Explanation: Despite this being an anti-tankie comm, and Kruschchev's actions in crushing the socialist Hungarian Revolution quite literally leading to the fucking term tankie coming about, I feel a nuanced take every now and again is good for the soul, and especially here, where, while we may struggle against shithead authoritarians, we are all still fighting for a leftist future, even if that future is one step of hard-fucking-fought improvement at a time, instead of a 'glorious' sweep of the sort modern tankies insist is the only way forward.
After the death of Stalin, Stalin's inner circle all jockeyed for position in the resulting power vacuum. Despite the chief of secret police, Beria (a real piece of shit, even by the low standards of chiefs of secret police), being in a prime position to cinch power, his lack of personal charisma, short-sighted selfishness, and tendency to make enemies eliminated him - quite literally, as he was executed during the power struggles. Georgy Malenkov, an opportunistic careerist who initially managed to wrest control of the prestigious positions of the Soviet state apparatus, eventually was outmaneuvered and reduced to powerlessness. And Molotov, a hardline Stalinist and bootlicker supreme, was supported by his fellow hardliners, but never made a serious play for power.
Coming out of left field, Nikolai Khrushchev, a moderate reformist and policy wonk who had spent the post-WW2 years tinkering with construction and agricultural programs and keeping his head down in Stalin's presence, managed to leverage the isolated-but-still-beloved Marshal Zhukov, a hero of WW2 instrumental in bringing the defeat of the Nazi war machine, who was too much of a threat to Stalin to take part in Stalin's government, but too renowned to simply dismiss or execute, to adroitly maneuver Khrushchev into power, remove his enemies, and embark on a campaign to raise the living standards of the Soviet Union and encourage genuine loyalty to the party and the dream of Communism.
Unfortunately, while Khrushchev had definite and serious successes - such as the sometimes-derided apartment complexes (objectively low quality, but relative to the prior living standards of the people of the Soviet Union, a massive improvement in comfort, convenience, and hygiene), a moderate thaw in tension with the Western and Nonaligned blocs, the liberalization of general society and emigration, increased education efforts and improvement of technical schools, increased worker participation in economic decisions, and a restoration of rule of law over the arbitrary chaos of Stalinist institutions - he ultimately could not carry out many of the reforms necessary for the Soviet Union's success, despite a generally higher level of economic activity and standards of living than under the Stalinist regime.
Khrushchev's agricultural policy, for example, resulted in significant wasted capital for various reasons, his attempts to reorganize the bizarre structure of the Soviet economy led to more confusion rather than less, and constantly struggled with the perennial Soviet issue of local officials making up numbers and gaming the system, leading to a horrific feedback loop of misapplied resources and perverse incentives.
And, for that matter, Khrushchev was still no saint himself. The Soviet Union remained repressive in comparison to the Western Bloc, even if much LESS repressive than it would be under Stalin or under the man who (effectively) couped him, Brezhnev, the final decision to crush the Hungarian Revolution (a independence movement led by socialists) was signed off by him (with some hesitation) despite Marshal Zhukov advising to let the Hungarians find their own way, and pointless repressions of religion in the Soviet Union. I mean, fuck religion, but freedom of religion is still a core right of humankind; a person's thoughts belong to them, and them alone, you know?
Still, it's good to recognize that despite all of these (very serious) flaws and crimes, Khrushchev was ultimately a reformer who improved the Soviet Union, and that the hardliners who removed and replaced him did the exact opposite. Some men are evil to the core, real pieces of shit, or simply utterly amoral - but most of us, even those ruthless enough to claw their way to the top of a political system, contain multitudes, and are capable of good as well as evil; of destroying lives, yes, but also of improving and saving them.
Marginally related, the movie the Death of Stalin is a dramatization of the events, but despite Steve Buscemi and Jason Isaacs giving excellent performances as Khrushchev and Marshal Zhukov, respectively, it's only an okay movie, and not very historically accurate.
Also, I can never spell Khrushchev's name without getting it wrong at least twice. Don't ask me to pronounce it either; I barely can pronounce English.