Soviet Politics: Downfall of Nikita Khrushchev

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I recently started interest me the history of the Soviet Union, it is a derivative of my interest in the space race.

I wonder why Nikita Khrushchev, did not order to shoot Brezhnev and members of the Politburo who had conspired against him, it would be easy and quick , I wonder why he did not this.

Probably because the military and intellegence services supported the leadership change. Also the fact that they gave him a pension, and kept his extended family in the power structure. They removed him because they felt he was weak, not because he was a power-hungry dictator.

Very much like a CEO canned by the Board of Directors for not beefing up the bottom line enough.

ruveyn

While Krushchev was hardly an angel - he had after all overseen the purging of Ukrainian Kulaks - he had also been the man who had reformed the Soviet Union after the Stalin years. Murdering his political rivals would have been something Uncle Joe would have done, which Nikita I'm sure desperately had wanted to avoid.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Beria was eliminated though. he had to go. Aside from being Evil, he was also somewhat crazy.

ruveyn

I always equated Beria with Heinrich Himmler.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

That may have been Zuhov's decision. The circumstances of the (1953) transition are sufficiently murky that it's unclear who decided what.

Krushchev's retirement was the most sedate transfer of power in the Soviet Union's history. Everyone else died in office or (Gorby) forced to resign. Krushchev got out with a pension and most of his family members kept their jobs, some with demotions. For a guy who did what he did and lived, that was as good of a deal as he could expect.

Even in a dictatorship, a leader governs only with the support and consent of his power base. Lose that, and you lose power.

Once Krushchev lost that power base, he lost the ability to give orders. He couldn't have Brezhnev shot, because there was no one who would pull the trigger.