Over the years in power, Khrushchev, with the same energy and stubbornness, implemented both correct and erroneous ideas. And those and others he had plenty. In the early 60s. The position of the first secretary of the Central Committee was complicated by the growing discontent of the state apparatus. Khrushchev appeared as a supporter of a highly professional, but compact army. In his opinion, this would allow freeing up a significant number of workers needed in the national economy. An attempt to reduce military spending and demilitarize the economy caused opposition from top military officials, whom Khrushchev bluntly stated: "You will leave us all without pants."

Ridiculous clashes with the artistic intelligentsia, rudeness and intolerance (with Khrushchev's main personal qualities of humanity and kindness), contradictions and mistakes in the economy and in the international arena led to a loss of trust from the people and a decline in their popularity. Khrushchev was not only the initiator of the development of virgin lands on an unprecedented scale. With him, there was a recurrence of Lysenkoism. In 1958, an open letter was sent to the first secretary of the famous Swedish scientist A. Gustafsson, in which the latter noted that the ideas of the "T. Lysenko school" supported in the USSR are worthy of the XVIII century. Lysenko himself was referred to in this message as a “traitor to science” and “carrier of delusions”, since he claimed that he had managed to turn one cereal into another, to find rye grain in a wheat stalk. According to a prominent Swedish professor, these statements could be "only nonsense in biology," which must be exposed.

In an environment where many began to feel that Khrushchev had exhausted himself, and his policy was suffering half-heartedness, opposition to the first secretary began to form in the depths of the highest echelon of the party-state elite. It was headed by L.I. Brezhnev and N.V. Podgorny. Khrushchev was unable to win the support of the majority in the Presidium of the Central Committee. Perhaps the only thing he managed to achieve in 1960 was the removal from office of the elder KE Voroshilov from the post of chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, replacing him with Brezhnev.

 By the beginning of 1964, the secretary of the Central Committee, the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers and the chairman of party-state control A. N. Shelepin, as well as the chairman of the KGB B, E. Semichastny, who held this post after Shelepin since 1961, were on the side of the anti-Khrushchev group of Central Committee members. The ranks of conspirators spread. They include the former member of the Presidium of the Central Committee and the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR N. G. Ignatov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, P. Ye. Shelest, and other statesmen. There was an organizational registration of the insolvency in relation to the head of the party and the government.

In October 1964, Khrushchev and Mikoyan rested at a dacha in Pitsunda, where they prepared materials for the forthcoming plenary session of the Central Committee, at which it was planned to carry out another reorganization of the management of agriculture and science, to present a draft of the new Constitution. After receiving news of the leakage of information, the conspirators summoned Khrushchev to Moscow for a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, where he arrived on October 13. The meeting was attended by 22 people.

The head of the government was put forward an impressive list of accusations: from the collapse of agriculture and the purchase of grain abroad to the publication in press in two years of more than a thousand of his photographs. During the meeting, Khrushchev was isolated. Only Miko-yan appealed for objectivity, saying that "Nikita Sergeyevich's activity is the big political capital of the party." On the evening of October 13, the discussion of the issue was interrupted. The next day, October 14, the meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee resumed and lasted no more than an hour and a half, since by that time Khrushchev had already decided to resign. In the afternoon, the work of the plenum began, with 153 members of the Central Committee and 130 candidates for the Central Committee.

L. I. Brezhnev presided over the plenum of the Central Committee, and M. Suslov delivered a keynote speech on the question of “about the mistakes and wrong actions of Comrade Khrushchev”. Khrushchev was accused of that, having concentrated in his hands the posts of the head of the party and the government, he began to violate the Leninist principles of collectivity in leadership, he sought to resolve the most important issues alone. After echoing the entire set of accusations that were heard at the meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, Suslov mentioned the personal qualities of the former chairman of the Council of Ministers, who allegedly "gave everyone who expressed his opinion all sorts of disparaging and offensive nicknames", "allowed self-sufficiency in awarding orders Soviet Union "," carried out a mass of ceremonial trips ", etc.

Summing up the work of the plenum of the Central Committee, in which Brezhnev was unanimously elected the first secretary, the new party leader remarked with some pathos: “Nikita Sergeevich debunked Stalin’s cult after his death, we’ll debunk the Khrushchev’s cult during his lifetime.” Khrushchev himself considered as his main servant that fear had disappeared in the people and the conversation between the leaders was on an equal footing: “Could someone have dreamed of what we could say to Stalin that he was not happy with us and invite him to resign? we would not have a wet place. Now everything is different ... "

At the initial stage of his tenure in power, the first secretary of the Central Committee, Khrushchev, was an expression of the sentiments of the leading stratum of Soviet society. At the same time, its reforms met the aspirations of the broad masses of the population. Seeking to speed up the solution of various problems, he began to propose and implement radical plans that ultimately led him to conflict with a narrow circle of people at the top of the pyramid of power.

However, the tragedy of Khrushchev's position was aggravated by the fact that, after his resignation in the party and the country, no one expressed discontent with the coup d'état. No speeches of the masses in his support did not happen. On the contrary, almost everywhere the decision of the plenum of the Central Committee was greeted with approval and even joy. This circumstance was evidence of the fall of Khrushchev’s authority and even respect for him in various sectors of society.

The new leadership of the party and the state inherited a long list of unsolved problems. A. Kosygin became the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in October 1964, whose name is associated with attempts to reform the national economy, undertaken in the mid-60s.