Chapter 2 Summary

Khrushchev is born April 15, 1894, in the south Russian village of Kalinovka, and spends his first 14 years there. In his memoirs, Khrushchev has little to say about these years, and he indeed spends a lifetime living down his early poverty. In Kalinovka he learns to work, to fight, and - just barely - to read and write.

Khrushchev's grandfathers serve together in the army. The paternal grandfather, Nikanor, is the more prosperous. Their children, Sergei and Ksenia, marry and settle 275 miles away in Yuzovka. Strong-willed, contemptuous, and resentful, Ksenia keeps Sergei under her thumb and wants her son Nikita to do better than his brother. Khrushchev's early home life lays the seeds for his quest for power and glory. Ksenia instills prayer, rectitude and responsibility in her son, who will neither smoke nor drink until he falls under Stalin's influence, and be attracted to...