ABSTRACT
Nikita Khrushchev made life better in the Soviet Union in significant ways. A small notch below them was Nikita Khrushchev, former party boss of the Ukraine and subsequently the first secretary of the party’s Moscow organization. Khrushchev had been a horrified witness to some frightening consequences of Joseph Stalin’s methods, especially the mass desertions and surrenders that occurred during the early days of World War II by Soviet citizens desperate enough to seek help from the invading Germans. Khrushchev endorsed the doctrine of “peaceful coexistence” with the capitalist world, although he added that he expected the process of decolonization to provide ample opportunity for the spread of socialism and Soviet influence. Khrushchev’s opponents, unceremoniously dubbed the “antiparty group,” soon were scattered to the four winds, as Malenkov, Molotov, and Kaganovich were dismissed from the Presidium and their government posts. Political victory over his opponents did little to solve Khrushchev’s other problems.
