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Khrushchev's emergency trip was the sharpest evidence yet of trouble in the program and of the importance the Kremlin places on it. He had personal reason to worry. A year ago, when Stalin died, he was in the second tier: the big names were Beria, Molotov and Malenkov. Now Khrushchev is one of the big two: he heads the party, and Malenkov the government. When the Supreme Soviet met last April, Malenkov addressed the upper house, Khrushchev the more important lower house. In Red Square on May Day, Khrushchev alone of all the dignitaries had the honor of waving his hat to the crowd. The last seven major state pronouncements from the Kremlin have been in Khrushchev's name, not Malenkov's. At the top of a dictatorship, two's a crowd.
The massive farm program, particularly the daring virgin-lands project, is strictly Khrushchev's responsibility. Georgy Malenkov has notably had nothing to do with it publicly. If bread does not materialize in the empty breadbasket of Kazakhstan, Nikita Khrushchev might be used to provide a circus for the public instead.