Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-03-30
KHRUSHcHEv
His Success Credited to Knock
For Bloming Mistakes on Others
Continued From First Page

nist-style saga Of rags to riches.
The Khrushchev era in the
USSR is now about five years
old. In that brief historical
period the 5-foot-5, 220-pound
former coal miner has zoomed
like a political Sputnik to the
top Of the Soviet heap.
Perhaps he went too far too
fast. He is not yet the sole
inheritor Of Stains awesome
power. Those who stood in the
way Of his climb have been
silenced, but not eliminated.
His victories have been dazzling,
but their foundation is fiimsy.
Mr.. Khrushchev inherited a
complex Soviet society, its
needs enormous, its demands
frightening. No longer was
Russia the vast agrarian slum
of illiterates he had known in
his youth. To arm Russia in
.dustrially, Stain had to edu-
cate her and that took time.
Unschooled until he was in
his mid-twenties, Nikita Khru-
shchev hardly could hope to
understand the complexities of
a new generation doubling,
searching, questioning, arguing,
wondering.
His had been a far different
world when he was a ragged
boy tending sheep and learning
the trades of blacksmith and
lockSmith.
He was born in a hovel in
KallinoVka, in Kursk Province,
not far from the Ukraine, April
IT, 1894. His father, Sergei,
may have owned a small plot
of land around the mud and
reed hovel and thus have
been a ''Kulak"-a landowning
peasant. But his chief trade
was that of coal miner. Nikita's
grandfather had been serf,
one of the agricultural slaves
freed by Car Alexander in
1861.
Worked as LOcksmith
Nikita at II was working as a
lockSmith in a factory at Khar- !
kov in the Ukraine. From there
he travelled to the Donets Basin I
to work, like his father, in the
coal mines. He was there, a
young man of %, when the ]
Russian revolution burst out. {
Nikita KhruShchev took no I
active part in the revolution
against the Car. But in 1918,
when the Bolsheviks were strik-
ing for power, he Joined the
party and served in the first
proletarian regiment in the
Donets Basin during the first g
part of the bloody civil war.
Somehow Nikita managed to
bring himself to the attention
of his superiors. While the civil !:
war still ragged, he became head J
of the agricultural section of T
the Kursk City Soviet. Then he I
was placed in command of 5
battalion to fight white forces
in the Ukraine. His battalion p
was wiped out. V
But the Khrushchev talent il
for blaming his mistakes on a
others came to the fore. He be- F
came political commissar of a il
big guerrilla detachment.
Got First Big Break u
After the war Nikita worked +
for a while in an iron mine and =
I for the first time, at 81. got a :,
chance to go to school. He =
4 studied at a rabfak or workers =
faculty for three years in y
Kharkov, and went from there :,
to party jobs in Stalino and :
Kiev. Then came his first big :,
break.
, Nlkita's party work came TO
the notice of LaZor Moisevich a
Kaganovich, the dreaded Iron 1
commisSar," then first party {
party secretary in the Ukraine. l.
He had young Khrushchev sent c
to Moscow's industrial academy
in 1929 for further studies.
Under such important aus
, pices, Nikita became mem i
Der of the Communist Party I
committee in the academy. I
Once again he chose a Win I
ming horse. He led an attack {
against those in the academy I
who sided with Trotsky and F
other enemies Of Stain. il
His studies completed in
1881. Nikita became secretary d
, of a regional Moscow party
committee. once again the pro- f
tege of Mr.. Kaganovich, then +
secretary of the Moscow COM +,
mittee and member of the rul- r
ing central committee. Mr.. 7
KhruShchev went to various in
duStrial centerS to root out
Stains enemies.
Mr.. Khrushchev also threw :
himself with a will into Mr.. =
Kaganovich'S program for II
Transforming Moscow, doing
much of the work of organizing L
labor for such projects as the 7
celebrated Moscow subway. '
That won him the order of y
Lenin. ;
A quarter century later Nj :,
kita Khrushchev would repay :.
his benefactor by bouncing him =
out of the poSt-Stalin hierarchy, y
labeled an enemy of the party. =
But in 1884 he was just a ;,
Kaganovich man, and his boss r
got him finally on the powerful
central committee. He now had
a firm grasp on the first rung
of his ladder to power.
For Nikita Sergeyevich Khru-