Why was Khrushchev removed from power in 1964?

Why was Khrushchev removed from power in 1964? In 1964, Khrushchev was forced out of parliament by his colleagues. This happened because he lost the confidence of powerful interests in Communism. In my opinion, I think this happened due to 5 reasons. I will explain my theory below. Firstly, and arguably most importantly, the Cuban missile crisis. In 1962, Fidel Castro was the leader of Cuba. Nikita Khrushchev agreed to buy the sugar from Cuba; in fact this was the same sugar America was refusing to buy. But, this was in return for a big favour; Russia could base their nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. Castro agreed. Khrushchev was picking a blatant fight with Kennedy, just for the purpose of winning. He wanted Russia to have a diplomatic success. He thought he could win it because Kennedy was "inexperienced" and "young". Also Kennedy was proven to be inept. This was proven in the "Bay of Pigs" affair in 1961. In the Bay of Pigs affair, the left-wing Castro took over all of the sugar plantations, which irritated the Americans. The Americans tried to push Batista back into power but it didn't work, so the Americans stopped buying Cuba's sugar, this was bad news for Cuba because America was its main buyer. That is when Khrushchev came in with his "offer", Russia would buy Cuba's sugar, but Cuba's price to pay was working with Russia in political affairs and basing the missiles

  • Word count: 1156
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Historical and Philosophical studies
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How successful was Khrushchev as Soviet Leader?

How successful was Khrushchev as Soviet Leader? ‘The man with baggy trousers from the Ukraine’, described by Hughes and Wallace, was never considered the heir to Stalin. However, by 1955 Nikita Khrushchev was the dominant member of the post-Stalinist collective leadership, a feat accomplished by his force of personality and political skill. Several similarities can be seen between Khrushchev’s rise to power and that of his infamous predecessor, a route that brought to power two great and influential Leaders, and two very different natures of leadership. Nevertheless, although Khrushchev was a great Leader, he was not a great Soviet Leader; through his agricultural and industrial policies, implementation of De-Stalinisation and in particular his Secret Speech, Khrushchev proved himself to be a leader that was too different too soon for the USSR. Through his rise to power, Khrushchev appeared to have the makings of a successful Soviet Leader by outmanoeuvring his political opponents in a similar way that Stalin did. Through his working class roots, Ukrainian rather than Georgian, Khrushchev rose through Soviet ranks due to his organisational abilities just like ‘comrade card index’, and built up a power base by ‘recruiting and keeping officers loyal to himself’ according to Service and promoting his supporters into the Central Committee , as Stalin did with the

  • Word count: 1903
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: History
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How Successful was Soviet Foreign Policy under Khrushchev and Brezhnev

How Successful was Soviet Foreign Policy under Khrushchev and Brezhnev? Weighing up the success of Soviet foreign policy from the years 1953 to 1982 has been a matter of great dispute between historians. However, it has been recognised that after the Second World War the Soviet Union 'played a clear and decisive role in defining the shape and pattern of world politics'1. Both the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras were characterised by highs and lows regarding diplomatic and economic relations with the United States, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Third World and the Communist-bloc. The ambiguous meaning of the word 'success' makes this debate all the more difficult. The problem with this is that what may have been seen internally as a success may have been viewed by the outside world as a failure. It is all dependent upon the ideological aims of the soviet leadership of the time, whether it is peaceful coexistence, as pursued by Khrushchev or détente which was implicit in the Brezhnev era. The waves of cold war which characterised the post-war period meant that the struggle to improve relations was complex, and so success can not only be explained in terms of improved foreign relations, but also by strategical gains over other powers. The Khrushchev era has been described as one of peaceful coexistence with a definitive competitive edge.2 This is displayed in the

  • Word count: 3832
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Historical and Philosophical studies
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On Khrushchev and Khrushchevism.

