Thinkers and political figures
Portrait: Press photograph, 1956, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain
Nikita Khrushchev
- Country
- Soviet Union
- Era
- 1894–1971
- Tradition
- Reform communism
Soviet leader who denounced Stalin’s crimes to a closed party congress in 1956, released millions from the camps, and then crushed the Hungarian uprising and brought the world to the edge of nuclear war over Cuba.
01
Documented positions
Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.
- Denounced Stalin’s purges and cult of personality in the Secret Speech of 1956 and released political prisoners on a mass scale
- Proposed peaceful coexistence with the West, rejecting the doctrine that war between the systems was inevitable
- Sent Soviet troops to crush the Hungarian uprising in 1956
- Placed nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 and withdrew them in exchange for American concessions
- Launched the Virgin Lands agricultural campaign and decentralised industrial planning to regional councils
- Renewed persecution of religious institutions, closing a large share of Orthodox churches
- Authorised construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961
02
Where it sits on each dimension
Wealth and inequality
8
RedistributionMarket outcomes
Evidence: Well documented
The state in the economy
8
Active stateLimited state
Evidence: Well documented
Personal liberty
22
Collective orderIndividual freedom
Evidence: Documented
Tradition and change
60
ContinuityReform
Evidence: Documented
Nation and the world
45
InternationalistNationalist
Evidence: Documented
Religion and the state
4
Secular stateReligion in public life
Evidence: Well documented
Power and its limits
12
Concentrated authorityChecks and pluralism
Evidence: Well documented
Crime and punishment
40
PunishmentRehabilitation
Evidence: Documented
Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Environment and growth
Sources
- Nikita Khrushchev, On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences (Secret Speech) · 1956
- William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era · W. W. Norton · 2003
Last verified: