Word: khrushchevism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...should we build a good life and then keep our borders bolted with seven locks?" For nine years he was one of the two most powerful men on earth. Yet when he is buried in Moscow this week, following his death of a heart attack at 77, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev will be laid to rest in Novodyevichy Cemetery. That is the burial spot for prominent Russians who are not important enough-or, as in Khrushchev's case, in sufficiently good repute-for a state funeral and interment in the hallowed Kremlin Wall...
Mixed Record. "In all his actions," observes British Sovietologist Robert Conquest, "one saw a limited but not hidebound mind, and with it a sort of peasant cunning. But in the end, he antagonized his subordinates without sufficiently terrorizing them, a fatal lapse." Khrushchev died in official disgrace, reduced by the Soviet monolith to an unperson. To Russia's masses, his performance was at best ambiguous. Heralded for relaxing the prison-camp atmosphere that prevailed under Stalin, he was also bitterly blamed for recurring failures in the economy and agriculture. To most Westerners, too, his record is mixed. A shrewd...
...dealings with U.S. leaders, Khrushchev often behaved brusquely and temperamentally. He disliked Richard Nixon, particularly after his 1959 debate with the then Vice President in the U.S. "kitchen exhibit" in Moscow. He respected Dwight Eisenhower, but this did not prevent him from savagely attacking Ike and torpedoing the 1960 summit conference following the U-2 overflight. He thought John Kennedy a pushover when they met in Vienna in 1961-a miscalculation that led directly to the Cuban missile crisis, which brought the world to the verge of nuclear war. Khrushchev proclaimed the confrontation a triumph because it ended...
...often displayed a rough humor. Once, after spending a week viewing Indonesian temples, Khrushchev turned to Indonesian President Sukarno and asked: "Don't you have anything new around here?" When he described Berlin as the American testicles that he could squeeze whenever he chose, sensitive translators changed it to the American big toe that he could step...
...could exude an earthy, appealing charm. On a Scandinavian tour, after what journalists suspected was a spat between Khrushchev and his wife Nina, the Soviet Premier asked the mayor of a Danish village if he performed marriage ceremonies. "Yes," said the mayor. "Well," said Khrushchev, "how does the ceremony go?" "You mean," said His Honor, "that you want me to read it now?" "Yes," said Khrushchev, and then, taking his wife's hand, he exchanged vows with her. Touched, Nina forgot that she was cross, and when the mayor intoned, "Do you take this man . . ." she lowered her eyes...