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157-722: Collective leadership became institutionalised in the upper levels of control in the Soviet Union following Stalin's death in March 1953, and subsequent Soviet Communist Party leaders ruled as part of a collective. First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev criticized Stalin's dictatorial rule at the 20th Party Congress in 1956, but Khrushchev's own increasingly erratic decisions lead to his ouster in 1964. The Party replaced Khrushchev in his posts with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and with Alexei Kosygin as Premier. Though Brezhnev gained more and more prominence over his colleagues, he retained

314-599: A party Congress . Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo (having only one candidate for each seat); for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The more power the CPSU General Secretary had, the stronger the chance was that the Politburo membership were passed without serious dissent. Article 25 of

471-482: A "coalition" government of several social forces. This development led some to believe that the Soviet Union had evolved into neo-corporatism . Some believed Soviet factionalism to be " feudal in character". Personal relationship were created to ensure service and support. "Personal factionalism", as Baylis calls it, could either strengthen or weaken the collective leadership's majority. Robert Osborn wrote in 1974 that collective leadership did not necessarily mean that

628-544: A "rule by committee", pointing to several collective Politburo decisions as evidence. Grey Hodnett , another analyst, believed that "freer communication" and "access to relevant official information" during the Brezhnev Era had contributed to strengthening the Politburo's collective leadership. According to Thomas A. Baylis, the author of Governing by Committee: Collegial Leadership in Advanced Societies ,

785-478: A 70th birthday present. In his memoirs, Khrushchev spoke highly of Ukraine: I'll say that the Ukrainian people treated me well. I recall warmly the years I spent there. This was a period full of responsibilities, but pleasant because it brought satisfaction ... But far be it from me to inflate my significance. The entire Ukrainian people was exerting great efforts ... I attribute Ukraine's successes to

942-415: A collective leadership in an authoritarian state was "inherently unworkable" in practice, claiming that a collective leadership would sooner or later always give in for one-man rule. In a different interpretation, the Soviet Union was seen to go into periods of "oligarchy" and "limited-personal rule". Oligarchy, in the sense that no individual could "prevent the adoption of policies in which he may be opposed",

1099-541: A five-member Politburo to decide on questions too urgent to await full Central Committee deliberation. The original members of the Politburo were Lenin , Trotsky , Stalin , Kamenev , and Nikolai Krestinsky . The Soviet system was based upon the system conceived by Lenin , often referred to as Leninism . Certain historians and political scientists credit Lenin for the evolution of the Soviet political system after his death. Others, such as Leonard Schapiro , argue that

1256-624: A labor camp, and her son (by another relationship), Tolya, was placed in orphanages. Leonid's daughter, Yulia, was raised by Nikita Khrushchev and his wife. After Uranus forced the Germans into retreat, Khrushchev served on other fronts of the war. He was attached to Soviet troops at the Battle of Kursk , in July 1943, which turned back the last major German offensive on Soviet soil. Khrushchev related that he interrogated an SS defector, learning that

1413-521: A large-scale housing program for Moscow. Five- or six-story apartment buildings became ubiquitous throughout the Soviet Union. Khrushchev had prefabricated reinforced concrete used, greatly speeding up construction. These structures were completed at triple the construction rate of Moscow housing from 1946 to 1950, lacked elevators or balconies, and were nicknamed khrushchyovka by the public, but because of their shoddy workmanship sometimes disparagingly called Khrushchoba , combining Khrushchev's name with

1570-401: A leadership of the collective. In accordance with a Soviet textbook, collective leadership was: The regular convocations of Party congresses and plenary sessions of the Central Committee, regular meetings of all electoral organs of the party, general public discussion of the major issues of state, economic and party development, extensive consultation with persons employed in various branches of

1727-585: A massive stroke. As terrified doctors attempted treatment, Khrushchev and his colleagues engaged in an intense discussion as to the new government. On 5 March, Stalin died. Khrushchev later reflected on Stalin: Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated Politbureau CC CPSS or simply Politbureau ,

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1884-620: A measure, proposing instead of handing them over to the courts. Molotov and Kliment Voroshilov , supported a compromise brokered by Stalin, which handed over Bukharin and Rykov to the NKVD . Despite this opposition, Stalin and his closest associates began purging officials nationwide. In May 1937, Jānis Rudzutaks became the first Politburo member to be purged. In 1938, four other Politburo members were purged; Chubar, who personally telephoned Stalin crying trying to assure his innocence, Kosior, who confessed for anti-socialist crimes after his daughter

2041-669: A non-voting delegate to the 14th Congress of the USSR Communist Party in Moscow. Khrushchev met Lazar Kaganovich as early as 1917. In 1925, Kaganovich became Party head in Ukraine and Khrushchev, falling under his patronage, was rapidly promoted. He was appointed second in command of Stalin's party apparatus in late 1926. Within nine months his superior, Konstantin Moiseyenko, was ousted, which, according to Taubman,

2198-552: A noted factionalist before the Bolshevik seizure of power, supported the promotion of people he had previously clashed with on important issues to the Politburo; Trotsky and Lenin had had several years of violent polemics between them, while Grigori Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev both opposed the Central Committee resolution that initiated the October Revolution. From 1917 to the mid-1920s, congresses were held annually,

2355-616: A one-man dictatorship within the party, Lenin countered, stating that he, like any other, could only implement policies by persuading the party. This happened on several occasions, such as in 1917 when he threatened to leave the party if it did not go along with the October Revolution , when he persuaded the party to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , or with the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Lenin,

2512-665: A part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on 1 November 1939. Clumsy actions by the Soviets, such as staffing Western Ukrainian organizations with Eastern Ukrainians , and giving confiscated land to collective farms ( kolkhozes ) rather than to peasants, soon alienated Western Ukrainians, damaging Khrushchev's efforts to achieve unity. When Nazi Germany invaded the USSR , in June 1941, Khrushchev

2669-530: A plan to close GUM and open some kind of cabinet of curiosities there." After everyone sat down, he asks: "Well, has the GUM issue been resolved?" Everyone, including Suslov, nodded their heads. The problem was closed once and for all without discussion. To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve on the Central Committee . The Central Committee formally elected the Politburo in the aftermath of

2826-567: A power struggle in which Khrushchev emerged victorious upon consolidating his authority as First Secretary of the party's Central Committee. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress , he delivered the " Secret Speech ", which denounced Stalin's purges and ushered in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union. His domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite

2983-442: A province with a population of 11 million. Stalin's office records show meetings at which Khrushchev was present as early as 1932. The two increasingly built a good relationship. Khrushchev greatly admired the dictator and treasured informal meetings with him and invitations to Stalin's dacha , while Stalin felt warm affection for his young subordinate. Beginning in 1934, Stalin began a campaign of political repression known as

3140-409: A quarter million more between 1944 and 1946. About 600,000 Western Ukrainians were arrested between 1944 and 1952, with one-third executed and the remainder imprisoned or exiled to the east. The war years of 1944 and 1945 had seen poor harvests, and 1946 saw intense drought strike Ukraine and Western Russia. Despite this, collective and state farms were required to turn over 52% of the harvest to

