Nikita Khrushchev begged Stalin not to execute his son

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev once had to beg Joseph Stalin for mercy. The episode in Khrushchev's biography took place before he came to power in the USSR. Khrushchev had to kneel in front of Stalin, begging him not to punish his son Leonid, who had shot an officer by accident. 

Professor, biophysicist, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Andrei Malenkov, the son of one of Khrushchev's competitors in the struggle for power, Georgy Malenkov, said in an interview with Lenta.ru that Khrushchev came to Stalin and was crawling on his knees in front of him because his son was supposed to be executed for shooting an officer. Moreover, it was the second time when Khrushchev's son committed such a crime (he was forgiven for the first one), Malenkov said.  

With this landmark report at the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union "On the cult of the personality and its consequences" Nikita Khrushchev wanted to take revenge on Stalin for his unfortunate son Leonid, the professor also said, adding that Khrushchev was a "very vindictive little man."

After the incident with the negligent murder, which occurred in the autumn of 1942, Leonid Khrushchev, according to some sources, was sentenced to serve at the front for eight years, but according to other sources, the incident was swept under the carpet. On March 11, 1943, Nikita Khrushchev's eldest son did not return from the sortie.

Georgy Malenkov is a Soviet statesman and party leader, an associate of Joseph Stalin, who chaired the Council of Ministers of the USSR from 1953 to 1955. He supervised a number of branches of the defense industry, as well as the construction of world's first-ever nuclear power plant. After Stalin's death, he was initially perceived as his successor. He was probably best known in the country for his efforts to lift multiple bans, such as, for example, on foreign press, border crossing, customs transportation, etc. 

• In May 1953, Malenkov initiated the adoption of the government decree that halved payments to party officials and eliminated cash remunerations in envelopes that were not subject to accounting.
• The move shook his position in the party, and Nikita Khrushchev became the de facto leader of the USSR.
• In 1957 he became a member of the so-called anti-party group consisting of "Malenkov, Kaganovich, Molotov and Shepilov, who joined them," which sought to remove Khrushchev from power. The attempt failed, and Malenkov fell into disgrace and was expelled from the party.