Changes

===Religion===

===Religion===

Under Lenin and Stalin before 1939 all churches were persecuted and ridiculed; there was a pause during World War II. Khrushchev was no friend of the [[Orthodox Church]], and greatly increased persecution in the late 1950s because he identified it with old-fashioned superstitions that would slow his schemes for the rapid modernization of agriculture. Khrushchev had the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1954 issued a secret resolution, "On the Serious Defects in Scientific-Atheist Propaganda and Measures for the Improvement Thereof," which demanded new and more scientific standards of struggle against religion. An antireligious campaign, the exact causes and chain of command of which are still debatable, was launched in the second half of the 1950s, and systematic efforts were used to fight not just priests and churches but also to identify and track all and isolate all Christians. Khrushchev wanted to reach the very essence of the people's religiousness in order to "cure" them.  Half the remaining churches were closed; the others were taxed. The campaign perhaps worked in Latvia, which did give up Lutheranism. In Russia, however, at the local level cures were few. More often, ways were found in which religion and the Soviet system could coexist. The Party found it expedient to ignore religious activity that did not interfere with technological improvements, and the peasants and workers found quiet ways to ensure their religious practices were compatible with participation in the new society. Outward repression like the closing of churches and the prohibition of pilgrimages occurred but were not enough to attain the primary goal of replacing the religious person in rural Russia with the Soviet person.  He predicted the end of Christianity in the Soviet Union and boasted that the last Christian would be paraded on Soviet television within a few years.<ref>http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=2462&cid=125&p=22.05.2006</ref> In fact, Christianity outlasted Khrushchev, and even outlived Communism in Russia.  He tried to change the soul of Russia and failed.<ref>Andrew B. Stone, "'Overcoming Peasant Backwardness': the Khrushchev Antireligious Campaign and the Rural Soviet Union," ''Russian Review'' 2008 67(2): 296-320, </ref>  

Under Lenin and Stalin before 1939 all churches were persecuted and ridiculed; there was a pause during World War II. Khrushchev was no friend of the [[Orthodox Church]], and greatly increased persecution in the late 1950s because he identified it with old-fashioned superstitions that would slow his schemes for the rapid modernization of agriculture. Khrushchev had the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1954 issued a secret resolution, "On the Serious Defects in Scientific-Atheist Propaganda and Measures for the Improvement Thereof," which demanded new and more scientific standards of struggle against religion. An antireligious campaign, the exact causes and chain of command of which are still debatable, was launched in the second half of the 1950s, and systematic efforts were used to fight not just priests and churches but also to identify and track and isolate all Christians. Khrushchev wanted to reach the very essence of the people's religiousness in order to "cure" them.  Half the remaining churches were closed; the others were taxed. The campaign perhaps worked in Latvia, which did give up Lutheranism. In Russia, however, at the local level cures were few. More often, ways were found in which religion and the Soviet system could coexist. The Party found it expedient to ignore religious activity that did not interfere with technological improvements, and the peasants and workers found quiet ways to ensure their religious practices were compatible with participation in the new society. Outward repression like the closing of churches and the prohibition of pilgrimages occurred but were not enough to attain the primary goal of replacing the religious person in rural Russia with the Soviet person.  He predicted the end of Christianity in the Soviet Union and boasted that the last Christian would be paraded on Soviet television within a few years.<ref>http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=2462&cid=125&p=22.05.2006</ref> In fact, Christianity outlasted Khrushchev, and even outlived Communism in Russia.  He tried to change the soul of Russia and failed.<ref>Andrew B. Stone, "'Overcoming Peasant Backwardness': the Khrushchev Antireligious Campaign and the Rural Soviet Union," ''Russian Review'' 2008 67(2): 296-320, </ref>  

[[File:~nikita.jpg|thumb|310px]]

[[File:~nikita.jpg|thumb|310px]]

==Overthrown==

==Overthrown==

By late 1964 Kremlin leaders were troubled by Khrushchev's irascible and self-contradictory behavior; he had been weakened by the Cuban Missile Crisis and his split with China,  but there was no orderly way to change rulers. Top conspirators included [[Leonid Brezhnev]], Aleksei Kosygin, Nikolai Podgorny, Mikhail Suslov; they acted in a bloodless coup to remove Khrushchev from his government and party positions in October 1964. They persuaded the [[Politburo]], which governed the Communist Party, to replace Khrushchev with Brezhnev. Khrushchev then quietly lived out the remainder of his life under the watch of the [[KGB]] until his death in 1971. He managed to smuggle out his memoirs for publication in the West.

By late 1964 Kremlin leaders were troubled by Khrushchev's irascible and self-contradictory behavior; he had been weakened by the Cuban Missile Crisis and his split with China,  but there was no orderly way to change rulers. Top conspirators included [[Leonid Brezhnev]], Aleksei Kosygin, Nikolai Podgorny, Mikhail Suslov; they acted in a bloodless coup to remove Khrushchev from his government and party positions in October 1964. They persuaded the [[Politburo]], which governed the Communist Party, to replace Khrushchev with Brezhnev. Khrushchev then quietly lived out the remainder of his life under the watch of the [[KGB]] until his death in 1971. He managed to smuggle out his memoirs for publication in the West.