Soviet-Empire.com - Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich

1894 Apr 17: Born in Kalinovka, Kursk Province, the child of peasants.
1909: Moves to Yuzovka (later Stalino, later Donetsk) in Donbas region, Ukraine. Father works in mine.
1909-12: Learns metal-fitter's trade at Bosse factory in Yuzovka.
1912-18: Works as metal fitter in generator plants of Ruchenkov and Pastukhov mines.
1915: Becomes "avid reader of Pravda".
1917: Represents miners at political meetings.
1918: Becomes Bolshevik.
1919: Joins Red Army.
1919-1921: Soldier and Party Worker in Ninth Rifle Division, attached to Budyonny's First Mounted Army.
1921: Death of first wife in famine.
1922: Back to Yuzovka from Front.
1922: Becomes deputy director of Ruchenkov mines.
1923: Student and political leader at Yuzovka Workers Faculty.
1924: Works in Yuzovka Party organization.
1924: Married Nina Petrovna.
1925: Appointed Party Secretary of Petrovsko-Marinsk District of Stalino (formerly Yuzovka) Region.
1925: Attends 9th Ukrainian Party Congress, chaired by Kaganovich.
1925: Nonvoting Delegate to 14th All-Union Party Congress, Moscow.
1926: First recorded public speech at Ukrainian Party Conference in Kharkov.
1927: Delegate to 15th All-Union Party Congress, Moscow.
1927: Promoted from Stalino District to Regional Party apparatus.
1928: Promoted by Kaganovich to Deputy Chief of Organizational Section of Ukrainian Central Committee in Kharkov.
1929-31: Student and Political worker at Stalin Industrial Academy in Moscow. Suslov is teacher in school.
1931: Elected First Secretary of Bauman District.
1931 Jan: Elected to Moscow City Party Committee. Head of committee is Kaganovich.
1931 Jul: Promoted to First Secretary of Red Presnya District; keeps Bauman District still in his hands.
1932 Jan: Second Secretary Moscow City Party Committee; second to Kaganovich.
1933: Second Secretary Moscow Regional Committee.
1933: Active in construction of the Moscow Metro.
1934: Made First Secretary of Moscow City Committee.
1934: Elected to Central Committee at 17th Party Congress (the "Congress of the Victors").
1934 Dec: Following Kirov's murder, accompanies Stalin to Leningrad as a member of the commission to arrange Kirov's funeral.
1935: First Secretary Moscow City and Regional Committees.
1937: Appointed Candidate Member of Stalin's Politburo.
1938 May: Appointed First Secretary of Ukrainian Central Committee. Upon election, he says "I pledge myself to spare no efforts in seizing and annihilating all agents of fascism, Trotskyites, Bukharinites, and all those despicable bourgeois nationalists on our free Ukrainian soil."
1939 Mar: Made Full Member of Politburo.
1939 Sep - 1940: Supervises occupation and sovietization of western (Polish) Ukraine.
1941-43: Commissar on various fronts with rank of lieutenant general; his eldest son dies in battle for Stalingrad.
1944: After liberation of Ukraine, he retains post as First Secretary of Ukraine and becomes Chairman of Ukrainian Soviet of Ministers.
1945: Goes to Warsaw as chairman of the commission of experts for city's reconstruction.
1945: Meets Eisenhower in Moscow.
1946: Ukraine suffers worst drought since 1890. Agricultural disaster.

Nikita in Trouble

1947 Mar, first week: Accused of insufficient vigilance in stamping out nationalist agitation in Ukraine and of slow pace in re-collectivizing Ukraine. Relieved of position of First Secretary of Ukraine, replaced by Kaganovich. N.S. Patolichev, a Malenkov man, made Second Secretary. (Khrushchev retains post as Chairman of Ukrainian Soviet and position on Politburo). Since end of war, Khrushchev had set up 504 collective farms. In next 10 months Kaganovich sets up another 1150.
1947 Mar 12: At meeting of Ukrainian Central Committee meeting, Khrushchev admits agricultural shortcomings, but blames them on his Minister of Agriculture.
1947 Mar 22: Removed from post as Secretary of Kiev Regional Party Committee.
1947 Mar 24: Removed from post as Secretary of Kiev City Party Committee.
1947 Jun: Absent from Ukrainian Central Committee meeting.

