Khrushchev Born: The Soviet Leader Who Defied Stalin's Ghost

Nikita Khrushchev was a miner's son from a village near the Ukrainian border who joined the Bolsheviks at 24 and survived Stalin's purges partly by being useful and partly by luck. Born on April 17, 1894, in Kalinovka, Kursk Governorate, he received only a few years of formal schooling before going to work in mines and factories. He joined the Communist Party in 1918, fought in the Russian Civil War, and rose through the party ranks in Ukraine and Moscow during the 1930s. His survival during Stalin's Great Purge, which killed millions including most of the senior party leadership, required a combination of political obedience and genuine organizational skill. He served on the military council during the Battle of Stalingrad and supervised the reconstruction of Ukraine after World War II. After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev outmaneuvered rivals Beria, Malenkov, and Molotov to become the dominant Soviet leader. In February 1956, he delivered the "Secret Speech" to a closed session of the 20th Communist Party Congress, a four-hour denunciation of Stalin's crimes that included detailed accounts of mass executions, torture, and the cult of personality. The speech leaked immediately and sent shockwaves through the Eastern bloc. Hungary revolted in October 1956; Khrushchev sent tanks. The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 brought the world closer to nuclear war than it had ever been. Khrushchev and Kennedy exchanged increasingly urgent letters over 13 days before Khrushchev agreed to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba. His own party never forgave the perceived capitulation. They ousted him in October 1964 through a politburo vote orchestrated by Leonid Brezhnev. He spent his final years in enforced retirement, dictating memoirs that were smuggled to the West.