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[[File:Nikita_Khrushchev_in_WW2.jpg|thumbnail|250px|left|Nikita Khrushchev during World War II]]
Nikita Khrushchev assumed leadership of the Soviet Union during the period following after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Khrushchev served as a General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as a Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. When in 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was forced to leave his post and the Party leadership, a special “troika” representatives consisting of Alexey Kosygin, Leonid Brezhnev and Anastas Mikoyan initially replaced him. Brezhnev eventually assumed the central role among the three and, under Brezhnev’s rule, the Soviet expanded its sphere of influence to include much of Southeast Asia, Africa, parts of Central America and the Caribbean. Until his death, in 1971, the government closely monitored Khrushchev. Khrushchev became famous and mostly recognized for his rejection of the “personality cult” that Stalin had fostered during his own thirty-year rule. Khrushchev also attempted revival of the Communist campaign to suppress all remnant religious institutions in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Khrushchev supported the invasion and crackdown on Hungary in 1956, the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the deployment of Soviet weapons in Cuba in 1962.
====Khruschev Rejection of Stalin====
Khrushchev became famous and best recognized for his rejection of the “personality cult” that Stalin had fostered during his own thirty-year rule. Khrushchev also attempted the revival of the Communist campaign to suppress all remnant religious institutions in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Khrushchev supported the invasion and crackdown on Hungary in 1956, the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the deployment of Soviet weapons in Cuba in 1962.
In this regard, Khrushchev is something of an enigma. His foreign policy, position on religion and Marxist-Leninist doctrine were hardline, but he was a reformer because he allowed criticism of Stalin and even permitted some anti-Stalinist literature to be published and disseminated in USSR’s society. He allowed criticism of Stalin, despite suppressing criticism of the Soviet Republic. Khrushchev also hoped to raise Soviet citizens’ standard of living so they could benefit from the transference of the ownership of “the means of production” to the State.
His De-Stalinization policies reduced the powers of the secret police and opened up new academic and cultural freedoms. Historians believe that Khrushchev’s efforts in these areas provided a context for the reformist policies of Mikhail Gorbachev later. Khrushchev’s downfall mainly resulted from his lack of a clear ruling strategy, limited diplomatic skills and the complex, multifaceted aspects of domestic and international destabilization that occurred during his tenure in office. Without Khrushchev being removed from office, it is unlikely that the Soviet Union could have experienced the revival and the growth of its sphere of influence that occurred during the Brezhnev era.<ref>."Nikita Khrushchev: Rise to power, personality & legacy" http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Nikita_Khrushchev</ref>
====Struggle for power and assuming leadership of the Soviet Union====
On March 6, 1953, the Soviet Union announced Stalin’s death and the need of new leadership. A struggle for power between different factions within the Communist Party began. Fearing that the powerful state security chief, Lavrenty Beria would eventually eliminate other elite party officials as he had so many others, Malenkov, Molotov, Bulganin, and others united under Khrushchev to denounce Beria and remove him from power. They imprisoned Beria and sentenced him to death. After the quick execution engineered by Khrushchev, he engaged in a power struggle with Malenkov, who was Stalin’s apparent heir. Khrushchev soon gained the decisive margin and in September 1953, he replaced Malenkov as First Secretary and nominated Marshal Nikolay Bulganin as the new Soviet Premier.<ref>Nikita Khrushchev Complex Personality - http://www.biography.com/people/nikita-khrushchev-9364384</ref>
====De-Stalinization and domestic policies==== [[File:Nikita_Khrushchev_in_1959.jpg|thumbnail|left|250px|Khrushchev in 1959]]By the end of 1955, due to the policy, pursued by Khrushchev, thousands of political criminals had returned home, and shared their experience in the Soviet labor camps. With several million political prisoners newly released, Khrushchev eased and freed the domestic political atmosphere. Continuing investigation into the abuses further revealed Stalin’s crimes to his successors. Khrushchev believed that once he successfully removed the stain of Stalinism, the Party would inspire even greater loyalty among the people. Beginning in October 1955, Khrushchev insisted on revealing Stalin’s crimes before the delegates to the upcoming 20th Party Congress. Some of his colleagues opposed the disclosure and managed to persuade him to make his remarks in a closed session. <ref>Nikita Khrushchev: Consolidation of power & his Secret Speech - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev#Consolidation_of_power.3B_Secret_Speech</ref> The 