Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (15 April [O.S. 3 April] 1894 – 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. As leader of the Soviet Union, he stunned the world by denouncing his predecessor Joseph Stalin, embarking on a campaign of de-Stalinization, and presiding over the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Nikita Khrushchev was born in a village in western Russia on 15 April 1894. He was employed as a metal worker during his youth and was a political commissar in the Russian Civil War. Under the sponsorship of Lazar Kaganovich, Khrushchev rose through the ranks of the Soviet hierarchy. During Stalin's rule, he actively supported the Great Purge and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern the Ukrainian SSR, and he continued the purges there. During the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. He was also present at the defense of Stalingrad, a fact in which he took great pride. After the war, Khrushchev returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers.
On 5 March 1953, the death of Stalin triggered a power struggle in which Khrushchev ultimately emerged victorious upon consolidating his authority as First Secretary of the party's Central Committee.