3297-546: A single honest Bolshevik to be harmed." When Soviet troops, pursuant to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , invaded the eastern portion of Poland on 17 September 1939, Khrushchev accompanied the troops at Stalin's direction. A large number of ethnic Ukrainians lived in the invaded area, much of which today forms the western portion of Ukraine . Many inhabitants initially welcomed the invasion, though they hoped that they would eventually become independent. Khrushchev's role

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3454-545: A tax on private livestock holdings led to peasants slaughtering their stock. With the idea of eliminating differences in attitude between town and countryside and transforming the peasantry into a "rural proletariat", Khrushchev conceived the idea of the "agro-town". Rather than agricultural workers living close to farms, they would live further away in larger towns which would offer municipal services such as utilities and libraries. He completed only one such town before his December 1949 return to Moscow; he dedicated it to Stalin as

3611-401: A way that exceeded the praise accorded to Khrushchev before his removal. Brezhnev was able to retain the Politburo's support by not introducing the same sweeping reform measures as seen during Khrushchev's rule. As noted by foreign officials, Brezhnev felt obliged to discuss unanticipated proposals with the Politburo before responding to them. As Brezhnev's health worsened during the late 1970s,

3768-458: A year before returning to Kalinovka. Kalinovka was a peasant village; Khrushchev's teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, later stated that she had never seen a village as poor. Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age. He was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village school and part under Shevchenko's tutelage in Kalinovka's state school. According to Khrushchev's memoirs, Shevchenko

3925-711: A year in which the Russian Civil War , between the Bolsheviks and a coalition of opponents known as the White Army , began in earnest. His biographer, William Taubman , suggests that Khrushchev's delay in affiliating himself with the Bolsheviks was because he felt closer to the Mensheviks who prioritized economic progress, whereas the Bolsheviks sought political power. In his memoirs, Khrushchev indicated that he waited because there were many groups, and it

4082-552: Is a system in which higher bodies are responsible to lower bodies and where every member is subordinate to party decisions). The nature of democratic centralism had changed by 1929, and freedom of expression , which had been previously tolerated within the party, was replaced with monolithic unity. This was achieved with Stalin's defeat of rival factions such as the Left Opposition and the Right Opposition . It

4239-472: Is approved,' said Brezhnev after a few more moments of silence. Makarov put his hand on my shoulder, whispering, 'Okay, Arkady, that's it. You can go.'" Nevertheless, there were times where the General Secretary would override all the other members by making his opinion clear and implying that dissent would not be tolerated. Mikhail Smirtyukov , recalled one such Politburo meeting. While Brezhnev

4396-623: Is generally believed that under Stalin the Politburo's powers were reduced compared to the General Secretary . Stalin defeated the Left Opposition led by Trotsky by allying himself with the rightists within the Politburo; Nikolai Bukharin , Aleksey Rykov , and Mikhail Tomsky . After defeating the Left Opposition, Stalin began attacking the rightists (referred to as the Right Opposition) through his supporters in

4553-440: Is unclear whether this was true. According to William Taubman, Khrushchev's studies were aided by Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk , a well-educated Party organizer and daughter of well-to-do Ukrainian peasants. The family was poor, according to Nina's own recollections. The two lived together as husband and wife for the rest of Khrushchev's life, though they never registered their marriage. They had three children together: daughter Rada

4710-430: Is worthy of respect. Work as such cannot be dirty, it is only conscience that can be. When World War I broke out in 1914, Khrushchev was exempt from conscription because he was a skilled metal worker. He was employed by a workshop that serviced ten mines, and he was involved in several strikes that demanded higher pay, better working conditions, and an end to the war. In 1914, he married Yefrosinia Pisareva, daughter of

4867-752: The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Khrushchev criticised Stalin's rule and his "cult of personality" . He accused Stalin of reducing the Party's activities and putting an end to Party democracy among others. In the three years following Stalin's death, the Central Committee and the Presidium (Politburo) worked consistently to uphold the collective leadership lost under Stalin. Khrushchev's rule as First Secretary remained highly controversial throughout his rule in

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5024-612: The Great Purge , during which many were executed or sent to the Gulag . Central to this campaign were the Moscow Trials , a series of show trials of the purged top leaders of the party and the military. In 1936, as the trials proceeded, Khrushchev expressed his vehement support: Everyone who rejoices in the successes achieved in our country, the victories of our party led by the great Stalin, will find only one word suitable for

5181-603: The Kremlin as a close associate of Stalin) to Moscow and enrolling in the Stalin Industrial Academy . Khrushchev never completed his studies there, but his career in the Party flourished. When the school's Party cell elected a number of rightists to an upcoming district Party conference, the cell was attacked in Pravda . Khrushchev emerged victorious in the ensuing power struggle, becoming Party secretary of

5338-555: The Lena Goldfields massacre , and was hired to mend underground equipment by a mine in nearby Ruchenkovo, where his father was the union organizer, and he helped distribute copies and organize public readings of Pravda . He later stated that he considered emigrating to the United States for better wages, but did not do so. He later recalled his working days: I started working as soon as I learned how to walk. Until

5495-531: The Moscow city Party organization , and in 1934, he became Party leader for the city and a member of the Party's Central Committee . Khrushchev attributed his rapid rise to his acquaintance with fellow Academy student Nadezhda Alliluyeva , Stalin's wife. In his memoirs, Khrushchev stated that Alliluyeva spoke well of him to her husband. His biographer, William Tompson, downplays the possibility, stating that Khrushchev

5652-512: The People's Commissar for Heavy Industry , refused to acknowledge Stalin's projected economic growth targets, claiming that the majority in the Politburo supported his position. Sergey Kirov , who had turned down an offer to take Stalin's place as General Secretary before the 17th Congress, opposed many of Stalin's repressive policies, and tried throughout 1934 to moderate them. Several scholars have viewed Ordzhonikidze's and Kirov's outspokenness as

5809-548: The Prague Spring of 1968. As a result, after 1968 Brezhnev was ranked first in the Politburo hierarchy, followed by Podgorny, Kosygin, Suslov and Kirilenko as the top five-ranked members of Politburo. As the years passed, Brezhnev was given more and more prominence, and by the 1970s he had even created a "Secretariat of the General Secretary" to strengthen his position within the Party. At the 25th Party Congress , Brezhnev was, according to an anonymous historian, praised in

5966-745: The Soviet leadership , promoted the values of collective leadership. The collective leadership included the following eight senior members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , listed according to the order of precedence presented formally on 5 March 1953: Georgy Malenkov , Lavrentiy Beria , Vyacheslav Molotov , Kliment Voroshilov , Nikita Khrushchev , Nikolai Bulganin , Lazar Kaganovich and Anastas Mikoyan . Amongst them Malenkov, Beria and Molotov formed an unofficial Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika ) immediately after Stalin's death, but it collapsed when Malenkov and Molotov turned on Beria. After

6123-570: The Ukrainian SSR , and he continued the purges there. During what was known as the Great Patriotic War , Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. Khrushchev was present at the defense of Stalingrad , a fact he took great pride in. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers. On 5 March 1953, Stalin's death triggered

6280-401: The first Soviet leader , thought that only collective leadership could protect the Party from serious mistakes. Joseph Stalin , who consolidated his power after Lenin's death in 1924, promoted these values; however, instead of creating a new collective leadership, he built up a leadership centered around himself. After Stalin's death (5 March 1953), his successors, while vying for control over

