Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (1894 - 1971), Soviet leader, first secretary of the Communist Party (1953 - 1964) and premier of the Soviet Union (1958 - 1964). He urged peaceful coexistence between his country and Western nations while boasting about Soviet success in rocketry and missiles. Within the Soviet bloc he sent troops into Poland and Hungary in 1956 against persons who resisted the communist government. In 1960, he gave support to Cuban revolutionary, Fidel Castro (1926 - ), who had overthrown the Cuban dictator in 1959 and transformed that country into a communiststate. Khruschev warned that Russia would support the Cuban people if the United States took aggressive actions against Cuba. —LCDH Approved Glossary