Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 15 [O.S. April 3], 1894 – September 11, 1971) is a Soviet politician who leads the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and as chairman of the Council of Ministers (or premier) from 1958 to 1964.

Khrushchev is responsible for the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy.

Khrushchev's party colleagues remove him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.

Khrushchev was born in 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, in western Russia, close to the present-day border between Russia and Ukraine. He is employed as a metal worker during his youth, and he is a political commissar during the Russian Civil War.

With the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he works his way up the Soviet hierarchy.

He supports Joseph Stalin's purges, and approves thousands of arrests.

In 1938, Stalin sends him to govern the Ukrainian SSR, and he continues the purges there.

During what is known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front of the Second World War, Khrushchev is again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals.

Khrushchev is present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he takes great pride in throughout his life.

After the war, he returna to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers.

On March 5, 1953, Stalin's death triggers a power struggle in which Khrushchev emerges victorious upon consolidating his authority as First Secretary.

On February 25, 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivers the "Secret Speech", which denounces Stalin's purges and ushers in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union.

His domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, are often ineffective, especially in agriculture.

Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev orders major cuts in conventional forces.

Despite the cuts, Khrushchev's time in office sees the tensest years of the Cold War, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Khrushchev enjoys strong support during the 1950s, thanks to major victories like the Suez Crisis, the launching of Sputnik, the Syrian Crisis of 1957, and the 1960 U-2 incident.

By the early 1960s however, Khrushchev's popularity is eroded by flaws in his policies, as well as his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This emboldens his potential opponents, who quietly rise in strength and depose the Premier in October 1964.

However, he does not suffer the deadly fate of previous Soviet power struggles, and is pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow and a dacha in the countryside.

His lengthy memoirs are smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970.

Khrushchev dies in 1971 of a heart attack.