XPost: sci.military.naval, soc.history.war.misc

Jack Carver
Updated 3y
What did Nikita Khrushchev state about the aftermath of being overthrown?

Khrushchev was ousted when he was on vacation in Pitsunda for 5 months
in 1964. Brezhnev phoned him for an emergency meeting in Moscow, when he arrived in Vnukovo airport the KGB had surrounded the airport and KGB
chief Vladmir Semichastny was waiting for him. He told Khrushchev that
he was about to be deposed and told him not to resist. He was escorted
to the Kremlin where Brezhnev and his clan presented to him a long list
of accusations which included his unstable foreign policy, liberal
reforms, agriculture failures, limited military spending, pushing the
world to the brink of nuclear war and his shameful retreat from Cuba. Khrushchev responded,

Stop, I know what you’re going to do. Today you cover me with shit. But
I won’t resist. I'm old and tired. Let them cope by themselves. I've
done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he
didn't suit us anymore and suggesting he retire? Not even a wet spot
would have remained where we had been standing. Now everything is
different. The fear is gone, and we can talk as equals. That's my
contribution. I won't put up a fight.

Rather than letting himself be forcibly removed Khrushchev chose to
resign by presenting to the Central Committee his old age and declining
health as the reason for stepping down. He later wrote in his memoirs
that he considers the decision to remove him and not execute him to be
one of his greatest accomplishments in life. Considering the fate of
people who fell from power struggles in the Soviet system before, it was
living proof that Khrushchev had made a difference.

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