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Moscow city party organization in 1934. Four
years later he was named first secretary of the
Ukrainian Communist Party, a position that
involved him deeply in the implementation of
the bloody purges throughout the Ukraine. A
member of the party's Central Committee since
1934, he was appointed a full member of the
Politburo in 1939 at the young age of 45.
Khrushchev spent World War II mostly as a polit-
ical commissar visiting various fronts, including
Stalingrad, where his eldest son died in battle. He
retained his party posts in the Ukraine and, after
some minor setbacks in 1947, returned to
Moscow to serve directly under Stalin as a Cen-
tral Committee secretary for agriculture.
Stalin's death in March 1953 propelled Khrush-
chev to the highest echelons of Soviet power and
a fierce succession struggle. By December 1953,
Lavrenty BERIA , Stalin's feared political police
chief, had been executed and Georgii MALENKOV
had been prevented from concentrating too much
power in his hands. With Malenkov as prime
minister, Khrushchev became first secretary of
the COMMUNIST PARTY . By 1955 he had outma-
neuvered Malenkov, who resigned as prime min-
ister but retained his seat on the Party Presidium
(Politburo). Khrushchev's defining moment came
after the 20th Party Congress in February 1956,
when he read his famous “Secret Speech,” in
which he condemned Stalin's personality cult and
the purges of the 1930s—the first public criticism
of Stalin since the 1920s. The Secret Speech
marked the beginning of a period of inconsistent
de-Stalinization, especially evident in the field of
culture. In June 1957, Khrushchev defeated one
last attempt by old-guard Stalinists, later known
as the ANTI - PARTY GROUP , to remove him from
power. As Soviet ruler, Khrushchev faced numer-
ous foreign policy challenges such as dissension
within the Soviet bloc, most notably the failed
Hungarian Revolution of 1956, growing policy
differences with Communist China, and tensions
with the West, symbolized by the building of the
Berlin Wall and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis,
which brought the world to the brink of nuclear
conflict.
Nikita Khrushchev (right) and Fidel Castro (Library of
Congress)
the sprawling Donbas mining region of the
Ukraine, where Khrushchev took various jobs as
apprentice mechanic, machine repairman, and
metal fitter. In 1918 he joined the Bolshevik
(later Communist) Party and during the civil war
served as political commissar in Budenny's
famous First Cavalry Army. After a stint as dep-
uty director of a mine, Khrushchev entered the
Ukrainian Communist Party apparatus; by 1929,
with the help of Lazar KAGANOVICH , he was
transferred to Moscow. Two years later, he was
appointed first secretary of the Bauman district
in Moscow. Working with Kaganovich on the
construction of the Moscow Metro, Khrushchev
continued his rise through the Moscow party
bureaucracy, becoming first secretary of the
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