Serving as one the most controversial leaders of the Soviet Union during its relatively short existence, Nikita Sergeyevich Khruschev proved to be a leader capable of transforming a nation. Through his many alterations to the systems by which the Soviets lived, he managed to increase the standard of living and productivity of this Communist State. Described as a man of enormous energy and drive, he was shrewd, tough, earthy, sociable and talkative, and he confidently took colossal gambles in both foreign and domestic policies. From his “Secret Speech” and the following De-Stalinization of the Union, to the friendly relations with other countries of the world, his goal to remodel the Soviet Union into an equally productive and prosperous nation as the United States (US) was partially fulfilled during his leadership. Khruschev help build the Soviet Union into the state of distinction in world affairs that it once was.Nikita Sergeyevich Khruschev was born in 1894 in the poverty-stricken village of Kalinovka, in southern Russia. He became a member of the Communist party in 1918 during the civil war and married his first wife two years later. Following the death of his son Leonid in the Second World War, Khruschev remarried and together they bore three children. He became leader of the Stalin Industrial Academy’s Moscow Party Organization shortly after joining the academy in 1929. Prior to his ascendancy to Prime Minister, he served in many leadership positions. Among these were First Secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, a full member of the Politburo (the highest decision-making body in the Soviet Union), and earned the rank of Lieutenant General in World War Two. Joseph Stalin, long time dictator of the Soviet Union, died in 1953. One week after this occurrence, Khruschev took over control of the Communist party from Malenkov. He then proceeded to ...
