Stalin failed to select Khrushchev as his successor after his death. Stalin refused to appoint any successor who would take over after him. Soon after Stalin’s passing in 1953 various Soviet leaders sought to claim control over the leadership.
During his lifetime Stalin ridiculed his subordinates and Khrushchev included within this group. Khrushchev did not demonstrate intelligence or high levels of education as far as Stalin was concerned. Khrushchev acted as a target when Stalin decided to keep him close because it gave him entertainment. During his last years Stalin became paranoid and mistrustful of others. During his end he did not select anyone to succeed him even while potentially plotting to eliminate select leaders.
The transition process began when Stalin died because multiple candidates sought to fill the leader position. During their initial period of power Malenkov and Beria together with Khrushchev worked as co-rulers of the government. But Khrushchev was smart. Through building relationships with important connections Khrushchev managed to outsmart his opponents. Through his maneuvering power he successfully ousted Beria from his position while forcing Malenkov into retirement.
It required Khrushchev several years to achieve leadership status. Most individuals predicted Khrushchev would not become leader when he first started his bid. But he played his cards well. The Soviet Union trusted Khrushchev to take the position of leadership by 1958. Khrushchev reached his position through his political aptitude rather than receiving the appointment from Stalin.
How did Khrushchev live after he resigned in the USSR?
After the resignation, the former head of the USSR practically lived in a dacha near Moscow. Here. Near the house, Khrushchev’s favorite dog named Arbat.
The general of the Soviet Union, Stalin, was a very insecure leader; he felt the other world leaders were smarter and more impressive than him. Thus, this made him paranoid, as if somebody was out to hurt him. Because of that fact, he only surrounded himself with people that would not question him, even if they were not the best.
One day, Stalin suffered from a stroke, a sort of brain attack. Those people who were around him were too afraid even to call the doctor. They took so long that Stalin died. Is it believable?
After his death, a man named Nikita Khrushchev took over whom Stalin didn’t even pay attention to, but Khrushchev was actually pretty smart, and he outwitted his opponents in climbing up the ladder. He was even revealing to everybody how vicious Stalin truly was, it also shocked the entire world.
But even Khrushchev could not get away from the shadow of Stalin. He felt he had to demonstrate that he was tough like Stalin. This pushed him into taking some risks, such as placing missiles in Cuba, which nearly triggered a main war with the United States!
Isn’t it ironic? For such fear of loss of power, he created his own problems. In paranoia against good people, he ensured a troubled successor who would make all the wrong decisions.
Therefore, the moral is, well: do not be an ass, just like Stalin. Trust people in your vicinity; be a good leader, or it might just backfire on you!
Is it true that Stalin was actually only about 5 foot 4?
He was probably a little taller than that, if not by much. Below we find pictures of Stalin with US President Harry Truman and Sir Winston Churchill. Truman stood about 5′9″ and Churchill was about 5′6″ .
Khruschev sitting with Stalin, Mao tse-tung and other world communist leaders at Stalin’s 71st birthday celebration in 1949
He did not designate Krushchev as his successor. Indeed, there is speculation that Stalin, in typical paranoid fashion and in the face of declining health, was prepared to expunge much of the Politburo and start anew.
He also didn’t place any of the members of the Politburo in high esteem and even frequently asserted this conviction in their presence, stressing the great harm that would come to the Soviet Union and to world socialism as the West made minced meat of them. Perhaps this statement shed more insight into Stalin’s soul and personal pathology more than any other.
Consumed with a Sense of Inferiority
The dictator was consumed with a sense of social and intellectual inferiority vis-à-vis the other major figures of the Bolshevik Revolution – Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, etc., all of whom had lived overeas and, in the course of which, had acquired expanded “cosmopolitan” views and facility in one or more foreign languages, while Stalin, whose original tongue was Georgian, had remained in Tsarist Russia, gaining fluency only in Russian.
He harbored a deep personal loathing for Leon Trotsky, whom many in the upper reaches of Soviet leadership regarded as the natural heir apparent to Lenin and who possessed a large measure of charisma and rhetorical ability. Trotsky returned Stalin’s loathing with equal measure and, adding insult to injury, regarded him as an intellectual mediocrity and a provincial – colorless, bland, uncreative and lacking originality.
Surrounded by Cowed Mediocrities
This knowledge stung Stalin deeply and as he garnered more power and influence in the upper leadership ranks, he was able to neutralize and, ultimatelty, to banish all of the principal players of the Revolution, though Trotsky turned out to be the one that got away – the biggest fish of all and who, in exile, played hell with Stalin’s global reputation and, undoubtedly, his personal self-regard.
Under the circumstances, it’s not surprising that Stalin surrounded himself with mediocrities capable only of following his commands to the letter – efficiently, with dispatch and when the situation demanded it, unflinching cruelty. He would not tolerate any of his minions envincing originality of thought or, even worse, overshadowing him.
Consequently, he surrounded himself with frightened, cowed men, hesitant to do anything that could be interpreted as an effort to undermine his authority or, God forbid, to outshine him. This predictably produced tragi-comic effects. Indeed, Stalin occasionally raged at them over their unwillingness to challenge his views and to offer alternative opinions that would enable him to refine his decision-making.
Deadly Consequences
This even ended up producing deadly consequences for Stalin, as the senior Politburo members dithered for hours following his stroke before summoning a team of medical specialists. By the time they arrived, Stalin was beyond help.
Khruschev, an extremely smart and crafty wielder of power, demonstrated his Machiavellian abilities following Stalin’s passing by collaborating with the other Politburo members to expose and, ultimately, to try and to execute Lavrenti Beria, to whom Stalin had consigned stewardship of the national security complex and who had hoped to use this to consolidate power into his own hands.
Khruschev also managed to outwit the far better educated but weak-willed Georgy Malenkov, who, for a time, emerged as Stalin’s presumptive successor.
A Meagerly Educated, Gauche Bumpkin
Even so, Stalin likely scarcely could have imagined the meagerly educated, gauche bumpkin Khrushchev as his successor. Khruschev undoubtedly had demonstrated his personal loyalty through the years as well as his ability to get things done efficiently. Aside from that, though, Stalin regarded him as little more than an affable bumpkin and a source of comic relief.
As Stalin’s health deteriorated and he likely became aware of his encroaching death, he increasingly called Khrushchev away from his job responsibilities to join him for late-night dinners and movie screenings and even long vacation stays – something that drove Khruschev to distraction as it forced him to undertake furious catchup upon his return, but this in no way implied his being set aside as Stalin’s successor.
Indeed, Stalin’s frequently asserted doubts about the inadequacies of all among his inner circle arguably led to Khruschev’s later overthrow. Khrushchev, in the view of some Soviet experts, was haunted by Stalin’s lack of confidence in his and other Politburo members’ ability to stand up to the omnipotent capitalist West.
This may have led to his undertaking a series of puerile and, in some instances, reckless stunts to demonstrate Soviet power on a global scale, notably his determination to “place a bee in the American bonnet” – a effort that culminated in the near calamity of the Cuban missile crisis, and that contributed, in the view of some Soviet experts, to his being deposed and consigned by other Politburo members to retirement and obscurity.
