From Author: These volumes had an almost accidental beginning. Frustrated by the stagnation of Soviet politics during Brezhnev's declining years, I was looking for a topic that would generate not only insights into the core values and problems of Soviet politics, but also some measure of intellectual interest in a field of research that was rapidly declining from tedium to unrelieved dreariness. I began to look backwards, considering the idea that a political biography of Nikita Khrushchev would not only provide an interesting challenge, but would also yield an understanding of the world that formed the current Soviet leadership.
My first discovery was the relative wealth of documentary and memoir literature covering the early years of political development in the mines and factories of the Donbass, where Khrushchev grew up, and where he began his political career...