With a bullet in the head. Left to weed corn
Last week, the American media spread the news about the death of Sergei Khrushchev, the son of the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, known as the “father of the Soviet Thaw”, and also under the more offensive nickname “Kukuruznik”.
The Russian media was informed about the death of Sergei Khrushchev by his friend, a former employee of the US Embassy in Moscow, Mark Garrison.
The case of the death of Khrushchev Jr. is frankly murky. Speaking about the reasons for her husband’s departure, the widow Valentina Golenko claims that Sergei Khrushchev died of old age. At the same time, a representative of the Rhode Island State Department of Health and medical examiner Robert Wendelken claim that the cause of death was a shot to the head. Presumably suicide.
Who was the son of the third leader of the USSR?
The New York Times, dedicated to Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to the United States, spoke about the personality of 24-year-old Sergei, who was part of the Soviet delegation: “The Americans who watched him and talked with him believe that he is unlikely to follow in the footsteps of his father.”
It should be noted that Sergei Khrushchev was an iconic figure. Not outstanding, but arousing some interest. He really did not continue his father’s work, but he was not an anti-communist either. It would be too odious. For the last 35 years, Sergei Khrushchev has been, so to speak, a “Khrushchevit,” perhaps even the only one in the world.
Unlike Svetlana Alliluyeva or Galina Brezhneva, Sergei Khrushchev was not a problematic infant. Instead of leading an absent-minded and bohemian lifestyle, Khrushchev Jr. entered and graduated from the Moscow Energy Institute in 1958 with a degree in automatic control systems, assigned to work in rocket science, which was fashionable at that time.
It is known, for example, that Sergei Khrushchev participated in the development of some components of the Proton launch vehicle, sea-based cruise and silo missiles.
However, Sergei took for granted all the benefits associated with his father's golden glow. Being an ordinary engineer, just a year after graduation, he was awarded the highest prize of the USSR - the Lenin Prize, together with his immediate supervisor, the luminary of the Soviet space industry, Academician V. N. Chelomey, and in 1963 Khrushchev the son became a Hero of Socialist Labor.
Most scientists and designers have been pursuing these regalia for decades, breaking through rubble and thorns to the top. By the age of 30, Sergei Khrushchev had almost everything that a Soviet scientist could dream of: a doctorate degree, the Golden Star “Gertrude” and two prestigious awards, including the Prize of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
It is characteristic that after 1964, when the restless Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev retired as a Soviet Union pensioner, the scientific community of the USSR no longer heard about the outbursts of Sergei Nikitich’s talent.
This went on for almost a quarter of a century, until Perestroika broke out in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s ideologists, who set de-Stalinization and the “second thaw” at the forefront of their efforts, dragged Sergei Khrushchev into the world to tell citizens heart-warming stories of how the first shoots of Soviet democracy fought their way to the light through totalitarian asphalt and concrete.
And Seryozha Khrushchev did not disappoint! He sang like a nightingale, praising his father in the best traditions of the notorious “personality cult” that Nikita Sergeevich fought against.
Listening to him, some honored capital pensioners shrugged their shoulders and asked themselves and those around them a difficult question: why, for example, pensioner Kaganovich, “accused” by the new government of mass repressions, calmly went out alone to the store or into the yard to play dominoes with the old people, then How could the “liberator and benefactor” pensioner Nikita take a step without security?
pensioner of union significance
In 1991, when power and ideology in the USSR began to change rapidly, there was a premonition that soon all interest in the person of the “son of the father of the thaw” would end, Sergei Khrushchev turned his skis to the West, to his very lair - the USA. Because there it was still possible to trade profitably and attract attention with a big name.
I remember very well how at Sheremetyevo airport, goggle-eyed at the cameras of the reporters settling in, Sergei Nikitich heart-rendingly shouted: “It’s getting scary to live here!”, explaining his decision to set sail for the country that his father promised to bury.
We will bury you!
It is no less characteristic that, already in the USA, Sergei Khrushchev was hired at Brown University as a political scientist, and not as a teacher of rocket science.
The main topic of Sergei Khrushchev's research was the Cold War.
Or rather, it was just a shell. All that Sergei Khrushchev did from the beginning of Gorbachev’s Perestroika until the end of his life was to whiten the name of his father, basking in the reflected rays of his glory.
It was a strange and very controversial activity. The son of the former head of a superpower leaves his homeland at a fatal hour for its fate in order to glorify his father from a country that he considered an enemy.
Apparently, this moral betrayal of his father’s ideals lay a heavy burden on the conscience of Sergei Khrushchev, since at the slightest opportunity he liked to repeat that he “did not betray anyone and loves this country.”
Despite all efforts, Sergei Khrushchev was of little interest to anyone in Russia, and the Cuban authorities generally refused to issue him an entry visa in response to his request in 2003.
If you look on the Internet what Sergei Khrushchev was doing in recent years, it turns out that he liked to give online interviews. Moreover, most often he was interviewed by the famous Ukrainian scammer and Bandera lackey Dmytro Gordon.
Gordon, in particular, was interested in the attitude of Sergei Khrushchev to the problem of Crimea, as well as the attitude of Russians to the personality of Stalin.
Apparently, Sergei Khrushchev did not have a clear attitude towards the personality of Stalin, because in one interview he stated that “Stalinism is a heavy heredity of the Russian people,” while in another interview he said that the removal of Stalin’s body from the Mausoleum was a little perhaps not his father's only mistake.
Sergei Nikitich spoke some nonsense about Crimea, and only once did he not bend his heart, declaring that “in handing over Crimea to Ukraine, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev in a nightmare could not imagine the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
Sergei Khrushchev directed all other efforts towards improving the image of his famous father in the eyes of his former compatriots. Reformer – period! It seemed that the former rocket scientist was trying to paint white the black half of Nikita Sergeevich’s personality, clearly represented by the monument by Ernst Neizvestny, installed on Khrushchev’s grave.
Black and white monument to Khrushchev by Ernst Neizvestny at Novodevichy Cemetery
So, for example, talking about the serious economic difficulties of the USSR that arose in the early 1960s, which threatened entire republics with famine, Sergei Nikitich mentioned the terrible dry wind, but at the same time “forgot” about the famous “disaggregation” of Nikita Sergeevich, when sectoral ministries were dispersed, and instead They cultivated regional economic councils. And that the Kosygin government had a long and hard time eliminating the legacy of “voluntarism.”
Sergei Khrushchev deliberately avoided sensitive issues, such as the events in Novocherkassk, although he liked to emphasize how people openly scolded “Kukuruznik”, supposedly not being afraid of being erased into camp dust, “like with a mustache.”
It was also noticeable that Sergei Khrushchev’s Personal Enemy No. 2 was Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, who outright outplayed his father in party games and removed Nikita from power.
Sergei Khrushchev did not seem to appreciate the generosity of Brezhnev, who pushed Khrushchev into retirement without a show political trial. In the struggle for power, Nikita Sergeevich was not distinguished by Brezhnev’s humanism. Ministers Beria and Abakumov will confirm.
In general, Khrushchev’s professional son met his strange death in the USA. They say he asked to be buried next to his father, at the Novodevichy cemetery. That's probably all.
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