Nikita Bounces Back

1948 Jan: Reinstated as First Secretary of Ukraine. Patolichev banished to Rostov-on-Don.
1949 Dec: Made head of Moscow Oblast and city committee and made Secretary of CC. Given control of agriculture.
1950: Amalgamates collective farms and pushes agro-town scheme; supports "brigade" system of agriculture.
1950 Jun: Announces that, as result of amalgamation, number of collective farms in Moscow oblast reduced from 6069 to 1668
1951 Feb 13: In Izvestia article from collective farm chairman criticizes amalgamation. He says result was that 112 households from 4 villages were uprooted and moved, at their own expense, to a fifth village where they had to build their own huts.
1951 Mar 4: Khrushchev publishes article in Pravda and other papers in support of his amalgamation plans. The next day, an "Editor's Note" says plan is still "under discussion".
1951 Mar: Agro-town scheme rejected. Responsibility for agriculture transferred to Malenkov.
1952 Oct: At 19th Party Congress, Khrushchev delivers report on Party reorganization; Malenkov condemns Khrushchev's previous agricultural policies without specifically naming him. Malenkov says: "The mistakes these comrades made was that they overlooked the major task of the collective farms--the business of production."
1952 Oct: At 19th Party Congress, Politburo is renamed the "Presidium" and expanded from 11 to 25 full members and 11 candidates, effectively diluting the power of Malenkov, Khrushchev, and the other senior members.
1953 Jan 13: "Doctors Plot" supposedly uncovered.
1953 Mar 6: Stalin dies. Announcement made at 6 A.M. The Presidium (Politburo) is immediately reduced back to 14 members. Among the upstarts kicked out are Brezhnev and Kosygin.
1953 Mar 14: Session of Supreme Soviet, expected to appoint Malenkov as First Secretary and Prime Minister, is cancelled. Instead, a Party plenum convenes. Malenkov "requests" to be relieved as First Secretary because of his duties as Prime Minister. Resignation accepted, no successor named. Khrushchev, however, listed first among secretaries.
1953 Jun 28: Beria arrested.
1953 Aug: Malenkov presents program for accelerated development of light and food industries to the Supreme Soviet first, bypassing the Party Central Committee.
1953 Sep: Khrushchev officially named First Secretary. Begins removing Malenkov men from key Party posts.
1953 Sep 15: Give speech frankly revealing many of the agricultural failures.
1953 Sep: Reduces taxes on individual plots. Taxes on cows and pigs eliminated. Prices paid to kolkhozes and sovkhoves raised. Begins Corn Campaign.
1953 Dec: Beria executed.
1954 Feb: Begins Virgin Lands campaign (bringing into cultivation 32 million acres of previously uncultivated land in Kazakhstan and southwestern Siberia).
1954 Feb-summer: Tours Soviet Union.
1954 Aug 17: Victory of Khrushchev's "Party" group over Malenkov's "technocrats" signaled by joint Party-government decree in which Party gets top billing for the first time since Stalin's death.
1954 Oct: Goes to China.
1954 Oct: Issues first decree by himself only. (Decree concerning anti-religious propaganda).
1954 Dec 23: Former Minister of State Security Abakumov, a close Malenkov collaborator, executed for his part in the "Leningrad Affair" (purging of Zhdanov's supporters which had been organized by Malenkov in 1948)
1955 Jan 24: Signs second personal decree. (moving Lenin's anniversary to his birthday, not the day of his death)
1955 Feb 8: Malenkov forced to resign as Chairman of the Council of Ministers and accepts all blame for agricultural failings (although he himself never had anything to do with agriculture). Bulganin takes over the post. Khrushchev's consolidation of power now complete. Malenkov remains on Presidium (Politburo).
1955 Apr 20: Pravda publishes article on "the collective nature of work", stressing that all members of the Politburo were equal. Party journal Kommunist also stresses this point. (Henceforth, no more decrees appear with only Khrushchev's signature).
1955: Poor weather in virgin lands areas. Almost all spring wheat sown in virgin lands perishes.
1955 Jun: Visits Yugoslavia, attempting a rapprochement. Relations remain icy.
1955 Jun: In closed Party meeting in Bulgaria, for the first time he criticizes Stalin.
1956: Warsaw pact established.
1956 Feb: At 20th Party Congress, calls for peaceful coexistence with capitalism; admits possibility of different paths to socialism, revolution without violence; abandons doctrine of the inevitability of war; Mikoyan and Suslov make public criticisms of Stalin.
1956 Feb: Secret Speech to 20th Party Congress. Denounces "cult of the personality"; without naming names, suggests complicity of Malenkov and Kaganovich in Leningrad affair.
1956: Establishes special Central Committee bureau for the Russian Union Republic; makes himself head of this bureau and fills it with his supporters.
1956 Apr: Visits London. Has difficult meeting with Labour Party, which asks him to intervene in cases of 200 Social Democrats imprisoned in the Eastern bloc. Khrushchev interprets this as a calculated insult.
1956 Jun 28: Worker unrest begins in Poznan, Poland.
1956: Great harvest in virgin lands. Good year for corn everywhere.
1956: Escapes assassination attempt. Cruiser Red Ukraine in Sebastopol blows up minutes after Khrushchev disembarks.
1956 Oct: Polish communist party defies Moscow and names Gomulka, a victim of Stalin, as First Secretary.
1956 Oct 24: Hungarian uprising begins.
1956 Nov: Hungarian rebellion quashed.
1956: Khrushchev labels Dudintsev's works severely anti-Soviet. Thaw coming to an end.
1957: In Stavropol region, experiment tried whereby large kolkhozes merged with servicing Machine Tractor Stations (MTS). Results good. Khrushchev calls for gradual and selective implementation of this type of merger.
1957 Feb 13: Proposes decentralization of light industry with creation of special regional economic councils (Sovnarkhozy). Supported by regional Party committees; opposed by Moscow bureaucracy.
1957 May: Sovnarkhozy idea becomes law.
1957 May: Central Committee conference on writers prescribes limits on artistic freedom. At garden party, Khrushchev verbally assaults several writers; poetess Margarita Aliger swoons.
1957 May: Suggests spectacular leap forward in meat, milk and butter production, aimed at overtaking U.S. by 1960-61.

