Leonid Nikitovich Khrushchev was the son of Nikita Khrushchev, former leader of the Soviet Union, and served as a fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Forces during the World War II. He was shot down and killed in 1943, but the exact circumstances of his death remain unknown.
Leonid Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev stunned the communist world with his denunciation of his predecessor Joseph Stalin's crimes and embarked on a policy of de-Stalinization with his key ally Anastas Mikoyan. He sponsored the early Soviet space program and the enactment of moderate reforms in domestic policy. After some false starts, and a narrowly avoided nuclear war over Cuba, he conducted successful negotiations with the United States to reduce Cold War tensions. In 1964, the Kremlin circle stripped him of power, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
Khrushchev in 1962
Khrushchev and his first wife Euphrasinia (Yefrosinia) in 1916
Khrushchev's second wife (though they only officially married in 1965) was Ukrainian-born Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk, whom he met in 1922. Photo taken in 1924
Lazar Kaganovich, one of the chief enforcers of Stalin's dictatorship and Khrushchev's main patron.