.
( first, please see the Editorial Reviews, Book Description and Author Background on amazon.com )
Biography of Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, former Communist Party Chief, and leader of the Soviet Union from 1956. By William Taubman, who had unprecedented access to Russian archives as well as to the man's surviving relations and comrades--enabling him to paint a detailed picture of him from childhood, to his years as state official in the Ukraine, finally succeeding Stalin, and until being deposed in a coup in 1964.
Two views of Khrushchev's years at the helm--the sympathetic (he presided over the cold war, an uneasy peace in an otherwise troubled age, and infinitely better than the realistic alternatives), and the alarmist (himself and through the party inflicted unspeakable disasters upon the Soviet people, his impulsive and mercurial character easily could have triggered further tragedies on the international stage).
Taubman makes a convincing case for the latter. Indeed, even beyond personal character, Khrushchev was uneducated, making him
ill-equipped to make the decisions he had to make as leader of the Soviet Union. In fact, like everyone else, it was his "fawning servility" which enabled him to rise through the ranks, and his ruthless elimination of his rivals which finally
got him to the top. And though he later denounced Stalin, there is an equally-compelling argument that it wasn't mere political
expediency that prompted him, but an attempt to escape blame, by an equally-bloodstained accomplice to the worst crimes of his
predecessor's years.
Just as his denunciation of Stalin proved the height of his career, he fell victim to the Peter Principle--rising to his level of incompetence, ill-equipped and unprepared for the job of governing a whole state. The man who presided over the detente with America--the same man who bungled the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly driving the world to WWIII; he who allied with China--the same alliance breaking down; the reform-advocate whose response to unforeseen results is to resort to oppression at first instinct. Due in large part to the fact that Khrushchev was born of the system which Stalin created, through which his predecessor always retained a psychological hold over him.
He who took pride in his ability to read faces and minds, resorted to one-way diatribes, failing to gather what--had he known or been told--could have made possible a more orderly end to his term (oppression hardly expected to encourage the most candid of non-concurring opinions). Perhaps it was background, perhaps it was character, perhaps it was the system, perhaps it was Stalin's shadow never really fading away . . . or perhaps it is the combination of all these.
One might not end the book sympathetic to the man. But one comes out more enlightened.
Thirty-two pages of photographs.
英語の得意な方向きです。
.
この商品を買った人はこんな商品も買っています
ページ: 1 / 1 最初に戻るページ: 1 / 1
カスタマーレビュー
この商品をレビュー
他の国からのトップレビュー
Mr. Martin F. Peers
A well researched biography
2013年8月19日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Greg S
Excellent, objective and thorough...
2013年2月27日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Staffan in Stockholm
Amazingly well researched and well written
2011年9月23日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
MR. M. WELCH
Great book
2020年6月28日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Dundawolf
Generally illuminating in respect of both the man and the ...
2015年3月4日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
