Fifty-six years ago, on October 14, 1964, Nikita Khrushchev, secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and premier of the government of the Soviet Union, was removed from office by his own party.
Following a secret meeting of the Communist Party Presidium and later the Central Committee, Khrushchev was removed from his post, and Leonid Brezhnev was appointed as his successor. The official party line was that Khrushchev was retiring at his own request, because of his age and the deterioration of his health. Aleksei Kosygin was appointed as premier in Khrushchev’s place.