Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich

Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich (b. 5 Apr. 1894, d. 11 Sept. 1971). First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1953–64 Born in Kalinovka near Kursk close to the Ukraine, where he moved with his family in 1909. He became active for the Bolsheviks in the local mining community, and in 1918 joined the party. He fought in the Russian Civil War, from which he returned in 1922 to become deputy manager of the mines in his local area of Yuzovka. He soon attracted the attention of the first secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Kaganovich, who came to rely on Khrushchev's energy and reliability without feeling threatened, because of Khrushchev's lack of formal education. Khrushchev followed Kaganovich to Moscow, where he became a student and continued his political career. With Kaganovich as first secretary, he became second secretary of the Moscow Communist Party in 1933 and was responsible for the building of its underground transport system, as well as other large urban projects.

Khrushchev succeeded Kaganovich in 1935, but returned to the Ukraine to become first secretary of the Central Committee in the Ukraine, 1938–47. He survived Stalin's Great Purge partly because he actively supported it, and also because he had found favour with Stalin as a good friend of Stalin's deceased wife. During the war, he served in the Red Army and took part in many major battles, e.g. at Stalingrad. In late 1943 he devoted himself to the reconstruction and the Stalinization of the liberated Ukraine. In 1949, he once again became head of the Moscow Communist Party, while he was also a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

At the time of Stalin's death, he was the most junior member of the ruling group, which included Malenkov, Molotov, Beria, and Kaganovich. By October 1953, however, he had advanced to second-in-command behind Molotov, as first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He then managed to remove Beria and Malenkov from office, and strengthen his position through his shrewd and famous denunciation of excesses of Stalinism at the XXth Party Congress on 25 February 1956. This gave him popularity at home and abroad, while compromising his rivals, who had been much more involved in Stalin's purges than himself. His power was finally secured in June 1957, when the ‘anti-party group’ of Malenkov, Kaganovich, Molotov, and Shepilov gained a majority in the Politburo for his dismissal. With the help of Zhukov and the KGB, he was able to insist on the decision's ratification by the plenary session of the Central Committee, which duly met and overturned the Politburo's decision.

Khrushchev was now free to get rid of his opponents, adding the dismissal of Zhukov for good measure. However, his erratic and contradictory policies soon eroded his authority. Abroad, any credit he had won for his anti-Stalinism and the signing of the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty of 1963 (disarmament) was eroded by his crushing of the Hungarian Revolution and the Cuban Missile Crisis. At home, his reform of the regional party structure alienated his support there, while his cut in army salaries and his ostensible preference of nuclear over conventional armaments caused the hostility of the army. His vicious campaign against religion leading to large-scale church closures did little to enhance his popularity. His ill-judged attempt to revive his standing through another wave of anti-Stalinism lost him even the support of the security forces (KGB), many of whose officers had been executors of Stalin's orders. Finally, his welcome diversion of resources from heavy industry to food and consumer goods was accompanied by his ambitious and over-the-top promotion of agricultural pet projects like the unsuitable cultivation of maize. In October 1964, his colleagues in the Politburo had had enough and removed him from office while he was away on holiday. He devoted the last years of his life to vindicating himself in two volumes of memoirs.