Pugachev's Rebellion
Pugachev's Rebellion (Peasants' War 1773-75, Cossack Rebellion) of 1773-75 was the principal revolt in a series of popular rebellions that took place in the Russian Empire after Catherine II seized power in 1762. It began as an organized insurrection of Yaik Cossacks headed by Yemelyan Pugachev, a disaffected ex-lieutenant of the Imperial Russian Army, against a background of profound peasant unrest and war with the Ottoman Empire. After initial success, Pugachev assumed leadership of an alternative government in the name of the assassinated Tsar Peter III and proclaimed an end to serfdom. This organized leadership presented a challenge to the imperial administration of Catherine II.
Collective leadership in the Soviet Union
Most Western observers believed that Khrushchev had become the supreme leader of the Soviet Union by the early 1960s, even if this was far from the truth. The Presidium, which had grown to resent Khrushchev's leadership style and feared Mao Zedong's one-man dominance and the growing cult of personality in the People's Republic of China, began an aggressive campaign against Khrushchev in 1963. This campaign culminated in 1964 with the replacement of Khrushchev in his offices of First Secretary by Leonid Brezhnev and of Chairman of the Council of Ministers by Alexei Kosygin. Brezhnev and Kosygin, along with Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Kirilenko and Anastas Mikoyan (replaced in 1965 by Nikolai Podgorny), were elected to their respective offices to form and lead a functioning collective leadership. One of the reasons for Khrushchev's ousting, as Suslov told him, was his violation of collective leadership. With Khrushchev's removal, collective leadership was again praised by the Soviet media, and it was claimed to be a return to "Leninist norms of Party life". At the plenum which ousted Khrushchev, the Central Committee forbade any single individual to hold the office of General Secretary and Premier simultaneously.