Nikita Khrushchev exemplified the typical Russian autocrat of the postwar Communist era. He was selected by the Central Committee of the Communist Party for his messianic zeal and fervent belief in the superiority of Communism to all other forms of government — and not much else. While he did preside over some of the USSR’s most stunning propaganda coups — like the launch of the first spacecraft Sputnik, those largely came in spite of his campaigns to beat the West in every venue, scientific as well as commercial.

On this day, September 13, in 1953, following a chaotic power struggle among the Communist Party leadership triggered by Joseph Stalin’s death, Nikita Khrushchev was selected by the Central Committee to be the new secretary general, and the de facto leader of the USSR.

For all he did both within the USSR and without, he was best remembered in the United States for the now-legendary shoe-banging incident at a UN General Assembly meeting. After the head of the Filipino delegation to the United Nations Lorenzo Sumulong gave a speech accusing the USSR of “swallowing up” Eastern Europe and depriving citizens of civil rights, a furious Khrushchev went to the podium to denounce Sumulong, slamming the surface with his fist — and possibly a shoe — in emphasis.