Answer: Immediately after the WW II USSR and Communism were still very very popular. There were many politicians, activists, intellectuals, artists, writers were attracted to Moscow and its regime. In 1953 Stalin died and soon afterwards Khrushchev assumed the leadership. He believed that it would be 1) excellent reputation in worldwide intellectual elites, 2) exploration of space (Sputnik, Gagarin) will even enhance and improve that reputation and will produce image of USSR as a regime of the future, 3) Khrushchev believed that also economically USSR is going to be unbeatable. These were three things that were supposed to contain the USA and its allies.
Explanation: A big part of what Khrushchev believed in was an illusion, imagery but did not correspond with reality. The truth is that he was able to pass all these images to the West.
