KHRUSHCHEV: THE ILLUSIONS OF WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200250014-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 14
• Content Type: MAGAZINE (OPEN SOURCE)

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the city. The Finns refused, and Stalin
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1, 10 nation has ever su
t t] palling losses than Russia did in decided to use force. "The Finns turned W t
World War 11, when 22 million of its cit- out to be good warriors," says Khru-
Determined to keep the scar- shchcv. "We soon realized that we had
.izens died
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h
ld
.
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c
?ing memory of that struggle alive, the bitten off more than we cou
Soviet hierarchy has seen to it that an The Finns would climb up into the fir WITH SOVIET TROOPS
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tbl
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an
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endless stream of histories and first-per- trees and shoot our men at po
Fighting
publishing houses. But as former Pre- cloaks over their uniforms, the Finns viet generals were captured, Stalin
mier Nikita Khrushchev makes clear in were invisible."
the second installmeilt of his reminis- At one point, Stalin called in Soviet branded them traitors and banished their
cences in LiFu this week, some of the Defense Commissar Klimcnt Voroshilov families to Siberia. He refused to 'sign
most fascinating material about the So- for a dressing down. Voroshilov an- any official documents "for fear that his-
viet conduct of the war has been grily retorted: "You have yourself to tory would record him as a defeated
scrubbed out of official chronicles. blame for all this! You're the one that leader," and' he grew. suspicious. 'of.:.'
The Invisible Finns. The Soviet ex- had our best generals killed!" With that, everyone.
Premier's account begins with the event Khrushchev recalls, the Defense Coin- Khrushchev fell under suspicion when
that set the stage for Russia's entry missar "picked up a platter with a boiled a project in which he was involved
into the war--the nonaggression treaty suckling pig on it and smashed it on -the offensive at Kharkov in 1942
between Stalin and Hitler in 1939. Khru- the table." The 1939-40 "Winter War" -failed disastrously. Sonic 200,000 So-
shchev learned of the pact when he cost about 1,000,000 Soviet lives, says viet troops walked into a German trap
was summoned to Stalin's dacha after Khrushchev, and ended in a "moral de- and were.killed or captured. Says Khru-
a day of hunting with other members feat" for Stalin, though the Finns agreed shchev: "A few days after the .disaster
of the Soviet hierarchy. "While the tro- to pull back about seven miles. .1 received a call frorp Moscow. I was
phies of our hunt were being prepared Pikes and Swords. Soon there came ready for anything, including arrest."
for the table," recalls Khrushchev, "Sta- a far more serious disaster-the Nazi in- Stalin reminded him that a gendarmerie
lin told its that [Hitler's Foreign Min- vasion of June 22, 1941. At first, So- officer had been hanged by the Czar as
ister Joachim von] Ribbentrop had viet commanders were ordered not to a result of several serious Russian de-
brought with him a draft of a friend- return the German artillery fire. Says feats during World War I. Replied Khru-
ship and nonaggression treaty and that Khrushchev: "Stalin was so afraid of shchev: "Comrade Stalin, I remember
we had signed it. Stalin seemed very war that he convinced himself that Hit- this event well. The Czar did the only
pleased with himself. `It's all a game to ler would keep his word and wouldn't at- right thing. [Colonel] Myasnikov" was
a traitor." Khrushchev was saved, he be-
see who can fool whom,' he said. `[Hit- tack us."
ler] thinks he's outsmarted me, but ac- Khrushchev became the Politburo's lieves, because he had advised Stalin
tually it's I who have tricked him."' military representative in the Ukraine, against.. overextending Soviet forces at
Stalin hoped,. says Khrushchev, "that then the main theater of the German at- Kharkov, and his warning had been over-
the English and French might exhaust tack. At one point, he desperately tele- heard by several men in the dictator's
Germany and foil Hitler's plan to crush phoned Moscow to ask for weapons. hierarchy.
the West first, then turn East." Georgy Malcnkov, then a member of Burning the Dead. The war, and
Although the pact is generally re- the State Defense Committee, told him Khrushchev's fortunes, took a turn for
garded as one of the most cynical agree- to use "pikes, swords, homemade weap` the better with the Soviet victory at Sta-
ments in history, Stalin's decision met ons-anything you can make in your lingrad and then in the massive tank bat-
the approval of a majority of-party mem- own factories." Replied Khrushchev: tie at Kursk. After Stalingrad, where
bers as "tactically wise," says Khru- "You mean we should fight tanks with German Field Marshal Friedrich von
shchev. However, "we couldn't even dis- spears?" Malenkov answered that "you'll Paulus' Sixth Army was destroyed, the
cuss the treaty at party meetings. It have to do the best you can. Light tip bot- Soviets were unable to bury the Ger-
was very hard for us-as Communists, ties of gasoline or kerosene and throw man dead in the frozen earth. Says
r? toii'sands
as antifascists-to accept the idea of them at the tanks." Khrushchev: "W to
joining forces with Germany." In those dark days, says Khrushchev, of corpses and s layers
In an effort to build a buffer for Len- when the Germans marched to within
ingrad, the Soviet Union's second larg- sight of the Kremlin before their at- Actually, the colonel's name was S.N. Mya-
est -city, Stalin at that time demanded tack was blunted, Stalin was "paralyzed soedov. He was accused of passing military fin-
that Finland m 1 cr 1' rabbit in r nation to the Germans and executed in a
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KHRUSHCHEV AT UKRAINIAN FRONT (1943)
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