On Khrushchev and Khrushchevism The edited volume of Khrushchev and Khrushchevism was prepared by English scholars under the editorship of Martin McCauley as a collection of papers read at a conference in 1985. The date is very crucial because it was the year when Gorbachev ascended to power. The scholars perceiving the similarities between Gorbachev and Khrushchev periods, tried to underline the problems Khrushchev faced in order to provide a better understanding of the future of the Gorbachev period. Martin McCauley stipulates the similar problems both leaders suffer in the introduction: A powerful bureaucracy nor enamored of change; industry capable of producing quantity but not quality and technologically behind the West; agriculture incapable of feeding the Soviet population; a military facing an adversary re-equipping with high technology weapons and a labor force needing to be motivated to raise the low level of productivity.1 McCauley warns the new leader of the Soviet Union of the tough bureaucracy apparatus as a barrier to "hasty reforms" as well as he presages that reforms in the Soviet case (in fact in the Russian case) breeds new requirements for further reformation which the leaders are not ready to implement. Reviewing the book I chose the chapters prepared by McCauley, Gill, Hill, Nove, Smith and Filtzer. They are on the state, leadership, ideology and

  • Word count: 1843
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Historical and Philosophical studies
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The USSR under Khrushchev and Brezhnev

The USSR under Khrushchev and Brezhnev Stalin died in 1953 after having transformed the USSR. Stalin made big changes to the USSR, he started in 1928 with the first Five Year Plan. He set a planned economy in which GOSPLAN, the state planning organisation created in 1921 by Lenin, set targets for each factory with the objective of increasing the production in heavy industries and of modernizing the USSR. The Communist leader did also put lots effort into industrialising remote areas of the USSR with the aim of exploiting the resources found in inhospitable areas like the Urals and Western Siberia. An example of a city created by Stalin through his Five Year Plan was Magnitogorsk. Workers were sent to these cities to start the production of the raw materials found in those areas, most of these were Kulaks who had been forced from their homes. However, Stalin did not only change the economical and industrial system in the USSR, he also changed the agricultural methods. Stalin wanted to develop the USSR, and he believed that to do this he has to modernise agriculture. As a result of the increasing population in big industrial cities the USSR was short of grain to feed its population and Stalin even had plans of exporting grain to finance industrialisation. For this reason Stalin decided to increase the production of grain in Russia. To do this he first ended the New Economical

  • Word count: 1613
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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Stalin and Khrushchev Sources Questions

Study source D How reliable is this source given that Stalin must have trusted Khrushchev. Use your knowledge of Stalin to explain you answer. (9) Khrushchev worked very closely under Stalin during his reign and was appointed to run agriculture by Stalin in 1949. When Stalin died in 1953 it left a very big gaping hole in the communist party, and after a long struggle Khrushchev came out on top in 1955. By 1956 Khrushchev had gained enough confidence to come out and attack Stalin and his policies in his "secret speech". Khrushchev would have never spoke out against Stalin when Stalin was in power because he would have been purged and also the public were under the cult of Stalin and would have never believed him. Source D is from Khrushchev's famous "secret speech" when he denounced Stalin (de-Stalinisation); this came as a very big shock for the public after being bombarded with propaganda praising Stalin. Source D is an extract from the speech and talks about how suspicious Stalin was and how he saw "enemies", "double dealers", and spies everywhere. The source makes Stalin out to be evil and paranoid, Stalin was very suspicious and to make sure that nobody talked about him behind his back he purged many of his party's important leaders. The NKVD made sure of this and drove round in "ravens" so they were distinguished form the public. Anybody with any sort of education or

  • Word count: 692
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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why did khrushchev put missiles on cuba?

Why did Khrushchev put missiles on Cuba? (9) There are a number of reasons as to why Khrushchev put missiles on Cuba as the plan in the first place was a very risky strategy and he must have known it would cause a crisis. These medium range missiles were very strategically placed and had the ability to strike at the very heart of the USA from an island just off the American mainland and what's more he did not even try to disguise that he had put them there. One of the most important reasons was the background of the arms race that had been going on between the USA and the USSR. Khrushchev was concerned about the missile gap between the USSR and the USA and was trying very hard to close it as he was threatened by it. His thought process was that if he had these missiles on Cuba then there would be less chance of the USA using their 'long distance' nuclear bombs on the USSR as they could retaliate easily. Khrushchev may have wanted the missiles there in order that he might be able to bargain with the USA, so that he could agree to remove them for some American Concessions. It has also been said that the USSR wanted to test Kennedy and the USA to see how string they were and whether they would back off or face up to the situation and additionally to trap them into being drawn into a nuclear war. However it was also believed that Khrushchev genuinely wanted to protect Cuba and

  • Word count: 670
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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Define and analyse the Cinema du Look using Nikita as your main source for illustrations and examples.

