World: Becoming an Unperson

Eight million Russians received a new April 17 in the mails last week, with a succinct instruction to insert it in their official Communist Party calendars for 1965. The new date was nothing like the old. Gone was the photo of the bald head, the round face unsmiling above the five medals, the six-line biography describing his rise to Chairman of the Council of Ministers and First Party Secretary. Even the fellow's inspirational quote on the back gave way to an anonymous poem praising party modesty. Thus, by having his birthday wiped from the state calendar, did Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev become...