The New Stalin Era

Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at the New School in New York, went back to Moscow recently to complete work on her forthcoming book, a biography of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev—her great-grandfather. Khrushchev was the first Soviet premier to visit the United States, in 1959. To many Americans, he is best remembered as the leader during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. He agreed to remove Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba in exchange for President John F. Kennedy’s promise that the U.S. would not invade the island.

In Russia today, Khrushchev’s memory has been almost completely erased from public discussion, even though he led the post-Stalin U.S.S.R. through what was arguably its most hopeful time. In that era, from 1953 to 1964, the Soviets were competing with the U.S. in