioned in the
memoirs. And he has written (in collaboration with George
Shriver and myself) additional notes for the benefit of
readers who may be unfamiliar with the background to the
events described. Dr. Shenfield, one of today’s best
specialists on Russia, is the author of Russian Fascism:
Traditions, Tendencies, and Movements (New York: M. E. Sharpe,
2001).
Ann Helgeson, Ph.D, has provided an excellent selection
of maps for this edition. Without these it would be impossible
for readers to orient themselves amid the welter of retreats
and advances by Soviet troops in the shifting fortunes of
the war with Germany from 1941 to 1945. Dr. Helgeson has
also contributed some of the notes about places.
Yuri Shapoval, a professor of Ukrainian history, has provided
invaluable assistance in preparing some of the notes and
biographies pertaining to the period when N. S. Khrushchev
was in Ukraine.
My son Nikita, who lives in Moscow, has helped to clarify
and verify questions of fact and to obtain archival information
not available in the United States.
The present edition would not have been possible without financial support from both individuals and institutions. They have demonstrated their awareness that without an accurate understanding of the past no successful advance into the future is possible. I wish to thank above all my good friends Martha and Artemis of the Martha and Artemis Joukowsky Family Foundation, David Rockefeller, Sr. (with whom my father met many times), David Rockefeller, Jr., Timothy Forbes and the Forbes Foundation, the Kairis family, the Donald R. Sohn Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Harry Orbelian of San Francisco, and Edward H. Ladd of Boston.
This edition is, above all, the product of fruitful collaboration between The Pennsylvania State University Press and the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies of Brown University. These institutions have shown that they understand full well the truth expressed in the following observations by Professor Abbott (Tom) Gleason, an authority on Russian history:
Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs are a priceless addition to the archival materials being studied by historians, which usually contain an official version of events, but lack breadth and do not reflect the clash of opinions when decisions were made. The memoirs are unique and highly valuable: they relate events as they happened, providing details not found in any other source.
These are the only memoirs of a Soviet leader at the highest level of government that have not been censored. Khrushchev was subjected to pressures from the Brezhnev leadership because of the frankness of his memoirs, and they demanded that he stop working on them. Nevertheless, he continued. Without this source of information our knowledge of the history of Russia, particularly of the Cold War period, [would] remain imperfect.
Not only has the Watson Institute taken a direct and active part in the implementation of this joint project; it has also contributed generously toward the costs of publication.
Professor Thomas Biersteker, director of the Watson Institute, and Sanford G. Thatcher, director of The Pennsylvania State University Press, have in fact been the driving forces behind this project. I want to express my profound gratitude to both of them, as well as to Professor Abbott Gleason and all members of the staff at the Watson Institute and at The Pennsylvania State University Press for the efforts they have contributed toward making this edition of my father’s memoirs a reality.
© 2004 The Penn State University