20th Party Congress opened in 1956 , and Khrushchev delivered his so-called “Secret Speech” to a closed session of the Congress and strictly limited to a number of many Soviet delegates. The speech was the nucleus of a far-reaching de-Stalinization campaign intended to destroy the image of the late dictator as an infallible leader and to revert official policy to an idealized Leninist model. Observers outside the Soviet Union have suggested that Khrushchev’s primary purpose in making the speech was to consolidate his own position of political leadership by associating himself with reform measures while discrediting his rivals in the Presidium (Politburo) by implicating them in Stalin’s crimes. The secret speech, although subsequently read to groups of party activists and “closed” local party meetings, was never officially published. Nonetheless, it caused shock and disillusionment throughout the entire Soviet Union, harming Stalin’s reputation and the perception of the political system and party that had enabled him to gain and misuse such great power. It also helped give rise to a period of liberalization known as the “Khrushchev thaw,” during which censorship policy was relaxed, marking a Soviet literary renaissance. Thousands of political prisoners were released, and thousands more who had perished during Stalin’s reign were officially “rehabilitated.” The speech also contributed to the revolts that occurred later that year in Hungary and Poland, further weakening the Soviet Union’s control over the Soviet bloc and temporarily strengthening the position of Khrushchev’s opponents in the Presidium. Furthermore, through his Secret Speech, Khrushchev effectively denounced the "cult of personality" that surrounded Stalin and accused Stalin of the crimes committed during the Great Purges. This denunciation effectively alienated Khrushchev from the more conservative elements of the party. Moreover, it also resulted in a deepening wedge between the Soviet Union and China that led to the so-called Asian Cold War and the Sino-Soviet split later in 1960. <ref>Khrushchev’s Secret Speech and its effects - http://www.britannica.com/event/Khrushchevs-secret-speech</ref>
==First unsuccessful attempt ==Liberalization, political, military and agricultural reforms====During Khrushchev’s time in office, for the first time, the Party leadership permitted Soviet tourists to remove go overseas, and Khrushchev often seemed amenable to widening exchanges with both socialist and capitalist countries. Furthermore, by 1954 Khrushchev effectively managed to reform the Stalinist security apparatus by subordinating it to the top party leadership. He divided Stalin’s Ministry of Internal Affairs into criminal police and security services – KGB (now Federal Security Service – FSB), which in turn reported directly to the U.S.S.R’s Council of Ministers. The head of KGB was also Khrushchev’s nominee. However, the Soviet military bitterly resisted Khrushchev’s desire to reduce conventional armaments in favor of nuclear missiles. His attempted decentralization of the party structure begun antagonizing many of those who had previously supported his rise to power. According to various authors, political terror as an everyday method of government was replaced under Khrushchev by his further policies==administrative means of repression.
In foreign affairs1961, Khrushchev widely asserted his doctrine of peaceful co-existence blustering Vienna conference with the non-communist worldnew U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, which he failed to achieve a substantial agreement on the pressing German question; the Soviet Union built the infamous Berlin Wall shortly after that. Increased missile buildups had followed Soviet success in lofting the world's first proclaimed space satellite in his public speech at the 20th Party Congress1957. In 1959Khrushchev made a dangerous gamble in 1962, Khrushchev conferred with President Eisenhowerover Cuba, which brought Soviet-American relations to new highs. Notwithstanding these hopeful developments, Khrushchev as almost made a diplomat remained irascible and bluntThird World War inevitable. Back He secretly attempted to Moscow reception, he directed his famous “We will bury you!” comment at the capitalist West. A longdeploy Soviet medium-planned summit conference with Eisenhower range missiles in Paris in May 1960 broke up with Khrushchev’s announcement that a UCuba.S. plane (a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft) had been shot down over Once detected by the Soviet Union with its pilot captured. Khrushchev repeatedly disrupted US, and during the proceedings following tense confrontation in October 1962, when the United Nations General Assembly in September-October 1960 by pounding his fists States and the Soviet Union stood on the desk and shouting in Russian. At one brink of the United Nations conferencesnuclear war, he even reacted Khrushchev agreed to a comparison between Soviet control of Eastern Europe and Western imperialism in one of remove the most surreal moments in Cold War history, by waving his shoe and banging it missiles on his deskthe promise that the United States would make no further attempt to overthrow Cuba’s communist government.
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