<Li> 1934--50: First Secretary, Moscow City Committee </Li> <Ul> <Li> ← Malenkov </Li> <Li> Brezhnev → </Li> </Ul> <P> Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (15 April (O.S. 3 April) 1894--11 September 1971) was a Soviet politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964 . Khrushchev was responsible for the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy . Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier . </P> <P> Khrushchev was born in 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, which is close to the present - day border between Russia and Ukraine . He was employed as a metal worker during his youth, and he was a political commissar during the Russian Civil War . With the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy . He supported Joseph Stalin's purges, and approved thousands of arrests . In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there . During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front of World War II), Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals . Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life . After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers . </P>

Which soviet leader was known as a reformer