When Joseph Stalin died in 1953 after thirty years as leader of the Soviet Union, six men in the Kremlin, led by Nikita Khrushchev, took over as the ruling powers in Moscow. Sergei Korolev, the rocket expert and engineer with big dreams of space, knew that Stalin's death had opened a door to official work on space exploration. All he needed was the support of the new ruler of the party.
From the moment Khrushchev first met with Korolev, he gave Korolev's space program complete support at least as long as it would uphold Khrushchev's own agenda of political upstaging and prestige in the cold war with the United States. Khrushchev saw Korolev's rockets as a political symbol proof that the Soviet system worked, and that the USSR was a power not just equal to the United States but superior to it.
While Khrushchev had no interest in engineering or scientific advances, he certainly enjoyed the aftershocks that Korolev's space machines produced. And so Khrushchev's interest in Korolev's work benefited the Soviet space program...at least for awhile.
Khrushchev's almost fanatical desire for spectacular "firsts" and his inability to see long-run implications eventually cost the Soviets their lead in the race for supremacy in space. If Khrushchev had allowed Korolev to work on his Soyuz lunar program when he first suggested it, the USSR would have made it to the Moon long before the Americans. Instead, Khrushchev drained resources and ignored the plans that would have had a Russian and not Neil Armstrong making that "one giant leap for mankind."
