He opened the coffin lid, and became the first leader to die in bed
On 18 November 1956, at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow, he told Western ambassadors: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!" Envoys of twelve NATO nations and Israel walked out.
He rose through the party apparatus in Stalin's shadow, and after Stalin's death won the power struggle of 1953 to become First Secretary. On 25 February 1956 his Secret Speech to a closed session of the 20th Party Congress denounced Stalin's purges and launched de-Stalinization. He crushed the 1956 Hungarian uprising with Soviet troops, and in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis withdrew the missiles in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba. His colleagues voted him out on 14 October 1964; in retirement he wrote memoirs, and he died in Moscow on 11 September 1971.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1935–38Moscow First Secretary; the Metro
- 1938–49First Secretary of Ukraine
- 1942–43Military council member at Stalingrad
- 1953–64First Secretary of the party
- 1954–56The Virgin Lands; the Secret Speech
- 1957Defeats the Anti-Party Group
- 1961The 22nd Congress; Stalin’s body moved out of the mausoleum
- 1964Voted out; retirement on a pension
The Soviet Politburo
- Candidate 1938.01–1939.03
- Full member 1939.03–1964.10
1964.10 removed
Related historical events
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationFirst Secretary of Moscow Party Committee · Metro construction
- 1939.11–1940.03The Winter WarThe Soviet leader who in his memoirs called the Winter War a 'moral defeat'In his memoirs he wrote that 'a victory at such a cost was actually a moral defeat. Our people never knew the truth.' His account confirms that even within the Soviet leadership the Winter War was understood as a catastrophe.
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarFront military council memberAs a member of the Stalingrad Front military council he took part in the defense and the counteroffensive.
- 1948–1955The Tito-Stalin SplitArchitect of the 1955 reconciliationCame to Belgrade and normalised relations
- 1953The Fall of BeriaOrganizer of the takedownThe key figure who organized Beria’s removal within the Presidium.
- 1953Hungary's New CourseSecretary of the CPSU Central CommitteeBlamed Rákosi for the mistakes as a whole and said he could not work collectively.
- 1955The Founding of the Warsaw PactFirst Secretary of the CPSU, 1953–1964After ousting Malenkov, Khrushchev pressed the hard line of standing on the German status quo, drafted the alliance treaty that became the Pact, and conceived it as a lever for collective-security bargaining.
- 1956.02The Twentieth Party Congress and the Secret SpeechThe first secretary who read the speechHe read "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" to the closed session on the final day.
- 1956The Hungarian RevolutionOrdered the interventionSeeing the uprising as the collapse of the bloc, he made the final decision to intervene militarily.
- 1956–1957From the Hundred Flowers to the Anti-Rightist CampaignWhose secret speech set off the debateHis denunciation of Stalin opened the Chinese discussion of the cult and the Soviet model.
- 1957The Anti-Party GroupThe victorious First SecretaryHe turned the tables on the majority by taking the question to the Central Committee.
- 1957–1965The Soviet Space ProgramPolitical patronAs First Secretary he gave the space program top-priority resources and political backing, presenting its achievements to the world as achievements of socialism.
- 1958–1962The Great Leap Forward and the Great FamineCriticised the communes and withdrew the expertsHis withdrawal of Soviet technicians in July 1960 halted industrial projects.
- 1956–1969The Sino-Soviet SplitThe Soviet principalHis demotion of Stalin and line of peaceful coexistence opened the quarrel; in 1960 he withdrew the advisers.
- 1961The Building of the Berlin WallSoviet First Secretary and Premier, who issued the 1958 and 1961 Berlin ultimatumsKhrushchev issued the six-month Berlin ultimatum to the three Western powers in November 1958 and renewed it at the 1961 Vienna summit.
- 1962The Cuban Missile CrisisSoviet leader in the standoffHe made the decision to place missiles in Cuba, then chose withdrawal at the edge of nuclear war.
1953–1958: the struggle for power after Stalin, from Beria's removal to the "Anti-Party Group"
Stalin died on 5 March 1953. The new leadership announced on 6 March made Malenkov Chairman of the Council of Ministers, with Beria, Kaganovich, Bulganin and Molotov as first vice-chairmen; Khrushchev was relieved of his Moscow party post and appeared last in the ten-man Presidium. When Malenkov resigned from the Central Committee secretariat on 14 March, Khrushchev's name stood at the top of the list of secretaries, and in September 1953 the Central Committee formally elected him First Secretary.
The first target of the struggle was Beria. Allied with Malenkov, Khrushchev blocked Beria's reform proposals, then lured away his deputies Kruglov and Serov and had him arrested at a Presidium meeting on 26 June 1953. Beria was tried in secret and executed in December 1953 together with five close associates.
Malenkov was next. In January 1955 a Central Committee meeting accused him of involvement in the Leningrad case and of having helped Beria rise, and the following month Bulganin replaced him as premier. Malenkov retained a Presidium seat as Minister of Electric Power Stations. According to his biographer William Tompson, Khrushchev's position as first among the collective leadership was by then beyond reasonable doubt.
Through the first half of 1957 Malenkov, Molotov and Kaganovich quietly built support to dismiss Khrushchev, joined by Bulganin and Shepilov. At a Presidium meeting on 18 June 1957, with two of his supporters absent, they moved to demote him. Khrushchev objected that not all Presidium members had been notified, and he held firm control of the military through Marshal Zhukov and of the security departments. Central Committee members under his control were flown to Moscow and forced a Central Committee session that dubbed the three main conspirators the "Anti-Party Group" and expelled them from the Central Committee and the Presidium. Molotov was sent as ambassador to Mongolia; the others were posted to industrial and research posts far from Moscow.
Zhukov was rewarded with full Presidium membership, but Khrushchev feared his popularity and power: in October 1957 Zhukov was sent on a Balkans tour while a Presidium meeting arranged his dismissal, and at a Central Committee meeting weeks later no one spoke in his defence. Khrushchev completed the consolidation of power in March 1958, arranging Bulganin's dismissal as premier in favour of himself and creating a USSR Defense Council that he led.
25 February 1956 — the secret speech that opened Stalin's coffin
Around midnight on 25 February 1956, at a closed session of the 20th Party Congress, Nikita Khrushchev spoke for four hours. 1,436 delegates listened in shock and silence. Titled 'On the Cult of Personality and its Consequences,' the speech officially quoted Lenin's Testament for the first time, exposed the illegality of the Great Purges, and indicted Stalin's incompetence on the eve of war.
Khrushchev revealed that Stalin had carried out 'mass annihilation of Leninists' and 'ignored intelligence on the eve of the Nazi invasion.' 'Loyal communists were tortured, forced to confess... Stalin said he directed the war on a globe.'
The speech was 'secret'. But Mossad obtained it by June, and the CIA released it worldwide. Shockwaves rippled: millions left communist parties. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was an indirect consequence. Khrushchev had opened Stalin's coffin, but the forces he unleashed were beyond his control.