6437-401: The population censuses , during these years the Soviet Union had a composition of between 51% (in 1989 ) and 58% (in 1939 ) Russian, between 15% (in 1989) and 21% (in 1926 ) Ukrainian, between 1.2% (in 1926) and 1.4% (in 1989) Georgian, and between 0.5% (in 1989) and 1.8% (in 1926) Jewish. In general, in the first half of the Politburo's existence, there was a higher ethnic representation than

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6594-520: The tekhnikum that was designed to bring undereducated students to high-school level, a prerequisite for entry into the tekhnikum . While enrolled in the rabfak , Khrushchev continued his work at the Rutchenkovo mine. One of his teachers later described him as a poor student. He was more successful in advancing in the Communist Party ; soon after his admission to the rabfak in August 1922, he

6751-505: The 1960s onwards the majority of new members had workers' backgrounds, as expected. What is strange, however, is that from 1975 to 1981, a sudden increase of people of peasant background took place. When looking at first profession, the majority of members had worked as workers, but the majority of them had attended higher education later in their life (the majority of them choosing engineering ). 43 percent of Politburo members attained higher education credentials during their life, while in

6908-493: The 37th Army. Later, the Fifth Army also perished ... All of this was senseless, and from the military point of view, a display of ignorance, incompetence, and illiteracy. ... There you have the result of not taking a step backward. We were unable to save these troops because we didn't withdraw them, and as a result, we simply lost them. ... And yet it was possible to allow this not to happen. In 1942, Khrushchev

7065-608: The Central Committee and the Control Commission into the party's " parliament ". The combined meetings of these two would hold the Politburo responsible, while at the same time guard the Politburo from factionalism . Admitting that organizational barriers may be inadequate to safeguard the party from one-man dictatorship, Lenin recognized the importance of individuals. His testament tried to solve this crisis by reducing both Stalin's and Leon Trotsky 's powers. Although some of his contemporaries accused Lenin of creating

7222-755: The Central Committee plenum in February 1937, Stalin, Molotov, Zhdanov and Nikolai Yezhov began accusing leading officials of anti-socialist behavior, but they met opposition. Pavel Postyshev , a Politburo candidate member and First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Branch , in response to them accusing a member of the Ukrainian Central Committee of being anti-socialist said; "I don't believe it." When Yezhov proposed killing Bukharin and Rykov, Postyshev along with Stanislav Kosior and Grigory Petrovsky , opposed such

7379-520: The Central Committee treated Politburo replenishment as the responsibility of the Politburo itself. Politburo members usually picked successors who were around the same age, the result being the establishment of the gerontocracy of the Brezhnev Era . While the age steadily crept up during Khrushchev's leadership, members were replaced; for instance, 70 percent of the members elected to the Politburo in 1956 lost their seats in 1961. In contrast, all

7536-403: The Central Committee was convened at least once a month and the Politburo met once a week. With Joseph Stalin 's consolidation of power , the frequency of formal meetings declined. By the mid-1930s, the Central Committee met only once a month, and the Politburo convened at most once every third week. The Politburo was established, and worked within the framework of democratic centralism (that

7693-576: The Central Committee, Politburo and the Council of Ministers were political equals without a clear leading figure. Baylis believed that the post of General Secretary could be compared to the office of prime minister in the Westminster system . The General Secretary in the Soviet political system acted as the leading broker in Politburo sessions and could be considered "the Party leader" due to his negotiation skills and successful tactics which retained

7850-489: The Central Committee, upon elections. These amendments were removed from the party Charter under Leonid Brezhnev , and Article 25 now stated; "In the election of all party organs, from the primary party organization to the Central Committee of the CPSU, the principle of systematic replacement of personnel and the continuity of leadership is to be observed." The Brezhnev period saw, in complete contrast to Khrushchev's amendment,

8007-489: The Council of Ministers by Alexei Kosygin . Brezhnev and Kosygin, along with Mikhail Suslov , Andrei Kirilenko and Anastas Mikoyan (replaced in 1965 by Nikolai Podgorny ), were elected to their respective offices to form and lead a functioning collective leadership. One of the reasons for Khrushchev's ousting, as Suslov told him, was his violation of collective leadership. With Khrushchev's removal, collective leadership

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8164-481: The Germans had driven deep into the Soviet flanks, and the Red Army troops were in danger of being cut off. Stalin refused to halt the offensive, and the Red Army divisions were soon encircled by the Germans. The USSR lost about 267,000 soldiers, including more than 200,000 captured, and Stalin demoted Timoshenko and recalled Khrushchev to Moscow. While Stalin hinted at arresting and executing Khrushchev, he allowed

8321-527: The Germans intended an attack—a claim dismissed by his biographer Taubman as "almost certainly exaggerated". He accompanied Soviet troops as they took Kiev in November 1943, entering the shattered city as Soviet forces drove out German troops. As Soviet forces met with greater success, driving the Nazis westwards towards Germany, Nikita Khrushchev became increasingly involved in reconstruction work in Ukraine. He

8478-578: The Kremlin circle stripped him of power , replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier. Khrushchev was born in 1894 in a village in western Russia. He was employed as a metal worker during his youth, and he was a political commissar during the Russian Civil War . Under the sponsorship of Lazar Kaganovich , Khrushchev worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He originally supported Stalin's purges and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern

8635-676: The Leningrad City Committee and member of the Secretariat, and Robert Eikhe , the First Secretary of the Siberian and West-Siberian District Committee, were elected Politburo candidate members. 1936 signaled the beginning of the Great Purge , a nationwide purge of what Stalin deemed as anti-socialist elements. The first victims of the purge were members and leaders of economic organizations. Not everyone in

8792-463: The Party leadership. The first attempt to depose Khrushchev came in 1957, when the so-called Anti-Party Group accused him of individualistic leadership. The coup failed, but Khrushchev's position weakened drastically. However, Khrushchev continued to portray his regime as a "rule of the collective" even after becoming Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Premier), replacing Nikolai Bulganin . Most Western observers believed that Khrushchev had become

8949-527: The Party were not immune; the Central Committee of Ukraine was so devastated that it could not convene a quorum. After Khrushchev's arrival, the pace of arrests accelerated. All but one member of the Ukrainian Politburo Organizational Bureau and Secretariat were arrested. Almost all government officials and Red Army commanders were replaced. During the first few months after Khrushchev's arrival, almost everyone arrested

9106-580: The Politburo (as well as the Central Committee) had to step down at each election to the Politburo, and that no members could be elected for more than three terms. The initiator of these changes, Khrushchev, the CPSU General Secretary, had served in the Politburo for 22 years. Instead of stepping down, Khrushchev made a rule which stated that members "who enjoyed great authority and possessed exceptional ability" could serve more than three terms, if they received more than 75 percent approval votes from

9263-455: The Politburo agreed with the purges, or the scope of them. Ordzhonikidze ridiculed the purge, and tried to save officials working in the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry. Stalin expected that Ordzhonikidze would support the purges, at least officially, but instead he wrote a speech condemning them. On 18 February 1937, Ordzhonikidze was found dead in his house, having killed himself. At

9420-516: The Politburo from its establishment in 1919. This is not surprising, since the three most populous republics within the Soviet Union were ethnic Slavic; Byelorussia , Ukraine and Russia . From 1919 until 1991, 89 members of the Politburo were Russians (which makes up 68 percent). In distant second were Ukrainians, who had 11 members in the Politburo, making up 8 percent. In third place are both ethnic Jews and Georgians, who had 4 members respectively, making up 3 percent. For comparison, according to

