Khrushchev, Nikita

(1894-1971) Soviet leader. Born in the Ukraine, he fought for the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War and became a communist party functionary. Made First Secretary after Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, he gradually established himself as supreme Soviet leader. His ambitious administrative reforms upset the bureaucracy, and failures in the Virgin Lands campaign and Cuban missile crisis led to his deposition on 15 October 1964. He was succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev.