I.

Introduction

Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1953 to 1964, who concurrently held the post of Soviet prime minister from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev is best known for his criticism of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, and for his efforts to promote peaceful coexistence with non-Communist states. He was ousted as the result of what his critics in the leadership called “harebrained schemes” to reorganize the party and state structure, radically increase agricultural production, and raise the standard of living in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Khrushchev was born to a poor family in Kalinovka, near the village of Kursk in southwestern Russia. His grandfather had been a serf, or indentured farm laborer, and his father was a peasant who sometimes worked in the mines. Khrushchev received very little formal education. After leaving school to herd cows, he worked as a pipe fitter in a coal mine in the Donets Basin (in present-day Ukraine). He joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) in 1918 and served in the Red Army as a junior political officer during the Russian Civil War (1918-1921). He returned to Ukraine, which had become a union republic of the USSR, and worked as the assistant manager of a Donets coal mine.