What a great  article by Marvin Kalb, which will explain a lot of  history to those too young to have lived through it.  While Krushchev  was wildly emotional (he was full of what Russians call dusha) and a committed Communist, he had a decent heart, and he revolutionized the Totalitarian Soviet state and likely saved the world from  a horrific nuclear war.  
Like Kalb, I'm sad that the Russians couldn't have maintained a higher level of freedom and am alarmed at the takeover  by autocratic Putinism.
Kalb's reference to Peter the Great brought a smile, for back in 1968 when I was in the USSR I took a trip  to the countryside  to visit the supposed hunting cabin of Peter the Great.  It even had a notch on the door frame to indicate Peter's great height .  As I'm also pretty tall, the cheerful Russians (who still seemed to love  Americans back then) pushed me forward to stand against the door, and cheered and and applauded that I almost reached the mark of Peter the Great.
Mir i druzhba.