Today in 1953 – Nikita Khrushchev Becomes the Leader of the Communist Party

[caption id="attachment_8909" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Symbol of the Soviet Union"][/caption]

Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most significant leaders in the Soviet history. He was born in the Russian village of Kalinovka in 1894. Unlike other Soviet leaders, Khrushchev, was raised in the working class environment. The Soviet leader was married to a beautiful Russian lady and had five children.

In 1918 he had joined the Russian Communist party (the Bolsheviks), and served as a political worker for the Red Army in the civil war. Due to his accomplishments he was admitted to the new Soviet schools where he became the leader of the Communist Party Committee.

In 1955 Khrushchev controlled the Soviet Union and denounced Stalin's repressive tactics. This time period is known as the political thaw of the 1950s Cold War. Thousands of political prisoners, whom Stalin had imprisoned in Siberian labor camps, were released. He outlawed torture, replaced the NKVD with the KGB, and destroyed or closed down numerous churches.

Since the 1940s, Khrushchev made an attempt to cultivate lands in the harsher climate regions like Kazakhstan and Siberia, where he ordered thousands of acres to be planted with corn.

During his political career, Khrushchev worked in both Ukraine and Russia. In his memoirs, Khrushchev spoke highly of Ukraine: “I attribute Ukraine's successes to the Ukrainian people as a whole.”

The drought in 1963, followed by the harvest shortages, resulted in bread lines. Faced with the alternative of widespread hunger in 1964, Khrushchev was asked to resign by his fellow Communist party leaders. Khrushchev died in 1971 of heart disease.