By Natalia TROFIMOVA, The Day
According to the laws of post-Soviet democratic development, this book
should have appeared in 1990-1991. It was ready for publication in the
early 70s, only to come out now. The third book of the four-volume Khrushchev
Remembers: Time, People, and Power - a full collection of memoirs,
shorthand records of speeches, and archive materials - was published only
the other day. The publication was initiated by Khrushchev's grandson,
also Nikita Sergeyevich.
An atmosphere of tender emotions and gratitude reigned at the presentation
ceremony in Kyiv, attended by the grandson and other former General Secretary
relatives of the who came from Moscow. Some of the present history-related
scholarly elite were so seized with nostalgia that the room heard occasional
odes in praise of the "fighter for a sovereign Ukraine." Sometimes, however,
allowance was made for his contradictory image. Professor Volodymyr Serhiychuk
noted Ernst Neizvestny's sculpture which conveyed Mr. Khrushchev's nature
very true to life by alternating white and black colors.
Questions were mainly addressed to Khrushchev's son Sergei (photo).
He called himself an "advocate of the Soviet Union." Answering The Day's
question about the degree of democracy in Russia's present-day regime,
Sergei Khrushchev said: "We live today under the same system. Gorbachev
took a step toward democracy, but now Russia is backsliding."
A story told by a well-known human-rights fighter Semen Hluzman was
by far the brightest point of the function: "quiet city madman" Stepan
Soroka once lived in Kyiv. He meddled in all things of our life. And then
General Secretary Khrushchev arrived in the city. All Kyiv was humming:
the Secretary must be guarded by a regiment of soldiers, so no one could
even approach him. And here Stepan decided to put in his nickel's worth:
"it's a piece of cake to deal with Khrushchev if you really wish and know
how to do it..." The next day Soroka himself was dealt with, getting a
25-year prison camp term for an attempt on the General Secretary's life.
Hluzman met in those same camps. And it was via Hluzman that Soroka sent
out a wish that flowers be laid on the grave of the already deceased Khrushchev
from a man who had never dreamed of killing him. For he is nothing but
a "quiet city madman," still alive, by the way.