9577-503: The Politburo members elected in 1966 were reelected in 1971. Even more worrisome, 12 out of 19 members elected in 1966 were reelected in 1981. By the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982, the median age of the politburo was 70. This age development was finally put to a halt under Gorbachev. From 1985 onwards, the age of Politburo members steadily declined. Fifty-nine percent of Politburo members (both candidate and full) were of rural origins, while 41 percent were urban. The first members of

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9734-430: The Politburo were predominantly from urban areas. For instance, on the 9th Politburo, two out of eight (Trotsky and Mikhail Kalinin ) were born in rural areas. From the 1930s onwards, the majority of Politburo members had a father who worked either as a peasant or as a worker. This is strange, considering that one would assume a rise in representation of the intelligentsia as the Soviet Union became more advanced. From

9891-440: The Politburo's existence. Serving in the Politburo was a part-time function, and members served concurrently in either the party, state, trade union , security or military administrations (or all of them concurrently). Until the 1950s, most members served in state positions, but this changed at the 20th Congress (held in 1956) when 47% percent of Politburo members served in the central party apparatus while another 47% served in

10048-469: The Politburo's support by consulting its members on all policies. Collective leadership continued under Yuri Andropov (General Secretary from 1982 to 1984) and Konstantin Chernenko (General Secretary from 1984 to 1985). Mikhail Gorbachev 's reforms espoused open discussion from about 1986, leading to members of the leadership openly disagreeing on how little or how much reform was needed to rejuvenate

10205-470: The Politburo's support. In other words, the General Secretary needed to retain Politburo consensus if he wanted to remain in office. Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (15 April [ O.S. 3 April] 1894   – 11 September 1971) was First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev stunned

10362-585: The Politburo, Secretariat, and Orgburo. During this period, the office of the General Secretary became paramount. The Politburo, which was nominally responsible to the Central Committee and the Party Congress, became responsible to the General Secretary. The General Secretary, the formal head of the Secretariat and the Orgburo, "came to exercise enormous weight in decision-making." The Secretariat and Orgburo were responsible for personnel appointments in

10519-401: The Politburo, the Central Committee, and the Control Commission. Stalin and his companion supported an undemocratic interpretation of Lenin's What Is to Be Done? . Throughout the late-1920s, Politburo member Lazar Kaganovich (a Stalin ally), wrote and campaigned for a party organisational by-law which reduced intra-party democracy in favour of hierarchy and centralism . With the defeat of

10676-406: The Politburo; Elena Stasova , Yekaterina Furtseva , Alexandra Biryukova and Galina Semenova . Furtseva, Biryukova and Semenova reached the Politburo under the leadership of reformist party leaders; Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev . The average age of the Politburo was 39 in 1919, and the Politburo continued to age more-or-less consistently until 1985. The reason for this being that

10833-472: The Red Army. Other Ukrainians joined partisan forces, seeking an independent Ukraine. Khrushchev rushed from district to district through Ukraine, urging the depleted labor force to greater efforts. He made a short visit to his birthplace of Kalinovka, finding a starving population, with only a third of the men who had joined the Red Army having returned. Khrushchev did what he could to assist his hometown. Despite Khrushchev's efforts, in 1945, Ukrainian industry

10990-602: The Russian word trushchoba , meaning "slum". In 1995, almost 60,000,000 residents of the former Soviet Union still lived in these buildings. In his new positions, Khrushchev continued his kolkhoz consolidation scheme, which decreased the number of collective farms in Moscow Oblast by about 70%. This resulted in farms that were too large for one chairman to manage effectively. Khrushchev also sought to implement his agro-town proposal, but when his lengthy speech on

11147-408: The Soviet state remained omnipotent in theory and highly authoritarian in practice. However, it did considerably reduce the scale of repression and allowed a much greater level of pluralism into public life. In a 1960 paper, Löwenthal wrote that one-man leadership was "the normal rule of line in a one-party state". The majority of First World observers tended to agree with Löwenthal on the grounds that

11304-588: The Soviet system. According to Stalin's secretary, Boris Bazhanov , Lenin “in general leaned towards a collegial leadership, with Trotsky in the first position”. Historian Paul Le Blanc referenced various scholars which included E.H. Carr , Isaac Deutscher , Moshe Lewin , Ronald Suny and W. Bruce Lincoln that on balance tilted “toward the view that Lenin’s desired “heir” was collective responsibility in which Trotsky placed an important role and within which Stalin would be dramatically demoted (if not removed)". Marxist Leninist ideologists believed that Lenin ,

11461-452: The Ukrainian Central Committee removed Khrushchev as party leader in favor of Kaganovich, while retaining him as premier. Soon after Kaganovich arrived in Kiev, Khrushchev fell ill and was barely seen until September 1947. In his memoirs, Khrushchev indicates he had pneumonia; some biographers have theorized that Khrushchev's illness was entirely political, out of fear that his loss of position

11618-613: The Ukrainian people as a whole. I won't elaborate further on this theme, but in principle, it's very easy to demonstrate. I'm Russian myself, and I don't want to offend the Russians. From mid-December 1949, Khrushchev served as head of the Party in Moscow city and province. His biographer Taubman suggests that Stalin most likely recalled Khrushchev to Moscow to balance the influence of Georgy Malenkov and security chief Lavrentiy Beria , who were widely seen as Stalin's heirs. The aging leader rarely called Politburo meetings. Instead, much of

11775-522: The West and published in part in 1970. Khrushchev died from a heart attack in 1971. Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894, in Kalinovka , a village in what is now Russia's Kursk Oblast (then Kursk Governorate ), near the present Ukrainian border. His parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Kseniya Khrushcheva, were poor Russian peasants, and had a daughter two years Nikita's junior, Irina. Sergei Khrushchev

11932-528: The age of fifteen, I worked as a shepherd. I tended, as the foreigners say when they use the Russian language, "the little cows," I was a sheepherder, I herded cows for a capitalist, and that was before I was fifteen. After that, I worked at a factory for a German, and I worked in a French-owned mine, I worked at a Belgian-owned chemical factory, and [now] I'm the Prime Minister of the great Soviet state. And I am in no way ashamed of my past because all work

12089-428: The area. At that time, the movement was split by Lenin 's New Economic Policy . While Khrushchev's responsibility lay in political affairs, he involved himself in the practicalities of resuming full production at the mine after the chaos of the war years. He helped restart the machines (key parts and papers had been removed by the pre-Soviet mine-owners) and he wore his old mine outfit for inspection tours. Khrushchev

12246-440: The arrest of Beria (26 June 1953), Nikita Khrushchev proclaimed collective leadership as the "supreme principle of our Party". He further stated that only decisions approved by the Central Committee (CC) could ensure good leadership for the party and the country. Khrushchev used these ideas so that he could win enough support to remove his opponents from power, most notably Premier Malenkov, who resigned in February 1955. During

12403-596: The backs of one's rivals. In practice, Soviet Leninism's democratic centralism often followed a style of unanimous consent rather than majority vote . This style of consensus decision-making had roots not only in the era of the Great Terror , also known as the Yezhovshchina, but also in Brezhnev's carefully cultivated culture of collective decision-making. Shevchenko said, "While the Politburo considered

