Ukrainians were arrested during the three years Khrushchev served in
Kiev. Of the 86 members of the Ukrainian Central Committee work-
ing in Kiev on his arrival, 83 were purged. According to KGB records,
Khrushchev personally ordered the arrest of 2,140 individuals—
almost all of whom were shot. While in his memoirs Khrushchev por-
trayed himself as horrified by the excesses of the purges, he rarely
hesitated to order the arrest of a suspected enemy.
Khrushchev developed close contacts with senior security officials
during and after World War II. He was especially close to Ivan
Serov, a hardened security police official who oversaw the deporta-
tionof millions of Soviet citizens during the war. Following Stalin’s
death in March 1953, Khrushchev planned and executed the arrest,
trial, and executionof Stalin’s security chief, Lavrenty Beria, with
the aid of a cadre of loyal Chekistslike Serov.
As Communist Party boss, Khrushchev curbed the power of the
KGB to ensure the primacy of the party. The service was placed un-
der party tutelage. Khrushchev also oversaw the release and rehabil-
itation of some of the victims of the Stalin era and permitted some
disclosure about the extent of Stalin and Beria’s crimes.
In his Secret Speechto the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev ad-
mitted to a select circle of party officials that Stalin had used the se-
curity service to murder millions of innocents. Khrushchev also or-
dered the rehabilitation of thousands of men and women arrested
during the Stalin period. For many families, the rehabilitation of a
loved one came 10 to 20 years after they had been sentenced by a
court to death or a term in the camps from which they never returned.
Moreover, Khrushchev authorized the publication of Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn’s novellaOne Day of Ivan Denisovich, which provided
a realistic account of life in Stalin’s forced labor camps, and he al-
lowed a far more realistic and honest depiction of modern Soviet his-
tory. While these post-Stalin accounts of the recent Soviet past were
self-serving and far from complete, they presented a far more accu-
rate account of the Great Patriotic War.
There was a limit to reform. Khrushchev was fearful of going too
far in reforming the state security empire. He told his children that at
Stalin’s death, the regime was on the brink. He thus believed that fur-
ther reform would seriously endanger the Soviet state. Khrushchev be-
came increasingly intolerant of intellectual dissent, and he authorizedKHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH (1894–1971)• 13106-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 131