Editing Nikita Khrushchev

{{Infobox politician|name=Nikita Khrushchev|native_name=Никита Хрущёв|birth_date=15 April 1894|death_date=11 September 1971 (aged 77)|birth_place=Kalinovka, Kursk Governorate, [[Russian Empire]]|death_place=[[Moscow]], [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]|death_cause=Heart attack|image=Khrushchev.png|political_line=[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br> ([[Revisionism|Right-revisionist]]<ref name=":999">{{Citation|author=[[Mao Zedong]]|year=1964|title=On Khrushchov’s Phony Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World)|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1964/phnycom.htm|quote=The Programme put forward by the revisionist Khrushchev clique at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU is a programme of phony communism, a revisionist programme, against proletarian revolution and for the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the proletarian party.
The revisionist Khrushchev clique abolishes the dictatorship of the proletariat behind the camouflage of the "state of the whole people", changes the proletarian character of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union behind the camouflage of the "party of the entire people", and paves the way for the restoration of capitalism.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1964/phnycom.htm}}</ref>)}}
'''Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev''' (15 April 1894 – 11 September 1971) was a [[revisionist]] politician of [[Ukrainian SSR|Soviet Ukrainian]] nationality who served as [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] from 1953 to 1964 and [[Premier of the Soviet Union]] from 1958 to 1964. 

Khrushchev is considered to be responsible for numerous theoretical errors and policy mistakes<ref name=":999" /> that laid the groundwork for further problems which eventually culminated in the [[overthrow of the Soviet Union]]. Notably, Khrushchev denounced [[Joseph Stalin]] in his infamous [[Secret Speech]], where he blamed all of the USSR's problems on Stalin and his [[cult of personality]]<ref name=":022">{{Citation|author=[[Vijay Prashad]]|year=2017|title=Red Star over the Third World|chapter=Polycentric Communism|page=117|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacecu7gb2ei65us6ip3r2ugcgkblneqcftbm456mb6bzvprkbqk55qm?filename=Vijay%20Prashad%20-%20Red%20Star%20Over%20the%20Third%20World-LeftWord%20Books%20%282018%29.pdf|city=New Delhi|publisher=LeftWord Books}}</ref>, despite the fact that Khrushchev himself had been involved in maintaining this cult, which Stalin himself had opposed.<ref>{{Citation|author=J.V. Stalin|year=1930|title=Letter to Comrade Shatunovsky|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1930/08/x01.htm|quote=You speak of your "devotion" to me. Perhaps it was just a chance phrase. Perhaps. But if the phrase was not accidental I would advise you to discard the "principle" of devotion to persons. It is not the Bolshevik way. Be devoted to the working class, its Party, its state. That is a fine and useful thing. But do not confuse it with devotion to persons, this vain and useless bauble of weak-minded intellectuals.}}</ref>

== Early life and career ==
Nikita Khrushchev was born in a [[Peasantry|peasant]] family in 1894 in [[Kalinovka]], [[Russian Empire]]. His father worked successively as a bricklayer, miner, and railway worker; in 1911, the Khrushchev family moved to the Donbas region, to Yuzovka (present-day [[Donetsk]]), where the younger Khrushchev first worked as a miner but eventually finished an apprenticeship in metallurgy, and finding full-time employment at a metalworking factory.

As a skilled metalworker, Khrushchev was exempt from conscription into the [[First World War]].<ref name=":15216">{{Citation|author=Nikita Khrushchev|year=1970|title=MEMOIRS OF NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV. Vol. 1, Commissar (1918-1945)}}</ref> As a result, he spent that time involved in labor organizing, combining demands for better working conditions with demands for an end to the war. During this same time, he married and had two children.

Khrushchev joined the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] in 1918 but would not begin advancing to any leadership positions until late 1920s, after the party leadership, recognizing Khrushchev's abilities as a mine foreman, instructed him to attend the Industrial Academy in Moscow in 1929 for higher education,<ref name=":15216" /> which he had not received earlier in life. 

