Nikita Khrushchev was born on April 17th, 1894 to a peasant worker family. He was the leader of the Soveit Union from 1953 until 1964. Khrushchev is noted for reversing the idea of "Stalinism" and the build up of nuclear arms. He presided over the Soviet Union during the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Sino-Soviet Split, and the launching of Sputnik.
Khrushchev was born into a working class family, he had a basic education and started a job at age 15. It was not until 1918 that Khrushchev joined the Communist Party. Khrushchev recognized the importance of having a close relationship with Stalin. He was only one of three provincial part secretaries who survived the mass executions of the 1930s. He only survived this because he backed Stalin and all of his policies.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, he was given the rank of lieutenant general. It was his job to form a resistance movement.
At the 19th Parth Congress in 1952, Khrushchev was given the task of creating new part statutes. Some of his changes include:
Both of these actions put more power into the hands of the committee secretaries, of which he was one.
Khrushchev will probably be always remembered for his "secret speech" which he gave before the 20th Party Congress in February of 1956, in which he denounced Stalin. Until that time the presence of Stalin was felt by all. Extremely conservative communists would often use Stalin's shadow to justify one policy or another. With the leader of the Soviet Union denouncing Stalin, they ran out of excuses quickly, and Khrushchev gained more of a foothold.
Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall because citizens of East Germany were concerned that their economy would collapse if more citizens emigrated from their sector. Between 1954 and 1961 2.7 million Europeans (mostly Germans) fled across the Berlin border. In August of 1961 the flood stopped.
Khrushchev discovered that sending missiles and aid to developing third world countries could help sway them into a communist government. This is what he learned from Cuba. While the Soviet Union faced humiliation when they had to recall their ships, they did realize the nature of developing countries. However at the same time, relationships with powerful countries dwindled during the Khrushchev era. Naturally the U.S. was tense about the Soviet Union, but after Nikita denounced Stalin, the warm relationship the Soviet Union had with Cuba began to cool. This marked the beginning of the end of Nikita Khrushchev. Later his polices began to cause problems, and his political carerr entered a stage of decadence. By October of 1964, Khrushchev's opponents were strong enough to bring him down. On October 15th, Khrushchev resigned giving ill health as his reason. On September 11, 1971 Nikita Khrushchev died of a heart attack.
