Did Nikita Khrushchev really beat the shoe on the UN bench? if so, what pushed him that far and if it didn't, what really happened on October 12, 1960?
It was a Wednesday that October 12, 1960, when the 902 a was underway at the UN building in New York planetary meeting of the general assembly of the united nations.
During this historic meeting, among the items on the agenda, there was an intervention by the Filipino delegate Lorenzo Sumulong, in which he denounced the social and political condition of the peoples of Eastern Europe, which, according to the statements of the Filipino delegate, faithfully reproduced in the typescripts officials of the session, were states " deprived of the free exercise of their civil and political rights and which were swallowed up, so to speak, by the Soviet Union".
The Philippine delegate did not randomly choose this meeting to report these facts, he could have talked about them in any planetary meeting, but, the 902 a UN planetary meeting had something unique compared to any previous meeting, since the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as well as President of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, NikitaSergeevič Khrushchev, was present in the room that 12 October.
The intervention of the Philippine delegate inevitably attracted the attention of the Soviet delegation and of Khrushchev, and, at the end of his speech, Khrushchev himself managed to conquer the podium and speak.
This is the decisive moment, the moment when myth meets reality, which marked the beginning of the international show with decidedly over the top tones and known to the world as the shoe debating incident.
During the long speech, the Soviet leader tried in every way to allow him to justify and define the "internal" politics of the Soviet Union, and it is important to emphasize the term internal, since in the eyes of the Soviet leadership it was internal politics, while, in the eyes of the Filipino delegate, the relations between Moscow and other countries of the Union were a question of foreign policy, de facto, Sumulong, and like him numerous other UN delegates, did not fully recognize the Soviet Union as a single state, but as a collection of states autonomous and independent, albeit closely linked to each other by international agreements. For Sumulong, the Soviet Union was no different in substance from the United Nations, however, this parallelism was only theoretical and in practice, the Soviet Union was an Unguided by Moscow, in which Russia was a central power exercising its power arbitrarily. on all (non-free) alternations of the Union.
These arguments, very strong, provocative and largely shared, both by that slice of the world not aligned with the Soviet Union, and by the populations "subjected" by the Soviet Union (and which, some parts, totally misaligned by both the US and the USSR, they saw it as a more incisive and less subtle version of analogous US imperialism) had as an effect, the escandescence of Nikita Sergeevič Khrushchev who, at first remarked that there was no limitation in the civil and political liberties of Soviet citizens, underlining the unity of the Soviet Union as a nation, and not as a supranational entity, observing then that the different realities that made up the Soviet Union had political visions that were not necessarily identical and indeed, in some cases in contrast with each other, remarking several times that their own political current was in open contrast with the Stalinist current which he had preceded him at the helm of the union.
In short, Khrushchev, in his speech, reminded the world that the Soviet Union was a state, with many nations and as many political currents within it, all free even if inserted within the great cauldron of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. a party that had within itself currents more linked to the extreme left, more moderate currents and even liberal and right-wing currents, moreover, he himself had promoted in the USSR a policy of destatalization that we could interpret as an expression of a more liberal and moderate Soviet communism.
During the very participatory intervention, Khrushchev let himself be carried away, perhaps a little too much by emotions, warming himself up particularly and, in expressing his concepts, positions, and emotions very strongly, during the final lines of the intervention, Khrushchev he began to shake his fist violently and then take off a shoe and place it on the counter.
According to William Taubman, US journalist, Harvard graduate and winner of the Pulizer award, if Khrushchev actually took off his shoe and placed it on the counter, there is no video evidence, there is no image or witness who can confirm that Khrushchev shook the shoe and hit it hard on the counter.
According to Taubman, the historical photo of Khrushchev waving the shoe is an artifact and it is curious how that photo is actually the only photo, there are no others, or at least no others have ever been disclosed, published or distributed, and it is curious, he observes. Taubman, who exists, an identical photo, showing the same scene, the same instant, from the same angle, an image perfectly superimposable to the image of the shoe, in which, however, there is no shoe, but a simple punch.
The image of Khrushchev beating the shoe at the UN is perhaps one of the most iconic and representative images of the twentieth century, and it is an image that carries an aura of mystery behind it, as it is literally unique.
Someone speculated that in those few moments other photographers were distracted and that for some reason, the cameras were not aimed at Khrushchev, which is curious and quite anomalous given that at that moment, Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, who was with the USA one of the two super powers. at that historical moment, he was standing in front of the planetary assembly of united nations, committed to defending the image of the Soviet Union.
However, it must be said that, according to RAI, there is a video showing Chruščëv intent on shaking his shoe, however, that video, from which it is assumed that the famous frame was extrapolated, is not in the public domain, but is hidden and kept in great secrecy in the RAI archives, an Italian radio and television broadcaster that for some reason seems to have the only video evidence of the accident of Khrushchev's shoe at the UN, while, in all the other films, Khrushchev shakes and then beats his fist, and not the shoe, on the counter.