12560-545: The city be abandoned, the Red Army was soon encircled by the Germans . While the Germans stated they took 655,000 prisoners, according to the Soviets, 150,541 men out of 677,085 escaped. Primary sources differ on Khrushchev's involvement. According to Marshal Georgy Zhukov , writing some years after Khrushchev fired and disgraced him in 1957, Khrushchev persuaded Stalin not to evacuate troops from Kiev. However, Khrushchev noted in his memoirs that he and Marshal Semyon Budyonny proposed redeploying Soviet forces to avoid

12717-520: The civil war ended, and Khrushchev was demobilized and assigned as commissar to a labor brigade in the Donbas, where he and his men lived in poor conditions. The wars had caused widespread devastation and famine, and one of the victims was Khrushchev's wife, Yefrosinia, who died of typhus in Kalinovka while Khrushchev was in the army. The commissar returned for the funeral and, loyal to his Bolshevik principles , refused to allow his wife's coffin to enter

12874-413: The collective leadership became even more collective. Brezhnev's death did not alter the balance of power in any radical fashion, and Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were obliged by protocol to rule the country in the very same fashion as Brezhnev. When Mikhail Gorbachev was elected to the position of General Secretary in March 1985, some observers wondered if he could be the leader to overcome

13031-524: The commissar to return to the front by sending him to Stalingrad . Khrushchev reached the Stalingrad Front in August 1942, soon after the start of the battle for the city . His role in the Stalingrad defense was not major—General Vasily Chuikov , who led the city's defense, mentions Khrushchev only briefly in a memoir published while Khrushchev was premier—but to the end of his life, he

13188-419: The communist world with his denunciation of his predecessor Joseph Stalin and embarked on a policy of de-Stalinization with his key ally Anastas Mikoyan . He sponsored the early Soviet space program and enacted reforms in domestic policy. After some false starts, and a narrowly avoided nuclear war over Cuba , he conducted successful negotiations with the United States to reduce Cold War tensions. In 1964,

13345-498: The confession in his stride, and, after initially advising Khrushchev to keep it quiet, suggested that Khrushchev tell his tale to the Moscow party conference. Khrushchev did so, to applause, and was immediately reelected to his post. Khrushchev related in his memoirs that he was also denounced by an arrested colleague. Stalin told Khrushchev of the accusation personally. Khrushchev speculated in his memoirs that had Stalin doubted his reaction, he would have been categorized as an enemy of

13502-545: The construction and spent much of his time down in the tunnels. When the inevitable accidents did occur, they were depicted as heroic sacrifices in a great cause. The Metro did not open until 1 May 1935, but Khrushchev received the Order of Lenin for his role in its construction. Later that year, he was selected as First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee which was responsible for Moscow oblast ,

13659-448: The continuity of the Soviet leadership. Khrushchev's rule was, according to Gilison, proof that the one-man dominance in Soviet politics had ended. As he noted, Khrushchev "was forced to retreat from unceremoniously from previously stated positions". The "grey men" of the party bureaucracy, Gilison believed, were to become the future Soviet leaders. Dennis Ross , an American diplomat, believed the late Brezhnev-era leadership had evolved into

13816-686: The cuts, Khrushchev's time in office saw the tensest years of the Cold War, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. As leader of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev enjoyed considerable popularity throughout the 1950s due to the successful launching of Sputnik and victorious outcomes in the Suez Crisis , the Syrian Crisis of 1957 , and the 1960 U-2 incident . By the early 1960s, however, support for Khrushchev's leadership

13973-418: The economy and cultural life...." In contrast to fascism , which advocates one-man dominance , Leninism advocates inner-Party democratic collective leadership. Hence, the ideological justification of collective leadership in the Soviet Union was easy to justify. The physical insecurity of the political leadership under Stalin, and the political insecurity that existed during Khrushchev's reign, strengthened

14130-559: The elderly, sending them to the eastern parts of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev viewed this policy as very effective and recommended its adoption elsewhere to Stalin. He also worked to impose collectivization on Western Ukraine. Lack of resources and armed resistance by partisans slowed the process. The partisans, many of whom fought as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), were gradually defeated, as Soviet police and military reported killing 110,825 "bandits" and capturing

14287-412: The encirclement until Marshal Semyon Timoshenko arrived from Moscow with orders for the troops to hold their positions. Early Khrushchev biographer Mark Frankland suggested that Khrushchev's faith in his leader was first shaken by the Red Army's setbacks. Khrushchev stated in his memoirs: But let me return to the enemy breakthrough in the Kiev area, the encirclement of our group, and the destruction of

14444-740: The end of 1947, Kaganovich had been recalled to Moscow and the recovered Khrushchev had been restored to the First Secretaryship. He then resigned the Ukrainian premiership in favor of Demyan Korotchenko , Khrushchev's protégé. Khrushchev's final years in Ukraine were generally peaceful, with industry recovering, Soviet forces overcoming the partisans, and 1947 and 1948 seeing better-than-expected harvests. Collectivization advanced in Western Ukraine, and Khrushchev implemented more policies that encouraged collectivization and discouraged private farms. These sometimes backfired, however:

14601-444: The existence of collective leadership was due to the individual Politburo members enhancing their own positions by strengthening the collective. Ellen Jones, an educator, noted how each Politburo member specialised in his own field and acted as that field's spokesman in the Politburo. Therefore, collective leadership was divided into Party and Government institutional and organisational lines. The dominant faction, Jones believed, acted as

14758-444: The existence of the USSR. While nominally subordinate to the Central Committee and the Party Congress, in practice the Politburo was the true center of power in the CPSU, and its decisions de facto had the force of law. Arkady Shevchenko , like many Soviet technical experts, once attended the part of a Politburo meeting that touched on his area of expertise, and he often prepared his boss Andrei Gromyko for meetings. He described

14915-691: The fact that the few mentions of Khrushchev in military memoirs published during the Brezhnev era were generally favorable, at a time when it was "barely possible to mention Khrushchev in print in any context". Tompson suggests that these favorable mentions indicate that military officers held Khrushchev in high regard. Almost all of Ukraine had been occupied by the Germans, and Khrushchev returned to his domain in late 1943 to find devastation. Ukraine's industry had been destroyed, and agriculture faced critical shortages. Even though millions of Ukrainians had been taken to Germany as workers or prisoners of war, there

15072-497: The government. The Soviet government sought to collect as much grain as possible to supply communist allies in Eastern Europe. Khrushchev set the quotas at a high level, leading Stalin to expect an unrealistically large quantity of grain from Ukraine. Food was rationed—but non-agricultural rural workers throughout the USSR were given no ration cards. The inevitable starvation was largely confined to remote rural regions and

15229-548: The greatest continuity in the Politburo in its history. Article 25 of the Charter remained unchanged under the successive leadership of Yuri Andropov , Konstantin Chernenko and Mikhail Gorbachev . Between 1919 and 1990, 42 members who served as candidate members were not promoted to full member status of the Politburo. Similarly, 32 full members of the Politburo never served as candidate members. Six members who had served as full members were demoted to candidate status during

