As Khrushchev showed his mother to the world Kuzkin: did the secretary general knock on the podium at the UN with his boot?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The most famous among the people myths about Khrushchev - this is stories about how the secretary general promised the West to show Kuzkin's mother and banged his boot on the podium at a meeting of the UN General Assembly … However, there is more fiction in these stories than real facts. On October 12, 1960, the most stormy and sensational meeting of the UN General Assembly really took place. And Khrushchev's speech was the most emotional, but in reality everything did not happen quite the way the newspapers later wrote.

The promise to show Kuzkin's mother and the episode with the shoe took place in reality, but they were two different stories. In 1959, the American National Exhibition was held in Sokolniki. US Vice President Richard Nixon attended its opening to demonstrate the achievements of the capitalist economy. A good example was the model of a typical cottage, in which one of the walls was missing, and viewers could see the details of the life of an average US citizen - a refrigerator, TV, washing machine and other household appliances and furniture. Khrushchev said that the USSR would soon overtake and surpass the United States in terms of living standards and, in general, "would show everyone Kuzkin's mother." The translator hesitated with the interpretation of the "untranslatable puns" and as a result chose the version of the literal translation. "Kuzma's mother" baffled the Americans.

For the second time, Khrushchev uttered his catchphrase during a visit to the United States in the same 1959. Personal translator of the Secretary General Viktor Sukhodrev described this incident as follows: I suddenly remembered again about Kuzma and his mother. Once again, there was a hitch with the translation, but then Khrushchev himself came to the rescue: "Why are you translators suffering? I just want to say that we will show America what it has never seen!"

And the next year, the same 15th UN Assembly took place. In 1960, 17 African countries gained independence from their metropolises, and the topic of colonies was actively discussed at the meeting. Khrushchev made an emotional speech on this issue, in which he denounced the colonialists. And after the secretary general, a representative of the Philippines came to the rostrum and said that one should speak not only about those countries that remain under the yoke of the Western colonial powers, but also about the countries of Eastern Europe "swallowed by the Soviet Union."

In response to this remark, Khrushchev exploded. He raised his hand, demanding to give him the floor, but this gesture was either not noticed, or ignored. And it was here that the famous incident occurred. To attract attention, he pounded on the table with his fist, but without achieving a reaction, he began to swing his boot. One of the women serving the meeting room that day told about how the secretary general had his shoe at hand: “When Khrushchev had literally a step to take to his place, one of the correspondents accidentally stepped on his heel, the shoe fell off … I quickly picked up my shoe, wrapped it in a napkin, and when Khrushchev sat down in his place a moment later, imperceptibly handed him the package under the table. There is very little space between the seat and the table. And to bend over to the floor to put on or take off his shoes, the dense Khrushchev could not, his stomach interfered. So he sat for the time being, twirling his shoe under the table. Well, when he was outraged by the speech of another delegate, he began to bang on the table with an object that accidentally happened to be in his hands. If he had then held an umbrella or cane, he would have started knocking with an umbrella or cane."

When Khrushchev went up to the podium, he no longer had any shoe in his hands. He brandished his fist, but did not knock on the podium. The shoe that appeared later in his hand in a photo in some newspapers is nothing more than a photomontage. There is only one photo in which the secretary general sits in his place, and the boot lies in front of him on the music stand. Khrushchev proposed to the Filipino "to take a spade and bury imperialism deeper," and then the newspapers wrote: "The enraged Khrushchev thrashes his boot on the rostrum of the UN General Assembly and in a frenzy shouts:" We will bury you! " This is how the myth was born.

The cult of corn is another topic inextricably linked with the name of the secretary general. Corn mine: did the US intelligence services compromise Nikita Khrushchev's idea?