Removal of Nikita Khrushchev

Date: October 14, 1964 • Location: Moscow, Russia

Members of the Politburo voted to remove Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and replace him with Leonid Brezhnev.

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated as Politburo, was the de facto highest executive authority in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). While elected by and formally accountable to the Central Committee, in practice the Politburo operated as the ruling body of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union from its creation in 1919 until the party's dissolution in 1991. Full members and candidate (non-voting) members held among the most powerful positions in the Soviet hierarchy, often overlapping with top state roles. Its duties, typically carried out at weekly meetings, included formulating state policy, issuing directives, and ratifying appointments.