Nikita Khrushchev - a statesman of the Soviet Union, was the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee from 1953 to 1964. The only political leader removed from his post during his lifetime. The time of his reign was called the "thaw, " since under Khrushchev the "personality cult" of Stalin was debunked, democratic reforms were carried out and many political prisoners were rehabilitated.
early years
The future politician Nikita Khrushchev was born on April 15, 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, Kursk province. Nikita’s father - Sergei Nikanorovich Khrushchev (died of tuberculosis in 1938) and his mother - Ksenia Ivanovna Khrushcheva (died in 1945) were very poor people. Sergey Nikanorovich worked as a miner. Nikita had a younger sister, Irina.
In winter, the boy was educated in a parish school, and in the summer he had to work as a shepherd to help his family. In 1908, when Nikita was 14 years old, his family moved to the Assumption mine near Yuzovka (the former name of the city of Donetsk). Nikita Khrushchev got a job as a fitter at a factory. Since 1912, the young man began to work as a mechanic at the mine. In 1914, when the First World War began, Nikita was not called to the front due to the profession of a miner.
In 1918, Khrushchev joined the Communist Party, and two years later became the head of the Donbass Rutchenkovsky mine. In 1922, the future politician entered the Donbass Industrial College, where he was elected party secretary.
Political career
In 1928, thanks to the patronage of Lazar Kaganovich (the closest associate of Stalin), Khrushchev received his first serious post. He is appointed deputy head of the organizational department of the Communist Party in Kharkov, where the Ukrainian government was at that time. It was not enough to have a secondary education to advance in a political career. Therefore, Nikita Sergeevich enters the Moscow Industrial Academy, where he is elected secretary of the party committee.
In 1935 - 1938, Khrushchev held the post of first secretary of the Moscow Committee, replacing his mentor Lazar Kaganovich at this post. In 1938, Nikita Khrushchev was again transferred to Ukraine with the appointment of the first secretary of the Ukrainian SSR. During this period, Nikita Sergeyevich manifests himself as a fighter against the "enemies of the people." In just one year, on his orders, about 120 thousand people from Western Ukraine were repressed.
During the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was the head of the partisan movement behind the front line, by the end of the war he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general and remained the leader of the Ukrainian SSR.
At the end of 1949, Khrushchev was transferred to Moscow and appointed first secretary of the Moscow Party Committee and secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (B.). During this period, Khrushchev fully gains the confidence of Stalin. After the death of the leader, there were two contenders for the post of leader of the state: Khrushchev and Beria. Rallying with G.M. Malenkov (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and associate I.V. Stalin), Nikita Sergeevich eliminated the competitor. Beria was taken into custody and was soon shot.
USSR leadership
On September 7, 1953, at the plenum of the Central Committee, Khrushchev was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
According to the initiative of Khrushchev, in 1954 a plan was introduced to master the virgin lands in order to increase the production of grain crops. In 1956, at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, Nikita Sergeevich made a speech about debunking the "personality cult" of Joseph Stalin. This report was a vivid episode in the political career of Khrushchev. Thanks to him, the political “thaw” and mass rehabilitation of victims of the “Stalinist” repressions began.
Over the years of his reign, Khrushchev freed the country from fear, amnestied more than twenty million citizens (many already posthumously), and contributed to the development of science and technology. Under Khrushchev, the launch of the first nuclear power plant, the first satellite, was organized and the first manned flight into space was made. Khrushchev also ranked among the positive results in the administration of the country: the construction of free housing, cultural exchange with foreign countries, the issuance of passports to collective farmers and the reduction of the army.
On October 14, 1964, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, it was decided to dismiss Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev from the post of leader of the state. Leonid Brezhnev became his successor.
The last years of his life, Nikita Khrushchev lived in his dacha near Moscow as a pensioner. He was fond of photography, he was engaged in gardening, he liked to listen to western radio programs. Nikita Sergeyevich died on September 11, 1971 in Moscow from myocardial infarction. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