15386-457: The high-level work of government took place at dinners hosted by Stalin for his inner circle of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, Kaganovich, Kliment Voroshilov , Vyacheslav Molotov , and Nikolai Bulganin . Khrushchev took early naps so that he would not fall asleep in Stalin's presence; he noted in his memoirs, "Things went badly for those who dozed off at Stalin's table." In 1950, Khrushchev began

15543-408: The item for which I was responsible, I sat with Kuznetsov , Kornienko , and [Vasily] Makarov, behind Gromyko at the long table in the Kremlin. Brezhnev asked whether all members of the Politburo had received the draft U.S.-Soviet documents in time and if they had studied them. Most of the members nodded silent assent. 'Can I assume that the draft is approved?' Brezhnev asked. No one spoke. 'The draft

15700-576: The lift operator at the Rutchenkovo mine. In 1915, they had a daughter, Yulia, and in 1917, a son, Leonid. After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917, the new Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd had little influence over Ukraine. Khrushchev was elected to the worker's council (or soviet ) in Rutchenkovo, and in May he became its chairman. He did not join the Bolsheviks until 1918,

15857-459: The local church. With the only way into the churchyard through the church, he had the coffin lifted and passed over the fence into the burial ground, shocking the village. Through the intervention of a friend, Khrushchev was assigned in 1921 as assistant director for political affairs for the Rutchenkovo mine in the Donbas region, where he had previously worked. There were as yet few Bolsheviks in

16014-480: The mercenary, fascist dogs of the Trotskyite- Zinovievite gang. That word is execution. Khrushchev assisted in the purge of many friends and colleagues in the Moscow oblast . Of 38 top Party officials in Moscow city and province, 35 were killed —the three survivors were transferred to other parts of the USSR. Of the 146 Party secretaries of cities and districts outside Moscow city in

16171-519: The military sector had had representatives in the Politburo since the 8th Politburo (in 1919). Defense ministers who had served in the Politburo are Leon Trotsky , Mikhail Frunze , Kliment Voroshilov , Nikolai Bulganin , Georgy Zhukov and Dmitry Ustinov among others. Similarly, several leading Politburo officials had participated in either the Russian Revolution , the Russian Civil War or World War II . Ethnic Slavs dominated

16328-531: The national level. At a sub-national level, all Party and Government organs were to work together to ensure collective leadership instead of only the Central Committee. However, as with many other ideological theses, the definition of collective leadership was applied "flexibly to a variety of situations". Making Lenin the example of a ruler ruling in favour of a collective can be seen as proof of this "flexibility". In some Soviet ideological drafts, collective leadership can be compared to collegial leadership instead of

16485-414: The other factions, these interpretations became party law. To strengthen the system of centralised decision-making, Stalin appointed his allies to high offices outside the Politburo. For instance, Vyacheslav Molotov succeeded Rykov as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars in 1930, to reduce the chance of another independent locus of centralised power forming form which could threaten Stalin and

16642-453: The party Charter, said little to nothing on the actual relationship between the Politburo and the Central Committee. Until 1961, Article 25 stated (with several changes) that the Central Committee "forms" or "organizes" the Politburo. It was not until 1961, under Nikita Khrushchev , that the party Charter was amended; stating that the Politburo was appointed through "secret elections". The amended party Charter stated that at least one-third of

16799-475: The party. For instance, by 1929, leading party members began criticizing the party apparatus, represented by the Secretariat headed by Stalin, of having too much control over personnel decisions. Lenin addressed such questions in 1923, in his articles "How We Should Reorganize the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate" and "Better Fewer but Better". In these, Lenin wrote of his plan to turn the combined meetings of

16956-577: The people then and there. Nonetheless, Khrushchev became a candidate member of the Politburo on 14 January 1938 and a full member in March 1939. In late 1937, Stalin appointed Khrushchev as head of the Communist Party in Ukraine . Khrushchev left Moscow for Kiev, again the Ukrainian capital, in January 1938. Ukraine had been the site of extensive purges, with the murdered including professors in Stalino whom Khrushchev greatly respected. The high ranks of

17113-477: The political functions. However, due to practical reasons, usually fewer than half of the members attended the regular Central Committee meetings during this time, even though they decided all key questions. The 8th Party Congress in 1919 formalized this reality and re-established what would later on become the true center of political power in the Soviet Union . It ordered the Central Committee to appoint

17270-503: The political leadership's will to ensure a rule of the collective, and not that of the individual. Collective leadership was a value that was highly esteemed during Stalin and Khrushchev's reigns, but it was violated in practice. Richard Löwenthal , a German professor, believed that the Soviet Union had evolved from being a totalitarian state under the rule of Joseph Stalin into a system that he called "post-totalitarian authoritarianism", or "authoritarian bureaucratic oligarchy", in which

17427-668: The province, only 10 survived the purges. In his memoirs, Khrushchev noted that almost everyone who worked with him was arrested. By Party protocol, Khrushchev was required to approve these arrests and did little or nothing to save his friends and colleagues. Party leaders were given numerical quotas of "enemies" to be turned in and arrested. In June 1937, the Politburo set a quota of 35,000 enemies to be arrested in Moscow province; 5,000 of these were to be executed. In reply, Khrushchev asked that 2,000 wealthy peasants, or kulaks living in Moscow be killed in part fulfillment of

17584-535: The quota. In any event, only two weeks after receiving the order, Khrushchev was able to report to Stalin that 41,305 "criminal and kulak elements" had been arrested. Of the arrestees, according to Khrushchev, 8,500 deserved execution. Khrushchev had no reason to think himself immune from the purges, and in 1937, confessed his own 1923 dalliance with Trotskyism to Kaganovich, who, according to Khrushchev, "blanched" (for his protégé's sins could affect his own standing) and advised him to tell Stalin. The dictator took

17741-542: The republican-level. Security officials had historically had a low-profile on the Politburo. From 1953 until 1973, no officials representing the security sector served in the Politburo as full members; the last two being Lavrentiy Beria and Nikolay Ignatov . This tradition was put to an end with the elevation of Yuri Andropov , the KGB Chairman, to full membership (having served as a candidate member since 1967). Alexander Shelepin had served as KGB Chairman, but

17898-420: The restraints of the collective leadership. Gorbachev's reform agenda had succeeded in altering the Soviet political system for good; however, this change made him some enemies. Many of Gorbachev's closest allies disagreed with him on what reforms were needed, or how radical they should be. According to Soviet literature , the Central Committee and not the Politburo was the heart of collective leadership at

18055-407: The rise of a moderate Stalinist faction with the party. On 1 December 1934, Kirov was shot dead – whether he was the victim of a lone assailant or killed on Stalin's orders remains unknown. Not long after, on 21 January 1935, Valerian Kuybyshev died of natural causes, and a month later, Anastas Mikoyan and Vlas Chubar were elected Politburo full members. Andrei Zhdanov , the First Secretary of

18212-531: The school, arranging for the delegates to be withdrawn, and, afterward, purging the cell of the rightists. Khrushchev rose rapidly through the Party ranks, first becoming Party leader for the Bauman district, site of the academy, before taking the same position in the Krasnopresnensky district, the capital's largest and most important. By 1932, Khrushchev had become second in command, behind Kaganovich, of

