<i>Khrushchev Remembers, vol. 1; The Last Testament, vol. 2</i> (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Khrushchev Remembers, vol. 1; The Last Testament, vol. 2 John Merrill Khrushchev Remembers, vol. 1; The Last Testament, vol. 2. By Nikita Khrushchev. Edited and translated by Strobe Talbott. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970, 1974. 639 pp., 602 pp. John Merrill Lafayette College Footnotes . I would like to acknowledge here the assistance of Susan Matula, a graduate student at Columbia University, in comparing the chapter on Korea in Khrushchev's memoirs with the Russian-language transcription of the tapes and in providing me with all of the translations cited in this article. 1. For a recent review of the literature on the war, see Mineo Nakajima, "The Sino-Soviet Confrontation: Its Roots in the International Background of the Korean War," Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 1 (January 1979). As Nakajima notes, the problem of the origins of the war has taken on all of the characteristics of a classic "whodunit." 2. Abraham Brumberg, "Khrushchev and the Experts: Having a Crystal Ball," Encounter, May 1971, p. 52. 3. See, for example, George Kennan's review, "Dead Souls," New York Review of Books, Feb. 25, 1971, pp. 3-4; Athenian, "The Man Stalin Liked," Times Literary Supplement, Jan. 22, 1971, pp. 82-84; and the review by Harry Schwartz, Saturday Review, Dec. 26, 1970, pp. 21-23. 4. The introduction by Jerrold L. Schecter discusses the circumstances of publication and the verification of the tapes by Time-Life, Inc. Reviews of the second volume accepted the authenticity of the memoirs. See, for example, Priscilla J. McMillan, "Russian Peasant, World Statesman," Saturday Review, Sept. 7, 1974, pp. 18-20; A. H. Brown, "A Voice from the Kremlin," Times Literary Supplement, Jan. 31, 1975, p. 115; Adam B. Ulam, "Not Everything," New Republic, June 29, 1974, pp. 22-23; Leonard Shapiro, "Khrushchev Forgets," New York Review of Books, Aug. 8, 1974, pp. 3-5. 5. See 1:372-73. 6. The translations used here are based on the account of the Korean War in the American transcription of the tapes, pp. 858-68, deposited at the Russian Institute of Columbia University. There is also a Soviet transcription, used in preparing the first volume of the memoirs, in which the discussion of the war is broken into two parts, appearing on pp. 241-51 and pp. 447-52, according to the index. The American transcription is considered the more authoritative version, and also includes notes on gaps in the tapes. Since restrictions on the use of these materials precluded obtaining a full translation, I have had access only to translations of those sections of the transcript that differ from the book. But apart from minor qualifications by Khrushchev of the type noted above, all discrepancies between the transcript and the book in the discussion of the war are provided in this article. 7. 1:367. Significant differences between the book and the transcription are indicated with reference to the former. 8. Max Beloff, Soviet Policy in the Far East (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), pp. 177-78; Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960), p. 42. 9. See, for example, Glenn D. Paige, "Korea," in Communism and Revolution, ed. Black and Thornton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 227-29, citing Historical Research Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the DPRK. 10. For details on Kao Kang's purge and its possible connection to events in Korea, see Mineo Nakajima, "The Kao Kang Affair and Sino-Soviet Relations," Review (Tokyo: Japan Institute of International Affairs), no. 44 (March 1977), pp. 27-28. 11. For the continued attention given to the guerrilla movement when it had already passed its peak, see the illustrated book, New Korea (Canton, China: Librairie "Min Chu," March 1950); also "Korea is on the Verge of a Great Revolution: The Armed Struggle of Patriotic Korean Guerrillas Raging Against the U.S.-Sponsored Rhee Syngman's Police State," Korean Independence, February 1950 (reprinted from China Digest, Nov. 30, 1949); and Pak Hen En (Pak Hŏ-yong), "Heroic Struggles of the People of South Korea for Unity and Independence of the Country," For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy, Bucharest, Mar. 24, 1950, pp...