Khrushchev was appointed First Secretary of the [[Communist Party of Ukraine]] in 1938, making him the leader of the [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukrainian SSR]]. from 1938 to 1949. Party leadership criticized him for admitting too many people into the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|party]] and tolerating [[Ukrainian nationalism]]. In 1949, he moved to Moscow and became the party secretary there.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=Roger Keeran, Thomas Kenny|year=2010|title=Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union|chapter=Two Trends in Soviet Politics|page=29–41|pdf=https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceaj5ucph44bjwyhlhsbycckr3ts76zbucn2hbrea32tltcd4s5ekg?filename=Roger%20Keeran_%20Thomas%20Kenny%20-%20Socialism%20Betrayed_%20Behind%20the%20Collapse%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union-iUniverse.com%20%282010%29.pdf|publisher=iUniverse.com|isbn=9781450241717}}</ref>

== Death of Stalin ==
Khrushchev may have been responsible for the death of Stalin, who was [[General Secretary]] from 1921 to his death in 1953. Stalin died under suspicious circumstances and [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1946–1992)|Albanian]] leader [[Enver Hoxha]] accused Khrushchev and his allies of murdering Stalin.<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Enver Hoxha]]|year=1981|title=[[Library:With Stalin: Memoirs| With Stalin: Memoirs]]|page=31|quote=All this villainy emerged soon after the death, or to be more precise after the murder, of Stalin. I say after the murder of Stalin, because Mikoyan himself told me...that they, together with Khrushchev and their associates, had decided...to make an attempt on Stalin’s life|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/stalin/intro.htm}}</ref>

== Rule as General Secretary ==
Under Khrushchev's rule, the percentage of industrial [[Proletariat|workers]] in the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]] reduced to 30% and the number of white-collar officials increased to 50%.<ref name=":1" /> He prioritized consumer goods over heavy industry and decentralized [[Planned economy|state planning]].<ref name=":0" />

In 1954, he began the Virgin Lands program to cultivate sparsely populated fertile land, mainly in [[Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic|Kazakhstan]] and [[Siberia]]. 300,000 volunteers participated in the campaign and plowed 27 million hectares of new land in two years. The campaign was initially successful but began to decline in 1957.

In 1964, the Soviet government forced Khrushchev to retire and reverted some of his policies.<ref name=":0" />

=== Secret Speech ===
In 1956, Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin in his "[[Secret Speech]]" and made many false claims against him. He labeled his political opponents, including [[Vyacheslav Molotov]], [[Georgy Malenkov]], and [[Lavrentiy Beria]] as "[[Stalinism|Stalinists]]."

In June 1957, Malenkov's [[Anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] faction won the majority in the [[Presidium of the Supreme Soviet|Presidium]], but Khrushchev argued that only the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]] could remove him from power.<ref name=":1">{{News citation|author=[[TheFinnishBolshevik]]|newspaper=ML-Theory|title=The Khrushchev Coup (Death of Stalin & Khrushchev’s Rise to Power)|date=2019-05-07|url=https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/the-khrushchev-coup-death-of-stalin-khrushchevs-rise-to-power/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116061016/https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/the-khrushchev-coup-death-of-stalin-khrushchevs-rise-to-power/|archive-date=2022-01-16|retrieved=2022-05-30}}</ref> The Central Committee then purged Malenkov, Molotov, and [[Lazar Kaganovich|Kaganovich]] from the Presidium.<ref name=":0" />

=== Khrushchev Thaw ===
Khrushchev's reduction of [[censorship]] lead to the spread of [[Liberalism|liberal]] ideas and allowed the publication of novels by the [[Antisemitism|anti-Semite]] [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]. He greatly increased party recruitment, leading to some non-communists joining the party.<ref name=":0" />

== Ideological deviations ==

=== State of the whole people===
Khrushchev claimed that the CPSU, and the broader Soviet state, had become a "state of the whole people"<ref name=":2">{{Citation|author=[[Nikita Khrushchev]]|year=1963|title=Communism -- Peace and Happiness for the Peoples (Collected Speeches of Nikita Khrushchev from January-December 1961)|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/khrushchev/1961/khrushchevcommunismvol2.pdf|chapter=Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U., October 17, 1961|page=112|quote=Thus, now class relations in our country have entered a new stage. "Proletarian democracy" is becoming "socialist democracy of the whole people".|mia=https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/party-congress/22nd/khrushchev-reports-22ndcong-v1.pdf}}</ref>, instead of just the [[Proletariat|working class]] and [[Peasantry|peasants]].<ref name=":0" />

