Crankshaw E. Khrushchev: A Career / Edward Crankshaw. — First edition. — New York : The Viking Press, 1966. — 311 p.
Анотація: Edward Crankshaw, one of the foremost Western authorities on Soviet Russia, has given us in this book the first biography of Khrushchev to cover his entire political career, from its humble beginnings to its sudden eclipse. There could be no more suitable matching of author to subject. Mr. Crankshaw’s articles in the London Observer, for which he has been Russian correspondent for two decades, and his books on Soviet politics and society, have earned him an international reputation. Khrushchev: A Career is the story of a self-made man who rose from peasant origins to become master of two hundred million Russians and a determining force in world affairs. His career parallels the whole history of post-revolutionary Russia. Khrushchev joined the Party after the Revolution, and became important in its councils only in the 1930s as Stalin came to full power. Crankshaw traces his career from the early provincial days, up through the ranks and into positions of lesser importance under Stalin, then back to the Ukraine, where he was lord and master of a population almost the size of Britain’s. Russia's invasion of Poland in 1989, and Khrushchev’s acquisition of eight million new subjects, is a story almost unknown in the West; the German take-over of the Ukraine and the Russian reconquest after Stalingrad are also little known. It was from this background that Khrushchev emerged as a major figure on the national scene and began jockeying for Stalin’s post — a battle between the government and the Party that ended in his victory over Malenkov in 1955. How he rode on Stalin’s coattails for so many years, praising his works, and then turned about to destroy Stalin’s image in his famous “secret speech” in 1956, is one of many aspects of his life on which Crank-shaw contributes notable new research. While dealing with individuals and building the picture of a self-seeking career, Crankshaw never loses sight of the idealism and sacrifice of the Russian masses, deluded by the dream of a better world. But his principal drama is that of a ruthless clique, very little concerned — as it appears here — with ideology, and very much concerned with power and place in a rising, newly industrialized nation driven by the old imperialistic urges.