NEW YORK ¡ª My great-grandfather, Nikita Khrushchev, has been on my mind recently. I suppose it was the 50th anniversary of the ¡°kitchen debate,¡± which he held with Richard Nixon that first triggered my memories.
But the funeral the week before last in Budapest for Gen. Bela Kiraly, who commanded the Hungarian Revolution¡¯s freedom fighters in 1956, and last week¡¯s funeral in Warsaw for philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, whose break with Stalinism that year inspired many intellectuals (in Poland and elsewhere) to abandon communism, made me reconsider my grandfather¡¯s legacy.
The year 1956 was the best of times and the worst of times for Khrushchev. His ¡°secret speech¡± that year laid bare the monumentality of Stalin¡¯s crimes. Soon, the gulag was virtually emptied; a political thaw began, spurring whispers of freedom that could not be contained. In Poland and Hungary, in particular, an underground tide burst forth demanding change.
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