For news and reference material, see our Former Soviet Union Page.

Join a discussion about this story or section, or create one of your own.

Go to Flashback Section

Go to International Section

Krushchev Dies After Heart Attack

Russians Not Told of Death

By Robert G. Kaiser
September 12, 1971

Moscow, Sept. 11 -- Nikita Krushchev, the former premier of the Soviet Union, died in a Moscow hospital this morning after a massive heart attack. He was 77.

Krushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union and the guiding hand of the world communist movement for six years, after succeeding Nikolai A. Bulganin as premier in 1958.

He was an erratic and, at times, jarringly outspoken leader whose tenure was marked by uneven economic progress in the Soviet Union, agricultural problems and dramatic de-Stalinization.

The Krushchev years were the years of Berlin crises, the Spirit of Camp David, the U-2 incident and its aftermath, and the Cuban missile crisis.

The new Soviet leaders, who deposed the flamboyant and unpredictable Krushchev in 1964, withheld the news of his death from the Soviet public tonight. This official silence was in keeping with the status of "unperson" they chose for Krushchev after depriving him of the leadership of the Soviet government and Communist Party.

But government officials privately confirmed the news of Krushchev's death, which was first revealed in a dispatch by Victor Louis, Moscow correspondent of The London Evening News. Louis, a Soviet citizen, is widely thought to be an employee of the KGB, or secret police.

A friend of the Krushchev family said tonight that the former first secretary and premier would be buried Monday in Moscow's Novodyevichy ("new maidens") Cemetery, not far from the Kremlin. Symbolically, however, such a burial would be far indeed from the most honored graves in the Kremlin wall.

Novodyevichy Cemetery is part of an ancient monastery which adjoins the Kremlin and it has long been the final resting place of illustrious Russians. Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Prokoviev and Josef Stalin's first wife are all buried there.

This company may be distinguished, but the rotund and excitable man from the Ukraine would undoubtedly have liked better treatment. He was immensely proud of his long Communist career.

Krushchev became a Bolshevik in 1918 and was appointed to his first important party job seven years after joining. In 1935 he was appointed first secretary of the Moscow Communist Party, and in 1939 he was admitted to Stalin's Politburo. He played an active role in the war and participated in the battle of Stalingrad.

After serving as post-war boss of the Ukraine, Krushchev came to Moscow in 1949 and soon became Stalin's agricultural chief. When the dictator died, Krushev was ranked fourth in the hierarchy. But by 1958, when he ousted and succeeded Bulganin, Krushchev was clearly number one. He stayed at the top until 1964.

Krushchev had been suffering from heart disease for some time and was hospitalized twice last year. Unofficial informants said today that he fell ill again several days ago and was taken to a hospital for Kremlin officials. These informants said his wife of 48 years, Nina Petrovna, was by his side when he died.

Krushchev was last seen in public last June 13, when he and Mrs. Krushchev voted in Moscow for elections for the Supreme Soviet. He said then he felt fine.

Such scant appearances were virtually the sum total of Krushchev's public life since his fall from power. Had it not been for the dramatic publication of memoirs attributed to him last fall, Krushchev might well have died in the obscurity his successors apparently prescribed for him.

Those memoirs, published under the title "Krushchev Remembers," put him back in the public limelight in which he had once loved to bask. Krushchev issued a formal denial that the memoirs were genuine, and his wife also denied their authenticity. The Soviet government attacked the book as a fraud and a concoction of the CIA.

Many Western experts believe that the memoirs are at least partially genuine, though academic debate about them continues. Unofficial sources in Moscow who claimed to know the facts of the matter said the memoirs were based largely on tape recordings of Krushchev's dictated reminiscences.

Foreign observers in Moscow are waiting with great interest to see how the current leadership copes with Krushchev's death. The place in which he is to be buried, the people who attend the funeral, the size and content of the articles (if there are any) in the Soviet press -- all will undergo the utmost scrutiny.

Krushchev's name was barely mentioned in recent years. Indeed, many histories and commentaries have been awkwardly altered merely to avoid the use of his name. One clearly anti-Krushchev novel was published in the conservative journal "October" this year, but without using his name. Conversely, the memoirs of Marshal Ivan K. Bagramyan, an old Krushchev army colleague, were published last January with considerable praise for the former leader.

A revealing statement of the current leadership's view of Krushchev came, allegedly, from Anistas A. Mikoyan, the elder statesman of the Politburo. In a small underground publication called "Political Diary," whose existence was revealed in the West only last month, Mikoyan is quoted as saying in 1964 that Krushchev deserved credit for many achievements, but he also had to be replaced.

Krushchev grew sclerotic, old, impatient and too talkative, the Political Diary quoted Mikoyan as saying. He made hasty and wrong decisions, and then blamed others when they went wrong. Finally, a meeting of the Central Committee was called and "people spoke (against Krushchev) in a businesslike way, without abuse," and then he was deposed, Mikoyan allegedly said.

An official party history published in November, 1970 also discussed that Central Committee meeting. According to this official document, the meeting recalled Lenin's dictum that the party "abhors harebrained schemes, hasty conclusions, decisions remote from reality." By implication Krushchev was guilty of all of these.

Nevertheless Krushchev was allowed to retain some of the comforts and trappings of prominence in Soviet society, including a dacha 25 miles west of Moscow.

It is difficult for an outsider to judge Krushchev's standing in the minds of Soviet citizens, but there is no doubt he made a strong impression on his people.

Younger Russians seem quicker to judge him as a bumbler who made too many mistakes. Their elders, who knew Stalinism and knew how Krushchev did away with its most terrifying aspects, seem to have more mixed feelings. Some intellectuals and artists remember him approvingly as a leader who allowed them some freedom.

Many Russians seem to feel that Krushchev was too unpredictable and self-centered. A group of engineers in Siberia discussing Krushchev and President John F. Kennedy last month had little good to say for their own former leader.

Asked if the 1962 Cuban missile crisis had been a humiliation for the Soviet Union, these engineers said absolutely not -- "that was just Krushchev."

Good or bad, Krushchev was certainly different from the cautious and reserved leaders who succeeded him. The man who banged his shoe on the table at the United Nations promised to bury capitalism, built the Berlin wall and provoked the Cuban missile crisis strikes a foreigner in today's Moscow as very unlikely, as well as very appealing, in the Soviet Union of 1971.