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
purges
Great Purge
Nikita Khrushchev