See how it looked in 1958

Khrushchev Replaces Bulganin as Premier

By Compiled from Dispatches of the Associated Press and Reuters

Moscow

Nikita S. Khrushchev has become Soviet Premier, replacing Marshal Nikolai A. Bulganin.
His selection was announced March 27 to the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet Union’s Parliament, by President Voroshilov, who had himself been reelected a few minutes earlier.

Marshal Bulganin submitted his formal resignation as Premier – a post he had held since February, 1955 – as the joint session of the Supreme Soviet began.

Then Marshal Voroshilov named Mr. Khrushchev as the new head of government.
Mr. Khrushchev is also First Secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. He now becomes the third man in recent times to hold both top positions in the Soviet Union at the same time.

The others were Stalin and Georgi M. Malenkov, who held the twin posts for a few weeks in 1953.
Marshal Bulganin’s eclipse had been widely forecast because of his virtual disappearance from public events since March 16.

He appeared at the March 27 session of the Council of Nationalities, of which he is a member. His face was grave, although he smiled at the applause as he entered.

Bulganin Joins Applause

After Marshal Voroshilov’s statement, which amounted to nomination, the parliamentary machinery went into action to make Mr. Khrushchev head of government. As such he will face President Eisenhower across the table if a summit conference is held.

[In Washington, United States leaders seemed startled by the news that Mr. Khrushchev had become Premier of the Soviet Union. It appeared to be a return to the Stalinist pattern of power.
[United States experts on Soviet affairs saw the development as of profound significance in terms of the Soviet internal political system.

[They saw it is evidence of a vast increase in Mr. Khrushchev’s personal power, which had heretofore been assumed by many foreign observers but which had not been demonstrated by the actions of the Soviet leaders themselves.

[Many Western students of the Soviet Union have contended all along that the system, being based entirely on one party control, would inevitably lead to dictatorship and certainly was ready made for the designs of a powerful individual who might want to gather all controls in his own hands.

Bulganin Joins Applause

[A view taken by some in Congress is that Mr. Khrushchev now has set himself up as a bigger target for all dissident elements within the U.S.S.R.]

The Moscow Communist Party chairman I. V. Kapitonov, speaking on behalf of a group of Moscow deputies, moved a resolution accepting Marshal Bulganin’s resignation and approving Marshal Voroshilov’s new Council of Ministers with Mr. Khrushchev as chairman.

Marshal Bulganin joined in the applause as Marshal Voroshilov named Mr. Khrushchev as the new Premier.

Mr. Khrushchev himself did not join in the applause, but stood quietly with his head bowed.
Marshal Voroshilov began his statement by declaring that all Soviet people knew Mr. Khrushchev as an outstanding statesman in the Soviet Government and the Communist Party.

He gave the new Premier the assignment of naming members of his government and presenting them for the approval of the Supreme Soviet.

Also high on Parliament’s agenda is the question of a ban on thermonuclear weapons. Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko will make a statement on this.

There was much speculation in Western circles that the Soviet Union might announce it is halting further hydrogen bomb tests in a dramatic bid to break the world disarmament deadlock.

Sixth Major Shake-Up

The replacement of Marshal Bulganin as Premier is the sixth major shake-up in the Soviet leadership since Stalin passed on five years ago.

Those five years have brought purges, demotions, even executions, of former top leaders.
Throughout that period, one leader has stayed in the same post throughout - Mr. Khrushchev, who took over Stalin’s old job as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

Marshal Bulganin, Premier since February, 1955, had gained the reputation of being the most prolific letter writer among world statesman.

The silver-haired Soviet leader with the goatee beard and gentle manner had pioneered a new diplomatic technique of man-to-man letters to other chiefs of state.

Famed for Letters

During his term of office, he wrote more than 100 such letters. He also visited Britain, India, Burma and Afghanistan, and Finland, together with Mr. Khrushchev.

Marshal Bulganin has ranked in the top Soviet leadership since 1946, when he entered Stalin’s Politburo as an alternate (deputy) member.

A member of the Communist Party since 1917, he was engaged in managerial work in the economic sphere from 1922 to 1927.

Later he was director of the Moscow electrical equipment factory and from 1931 to 1937 Mayor of Moscow. Later he was appointed president of the Soviet State Bank.