Description

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) from 1958 to 1964. During his tenure, he stunned the communist world with his denunciation of his predecessor Joseph Stalin and embarked on a campaign of de-Stalinization with his key ally Anastas Mikoyan. Khrushchev sponsored the early Soviet space program and presided over various domestic reforms. After some false starts, and a narrowly avoided nuclear war over Cuba, he conducted successful negotiations with the United States to reduce Cold War tensions. In 1964, the Kremlin circle stripped him of power, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as the First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as the Premier.