Khrushchev: A Political Life traces the rise and fall of the late Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Drawing on newly available archival materials and a wealth of recently published Russian and Ukrainian sources, this standard biography provides much new information on Khrushchev's life and career. Khrushchev's ultimate failure to realise his vision of the Soviet future is linked to the unrealistic optimism of that vision as well as to the contradictions inherent in Khrushchev's views and policies.