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A non-drinker would have been unlikely to rise in the hierarchy to decision-making level. Opinions are divided why - some say he was inebriated - but Soviet leaders could cope with being a few sheets to the wind since it was part of the culture. In February, 1954, he transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. It was exposing Stalin’s crimes in Khruschev’s so-called “secret speech” to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party that precipitated the implosion of the Soviet empire 31 years later.Īnother thing Khrushchev did two years earlier had consequences that may turn out to be equally far reaching. He was to remark later that the 1956 Hungarian revolution wouldn’t have happened if they had only shot a few writers in time, not realizing that the first “writer” he would have had to shoot was himself. In any event, Khrushchev had no idea that he was dismantling communism or that sawing away on personality cult meant cutting off the branch on which he himself was sitting. This disappointed many who didn’t understand that evil systems, people and ideas need to be defeated, not to make the world a better place, but to prevent it from becoming worse. As it turned out, the shrimp was a quicker study than anyone expected, but the demise of communism, salutary as it was, left the world with most of its problems still unsolved.

Khrushchev came up with a few remarkable phrases, including the ultimate euphemism of calling mass murdering tyranny “personality cult,” and predicting communism will last until the shrimp learns to whistle. The neighbours will still have plenty to worry about, and who knows how far the neighbourhood might extend? In my lifetime it went all the way to points beyond Vladivostok in the East to wall in Berlin in the West - a wall erected, I might add, after Stalin went to his reward, by his whistle-blowing successor, Nikita Khrushchev. But assume he never comes close, and emulates only a traditional Russian ruler.

He’s still growing, and there’s potential. He isn’t the worst, either, someone might say. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.