In Khrushchev's view, the [[Soviet Union]] had reached such an advanced stage of socialism that class antagonisms had substantially dimished within society. As such, the state need not be a tool of internal class repression; instead, the Soviet state's was more and more growing into a purely administrative apparatus, in which ever-increasing democratic representation from the people resulted in "total economic democracy".<ref name=":2" />

Khrushchev justified this idea by saying that the state would remain long into the intermediate stages of communism.<ref name=":61236">{{Citation|author=[[Nikita Khrushchev]]|year=1963|title=Communism -- Peace and Happiness for the Peoples (Collected Speeches of Nikita Khrushchev from January-December 1961)|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/khrushchev/1961/khrushchevcommunismvol2.pdf|chapter=On the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Report to the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U., October 18, 1961|page=112|quote=The state will remain long after the victory of the first phase of communism. The process of its withering away will be a very long one; it will cover an entire historical epoch and will not end until society is completely ripe for self-administration. For some time, the features of state administration and public self-government will intermingle. In this process the domestic functions of the state will develop and change, and gradually lose their political character. It is only after a developed communist society is built in the U.S.S.R., and provided socialism wins and consolidates in the international arena, that there will no longer be any need for the state, and it will wither away.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/party-congress/22nd/khrushchev-reports-22ndcong-v1.pdf}}</ref> The "State of the Whole People" was supposed to embody the interests of all Soviet citizens, not just those of a particular class, as the domestic Soviet bourgeoisie had supposedly been eradicated altogether.

This theory is widely considered by Marxist-Leninists to have been erroneous and [[revisionist]].<ref name=":999" /> Marxist-Leninists instead uphold the idea that [[continuation of class struggle under socialism|class struggle continues under socialism]], including both internal and external bourgeois subversion and attempts at capitalist restoration.<ref name=":933499">{{Citation|author=[[Mao Zedong]]|year=1964|title=On Khrushchov’s Phony Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World)|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1964/phnycom.htm|quote=For a very long historical period after the proletariat takes power, class struggle continues as an objective law independent of man’s will, differing only in form from what it was before the taking of power.

After the October Revolution, Lenin pointed out a number of times that:

a) The overthrown exploiters always try in a thousand and one ways to recover the "paradise" they have been deprived of.

b) New elements of capitalism are constantly and spontaneously generated in the petty-bourgeois atmosphere.

c) Political degenerates and new bourgeois elements may emerge in the ranks of the working class and among government functionaries as a result of bourgeois influence and the pervasive, corrupting influence of the petty bourgeoisie.

d) The external conditions for the continuance of class struggle within a socialist society are encirclement by international capitalism, the imperialists’ threat of armed intervention and their subversive activities to accomplish peaceful disintegration.

Life has confirmed these conclusions of Lenin’s.

In socialist society, the overthrown bourgeoisie and other reactionary classes remain strong for quite a long time, and indeed in certain respects are quite powerful. They have a thousand and one links with the international bourgeoisie. They are not reconciled to their defeat and stubbornly continue to engage in trials of strength with the proletariat. They conduct open and hidden struggles against the proletariat in every field.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1964/phnycom.htm}}</ref> 

Khrushchev's declaration of a sufficiently developed stage of socialism to no longer have a domestic bourgeoisie was premature and [[revisionism|right-deviationist]] in nature, as it posited that through sheer [[idealist]] "will", the Soviet people had advanced socialism to a new stage and essentially "won" the class struggle. This was one of the major points of the [[Sino-Soviet split]].

===National question===
Khrushchev believed that a single Soviet [[nation]] would eventually replace the existing nationalities of the USSR. Regardless, Khrushchev also made frequent reference to "the peoples" and "the Soviet peoples"<ref name=":444">{{Citation|author=[[Nikita Khrushchev]]|year=1963|title=Communism -- Peace and Happiness for the Peoples (Collected Speeches of Nikita Khrushchev from January-December 1961)|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/khrushchev/1961/khrushchevcommunismvol1.pdf}}</ref>, which implies that he did not believe this had happened yet.

There was an increase in bourgeois [[nationalism]] in response to this declaration.<ref name=":0" /> 

==References==
[[Category:Politicians]]
<references />
[[Category:Revisionists]]
[[Category:Soviet politicians]]