18369-421: The second half. It was not until the 28th Politburo that every republic had a representative at the Politburo. The Politburo never tried to fix the ethnic imbalance within the Politburo. Instead, the Soviet Union at the central level was mostly ruled by Russians. Despite the ideological rhetoric about equality between the sexes, the Politburo came to be composed largely of men. Only four women ever served in

18526-429: The state administration. From the 20th Congress until the 28th Congress , the share of Politburo members serving in the central party apparatus increased, while those serving in the state administration declined. The majority of Politburo members had leading central posts; the highest share of republican officials serving in the Politburo came at the 22nd Congress (held in 1961) when 50 percent of members held offices at

18683-405: The subject was published in Pravda in March 1951, Stalin disapproved of it. The periodical quickly published a note stating that Khrushchev's speech was merely a proposal, not policy. In April, the Politburo disavowed the agro-town proposal. Khrushchev feared that Stalin would remove him from office, but the leader mocked Khrushchev, then allowed the episode to pass. On 1 March 1953, Stalin had

18840-484: The supreme leader of the Soviet Union by the early 1960s, even if this was far from the truth. The Presidium, which had grown to resent Khrushchev's leadership style and feared Mao Zedong 's one-man dominance and the growing cult of personality in the People's Republic of China , began an aggressive campaign against Khrushchev in 1963. This campaign culminated in 1964 with the replacement of Khrushchev in his offices of First Secretary by Leonid Brezhnev and of Chairman of

18997-498: The system itself evolved from an inner-party democratic system to a monolithic one in 1921, with the establishment of the Control Commission , the ban on factions and the power of the Central Committee to expel members they deemed unqualified. These rules were implemented to strengthen party discipline. However, the party continued under Lenin and the early post-Lenin years to try to establish democratic procedures within

19154-426: The tenets of Bolshevism, and promoting troop morale and battle readiness. Beginning as commissar to a construction platoon, Khrushchev rose to become commissar to a construction battalion and was sent from the front for a two-month political course. The young commissar came under fire many times, though many of the war stories he would tell in later life dealt more with cultural awkwardness rather than combat. In 1921,

19311-433: The top Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin , set up a political bureau—known first as Narrow Composition , and after 23 October 1917, as Political Bureau —specifically to direct the October Revolution , with only seven members (Lenin, Leon Trotsky , Grigory Zinoviev , Lev Kamenev , Joseph Stalin , Grigori Sokolnikov , and Andrei Bubnov ), but this precursor did not outlast the event; the Central Committee continued with

19468-451: The whole party, and so were used as a machine by Stalin and his allies to promote like-minded individuals. Molotov and Kaganovich played a key role in strengthening the role of the Secretariat and the Orgburo in Party affairs. The 17th Politburo was elected at the 1st Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee , in the aftermath of the 17th Congress . Outwardly, the Politburo remained united, but on 4 February Grigory Ordzhonikidze ,

19625-408: The working style of the Politburo's weekly meeting during the Brezhnev era as "quiet, orderly, and methodical. Although an agenda is prepared, there is no quorum call or other form of parliamentary procedure ." Shevchenko's memoir makes it clear that the tense political struggle that could often occur among Politburo members usually did not take place openly during its meetings, but rather behind

19782-519: Was a freethinker who upset the villagers by not attending church, and when her brother visited, he gave Khrushchev books which had been banned by the Imperial Government. She urged Nikita to seek further education, but family finances did not permit this. In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka; fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Kseniya Khrushcheva and her daughter came after. Yuzovka, which

19939-407: Was again praised by the Soviet media as a return to " Leninist norms of Party life ". At the plenum which ousted Khrushchev, the Central Committee forbade any single individual to hold the office of General Secretary and Premier simultaneously. The leadership was usually referred to as the "Brezhnev–Kosygin" leadership, instead of the collective leadership, by First World medias. At first, there

20096-513: Was appointed Premier of the Ukrainian SSR in addition to his earlier party post, one of the rare instances in which the Ukrainian party and civil leader posts were held by one person. According to Khrushchev biographer William Tompson, it is difficult to assess Khrushchev's war record, since he most often acted as part of a military council, and it is not possible to know the extent to which he influenced decisions. However, Tompson points to

20253-440: Was appointed party secretary of the entire tekhnikum , and became a member of the bureau—the governing council—of the party committee for the town of Yuzovka (renamed Stalino in 1924). He briefly joined supporters of Leon Trotsky against those of Joseph Stalin over the question of party democracy. All of these activities left him with little time for his schoolwork, and while he later said he had finished his rabfak studies, it

20410-402: Was at only a quarter of pre-war levels, and the harvest actually dropped from that of 1944, when the entire territory of Ukraine had not yet been retaken. In an effort to increase agricultural production, the kolkhozes (collective farms) were empowered to expel residents who were not pulling their weight. Kolkhoz leaders used this as an excuse to expel their personal enemies, invalids, and

20567-475: Was born in 1929, son Sergei in 1935 and daughter Elena in 1937. In mid-1925, Khrushchev was appointed Party secretary of the Petrovo-Marinsky raikom , or district, near Stalino. The raikom was about 1,000 square kilometres (400 sq mi) in area, and Khrushchev was constantly on the move throughout his domain, taking an interest in even minor matters. In late 1925, Khrushchev was elected

20724-623: Was difficult to keep them all straight. In March 1918, as the Bolshevik government concluded a separate peace with the Central Powers , the Germans occupied the Donbas and Khrushchev fled to Kalinovka. In late 1918 or early 1919, he was mobilized into the Red Army as a political commissar . The post of political commissar had recently been introduced as the Bolsheviks came to rely less on worker activists and more on military recruits; its functions included indoctrination of recruits in

20881-592: Was due to Khrushchev's instigation. Kaganovich transferred Khrushchev to Kharkov , then the capital of Ukraine, as head of the Organizational Department of the Ukrainian Party's Central Committee. In 1928, Khrushchev was transferred to Kiev , where he served as head of the organizational department, second-in-command of the Party organization there. In 1929, Khrushchev again sought to further his education, following Kaganovich (now in

21038-668: Was elected to the Politburo through his work in the Komsomol , while Eduard Shevardnadze , who had served as the Georgian Minister of Internal Affairs until 1972, became a candidate member of the Politburo through his work as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party . Similarly in 1973, the Minister of Defense Andrei Grechko was appointed to the Politburo. However, unlike the security sector,

21195-459: Was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and laboring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, and Sergei Khrushchev generally left his family in Kalinovka, returning when he had enough money. When Nikita was six or seven, the family moved to Yuzovka (now Donetsk , Ukraine) for about

21352-503: Was executed. Biographer William Taubman suggested that because Khrushchev was again unsuccessfully denounced while in Kiev, he must have known that some of the denunciations were not true and that innocent people were suffering. In 1939, Khrushchev addressed the Fourteenth Ukrainian Party Congress, saying "Comrades, we must unmask and relentlessly destroy all enemies of the people. But we must not allow

21509-534: Was highly successful at the Rutchenkovo mine, and in mid-1922 he was offered the directorship of the nearby Pastukhov mine. However, he refused the offer, seeking to be assigned to the newly established technical college ( tekhnikum ) in Yuzovka, though his superiors were reluctant to let him go. As he had only four years of formal schooling, he applied to the training program ( rabfak , short for Рабочий факультет / Rabotchyi Fakultyet, or Worker's Faculty) attached to

