Carole C. Fink on Nikita Khrushchev

“Khrushchev was overthrown in October 1964 by a politburo disgruntled by his brinkmanship over Suez, Berlin, and Cuba and also opposed to his erratic search for coexistence with the United States. During his nine-year rule, Khrushchev had attempted to achieve the impossible: while striving to dismantle the repressive elements of Stalinism, he had used Stalinist measures to crush popular revolutions in Eastern Europe; while seeking to unify global communism, he had created a powerful rival in Mao’s China; while seeking to revive Marxist-Leninist revolutionary impulses in the Third World, he had not only raised Washington’s hackles but also embraced nationalist leaders who imprisoned their left-wing opposition; and while seeking détente with the United States and the end of NATO, his inflammatory language and nuclear threats had underscored the need for a united West. Despite their differences in age and temperament, Kennedy and Khrushchev were both hardened Cold Warriors who only dimly recognized the radical changes in the world landscape that were beginning to reduce the Superpowers’ control. Their successors, less experienced in diplomacy and more intent on domestic reforms, would create a dangerous pause in the Superpowers’ post-Berlin, post- Cuba search for détente.”

“Political conditions on the other side had also changed significantly as a result of the Sino-Soviet rupture. In the late 1950s, Mao, resentful of Moscow's refusal to support China's atomic weapons program, condemned Krushchev's abandonment of the doctrine of revolutionary warfare and his pursuit of peaceful coexistence. Krushchev, a critic of Mao's disastrous Great Leap Forward and belligerence toward his neighbors, in 1960 suddenly withdrew Soviet experts and reduced Soviet assistance to China. After the split became public at the Twenty-Second Party Congress in October 1961, Mao openly mocked Krushchev's retreat during the Cuban missile crisis, complained of Moscow's pro-New Delhi stance during the 1962 Sino-Indian border conflict, and denounced the test ban treaty as a means of preventing China from developing its own nuclear weapons. By the end of 1963 the two communist giants were openly competing for leadership of the revolutionary movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.”