Nikita Khrushchev rose to power after the death of Stalin. He was a leader who desperately worked for reform yet his reforms hardly ever accomplished their goals. He was a man who praised Stalin while he was alive but when Stalin died Khrushchev was the first to publicly denounce him. Khrushchev came to power in 1953 and stayed in power until 1964, when he was forced to resign. Stalin died without naming an heir, and none of his associates had the power to immediately claim supreme leadership. The deceased dictator’s colleagues initially tried to rule jointly through collective leadership, with Malenkov