21666-434: Was his plane found or body recovered. One theory has Leonid surviving the crash and collaborating with the Germans, and when he was recaptured by the Soviets, Stalin ordering him shot despite Khrushchev pleading for his life. This supposed killing is used to explain why Khrushchev later denounced Stalin. While there is no supporting evidence for this account in Soviet files, some historians allege that Leonid Khrushchev's file

21823-481: Was insufficient housing for those who remained. One out of every six Ukrainians were killed in World War II. Khrushchev sought to reconstruct Ukraine and complete the interrupted work of imposing the Soviet system on it, though he hoped that the purges of the 1930s would not recur. As Ukraine was recovered militarily, conscription was imposed; 750,000 men aged between nineteen and fifty were sent to join

21980-475: Was launched, Khrushchev spent much time checking on troop readiness and morale, interrogating Nazi prisoners, and recruiting some for propaganda purposes. Soon after Stalingrad, Khrushchev met with personal tragedy, as his son Leonid , a fighter pilot , was apparently shot down and killed in action on 11 March 1943. The circumstances of Leonid's death remain obscure and controversial, as none of his fellow fliers stated that they witnessed him being shot down, nor

22137-538: Was little noticed outside the USSR. Khrushchev, realizing the desperate situation in late 1946, repeatedly appealed to Stalin for aid, to be met with anger and resistance. When letters to Stalin had no effect, Khrushchev flew to Moscow and made his case in person. Stalin finally gave Ukraine limited food aid, and money to set up free soup kitchens . However, Khrushchev's political standing had been damaged, and in February 1947, Stalin suggested that Lazar Kaganovich be sent to Ukraine to "help" Khrushchev. The following month,

22294-474: Was no clear leader of the collective leadership, and Kosygin was the chief economic administrator, whereas Brezhnev was primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the party and internal affairs. Kosygin's position was later weakened when he introduced a reform in 1965 that attempted to decentralise the Soviet economy . The reform led to a backlash, with Kosygin losing supporters because many top officials took an increasingly anti-reformist stance due to

22451-535: Was on the Southwest Front, and he and Timoshenko proposed a massive counteroffensive in the Kharkov area. Stalin approved only part of the plan, but 640,000 Red Army soldiers were involved in the offensive. The Germans, however, had deduced that the Soviets were likely to attack at Kharkov , and set a trap. Beginning on 12 May 1942, the Soviet offensive initially appeared successful, but within five days

22608-543: Was on vacation, Mikhail Suslov , who hated the idea that in front of the Lenin Mausoleum in Red Square there was a department store (GUM), attempted to turn GUM into an exhibition hall and museum showcasing Soviet and Communist history. After the decision was drawn up, Brezhnev was immediately reported. When he returned from vacation, before the first meeting of the Politburo he said: "Some idiot here invented

22765-402: Was proud of his role. Though he visited Stalin in Moscow on occasion, he remained in Stalingrad for much of the battle and was nearly killed at least once. He proposed a counterattack , only to find that Georgy Zhukov and other generals had already planned Operation Uranus , a plan to break out from Soviet positions and encircle and destroy the Germans; it was being kept secret. Before Uranus

22922-400: Was raped in front of him, Postyshev and Eikhe. Petrovsky in contrast, was rather lucky, instead of being purged he was not reelected to the Politburo at the 18th Congress . The purging of Rudzutaks, Eikhe, and Kosior testified to Stalin's growing power; the Politburo were not even notified of the decision. Postyshev was purged because "of too much zeal in persecuting people." The Politburo

23079-467: Was renamed Stalino in 1924 and Donetsk in 1961, was at the heart of one of the most industrialized areas of the Russian Empire. After working briefly in other fields, Khrushchev's parents found Nikita a place as a metal fitter's apprentice. Upon completing that apprenticeship, the teenage Khrushchev was hired by a factory. He lost that job when he collected money for the families of the victims of

23236-400: Was seen as an unstable form of government. "Limited-personal rule", in contrast with Joseph Stalin 's "personal rule", was a type of governance in which major policy-making decision could not be made without the consent of the leader , while the leader had to tolerate some opposition to his policies and to his leadership in general. The historian T. H. Rigby claimed that the Soviet leadership

23393-436: Was setting up checks and balances within the Party to ensure the stability of collective leadership. One anonymous historian went so far as to claim that collective leadership was bound to triumph in any future Soviet political system. Professor Jerome Gilison argued that collective leadership had become the "normal" ruling pattern of the Soviet Union. He argued that the Party had successfully set up checks and balances to ensure

23550-564: Was significantly eroded by domestic policy failures and his mishandling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Such developments emboldened his political rivals who quietly rose in strength and ultimately deposed him in October 1964. However, he did not suffer the deadly fate of the losers of previous Soviet power struggles and was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow and a dacha in the countryside. His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to

23707-488: Was still at his post in Kiev. Stalin appointed him a political commissar, and Khrushchev served on a number of fronts as an intermediary between the local military commanders and the political rulers in Moscow. Stalin used Khrushchev to keep commanders on a tight leash, while the commanders sought to have him influence Stalin. As the Germans advanced, Khrushchev worked with the military to defend and save Kiev. Handicapped by orders from Stalin that under no circumstances should

23864-436: Was tampered with after the war. In later years, Leonid Khrushchev's wingmate stated that he saw his plane disintegrate, but did not report it. Khrushchev biographer Taubman speculates that this omission was most likely to avoid the possibility of being seen as complicit in the death of the son of a Politburo member. In mid-1943, Leonid's wife, Liuba Khrushcheva, was arrested on accusations of spying and sentenced to five years in

24021-495: Was the first step towards downfall and demise. However, Khrushchev's children remembered their father as having been seriously ill. Once Khrushchev was able to get out of bed, he and his family took their first vacation since before the war, to a beachfront resort in Latvia . Khrushchev, though, soon broke the beach routine with duck-hunting trips, and a visit to the new Soviet Kaliningrad , where he toured factories and quarries. By

24178-571: Was the highest organ of the party when the party Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. The Politburo, along with the Secretariat and the Organizational Bureau (Orgburo) until 1952, was one of three permanent bodies of the party. The General Secretary , the party leader, served as ex officio chairman of the Politburo (however, no formal rule stipulated such activity). 28 politburos were elected throughout

24335-658: Was the highest political body of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and de facto a collective presidency of the USSR . It was founded in October 1917, and refounded in March 1919, at the 8th Congress of the Bolshevik Party . It was known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966. The Politburo's authority was significantly undermined during the August coup and subsequently ended three months later upon its dissolution in 1991. On 18 August 1917,

24492-478: Was to ensure that the occupied areas voted for union with the USSR. Through a combination of propaganda, deception as to what was being voted for, and outright fraud, the Soviets ensured that the assemblies elected in the new territories would unanimously petition for union with the USSR. When the new assemblies did so, their petitions were granted by the USSR Supreme Soviet , and Western Ukraine became

24649-506: Was too low in the Party hierarchy to enjoy Stalin's patronage and that if influence was brought to bear on Khrushchev's career at this stage, it was by Kaganovich. While head of the Moscow city organization, Khrushchev superintended the construction of the Moscow Metro , a highly expensive undertaking, with Kaganovich in overall charge. Faced with an already-announced opening date of 7 November 1934, Khrushchev took considerable risks in

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