Nikita Khrushchev, Part 2
-Jason

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The death of Joseph Stalin on 5 March 1953 sent a wave of unease throughout the Soviet Union in terms of who would be his successor.  During Stalin’s reign, he had systematically purged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.  Those members who survived were weary of allowing another dictator to take over the country.  Certain checks to the power of the First Secretary of the Soviet Union needed to be agreed upon, and enacted, to ensure one man could not dominate the system.

Nikita Khrushchev had survived Stalin’s purges and was a relatively effective administrator for the regions he had been responsible to oversee, however, there were many people who sought control of the Soviet Union with whom he had to compete.  Georgy Malenkov had positioned himself to assume control over the country after Stalin’s death.  Perhaps the most dangerous contender was Lavrentiy Beria who headed the Soviet secret police.  Few in the party wanted Beria as the leader, and because of this, Malenkov was named Premier.  Khrushchev was third strongest man in the Soviet Union.

Beria could not be completely pushed out of power and was named First Deputy Premier.  He had been one of Stalin’s most brutal hangmen and had personally enjoyed torturing and killing his victims.  Many within the Soviet Communist Party feared that Beria would overthrow his fellow rulers.  It was well known that Beria had bullied Malenkov and other party members to enact policies he wanted.  Beria also pushed to have more liberalization between the Eastern Bloc and the West: World War II had devastated the Soviet Union and better world relations could help the country rebuild.  However, this position backfired on Beria when the East Germans attempted to break away from the Soviets in June 1953.

This uprising was the key which allowed Khrushchev to convince Malenkov to arrest Beria.  Georgi Zhukov Marshal of the Soviet Union and Hero of World War II was instrumental in helping the politicians to eliminate the head of the secret police.  Beria entered the Presidium for what he assumed would be a meeting but was instead met by an ambush.  Khrushchev accused him of being a spy and terrorist and Zhukov entered the room with soldiers who quickly took Beria from the building.  Beria and six others were tried and convicted for crimes against the State, Party, and People of the Soviet Union and executed.

Khrushchev shared power with Malenkov until 1955 when the later resigned from his position as Premier.  His previous close connections to Beria and accusations of abuse of power sealed his political fate.  His fellow party members blamed him for the slow progress of reforms and the relative lack of rehabilitation regarding Stalin’s political prisoners.  Khrushchev was able to exploit this situation and called for Malenkov to accept a permanent position in the Presidium.  Malenkov then made the fatal political error of trying to organize a coup to depose Khrushchev in 1957.  When word of this reached him, Khrushchev once again leaned on Zhukov and the Red Army to help reestablish order.  Malenkov was expelled from the Politburo and exiled to Kazakhstan where he died in 1988. 

Khrushchev had witnessed firsthand the destructive policies Stalin had enacted throughout the 1930s and 1940s and had no wish to repeat them.  However, in his first few years, he needed to be careful about denouncing Stalin and his policies as the former ruler had emerged as a victorious hero because of World War II: the Soviet people had been forced to cling to the myth of Stalin as a savior by the state.  But starting in 1955, Khrushchev began to actively denounce the crimes that Stalin and his supporters had conducted against the people.  He pushed for the resettlement of ethnic Ukrainians back to their homeland after their forced relocation to Kazakhstan by Stalin.  Khrushchev also began the process of releasing the other ethnic groups and political prisoners who languished in exile and imprisonment.

The agricultural, industrial, and human devastation caused by combined effects of Stalin’s policies and the German occupation in World War II still crippled many regions of the western Soviet Union.  Khrushchev sought to reform the state and industry to ensure the Soviet Union was a beacon of communism in the world.  The Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc satellite countries were part of a closed economy.  If the production of manufactured goods and raw materials in the Soviet Union could be increased, it would ensure that the Eastern European communist states would thrive.  He pushed heavily for the Soviets to both develop, and excel at, their own space program.  Because of his willingness to put such major funding and materials into the program, the Soviets were able to put Sputnik, the first artificial satellite into orbit before the United States could.  In 1961, Khrushchev enjoyed another victory: the first human in space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

Khrushchev believed that Stalin’s policies in escalating the Cold War between 1950 and 1953 had been a mistake: antagonizing the United States during the Korea War and creating the Iron Wall in Eastern Europe had made the two world ideologies enemies.  The foundation of NATO by the United States and Western Europe had forced the Soviets and their allies to create the Warsaw Pact in opposition.  This confrontational escalation continued to grow as the Americans and Soviets competed for influence within the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.  The recently decolonized territories sought security, economic, and political aid from the two Superpowers. The resulting conflicts in these regions brought the attention of the Soviet Union and the United States to those areas.

As tensions between the Soviet Union and United States continued to grow throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Khrushchev carried on with a policy that puzzled his opponents both at home and aboard.  He wanted to avoid direct confrontation, yet he took a confrontational approach towards the United States in the United Nations.  Khrushchev pushed the East Germans into building the Berlin Wall which separated East and West Berlin from each other.  He did this to prevent East Germans from defecting to the West.  As American spy planes performed reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union, several were shot down

Khrushchev was also wary of the fact that American nuclear missiles had been deployed to Turkey: these weapons were within easy striking distance of most of the Soviet Union’s biggest cities.  The failed American military operation in Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs, the attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro, gave Khrushchev a means to respond.  He offered to send Soviet military weapons and advisors to help the Cuban leader protect his nation.  Cuba was the first, communist country to be established in the Western Hemisphere during the Cold War.  Khrushchev secretly ordered Soviet ballistic missiles to be stationed throughout the Caribbean Island.  

This decision brought the world to the brink of nuclear war once the United States President John Kennedy was informed that Soviet nuclear weapon installations were being built in Cuba.  Between 16 and 29 October 1962, the world held its collective breath as the Superpowers prepared for war.  Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba by which the US Navy would stop, or destroy, any Soviet ships attempting to reach Cuba.  The American people, and their allies, were informed in a prime-time special from the Oval Office by Kennedy that if the nuclear weapons installations were completed only be 90 miles off the US southern coast, the United States and NATO prepared to go to war against the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact.

The Thirteen Days between 16 and 29 October were the closest the Cold War ever came to turning “hot.”  Kennedy and Khrushchev were desperate to avoid nuclear war, yet there was not a direct line of communication between the two leaders.  Rather, they had to negotiate through envoys and wait for a response: this situation was intolerable as mistakes in translation or fouled messages could lead to disaster.  Kennedy and Khrushchev secretly agreed on a compromise: the Soviets would cease the construction of missile bases in Cuba if the United States withdrew their nuclear weapons from Turkey.  World War III was avoided and a direct phone line between the White House and Kremlin was established.

Despite his success in avoiding war with the United States and NATO, members of Khrushchev’s own party began to see him as erratic and dangerous.  Leonid Brezhnev, one of Khrushchev’s proteges, had slowly been gathering supporters in the Politburo and KGB between 1962 and October 1964.  Khrushchev had known about the discontent of some of his contemporaries and once the plot to overthrow him was revealed, he peacefully surrendered power on 14 October 1964.  Brezhnev, Alexei Kosygin (The Soviet Premier), and Nikolai Podgorny (Second Secretary of the Soviet Union) operated as a triumvirate to oversee the state after the removal of Khrushchev.