Anti-Party coup

1957 Jun 18: Malenkov, Molotov & Kaganovich orchestrate Presidium vote to dismiss Khrushchev. Vote is 8-4, only Suslov, Furtseva, and Mikoyan support Khrushchev. Khrushchev refuses to accept the vote; he says "Certainly in arithmetic two and two make four. But politics are not arithmetic. They are something different." He demands a vote by the Central Committee. Marshal Zhukov, a Khrushchev ally, uses Army transport planes to rush Khrushchev supporters from the far-flung regions to Moscow.
1957 Jun 22: Central Committee meets to consider Khrushchev's dismissal. Zhukov threatens to release documents proving Molotov, Kaganovich, and Malenkov's complicity in the purge years. Central Committee overturns Presidium vote. Malenkov sent to be director of power station in a remote corner of Central Asia; Kaganovich made director of cement factory in Sverdlovsk; Molotov made ambassador to Mongolia.
1957 Oct: Zhukov removed as Defense Minister, Presidium member and Central Committee member for supposed "adventurism" and "Bonapartism"
1957 Oct: First sputnik launched.
1957 Nov: Hosts conference of Communist Parties in Moscow
1958: Assumes role of chairman (Premier) of the Soviet of Ministers as well as party leader, forcing Bulganin to resign.
1958 Mar: Forgetting his own counsels of moderation, Khrushchev calls for elimination of Machine Tractor Stations, forcing kolkhozes to purchase them from the government. Prices for new and used equipment was the same. Kolkhozes suffer financially.
1958 Aug: Bulganin removed.
1959: Because of MTS reform, manufacture of agricultural machines falls into decline, since kolkhozes don't have funds to buy new equipment.
1959 Jan: Riazan Oblast (A.N. Larionov, First Secretary) promised to triple delivery and sale of meat to the government in one year.
1959 Feb: Khrushchev goes to Riazan to award oblast Order of Lenin for its meat production promises.
1959 Nov: Visits USA with Mikoyan and Kozlov.
1959 Dec 16: Riazan meets meat production goals (by slaughtering milk cows, breeding stock, etc., buying livestock from different regions, imposing taxes to be paid only in meat). Larionov made Hero of Socialist Labor and given Order of Lenin.
1959: Soviet technicians withdrawn from China.
1960: Riazan fiasco exposed. Larionov shoots self.
1960 May: U.S. U-2 spy plane of Francis Gary Powers shot down.
1960 Jun: Summit conference in Paris.
1960 Sep: Addresses UN in New York.
1960 Nov: Break with China revealed to Communist Parties of the world at Moscow conference.
1961: Meets Kennedy in Vienna.
1961 April: Gagarin first man in space.
1961 summer: Meets with Kennedy in Vienna.
1961 autumn: First public attacks on China.
1961: Stalin's body removed from Lenin's mausoleum.
1962: Solzhenitsyn's One Day In the Live of Ivan Denisovich published.
1962: Creates separate industrial and agricultural Party and local Soviet networks.
1962: Orders shooting?at protesting workers in Novocherkassk. Hundreds die, more executed and jailed, victims' families exiled.
1962 Oct: Cuban missile crisis.
1962 Nov: Condemns abstractionists & avant-gardists at Manezh Art Show. (Provocation hatched by neo-Stalinists--GA.89)
1963: US-USSR hotline established.
1963 Cracks down on writers and artists.
1963 Aug 4: Signs nuclear test-ban treaty.
1963: Disastrous harvest.
1964 Sep: Sends Adzhubei to Bonn for possible accommodation with West Germany.
1964 Oct: Deposed by Brezhnev, et al.
1971: Dies

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