Khrushchev Remembers [antikvár]

Introduction by EDWARD CRANKSHAW When I was told of the existence of Nikita Khrushchev's reminiscences, my first thought was that they would prove to be a forgery. There have been a number of such documents which were in fact manufactured in the West for political or commercial reasons. I did not have to read very far, however, to feel pretty well sure that these were the real thing; and by the time I had finished I was convinced. Here was Khrushchev himself, quite unmistakably speaking, a voice from limbo, and a very lively voice at that. To anyone who had listened to him in the days of his prime, or read his speeches in Russian, there was no mistaking the authentic tone. I have read almost every word of Khrushchev's that has been published since the late 1920's. On a number of occasions I have met him face to face, and I have listened to him speaking publicly and privately inside and outside the Soviet Union. For just on fifteen years, from his recall by Stalin from Kiev to Moscow in the winter of 1949 to his eclipse in October, 1964, it was my constant task to study him and try to penetrate his character and motives. And I am as sure as it is possible to be sure of anything'that cannot be scientifically proved that the man who speaks in these pages is the man I came to know in all his public aspects and in the largely hidden processes (still hidden, alas, as far as these reminiscences are concerned) of his struggle to seize power and retain it. He is older now, tired, diminished by sickness, his vitality no longer what it was —but in some ways all the more self-revealing because of that. 3o what we have is an extraordinary, a unique personal history.