(3 of 8)
The fact was that in its first five days, the B. & K. act was proving one of the great flops of modern diplomacy. In full view of the world, and unexpectedly, they had fallen flat on their faces. What had gone wrong? Hadn't they forehandedly sent Malenkov ahead, and hadn't he reported the atmosphere friendly? Of course, all those disagreeable press fellows led by Punch Editor Malcolm Muggeridge had been stirring up trouble. And it had been a serious tactical mistake to send Khrushchev's unsavory friend, MVD General Ivan Serov, to check up on security precautions. But something deeper was involved in Britain's changed mood. Its root lay in Khrushchev's recent exposure of Stalin as a mass murderer, anti-Semite, traitor and fool. There was something extremely distasteful in receiving the mad Stalin's old associates, and acknowledged heirs, at a moment when his—and their—crimes were so vividly in the public mind.
Visiting Britain's atomic research center at Harwell, B. & K. met their first British workingman: Vincent McCarthy, 35, a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. McCarthy shot a direct question at Khrushchev: "Can we expect that the Russian government will now progress to the point where they can withstand criticism from free trade unions and religious denominations without having to apply pressure?" Khrushchev was determined to turn his back on taunts. He answered: "If you take into account our point of view, we will take into account yours. If we start criticizing each other, we shall not get anywhere."
Meeting such hostility was nothing new to Nikita Khrushchev. What had been new was the spontaneous mass enthusiasm he had stirred during his Asian tour last year. He was not used to having such crowds with him. Dealing with hostility has been his specialty.
Man for the Job. hrushchev's big thrust for power began back in 1937 when Stalin picked him to pacify the Ukraine, then in ferment as a result of Stalin's brutal collectivization of the rich farm lands. What made Khrushchev the right man for the job was that he was a peasant and could be expected to handle the peasants in terms they understood.
Nikita Khrushchev had been born in a mud-and-reed hut in the village of Kalinovka on the Kursk steppe, where as a barefoot boy he had tended cattle. He grew up to have the Russian peasant's rough manners (even today he sometimes stuffs his mouth with food at public banquets, picks his teeth with his fingers). He was short (5 ft. 5 in.) and thickset with a round face and jug ears. He had small, dark, merry, merciless eyes and was as shrewd and crafty as he looked.
In 1918 he joined the Bolshevik Party and got an intense, if defective, party education. On his untrammeled peasant mind Marxist-Leninist theory had the power of revelation. He took the Stalinist line and stuck to it. T hus he became one of the realists of Communism, an undeviating supporter of power-in-being. With his bull-like energy, ready grasp of slogans, he was soon shouldering his way through the party ranks.