Biographies: April 17
Nikita Khrushchev
Featured Biography Nikita Khrushchev

There were those who loved him, there were those who hated him, but there were few who would pass him by without looking in his direction.

Sergey Khrushchev, eulogizing his father, Nikita, at his funeral, 1971

Soviet Premier Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, born this day in 1894, guided the U.S.S.R. (and the communist movement) out from under the shadow of former premier Joseph Stalin and into closer orbit with the capitalist West.