Define and analyse the Cinema du Look using Nikita as your main source for illustrations and examples. Cinema du look refers to a movement and a style of filmmaking, which first became popular in the early 1980s and continued to be successful right into the 90s with Luc Besson's Leon in 1994. Cinema du look's three main directors are said probably Luc Besson, Jean-Jacques Beineix and Léos Carax and the style of Cinema du look was said to have originated with Jean-Jacques Beineix's film Diva in 1980. The numerous popular successes of films like Besson's Subway and Grand Bleu and Carax's 37,2 dégres le matin have meant the style of cinema du look has always been very successful amongst the young people of France. French critics on the other hand have always been very critical of Cinema du look and in particular of the work of Luc Besson and accuse him of being too commercial, cinematically autistic and not true to the values of French cinema. This is ironic because the cinema du look was an attempt to breakaway from the intellectual tradition of French film. The intellectual cinema magazine Cahiers du cinéma once wrote that the style was 'superficial, and shows a complete absence of political and social concerns.' Although despite all these negative criticisms when interviewed Besson once described himself to Picasso, which seems to imply that he sees himself more

  • Word count: 1900
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Media Studies
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"Kennedy came out of the Cuban Missile Crisis better than Khrushchev"

"Kennedy came out of the Cuban Missile Crisis better than Khrushchev" The Cuban Missile Crisis is regarded as the most serious/ tense time during the Cold War. It was in the period of the thirteen days that the world came close to experiencing the first war, in which nuclear capabilities would possibly be used. In 1959, Fidel Castro a capitalist overthrew, the American backed government of Cuba, lead by Flugencio Batista. This was a considerable blow for the US as they had invested a great deal of money into Cuban business and were on uncertain with Castro. In 1959 - 60 Castro called for aid from the US (Marshall Aid) in order to rebuild Cuba for the average Cuban man. Ike turned him down, and in effect this opened the way for Cuba to become a Communist country. Castro now turned to Russia and COMECON for aid. Khrushchev and Castro decided on an agreement that would see the USSR buy 1,000,000 tones of Cuban sugar a year. This brought the two countries closer together. Now the CIA focused their efforts on assassinating Castro, to stop the rot of Communism. Including various attempts such as an exploding cigar, poison and an attempt to overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs, however Castro evaded all American efforts to kill him. In December 1961, Castro announced that he was going to set up a Communist government in Cuba. This was yet again another blow for the

  • Word count: 890
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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In the context of the period 1905-2005, how far do you agree that Khrushchev was the most successful leader of Russia?

In the context of the period 1905-2005, how far do you agree that Khrushchev was the most successful leader of Russia? Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was and remains Russia’s most conscientious leader, who correctly identified problems within Russia and the first to initiate fundamental change, which would bring about sustained prosperity and stability within all aspects of Russia. In order to implement this, Khrushchev had either rejected previous policies for their failure or weaknesses to adequately work, in order to replace them with ones more functional at grassroots level, or to first produce policies that would allow initial growth to occur. It is these policies which have remained fundamental to Russia; though later leaders may have furthered or readjusted them, their initial purpose remained at the core of many later policies. Reforms were intended to produce an improvement in all elements of Russia’s state functioning collectively; with the intension of such policies providing the groundwork for their further development by later leaders and this is precisely what is noticed in succeeding offices, which saw an elaboration of certain elements of Khrushchev’s initial policies. It is these initial policies which laid the basis for further reform, which allow me to deem Khrushchev the most successful leader; as it was reformations implemented on his behalf, which

  • Word count: 4874
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: History
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