HE was a man of stupefying contrasts, an earthy and unschooled Ukrainian peasant who came to wield power undreamt of by the czars. He was a custodian of the nuclear peace, yet he frequently rattled the Soviet saber, once bellowing that Communism would "bury" America. He served the party and the government with an iron hand, and in the 1930s helped send thousands to slave labor camps. Despite that, he is remembered as the crucial transitional figure who led the Soviet Union from an evil era of Stalinist tyranny toward a more moderate form...
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