Welcome to the Russian Ruler's History Podcast.

Episode 93, the June coup. Last time, we covered the events in Eastern Europe,

which were unforeseen consequences of Christchurch's so-called secret speech.

Hungary and Poland were an open revolt which caused major consternation within the Soviet

Union's presidium. While both revolts were crushed, many of the members of the Presidium

and the Central Committee were up in arms over what happened. By now, Christchurch had

developed a lot of enemies within the Presidium, mainly due to the secret speech which had

outed the members who carried out Stalin's crimes. But there was another reason that would eventually

lead to his downfall in 1964. It was his irrational and embarrassing behavior, as well as his continuing

attack on the other members of the Presidium. Molotov, Voroshilov and Kaganovich were oftentimes

targeted by Nikita's tirades during Presidium meetings. Christchurch believed that he needed to

consolidate his power by degrading rivals in the eyes of the Central Committee, of course most

of whom were appointed by Christchurch himself. This was to prove crucial in his survival.

Molotov and Malinkov were both out as foreign minister and prime minister respectively,

but they were still members of the Presidium. Now, according to the written rules, the Central

Committee was supposed to be the real power and the Presidium was there to give advice and guidance.

But in reality, the Central Committee was just there as a rubber stamp for the more senior group

above them. There were 11 Presidium members in 1957 when the anti-Christchurch forces began

to plan their attack on the first secretary. Christchurch was born storming around Russia in

early 1957, as he was about to propose and then quickly implement a major decentralization of

industrial and agricultural planning, along with an attempt to improve relationships with the

intelligence here, a group long suppressed under Stalin's regime. Christchurch thought that

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